My Four Days of Working on the Work

As most of your know from our class on Monday night, I was in downtown Atlanta from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon. My school system had sent me to a conference designed around a book entitled "Working on the Work". As most of us are, I am new to this whole thing of teaching. As I was going to this conference, all I kept thinking was, "Here is something else to add to my plate." All of these theories and practical teaching lessons that I am getting feel like they are all swirling around in my head. But, I had one of those epiphany moments at the conference. For the first time in my teaching experience, I felt on par with all the other teachers that were at my table. The conference had us group with people that we did not know. So there was an agricultural teacher who had been teaching for seven years, a four year business teacher, a 15 year seventh grade teacher, a ten year shop teacher, a three year language arts teacher, and me. We were evaluating some student work and all of the sudden Bloom Taxonomy hit me right between the eyes. I sounded like a freakin genius. The other teachers at the table I think were shocked at my evaluation. A teacher that submitted the work looked shocked and pleasantly surprised at my answer. So, kuddos to all of our instructors. You guys are the best.