i feel like i am going to explode
...in the best way possible
i've been feeling, lately, a sense of restlessness and itchiness-- i've been feeling like i've been bumping up against the sides of a box, in multiple ways.
on the one hand, the sensation has made me second-guess myself, my current stage of growth, and so on: my position. it's made me feel dissatisfied in a way that hasn't felt good.
i feel ready to grow.
i have felt ready to grow for a while-- i don't know why part of me assumed it had to be a familial growth. i was mistaken in thinking so, and in becoming frustrated about that perceived need, that sense that because i needed that growth it meant i had somehow ceased to grow over recent years (read: had failed), which felt somehow shameful or embarrassing. i could feel that bumping up, that strong, strong desire to flex and stretch and push forward in some different direction (same direction, but further into some new place)-- how silly of me to place the bulk of the pressure on my relationship, when my relationship is still pretty new and growing all by itself.
how silly of me, also, not to notice all the many, many recent intersections that have crisscrossed in front of and under and into me pointing in many directions but also at the same time only in one: outward.
i have been doing what i do for nearly 15 years-- what a gestation! i have been absorbing it and eating it and digesting it all for over a decade... i feel ready, finally, to take all this food and metabolize it into energy, to transform it into something else.
they have offered me an administrative position at my school. i declined the initial offer, saying i did not want to walk out of my classroom entirely, but that i would consider ways to make it work. in the end, i agreed to take on a part-time admin position on top of my teacher position in such a way that i can still serve the needs of my students and teaching team while also accomplishing the goals i set with my administrative team. some friends think this is insane, given the time i already put in. i think it is exciting. i've hit the ground running, beginning to lay the groundwork for my first several projects.
meanwhile, here i am at the 2010 AMS conference, my 12th national conference and my 22nd (? ish) montessori conference overall. i have, by now, served my teaching peers by becoming a master teacher and supporting the efforts of interns in my school; i have become field consultant for my training program and begun to assist interns in other schools as well. i have begun collecting article ideas, have in fact begun writing. i have been able to sit and laugh with my AMS elders, look them in the eye, and speak with them with mutual respect and enjoyment.
i feel ready to become something larger than i have been.
a year and a half ago, an old friend and i met up for the first time in 15 years, and he asked, "so, how's your career going? do you think you've arrived?" this isn't the first time an old friend has asked me something like this. when i was a younger person, you see, i hung out with a brilliant set of people-- those cty kids, etc, for example ;-) -- and a great deal of them have "arrived" in their fields. the friend with whom i was talking on this particular occasion, for example, had made a happy fortune by age 30, and retired with a chunk of land in vermont by age 32. others had built small fortunes in finance or entertainment, or built homes and families and marked themselves otherwise as adults, markedly different from who they were when we used to ride bikes and shoot baskets in our parents' driveways. it's always been a little awkward for me when my friends, successful by the standard definition, ask me about my professional progression. I'm a teacher, you see. I love it. But that's what I am, what I have been, and probably what I will always be, simply. If you asked me to describe how my day had gone, it would probably echo quite closely my response to the same question if you had asked it 10 years ago. It's a tricky dichotomy for me -- on the one hand, i am grateful that I am as excited by and in love with my job today as i was a decade ago. On the other hand, it's hard not to wonder if it's normal to be in the same place for so long. can there be such a thing as excited stasis?
how nice, then, today, to hear white-haired jack blessington say, "just because you're a teacher and you love what you do doesn't mean you can't do anything else..." -- smiling right into my heart as he said it.
i will always be a teacher, and i will always love it.
but i am beyond excited to mentor younger teachers and teachers-to-be. i am thrilled that i have been asked to become a field consultant, and i have felt honored by each question posed to me by each intern i have had the pleasure to observe. i am checking in frequently with my colleague in haiti, ready to spring into action when it comes time to rebuild their school, train a staff. I feel ready to assist my own school with all things related to curriculum development and parent education; i have sunk my teeth into the Scholarship Problem, and i relish the puzzle of it all (i WILL get it off the ground, even if it takes me 5 years to make it successful). i feel ready to give back to NJMAC, which has nurtured me since my very first position, taken in 1995. i feel ready to join the folks at AMS in nyc and in ct. i want to read widely (as i already do), and i want to connect what i read and synthesize it and get it out there for others to read and understand. i want to push it further than it has ever been in the world so far. i want to one day be one of the white-haired friends in the front of the room charging the younger folks to please, please take care of the precious thing that is american montessori.
4 days of full-time pedagogy, practice & philosophy-- exhausting, exciting, all.
by the way, when the elders related how annoyed the first AMS graduates were when their certificates were *not* AMI certificates, the only thing I could think of was how things have changed. AMI is a gift in the world, too, I know, but as I said to Ginny at the end of the open forum, I am so immeasurably proud of my AMS certificate. Every year, it means more.
i've been feeling, lately, a sense of restlessness and itchiness-- i've been feeling like i've been bumping up against the sides of a box, in multiple ways.
on the one hand, the sensation has made me second-guess myself, my current stage of growth, and so on: my position. it's made me feel dissatisfied in a way that hasn't felt good.
i feel ready to grow.
i have felt ready to grow for a while-- i don't know why part of me assumed it had to be a familial growth. i was mistaken in thinking so, and in becoming frustrated about that perceived need, that sense that because i needed that growth it meant i had somehow ceased to grow over recent years (read: had failed), which felt somehow shameful or embarrassing. i could feel that bumping up, that strong, strong desire to flex and stretch and push forward in some different direction (same direction, but further into some new place)-- how silly of me to place the bulk of the pressure on my relationship, when my relationship is still pretty new and growing all by itself.
how silly of me, also, not to notice all the many, many recent intersections that have crisscrossed in front of and under and into me pointing in many directions but also at the same time only in one: outward.
i have been doing what i do for nearly 15 years-- what a gestation! i have been absorbing it and eating it and digesting it all for over a decade... i feel ready, finally, to take all this food and metabolize it into energy, to transform it into something else.
they have offered me an administrative position at my school. i declined the initial offer, saying i did not want to walk out of my classroom entirely, but that i would consider ways to make it work. in the end, i agreed to take on a part-time admin position on top of my teacher position in such a way that i can still serve the needs of my students and teaching team while also accomplishing the goals i set with my administrative team. some friends think this is insane, given the time i already put in. i think it is exciting. i've hit the ground running, beginning to lay the groundwork for my first several projects.
meanwhile, here i am at the 2010 AMS conference, my 12th national conference and my 22nd (? ish) montessori conference overall. i have, by now, served my teaching peers by becoming a master teacher and supporting the efforts of interns in my school; i have become field consultant for my training program and begun to assist interns in other schools as well. i have begun collecting article ideas, have in fact begun writing. i have been able to sit and laugh with my AMS elders, look them in the eye, and speak with them with mutual respect and enjoyment.
i feel ready to become something larger than i have been.
a year and a half ago, an old friend and i met up for the first time in 15 years, and he asked, "so, how's your career going? do you think you've arrived?" this isn't the first time an old friend has asked me something like this. when i was a younger person, you see, i hung out with a brilliant set of people-- those cty kids, etc, for example ;-) -- and a great deal of them have "arrived" in their fields. the friend with whom i was talking on this particular occasion, for example, had made a happy fortune by age 30, and retired with a chunk of land in vermont by age 32. others had built small fortunes in finance or entertainment, or built homes and families and marked themselves otherwise as adults, markedly different from who they were when we used to ride bikes and shoot baskets in our parents' driveways. it's always been a little awkward for me when my friends, successful by the standard definition, ask me about my professional progression. I'm a teacher, you see. I love it. But that's what I am, what I have been, and probably what I will always be, simply. If you asked me to describe how my day had gone, it would probably echo quite closely my response to the same question if you had asked it 10 years ago. It's a tricky dichotomy for me -- on the one hand, i am grateful that I am as excited by and in love with my job today as i was a decade ago. On the other hand, it's hard not to wonder if it's normal to be in the same place for so long. can there be such a thing as excited stasis?
how nice, then, today, to hear white-haired jack blessington say, "just because you're a teacher and you love what you do doesn't mean you can't do anything else..." -- smiling right into my heart as he said it.
i will always be a teacher, and i will always love it.
but i am beyond excited to mentor younger teachers and teachers-to-be. i am thrilled that i have been asked to become a field consultant, and i have felt honored by each question posed to me by each intern i have had the pleasure to observe. i am checking in frequently with my colleague in haiti, ready to spring into action when it comes time to rebuild their school, train a staff. I feel ready to assist my own school with all things related to curriculum development and parent education; i have sunk my teeth into the Scholarship Problem, and i relish the puzzle of it all (i WILL get it off the ground, even if it takes me 5 years to make it successful). i feel ready to give back to NJMAC, which has nurtured me since my very first position, taken in 1995. i feel ready to join the folks at AMS in nyc and in ct. i want to read widely (as i already do), and i want to connect what i read and synthesize it and get it out there for others to read and understand. i want to push it further than it has ever been in the world so far. i want to one day be one of the white-haired friends in the front of the room charging the younger folks to please, please take care of the precious thing that is american montessori.
4 days of full-time pedagogy, practice & philosophy-- exhausting, exciting, all.
by the way, when the elders related how annoyed the first AMS graduates were when their certificates were *not* AMI certificates, the only thing I could think of was how things have changed. AMI is a gift in the world, too, I know, but as I said to Ginny at the end of the open forum, I am so immeasurably proud of my AMS certificate. Every year, it means more.
posted by raritan at 11:26 PM
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