My journey will lead to the new high school in town. I initially did not plan on moving schools, but I was recruited two years ago. Along with a few other teachers, we began as a planning committee to create the mission and values of this high school. It has been a long process and now there is even more work to make the high school embody our ideas. It is definitely going to be a challenge, but it is a challenge that only comes around once in a while. The great thing is I am not going alone. I have a few awesome co-workers from my high school coming along with me. Moreover, a lot of the staff are people I know from the past 10 years that I have worked in this district.
In a sense, all the different roles I played at NSHS has prepared me for this next step. My mother has always told me, there are two types of jobs I could get: physical labor or mental labor. My parents work physical jobs, so they always told me as a child to use my mind. Because of that my work ethic is extreme and mentally straining cause I am constantly thinking, planning, and envisioning how things can be played out. So, I guess I am ready to move forward.
Fortunately, no tears were shed when I left Friday afternoon. I walked around the school, saw some of my favorite co-workers- I will miss them. But I know I will still see them, just not as frequently during the school year. I visited my very first classroom, my second classroom, and the 3rd/4th classroom from this year. I checked my mailbox, in the sweet spot on the side that I am going to lose now since I don't work there anymore. I looked at my senior class photo with my eyes closed in it, and I cleaned up the last few things that were left. I was able to see one person that confuses but humors me constantly, and although I had so many things to say and so many questions. I choose not to. I choose not to say goodbye. But from my heart, thank you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting me be me. Faith must play out what has to be played out.
My 10th year of teaching was not my best. I was absent in total for a month and a half. I felt like my students resented me for not being there. I spent fall semester on a 10-week online course for Global Education, and now I am spending my summer working on my capstone project, teaching summer school, and my field experience. I shared a classroom that felt like I was in a Lifetime movie. Coming to work was harder each and every day. I coordinated so many things, that I didn't give it all my best this year. AP testing was hard, easier in terms of logistics, but hard and demanding nonetheless. I tried to run a PLC. I tried to do Instructional Coaching. I adapted to the change of leadership. Then, my grandmother passed away. And this year, I was selected as Teacher of the Year. In which case, that was a day I wish I could delete in my mind. In retrospect, I am overly emotional, but it doesn't change the facts of what happened that evening. People this year told me I was undermining the authority and that I should be more considerate of what other people are going through. I was told I only work part-time, I was told I should seek help for my "depression", I was ignored. And throughout this year, I endured. I kept working. I kept going. I suppressed so much, for the sake of keeping it calm. At the end of the day, it isn't about me, but its the students that I teach. It is the things that I can do, that will help them the most. I learned a lot this year. Enough to help me formulate who I hope to become.
I have always endured. I don't expect things to be easy, because I never had it easy. Even though I can make it look like the person next to me is on the same playing field as me, I know I have/had to work 10 times more to make it look like I belong there. Now as an adult, I still expect myself to never get it the first time or expect to be the underdog. Sometimes I feel like I am never enough. And that is okay because things are not fair. Because maybe those things are not meant for me.
Keep going...this girl still has to keep going.