Beginnings and Anxiety

1.       It’s been a week of ups and downs, personally and professionally. My school is going through some change as our principal of 10 plus years retires, which only causes me anxiety. My team’s fearless leader is moving to the district office to train teachers (more anxiety). The rest of my team, except for me and my 8^th grade counterpart, are looping with their students next year, so that means a different set of 7^th grade teachers I work with next year (you guessed it, anxiety). The cherry on top is the state’s lack of funding and the Red for Ed Arizona Educator United movement that is taking place. Where there is a problem, I believe there is always a solution. I signed up to be a liaison for my school. I’m hustling decals and chalk paint to put on cars, making posters, memorizing demands, and (gasp) talking to strangers (if you haven’t guessed already, I suffer from anxiety and do NOT like talking to people I don’t know). I spent an hour at my kids’ school carnival networking with elementary school teachers and doing shady window decal deals by the food trucks. There was talk of t-shirt orders and yard signs as far as the eye could see. I realized tonight that I’m in real deep with this movement. I meticulously check the four different Facebook groups dedicated to this cause to make sure I haven’t missed a live update or new calendar event. I’m also coordinating thirty-some teachers at my school and who knows how many teachers from the elementary school across the street to protest at the same time on Wednesday morning. There are birthday cards I have to write to the governor, liaison trainings, board meeting protests… the list goes on.

Professionally though, this has been the best year of my teaching career. Year number 8ish (the math gets tricky because I started teaching second semester and I took some time off teaching after I had my second child). I was given autonomy on how I wanted to teach my curriculum, as long as students were demonstrating understanding. My eighth-grade math counterpart is a master teacher, and hearing her ideas makes me realize I have a looonnnngggg way to go in my career. Baby steps, though. I can’t change everything in one year. So this begins my epic journey through teaching middle school students mathematics. There will be ups and downs, tears, pain, heart-ache, joy, and love because teaching is all those things. I’ll share my ideas and projects and hopefully get some new ideas along the way.