There have been plenty of lessons learned in these last few weeks of reflection. The school year started three weeks ago with students and about four or five weeks ago preparing and planning for the new school year.

I feel like I’m finding myself. I have a new leadership position at my school and have been a little overwhelmed. Testing is time-consuming and all anyone seems to care about right now, which breaks my heart. Despite this, I find solace knowing that over the summer I learned so many new techniques and practices to implement in my classroom.

I’ve learned how to use data for the good. Data has had a negative connotation in my school since we opened last year, which is unfortunate. I’m taking the data I’m getting from assessments and putting them in a comprehensive spreadsheet that I’ll use for the rest of the year. Things are organized and color-coded and I know that I’ll be able to use that information to inform my instruction when it comes to pulling kids in small groups during reading time. I’ve also used multiple pieces of perception data to help me understand where my kids are coming from when they enter the classroom each day. Honest responses like “Sitting is the hardest thing for me to do in school” are so helpful — now I know how to effectively engage that child in my every day instruction. I learned that many of my kids don’t have homework help when they go home, and most of them feel positively about the school year. I’m looking forward to collecting process data once I start doing more project work with my kids during our content PBL time together (…when I finish testing).

I’ve learned that I’m truly a professional. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s best for my kids, and it also doesn’t mean I should be written off as a peer in a school full of many veteran teachers. The generation gap chat we had over the summer at our second Professional Institute was immensely helpful in my thinking about how to interact with peers and how to tell others to interact with me (I’m a millennial who desires constant feedback and I’m not afraid to tell someone that!).

The beginning of the year always has its ups and downs, and though right now I’m kind of in a trough of frustration over testing, I know the best learning is yet to come. I can’t wait to start my solar system and economy unit, and I am excited to cultivate it into more of a biliteracy unit for me to implement during this school year.