Sunday, August 12, 2012

Yearly conundrum

I laid in bed last night anticipating my first day as an AP with the teachers in the building. I found myself in a familiar place, thinking about all the challenges I am going to dish out, but scared to death of failure. I plan on asking for great things from the teachers just like I did from my former students, but like so many times before, I'm paralyzed by fear of the challenges before me. I'm not going to lie. I'm a cocky man that would never willingly admit fear (I think I just did though). However, I'm scared of not living up to my unreasonable expectations. To counter this yearly conundrum, I will have to remember the two things I preached to my students (which really was more of an excuse for a daily personal reminder):

1. Do EVERYTHING with all your heart, mind, strength, and ability.
2. Fail successfully.

Even though my job description has changed, my answer to my yearly conundrum has not: work hard, fail, reflect, learn, repeat.

Friday, August 10, 2012

If the teacher is bored...

I heard a college professor rightfully say in a lecture, "if the teacher is bored, the kids are dead!"

I was thinking about this statement yesterday afternoon on my drive home from school. I thought about the exciting conversations I had with several teachers that were hard at work preparing their rooms for their new students. I thought about the passion and excitement in their voices as they talked about the fun they have in the classroom learning along side the children. I thought about the teaching ideas being generated and shared that will create an exciting learning environment for all. I thought about the teachers that ran into the office ecstatic about a fun video idea that could uniquely showcase our school. I thought about the expressed interest in innovatingly utilizing technology in the classroom in order to make the instruction more rigorous, relevant, and fun.

All this made me wonder, "If the teacher is having fun, the students are _________!"