If I could Bottle This Day

Common Core, District SMART Initiative, PLCs, RTI, mClass, and more are hitting the teachers in my elementary schools this year. For a lot of us, we are going home at the end of the day thinking maybe bed at 6:00pm until 6am is just what I need, I am so exhausted. Even though I do not have a classroom, we are all feeling the stretch of new material this year and trying hard not to go into "survivor mode."

Recently, our boss's boss challenged us to think of a day when we had worked hard but went home energized and ready to do things with our family. What activities that day promoted that feeling? As I thought about what really revs me up in my job, immediately I thought about a recent challenge I had had.

As you know, we were restructured this year to reflect our base teaching certification. In that restructuring, I gained an elementary school that uses a totally different Interactive White Board than the rest of the district. I will admit that I am a SMART Board guru and have the certifications to prove it, but was totally clueless about Promethean and the ActivInspire Software. The challenge was to ensure that the faculty at that school received the same type of training that was being implemented in the rest of the district, but specific to their IWBs.

So I locked myself in my office and proceeded to use every free moment to teach myself the software and then create example lessons and handouts that conveyed the same expectations for three days of training as the SMART materials. I loved every minute of it once I got past the frustration of getting the software installed on my computer. Now I am no way the expert on it that I feel I am for SMART, but I can definitely say that am an Interactive White Board Bilingual. Confession: I even spent some of Saturday afternoons playing with the software!

The icing on the cake was the first day of training. The teachers loved it! Some have had those boards for a while, but we were able to share ideas and everybody learned something. It was like a high for me.

So what energizes me? Learning new things, creating materials (either for teachers to use in the classroom, or us to use for professional development), and having a great professional development session where light bulbs go off for the participants and me as well. If I could bottle that type of day...

Sounds of Silence

Since Thanksgiving, I have had a bout with laryngitis, (yes 22 days!). After my third trip back to the doctor and working on my double dose of antibiotics and second round of prednisone, I have been placed on vocal rest for a minimum of two days. Those two days started Monday at 5:00pm. First of all, I know those that know me think I am a quiet person. Well, I am not really. I do like to talk when I have something to contribute to the conversation and when I am with friends and family. So this vocal rest has been quite interesting.

A couple of observations, when people learn that you are not supposed to be talking, they will do one of two things: they will whisper or they will talk really loudly. It's OK. You can use your normal voice. My hearing is just fine. Second observation is the quality of my conversations have dropped because I either have to write out what I want to say or type it or try sign language, which I am not very good at!

Hopefully, the meds and the vocal rest will restore my voice. Otherwise, it will be a visit to the ENT specialist for a look inside my throat and my vocal cords. Something, I really don't want to have to experience!