It’s been an amazing past year, and I definitely have a lot to be thankful for. I am most proud of publishing my book in February. This was a goal of mine since I was a student teacher. I remember how frustrated I was as a student teacher that there weren’t many valuable resources for aspiring and student teachers. My book includes everything that I would have liked to know as I was going through the process of becoming a teacher. And I did it!
As I wrote my book over the following years I became acutely aware of how important it is to support our future and beginning teachers as they enter into this noble profession. So following my book publication, I created this website/blog to be another resource for student teachers. This itself has been an exciting venture. I became a student again, learning how to use the latest technology to start and run a website. Also it was exciting to see how educators across the world contributed their expertise, comments, and suggestions. I am grateful to everyone that contributed to building this growing teacher community.
My year was filled with other joys, such as becoming a National Board Certified Teacher and being honored as a Phi Delta Kappa Emerging Leader.
Yet, my year was filled with its share of tragedy. I almost lost my mom in a horrible accident. And I am most grateful that she is alive and on a strong road to recovery. It was a clear reminder of how precious life is and how we should value the time we have left with our loved ones.
I am hopeful for this upcoming New Year. My first priority this year is my family. I am going to spend more quality time with my family. This includes turning off the T.V. more often, and blogging less (ouch). This means calling my parents and brothers that live out of state more often, and just hanging out with friends.
I am going to also focus more on the classroom. My attention was often diverted this year from what’s really important to me – being a good classroom teacher. I am going to push myself to lesson plan more effectively, seek peer feedback, and reinvent my curriculum to be more rigorous and relevant to the students.
I can’t go wrong with these two New Year resolutions.
I wish you all the best and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Eric
Eric,
Congratulations on your book and other accomplishments! Good for you. When I remember back to what it was like as a new teacher, I certainly could have used your book to guide me. I’m going to put a link to your site from my site http://www.teacheratrisk.com so people that visit my site can come to your site and benefit from the information you have there.
As for your New Year’s resolutions, I agree with you that family comes first. I plan to focus on getting my students to do their best by expecting more from them. I’ve found that some students don’t expect much of themselves so I have to expect more for them. It’s an on going struggle, but definitely worth it.
As for turning off the TV and computer more often, that sounds like a good idea too. I stopped podcasting after 1 1/2 years because it took too much time and limit my blogging to usually one post a week. I could be on my laptop 24/7, but there’s more to life than the world wide web.
I look forward to exploring your site next week when things settle down here.
Best wished for the new year,
Elona.
yo dude….merry Christmas…see you in an unbelievably short week. =)