Tomorrow is the first student day. I don’t know about you, but as a teacher I begin to have stress dreams right before school begins. They usually begin in August and last until I meet my students. It’s the same dream every time. Cue the dreamy music.
I walk into work (my school) and an administrator informs me that my Teacher’s License is void, because apparently I failed a math class in high school. In order for me to keep my job, I must go back to high school and retake the class! What? So out the door to the high school I go, because this is not absurd in any way. When I get to the high school, I am informed that my class has moved. I hunt for the class, for what seems like an eternity. I finally arrive, and the class is taking their mid-term exam? Wait. What? Okay, take the exam and make up 4 weeks of work PRONTO! I start to sweat. Things get blurry, and I realize I am going to have to retake this course! Noooooooo! Eyes open.
This is my stress dream. It started in June this year! Why? Because we, our school, was offered the opportunity of a lifetime! The Digital Promise Foundation and The Verizon Foundation selected the 2 middle schools in our school district to be recipients in their initiative to close the digital learning gap. They are closing the gap by providing every student and every teacher at both of our middle schools with a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Note Tablet with 24/7 wifi access. Yes, go back and read that sentence again. Awesome, and I was hired as the Instructional Coach to help support the implementation of the initiative. I have been freaking out since the beginning of this journey. A good freaking out! A good type of stress! Throughout the summer we have planned, collaborated, Google Chatted, created resources and really immersed ourselves in all things related to the grant and Digital Promise. Finally, this week our teachers began using their tablets and experimenting and exploring the possibilities. It was like watching kids on Christmas morning. We are off to a great start. We know that we have a lot of learning and exploring to do, but we are ready and the sky is the limit! Stay tuned to find out where our journey takes us.
