Wow - it's been a while!

Last year was a strange year, and looking back at my lack of blogs, there is nowhere clearer that this shows than right here on my website/blog.  Good gracious...for someone who thrives on writing, who loves to put the proverbial pen to paper (or finger to key), it's pretty pathetic to see the lack of writing. No, it isn't as if I have a huge fanbase, hanging on my every word, but I need to write for reflection, for deeper thinking, to share my ideas with myself and dig a little deeper.  It's a little concerning that I didn't carve out time for it.

So, with a new school year, comes the time to renew and refresh.

The teacher rebirth.

That's one thing that is so cool about this profession. You can literally reinvent your practice EVERY SINGLE YEAR!  Right the wrongs, adjust the learnings, change the nuances, change the path...what didn't work can be easily removed, what did may be honed.  It's one of my favorite things about what I do.  Recreating the space and the moments each year.

It's actually been hard starting back up this year.  My first summer, I worked almost every day to reinvent myself.  My second year I did a lot...and the pattern continued. This year, as I ended my fourth year and approach my fifth, I switched off instead.  I stopped the thinking, didn't do the reading, let the cotton wool invade my brain.  It was good - but starting up again has not been easy.  I had to worry that I had lost my passion.  I started to get concerned that I wasn't as excited, that I wasn't going to be able to give as much to my future students.  I mean, that's what I have loved about teaching, the way it fires me up every day.  But as time has moved on, a couple of conferences and good books later, I am beginning to feel the fires ignite and the desire rise up again.

Take last night for example.  A restaurant with a good group.  My poor friend just asks one question about teaching, and I was OFF! Lecturing the crowd about the creation of moments to make connections and impact learning (shout out to the Heath brothers and their AMAZING book, The Power of Moments).  As I listened to myself (something I seem to do upon occasion), I cast an inner smile. Ahhhh, there it was.  The fire is back in belly.

Let's go!  Room 1113, we have one heck of a year ahead!