Just the other day I was on the phone with my dearest friend (we go back over 40 years) discussing what its really like to be back in school while having tweens and teens, and maintaining everything else in the grand category of life. We have always done everything within a year of each other. She is a year older (we both just celebrated birthdays in the last couple of weeks) and all our lives, whatever one of us does, the other follows suit within a year with very few exceptions. It never matters who does what first, the other one is due within a year. Graduation, marriage, first teaching job, births, home buying, car buying, pet adoptions, etc. All this background is to set the stage for our conversation that ultimately led us to my masters program update. We laughed that she needed to enroll in school soon because I went ahead and jumped in without consulting her. We lamented over whether or not she has to enroll within a year of my enrollment or within a year of my graduation (no consensus has been reached on that front). She's been contemplating a return to school for quite sometime and wanted the real deal, raw truth. Can she do it?
I advised her that graduate school is not for the weak. It's like having a new born all over again. Sleep is overrated because you get started on homework after your kids go to bed which can make for very late nights. Your brain can become a scattered mess as you juggle upcoming assignments, bake sales, sectionals, auditions, laundry, bills, groceries, and fill in the blank. I'm fairly certain I have worked harder academically that I ever have before. Learning by doing is hard. It would be easier to read some text, discuss a little, write a few paragraphs and take a test. This is different. This is laying our passions on the table and working to change something we believe in. I am passionate about using my learning to drive change. I am passionate about helping future teachers discover the world of blended learning that tears down the confines of their classrooms and turns the educational experience of students into something magical.
I am going to propose to my district leadership, high school principals and one of our CTE teachers that I provide (by modeling and co-teaching) blended learning experiences to the Instructional Practices in Education and Training (IPET) senior level courses. My district has a lot of great teachers that are innovative, creative and who are using available technologies is engaging ways. So much of what they have done and are doing was learned on the job as they craved more options for the creation and sharing of authentic, real world student work. There is incredible value in building capacity among the teachers by working alongside their colleagues who have tried, learned and tried again. However, I'm focussed on the pre pre-service teachers. Catching them while they are still in high school and laying the foundation for the experiences and expectations they should have in their future college level teacher preparation programs.
How does this proposal go from idea into action? When is this really going to happen? What are the next steps? Enter the timeline (the revised edition). I shared the original timeline with my cohort in a previous blog post, was asked great "have you considered" type questions (some of those questions ended up in my class discussion posts and also via text/email) and then made edits to my original plan. That's not to say that more tweaks won't happen along the way. Being flexible and fluid is important, but the proverbial ball is more likely to get rolling if there is something on (digital) paper.
This post began as a proclamation of the intense work that has been done so far, but there's one piece that I haven't mentioned expressly, although it may have spotted it in my proposal. I wrote a literature review. My fixed mindset said academic writing is not in my skill set. That fixed mindset and I had to have little heart to heart. When all was said and done, I got very useful feedback from my professor (thanks Dr. H!), made some necessary edits, added to some of the sections and now have research and documentation to back up my passions. There's so much more that I need and want to read. At some point, I need to keep a running list of the things I want to read the first time and/or look over again. Now seems like the perfect time and place to start that list. Reading suggestions are welcome in the comment section.
To come full circle, what advice would I give my dearest friend? Can she and should she follow her own passions and pursue an advanced degree? Yes. Whole-heartedly, yes. It will be intense, but she'll walk away an even more passionate teacher than she is now. My dearest friends and family know that I've been known to compartmentalize a bit and I really appreciate status bars (and check lists and itineraries). This end of EDLD 5305 will mark # classes in and 25% of the way through the program, but the percent changes in my mindset, learning, views and perspectives are so much greater.
Innovation Plan - My Innovation Plan page ties the big idea components together (kind of like this blog post), but I would send the Innovation Plan page in an email vs sending this blog post. There's a lot more personal context here in the blog, whereas the innovation plan page is much more straightforward and to the point.
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