After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content. The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them. I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
So I've been writing this blog for about 13 months now. Just wanted to take the time to reflect on why I started and where it has taken me. There were two main reasons I started blogging. The first was to force myself to reflect on my practice. I am very good about thinking random thoughts about why I do what I do and how I feel the day went. But these thoughts never make it to the concrete or conclusion level. They are left as disconnected or half thought ideas floating around in my head. Strands that may never be tied together and I'll have to start anew because I never took the time to take them down. The process of writing or planning a post forces me to communicate these thoughts in a way that may not make sense to the world, but at the very least make sense to me and can be picked up by me to carry a little bit further. The other main reason I ended up starting this blog process was to keep track of my evidence and create arguments aro...