YouTube Learner

Pivot tables, motion charts, canned responses, oh my...

I've been working on becoming a Google Certified Educator for a couple of months now.  After breezing through Level 1, I became stuck in Level 2, and thinking I could just plow ahead, I took the Level 2 test and failed.  When there's any kind of fee involved in learning, which each level test has, I hate to pay and fail.  So, of course like anyone else, my first question after getting my results is, "Why?"  I want feedback.  And the dreaded pivot tables, motion charts, and canned responses are sinking me.  But when I click on the links in the training units to learn more, it's a help sheet of text.  Not that I'm opposed to learning this way, but it's not learning that sticks with me in this way.  

I know my dominant learning style, being visual and kinesthetic, so I'm a YouTube Learner.  I need to see it, do some, then see some more, then do some more.  Initially, I didn't take the time to look for solid videos to learn these concepts thinking they wouldn't be so important, but alas, I found otherwise.  

So now, I watch, do, study, then test again in a bit.  But at the end of the day, the lesson I try to impart to my own children, is to never give up.  Just because you hit a bump in the road or don't understand something, don't give up.  It may be the 2nd or 100th time that doing something will result in success, but don't give up.  Just try to learn the lesson a different way, which is what I'm doing.

In this experience though, it reminds me to meet our students where they are and in the learning styles they need to succeed.  We need to adapt, revise, and continue on, but never give up.

Critics

I must admit, I've started and stopped this post on four different occasions now, just trying to process my thoughts and how to say what I wanted to say without being all negative, because after all the idea of criticism or critics, isn't a popular or positive one.

When my husband and I began serving as the Children's Pastor at our small church 8 years ago now, our Head Pastor's words to us were, "When you're in leadership, everyone will have a better way for you to do things."  These words translate to every type of leadership role I can imagine or have ever been in.

What I've experienced is that no matter your role, there will be critics.  As a Teacher, an Instructional Specialist, and now Testing Coordinator, there are those who will be a critic or tell you how to do your job differently, aka "better".  But something else I've recently come to realize is that, as an administrator, the same is also true.

I had the opportunity recently to attend a district training with both my AP's and our Diagnostician.  During lunch, I watched one of our APs deal with a crisis back at school, by phone, while trying to eat.  Now, mind you, I told my husband when we got married nearly 17 years ago, "I don't understand subtlety, so don't use it on me."  But over the years, I learned to read body expressions, and man, I could tell that this AP was having a time on the phone and trying to eat simultaneously.  Not a fun position to be in.  Once the crisis was done, my question to both my APs was this, "How do you make that mental division of school and home/life?"  You see, administrators are just like teachers and any other professional, they have a life outside work, so how does one just simply "turn it off"?  Their response?  Choices...sounds so simple, but not so.  They make a conscious choice to not check email, leave tomorrow's work for tomorrow, set a schedule and live by it faithfully, but to also be flexible, and lastly to make their families a priority after school hours.  To be fully present wherever they are.  So, then my question to myself becomes, "How do they deal with all the critics?"  And my answer is again, it comes down to choices.  We have the choice to let someone bother us or not.  We can let criticism roll off like water on a duck's back or let it set in and steep in our bones.  We can let it ruin our day/week/month, or not.  Choices, plain and simple, not always easy, but necessary.

15 Hours a Week

I heard a quote this morning on our announcements that said, "If you want to go quick, go alone and if you want to go far, go together."  It kind of struck me as odd.  When given the option to work in a group or work alone, I would choose alone, due to being done wrong so many times in groups.  But I understand that later part of that quote, that if you want to go far, go together.  But I want to go far with my family.

This past weekend at my church we had a community outreach as a Halloween alternative and as my husband and I served together to man a game booth, my children got to visit the games on their own without Mom or Dad.  It really reminded me that there needs to be a balance between what we do for others and what we do for our first loves, our first ministry, our family.  Am I going far with my family or just giving them leftovers from my days?

My school is 22 miles from home.  I've been there 13 years now and each year it seems like my drive has gotten longer and longer due to construction, growth, new homes, etc.  The number of stops I make each morning has not increased, but the time to do these often takes 90 minutes in the morning and just as long in the afternoon to get back home.  I can count at least 6 routes to school, but none is direct.  So, when I add it all up, it takes me 15 hours a week to commute back and forth to school.  In all these years at my campus, I've been tremendously blessed with Grandma care for the last 11 years as I've had a little one and for that I'm eternally grateful to have had one on one, loving care.  It's been a choice to drive this distance for my kids and my family.  It is very important to me to give my kids a stability in their education and as my oldest nears her senior year and begins driving, while my last one moves through Kindergarten, it leaves me in a quandary.  Do I pursue the admin route with all my education, certification, and training in place or do I go back to the classroom and implement so many things that I've had the opportunity to observe and learn from others in my support roles?  In either event, I am certain of only one thing and that is that I want my commute to be no more than a total of 5 hours a week.  I want 10 hours of my life back each week to put that time into other parts of my life outside of school.  I want to be home before dark so my kids can know our neighbors, can spend time together (outside of our van) as a family, with extended family, and with our church family.

So this post may not be encouraging to anyone in particular, just simply a reflection of my current state.  If anything can be taken away from all this, is that we all have choices.  You, me, we, are not stuck in any particular situation.  No one is guaranteed tomorrow, so how will we choose to use the time we have on this planet?  Who will get your time?  I only know that I don't want driving to get my time.  I want my family to get more of me.

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