Life Update Dec. 2022

Wow…where did 2022 go?!?

This year just flew by. I started the year with many ambitious goals; my draft pile shows it. I have so many posts, half-written or entirely written, but I need to add images for videos. Hopefully, those posts will come to light in 2023. For this post it will be about teaching life update with summer travel and fall teaching.

Big Changes

This year I made the huge and scary decision to leave the district I started my teaching career and spent the last nine years. I developed many relationships with the community and my teacher peers, but I needed a change. What change that was I didn’t know at the beginning of the new year. I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue teaching – not because of the students, they are the highlight of my day – but because of so many factors that I could not control. So that led to my decision to take a summer gig while I explored my options.

Wrapping up the School Year

In late April, I applied for a summer job as a trail marshall at the Route of the Hiawatha in Northern Idaho (and Montana since the trail goes through both states). I wrapped up the school year and watch my first students I ever taught in 4th-grade graduate High School. An emotional and rewarding experience. The last year one of the Seniors I taught M ended up being my high school helper in my classroom all year long. It was amazing to see what a great human she had grown up into as well as how she helped my 2nd grade students.

Road Trip and Summer Job

After graduation, I started the drive from Texas to Idaho. The job included housing, so I packed my camping gear and a small part of my life into my vehicle, picked up a friend, and hit the road. The rest of my life was packed into a storage unit in my hometown. We stopped along the way and visited several state parks and national parks on the drive up.

It was neat to see ice and snow in June at Grand Teton National Park as well as at Yellowstone National Park. We camped overnight at Grand Teton NP, but had to just drive through and enjoy Yellowstone in less than a day this trip because of time constraints.

Summer 2022

I learned the ropes of changing bike tires, fixing seats, helping lost riders, and so much more. The area was so beautiful I loved working and exploring it. I worked on my stamina and by the end of the summer enjoyed biking 15 miles a day, 4 days a week. On my off days, I hiked and biked around Idaho and explored Glacier National Park in Montana.

After the first few weeks of decompressing and learning a new job, one of the biggest things was the feeling of missing something. I loved working with the families that came to the trail and especially giving an entertaining safety talk that engaged the children. When I rode the trail I loved stopping along the trail each day I worked and answering the questions or telling a story to people of all ages along the trail.

I wouldn’t do anything for several weeks as I still wasn’t sure I wanted to jump back in. One of the most encouraging things I found was when talking with people from all over the world was when I answered the question where I was from/what I did that when I answered I taught was there thanks and positive comments. It was so nice to hear such positives as well as the stories they told.

Biking in northern Idaho

The amount of biking trails, especially the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s in northern Idaho, is astounding. I only section biked a few parts of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s. It started (or ended, depending on your point of view) in the town I stayed in for the summer.

Changes

The defining moment, well, I should say, happened when I talked with a teacher who came up to ride the Hiawatha several days a week for fun in the summer, who lived in southern Idaho. She was a much more experienced teacher than myself, and I asked her some hard questions her answers helped me put into context the parts of education that I struggled with. Part of her answers has shaped how I approached looking into getting back into the education field.

Application

Around this time, a retired teacher I am in a group with reached out to me about applying to the district she lives in. It was a much more urban and larger school district. I had looked in the Spring at her urging previously, and there wasn’t a position I was interested in. This time I was going to be extremely picky about any position in education I applied for because I wanted to find the right fit. When I looked at the district job postings with her urging and found a grade-level position I would be interested in. I applied after some research and that started the ball rolling.

Interview

A response was quickly received but from another school. The principal asked if I would be interested in interviewing for a 2nd-grade position there that wasn’t posted yet on the district site. I researched the school after work and talked to my friend, and she had very positive things to say, so I replied yes.

We set up an Zoom interview time that worked well for everyone. I was in northern Idaho on PST, my soon-to-be principal was on vacation in Kentucky on EST, and my soon-to-be assistant principal was in Texas on CST. The interview went well but was nerve-racking (I haven’t interviewed in nine years).

I heard back in email form right after that they would be checking with my references and letting me know what step was next. My previous principal texted me 2 days later to ask if my ears were burning because she had just been praising me on the reference check. That afternoon I got an email saying they were recommending me for hire to HR.

Now What?

From the application to the official email offer letter was 9 days. Then I had to find a place to live in Texas while still in northern Idaho. It was all online with a little in-person snooping by my friend for my criteria (close to the new school and a safe area since I had never even visited this area of Texas before). A week later, I found an apartment within my budget and put in an application. It got accepted and I planned to move in the last week of August.

Everything went smoothly on the job search, housing search, and settling in northern Fort Worth. It was like it was meant to be.

If you made it this far you deserve some more summer travel pictures so here you go on.

Back to School Season

Now not to make things sound so rosy after the above section, I’ll be real with you for a minute. I met my amazing team (and they truly are some of the best 4 teachers I have ever worked with). The in-service went well and I learned a lot. The reality of the first nine weeks was I wanted to quit most of the time. I felt like I was drowning even with A LOT of help from my team. There was three curriculums to learn (science, social studies, and phonics). The procedures at the new school were vastly different from my previous school. The communication style and amount was different as well as dealing with different students behaviors.

After the first nine weeks, things became much more positive. Routines and procedures helped shape my classroom into good classroom management strategies that worked. I learned how to communicate effectively within the systems. I got a good grasp on how to plan and teach the curriculums that works for my students and me. There are so many more positives that I hope to share in the coming weeks and months.

I’ve built up a small but great community of support here that I look forward to strengthening even more. I enjoyed jumping into the school community and events.

Take Away

Teaching isn’t easy. It also isn’t a job done well solo. Find your group of people whether in real life close to you or online. You need support. Changing schools has helped me grow as an educator as well as helped me find a great support system.

I wish you all well and thank you for reading this really long update of the whole 2022 condensed into one post.