I choose joy! Joy will be my one-word going into 2020!

Last year, my word was "lightening", and all year long I dedicated my energy to lightening the work world around me through my job as a literacy support specialist. I spent my year training teacher teams, supporting teachers and administrators, serving students in my district, designing curriculum, following leaders. To borrow a quote, ​It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. The model was not working. Too much of my brain space was scattered in small pieces across too many challenges that could not and would not be lightened by my efforts.   No. Matter. How. Hard. I. Tried.

Fast forward to today. This morning I went out for a long walk. I could not run because my right knee is not feeling great and I'm wary of seriously injuring it. So, there I was, walking at a fast pace (no knee pain) and feeling surprisingly joyful. Not being able to run usually irritates me. I am a slow jogger, but I am dedicated to and dependent on those amazing endorphins that cheer the rest of my day after a morning run. I can count on one hand the number of runs in my life that have been easy. I started running late in life, and it usually feels less of a run and more of a workout. That's fine!! I love the sweaty, accomplished feeling that fills me up after my version of a run. Slow or not. Jog or run. 4 miles per hour or 5. Never matters. As long as the action was running and not walking.

So, why was I feeling so joyful this morning?

I have realized that the effort that is required during my runs, those workouts, taps into my cognitive energy as well. In other words, when I'm running, I'm so focused on breath, legs, distance, time, etc., that I don't have the capacity to think, wonder, ponder, plan,...enjoy. Kicking back my run to a fast walk has given me the brain space to think, wonder, ponder, plan,...enjoy the world around me as I go. I can watch the sun color the sky behind clouds as it rises. I can slow dow so as not to scare the deer or rabbits hanging out by the trails. I can listen for the eagle's cry and search the treetops for a glimpse. Walking gives me the space to fill up my soul with joy.

The same joy is present now everyday when I go to work. Kicking back  to the classroom has given me the brain space, and heart space, to love what I do again. My days are filled with all the space I need to feel joy - the joy of teaching my twenty-one students, the joy of working with a brilliant and generous team, the joy of following leaders with vision who care about me, the joy of being in a community full of support and kindness. Teaching gives me the space to fill up my soul with joy.

What might have seemed like a step back has proved to be a blessed leap forward in my journey - as an educator and as a human being. I will choose joy this year. In everything I do. And I know that choosing joy is not always easy or intuitive depending on the circumstances. But, when soul recognizes passion, and passion finds expression, and brain and heart space both exist for passionate expression to build and grow, joy abounds.

Happy New Year! May you find joy in all that you do in 2020!

#allkidscanwrite

Ahhh, winter break. You have rescued me right when I knew I could not go on much longer. Oh, no. It is not the students from whom I needed to be rescued. Those precious, joyful children are the reason I am still standing at all. No. It is the physical, mental, emotional, logistical weight of teaching that has collectively pressed down upon my psyche until this body just about gave out. Laryngitis and a relentless cold during the last week before a holiday has been brutal. But, lovely winter break, you got here. You got here just in time!

My return to the classroom after 7 years and at 59 years old has been full of surprises - some good and some not so good. When I interviewed for the position last spring, I mentioned my intent to infuse a coaching stance into my teaching rather than to continue using the more teacher-directed, "leader of the classroom" approach I had perfected in my previous experiences. I mean, really, when I first began teaching, I felt like I was the queen of my own little kingdom. I made and enforced the rules. I wrote the lessons. I delivered the lessons. I taught, students learned. That was my algorithm. And, it worked. Or, so I thought.

And then I started reading about coaching. I took a class. I became a certified Evocative Coach. Just think about the word evocative. It means tending to evoke. And evoke means  to elicit or draw forth (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/evoke). In working with teachers, the evocative coach encourages the teacher to consider her practice through guided conversations.  The coach draws out the teacher's own thinking and decision-making without making recommendations or using any evaluative criteria in the process. It is supposed to be a 100% coachee-directed experience, with the coachee controlling her own learning/growing.

When I was a literacy coach for my district, this was not the model that we used. My job was much more geared to going into buildings and classrooms and working with teachers and teams on district and state level initiatives. While I still tried to use a side-by-side coaching stance, I often was more of a trainer and less of an evocative coach. To be sure, evocative coaching is an asset-based model that can require time (and patience), not the support-specialist approach that is more directed and quicker. 

Flash forward to my interview and my new job. The good, and the not so good.

As I sat in front of 21 little ones those first few weeks of school, I realized that I was no longer going to be the queen of the kingdom. As I watched their minds and bodies grapple with being in school - sitting in chairs, trying to maintain criss-cross applesauce on the carpet, lining up for transitions, moving through hallways, playing on the playground - I knew that I was going to need to be their coach, not their queen. It was not going to be any good to keep repeating, "Little one, please stop squirming. Little one, your constantly moving legs need to stop. Little one, stop calling out and raise your hand (for the 100th time!). Trust me. I tried. And then I realized that these little ones were doing the best they could at being themselves. And while, of course, my job is to provide instruction in curriculum and behaviors, until those little ones are able to recognize and manage their "practice" as students in a school environment, I need to continue to evoke their good decision-making and self-reflection skills.

And that, my readers, takes a physical, mental, emotional, and logistical toll. A huge one. It was much easier to be the queen. Putting my own practice to the test, holding myself to the same standards I had been training teachers to use, was and continues to be humbling. I am forging my own idea of what it means to allow the students to drive their own learning. And it is challenging and exhausting. And I am so far from good at it. 

But, as I coach myself, I remember that self-reflection is key. I have decided on certain instructional and pedagogical goals to move my practice to be more student-driven and less teacher-directed.

And, just as I accept my students where they are academically and behaviorally. I need to be as accepting of myself as I learn how to put the crown away for good.

Happy Holidays!

#allkidscanwrite