How have connections with other professionals improved your practice? Today's entry is from Tracy McCabe, Science Teacher at Carmel Valley Middle School:
Teaching is a family business. Or at least I was raised that way. Having been steeped in public education by a pair of middle school teachers as parents, I understand why the children of actors toil within the entertainment business (which is almost as volatile as public schooling) like their parents before them. Some of my earliest memories are of cheering on the Standley Middle School’s PE Department’s OTL team at OMBAC tournaments as well as shopping at the warehouse every August to fill the sugar and flour containers in my mother’s cooking classroom. Though they ranted and cried missed opportunities when both my sister and I became teachers, it was always a forgone conclusion.
It would be a fool’s errand for me to attempt to recall the scores of teachers who have affected me. All for the common good, the teachers from my youth as well as past and present colleagues have all had a part in the educator I am today. We are inevitably connected to those we learn from, teach, and teach beside. For me, given my upbringing and my profession, work is personal. I’m vested. Because it’s a familial endeavor to learn and teach.
Beside the heap of gratitude for the shared lessons, links to resources, and various professional development gems I’ve acquired over the years is the lot that has nothing and everything to do with school. My mentor teacher’s “No Bad Days” motto still elicits a smile when it greets me in my desk drawer each morning on a post-it. A scolding from my first assistant principal (“All parents love their children, Tracy.”) has long been my mantra when I read angry parent emails. The women I met during my Masters a decade ago still meet me for wine and whining biannually. The lunchtime pep talks and the happy hours and the colleagues that let me cut in the bathroom line because they have a prep next period are all essential to my survival in this biz.
I know my practice is better today and everyday because of the teachers who remind me in the smallest ways that we are in this together. It is said that by choosing to be a teacher, you enter an emotionally dangerous profession. My connections to other teachers are my form of group therapy. And like a family, there is nothing like sharing your passion for your job with a colleague who knows your pain, struggles, and your triumphs. Professional help from my colleagues makes me a better instructor, but the collegiality keeps me sane. And teaching.
