We’re reaching the end of week one with our teachers, and my agenda of “To Do” items has become two pages long.  The tough part about the list is all of the things are important and have to be done; there are no items that can carry over for more than a week, so I’ll be spending some early mornings and late nights getting everything up to standard.  I was speaking to my boss today, and she mentioned how she’s cleared out her inbox of unread items. Mine, on the other hand, has about 1,000 messages, mostly from things I’ve subscribed to such as Edweek and Principal’s Center, that I haven’t had a chance to either delete or read.  That’s how summer does us- it gives educators some beach time and relaxation, but then it ends, and we have to break out of the jog and go into a sprint to get caught back up on everything.  That’s the job we are tasked to do, and in the end we find value in the hard work that we do.

This year, we celebrate our Big 10 at Carver Road Middle, and I still can’t believe 10 years have passed since the doors of the school opened.  I can remember walking in the doors of my own classroom and being super excited…that is, until the kids arrived.  I’d planned this awesome “get to know you” activity, and I soon realized that what I’d planned would only last 20 minutes!  The problem was there were 35 more minutes in the class.  I remember my team leader, Ms. Bell (@ChandraFBell) coming over to make sure everything was ok.  She whispered, “You good, G-Money?”  I laughed and told her that I’d be okay.  It’s funny because the nickname she’d given me in just two week of knowing me, always made me laugh, and it always reminded me to always be myself.  That’s what would get me through the tough times, and that’s what would help me build meaningful relationships with the people around me.  To this day, Mrs. Bell still uses that nickname for me, and I still laugh every time.  But getting back to the lesson- I was able to improvise, and I made it through.  And yes, it was tough, but I quickly learned from my mistakes and continued to make the improvements until I got it right!

” I can remember walking through the doors of my own classroom and being super excited…that is, until the kids arrived.  I’d planned this awesome “get to know you” activity, and I soon realized that what I’d planned would only last 20 minutes!

 

Looking at the picture above helps me to remember that I had a lot of great people I could talk to and learn from during my first year, and I want to be that person for the new teachers that we have at our school, and I also want to be that person for the teachers who’ve been with us for multiple years.  I’ve been studying the “Get Better Faster” framework to ensure I can be an effective coach for the new teachers because one thing is for sure- educators only get one chance to have a first year, and it can be a deciding factor as to whether that person stays in education or decides to venture out into the corporate world.  We need great educators, and coaching and support are key to helping build great people who can change the lives of kids.

Celebrating the big 10 has me aligning my focus with the foci that we have as a school, and it also has me reflecting on the words that Casey Bethel (@2017GATOTY) shared with us at our opening celebration.  He stated that we needed to commit to hard work and that we need to commit to team work.  He discussed these priorities in the respective order one has to commit to them, and it makes sense.   In just thinking about today, I can see that our admin team works extremely hard individually, but today we came together, sat down in Dr. Taylor’s office, and worked for hours on end to make sure all of the students’ schedules were exactly how we wanted them to be.  EVERYTHING is intentional this year, from the literacy classes the students take to the Enrichment courses that we assign.  Our priorities are aligned around literacy, PLCs, and personalized learning, and we’ve committed to pushing past the roadblocks and coming out on the other side as victors.  We will celebrate everything around the Big 10 this year, and I’ve vowed that I will tweet more, be in more classes, spend more time with our new teachers, and I’ll even have a chance to mentor new leaders.  It’s all very exciting work, and it’s with my #2185Pride that I commence to celebrating the big 10 with all of those people who’ve played any role in helping Carver Road Middle School become a great place to work and learn.  There are no excuses this year.  We will all be competent and not use tools of incompetence.  We will all make a difference and not stop until we have done so.  We will all change lives….because that’s the purpose of the work we do.  There’s no other alternative, and I’m looking forward to the work.  Let’s celebrate and make the Big 10 one for the books.

With #2185Pride,

Dr. G.