Family Comes First

Good Evening/Morning Break Even Teachers!(depending on when you read it.)

Once again, I start with an apology for not writing more.  Time seems to fill up with so many things I want to do these days.  I guess once a year is not that bad. (He says, with a truly John Lennonesque tongue in cheek!)

Anyway, we are only into the summer a couple of weeks and it has already been a whirlwind.  Just to keep you up to speed, I just finished my second year at Culver Community Schools as the Business and Computers teacher.  When I started this journey two years ago, I really thought I would be back in Sales and Marketing field pretty quickly.  At first, it just wasn’t clicking for me.  So many nights of thinking, “What have I done?  I can’t do this!”  But this last year and a half or so has been truly amazing.  There are so many stories I want to share with you.  Maybe another day, hopefully not a year from now.

So, this summer, I was offered another teaching job in another school district.  It was for more money.  It was a bit closer, so the commute would be less. It would be teaching more Business and less Computers, which is what I had wanted originally.  It seemed to be a perfect fit.  But the more I thought about it, something just wasn’t right.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt as if I would be letting my family down.  Not my wife and sons, but my other family…my Culver Community Schools family.

Now I’m not one to use that terminology loosely, either.  When I first started here, the teachers in my wing talked that way.  “You’ll love it here…it’s like a family.” they would say.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Everybody says that about the place they work, right? After a few weeks with the kids, I felt like I wanted to be more of a foster family.  I just didn’t seem to be connecting with them.  Then, everything changed.  All it took was one student, (who shall remain nameless), that stood up for me to her classmates.  She jumped in there and had my back!  I couldn’t believe it!  It was great!  From then on I started to treat the students differently, and they started to treat me differently, as if we had some kind of connection.  This then, became a wonderful self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak.  There WAS a connection!

I have wondered for two years what I would do if I were put in the position to make a move.  Now I have my answer.  These students and teachers and administrators and parents have all become a part of me.  I get excited when they get excited.  I mourn when they mourn.  I look at the kids every day and wonder how I can be of help to them today.  They have become my family, and I couldn’t be happier.

A Year in the Life?

Good Morning BET's!

Yes, it has been almost an entire year since my last post.  For as much as I love writing, you would think this would be a bigger priority for me.  Oh well.  Today is a new day!

As many of you know, last June, I took my first teaching job at the high school level.  I am teaching Business and Computers in the Culver Community School system, in Culver Indiana.  As the year is coming to a close, I thought I could reflect on what I have found and what this journey has done for(to) me.

As we started the year, I was ecstatic about the opportunity to connect with kids and to teach them so much that I had stored up over the years.  I was wide eyed with the possibilities and my imagination ran wild with thoughts of the intellectual exchanges I would be having with the students.  This alone, made sleep almost impossible for the first few weeks.  And then, reality set in.

The students weren't nearly as eager to engage me in intellectual tennis, as much as they were to just figure out why a 50 something would start his teaching career in this small rural Indiana town, and even why a 50 year old would change careers at this advanced age.  So many questions.  I was the new kid again.  The students wanted to figure me out.

As the year progressed, I found that what the students wanted from me more than anything, was the chance to be heard.  The opportunity for them to speak to me as an equal, and not just as a kid in my charge.  For those of you who teach at the high school level, you know what a balancing act this can be.  But, oh, what a magical dance!  I proceeded with two left feet, but have made strides throughout the year.

As November approached, my rallying cry was "Only ______ more days until Thanksgiving, and then just three more weeks!" Enough said.

As we entered the spring semester and the snow days piled up, I saw a side of the students I hadn't yet experienced.  A realization in their minds that makeup days are worse than coming to school on scheduled days.  While I appreciated the decisions made by the administration concerning our safety, snow days became more of a hassle, and no matter what anyone says, they never seemed like a day off.

As we moved into the last nine weeks, I realized that my complaints from first semester had turned from, "How many days until Thanksgiving?!", to "Why do I lose my students so much for testing?!  I need more time with them!"  The need to put more information in these kids brains seemed to be of more importance now than it had been in the past seven months.

And then it really became clear to me.

No matter how much wisdom or intellectual matter I throw their way, the most important part of what I am doing is the part that can't be measured on a standardized test.  The most important part of what we do, is that we are here, every day for the kids.  We are a great constant for them...possibly one of the few consistencies that they have in their day.  I have come to this conclusion:  I have much more to offer these kids, than I have to teach them.

So, year one, almost complete.  The kids are starting to check out as the final three weeks wind down, and I am very very tired.  It's a good kind of tired though.  It's been a good kind of year.