Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Tonight, two other facilitators and myself met with our new group of NBCT wanna-be’s…cool!

Working with teachers who are striving to better themselves professionally is an exciting endeavor. (In Arkansas, the Department of Education provides support groups, such as the one at our school, which the candidates may choose to attend .)

I look forward to working with these ladies through the process of enlivening their portfolios, of placing not just themselves but also their students within the literary works they each will create.

At the root of this process lies what all role-model teachers continually strive for…student achievement.  Interestingly enough, this process also reminds one that for each teacher, these methods are different…yet all are excellent as each teacher simply chooses the strategies at which she excels.

This evening, I could feel the excitement, the stress, the wonder…all those emotions intermingling as the teachers began…or continued…processing the many decisions that lie before them.  Each sat taking ownership in a work that in just a few short months each of these ladies will submit with pride…okay, with relief!  Relieved pride…there…that will be the true emotion!  I can still remember the huge load lifted when I mailed…yes…”the box.”

Those of you who work with teachers in a mentoring role, you understand this natural high that one gets from watching others grow professionally.  As Martha Stewart would say, that is ”a good thing.”

Yes, I am one of those people who say they dread the “dark” months of January and February.  Dark?  Not sure I remember seeing much of January! Out of the five Saturdays in this month, I spent three attending meetings.

1. Meeting 1:  PRAXIS III Recalibration.  While the presentors provided updates for assessing new teachers in Arkansas this spring, I sat gathering ideas and reminders to assist my mentee who will be assessed also later this spring. Dana Huff at huffenglish.com blogged today about assisting and working with with new teachers.  Please check out that link also.
2. Meeting 2:  Arkansas Association for Professional Teachering (AAPT) Annual Conference.  This group works to assist those seeking National Board Certification, a strenuous, but, oh, so rewarding process.  This year a peer friend and I are hosting a share group for our part of the state and are assisting ten candidates through this process.  This conference provided some great reminders, and we wish now that we had encoaraged more of our candidates to attend.  Since we did not receive a snail mail agenda nor did I think to preview their website ahead of time, I went to this meeting with what I thought would be presented and came away knowing the truth! (Yes, therein lies a lesson!)
3. Meeting 3:  Arkansas State Beta Club Convention. Two days in Hot Springs, AR, with twenty-seven extremely bright and respectful young adults resulted in one of our students winning first place in English and receiving an invitation to compete at nationals this summer in Orlando, FL.  Oh, the rewards of working with the bright minds of our future!

Now to the month of February…may it be as professionally rewarding as January has been!

This past week, peer teacher Carla James and I hosted our first meeting with seven potential candidates for National Board Certification.  Prior to this meeting, Carla inspired our theme for the year when she suggested we use “Candidate Support Investigators”…of course, a play off one of our mutual favorite TV shows Crime Scene Investigators.

The inspiration for this theme, though, truly lies within the fact that a candidate only passes because he or she provides the “evidence” to sufficiently support each of the four portfolio and six online assessments.

I did not achieve National Aboard Certification until year two.  Why not?  Because I did not provide adequate evidence.  Because I was arrogant, to quote both myself and my friend Carla!  I assumed that because I was an English teacher that I could write, and I write I did.  I just did not provide sufficient evidence as I did not study the “Standards” as one should.

My friend Mrs. James?  Yes, she passed year one, due in part to an impromptu Candidate Support Provider often asking the question we so dislike to hear or see:  “Why?”

Thus, our goal this year, as now official “Candidate Support Providers,” is to question “why” and to inquire continually about the evidence.

Now, I just need to continue taking this proven process into my classroom: that of encouraging my students to think, to answer the question “why,” to provide the evidence: the concrete details and commentary.

I wonder….what if my students received the monetary rewards that National Board Certified Teachers do?  Would they, too, then provide ample evidence? 

True enough, the personal professional development that a teacher receives from this process should be enough. 

True enough, though, the rewards (all of them) are, oh, so nice!