Adteacher

Life changes. I know from working with teenagers for decades that this is normal - they often leave high school with one idea of who they want to become, and then they come back during college telling me that they have already gone through some big changes.  Sometimes it even comes with a change in major after discovering something new about themselves.  A new passion. Now I have begun to undergo this transition as an older professional with a design background and a really passionate few decades of teaching. I have felt very good about teaching high school students for so long, and I still do. My passion for teaching is not diluted. However, my desire to do something new is strong right now, and I want to aggressively approach a new creative period in my life. Rather than spending all day helping older students, and doing teacher work, I want to provide a creative product that will appeal to young children. I believe that this shift in focus has been brough...

How to accept recognition... For a long time, since I was in elementary school, I used to get kind of embarrassed when anyone would compliment me because I had never really learned how to appropriately accept a pat on the back, especially when I was at work. I was kind of red-faced about it. Not because I didn't feel happy to receive an accolade, but just because, as a rule, we don't ever get trained how to be gracious. Every person craves acceptance and recognition for what they do, but how does one know what to say? Especially if the compliment comes from someone you admire and wanted to hear good things from? It seems that our almost "pre-programmed" response is to downplay or deflect the compliment so we don't come across as conceited or full of ourselves. According to Entrepreneur Magazine,  it’s so common that sociolinguists have categorized the three most common responses to a compliment: acceptance, deflection or rejection . Have you ever ...

Hindsight. I grew up hearing the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" and when I was very young, I really had no idea what that meant. Now that I am easing up on another birthday tomorrow and preparing to enter yet another new phase of my life (retirement) in a few short weeks, I think I can easily reflect on it and explain. Some of the actions that people take in their youth are based in very fast-paced decision making.  "I need to take action, I'll think about the real consequences later on."   I will just deal with it later is a popular refrain when the main person you are thinking about is yourself. But what if you realized suddenly that your decisions were having an unexpectedly profound effect on your friends, co-workers, partner, children? Would that change how long you might think about your decisions? You know you are an adult when you are actually looking FORWARD to gaining hindsight wisdom. I think that I actually had to make a few bad ...

Maturity. It means different things depending on what phase of life we are in, I've noticed. I have recently had some interesting "mature" conversations. Some have been with colleagues, as I prepare my classroom for the impending move-out day, I get visits from co-workers and others who ask questions like: "are you counting down the days yet?" I guess they wonder how preoccupied with endings I am. Well-meaning, but that is not how I view this phase of my life. I look at it as a beginning, really! I see the end of my years in Lewisville ISD as the beginning of someone else's chance to shine. I hope that the new teacher understands how badly I hope they are successful and happy in this studio. When you are a high school student, I think it is typical to be routinely thought of as immature just because of a lack of experience in life, but I met with a group of 10 students who will be returning for their senior year with the new teacher here at Career ...