Amy’s Reflections

 So it is New Year’s Eve. I never in a million years could have fathomed the way this year would go when I chose my one word for 2020 or on New Year’s Eve a year ago. I never thought I would ever be confined to my house and learn to work at home, never mind enjoy it as immensely as I do. My home has become my safe haven, there was absolutely no traveling to new destinations this past year, and yet I end the year feeling very content and happy with my personal growth and perseverance in finding balance this year.  Have I had points of struggle? Absolutely, who hasn’t? It was 2020 and an international pandemic turned our world upside down yet also managed to help to remind us of the importance of the simple things in life. There has been so much death and sickness that we have been forced to examine our inner selves and challenge our beliefs as we hold those that are near and dear to us close to our hearts and have not been able to see them other than on video calls or with a ma...

 It's been another exhausting week... lets all be honest. We read and hear a lot about how amazing and how exhausted our teachers are in this learning environment but I assure you school administrators are also exhausted. We listen to our teachers, staff, students, parents, boards of education and listen some more, so much of what they tell us and want answers is really out of our control but we know it helps for them to tell us and feel like someone is at least hearing them and cares about them too. My mantra has become "we are all doing the very best we can right now" and I truly believe that. Everyone is struggling, everyone is looking for answers and often they are not aligned with what others want and desire and are putting us at odds with one another. To add fuel to the fire, we are all exhausted and want to just hug our loved ones, many of whom we can not even see right now because of the pandemic.      This month, I joined two members of my PLN who every Nove...

      In my last post I wrote about two tragedies that our school community had during this pandemic we are struggling to live through and getting exhausted from having to stay apart and not being able to comfort each other in our time of need. It has been challenging to watch everyone experience this time in our lives and has brought out the worst in so many of us and the best in so few of us. It has been terribly hard to watch and live through. I keep wondering when this will all end? What will be the new normal when this is all over? How do we come to terms with this new normal and move beyond the normal of before the pandemic?       I finally finished reading Becoming today by Michelle Obama and realized that I was taking my time finishing the book mostly because I didn't want to finish the book, I felt like I was learning so much about myself as I was reading the book. Learning about Michelle and her story of coming from nothing, her struggles as ...

 I recently read a post by George Couros who I write about frequently here, where he deemed this the year of the learner. Specifically, I believe he meant the year of the adult learner. Nearly a year ago, I completed my dissertation and oddly enough since finishing my edits, I have not touched it or even read it through again. I feel like I wrote it a million years ago after all that has happened in education this past year. The goal of my research study was to focus on adult learners and what professional development best meets their needs. Specifically, I focused on high school math and science teachers through a case study approach. I actually loved doing my research and even found that I loved writing my dissertation which is probably why I now write these monthly blogs to continue exploring my own evolution in thinking about education and how to best serve educators as an assistant principal.       I have a strong belief that instructional leadership is at ...

       August flew by and we are already 7 days into September.... not quite sure how that happened! I had a big birthday in August... you know one of those decade birthdays where typically I find myself reflecting on where I am and where I want to go. This one happened so fast that I didn't have time do any reflecting, I even felt guilty for the few hours I took away to be with my family on the actual day of my birthday. The post I wrote on facebook and instagram to thank people for their birthday messages was "thank you to everyone who reached out today to wish me a Happy Birthday. I am thankful for every one of you. Truthfully, I haven't had much (if any) time to think about this upcoming decade but I am excited for whatever adventures are in store....this last one will be hard to beat but I know this next one will be the best one yet. Tomorrow starts a new school year...a different kind of school year, one that I believe will test us all whether student, parent, ...

     This pandemic has certainly been a whirlwind for everyone, I'm not even sure I have the words to begin to explain it anymore. I am beyond exhausted as a school administrator right now, I have never had a more exhausting summer than this one but yet I'm somehow invigorated by it. I thought the last few months of last school year were a ride, until we were faced with the idea of having to come up with plans for the 2020-2021 school year. Every time we take a step forward, the state comes out with some new direction or directive and we are forced to double down and think harder. I am beyond grateful for the wonderful team that I work with, even from afar.       It has been hard and it is hard to imagine that we will be launching the school year in a few weeks but yet, I am incredibly excited about it. I am excited about the idea that we can reinvent education and still think we have an opportunity here to learn so much from the emergency learning exp...

        After a lot of thought at the start of this calendar year, I arrived at my word of the year being "balance". Many of my posts have talked about my pursuit of finding this both in my professional and personal life. Recently, about a half-hour ago to be exact, I finished reading Culturize by Jimmy Casas, who is an educational leader and consultant I have long admired. In his book, he discussed the idea that we should be seeking to be "life-fit" as opposed to finding balance. His rationale was that he thought balance had a negative connontation to it, where-as life-fit challenged us to accept our current realities and everyone's unique situations at different points in their lives. He provided several examples of this that really resonated with me as I reflected on the last several weeks and months of the school year that were a true whirlwind in the way that only 2020 could be explained (a year certainly not like any other). Some of the the examples he pro...

        As I finish, Personal and Authentic by Thomas C. Murray, I always begin to reflect on how this will enhance my own philosophy of teaching, learning, and educational leadership. I want to share two stories of feedback I have received that have stuck with me, both stories are deeply personal. The first occurred during my first few months as an assistant principal at my school. To provide some context for those of you reading this that don't know me, I taught in my school for eleven years and was an instructional leader prior to going over to the dark side of administration. I started as a brand new teacher, fresh out of graduate school, which was pretty unheard of when I was hired in my school with a few rare exceptions and my move to administration was not one that I can say I particularly knew I would be making from the start of my career. I am both the youngest and sole female administrator in our high school. A few things to know about me is that I love to ...

      This first chapter blew me away! It was so powerful and held so true to my own beliefs, especially now more than ever during this pandemic and emergency eLearning as Tom started by talking about the importance of relationships and of shifting practices from "what I taught to who I taught" as bringing "the real work into focus" as we are more and more disconnected than ever whether it be from our colleagues or students. As I wrote in my last few entries about my word for the year, "balance" and how I had hoped that we would move towards finding some new approaches to education because I believe that our system is dated not knowing that COVID would change our lives so much, so soon, I am hopeful that we will take some time to rethink what it is we go back to in the future that we call the foundations of our school systems. Many have recently pointed out to me in their studies of past pandemics about the major changes that have taken place afterward, wh...

The overarching question to reflect on: Does my assistant principalship benefit my school academically?  Week 1 reflection question: what is my value to my school as an assistant principal? How is your school valuable as a result of you being there? Better? Greater?  How to be an AP in a Pandemic 1. Call your principal and ask what you can do to help or jump in and do it 2. SEL for staff, especially those you directly supervise. Just call them to check-in, they often trust you to have these hard conversations because they want to teach at high levels. They need you, they have a lot of heavy stuff right now and need to talk through it. You don’t know how they are perceiving you right now. Have compassion.  3. Talk to your staff every single day. You must have empathy for your staff and what they are going through.  Week 2 Topic: if you were the principal of your school how would it be different?  10 self-reflective questions:  1. Who would you be instruction...

There are so many to choose from as I think about this question and seek to fulfill today's task:  https://www.actionforhappiness.org/media/865781/april_2020.jpg  . But here are the 10 I am choosing to share: 1. Moe. He is just pure love, being home with him these past few weeks has been the biggest gift. Cuddling with him all day, every day a blessing. Walking after work to get fresh air and refresh after long days at the computer a godsend. On Monday, he will be 12 years old... I can't believe he has only been with me 12 years as I can't remember life without him. 2. Troy. His coming to stay with us this week has been a gift. We have loved trying to put together daily schedules, sharing our home and our love with him. He reminds me every minute of every day of how differently people view the world and that there is no right and wrong way to see things, there is just different perspectives on things. I am thankful and grateful that we can provide him with a place where...

My nieces.... 1 month young 💜 It has been a challenging week to say the least, our lives have all changed immensely as this COV-ID19 crisis has shut down the physical world so many of us are used to interacting in daily and forcing us to re-think school in virtually (pun intended) no time in order to provide consistency and balance for everyone. We have had to redefine what balance means in our personal lives and in the world of education. In the world of education, administrators have taken a deep dive to develop a meaningful and supportive eLearning environment  tirelessly on behalf of all stakeholders. Our teachers have embraced this new reality for the most part or have come to accept that it is going to have to be for now but either way, they are deeply dedicated to finding a way to make it work for their students. Some are troubled by the new realities their families face and are seeking solutions by arguing about school schedules to try and figure out how to mana...

This month I became the aunty to the two most amazing identical twin baby girls. There are so many things that I can not wait to do with the little ladies, teach them, and see who they become. As we sat in the hospital shortly after they were born on Valentines day, my mom and the girl's other grandparents wondered about the world they would grow up in and how different it would be. The world today is so much more complex for our students and it continues to change every day. My mom started talking about the impact of social media and wondering if the girls would ever drive a car. I found myself wondering about when the education world would finally wake-up and start seriously making some changes to this outdated model that we continue to try and patch new initiatives into rather than rebuilding from scratch. I spend countless hours reading and engaging with other educators across the globe who know that the system is broken, yet year after year, I go back to the same system with t...

Over the holiday break, I resolved to take some time for myself to relax after a busy fall semester. I had started Make Learning Magical as I had read about it on Twitter and it seemed like it would be a good book to help support the Applied Arts department that made some huge progress last year under new leadership. I recommended the book to the instructional leader as part of their shared departmental goal and PLC work for this school year, as the author was a former Culinary teacher that I was hoping could really take our already fantastic Culinary classes to the next level and also perhaps provide some room for reflection and growth for all the other area's of the department as well. Our new Culinary teacher immediately went out and bought herself a copy and began reading the book, before we even had a chance to order the books. After finishing Innovate Inside the Box which really resonated with me, particularly after my dissertation work around UDL, I purchased ten copies fo...