This is fantastic:

The Power of Education

A desk, a desk! My kingdom for a desk! Well, a desk and a phone. And maybe a computer. And some storage space for all those IEP's. Well, and maybe a comfortable chair, since working on this table on a laptop is literally killing my back. Sadly, I haven't had to be as patient as everyone who didn't have last week away from the office, taking their comps for their dissertation. They've been put out a week longer than me.... which is about four weeks too long, given that this is the fourth week of school.

Stupid contractors. Get it right, would ya'? We're trying to educate here, and you've been working on this since what, July? Shoot, my new house only took three months, and that was a heckuva lot bigger than the 20 x 15 or so feet of space you had to build and put up some cubicles in....

/Rant over. Back to work.

Oh blog I have not forgotten thee....

but I am busier than I would like to be...

Feeling much better about the school year than my summer blog posts. This summer was horrible, but I did get to recharge my batteries a bit, so I am optimistic about the future at my school. Hopefully that lasts longer than the first nine weeks', but so far, so good.

I'm at my final residency for my doctoral degree. I'm soooooo close! I believe I will be ready to graduate in just over a year! I have no idea yet what I will DO with this degree, but I am excited to be finishing it up.

To summarize: horrible summer, looking forward to the school year, excited about studying and writing a dissertation. Whoot whoot.

I'm following the NECC conference on Twitter and IsteVision. It would be so much better in person, sigh. I think a goal for this year will be to save enough money to actually attend next year. By that time, I think my research will also be at a point where I can (maybe) present some initial findings and get some feedback.

Now if only I can get my two kids to stop costing me so much money (ha ha).

My indescribably difficult year just got a little better. My school made AYP.

Whoot whoot.

On beginning my tenth year in teaching... a retrospective and a perspective.

Year 1: What the hell am I doing?

Year 2: Better, but why the hell am I doing this?

Year 3: I think I'm getting the hang of this...

Year 4: New school, new subjects, a lot more confidence, doing the same thing every teacher in history has done. Is this right? My best year.

Year 5: Personal life gets in the way of teaching. I'm checked out, but thanks to tradition, am still functioning. Is it supposed to be this easy?

Year 6: New school, new subjects, whole new concept. Tough tough tough year. Lost that feeling that my students learned something.

Year 7: New subject, still in 'new' concept. Catching on, but so caught up in that, I'm missing the woods for the trees.

Year 8: New subject, more confident with new concept. Start advanced degree, which leads to lots and lots and lots of questions about the role of teachers, administrators, students, and public education in general.

Year 9: New subject. Same old questions: what is the purpose of education? What are the expectations of teachers, students, administrators? What works? What doesn't? Hellacious year. As hard as the first one, but more mind-numbing.

Sadly, instead of feeling more confident entering my tenth year, I feel less so. I have gone from LOVING being a teacher to hating my JOB. I used to get paid to do what I loved, now I just get paid. I used to feel I was part of something special, now... well obviously, I just don't know anymore.

Maybe I'm just too hard, especially on myself. I just can't help but feel that I'm doing it all wrong. It like I'm living in an alternate universe, and just on the other side of the looking glass is the real me, who is a good teacher, who has students that are learning. I have strong, powerful memories of students in animated conversation, having raging debates, moving, shaking, talking, laughing, yelling, learning. They gave a rats' ass about objectives, standards, assessment, intervention, today, tomorrow, homework, or anything else. I still have students from four, five, six, seven years ago who say remember when we..... Funny, when I was doing things naturally, I was better at it. Now that I'm constantly aware of research, pedagogy, best practices, etc.... I'm worse. I don't know if I'm clashing with the limitations of the rules, or if in doing things 'naturally', I was actually serving my students better because I had the luxury of not knowing the research, pedagogy, best practices, etc. and didn't change/limit/whatever my teaching as a result.


I have so many questions about teaching and education, but no avenue for discourse. I thought I did, but it's gone now. It's difficult to talk to my colleagues, because the conversation always starts and ends with what is 'wrong' at my school, and I'm as much a part of that as they are. We're too close to the subject to analyze it properly. It's too easy to blame everyone, including ourselves, and difficult to gain perspective on the reality of the situation.


So now, upon entering my tenth year teaching, I find myself here:

Year 10: Do I still want to do this? In this way? Do I have the energy/creativity/wherewithal to be different? Would I even be 'allowed' to? What's the point? How do I get back the love I used to have? Do I want to go 'back'? Maybe a better question is how do I grow NEW love for what I do?

I suspect year 10 will be the toughest yet.

It's almost over. What a tough school year. I've learned a lot, but I'm completely exhausted. I think I will sleep the first week of my break, since my doctoral class ends on Monday and I actually have a week off with no obligations.

Graduation was fun, I always get so teary-eyed. (Or maybe I'm just so exhausted that I'm just emotional - everything seems to be getting to me lately). It felt good to know so many kids, and I was surprised at how many wanted a hug/handshake/good luck wishes. It always reminds me why I do this, which is something I always lose sight of in my frustrations at the end of the year. It was just what I needed to recharge a bit and think of next year.

I'm starting the actual writing of my dissertation in a week (after I sleep). I'm nervous, overwhelmed, and excited. It's about leadership in technology schools... specifically online schools... was going to be about the need for leaders to be competent with technology... but I've changed gears a bit. Hope it turns out well.

Strange, but I find myself looking forward to next year and seeing what changes will be made. Pushing the kids a lot harder this year (seemed to) help, although we don't really have any before/during/after data that is consistent or reliable. We've been getting glimpses of what is coming next year, and some of it sounds exciting and interesting. We're going to be aligning our curriculum to ELA standards school-wide, which I think will give us a huge boost. We are moving in the right direction, at least, with the ideas. Will be fun to see how they are implemented.

Have some other ideas bouncing around my head, hopefully I'll actually get a chance to post this summer.