teaching - year 11/year 12

So, my 12th year of teaching starts tomorrow, and I realized I never really took the time to reflect on year 11. It was a blur. I won a pretty big award and went to California to get it, we went to Kennedy Space Center, had scientist guest speakers, and did a bunch of other stuff (understatement of the year). I had so many responsibilities which made it feel like my teaching was very often placed lower on my list of priorities than I would have preferred. I asked if I could pass some of my responsibilities on to some other folks, and it didn't happen yet, so I'm sure this year will be nothing short of chaos. Not only is tomorrow my 12th first day of school as a teacher, I'm also going back to school for my master's degree and Saturday will be my first day of school as a student again. I'm very excited and nervous for my program, and even though I'm working on a degree in educational leadership, I know in my heart that I'm not ready to leave the classroom just yet.

I read a bunch of books this summer. They were all fantastic. I'm still learning from them. Check out my good reads page, and if you've read any of them (Hamilton, Caesar's Last Breath, We Could Not Fail, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Spaceman, The Interstellar Age, The Glass Universe) as well, I'd love to talk about them. Books are the best.

Out of 9 weeks this summer, I worked during 8 of them. I revised and edited my school's faculty handbook, wrote curriculum, end of course exams, and helped facilitate some teacher work days at school. I felt like I had a break, but not quite as much of a break as I would have liked. I never really turned off my teacher brain, and I think sometimes it's helpful to turn off my teacher brain... even if it's just for a few days.

In the spirit of tradition, here's the word cloud that happened when I copy-pasted the results of my end of the year survey question "describe your time in this class in one word" from last year's students:

They were a great group of kids. I got to know many of them. The ones I really got to know are some of my favorite humans on this planet. Seriously. I can't wait to see all the amazing stuff they do. I didn't get to know as many of them as I would have liked to. It's the thing I regret most about last year. Usually I also post other survey results in these school year blogs and reflect on what I'd like to do better next year to help my students learn... but with all that's going on right now, I just don't think that really matters. I'm going to love them all. I'm going to make sure they feel safe. There's going to be respect, tolerance, and growth in my classroom, not only for my students but for me. Hopefully we can learn some stuff about space too.

I love my classroom. I love my students. I love space. That trio of love mixed with way too much caffeine from diet coke has gotten me through the past few years. I hope that it will be enough this year. I don't know my students yet. Usually when events like those that happened this weekend happen, I know my students enough to know we can talk, we can not talk, some need a nod, some need a smile, some need a hug... I don't know how I'm going to do this. But I'm going to do this. Let's go.