I’m finishing up my National Board recertification work this week. I had big dreams of finishing it our last week of school so I could really begin break without much hanging over my head. That didn’t happen. Then I thought I would finish it while we were visiting family and my kids had cousins and aunts and uncles to keep them entertained. That didn’t happen. With a just a week left to meet the deadline, I don’t have much choice but to make it happen.
In the midst of this, I’ve been at school all week for Nationals for speech and debate and some other work. My daughter tagged along, and she’s been helping me clean and organize my office with a little inspiration from my officemate Emily. As I’m digging through countless notebooks, I came across a huge binder of all the materials, assignments, and work from my first teaching job at D.C. Oakes High School–7 years worth of stuff. I got waylaid by the stories I’d forgotten I taught, kids’ names I hadn’t thought of in years, cool projects we’d done like the time we sent kids to present at a national conference on designing and building a sustainable school. (I know I have something comparable from my second teaching job, which lasted 9 years, but all of that is hidden in electronic folders on various drives, and I never find the time to go through any of it.)
One item stopped me in my tracks–a handwritten reflection I wrote after my first year of teaching. 23 years ago, I would have finished that first year. I was young, and frankly, my handwriting looks like I was still in high school. The reflection was not especially profound or insightful about curriculum or pedagogy, but I do comment how hard and exhausting it was and how fulfilling it was to love those kids. I mention some frustrations with my (in)ability to discipline, and I shudder to recall some of the stupid things I tried that year.
But that year, just like this year, I got through it. In the reflections I’ve been writing this month, I have struggled again to pinpoint all the instructional implications because I’m more focused on the intangible ways teachers and students showed up for each other, embraced our faults and one another, and created real meaning out of our experiences. I have always been grateful to have started my career where I did–with colleagues and students who made sure I knew the point of all this was not the content, but the kids. I think this year of pandemic teaching and learning has reminded us all of that.
So two things to take away: 1) I will stop making fun of my brother for holding on to every CD, DVD, VHS tape, and book–there’s something to be said for all that physical evidence of the years you’ve lived and learned. 2) I will keep reflecting regularly and religiously–there’s something to be said for embarrassing and inspiring your older self.