Tag: preparation

Things I Know 202 of 365: It’s time to re-collect

Today is tomorrow. It happened.

– Bill Murray, Groundhog Day

I had a chance today to interview a fellow teacher from Omaha for a new podcast episode. She’s been in the classroom 17 years and brings to the table all of the perspective of those years.

We talked a bit about teacher burnout and she brought up the movie Groundhog Day.

She said she certainly had her moments of burnout when she knew she wasn’t the best she could be, but that she knew those moments wouldn’t last.

“In the movie,” she said, “Bill Murray’s character goes through a phase where he tries to kill himself because he can’t find any way out of the day. Then, at some point he changes and starts making ice sculptures.”

As it was a perennial favorite in my household growing up, I remembered the scenes she was describing.

“It’s like that with the classroom – sometimes I want to die, but most of the time I’m making ice sculptures.”

I’ve been collecting teachers’ comments and thoughts as they gear up for the trip back to the classroom.

This is the first time in eight years I won’t be entering the classroom as a teacher, and I’m enjoying observing the rituals of return that I’ve been too tied up in myself for the past several years to truly appreciate.

My friend Henry posted tonight that many of his students are coming from other schools:

They have been rejected. I understand rejection because when I was in high school I didn’t fit in and it was very visible. Today, I am a better person and a better teacher.

Henry was one of the first African Americans to integrate his school district in the South. I’ve talked with him about the experience and read his recollections of the events.

And that is what he was doing when he wrote his post, he was re-collecting.

It’s what the teacher I interviewed does as she’s “making ice sculptures” – re-collecting all the moments of weariness and frustration from the darkest parts of teaching and connecting them to the moments that bring her the most joy.

When Henry enters the classroom tomorrow, he will not have simply collected whatever rest and renewal his summer break provided, he will have re-collected every memory of being other, different, afraid or strong that has made him who he is as well.

And to truly teach and connect to the children in our charge, we must re-collect all the pieces and experiences of who we are so that we can see the richness of experience each student brings to the classroom.

While the perspective of 17 years in the classroom is a powerful source of strength, it is nothing if we do not re-collect who we are as people and offer that to our students.

Things I Know 63 of 365: They have to get the jobs first

Be willing to do the job passionately, even if you’re not passionate about the job.

– My mom

When I was 16, I headed out to look for my first job. A word nerd from way back, I was intent on a job selling books. I was probably not the only 16-year-old jobseeker managers had met. Others had probably warn khakis and a shirt and tie when applying as I did. What I’d imagine set me apart from other mid-adolescent applicants was my inclusion of a resumé with my application forms. Even if resumés were standard faire, I’m willing to wager my 24 lb 100% cotton watermarked paper set me apart.

It took me a few years to realize everyone else’s mom hadn’t made a fuss over the weight of their resumé paper as they applied for their first jobs. The realization that everyone else hadn’t been sat down at the kitchen table to write their personal mission statements when they were 14 took me awhile as well.

My mom has been in human resources management for almost as long as I’ve been alive.

While she’s been in Philly visiting this week, I’ve asked her to talk to my kids about jobs and applying and online privacy and the like.

It’s reminded me just how tremendously wise she is.

It’s illuminated for me just how tremendously little my kids know about applying for jobs.

As we spend billions of dollars and countless hours arguing about the best way to prepare our students for the “jobs of the future,” we’ve fallen down on the job of preparing them to get their feet in the door.

“What can’t potential employers take into consideration when considering you for a job?”

Silence and some mumbling that they didn’t know there was anything they couldn’t consider.

A small collective gasp was audible when my mom admitted she didn’t research applicants’ Facebook pages or other online profiles when considering them for employment. Her reasoning that people should be able to decide what they share of their personal lives when applying was more thoughtful, measured and reasonable than the warnings they’d seen around the Internet and heard from teachers.

They had questions too.

“How do I answer when they ask me what my weaknesses are?”

The news that explaining they “just can’t stop until something is perfect” was a bit cliché and that they should instead explain a weakness they’ve taken steps to address was scribbled into brains and notebooks alike.

“The resumé isn’t to get you the job,” my mom explained, “The resumé is to get you the interview. Use the interview to get the job. And, send a thank you note.”

None of this is earthshaking news to anyone who’s been through the job search process a few times. They are the tricks of the trade picked up along the way.

Still, I hadn’t thought to bring them up with my kids. As much as I’ve been worried about preparing them for doing the jobs they’ll have in the future, I know I’ve ignored or forgotten to have any conversations with them about how to get those jobs.

I doubt I’m alone in that.

Thank goodness for my mom.