Tuesday off

I recently heard from a close friend a perspective of me that felt like a bucket of iced water down my back. I mostly know what my loved ones think of me, and for the most part I am satisfied with their opinions and the reasons I’ve given them to feel that way about me.

This time was different, and I have spent a couple of days wondering about how I feel about her words and rationalizing her thinking. Maybe I’ve acted in such a way that it’s normal for her to see me as this teacher that I am having such a hard time recognizing.

In my teaching, I’ve stepped into so many shoes and tried so many new and different things. I was an observant and doer when I started, feeling zero confidence in my craft as I was still in college and had no idea about the best teaching methods or strategies. In my head, everything was theory and I would watch the people I was working with to build my practice. It’s been 14 years since those first experiences and if I wanted to list the things I have learned, mastered, changed, tossed, or questioned since I would need a whole new entry.

For the most part, I recognize that my confidence in my teaching has gone from knowing stuff and feeling like ‘I’ve got it’, to questioning purpose and embracing the benefits of seeing myself as a beginner again. When I took my current job, I had a few years of experience in teaching lower ES, I had taught early childhood courses at a private and small college, and had completed my masters on educational management. I felt pretty good about my practice.

Looking back at the time I’ve spent at this school, I realize my confidence went from that comfort zone of plain understanding to a scary place of “why didn’t I know this before?”, and in the past two years I’ve reached the “oh wow, this is awesome… I wanna give this a chance.” Because to be honest, I used to be one of those people who did things in a certain way because “I had always done it that way…”

When I started Twitter in 2008, I was mostly looking for expertise in the topic I was researching about, and hoping to connect with the author of the book I was mostly using to support my thesis. What I found was beyond my expectations, the connections I made with content were life-changing for me as I started seeking new perspectives and seeing change as a necessity. Many blogs, online courses, chats that gave me so much content to explore, questions, and try out. My teaching today is still not fully defined, and I love that.

But I remember the words from my friend, when she described the kind of teacher she believes I am, and I start wondering whether she’s got the wrong perspective or if I perhaps need to take some time to define my two teaching-related passions, to settle this and get it out of my head. So, here I go:

Literacy

I fell in love with teaching language arts when I discovered the writing workshop. It was back in Venezuela, and when I saw that approach for the first time I knew I would never teach writing the same way again. It made me validate my passion for teaching and my love for writing, and I wished I could go back in time and be a student in a writing workshop classroom.

Since that day, I have chased after every article, expert, resource, and learning opportunity possible to grow my practice and understanding of the foundation of reading and writing. I have questioned the workshop in many different ways, and I have learned the purpose behind every move and every strategy. I also understand that what this model offers is a suggested practice, and not a set-in-stone curriculum, which forces me to create my own lessons, methods and resources.

I know that my future jobs will have to be directly connected to the teaching of reading and writing, because that’s where my heart beats the most.

Management

I am an organized person, for the most part. I don’t cope well with randomness and unfinished tasks, I must have a clear and easy on the eye plan for everything I do in my teaching or in any other practice. I first discovered this passion when I was asked to coordinate an ESL program at the first school I worked at, my job was mainly organizing schedules, events, teachers committees, and support with supervision, lesson planning and reporting. During this time, I learned that I like things done in a certain way, and I was good at organizing things for everyone else to be productive.

My masters suddenly became more than just a title, and I found that besides my love for what takes place inside the classroom, I am passionate about how systems work. If or when I decide that it’s time for a change, I will definitely pursue admin of some sort.

So there, those will be the two topics I’ll want to make sure I include in my future job interviews because it’s the two songs I will always dance to. I am OK with not being a certain type of teacher, or not agreeing with certain practices that seem trendy or provoke lots of reactions. But most of all, I am OK with being a kindergarten teacher who is mostly passionate about literacy and believes in the importance of structures that allow children to become readers and writers.

I am always very careful (and not always successful) when labeling others and describing their practice. There’s always hidden beliefs others don’t see or understand, and the reflection I am making today, as I write this long entry, is that I am happy with the teacher I am and my thirst for learning.