Revealing the turning point

I mentioned in an earlier entry that this was a turning point year for me. I couldn't talk about it much at the time because I wanted to be certain that the move would actually take place.

Now, it seems it will.

This is not a good news/bad news announcement, but I share these words with mixed emotions. You cannot work somewhere for seven years and not develop some trusted working relationships. Friendships, even. And you cannot just leave all that behind without some feelings of sadness.

Working in a school environment, one develops friendships, even if you don't have time to nurture them after the school day has ended. I know many of the younger teachers, especially, find time to fraternize from time to time, and I think this is good. I've watched friendships bloom all around me as more experienced teachers mentor the novice teachers.

I myself have bonded with teachers I've worked closely with from year to year. I seem to have a better chance of knowing someone if I work with them on a daily basis. Or even a weekly basis. That is enough to know a person's character.

A few of these relationships go back the full seven years. One teacher (the Mrs B from the beehive and beakeeper entries) actually went through teacher orientation with me at Elon College in 1999. We remember that day with fondness. Later, we both completed our ILT product (a reflective portfolio displaying a year of teaching practices. Back then, teachers did not get their initial license without it. It was grueling!).  It's not unlike what military recruits must experience with their buddies as they go through boot-camp training. Not as physically demanding, of course, but exciting and challenging. As I recall, it was also exhausting.

I am going to transfer from the school that has molded me for the last seven years. The first school I've ever taught full-time in, excluding my student teaching semester, has created in me a mode of confidence, resulting in an urge to leave the nest, so to speak. That's what makes it so difficult to leave my school and the people who work there: they have nurtured me, cared for me, guided me, taught me, and made me the teacher I am today.

Before, I was a novice teacher, anxious about everything I did or didn't do. Confidence has never been my middle name. Today, though I am not a seasoned teacher, I do have enough positive experiences behind me to make me feel like I am in the right field after all. Doubt has been replaced by certainty. I am not claiming expertness. Just more assuredness. That's more than I had when I first began this journey in 1996.

There is a restlessness in my heart to move on and try a new school building, to make new friends, to share what I have learned, to make a new contribution in another environment. By the same token, I cannot ignore the fact that I will gain volumes from the new routine, relationships, and classroom experiences: new strategies, ideas, and philosophies from teachers I have not known before.

I am giving up familiarity in exchange for new challenges. I am giving up routine and comfort in exchange for something unknown and different. I like where I am, but I am ready to follow another path. A different path.

Have you ever just wanted to take a different road? One that others may have traveled but you had not? Or even one that looks like it has never been traveled, like the Robert Frost poem. For me, where I am going, I have never gone before. It is a new direction in that sense.

I don't know what moves me from the inside, except the God who has always guided me and lighted my path. I don't always look forward to where He leads me, but I do follow. Eventually. It usually means more work is involved, which is why I resist. In this case, I've been resisting for over a year now, and it's time to listen, as Jonah discovered when he was contemplating his fate from within the depths of the great fish. While Jonah was indeed in a place of darkness and despair as he came to realize his error of disobedience and his need for redirection, my place of transformation can be likened to a cocoon: warm and familiar, surrounded by friends and colleagues.

I am not aware of any special message I am to deliver to my new school, but I do think I will have something special to do when I get there!

Or maybe I will find out they have something special to do with me when I get there.... either way, something special is going to happen. There is a change in the making. That is why I am calling it a turning point year.

I will write more about this in a later entry. I am not ready to say goodbye to my co-workers just yet. We still have lots of work to do together before the school year ends! Memories in the making.