Guest Blog: Kyle's Journey

Thank you to Guest Blogger, Kyle Anderson, for sharing a piece of his journey with us---

Everybody grows up having a dream, proclaiming what they want to be when the
grow up. I was no different. I wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to be a doctor.
Because it was the 1980s and 1990s, I wanted to go up in the space shuttle as an
astronaut.  It seemed as if I changed my mind every other week. However, you
eventually get to high school and college and have to finalize what you want to focus
your energies on, and some people still struggle, changing their majors several times
before deciding.

I was lucky. I knew by my sophomore year in high school that I wanted to teach.
Maybe it was the great teachers that I had. Maybe it was my love of learning.
Maybe it was my love of being around kids (my mother ran a daycare in our house,
so there were always kids around). Whatever it was, I was set early on that education
was where I wanted to be.  

I was lucky. In college, I didn’t have to change my major several times. I changed it
once. I initially declared Secondary Education/Biology with a Chemistry minor.
But after one semester, I decided that I loved science, but not enough to want to
make a career of it. I decided I wanted to teach history. However, a very smart man
by the name of Dr. Nichols convinced me that a history major was a death sentence
in teaching and that social studies was a much better option. So, in the second half
of my freshman year, I declared Secondary Education/Social Studies with a minor in
Physical Education with a coaching emphasis.  

I was lucky. After 5 years of hard work, I was able to get a job right away. I packed up
my belongings and moved 2,000 miles across the country from Michigan to Nevada.
I knew that I had made the right decision in my career---working with teenagers. They
can be tough at times, moody, defiant, but at the end of the day, they just want to live
life and be successful, and I was there to help make that happen.  

I continue to be lucky. I have worked in education for 13 years, and while there have
been trying times, and even times of thinking that maybe I don’t want to continue, I
always think about those that I have influenced over the years, the amazing educators
that I have worked with, and the new technology and teaching methods that come each
day. I don’t know what the next chapter of my journey is going to be, but that is the fun
of it. I get to write my own chapters and continue to do what I love and what I feel I was
made to do.  

Kyle Anderson is a 13 year veteran of the teaching profession, teaching social studies for 11 years before stints as a technology coach, a school administrator, and a physical education teacher. Kyle has B. A. in Secondary Education/Social Studies, & a Master’s of Education, an Educational Specialist in School Leadership, and is currently working on a Master’s of Science in Special Education. Kyle is married to his wonderful and beautiful wife Mary and has a daughter, Elsa, and a son, Reed.  

Appreciate the Journey

In January of 2001, I started my first full time teaching job. As if being a first year teacher wasn't hard enough, I was a first year teacher who started in 2nd semester after the kids had had a string of substitutes. Oh, I was also at a year-round school and I was teaching from a cart. For all those not familiar with "cart teaching", it means I didn't have a classroom. All my teacher things were neatly piled on a rolling AV cart, and every four weeks I moved to whatever room was empty due to track break. The journey began, literally.

My first few months were rough. My husband started teaching the August prior and told me to stick it out until the start of the new school year. It was hard; I doubted if I was cut out for teaching.

Fast forward a few years...I found my stride. I moved from 6th graders to 9th graders, and finally thought that teaching really was my thing. They say it takes at least three years to start feeling like you know what you're doing. After 3 years of teaching high school, I took on Student Council and moved on to teaching 10th and 11th grades. I was getting there.

Every year was a new adventure: new students, new courses, new experiences. My students made me laugh every day, and going to work was fun. Where else but a school could you line the halls with colorful drawings, make puppets, have dance-offs at lunch, and celebrate it all by wearing pajamas to work? Teacher Life was good.

However, some journeys have unknown destinations. Let's fast forward again--add two children, a Master's Degree, and a hankering to make a more far-reaching difference. With one foot in the classroom and one foot in the world of teacher leadership, I was looking for a way to take both roads at once. Presenting at conferences, writing, and learning from inspirational leaders, led me to the U.S. Department of Education as a 2016-2017 Teaching Ambassador Fellow. This experience introduced me to the inner workings of the educational system. Pause and think about the moment you see behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Yes, it felt like that.

Equity. Elevating the Profession. Social Justice. Policy. 

The Fellowship was the most amazing, yet surreal experience of my professional life. I came back from Washington ready to take on the world, or maybe just Nevada. This Teacher's Journey has been traveled on an ever winding road, and on Monday, April 30th, I took the fork.

After 17 years in the classroom, on a warm Thursday afternoon, I left. It was difficult and bittersweet, but it was also time. My career as an educator, paired with my own unapologetic ambition, had afforded me opportunities to not only teach creative, smart, wonderful students, but to build a professional learning network of equally amazing educators, leaders, and advocates. This network aided me in finding my leader's voice.

So, here I am. The inaugural Teacher Leader in Residence. If I could have invented a job just for me, this would be it. An chance to organize, to elevate, to advocate, to represent, and to gather--I am honored to be given the opportunity to serve Nevada teachers and to elevate our voices.

If all my years in education have taught me anything, it is that educators are amazing. They sacrifice, they empathize, they work tirelessly. They give so much and ask for so little in return.

I am proud to be a teacher. Whether in the classroom or working on behalf of those who are, I will always be glad that I stuck it out. It hasn't been easy, but it has been worth it. Here I go--I invite you to join me on the next iteration of #thisteachersjourney.

All The World's A Stage, Or a Clock, Or a Soliloquy

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts..."- William Shakespeare

Shakespeare nailed it when he wrote that in our lives, we play many parts. There is something else, I've discovered, that Shakespeare also knew--we often express our true selves in soliloquy. 

Let's take one of the most iconic tragic heroes for example, Hamlet. In Shakespeare's longest tragedy, the protagonist is quick to insult, drop a pun, or express his discontent, yet most of the time, his commentary is delivered in as few words as possible. He is a man plagued with internal crisis, keeping his ideas tightly locked inside until...

The soliloquies. There are five. During these dramatic outpourings of inner conflict and bottled emotion, Hamlet is all of us. 

As a classroom teacher for the past eighteen years, I have spent more time alone in my room than I have collaborating with colleagues. I have bounced ideas around with myself, doubted myself, congratulated myself--alone. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to bottle up my ideas and then shout them to a concrete wall with dramatic flair. "To collaborate, or not to collaborate" has never been the root of my existential crisis. I am at my teaching best when I can feed off of the inspiration and professional genius of my colleagues, but truthfully, those moments are few and far between. The biggest barriers to breaking down the silo are time and change. 

TIME: I arrive at school at 6:45am after a 30 minutes commute across town. The bell rings at 6:55am. This slim ten minutes doesn't allow for me to fraternize with my colleagues and create dynamic vertical lessons. Sure, I could get there earlier--which means getting up earlier--which means waking my 9-year-old up earlier--so she can go to morning care even earlier. Not an option. 

I have a prep every other day. Not every day. During the time I have, I make the most of it--however, some of my colleagues don't have the same prep time as me. Such is life. 

After school, I can relish in my free time of 40 minutes, before I race across town to pick up not one, but two carpools, from two different schools. Time, isn't always as flexible as I need it to be. 

This problem of lack of time is shared. Fortunately, we have organized time on campus to meet with one another, and it has made a huge difference. We have dedicated time each Monday for one hour and each Wednesday for 30 minutes. Making sure to clear our schedules of lunch duty, student store, clubs, conferences, and other meetings, has allowed us to sit with each other, during this dedicated time, and ensures that we can communicate beyond email. This gift of time has been truly a gift, but...

CHANGE: Just like me, many of my colleagues have learned to multi-task like champs. Educators would earn gold medals if making copies, while answering emails, while grading papers, while eating a Lean Cuisine was an Olympic sport. We are used to making the most of our time. There is no other way to survive; no other way to scale the mountain of daily duties.

So, you'd think that if given the time to commiserate with colleagues and reinvent the wheel of curriculum, we'd jump for joy and celebrate the opportunity. Not always. Time is such an abstract, yet highly coveted commodity that when we get it, we literally don't know what to do with it. More time for collaboration? What does that even mean? 

The catch-22 is that the change from "here's absolutely no time to do all the things" to "here's some extra time to all the things", doesn't feel much different. Oftentimes, the strategy, intent, or purpose of this new "time" is missing. Educators nearly border being superhuman, but even so, we need guidance and structure. We are the makers of plans. We love plans. We need to plan our time to plan. If not, we spiral into that aforementioned existential crisis and end up soliloquing on the freeway, stuck in mid-day traffic, collaborating with me, myself, and I. Time given; time wasted.

Let us, fellow educators, use the silent soliloquy as a dress rehearsal for when the curtain rises and we are given time to share our talents, our successes, our groundbreaking innovations, and do so in a way which best uses our coveted time and the time of others. 

We need to change the way we think about change and reevaluate the way we use our time. Though it be much easier to close our doors and sink into the silo, we owe it to ourselves and our students, to change. If our ideas happen in silos, their reach is very narrow--when we share our ideas with others, they evolve into tangible entities that can impact the teaching and learning within our schools. 

Yes, having other educators into our rooms and in our lesson plan books may be strange at first. But remember, as our dear Hamlet once said, "this too shall pass."

Same Destination, Different Journeys

(Thank you to my co-contributor, friend, and colleague, Valerie Wilhite)

It has happened more than once. That awkward moment when you realize you are wearing the same “teacher outfit” as one of your colleagues. I guess great minds think alike is a better way to spin it?

Well, yesterday it happened. Walking into our weekly department meeting, I spot her. Mrs. Wilhite, donning the same fashionable, yet conservative teacher dress.

We look amazing.

After school that day, I thought hard about teacher “sameness”. In some schools of thought there is a push for scripted curriculum, or the idea that good teaching looks like every 10th grade English teacher is teaching the same page at the same time on the same day. I sat down with Mrs. Wilhite and we reflected on the concept of “sameness."

The push for standardization may be detrimental to creative thinking.

Most schools are made up of many dynamic educators. They have varied strengths, come from different prep institutions, and bring with them their unique histories. Why does the default setting tend to move toward  molding them into one type of teacher? This is not to argue the merits of shared planning, or departmental continuity, but to dispel the expectation that there is only one way to write a lesson plan or only one way to assess students. There is often backlash when someone questions “the way it’s always been done.” How do we find the happy medium between teacher autonomy, the educator as creator, and scripted curriculum?

The danger of sameness is that there is no opportunity to think outside of the box.  If we are to teach our kids to think for themselves or to think creatively, how can we model that if  we are urged to become one voice, merely regurgitating information from a script? For some, the allure of teaching is the challenge, the creativity and the opportunity to breathe life into academia for a new generation of thinkers.  The challenge is how to teach a subject, even one that is not beloved by all, in a way that at least piques their interest.  The creativity is taking the content, twisting it, turning it, and then coming up with a way to present it that encourages students to make connections.  Canned curriculum can be stale and contrived.  Even if delivered by a dynamic educator, we may be risking the opportunity to reach a difficult learner or engage a student, by “sticking to the script.”

Teaching another person’s materials without making tweaks and additions can feel fraudulent. Mrs. Wilhite adds, “ Last year when I tried to align my lessons to the other teachers in my grade level, I had an existential crisis and considered quitting teaching.  I felt like I didn’t belong, like I had found myself trapped in someone else’s life.  I mean, really, I totally understood the Freaky Friday feeling. Sameness does not evoke passion.  Kids can see it when we are not passionate about what we’re teaching.  There’s no buy-in when they can tell that their teacher is just going through the motions.”

“Iteration is key to innovation”-Sebastian Thrun

Collaboration and iteration of lessons and materials is essential in this profession. Making accommodations, differentiating, and meeting students where they are the cornerstones of being an effective educator. These practices allow educators to take a novel- The Scarlet Letter,for example- and teach it one year with the parallel to bullying and social stigma, and then teach it the next year with a focus on brand names and social Darwinism. We, as educators, spend day in and day out with the people in our classrooms, and have to make adjustments to not only fit their needs, but to democratically give them their right to learn.

My students in 3rd period may not be ready to progress to chapter 4 of Hawthorne’s novel. We may need time to germinate our understanding of Hester’s plight. We may need to review symbolism, and social norms, and Puritan ideology, before jumping into the next section. Mrs. Wilhite, however, may have students who came with prior knowledge that mine lack, or she may have students who study American literary periods for fun. Whatever the case, they may breeze through multiple chapters in a class period, while I am remediating the definition of figurative language. This in no way makes the students any less deserving of loving and understanding foundational literature. What a disservice if I deflect their questions for the sake of “being on chapter 5." Mrs. Wilhite and I know the power of vertical and horizontal alignment, yet understand the dangers of blindly following a plan.

Effective educators are often reinventing themselves.

We have been not only through multiple iterations of strategies and best practices, but iterations of ourselves as educators. We understand and cherish the opportunity to bring our unique perspectives into the classroom, and to reach our students in the best ways that we can.

Though we may wear the same dress or cardigan from time to time, and though we may share many of the same philosophies, I am glad that our sameness ends with our passion and fashion. This allows our students  to get a genuine, quirky, madly creative teacher who creates and inspires, and remediates in her own genuine, quirky, madly creative way.

Hope Springs Eternal

Twelve days ago, I took my 10th trip to Washington, D.C. Over the years, my

reasons for visiting the Nation's Capital have varied: a giant 2-day concert at RFK

Stadium, Congressional visits on behalf of education, working at the U.S. Department

of Education. This particular trip was one of those "Day on the Hill"  kind of trips, but

there was something unique that occurred this time. Though the direct flight from my

hometown to DCA was familiar, there was a noticeable absence of hustle & bustle on this

visit. Bundled in my winter attire, I had time to wander with purpose around

Washington.

Every time I have visited D.C., I've been part of a group, with my family, or with my colleagues.

This time, I was mostly on my own, save a few hours a day. My time spent  mentally cataloging

the architecture, mindfully taking in the history I was surrounded by,  and reflecting on my role

as an educator and advocate, allowed me to really digest my purpose for being there. I may have
flown to D.C. to attend an educational policy conference, but my flight home was focused on
maximizing my efforts for the betterment of education.

As I inhaled the smell of books from inside the Library of Congress, wept at the

instillations at the National Museum of African American History and Culture,

pondered the history of feminism at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and

simply took in the history and stories behind monuments and buildings around D.C.,

I felt like despite the social climate of right now, there was hope.

I assigned a theme to my four day adventure: the power of bringing people together to

create positive change. Be it in an office, on a hill, in the name of justice and freedom,

or to support one another, being together is powerful.  The optimist in me looked at this

trip as part of a hopeful future. More people coming together to affect change; less people

coming together to tear things apart.

Upon returning home, I was newly inspired to elevate the voices of my students and my

colleagues. To integrate literature, art, and opportunities into my curriculum that would act

as catalysts for rich discussion, and reasons to come together as a community. This has

always been a mission of mine, but this trip just seemed to strengthen my resolve to amplify

my efforts.

Five days later, there was another school shooting. Another. My students were supposed

to be heading into a five day weekend, one filled with too much sugar, a chance to go to the

movies or binge watch Netflix. Instead, they went home wondering why this had to happen

again.

I, too, spent my weekend wondering why this was becoming something that happens so

often. Saturday night's dinner with my husband, also an educator, and our two children,

was focused on asking them to recount their last hard lockdown. Did they know where

closets and cabinets were in their classrooms? What would they do if they were in a hallway

or the restroom during an emergency? We answered questions, tried to alleviate fears, and

more than anything, tried to instill a sense of peace in our children's lives.

Tomorrow, I will face 116 high school students. I will try to instill a sense of peace in their

lives as well. They are still adjusting to the aftermath of the October 1st mass shooting that

happened here at home--Las Vegas. I can only image, as unaffected as some of them may

seem, that they are afraid. For many of them,  school is their home, one of the only places

that they feel safe. I never want that feeling to go away.

Now I, along with countless other educators are faced with options. What do we do, as

individuals and collectively, to rebuild a sense of hope in our classrooms and in our own

homes? There is no one size fits all answer, but if I know anything, I know that my fellow

educators are mobilizing, writing letters, making calls, engineering plans to make our

schools and our world safer places.

More people coming together to affect change; less people coming together to tear things

apart. There is power and hope in bringing people together to affect positive change.

Teachers, students, parents, advocates, friends, and neighbors coming together to make

sure that our legacy is one we can be proud of. One that leaves an imprint on history, even

if tiny, that says,"We wanted change, and we made it happen."

I want my students and my own children to be able to see people standing together in

solidarity to make their futures safer, more accepting, and more loving. I need them to

know that their school days are about poetry, equations, science, and building relationships,

not  about dissecting the room for places to hide from gun fire.

This teacher's journey is positioned on an ever winding road, and I have just taken the fork

towards activism. What may have looked to any outsider, as a lone woman from the desert

wandering around in the blistering cold of Washington D.C., was really a new beginning.

Though my hands may ache from the letters I will write, and my voice may shake from the

words I must shout, I will do what I can to be part of the change. Our kids, my kids, we,

are all worth it.

#thisteachersjourney

My 2 kiddos, at peace. 

Guest Blog: Journeying Outside of the Classroom

Thank you to Guest Blogger, Jennifer Rios for sharing her own journey:

Teaching was, for me, an accidental profession.  I was in my third year of college and on my third major - English - and was semi-committed to the vague notion of doing something “English-related” when I graduated.  If all the ambiguity in that sentence didn’t clue you in to the lack of direction in my life, let me spell it out for you: I had very little.  

Then, I volunteered to tutor high school athletes as part of an outreach program. I began with four high school football players, coaching them through the thorny topics of grammar and Shakespeare. It turned out that teaching wasn’t too different than coaching (perhaps, in hindsight, there is less profanity), and I was quickly and irrevocably hooked on the high of watching a student “get it.”  Too late to switch my major a fourth time, I hastily added a minor in Education my senior year, moved back in with my parents and went back to school to get my secondary English license.  

I never regretted that move and thirteen years later, working with students is still one of the greatest privileges in my life.  I deeply believe that teaching is cyclical: I teach, and in doing so, I learn, and the more I dedicated myself to each, the better I got. It was like training for a race: with every run, my endurance improved and I got a little faster. I modestly but proudly thought I was training to become a pretty damn good teacher.

And then I hit “the wall”.  

Any runner you ask will nod knowingly if you mention ‘the wall.’ It’s that moment in a long run when you are physiologically and psychologically depleted, and your legs turn to leaden rubber, your lungs painfully squeeze, and your brain screams at you to just. give. up.  

On a random day in a random week, I thought long and hard about giving up.  I even made a pro/con t-chart, getting down to the nitty-gritty details of a guaranteed supply of sticky notes versus not having to pick staples out of my wall.  Part of me was appalled; an absurdly large chunk of my self-identity happily revolved around being a teacher.  I was at a loss to explain my floundering to anyone: my colleagues, my husband, and least of all to myself.

When it comes right down to it - and if you are doing it right - teaching is hard.  I had been running a half-marathon of teaching over the last thirteen years, and it was time to cross the finish line.  I needed a change, but I didn't want to leave education.  

The solution, my husband and I decided, was to move abroad.  Teaching English in a foreign country is on my bucket list, so maybe it was time to cross that one off.  Unfortunately, nothing international happens quickly, and in the interim, I applied for a different position with the district.  To my surprise and pleasure, I was offered the job. I accepted and immediately panicked at the idea of leaving the classroom.  What was I going to do without my kids? Who was going to make sure I knew all the hip slang and what the Kardashians were up to?

I spent the rest of the year alternating between excitement and guilt.  Intellectually, I understand that a lot of teachers leave the classroom for other opportunities in education, but it also, on some level, feels like quitting.  When my students found out and exclaimed “You’re leaving us?!”, I hunched my shoulders in shame.  Alternatively, I felt a certain joy in cleaning out my room, gently packing good memories in boxes and gleefully tossing out years of accumulated and hoarded junk.

Regardless, in the fall I began a new job at the district office, and...I love it.  It’s been like starting a new run, when you’re fresh and bouncy and the road stretches out in front of you.  I’m still a teacher, but now I teach new teachers, helping to guide them along as they enter the delightful and challenging profession of educating our students.  

Teachers are, I am beginning to see, only part of the system - an important part, to be sure, but one element in a complex and evolving organism.  My journey as a teacher is now one of change, of newness, of leadership and mentorship.  I think it’s going to be a pretty darn good run.

Jennifer Rios taught high school English at the Las Vegas Academy in Las Vegas, NV. Currently, she is a Project Facilitator at CCSD's Employee Onboarding and Development working primarily with new teachers. After 12 years in the classroom, Rios moved from teaching students to teaching teachers. #thisteachersjourney

Write Right Now--What is Your Journey?

I launched a blog this year to not just share my experiences as a 17-year educator, but to open up a space where other educators: new ones, veterans, retired, K-12 and beyond can share theirs. Teaching is hard. The narrative around our career is often negative, but there are so many wonderful stories to share.

My journey has been one of triumph, learning, tears, evolutions, and reflections. My blog is a step toward not only reflecting on my journey, but to contribute to the narrative surrounding educators and education in a positive way. With 3.5 million educators in the U.S. , there are unfortunately not 3.5 positive stories shared daily. This Teacher's Journey is a small step in changing that.

As a veteran educator, my experiences have run the gamut. Professionally, I have earned accolades and awards, taken hours and hours of coursework and professional development, attended and presented at conferences. I've taught grades 6,9,10,11,12. I've taught remediation classes all the way to AP. I've taught over 3,000 students: wonderfully creative kids, kind human beings, those who struggle to learn, those who needed school and my classroom for normalcy and escape. My students have suffered experiences that most adults will never have to. I have bought shoes and food for students, paid for bus passes and field trips, been a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. I've been privileged to be their mentor, their cheerleader, the one who introduces them to a new book, the one who helps them discover their voices.

By giving my students a multi-faceted education, and by continuing to be a life-long learner and advocate, I have had the pleasure of seeing them bloom into leaders, confident adults, human beings who can overcome even the darkest of circumstances. The extra hours, the extra dollars, and the extra work have all been worth it because my journey has given me the extraordinary opportunity to help young people take journeys of their own.

I am honored and humbled to be one of the adults in the lives of over 3,000 students who helped carve out a path to education, career, and happiness. The stories are many and by sharing them, I hope to let others know how special my students and colleagues are and how important teaching truly is.

I invite you, fellow educators, to share your journey with me. Help me make This Teacher's Journey the place where anyone who wants to can read about our daily lives, our struggles and celebrations, our professional and personal evolutions.

Teachers are people too--people with stories to tell. Let me help you tell yours.