This brings me to what I expect to gain from my fellowship: 1. a wealth of resources that I can share through Home Base with the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Social Studies teachers at my school, in my district, and across the state and 2. a deeper and more intimate knowledge of America’s pastime on her language. -“I Hate Baseball” May 2013

My principal likes to call the month of May, the month of May-hem because of everything we squeeze into the last full month of the school year. Taking time to be reflective in midst of all this mayhem is a challenge. So I fear this post will not do justice to the impact my summer externship and participation in the Kenan Fellows Program had on me. The prompt question of if I grew as I hoped makes me smile because I have had opportunities through this experience I couldn’t have imagined a year ago. 

My connection with my mentors has allowed me to extend those opportunities to teachers I work with as well. A science teacher in my school and I, as her instructional coach, had the opportunity to be featured in the updated NC Falcon videos because of these connections. When asked to participate in a workshop for the NC Legislators on Home Base, another teacher from my school gave the teacher’s perspective and led the legislators through a demo of the site. I’m so proud that teachers from western North Carolina were able to have these experiences.

Thinking back on what I wrote in May of last year, the two ideas I listed as what I expected to gain seem so trivial in comparison to all that transpired over the last year.