Just the other week, I realized that February 2, 2016 is my tenth anniversary of becoming a teacher. A decade. A decade. Humbling. Am I even old enough to have a ten year career? I feel like a new teacher on many days. How have I been doing this job for a decade? On the eve of my 10 year anniversary, it is only fitting to find myself back on 22nd Street in Philadelphia for EduCon 2.8.
I called 22nd Street my home when I started teaching and stayed there for a long time during my time with the School District of Philadelphia. Being in this city on this weekend has reminded me why I ever started this journey in the first place. The journey of educating. Journey is the only word that can even be used to describe what I have undertaken. What I undertook ten years ago. Teaching has never been, or ever will be, just a job for me. That is not what I was built to do. My perspective shows the undeniable impact of Jesuit education on me.
If I did not view teaching in this way, I would be neglecting the mantras that I repeatedly heard during my four short years on Hawk Hill:
- “Men and women with and for others”
- “The Magis”
- “AMDG” (Ad majorem Dei gloriam)
- “Go out and set the world on fire.”
Teaching is a calling. Teaching is a vocation. Teaching is a passion. Teaching is setting the world on fire every day.
As part of a Service-Learning English class at SJU during the Fall of 1999, I entered West Philadelphia High School. A steep staircase faced me when I opened the heavy old doors. I will never forget those stairs. I did not know then, but climbing them was symbolic. It was that day that I crossed the threshold and entered the unknown.
Seventeen years later, I am still traveling, much like Odysseus in the Mediterranean, around the unknown.
I will never return to the known. I continually choose to tackle challenges, obstacles, rebirths and deaths. It is within each and every challenge, obstacle, rebirth and death that I have found the fire to educate, and transform the ways in which I educate students and myself. We do not choose this vocation without first being enthusiastic learners ourselves, or at least that is what I like to think.
Teaching, in and of itself, is a call to equity and social justice. I am working for something bigger than myself. This call to action is what drives me every day. What will I learn today? How can I share what I have learned? What will someone else teach me? How will it affect others? How can I empower others? How will others empower me?
At EduCon 2.8, those questions were answered from Session 1 to Session 6. Walking into the Science Leadership Academy, I knew that would be my experience, which is why I reserved this weekend months ago. Having lived blocks away for so long, I watched SLA from afar since its inception. I attended the SLA Teaching Institute last summer. I “get” SLA and its core values. I truly believe that SLA, at its core, is about empowerment, of teachers, students and parents, and spreading that feeling throughout the larger education community. That is EduCon.
EduCon gave me the chance to more fully participate in the larger education community that I have observed for so long. The weekend gave me the chance to interact with respected educators, many of whom I follow on Twitter or have read their articles or books. But again, EduCon is about empowerment, so the weekend was not about me just observing or just listening, but about me contributing to the larger education community.
So here I am, 17 years later, back in the city where I entered that world of education, on the eve of my 10th anniversary of teaching...
Thirty days ago, I made a New Year’s resolution to start blogging about my experiences in education. I once thought that blogging was self-indulgent. Hey you, internet, look at how great I am! Look at what I do! Now, I know it is about contributing to the greater good. Remember those Jesuit mantras? I strengthen my teaching by consulting education blogs, like Catlin Tucker’s, Alice Keeler’s or Adam Schoenbart’s, to learn about best practices and their risk-taking. My attendance at EduCon has empowered me to help others, share my best practices, my risk-taking, my best struggles, my best failures, my reflections...my learning. I do not have a defined plan for my blog, just like I did not have a defined plan for my career in education 17 years ago when I left my Ithaca and cross the threshold.
But here it goes...
Side note: The entries from 2014 were part of a graduate course. Does that even count as blogging?
