New Beginnings
Walking Out and Walking On
For fifteen years, I have taught middle school language arts. From those very first, very unsure moments, to the past few years where I could seamlessly change plans on the fly depending on where the classes were and what they needed at that exact moment. There was a level of comfort I had developed that kept me in the middle school classroom even though my wandering eyes secretly scoured WECAN during my free time and I often daydreamed about something different. It dawned on me that perhaps I was too comfortable. To some that may sound crazy as humans constantly seek comfort in various ways in order to feel good. Yet for others, there may be a level of empathy with my latent desire for something a bit more uncomfortable–something new, exciting, and unknown.
It was this desire that led me to a new position merely weeks ago. The high school in my district had an opening for an English position. I debated this decision with myself each day, and I kept convincing myself that if I stayed in the middle school, things would be easier for me as I had been working with that team and that curriculum for a few years now. A curriculum, mind you, that I did not love. Also, upon reflection of these ongoing debates I was having with myself, I came to a realization that the team I worked so closely with was all too often bonded by negativity. Team meetings would quickly devolve into venting sessions, the air in the room growing thick with complaints. It was stifling to all, but no one would ever make the move to help increase air flow — whether that was because we felt we couldn’t or because we didn’t know how, I will never quite know. All I know, is it was becoming hard to breathe.
In their book Walk Out Walk On, Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze define Walk Outs as “people who bravely choose to leave behind situations, jobs, relationships, and ideas that restrict and confine them, anything that inhibits them. They walk on to the ideas, people, and practices that enable them to explore and discover new gifts, new possibilities.”
The writing was on the wall: I needed to walk out.
For as many years as I spent in the same teaching position, I still never viewed myself as a leader. I was someone who always loved to be involved and loved to help, but my reserved nature prevented me from taking charge with an “all eyes on me” approach. Sitting with my new team, I found myself defaulting to these reticent ways. There was a lively debate going on about how to challenge higher-level learners, and there I sat, thinking of the many different experiences and stories I had about trying things both successfully and unsuccessfully in my classroom. So what did I say? Absolutely nothing.
This moment made me think back to a sunny July morning when I was peacefully walking through Olbrich Gardens with a GMWP colleague, discussing school matters, when they referred to me as a leader in my school. I laughed at the time. Looking back, I don’t think the statement is nearly as humorous anymore.
While I’m not proud of myself for sitting back simply because I am the new staff member, the situation combined with that particular comment from my peer helped to make my goal for this school year very clear: I will become a leader. More so, I want to lead with the others, side by side. I want to do this by opening up about my practices in the classroom. We all have so much to learn from each other and I need to realize that includes others learning from me. I also want to make it a common practice to bring in articles or resources that can assist us all in thinking deeply and having rich conversations.
Beginning this year with GMWP, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to focus on. In fact, this blog is delayed simply because I still didn’t know up until this particular learning experience. While it may have felt a little bit like failure at the time, I now feel hope and the power of knowing I can turn it into something great.
