God
decides I need to change lanes...
As
a high school teacher (at the time) I was not looking for a
middle school teaching position. In fact someone told me there
was Freshman\Sophomore English position open, which prompted
me to send in my resume to Eminence
Independent Schools. When I got a call for an interview I
cringed when I learned it was either for a 5\6 or 7\8 Language
Arts teacher. I thought of the lunch duty that I had the
previous year with bunch of middle school students throwing
food and running around the gym. Of course, I was an
open-minded person and I went to the interview not sure if
they offered it to me that I would take the job.
As
a recent Intern graduate I was completely intimated by the
school's interview process. The entire middle school staff and
a few parents sat around a table asking me, the candidate,
questions. As horrifying as it seemed, it was a foreshadowing
of a realization I would make weeks later that everything this
school tackles was done as a team. I guess that idea comes
from the principal who is a seasoned football coach. After I
got over the initial shock of a panel of ten people at the
interview, I had a good time. I felt like I was at home. By
the end of the interview I was joking around and laughing. In
fact, the ending question from the principal was "If we
offer you the job, will you take it?" I responded in a
matter that in most interview settings would be inappropriate
"Duh,
would I have come all the way down here of I did not plan to
take the job if asked?" Everyone laughed and the rest is
history.
That
night was the beginning of the greatest ongoing learning
experience I have ever encountered. The experience of being a
facilitator of learning in a middle school has never given me
a boring minute. The greatest challenge I continue to
encounter is trying to get a polished portfolio from each 7th
grader without making myself and a few students cry. And I
never understood after five years of middle school plays why
being a behind the scenes director also gives me stage fright.
Writing and directing have always been a part of my teaching
at Eminence along with being a FCA, BETA and STLP sponsor, my
second year brought a new experience.
A year later, a week before school began I was
returning to Eminence and my team met with an employee of the Migrant
Technology division of OVEC
to give us a classroom set of Personal Digital Assistants. I
never learned so much about technology and teaching as I did
with my students as we learned to use the PDAs. One classroom
turned into the entire 8th grade using PDAs and the resulting
was the beginning of a project, the Paperless
Classroom.. The fall of 2000, which was year later as
press and national companies were visiting my classroom to
learn about PDAs, I sat beginning masters in technology.
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