For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about educator passion. I continually see posts and blogs talking about why people have left the profession. In fact, as I count tonight I have 10 recent postings saved relating to why educators have left, teacher burn out, lack of value and respect for teachers and so forth. I personally, have never understood where these feelings come from. No one enters the field of education for the money, which in turn leads me to believe they enter it because they have, or at some point had, a passion for it.
This morning I woke up anticipating the great professional collaboration I was going to experience at the Northern Nevada Leadership Summit. I was excited to hear about the changes as we shift from NCLB to ESSA. Yes, excited…these are the days I live for. Deep thinking and collaboration geared around leadership, instruction, and best practices for our students. Some might say I nerd out in these situations. My laptop is out, Twitter is active, and my brain is running marathons thinking and planning how I can disseminate the information back to my sites in a meaningful manner. Google Docs documents everything I am hearing, Twitter lets me share the thought-provoking statements with my PLN, and my little green notebook holds the countless scribbles, connections, and resources I need to remind myself to look up later or build into the three decks I’m working on for professional development. It’s amazing. I love this feeling… this is my passion. Please don’t stop talking because I’m absorbing it…and you over there, please don’t talk to me…I can’t handle being interrupted from this process right now…This is passion.
I’ve been an Implementation Specialist for three years. Some say its a stepping stone, for me, its my passion. I love developing professional development and tailoring it in ways that connect with my sites. My goal with any and all information is to anticipate anything that may lead to compliance and counteract it with something that supports commitment. As for the mentoring and coaching portion of my role, it’s my favorite. I love collaborating with educators, building their awareness, supporting student learning, and ultimately building their capacity as a leader.
Remember that statement in my opening paragraph where I said I’ve never understood where negative feelings towards our profession come from?
Well, this afternoon I discovered the answer…first hand.
As we sat there listening to the explanation as to why our positions we being reallocated I finally understood.
For the past three years our team has worked tirelessly to make an impact on our sites, encourage teachers to have faith in the district, and to ensure that we have a mission and a vision and that at the end of the day we will succeed. We practiced what we preached.
Social Emotional Learning is real…so we worked to build self-awareness and understand our strengths so that when we came together we were solid. Our social awareness was powerful. Regardless of what you just received as a staff, we were able to put ourselves in your shoes and empathize with you. From here, we’d take time to listen and offer help when needed. Eventually working to bring us back together.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day here we sit being told it will all work out and that we should view this as a new opportunity. Yet all I can think is stop talking…I can no longer absorb this.
I get it.
Tonight I will add posting number 11 to my files relating to teachers feeling passionless and burnt out. Unfortunately this time, it’s my own posting.