Grateful
As best we can tell, people only live once. I’m hedging my bets on that by trying to fit as many lives into this life as possible.
It’s been ten months since a seismic shift occurred in my professional life and ten years since the same thing happened in the personal realm, and as I reflect on the people, places, and experiences I’ve had as a result, I couldn’t be more grateful for both.
I’m never happier (or more alive) than when I’m working on campuses directly with teachers, either in PD or instructional walks or coaching rounds. January was a great month for that, offering the chance to work in a rural 2A district in central Texas near where I grew up, as well as several days of providing ongoing coaching support to a cohort of social studies teachers in an urban district near where I live now, and another of 1/2 day PD for a middle school with similar demographics.
For the rural days, I got to spend one day on each of the four campuses (two elem, one JH, one HS), supporting their ELA teachers and admin with in-the-moment PD specific to their needs. Those days are always rewarding because you know the content is timely, relevant, and useful, which makes the long drive home go quickly as I reflect on the work we did and anything I can do to support them going forward.
On the personal front, the best part of that trip was that the nearest “hotel” was my grandma’s house about an hour and half away, so I got three home cooked dinners and fireside chats with no other grandkids vying for her attention. (And saved a ton of money on travel expenses, since the only cost was the breakfast burrito I stopped for in San Saba every day, hoping to bump into Tommy Lee Jones.)
The local work with a cohort of secondary social studies teachers has been such a rewarding endeavor, building on several years of PD and growing beyond what I could have hoped for when we set out to intentionally and systemically improve outcomes for multilingual students.
The PD with a middle school was another in-the-moment strategy session, which has a completely different feel from the repeated work with a small, consistent group but can be just as fruitful. I’m always grateful for the chance to parachute into teachers’ lives, validate their experiences and their knowledge, and hopefully leave them with a couple of new ideas and things to try.
Each of these districts gave me new information, fresh perspectives, and renewed energy to continue seeking the best ways to support teachers and students. Hopefully I’ll write more about that soon, but for now, just know that I am incredibly, eternally, grateful.