I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a rut, just spinning my wheels.
During my 7 years of teaching, I’ve attended a number of virtual and live conferences. I’ve had discussions, networked, socialized, listened to speakers, presented and very occassionally, I’ve actually created something. But I feel like I’m spinning my wheels a lot. I’m a talker, a thinker, reflective, but am I focusing my energy in the right way? Perhaps I need to focus less energy on the discussions and planning and more on effecting change in my classrooms and in my school. It’s (relatively) easy to change my own practice. Over the years, I’ve seen a noticeable shift in my teaching from front of the classroom to small groups and student focussed teaching. My teaching used to be about me, my comfort, my needs, my likes. Now I’m pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone. It helps that I know that I can get help from colleagues and others in my network if I’m stumped in my process of improving my teaching and student learning. But how do I systematically initiate change in my school? I used to think that it was about going big or going home. I’d put on tech discussions and workshops even if only one person attended but I felt like I was just bidding my time for a breakthrough. But now I’ve undergone a subtle shift in my thinking. I believe that every discussion counts, every interaction is significant. I believe that small group and one-on-one interactions provide the unique opportunity to connect with the participants as colleagues, as learners, as fellow human beings; they provide the opportunity to build stronger connections.
As I was watching the tweets fly by this morning during edchat, I felt nostalgic. I love the energy and vibrancy of edchat. But at this point in the new school year, on a Wednesday morning, is edchat the best use of my time? I struggled to accept the truth that it is not. It is a better use of my time to prepare for the day and focus on having an edchat like discussion with even one colleague each week.
I love Twitter, Facebook, and all my interactions online, and I will continue to develop those relationships. But for this quarter, my focus is on developing relationships with the colleagues that I work with so that we can learn from each other and continually improve our school.