My School, My Community, My Pride

Teaching in The Bronx is not easy.

While I always figured this would be the case, my first year actually doing it made this very simple truth one of the greatest challenges I have ever faced on both a professional and personal level. I'm waiting for the official end of the school year to write my reflection on the 2010-2011 school year but I had one of my best days as a teacher today and I felt the need to share.

Today in NYC was Chancellor's Day, a day with no students where schools hold professional development, or PD in teacher talk. I can honestly say that I have no recollection of what I did on Chancellor's Day for the past two years which lets me know just how big of an impact that type of PD made on me. Today was different and I know I won't soon forget what I did on Chancellor's Day 2011. Our day at BLS was split in two sessions and my participation in both made me more proud of the learning community that I am a part of than anything else so far this year.

Over the past four months, each member of staff has been a part of a Professional Learning Team (PLT) that met once or twice a month during our weekly 2.5 hour PD (another piece of my school that I have undervalued by looking at it as just a half day of teaching rather than what it really is: a whole day of learning) to analyze and discuss an issue or topic that we face as teachers. PLT groups included projects/assessment, classroom management, addressing student apathy, technology, and a few others and today was the presentation of what the work that each group has done. Simply put, I was floored by the amazing work that my colleagues have done over the past few months. Each group presented thoughtful, challenging and insightful information for the staff that can help each member of our community become better at what they do.

For the second part of the day, we meet with our departments and each teacher presented their curriculum map for the 2011-2012 school year. My colleagues in the history department presented maps that posed thoughtful and challenging essential questions, well crafted projects and meaningful goals that helped me to not only see how amazing they are at what they do, but also how just how much I can learn from them each and every day.

So let me go back to the beginning. Teaching in The Bronx is tough. It is very easy to get frustrated and discouraged when working with challenging students day in and day out. I feel that what can get easily lost in the frustration and (justified) complaining is the amazing work that my colleagues and I are doing. My school is a work in progress, a transitional period for a a learning community in just its 7th year of existence, but the things that are happening there, the freedom we have to be creative and the community of hard working, supportive educators who are pushing both students and teachers to be the best they can be makes my school a great place to be.

Thanks for a great day guys.