Transitional Year

My first year as an educator was about survival.  Surviving an awful living situation, surviving a year round schedule, surviving living in a new city, surviving graduate school, surviving Teach for America (TFA)'s lofty expectations.  I stubbornly fought my way through the year and cried, more than once, in front of my students.  

Then summer hit.  I had a two week break because my (old) school converted from year round to 9 month.  I was due for a track break, but instead got to start over.  I used my "summer" to move into my own apartment without a roommate.

Year two was about gaining confidence.  I was overly reflective and made a lot of different changes.  That year brought inclusionary practices and co-teaching for the first time.  With that came challenges over responsibilities and expectations.  Year two brought graduation from UNLV with my master's degree and giving a speech at the TFA end of year ceremony, in front of hundreds of people including the (then) superintendent.  Talk about nerve racking! 

Year three I started to feel good about my teaching.  I was gaining more experience from professional development and starting to integrate technology more, which a majority of my students enjoyed.  Year three brought along the rumblings of what's next.  I earned my technology endorsement. I took more graduate school courses.  I served on committees at school and started being more involved with professional development.  I took summer courses and started to build a national teaching cohort, which is still in tact today. I got a new co-teacher and my original teaching team dissolved.  Suddenly, I was the one with the most seniority.

Year four was a year of leadership building.  I took on the position of grade level chair because I had the most experience.  I was teaching with others that did not share the same enthusiasm and commitment for the job.  I was also single for a good part of the year and determined to be the best teacher possible because that's where I wanted to exert my attention.  Looking back, I see their shorter hours as a necessity because they were balancing families. I was not.  Again, all part of the learning process.  I learned to be more accepting of others' work schedules (and day care times).  I learned to take others' needs into consideration when scheduling meetings, not just work around myself.  (I don't mean to sound like I was childish and selfish in my previous years, it just was something I didn't have to think about because I wasn't in the leadership role.)  I learned to take a lot of criticism and to be more patient with my peers.

Year five was difficult.  There was no grade level chair because I worked with three other extremely motivated and talented teachers.  I respected my peers and of course there were minor squabbles, but at the end of the day, we all shared a common purpose: to do the best we could to educate the children in front of us.  I had the best teaching team combined with the worst external factors.  The students were extremely difficult and the support from administration ranged from passive aggressive to non-existent.  If I didn't have my team, there were many moments I would have simply quit.  A year later, I still have anxiety and flash backs from the absurd and awful year.

So, I left.  I made a change.

This year is that change.  

I have a much more supportive administrative team who acknowledges that I am a person first and an educator second.  I have a new team and we get along fairly well.  I'm having to keep myself in check because with six years under my belt, I'm still the newbie.  I still have a lot to learn and I'm not the grade level chair. I'm not in charge.  However, my previous experience does mean I do have a lot of good ideas which aren't always heard, which is frustrating.  I'm new to a school site and it's demands, not new to teaching.  There's a big difference and that's often overlooked.

This year, I've taken a step back. I'm co-chairing the math committee, but we were uninvited to the district's professional development.  The five day courses I took last summer were on math strategies and were amazing.  The eight Saturdays were presented as being a continuation of that, but quickly changed into managing paperwork and running committees.  Those four hours quickly became a complaining session for teachers to harp on their colleagues and quite frankly, I'm glad we were uninvited.

I am co-planning math with another teacher on my grade level.  We are loosely following the Engage NY curriculum while imbedding Number Talks.  Our students came to us with very low number sense, so it's been an uphill battle.  There are a lot of copies to make when you aren't using the twelve year old text book at your school.  However, I feel positive about the math instruction.  It's taking more time than I'd like to go over the concepts, but my students understand what they're doing.  They aren't mindless robots following a sequence to get an answer, they are mini-mathematicians who are analyzing and solving complex, real world problems.  That takes more time to develop.

I'm not happy with how some other subjects have been taught.  I'm not happy with myself for not speaking up more.  Next year will be different.

Next year will have more science and social studies from the beginning of the year, imbedded weekly.  The map project should start in September, not January.  The map project should have roughly a month per region to truly hit landforms, environments, and the geography terms.  I think imbedding this throughout the year will help my boys stay focused because quite frankly, I think I lost a few of them during our literature heavy Esperanza Rising unit.  

I'll be planning differently next year.  I've made corrections now, but will be approaching planning very differently next year.  I'd love to have grade level meetings be more focused on idea and resource sharing, not one or two teachers presenting the next unit of study without allowing input from the others.  I also don't know how to bring this up to the group without sounding like a dictator.  I'd like long range plans done in August. It's been a strange year with no plans.  I don't want that to be the case next year and I'm accepting that it may fall on me.  I think our grade level chair does an amazing job and for once, I don't want to be in charge. I trust her completely. I just want more of a road map. I want to work smarter, not harder.

I've ordered a planner for next year. I'm going to spend some time over the summer to sculpt out units of study and find places where the content can overlap.  Will there be changes as the year progresses? Yes, of course. That's how teaching works. I just want a better plan, at least for my own sanity. I want a plan that I can tweak from year to year and that I can adapt to fit changing standards (and changing students).  I want to not feel like I'm continually reinventing the wheel.  

This doesn't mean I will be the teacher that has a week by week file and pulls out the same things each year.  As we, as a team, find better resources, we will use them. I'd just like a plan.

This year is my transitional year.  I'm finding my voice on a new team.  I'm learning the ropes of a new school while still holding on to teaching ideas that I know to be valid. I'm learning when to politely disagree, then proceed to do what I had originally planned (as long as it's what's best for kids.)  Robert Downey Jr. said it much more bluntly:

Next year will be my best. Next year  I'll have my voice.  This is just a weird, transitional year.