although the current budget proposal for our school system for next year does not currently include furloughs. And the Superintendent's proposal puts back $2,000 of our national board stipends so we can also get the equivalent in the state match. That means in theory my income will be up more than 5,000 over this year, but still less than what it was last year.
A furlough day. No students. No work directly related to my teaching.
But lots of work related to teaching.
Confused?
Tomorrow I am keynoting a half-day conference on teaching at St. Mary's College of Maryland. I am also filling in for one session where the leader canceled out on short notice. For the latter I am illustrating a certain kind of lesson and talking about it. That did not take much preparation.
But the keynote is supposed to last around 30 minutes. At 120 words/minute of normal conversation, that is still substantially longer than even my verbose diaries here. I tend to speak more quickly, more like 150 words/minute. That would be around 4,500 words.
I have been working on my address all day. Currently it is at 5,500 words, which means I still have cutting to do.
It has been a long effort - I will be speaking to those at the college who are studying to be teachers. I want to take care with what I say. So far I have spent more than 8 hours crafting it. I suspect I have another 2-3 to go.
The process of putting this together has been an education in itself.
Let me explain.
I have a topic. The focus of the conference is on professional development. My title is pretty simple: MAKING A DIFFERENCE: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STUDENTS. In it I want to accomplish two things.
First I want the audience to think of all they do in the context of how it enables them to better serve their students. This of course requires ongoing reflection, something for which I am lucky in that it has been a natural part of my life even before i became a teacher. I can use the approach that is part of the National Board process to illustrate this, as I can with some illustrations from my own experience.
The second part is more difficult. I teach in a school district which is very restrictive on students use of phones, MP3 players and the like. While I abide by the policy, I think it is wrong and counter productive, as are policies such as those that ban the use of or access to in school of social networking sites of all kinds. In fact, I think we do our students a disservice in this approach, because it is so much a part of who they are and how they interrelate with each other and with the larger world that we would be well advised to find ways of using the technology, of empowering them to use skills they already have as a means of learning more effectively.
I have walked away from the piece several times, each for at least one/two hours. After a while I feel as if my mind is turning to mush, and I cannot properly evaluate the words I have, what I need to keep, and what I can cut. I am at the tale end of one such 2-hour period, during which I played with my cats, ate dinners, did some household chores, and caught up with email.
As soon as I post this - a diary I expect to be totally ignored - I will return to the task. I have already printed out what I have, and could if necessary simply make cuts on the printed copy. I may still do that even after I produce another, slimmer version.
This is good discipline for me. As is writing to a fixed length of words, as I have had to do for CNN.Com and Huffington Post. My writing becomes better as my thinking becomes more focused. Certainly the kind of editing I am doing on this is so much more than what I do with what I post here, as is evident in the lack of focus of this posting.
Still, different kinds of writing serve different purposes. Here, even with this diary, I am somewhat thinking aloud, somewhat offering things with which people can choose to interact or ignore. No one is subjected to all of my words except by choice. Tomorrow, what i say is in some ways supposed to be a culmination, even though I have no idea what will be said in the other panel session leading up to my speech. It is odd that a keynote is given at the end. A part of me almost wants to leave it somewhat undefined so that I can modify it to include references to what else is said before I offer it.
But I cannot. There are points I need to address. I have to be sure that my thinking is organized enough, that my phrasing does not interfere with the thrust of my remarks, that the various parts hold together and lead to my "conclusion" - which in fact is not really a conclusion, but merely a way of ending the remarks.
I am honored to have been asked. I feel a responsibility to put my best effort forth. That takes a lot of thinking. Like teaching, it requires reflection. Unlike my ordinary teaching, I do not have prior knowledge of my audience. That makes it more difficult.
So wish me luck.
I will from time to time keep an eye on this - I will have open a window in which I can check on this, even as a labor to make my expressions for tomorrow more concise.
Peace.