Perhaps I have always thought this way, but about eight years ago I really started to live and breathe my life as a teacher. I certainly worked hard enough in the beginning, but as I transition to AP World History and then Photography, teaching became who I was in a much more definitive manner.
Six months ago, I officially left the classroom for the job I always wanted – an admin educational technology job. I started this blog post about that time, but I started to avoid it when I got about halfway done. It is still a little surreal and I’m a sentimentalist who craves change. An odd mix, but here I am.
It has been eight years since I celebrated my 10 year anniversary of the classroom. At that time I felt it necessary to reflect on what had happened in those first ten years (Part 1 and Part 2). While I don’t update the blog much these days, I had planned to reflect on the next ten when I hit year 20. Since I didn’t make it 20, I wanted to get it down before the dark side of being an administrator clouded my thought process.
Year 10 (AP World and CP World)
While I covered this year in the first edition, it was a pivotal point in my teaching career that would take me a couple years to fully feel its significance. This was when I started teaching AP World History. That six year journey would shake everything I knew about teaching and really changed everything. I got to teach to a level that satisfied my intellectual yearnings. The course itself changed my worldview, forcing me to look well beyond the context of the Eurocentric world history class I had been teaching up to this point. My systems theory worldview just clicked about halfway through the year. My connection to this group of students was especially strong, we all journeyed through 10,000 years of history for the first time together. That year was also when I finally completed my MA in Educational Technology from SDSU.
Year 11 (AP World and CP World)
While the year before was amazing, the workload was suffocating. Four sections of AP World was just not healthy. My good friend Matt joined me for the AP World journey. My three CP classes were exceptional this year as well. I made a series of game changing steps in my ed tech trajectory when I became a Google Certified Teacher, joined the PBS Advisory Board, and started writing curriculum for PBS. It was also when I moved classrooms and started sharing an office with Reuben Hoffman. On a personal note, my daughter was born that December.
Year 12 (AP World, CP World, and Web Design)
By year three, I finally felt comfortable with the AP curriculum. This was when I started using Google Docs with my students and our collaborative review project included another school from the Northern California. I worked on the World Without Oil curriculum and then implemented it in the CP classes. It was one of those moments where kids connected to the world in an authentic manner. I added Web Design to my class load. This was a tremendous challenge because I do not have a knack for code, but I was able to have a handful of my year 10 AP World students in my class again. Really solidified my connection to this group. This was also when I took over the school website. Towards the end of the school year, I was nominated for the school and then district Teacher of the Year award. I wouldn’t win at the county level, but it was an honor to make it as far as I did. It also kept me at West Hills when I was seriously considering a move to a different school.
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