Snow Days

After coming back from a collaborative meeting in Gallup late last night and having a 55 minute drive last almost an hour and a half because of the condition of the roads, I figured there would be a school delay today. There was. I got a little extra sleep but still headed down to my classroom early to prep for the day. It was a wonderful surprise to be greeted at the door by my principal and sent home. School is canceled making today our third snow day of the year (more snow days than they have had in my home state of New Hampshire... that's something I sure didn't expect out in New Mexico). It feels pretty awesome, but this snow day is actually slightly bitter sweet, another day of teaching lost... The fact that this bitter sweet reaction is one that I have for training days, testing days, and now snow days really shows me how much I've grown as a teacher this year.

Starting last August and lasting right up through Christmas, any day that I wasn't teaching was one that I looked forward to. In service days, Awesome... Need someone to give the PSATs? I'm all over that... Special Ed training in Gallup? I can go!... A variety of trainings, meetings, or tests meant my class was handed over to other teachers or subs and I was relieved of the responsibility of actually teaching for one more day. This responsibility of teaching was still one that felt overwhelming, and I definitely doubted my ability to teach as well. That's what made non teaching days so great.

While I still feel overwhelmed by the high level of responsibility that comes with teaching, and I of course still doubt my ability to do the job well on some days, I have more of a sense of urgency and competency this semester. I know what I'm trying to do in my classroom and I have an idea of how we are going to do it. This week my students were supposed to be able to solve problems with sine, cosine, and tangent by Friday. They really needed to do that this week so we could finish up our unit and move on next week. We still have a lot of standards to cover. But now, because of two non-teaching days (a day of training for me and a snow day for everyone), we'll fall another few days behind in our long term plans.

I plan to enjoy my snow day. I'm going to go for a run, take my dog for a walk on the mesas, cook a good meal with my roommates, and maybe even read my "just for fun" book. Despite this wonderful lazy day, I do feel a little bit of anger and frustration at missing yet another day of teaching time. While it's a bummer that these non-teaching days that seemed to be my salvation last semester have become very bitter sweet, I think it's just representative of me taking one more step towards actually becoming a good teacher. That's a nice thing to experience.

Triangles or Shot Puts

I traveled back home to Crownpoint yesterday and I can honestly say that it truly felt like I was coming home. I'm glad to be back here. I'm also very thankful that I am currently filled with New Year's productivity. A new year and a new start is a really motivating thought for me right now. Because of this productivity, I have spent the day working on two different online courses that I'm required to complete. The first course, the one I spent the morning on, is a course in literacy. It went over what a beginning teacher should know about teaching literacy in the classroom and was required by the district. I found the information in this course to be incredibly boring. I skipped through the lessons, looked at the questions on the test, then went back and read only the passages that I needed to. I know this isn't the best way to learn, but the material was basic, self-explanatory, and very uninteresting. Maybe I'm a bad teacher.

The reason I really question my motivation and dedication to that first online course, though, was the contrast that the second course I'm working on provided. The course I moved to this afternoon is an online coaching course that I have to complete before becoming certified to coach track this spring. I have no doubt that I could have moved through this course as quickly as I moved through the literacy course, but the information was so much more interesting to me. I am currently only halfway through the lessons because I find myself skimming all of the optional readings and very engaged in the topics that are being discussed. I can't wait to use this information and get out there with all of my athletes.

The different levels of commitment I naturally have to the two courses is a very interesting thing for me to spend some time analyzing. Maybe the coaching course is just set up much better than the literacy course. That could explain it. I can say confidently, however, that's not the case. Here's my take on it... I don't feel like I have the ability or maybe even the motivation to teach literacy effectively in my Geometry classroom. I definitely have the desire to work with students in an informal setting and help them accomplish different athletic goals. I can do that. I am intimidated by the topic of literacy, though, so I would rather think about teaching shot put, javelin, and hurdles than about proofs, radicals, and triangles. My intimidation stems from not only my own interests and skills, but also the skills of my students. The majority of my athletes won't necessarily be years behind their peers in the 400m sprint, but the majority of my students are that far behind in basic computation skills. Maybe I believe that the task of leading these kids to athletic success will be more possible than leading them to academic success. This leads me right back to where we started... maybe I'm a bad teacher. If that's true, at least I know I can be a decent coach!

New Year's Reflections

2006 ended and I can summarize my experiences with teaching very simply. Right now, I am a bad teacher. This conclusion is not an unexpected one. I have little to no training in education, I started the year without much confidence in my own skills or potential, and the school I'm teaching in is an especially challenging one with few resources and very low performing students. It is not surprising that after one crazy semester I feel as if I have not accomplished much. While this self assessed failure is not unexpected, as a new teacher who is ultimately trying to address the achievement gap and simply provide a few classrooms full of kids with a decent education, I must find a way to take this semester worth of experience and make it as productive as possible. What does that actually mean? Well... I don't know how much I believe in New Year's Resolutions, but I do see the opportunity to make a fresh start for yourself as something incredibly valuable. So... This being New Year's day, the beginning of a new semester, a new year, a fresh start, I'm going to put down in writing the most basic plans I have to make this semester better than the last. A few of the simple things I can say I've learned from my "failure" and the ways I plan on addressing it this coming semester.

First, if I am truly committed to this job, I need to seriously fix my work ethic. This past semester I have let myself become overwhelmed by the transition from being a student and someone who was very good at that, to being a new teacher who often had no clue how to do the job. While this is a difficult transition for anyone, I'm not going to get through it by leaving school right after the bell and procrastinating to the point of not planning units or writing tests in advance. That's just not going to cut it. I need to remember that I have the ability to accomplish something as difficult as learning to teach effectively. I can't accomplish that if I convince myself otherwise from the beginning. This simple change of attitude, accompanied by something as simple as forcing myself to stay after school for an hour or two everyday will make a huge difference this coming semester. This is the first thing I'm promising myself and my students this coming year.

Second, I took this job because I have a strong interest in the socio-economic issues surrounding education. That's why I joined Teach for America. I'm pretty sure that my work with this topic in college was one of the few things that set me apart for the hundreds of other college grads that were competing for my spot in the program. This past semester I have not spent enough time thinking about and pursuing that interest. I have not taken the time to analyze my experiences using all of the research I have done in the past. To address this... I am starting this blog. I will write and reflect and analyze more often in a concrete way. It will be for myself, but hopefully contribute to an ongoing conversation about the educational inequities in the country as well. Reflecting in this way will also make me more accountable to what I know I'm doing well or where I need to improve.

These are not resolutions. Resolutions get broken. This is my reflection on what I need to do better. Maybe in one of these into blog entries I'll also list some of the things I'm doing well already. I know that's an important part of this process. For now though, this is it. Make it happen. Happy New Year.