I suppose I have been very verbose. I had promised TheFatLadySings to repost my diary on behalf of her cause today, and I suppose that should have been enough. But then I kept encountering things in my reading that I felt I should be sure that others saw. So I wrote and post, and wrote and posted, and wrote and posted again. At one point, two of them were on the Rec list at one time, all four diaries have had decent traffic, which provides me with some gratification.
So why another diary? Because this is my community with which I share, and I have been exploring what I will do after this year, and some pieces are coming together.
No, I do not yet know what I will be doing after the end of this school year, but I am able to sort a few things out. So if you are interested, proceed below the squiggle, and if not, thanks for stopping buy.
I am a teacher. I suppose I always have been. When I was approaching adolescence, there were not enough kids around my age for some of our games on our back street, so I taught younger kids how to play. Some might call it coaching, but even when I have coached formally I viewed my role more as a teacher than as a coach.
I have at various times taught both piano and cello students.
In high school I tutored both one classmate in physics, and the summer after graduation my next door neighbor, one year older than me to a day, who had failed physics in his Catholic high school - who knew he would go on to be first a test pilot for the Navy and then a doctor.
My career as a public school teacher, which may well now be coming to its conclusion, is itself a product of many other teaching experiences - in private school as a teacher intern, in religious education, of adults in the work place. It has included coaching soccer, mock trial, and musical theater. It includes mentoring other teachers.
As a teacher my role has always been to challenge and empower others.
That will not change should I leave the formal classroom.
In a recent conversation with a very wise man a few years older than me, he suggested that it may be that my task now would be to teach in different ways, no longer to adolescents but more to adults.
He then, himself a notable author, strongly suggested that it might include writing on a more organized basis.
I write a lot, when I can find time. In the past some was in notebooks that few others ever saw, although my now spouse Leaves on the Current had access from early on when our relationship began in 1974. For some years much of my writing was on computer bulletin boards and list servs. Even now, some of my writing is in electronic exchanges that are either private (such as in direct emails and closed groups) or only semi-public, although much of what I write appears on blogs, here and elsewhere.
I clarify my own thinking by writing - that has always been one purpose.
As a shy person, the exchanges as a result of what I write enable me to learn from others in a way i find less threatening.
For me teaching is always a process of learning - from those with whom I exchange, more about the topic which engages me, and most of all more about myself.
That is true of the writing I do, which is after all a form of being a teacher, at least as I conceive the role.
I know that whatever I am doing to support myself, I must allow space for writing as one form of my teaching.
I know that even with Social Security and my teachers pension I will need to make some additional money. I do not know if I can do that with my writing. Perhaps I will take on work that is not so all encompassing as is classroom teaching, perhaps half time, or a wee bit more, that will leave my mind and energy free to do more extensive writing, perhaps the books others have encouraged me to undertake.
Or perhaps I will take on a different role in how I engage with others, one in which my writing and teaching would serve a different function than much of it does now.
What will I be doing come the middle of June? I do not yet know.
Will the writing that I continue to do remain largely public? Perhaps, perhaps not. What if I found that I could teach through writing - and speaking - in non-public situations in a way that meant I could contribute positively to making the world a better place? Would I not have to consider that?
Can I assume responsibility for other adults in a leadership function and still remain what i am at heart, a teacher? I think so. I think it would be a challenge, not for me - I have after all managed others, including a manager under my authority - but perhaps for others who do not conceive of leadership as teaching.
Might how I spend my time be very different than my average school day? Of course.
Might I still be in a classroom with adolescents? I could pass out the 20K buyout that is likely, continue in my current school for a year or more, while drawing social security, or I could teach in DC or Virginia. I could even retire then spend a couple of days a week in my current school as a substitute as several of those who retired last year have done.
But I become ever more inclined to explore teaching in other ways.
Whatever I do, I will remain primarily a teacher - even should I be involved in school system leadership, attending graduate school, or mirabile dictu - able to support myself as a writer.
I will continue to explore options. I am pending for a free doctoral program in educational leadership, about which I will hear nothing for several months. I have already moved to reinstate my DC teaching certificate, and now that I realize I have the necessary credits may move similarly in Virginia. I have begun conversations with several people about other possibilities.
I am a member of this community. Delighted to be asked to help others with whatever my words can bring, as I did at the request of TFLS, to contribute to various community efforts as I have in the past. I hope that whatever I decide for next year I will continue to be an active member, at least here online.
I may not come to Providence. I have not yet signed up. If this is my last year in my school, I believe I would have an obligation not to be gone for several days near the end of my time there. There will be a number of those with whom I have worked for more than a decade who will take the $20K buyout, and some others who will be moving to other districts. I am a part of that community as well, and whether or not I am leaving it I feel drawn to want to be there at the end of the year, without interruption.
When I signed up, I chose 'teacherken' because I was a teacher and my name is Ken. I was not necessarily trying to be anonymous - after all, it took little sleuthing to go from what I wrote to where I taught and thus to identify me, as one young member of my Quaker Meeting actually did publicly on this site. It was at the time, late 2003, appropriate - after all, I was then a teacher. I suspect it will continue to be appropriate, regardless of what I may be doing next year.
And so, having finished this mental meandering, which probably means little except to me, I will now abide by my promise - this is my last diary for today.
But tomorrow is less than 6 hours away, so beware!!!
Peace