A Year to Remember or, What He Said...(My Confessions)

Scott in Nashville was MUCH more honest in his confession than I was originally prepared to be. After reading this post, I changed my mind...

This year was a year to remember for all the wrong reasons.

I returned after a 7 year hiatus in a leadership position. Anxious to reconnect and feel like my school was home and the teachers were family and that I would have a team to work work and be welcomed  warmly.

IT. DIDN'T. HAPPEN.

I floundered.
I cried, a lot. (But not in front of the children)
I raised my voice...way too often.
I wasn't very nice at times. 
I didn't have enough fun with my students.
My students didn't have enough fun with me.
I didn't run my classroom according to my core beliefs.

IT. WON'T. HAPPEN. NEXT. YEAR.

You see, I have found a job teaching Primary (Kindergarten) in a tiny school that already feels like home with staff that already feel like family. There are as many students in the entire school as there was in the wing my classroom was in last year. I am so very excited! I have learned a TON in the past year. I have a wonderful support system and I am ready to move forward and make 2013-14 a year to remember due to all of the great things that will happen in my classroom! 

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. My personal approach creates the climate. My daily mood makes the weather. As a teacher, I posses a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be an instrument of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized."  
~ Haim Ginott

#Kinderblog13: Pre-race packet and warm up exercise!

I am a Primary (4 and 5 y.o.) teacher in Nova Scotia, Canada. 

I have been in this profession since 1988 and have held a number of different positions, most of them as classroom teacher in the early grades. 

Eight years ago I took on the role of coach in elementary mathematics and that developed into a position as Consultant of Elementary Mathematics for our school board. I held that post for 3 years and did a lot of work providing PD for teachers, working on curriculum revisions with our Department of Education and the like. While I did spend time in classrooms, I felt out of touch with what it was like to have my own classroom, be a part of a staff and make sure that I was doing a good job teaching EVERY subject, and not just mathematics. Last spring I made the decision to return to a school, a classroom of my own and put my skills to the test. While it was the MOST DIFFICULT year I have ever had as a teacher, not once did I regret my decision to return to the classroom. That has to tell me something, right?

What do I BELIEVE?
I believe that 

• students need to be the "doers" of learning. Yes, there is a time to sit, listen and converse, but they need to be doing things in order to learn them.
•  Primary/Kindergarten is the toughest teaching job there is.  
• all teachers need to be encouraged and supported to grow professionally throughout their entire career
• I am a lifetime learner with a passion to better serve my students

How do I FEEL?
I feel 

• excited to begin another journey at my dream school (moving from a LARGE school to a SMALL school) 
• scared that the difficulties I experienced this past year will resurface 
• happy that I am enlarging my professional development circle by using Social Media as an avenue to communicate with other teachers