Driven To Distraction

By Maggie Brown Cassidy

Once again, I'm up for relicensure as a teacher in the state of Vermont. I must fill out a form and send it to the state department of education, along with a statement that I don't owe any child support, evidence of courses I've taken, and a check for $175.

But now, there's a new requirement; before I send all this paperwork to the state, I must submit another form to my local relicensure board: the Independent Professional Development Plan, or IPDIP. The purpose of the IPDIP is to ensure that teachers plan their continuing education according to some coherent scheme. I suppose it's to guard against language teachers taking courses designed for physics teachers, or vice versa, just because those courses are cheap or close to home or offered at convenient times. Anyway, after I fill out the basic information at the top of my IPDIP--name, address, teaching position, subject areas for which I'm applying for relicensure--I come to the four essay questions.

The first question says, "List other areas of responsibility that are related to your professional role." Let's see, there's keeping up with the piles of memos in my mailbox, writing progress reports to parents, keeping track of who's in class, who's not, and why not. But all those are actually part of my professional role. What about breaking up fights, or helping kids choose a college, or the endless committee meetings to devise new, workable schedules and policies for my school? Do those count? Or talking with students about why the school board allowed the police to bring a dog into school the other day to sniff lockers for drugs? Where does that fit in?