(1)
Prior to beginning my fellowship, I can honestly say that I was CONFIDENT… maybe even OVERLY CONFIDENT… about my performance as a classroom educator. My students showed growth. My administration was overly-satisfied with my performance. I was transitioning into teaching others how to be successful in the classroom. CONFIDENT. 5 minutes into my fellowship had me feeling like the sign above. In the past 2 months, I have become LOST in research, CONFUSED and UNSURE about what I’ve needed to create with my unit, UNCLEAR and PERPLEXED about what was wanted/expected from me by mentors… plain DISORIENTED and BEWILDERED by the shifts I’ve been forced to make in my thinking as an educator. By the end of our recent 3-day Kenan PD, a part of me honestly felt like I’d been jacking up children!!!
(2)
Thankfully, I have come to realize I’m my worst critic. As our recent PD reaffirmed, DATA is what speaks in our current education system; thankfully, my learners have been showing academic growth each year. HOWEVER, my “aha moment” has been that I can DO MUCH MORE!
My fellowship with DPI officially began this summer with a training in TEXT COMPLEXITY (DPI live binder resources). The application for the workshop ALONE made me question my current process for selecting text for my learners. The application required all applicants to choose (2) texts and create TEXT COMPLEXITY PLACEMATS. This process forced me to re-evaluate my text selection process. It cleared up WHY my learners may have looked clueless when I presented them with a text that I THOUGHT was attainable for them. Text complexity is a large part of my unit, so this training was very helpful for me, as I had NOT had access to anything remotely similar to this training before.
This continued to be the case as I soaked up all there was to learn at Kenan NCCAT session. Surrounded by educators that are at the top of their games in their respective content and leadership roles was AMAZING!!! I walked away with confidence in the strategies I currently used AND with exponentially more added to my teacher arsenal. I learned about strategies that will help my learners become more inquisitive- a big issue for our student population!
I feel like I’ve received a lifetime of SOLID professional development in only 5, short weeks! Once feeling all directions of the above sign (1), I now relate more to the graph below. My overall “aha” is now THE MORE I KNOW, THE MORE I CAN DO! In this matter, I can’t look at my past teaching experiences as inadequate. I just realize that I was limited to my own teaching experiences. I had little mentorship, and now am connected to a powerful cohort of educators that have challenged and expanded my own learning.
Fellow 2014 Kenans: with which sign do you OR have you most related in relation to your fellowship: Are you currently (1) Uncertain/Apprehensive, etc…, (2) in a constant state of thought, or (3) content with the process?
Jacking up children…..hahaha! Yup the experience has humbled me as well. It makes me worried that I am not pushing my students hard enough, and I think that the text exemplars will be a great place to begin. Thank you for linking to the Livebinder—I have gone through it but need to look through it again more carefully to prepare for the start of school. Being around so many talented educators (including yourself!) has made me realize that I too need to DO MORE. Or maybe I don’t necessarily want to do more per se….just replace more with better? 🙂
-Kari
Thanks for reading. Definitely a humbling experience.
Awesome blog post. Thank you for sharing.