These types of posts usually appear in December and January. For teachers, years last from the end of August to the beginning of June with a few weeks off to recover anything left of our sanity and will to live. Okay, I indulged in a bit of hyperbole there. Since I have spent all but seven years of my life – four as an infant and child, and three as an adult – in education either as a student or as a teacher, my mind often thinks of years in terms of school years. I often refer to years this way in conversations with others outside of education which can cause confusion. That being said, I think taking time to reflect on periods of life, however they may be divided, proves beneficial and thought-provoking. This past year has brought as many changes and lessons as the typical January to December year brings. Today, as the final half day with students coming tomorrow, I take time to look back on what I have learned – what God has taught me – this year.
August 2017 brought a bit of chagrin as the year began. I failed to make good on my intentions to attack my curriculum with vigor, preparing my lesson plans to death. Apart from that, I felt confident, reassured that I knew basically what to do. The nerves and fear that filled me the prior year stayed far away. Even the prospect of a looming ADEPT evaluation failed to instill fear. I believe that calm enabled me to start the year well.
As the year progressed, I struggled to best adapt my curriculum to both meet the needs of the students and allow me to preserve my sanity. I discovered that I have little passion for teaching the mechanics of writing essays, citing evidence and text analysis that often exceeds the developmental grasp of most of my students. I spent considerable time searching for ways to get through to them that would benefit them in life and hopefully translate to improved scores on the arbitrary standardized tests forced on them by administration at the school and district level. Around the middle of the year, I realized that I would burn out if I kept going that way. I considered both what had worked for my colleague and what energized me. I chose to focus on teaching them how to avoid the tricks and traps in the test while also focusing on what brings me joy, history. Instead of using nonfiction articles about scientific topics, I focused on historical articles, primary source documents and historical fiction, specifically the Civil Rights Era in the United States.
After making the above changes, I leaned strongly towards history. I realized where pragmatic choices had gotten me in the past and knew that from that point forward, I would choose the things that would hopefully lead me to teaching history. Since I made that decision, I have three times told my principal, in various ways, that I would prefer to teach social studies. At this point, as I mentioned last week, this leaves me in the position of not knowing what I will teach next year after standing firm in my clearly expressed desire to teach history. This revelation also lead me to pursue secondary social studies certification which happens later this summer. (I will write more on this next week.)
With the departure of my highly experienced content partner last year, I stepped into a leadership role, at least when it came to 7th grade ELA. As troubles piled onto my new content partner, God grew my skills in empathy, helped pull my gaze from myself to others. Crazy things happened this year, some of which I have described or alluded to on the blog. Instead of being self-focused as I often have in the past, I found myself concerned about how these various things would affect those around me from my students to my coworkers. I know that does not come from me.
I did, however face the old familiar fear and insecurity again, just after my third evaluator returned her observation. I remember feeling the panic begin to rise as I thought back to the first time around. At the same time, God gave me the ability to both see where these unproductive emotions would lead and the peace of knowing that He had everything under control. This helped me move past my normal defensiveness, however justified it may have been, find areas of improvement and dedicate myself to making those changes. The relief that came with successful completion of the evaluation process felt so good.
Finally, the thing that most defines this year for me, a thing that despite all the messes makes me reflect on this year as the best yet is the growth of my relationship with my students. As I mentioned in my YIG post, I have grown to love these kids so much more than I ever though possible. I take time to talk with them whenever I can. I gave up countless hours for YIG, Model UN and the after school program but rather than feel like I gave anything up, I feel like my heart overflows with everything I got in return. I cannot pinpoint a single moment when this change occurred. Rather, it grew incrementally throughout the year as I took the time to get to know my students, even the ones who many times drove me bonkers. I cannot express what happens in my heart when a kid tells me, “Ms. Enjaian, I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re a really good ELA teacher. I just wanted to tell you because I think you don’t get enough credit.” I nearly choked up at that one. I know I’m not perfect and I still have a long way to go but these little things matter. They matter in a big way.
More than anything else I discussed in this past, the 2017-2018 school year showed me what it truly means to love, to put others in front of yourself, to accept criticism and make changes so that others benefit and so much more. Even with the uncertainty, I eagerly anticipate what God has in store for me to learn next school year.