Yesterday was my first last day of school in the New York City Department of Education. I finished packing up my room, finalized grades, met with my assistant principal, and then helped stuff envelopes to send to students with their final transcripts. As I thought back to what I'd accomplished this year I realized there was so much there that I have yet to unpack. It is likely I won't get to really dig deep until a few weeks have gone by but I wanted to begin here.
1. I successfully integrated into a new school. AGAIN.
This is not the hardest thing for me to do at this point. Unfortunately, I have been in four schools in the past five years, so getting to know new staff, administrators, and students comes easier to me than most. Still, it is nice to know that you can begin anew, learn, connect, and feel a sense of belonging at some point when in new situations. I certainly felt a bit out of place in September when I was teaching alongside an 8-year veteran of the school. But now that I know and understand my coworkers quirks more, I can understand why they do what they do and how I should help. It was truly a pleasure yesterday joking around with them as we played kickball for hours after school.
2. A learned a new curriculum that incorporates most of the ideals of what I have been trying to do for years.
College Prep Math is a program I've written about a lot over the past few months. It involves investigation, exploration, forging connections, and forcing a lot of the learning process back on the student. While I wasn't skeptical of the curriculum when I began using it, I was concerned that I wouldn't learn to do it very well. Yet, under the guidance of some very intelligent people, I am on my way to understanding what word choice I should use, what lessons I should skip, and how to use my own judgment. It's been great.
3. I can still make new technology connections even if I have to start from scratch.
Moving from one city to another certainly reset my ability to connect with local educational technology resources. Yet, in my first two months at this new school I became the webmaster; a few months later I had been awarded a grant through DonorsChoose to have a Makerbot Replicator 2 3D Printer in my classroom; and my laptop cart has been a great boon to the school community. I knew it would be a hard transition but I now have some ground to stand on when I talk about tech in NYC. I hope to only build on that in the future.
While it is hard to move from one place to another I know that I can continue on this path in a welcomed way in my school community and look forward to learning even more in the future about them and how I fit in. I look forward to blogging more about that next year.
1. I successfully integrated into a new school. AGAIN.
This is not the hardest thing for me to do at this point. Unfortunately, I have been in four schools in the past five years, so getting to know new staff, administrators, and students comes easier to me than most. Still, it is nice to know that you can begin anew, learn, connect, and feel a sense of belonging at some point when in new situations. I certainly felt a bit out of place in September when I was teaching alongside an 8-year veteran of the school. But now that I know and understand my coworkers quirks more, I can understand why they do what they do and how I should help. It was truly a pleasure yesterday joking around with them as we played kickball for hours after school.
2. A learned a new curriculum that incorporates most of the ideals of what I have been trying to do for years.
College Prep Math is a program I've written about a lot over the past few months. It involves investigation, exploration, forging connections, and forcing a lot of the learning process back on the student. While I wasn't skeptical of the curriculum when I began using it, I was concerned that I wouldn't learn to do it very well. Yet, under the guidance of some very intelligent people, I am on my way to understanding what word choice I should use, what lessons I should skip, and how to use my own judgment. It's been great.
3. I can still make new technology connections even if I have to start from scratch.
Moving from one city to another certainly reset my ability to connect with local educational technology resources. Yet, in my first two months at this new school I became the webmaster; a few months later I had been awarded a grant through DonorsChoose to have a Makerbot Replicator 2 3D Printer in my classroom; and my laptop cart has been a great boon to the school community. I knew it would be a hard transition but I now have some ground to stand on when I talk about tech in NYC. I hope to only build on that in the future.
While it is hard to move from one place to another I know that I can continue on this path in a welcomed way in my school community and look forward to learning even more in the future about them and how I fit in. I look forward to blogging more about that next year.
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