My thoughts about what I expect to gain have evolved as I have come to know more about the program and its support and expectations.  Primarily I hope to gain some new professional connections that will be enduring – the teaching corps can be so isolating and any experience – LEA, regional, discipline, state, national can serve to give me perspective and new ideas.  I also hope to develop better chops on analyzing and implementing curriculum – I am sort of a reflexive teacher and this will impose a discipline I probably need.

An image keeps coming to mind this week.  I’m sure everyone has seen a nature show about sled dogs in the frozen North.  Before they’re harnessed they’re excited and jumping around in all different directions.  Yet when they get hitched they all come together for the single purpose of going somewhere. (Imagine a cool image of sled dogs on the page – technology challenges abound!)  I feel like that sort of proto-organization has begun to happen in the Salmonella Fellas.  We have had some great conversations about how to wrap our heads around a curriculum that draws on so many resources and has to satisfy the layers of requirements that are applicable.  However, the analogy breaks down when you consider the hierarchy that exists in a dogsled group – re-read The Call of the Wild for a refresher! We, on the other hand, seem to be finding a great deal of mutual support and recognition of each others’ strengths.  We’ve got a better-defined goal in mind and now there’s the beginning of a framework that we can work with.  It’s a cool professional conversation to be having.

This past week has been a whirlwind of meetings and expectations and new experiences.  I am delighted to be in a lab environment and looking forward to the microbiome sequencing experience.  I never knew much about 4-H and now I feel a lot more informed.  I feel like we are serving many masters – the labs, the KFP, the 4-H, and each other.  It will be a challenge to see it all come together.  However, I am so comforted to be working with the Salmonella fellows – we are an awesome group!