Planting Seeds

I sit here after reading an article about my grandfather and think I’ve put some of the pieces together. I am a lot like my grandfather. He was quiet and unassuming. Always looking to make something work better and trying to help make the world better. There are probably a lot more similarities that I'm not aware of too.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my current journey through life both personally and professionally. Honestly, I don’t think there will ever be a clear separation with the two based on my career path in education. I’ve been listening to the EduAllstars podcast and the stories of other educators while thinking of my own story almost daily on my commute into work. All in hopes of gaining clarity about my direction, purpose, and maybe help others here is my story.

It all started when I was a teenager thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. Most of my life had been spent wanting more and desiring more money than what I was used to. I figured I could go into business or sports journalism as I was a huge sports fan and loved money. Then in high school something changed. I went to volunteer at St. Francis Farm where my grandfather ran a catholic worker farm. It was basically a place that churches would send groups to do volunteer work, connect with the community, and connect with the world around them. I really enjoyed my work there, and was able to meet someone who I have lost touch with but influenced me more than he knows (recently found him on Facebook though). His name was Mike (he had a good name) and he ran a free soccer camp each summer for local kids. Mike asked me to volunteer there even though I had never played a minute of organized soccer in my life. That camp made me realize I wanted a profession where I could work with kids every day to influence and make their lives better. I felt I had a lot of life lessons to teach them and could connect with anyone. Seed planted.

Fast forward about 12 years later to when my son was born. That was almost two years ago now. The journey of the next two years I think has led me to finally begin sprouting some of the seeds my grandfather planted throughout my life even without his knowing. I do want to say that when this two year journey has been tough I just imagine how hard it has been for my cousin Meghan who has gone though a much tougher journey the last two years and we share my sons birth date as special for completely different reasons. Thanks to her for her unknown inspiration to me.

When my son was born I started to think about all the great things I wanted to show him and do with him, but I was too focused on myself and too far from my family to see what was coming next. When my son was 9 months old I lived in North Carolina and was a 12 hour car ride or a 2 connection plane ride from most of my family in New York. It was a few days before Christmas when my grandfather passed without the chance to meet my son. I already knew I wanted to be close to family, but I also wanted to continue on in his legacy serving others and helping make the world better. I am a lot like him in that we were both low key, I am becoming more easy going, and we would often times sit back and watch then get up and do it. I was learning the real value of being close to family, but struggling with trying to make an impact in education.

Then a few months later I got started on Twitter. It was a great way for me to connect with other educators. What I am realizing now is that I fit in because of lessons learned from my grandfather. While this was going on we were looking to leave North Carolina and move to Maryland so we could be closer to family. Then I decided that my impact on education would be greater if we went to Texas. I failed to account for the impact having family near by can have. While this journey in Texas has helped me change lives, influence others, make lifelong friends, and made me a better person I think I have learned the value of having family a car ride away. Which is what cost my son a chance to meet one of the greatest people I have ever known.

Here I am now, with a mission. I want to plant seeds in as many people as possible. I need to further my grandfather's cause and purpose to change the world and help others. Imagine if he could have leveraged social media to help him. That is my mission to help others. However, the people on top of that list to help right now are my family. I want to spend most of my time and energy making sure I am making their lives better. Then I will pour myself into education: helping students, teachers, and community members who need me. Hopefully in connecting these dots as I move forward will help me to properly thank my grandfather for all he has done.

Professional Learning

I have been thinking about what professional learning is for a few weeks now. If I were asked this a year ago I would have had a quick answer. It is learning related to my profession. However, now my ideas have changed some.

Professional learning in the field of education is learning about how to be a better teacher. To be a better teacher I need to learn about learning.  Then wouldn’t going through the process of learning improve my teaching? I keep thinking back to a time I had to change the starter in my car which was stuck in our garage. I remember searching online and researching for hours trying to find out how to do this. After spending most of a day I had accomplished the task and fixed the car. This whole process of doing a household chore taught me a lot about learning and failure. It took a lot of failure and retrying to figure out how to get the job done. So was this day a day of professional learning? I think so.

In addition, I know that learning and engagement are strongly related. Also we are most engaged when we have choice, autonomy, and purpose. Too often in our field the autonomy and even the choice is taken out of professional learning. In a field where the purpose is so obvious and important we should do a better job of providing educators with autonomy and choice in their professional learning.

My thoughts are that true professional learning is something done on your own choice with your own time. However, schools need to do a better job of providing educators with more time to pursue this learning. There are many days I find myself too tired and run down after what seems like endless scheduled meetings or things that must be done to complete my own learning. I wish as a teacher I could get some 20% time each week to work on whatever I wanted related to my profession. That would allow my teaching skills to really take off.

https://unsplash.com/