The First Day of School

A Tale of two Teachers (and they are both me)

Today is the first day of school and I love the first day of school.  I love the excited faces, the wonderful honeymoon behavior and the fact that I get to train the students to be as I need them to be.  This is a magical time in the school year that only happens once and is whatever I decided to make it.

Today is the first day of school and I hate the first day of school.  I hate all of the junk that kids bring in from wish lists that were designed to load the room with way too many supplies.  I hate that students come into the room doing their best to out dress, out cute, and out popular others with their new haircuts, new clothes, shoes etc.  But the thing I hate the most is that there is no discernable schedule, YET!

First let me say that I am NOT the world’s best planner.  I don’t like to sit down and schedule out my day, week, month, whatever.  I like to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, but this is not optimal for a class in a school.  AND, planning the beginning part of the year is just hard. To add insult to injury I have been out of the class for the last 5 years (as a TOSA) and I am struggling to remember how long it takes to do things, which makes planning hard!  

I know what I want to do, and what needs to be done, but planning them and allowing for student relationships to develop and discovery to happen is difficult.  At lunch today I was talking with some teacher that have been doing this for a while and it turns out that they struggle with the beginning of the year as well.  So I am not alone.

Here is too the rest of the week and the rest of the year!  

Share your thoughts in the comments, Thanks

Let It Begin! Let it Begin!

For the last 5 years I have been a district level Ed.Tech TOSA (teacher on special assignment) in a largish public school district in Southern California. I have learned much and feel as if I have contributed to the community in my own unique way. I have joined organizations, attended conferences, presented at conferences, created large scale PD events for my district (1000+ participants) and helped where I could.  

This would be a good place to define TOSA in my district. In my time connecting with other TOSA’s I would say that I have seen several different models of what a TOSA is, but when you ask most TOSA’s they fall into two groups. The first is TOSA as coach, and the second is really TOSA as an undefined commodity. This could be as a junior admin, or a jack of all trades, or, lots of other undefined things. I would fall into the latter category. My district has never clearly defined the role of TOSA and as a result uses it as a talent pool for people transitioning into admin positions. I never had the desire to become an administrator, and in fact went into that job with the intent of being a support and inspirer to teachers and a disruptor of the current state of both instruction and technology.  

So now after 5 years I find myself (intentionally) back in a classroom setting as an teacher. This summer I elected to teach in our newly created 5th and 6th grade elective Math Academy and STEAM camp. To be even more specific I am teaching a STEAM session using MineCraft as a tool to have students make math concepts (area and volume) more tangible.

As I am now completing my second week back as a teacher I find myself having a blast and spending more time in a state of self reflection than I did before I was a TOSA. In the very beginning I realized that I had lost a bit of my MOJO. The following statement may be a bit of a non-brainer for most, but teaching kids is very different than teaching adults. They bring different things to the room, and I absolutely know this, but simply missed that cue in the beginning. I was treating them as if they had an adult sized bucket of prior knowledge and life experience. I changed this quickly. BUT, interestingly enough, I did not feel guilty about this rough start. I looked at it through the lens of Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset, and saw failure as an opportunity to make changes and be better!  And I did.

I have seen many great teachers suffer from self-inflicted guilt. I wonder if they see each day as a sprint and each days failures as losses in some big book of wins and losses. I am here to say as one who feels as I am re-learning the art and science of teaching that this is a long game, kids are flexible and forgiving, and that if we look at our own practice on a regular basis, that guilt will give way to self-reflection, growth and better outcomes for both kids and our practices.  

I am lucky that I have this sort of trial period before I begin my next fall as a teacher 2.0. The first part of my teaching career was full of bad practices, bad self-image as a teacher, and bad results for my students. In this second iteration of my career I plan on staying connected with other teachers who are pushing limits, being a beta tester for new and innovative instructional practices and not being afraid to speak up and speak out.  In the words of my colleague @coriorlando1 “When you know better you do better!” I plan to do better with the tools I have gained in the last 5 years as a TOSA.  

Onward!