Time to reflect

When I was a junior in college at SUNY Stony Brook, I finally decided what I wanted to be when I graduated from school. I was going to be a teacher. I was lucky to have as my mentor and professor for 2 years. Dr. Dennis Littky. Dennis at the time was in his mid-20s, a professor in the Education department and at the same time directly involved in creating a new Middle School in the Shoreham-Wading River newly merged school district on Long Island. I learned a lot from Dennis as I completed my final 2 years of undergraduate college. The year I graduated Stony Brook in 1972, Dennis left his post at the university to become the principal of SWR’s new Middle School. In September, when the next school year started, there were only three 6th grade positions in this new school (they hadn’t completely merged yet). I was certified to teach grades Nursery, K-6 but Dennis was reluctant to hire me He wanted more experienced teachers to start his new school. The following January, he did hire me as an administrative assistant, where I worked with his office to help organize a mini-course program run by the teachers in their school. I should point out that at this point, the new Middle School building hadn’t been completed, so the Middle school students were sharing the space with one of the elementary schools, Miller Avenue.

I worked at the Middle School for a month before I was offered a job as a 6th grade teacher (a leave replacement) in another school district. It wouldn’t be until the next school year, September, 1973, when I would be rehired by Dennis as a 6th grade teacher in Shoreham (The 7th, 8th & 9th grades moved to the new Middle School building and there were now seven-6th grade classes that were housed in the Miller Avenue School).

One of the things that Dennis started me on was the concept of reflective practitioning. As a student teacher, Dennis had me keep a journal to write about the things I was doing and learning during my school experience. Since I was able to work with him for almost 2 years at Stony Brook, the practice of writing about my teaching ingrained itself in me. For the next 33 years of my teaching career, I wrote.

Reflective practitioning is an excellent way for teachers to look at what they do. I discovered after my first year teaching, that I was spending a large chunk of my writing focused on the interactions of teachers. I decided that at that point that I would refocus my writings on kids and curriculum. It is fascinating going through those journals and looking at my teaching career. There were some idealist, wonderful ideas that I tried, but looking back now, wonder how foolish I was to think that they would work. There were some incredible things that I succeeded with during the first part of my teaching career that I stopped for no apparent reason. Re-reading my journals always helped me understand more about myself and teaching.

After my sixth year of teaching in the Middle School, I transferred down to the Elementary school. This was a brand new experience for me. Up to that point, I never worked in any other grade other than 6th grade for my entire student-teaching and teaching career. I was now going to a new building to teach a 4th and 5th grade inter-age class. My journal that year was filled with writings as if I were a new person to teaching.

About 12 years after I had started in the Elementary School, I happened upon some brand new teachers that were having difficulties adjusting to their new jobs. As much as my colleagues and I empathized with them about how tough it is when you start, it was hard for them to believe us. Our performances in school were more polished, from all our experience. They couldn’t believe that we could have had the troubles they were having. It was at this time that I copied and shared with those new teachers my first year journal from that school. Reflective practitioning allowed me to share my experiences with others in pseudo real time. Reading it gave a connection to our empathy. They may not have felt less stressed, but seeing us as we were now after that long a time, gave them hope and support.

I would continue the practice of sharing that journal with all new teachers until I retired. For some people it continued to provide support even though it was over 20 years old and for others it was just an interesting read. No one ever commented, at least not to me, that it was worthless tripe.

As I continue to grow and explore career options. I will continue to reflect. It is my hope that my reflections will continue to provide some value for others reading them. As I ended many of my journal entries  – till next time.