It has taken me two months to truly adjust to becoming a coach and now I think I am able to state what I do without dryly repeating the responsibilities listed on my job description. It is a familiar and comforting purpose - to serve students in need.

I was tasked with so many different projects and responsibilities that in that busy swirl of activity, I began questioning my significance. For thirteen years of my life, the majority of my time was spent on my feet, walking in circles around desks, answering questions, asking questions, actively teaching and actively engaged with hundreds of students.

So spending even an hour of my day seated at a desk was a shock to my entire being. Every member of the school community does amazing work, but I will always believe that the teacher is our most important resource. Teachers are unicorns. And the classroom is a rainbow filled sky dotted with defiant middle school children, bravely figuring out who they are. Without them, I felt untethered and unsure of who I was and what I was doing. 

To grapple with this feeling I reviewed everything I am required to do as a middle school college and career coach and simply made sure that everything ties back to the students. That organizing school wide events, serves them. That facilitating conversations about instruction, serves them. That analyzing sets of data will ultimately serve them.

Being sure that my work is grounded in the right place is now, more than ever, essential. And essentially, it is and must be, for them.

I will now call my first full month out of the classroom: THE MAIL MERGE. 

For my first project, I organized the Honor Roll Ceremony, for over 800 students and their parents, guardians and family members. Anyone who has ever mail merged will understand that it often takes a long time and the smallest mistake requires you to start all over. 

Last week, I spent hours mail merging invitation letters, mail merging certificates, and mail merging summonses. Every minute spent staring at the screen or cheering on the printer, was excruciating but eventually I just had to laugh.

I am the word document and this new school and this new job is a complex data set, in an excel file, that I have to mail merge. Truly. Keep Calm and Mail Merge. 

It isn't easy to start something new but I love when things come together and when people come together. My colleagues here have done the Honor Roll Ceremony multiple times - with their help, their patience, good weather, and lots of paper, the event went well.
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It was satisfying to celebrate students who worked tremendously hard to get this award and to celebrate their parents who worked equally hard to get them there. That in a nutshell is where I am right now. Taking a deep breath and enjoying the calm before the next challenge. 

A teacher at heart, currently an instructional coach. 

For ten years, the only thing I have experienced has been life within the classroom. The classroom was my canvas and everything else - the lessons, the words, the conversations - was the paint. I considered myself and my students, the artists. To my journal and to those who would listen, I would say, teaching is my craft. My work was never perfect, but I loved doing it.

Six days ago, I left the classroom, bid farewell to my beloved family of bears and entered my own office and said hello to a new community. Not only is this new position located a galaxy away, it is also a very different canvas. I find myself continually astounded at how different what I do now is from what I used to do. 

When asked by students - what do you do? First I say, I am the College and Career Readiness Coach. Then I say, I'm here to work with the teachers and I'm here to work with you.

When asked by others - why did you leave teaching? I say immediately that it is not because I stopped wanting to teach, I just craved change and growth. The kind of change that forces you to learn new things and apply what you know in creative ways. 

I imagine that one day, for whatever reason, I will find myself in the English classroom again and this website will be again, for my students. If you are an old student or colleague, please know that what I learned from you continues to drive and inspire what I do everyday. 

Until then, this space will be filled with my thoughts on education, literacy resources (and my interpretation of them), and College & Career resources.