{"id":129,"date":"2015-06-24T19:06:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T19:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/?p=129"},"modified":"2015-07-29T05:05:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T05:05:57","slug":"2014-15-drafts-1-started-from-the-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/2015\/06\/24\/2014-15-drafts-1-started-from-the-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"2014-15 Drafts 1: Started from the Bottom…"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I talk to new teachers I’m always curious how they feel about the workload associated with this profession.\u00a0 It occurs to me that even in the most laid back environment teaching can be nearly impossible work, and I wonder how new teachers cope with that fact.<\/p>\n

In my experience the fact that there are currently about 150 young people counting on you to provide them with good instruction can be very stressful.\u00a0 The\u00a0reality that many of them need much more than just scholastic assistance from us can be even more daunting.\u00a0 The idea that it’s now or never with this group of 150 kids is probably motivation enough for some people to spend 18 hours a day thinking about and working on ways to improve their program so that those 150 kids get the absolute best throughout the year.\u00a0 But 18 hours working means 24 – 18 hours of not working, and that’s borderline crazy if you ask me.\u00a0 So the best advice I can give a young teacher is to be patient.\u00a0 To realize that there are another 150 kids coming next year, and as much as this year is about the 150 you have now, it’s also about preparing yourself for the 3000 more you’ll see over the next 20 years.\u00a0 I tell teachers not to be afraid to take their time to be great.\u00a0 I tell them to try one or two big-picture strategies they want to use this year, see what works and try one or two more the next year.\u00a0 I remind them that 6 hours after work this year is the same as 2 hours after work for the next 3 years, the only difference is that you wont be so burnt out after this year that you’ll be considering a new career path.<\/p>\n

So my general advice to new teachers, especially the youngest ones, is to take their time trying to get to the top of the metaphorical mountain they see as great classroom teaching.\u00a0 If your ultimate goal is the top of the mountain, enjoy the journey because if you hike all day and all night you’ll get tired of hiking before you even make it anywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which brings me to another thought.\u00a0 I always envisioned the\u00a0mountain I was climbing and saw the top as the ultimate goal for\u00a0myself as\u00a0a teacher.\u00a0 And as a new teacher I could see the peak and it didn’t\u00a0really look that far away.\u00a0 But in my infinite wisdom (desire to enjoy other aspects of my youth\u00a0and general laziness) I never rushed to get to the top.\u00a0 Every day I would climb a little more and slowly but surely I found myself climbing extra during hours that I used to spend doing other things.\u00a0 I found myself enjoying the climb as if I was finally getting in shape and found it to be a bit of a hobby that I wanted to do more of on the side.\u00a0 After about seven or eight years of climbing I made it to the top of the mountain.\u00a0 I looked out over my classroom and realized that I had become the teacher that I wanted to be.\u00a0 I was at the peak that I had been slowly climbing towards for all those years.<\/p>\n

And then something happened that was simultaneously terrible and fantastic.\u00a0 I turned around\u00a0and\u00a0realized that the peak I had been climbing had been hiding another even larger mountain behind it.\u00a0 During my climb I had learned a thing or two about climbing, but also a thing or two about mountains and now I knew that there was so much more to this teaching thing.\u00a0 My goals had become loftier and more far reaching.\u00a0 So I put my pack back on and starting climbing again.\u00a0 It was actually great news.\u00a0 I wasn’t ready to stop climbing anyway.<\/p>\n

I’ve made it to the top of a few more peaks since and now I can see pretty far in all directions.\u00a0\u00a0What I see is\u00a0peaks everywhere.\u00a0 Some higher and some lower and only a few that I have ever explored.\u00a0 It’s beautiful.\u00a0 It’s daunting.\u00a0 It’s exciting.<\/p>\n

This job is crazy.\u00a0 You can work and think ’til you can’t anymore and there will always be another challenge waiting for you.\u00a0 I love it.\u00a0 But it’s nuts.\u00a0 I hope to take a little time off this summer.\u00a0 Maybe go climb some real mountains.\u00a0 I also hope to work on this blog, #MTBoS around a little more, and write a lot of curriculum.\u00a0 Oh yeah and TMC 2015.\u00a0 That stands for Team Mountain Climbers right?\u00a0 Count me in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Me last summer living the dream (living the metaphor) in Switzerland.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I talk to new teachers I’m always curious how they feel about the workload associated with this profession.\u00a0 It occurs to me that even in the most laid back environment teaching can be nearly impossible work, and I wonder how new teachers cope with that fact. In my experience the fact that there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/nate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}