Indonesia was a very wonderful and also interesting trip. Many people have asked me, what am I going to do with it? To be honest, I have many ideas I want to implement, but my plan of taking action is guarded by the time I have been playing catch up with the school year. We have been in school since August 7th, so we just finished up 4 weeks into my year 11 of teaching. It has been a very challenging time for me, because I have felt overwhelmed with jumping into my classroom and "expected" to do/implement PD I have not even settled with understanding it myself. Moreover, my role of leading is continuous productive struggle for me. I like taking ownership of my work, but with my summer experience and zero time to plan/breathe I am on a plateau ready to faint at any given moment.
I am teaching Math 2 this year, a course I taught 2 years ago during summer school, and maybe 4 or 5 years in the school year. Content-wise, I understand. But with transitioning to a new school, not fully knowing new protocols, or the people I work with, I feel like I am just on thin ice. High school students are still the same, but this is the first time (maybe generational) that the group I students I have need different attention needs. As the years have gone by teaching, the ability to be focused with technology in front of a student is diminishing. I am struggling this year with teaching, and have personally said out loud, I don't know if doing this is worth it anymore. There was once a joy in what I did, but since my view of education has expanded to what I have seen overseas, I question about purpose and expectations. I know society changes, but I personally value education and it was a value my parents, and their parents instilled in me.
For a system to part of our government and affects every person in this nation, I question why it is not given the most financial support, why parents/guardians are not constantly asking how their son/daughter is doing, why students don't care about school. My teaching belief and values are being tried and I am constantly debating if I am doing anything right. For instance, why does being a teacher mean constantly asking phones to be put away. It is so trivial in my mind. So, year 11 feels like year 1 for me once more. Maybe time will let me see this position in a different light, and maybe this change is just hard for me to deal with. My support system is there-that has never changed. I still do CrossFit to keep my mind in tact and to focus on myself. There are just more moments in my mind that says, you should only work from 8-3 and do nothing more.