Restless

The point in my career that I’m at is strange. I work at a school that has allowed me to grow into the teacher that I am. We have a culture at the school that people, including myself, love to work in. We have an administration whose actions and words say, “ you are the professional, do what you do and we’ll get out of your way.” We have tons of parents who support what we do and what we need to do to get their students to the next level. We have incredible science facilities. We have 1:1 Chromebooks in the science classrooms and a non profit board that supports everything we do in our school. I shouldn’t be restless, but I am.

The restlessness is an internal thing for me. Most teachers would gladly take my place in our school. The school is named Belle Isle and like its name it is a beautiful island for teachers and the group of students that find themselves part of the school.

I started teaching because I want to change lives. I feel like I do that in some small way every day. I know the old platitudes about “you never know how you are impacting the kids in the class” and “every small change makes a difference” and all those things people say to teachers when they want to do more. It’s not even that I want to do more. I want to do it differently and more efficiently and with deeper meaning. I want to change education, I want to get in the lives of people who don’t have supportive families at home, that don’t have someone telling them everyday that they are worth something. I want to be in the thick of students who need a teacher/leader/mentor/adult that is passionate about telling them that they are more than the labels and that they are greater than their current reality. I want to show them with my time and talents and teaching that they are people that deserve to have someone care for them and want the best for them. I want to show them a different way of learning, a different way of education. I want to throw out the old model and start over. I believe education changes the world. It changes the opportunities that we have in life. It may not guarantee us a job, but it opens the doors for greater options.

As I get older, and am now two years into my second decade of teaching, I have less time and less energy so when I do my job I want to do it more efficiently. I think we work really hard as educators to provide a product that is not very effective for most of our students. I want to be in a place where I can invest in a more open way and be more than a curriculum deliverer who has a few moments here and there to be a person in the lives of the kids. I want to be in an environment where stopping to deal with something in the life of the student is what we do and not an obstacle to what we do. I want to be in a place where school is the community for these kids that supports them, feeds them (physically and emotionally), makes them want to get up in the morning to come be with people whom make them feel welcome and necessary. I want them to feel needed at school when they don’t feel needed by the world.

I’m just thinking here, and I don’t know what this all looks like. The personalized learning thing is a component but it should be focused on personalized. Personalized P.E., personalized art, personalized core subjects, personalized growth, taking young people who haven’t had anything that feel like their own and educating, one could say discipling, them into a world that they would have missed if it wasn’t for us not missing them. I’m restless. I don’t do this for the pay, I do it because even the education that I received allowed me the opportunities and choices to travel the world, grow, meet people, and make my dent in the world. I’m restless. I want to take the idea of the educator to the next level. I’m restless. I want to be part of a whole team of people who are restless to make this world a better place by investing in the lives that need us. I feel restless because…...I feel gifted to do a job that many wouldn’t sign up for and I feel what I am doing is just the safe almost there option. I feel restless because I know where I’m at right now is predictable and I’m a little scared that my anti status quo brain wants that to change. I’m restless because I want deeper education and change and I know that my personality is that I will eventually have to do something about it and that is a little scary. Where are the restless people and the place we need to be with the students whose lives we need to be part of? I know I’m not alone in OKC.