Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Getting Tenure!

After three full years of teaching, two in Mountain View, I finally got what all teachers aspire to obtain - tenure. While I found out last year that I would be up for tenure, our ceremony was this past week. With four teachers nominated from our school alone, I was in good company! Ed, being the wonderful husband he is, drove up to show support. 

We decided to first celebrate by visiting a lovely tapas place in downtown Mountain View, Cascals. 

This was actually the first restaurant (I think) that I ate at in Mountain View, the first time I met the first of Ed's friends (wow, lots of firsts!). In any event, the food is tasty, and the happy hour prices for drinks.  

After devouring the bread and oil dip, we had the following lovely food. 

Dates wrapped in Serrano Ham and stuffed with cheese:

Scallops in a delicious butter sauce,

Short ribs in an mole sauce and a very good corn cake (possibly my favorite, on account of the sauce)

and banana leaf chicken.

After dinner, we hurried over to the district office, and the Board Meeting got restarted. The board members passed our nominations for tenure, and then we were called up to get our certificate, shake hands with our superintendent, assistant superintendents and board members, and a get a rose. I also got a flower from my BTSA mentor from last year, and a whole bouquet from a former student whose mother is a board member, along with a really sweet card. That was especially special, because I do have a lot of feelings about my teaching last year, and sometimes just feel like I wasn't a good teacher. However, to get such a nice card of recognition from a student was validation that I actually did do a pretty good job, even if it wasn't up to my standards. 

It was so nice to feel recognized for my teaching and to have reached the point where I can really feel like I'm no longer a "new" teacher. 


Tenured at last!

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