A Good Place to Start

I just completed my tenth year of teaching, and I'm slowly processing this year as it already begins to fade in the rearview mirror of summer break.

I have taught ten entire years and this year was by no stretch my best one. On my walk with my husband and my dog tonight we took turns processing our day and something finally clicked for me. I used to be so reflective- painfully so at times. I wrote in a blog on a weekly basis. I talked frequently with colleagues about how things were going and honest conversation felt easier to come by. So, I suppose, this is my attempt at being honest. I know to my very core that writing helps me understand myself, my work, people, and the world around me better. How could I so easily refuse this fact in my inaction this year? I'm not sure, but I can start now.

This year was fine. There were no low-lows or high-highs. I pushed myself to create new lessons, clean up old ones, and my students told me and showed me they learned from the year I crafted for them. My classroom management was solid and I timed my heavy essay loads much better than I have in the past. So why do I feel so blah about it? 

The only answer I've really landed on for now is the need to "shape shift" in my new environment. I switched from a rural and average-performing high school to a larger and extremely high-performing middle school. There was less pressure to conform to something that would result in high test scores. No one has explicitly put restraints on my creativity, but my fear of not measuring up might be my own stumbling block. And the class sizes. The class sizes suck. Teaching five different classes in a rural high school has its own kind of exhausting, but it truly feels impossible to provide quality writing feedback to 140 students at the same pace. 

This is as far as my brain will let me travel tonight. This summer's goal is to be more intentional with a behavior that used to be a natural rhythm in my day. I'm a better and happier human when I'm actively reflecting. Maybe jumping back onto this blogging habit is a good place to start.