The End Is Just the Beginning

In late May, the countdown wound down, students finished their last assignments, signed each others yearbooks, and I packed up the classroom. There was a definite conclusion to the year. Final grades were assigned. Hallways were empty leaving open lockers that were missing the books, papers, backpacks and personal items that had filled their steel lined spaces. But the glimmer of a plan, the next beginning, was already in play.

By early June I had slid into a summer routine that involved hours and days of reading for the sake of pure enjoyment, drinking coffee on the patio as the sun rose from the eastern sky, and ending my days poolside while my young sons enjoyed the water and dinner was either chilling in the fridge or being grilled nearby. In between was usually whatever I wanted it to be. Sometimes taking day trips to the city nearby, sometimes working on a home improvement or deep cleaning project, and sometimes visiting with friends and family with a sense of leisure that never seems to happen during the school year.

Simultaneously, during this wonderful summer, I started planning the changes I would be making during the next school year. My colleagues and I had already discussed and chosen new materials for students to use while learning the math curriculum. So I spent some time doing some preliminary planning, and making myself familiar with the materials and on-line tools that would soon be available to myself and the students. I had planned on meeting with my new teaching partner to plan using the new math materials, but they did not arrive until the very end of the summer break. I read research articles that I had received during several training sessions I had attended during the last school year, as well as getting caught up reading articles in the Math and Teaching Leadership Journals I subscribe to but don't always get a chance to do more than skim the most interesting of articles. I attended a couple of days of training to better understand a progress monitoring program that the school began using last year. In Literature planning, we had decided to work with a different novel each quarter, and so I spent time rereading the novels we had chosen as well as a few others titles my middle-school-aged son had recommended.

So now the end of summer has arrived, and with it the fresh beginning for a new group of students, and for me as well. The boxes are being unpacked, lessons are being planned and the meetings and training sessions that come at the beginning of each new school year have begun. New teaching colleagues have been introduced and are in the thick of meetings with mentors. Expectations have been set for my teaching community, and celebrating the successes of the last school year gives us motivation and momentum to meet the increasing challenges this year provides. And it's just the beginning!

Professional Development on the Fly

If you have been teaching for any length of time, as the summer break winds down you learn to anticipate the eminent welcome back letter (and now often e-mail) that will be sent to you. All teachers in my district, new and old, receive the letter from our fearless leaders stating that summers go by too quickly and it’s time to get back to work. The hopes to make this the best school year yet are often the mantra as well. 

In my district, it is also comes with a schedule of the events that we participate in before the first day of school begins. This year I opened my schedule with the same intrigue as years past. Yes, there were two days of new teacher orientation. Since I had not been assigned to mentor one of the new teachers joining us this year, I just noted that I would be seeing these new individuals around as I came and went during the weeks leading up to my first day to report. Then, I noticed what I call the day of déjà vu; the all staff district orientation, followed by the building level faculty meeting reviewing the finer points of school “housekeeping”. There were also two days of professional development and one work day in our classrooms on the schedule.

     
The week progressed and I attended the first day of meetings and during the second morning of professional development, I was asked if I had been requested to lead the training that afternoon. Well, no. I had shared in the spring that I would be willing to give a training session, but no one had told me that they actually planned for me to do it.  A bit of nervous energy seemed to follow. What was going to happen during the training time?

Nonetheless I told the powers that be, no problem. I would take the task, and make the best of it despite the lack of time to plan. I had a few minutes to prepare before we left for lunch, and as I stood in the hallway, after I listened to very brief expectations for the session, I started thinking about the questions that I had myself before recently using the program, the training I had received years ago and the more recent video on demand training I had sought.

By this time I was thinking, should I be nervous? I knew the training would not be the same as would be if I had planned for more than a few minutes on what I should do. But I also knew all of the teachers involved and had worked with them directly on curriculum teams, save one new hire, and they were all highly motivated professionals that had agreed to pilot the MTSS (Multi-Tier System of Supports) in our district. There were a couple of teachers that had used the program we were going to use for the management piece of in its old form in the past, and I was hoping that the teachers involved would ask enough questions that they would benefit from the training time. We had had an overview of the MTSS in the Spring and on that morning, as well. "Buck it up, Teach! You can do it." I told myself.

When the session time arrived, I was hooking up the projector to the computer as the other teachers were entering the computer lab. I walked the teachers through logging on to the program and then jumped right into the how-to while the other teachers had a chance to go in and explore a bit. Another teacher volunteered to run the computer while I presented the time table for implementation for each part of the program, led a viewing of the most often used reports and then fielded questions that came up. So far so good.

After the training, I had a bit of time to reflect and sent out an e-mail to those that attended with information that I had told them would follow and added a bit of information that I thought would be helpful. I also reported my agenda to my principal hoping I had met the objectives that the MTSS team had envisioned for the training.

If I had to do it again, I would have spent a couple of minutes of the brief planning time creating a printed agenda at the least, and ideally a step by step set of instructions. What I learned from the experience is that I can train others without notice, but it is not a desired experience to repeat. There is much to be said about preparation. More on that later...

And So It Begins

“I hear you are a teacher. What grade do you teach?” That is how a conversation with me is often started.

People who have known me, but haven’t seen me in a while often will ask, “Are you still teaching?”
In either instance, after I explain that, yes, I am indeed a teacher (still) and over the years have described teaching the range from preschool to freshmen in high school, I often get people passing along pity, “Oh, you poor thing. That is such a tough age.” Or even awe, “I could never work with kids that age. Wow, what a challenging job you have.” I even have a few that continue the conversation by making a comment about my long summer vacations, the great pay and benefits (or lack thereof), or some that will continue with politically fueled topics about the money spent (or not) on education. Hey, I'm game. I know that a lot of people have a variety of opinions on what I do and education in general, but teaching is my passion and I am on the front lines, ready to advocate for my kids, my schools and for the district in which I teach.

This cartoon always makes me smile. At one point or another, all of these have been true for me.

My teacher friends, and a few that are teachers at heart, seem to be the ones that understand, and over the years have helped me to put in perspective the investment I must make with an endless series of meetings, the long hours of preparing for each class and concept or skill to be taught and checking students' work for progress and understanding. All of these are time consuming and take me far beyond my daily scheduled plan time, but are required for the extremely fulfilling hours spent in the classroom working with young people. It doesn’t really matter which age group I’m working with either. I live the philosophy that the younger the students are, the easier it is to motivate them, and the older the students are, the more life experiences and knowledge they have to use to connect to new learning and the more relevant the learning can be for them as well. Younger students often hang on their teachers every word, and older students begin to discern what they are being taught with what they have learned from parents, peers, personal experiences and even former teachers.

Setting up the classroom is an ongoing process.

The idea that the work is challenging, but I choose to do it anyway, is something that is hard to get across to many people. I love teaching. I think that is the first impression I want people to have when they hear about my career or see me working. Although my career has a great amount of responsibility to society and children and their families, it also has many intrinsic rewards for me. My career choice was made with the intent of making a difference in the lives of kids. Most of what I do falls right along those lines, and I feel good at the end of the day, and at the end of each school year. As each school day winds down, my mind is already working on what comes next. Spinning my thoughts around methods that will work to connect today’s learning to the next piece of the puzzle. I focus on what I need the students to do so that they can own their new knowledge or skills. By the end of the school year, I am always looking for ways to do things better the next time around. Where did the learners struggle? How can I prevent that? Is there a better order to teach the skills they need to learn? Are their new developments in classroom and learning research that I can learn and apply? There is always a perfecting of the craft. I never quite get there, but many things I teach I think are close to it. When kids remember and seem to enjoy solving a particular kind of problem that they couldn’t before, there are feelings of satisfaction for the learners and myself. When I have kids come back to me weeks, months or years after I have taught them an important skill and thank me for preparing them for what was ahead in a part of their life, I know that I was, and am, effective.

My own children ready for their first day back to school last year.

So, I am a teacher. And I am standing on the threshold of a new school year. I am eager to meet my newest students, and I am preparing to give them a meaningful and memorable school year.