Now through three days of training, and holy CRAP is my brain full.
This year is gonna be a LOT of work.
This school, this group, is pretty impressive--they are working hard to impact thousands of kids. They have had a lot of success, but they don't think they're done. When there's a setback, they reflect and make changes--they don't believe that they're the end-all, be-all to education. They are more than happy to look at and borrow best practices from other people and other schools.
I may be too far in the bubble, but I've been surprised at how little eduspeak we've been hearing, too. For some reason, the word I've been hearing a lot is caveat. Like, eight times a day. Weird.
Anyway, so the expectations and standards are very high. The thing is, they seem to want to help us all achieve them--there is lots of time and effort and resources for professional development, and the admin/founders want to push the teachers to get better, to get clearer, to ensure the kids are actually learning what they're supposed to.
It's been long days, lots of sitting and lots of PowerPoint. There are a ton of young teachers here, I'm definitely one of the older folks around! Varying levels of experience, but generally three or fewer years. Yet I feel like I'm the only one overwhelmed. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard? I'm getting impatient for the specifics, which is the hardest part to deal with, to just shut up and get through it. We've got three or four more weeks, and there is A LOT--no, really, A LOT--that will need to get done. Way more work than I've ever done before. I hope that I have a knowledgeable team behind me and along with me.
I can't really be very specific here, and I'm also just really tired, so I suppose that's it for now. Two more days this week, and I will try to push myself to be more positive (I actually wrote that on my notes this afternoon) and also to be more social. That's one of the hardest parts of this whole thing. I'm such a boring old lady. :)
4 comments:
I have also had three days of training and my brain is about to leak out my ears. It's amazing how much information they can throw at a person in such a short time. Good luck with the new school year!
You're overwhelmed because you probably know better than most- you're taking everything in, and at the same time trying to mentally incorporate what they're feeding you.
Just relax, and good luck- it will all fall in place.
I'm overwhelmed, too, so that makes at least 2 of us :)
I agree with 17 more years. You probably feel like you're more overwhelmed than the new teachers because you actually know what a classroom looks like, whereas all the new teachers have no idea and are so overwhelmed that they just nod and smile, without really understanding anything that's going on. You, on the other hand, are able to frame what they are telling you in your past experiences and actually work toward incorporating this new information into your future teaching practices.
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