Day 4: Teacher As Mentor #AprilBlogADay Challenge

Prompt: Support- How do you support other teachers? 

The summer before I started my first year of teaching we did 4 weeks of professional development.  We were 9 teachers working to open a new alternative high school in East New York.  One of my favorite memories was an afternoon planning with the other English teacher, a more seasoned teacher-- maybe 5 years in at that point(?)--who I looked to as collaborator and mentor.  We exchanged ideas and excited suggestions that afternoon, charting out the year on paper with markers.  It proved to be a benchmark experience for me.  This is what co-planning could look and feel like. 

As time went on, the support faded as did the collaboration.  It was a result of many outside forces pulling at our teaching community and hurt the work.  That first year I had a lot of informal mentoring from experienced teachers and coaches. I, for the most part, felt supported. There were struggles, especially as the years went on.  When administration in small schools learn that you don't need a lot of support- they focus their attention on where it is needed: teachers who struggle, instructionally or with management. I quickly learned not to ask for help unless I truly needed it. So I didn't ask.  I fended for myself and learned as I went along.

 Now I am the mentor.  First year teachers are required to have a year of mentoring that is logged into an official tracker.  Teachers I have mentored are now mentors themselves.  This is the goal right?  That the mentees become the mentors? Torches are passed, growth takes place and ultimately we all learn.  I do love working with teachers this way.  This year in many ways has been my most successful year- mentoring two young men, an English teacher who I also co-plan with  and a music teacher.  Very different strengths.  Very different content.  While I am not a music teacher, I am a theatre teacher and understand the constraints of teaching a required arts course in a very not arts focused school community. 

I learn so much from the hours I spend talking 1:1 with teachers.  Sometimes conversations are about navigating the system, other times they are about co-teaching dynamics, then there are the times when a teacher just needs space to vent or to be heard.  We have all been there.  I have worked with some very seasoned teachers over the years and I don't know that I will ever see myself as I saw them but as schools get younger and younger, I am the seasoned teacher and it is my responsibility to support new generations of teachers.  Hopefully the work I do will help them to stay. 

25. Inspiration and Humility

When I started blogging about teaching in April I saw it an exercise to challenge me professionally, to think more critically about my work and to hopefully connect with other teachers.  Thanks to Chris Crouch, teacher leader, blogger and advocate who started the April Blog A Day Challenge.  It took my work to a new place. The writing in April also provided an opportunity for me to discover what is out there for teachers.  There was this community that I had been blind to, only because I was so focused on what was happening in my own classroom and school that I didn't make room to see and hear teacher's voices that would ultimately bring something new to my own work as educator and teacher leader in my community. 

When I started talking about the writing I was doing, the conversations I was having with teachers from around the country it was clear that this needed to be a permanent part of my professional work.  I was inspired by the work and thinking teachers and education professionals are doing.  I was humbled by the feedback I received as well as the learning I was doing.  

At my end of year conference with my principal, we had been asked to do some work prior to our meeting, completing prompts about our work for the year to serve as talking points for the conference.  As we sat down and began to go over the official end of year rating (done by a complicated algorithm reflected in a number) my boss asked me why I said I didn't think I had been successful as a mentor this year.  One of my responsibilities is mentoring first year teachers.  There were three that I was assigned, one ELA, one U.S. History and the other, Global history.  I was also teaching 16 periods a week plus advisory, an additional 30 minute period.  It was a heavy load.  Finding time to go into classroom or to even just sit and meet with three different teachers proved to be challenging and I often felt ineffective- not having a clear picture of strengths and struggles and wanting to be able to do more than what I had been.  I often watched the other teacher mentors working with the staff and doubting my ability to really support.  When I did get to spend time with my teachers, I tried to make the most of it, offering support, encouragement and ideas for actionable change aligned with the goals of our school.

When will I feel effective?  What is the balance between effective in my own practice as teacher while balancing my additional responsibilities?

As schools have become smaller here in NYC, teachers and staff are challenged to take on more responsibility than ever.  I remember at my first school right out of grad school, at my interview the Principal told me that teachers would be wearing many hats and that has never been more true than it is today.  The small teaching and learning communities can be highly effective but they can also be limiting for teachers, spreading ourselves so thin that we are not doing anything highly effectively but are developing or effective.  

Next year will be the first year that we are populating all 4 grades, 9-12.  I know there is at least one teacher we have hired that I will be mentoring but in reality, there are at least 2.  I want to make sure I am supporting their development and one of the ways that I want to support will be though guided reflection.  Not- "just reflect at the end of your lesson or unit" but questions that will prompt deeper thinking and questioning of the craft.  I believe the teacher narrative needs to be owned by the individual, not the omniscient narrator.  

Day 1: Are You Where You Thought You Would Be? #AprilBlogADay

I have committed to the April-Blog-A-Day Challenge from Chris Crouch (@the_explicator).  I have been blogging regularly on my personal blog for the last year an a half.  I have found it a great way to reflect and process some big experiences (weight loss surgery followed by thyroid cancer this year!). As things happen personally one has to keep working professionally, at least I know I do.  I am thrilled to begin this April Blog A Day Challenge.

Prompt 1: Are you where you thought you would be?

When I read this question, the first prompt of this project, my thoughts immediately went to my career.  I think this is because this has been a year of shifts and changes for me. But let's go back...Last school year I joined the staff of a new school at the end of it's first year, excited to help a school grow, continue to gain it's footing in NYC Schools, and to learn a new community and new population of students.  Then last summer, because we are a PROSE school, applied and was selected as a Model teacher for the NYC DOE.  I applied because I love the process of coaching and working with teachers. Spending this year in this role opened my eyes to just how much I enjoy this collaboration. I am so inspired by the work and thinking of my colleagues and I become a better educator through the conversations I have with them and work we do to support student learning and development.  

The odds are not in the favor of teachers here in NYC.  The turn over is about 3 years and I am heading into the end of my 7th year. There were times in the first 5 years where I didn't know if I could make it another year, but I always did.  I always came back because I loved my kids.  I was working with an alternative population in what NYC calls transfer schools (over aged-16-21 and under credited- they are behind, sometimes way behind in credit accumulation).  I was passionate about my kids and wanted to see them succeed more than anything. All kids should have access to great education, passionate educators and challenging curriculum that pushes them to grow and learn. So I have stayed with it.  I have stayed with the kids. 

This year I have also taken on teaching AP Lang for the first time.  Professionally, as an educator I think I have grown more this year than any other since the first year.  I have worked hard to design and implement a curriculum that does all the things I think are important.  I was off to a strong start, students are making progress, growing as writers of nonfiction and using strong rhetoric to support their thinking.  Then at the beginning of February I was diagnosed with cancer and it threw me for a loop.  Is this where I thought I would be?  What does this mean for me?  For my kids?  How will I give them my best work if I am not 100% me? 

Two weeks before my surgery to remove my thyroid and a large baseball size tumor in my neck, I told my AP students.  I, like any good teacher, put together a powerpoint with pictures and diagrams to explain to the room of 16 and 17 year olds that while I did have cancer it was not something I was going to die from.  It was going to impact my life and my time with them as I went through treatment and recovery. I had planned to be out Wednesday through the following Monday and would return Tuesday but I had complications, hypocalcemia and as a result landed in the ER Saturday morning, and as a result pushed back my return by a week.  My first thought was, what about the kids?  I am going to lose so much time with them!  (I only see AP 3 days a week for an 80 minute class.)  

As we know, kids are resilient: they bounce back and most are able to roll with the punches.  I got a ton of emails from kids, I was able to tap two to collaborate on leading a reading and discussion of a short story connected to our larger unit theme of Community.  Kids rise to the occasion and are amazing.  I have to also.  That is my responsibility as an educator, mentor and teacher leader.

So, am I where I thought I would be?  No.  Life is unpredictable and fast.  It's ok that I am not where I thought I would be, personally or professionally.  I never thought I would have cancer (especially not at 37).  The best thing I can do is demonstrate resilience- for my peers and my students and hold on the enjoy the ride.  We will get there, eventually.