SOMETIMES SAYING IT OUT LOUD DOES MAKE IT REAL

Tonight I was on a panel of immersion educators discussing struggling learners and general immersion strategies. Then I had a breakout session afterward. I thought it went well, which is nice. I loved seeing colleagues that I miss and respect. One of my friends asked how things are going in high school. "I don't cry anymore," I responded. "You have to do what you love," says a friend, "Don't work where you aren't happy." I realized that I DO like high school now. I just have to get good at it.

I've gotten over the knowledge that my job isn't important to almost anyone. I can laugh about the fact that the principal gave the tiny room I asked for to someone else. I still feel like I could not show up for work for two weeks and only 3 people would notice. But, still--- it's going all right. My kids are pretty great and I finally have some friends that make every lunch period happy.

Now, all I have to do is keep refining this ginormous job of speech-language pathologist at the high school level. I know I need to teach strategies, but my kids don't seem to generalize them. So I try to help with content and assignments, but I don't see them enough to keep up with what they do in class. If I do push-in service (which I will do a lot of next year), I will be doing more literacy and less oral language... I have a lot of ideas, I just have to figure out what to do and when. I want to be awesome. I just have to figure out how.

Big Dirty Secrets

Can't sleep.
I've been brainstorming, researching, taking notes and (theoretically) improving my practice all week. I am an Ideator. I'm just not always an Implementer. This is my big dirty teacher secret. If I implemented a fraction of my kick-ass ideas, I would be Queen of the World.

When the teachers from SPPS came back from Winter Break, we were greeted with a letter from the Superintendent. In it, she said that since this was the midway point in the year, it was time for us to make course corrections if we weren't getting the results we wanted and it was time to re-frame obstacles into opportunities. This really spoke to me. I decided to get out of the self-feeding spiral of whining-wishing-lamenting and get on with getting on. I gave my co-worker a silver bar at Christmas with the following message inscribed on it: Change your attitude and you change your world. I decided I needed an attitude change. And ever since that day, I have been happier at work. It's funny how the job is no different today than it was 2 months ago--absolutely nothing has changed but my attitude---and I feel the difference every day. It's not the "ahhhhh, I'm HOME" feeling of my old school, but it IS less hectic than my old school.

Getting back to my sleeplessness:
I am SO EXCITED to use both differentiation and UDL/technology in my teaching but I need a consistent place in which to do it. This means that I need to glom onto some nice teacher who has a room and access to technology (because we all know that this isn't going to happen for me). This also means that, since I'm a bit of a control freak, that I need a team teacher who will kind of let me do whatever I want. I am already planning who. And I am already planning when (starting in the fall when we go to a 7-period day instead of a 4-period day). I know it will be hard. But I can't wait to see some of my kids more engaged in their learning. I also am thinking about writing my IEPs so that I see kids each day in a class or 2, but only for 1 or 2 quarters a year. Although that doesn't seem "right" at first blush, it will actually be WAAAAY more therapy time for them. And I can check for carryover of strategies. And I can bring more differentiation and technology in if I am there each day. These ideas mean that I also will have to get my way with scheduling, but I think I can do it.....

Reframing obstacles into opportunities. Thanks, VS. I needed that.