Wow, what a year this has been. I struggled--first, the full time working mom of two was a much bigger adjustment than the full time working mom of one was; next, all my courses this year were either new or ones I haven't taught in five or ten years; finally, I brought a lot of completely new ideas to my instruction, such as trying the flipped classroom, mastery learning, and less focus on memorization of the content and more focus on learning what's really important.
I also had the best evaluation of my career. Although I struggled and challenged myself, I definitely laughed more than I cried this year. I hope to have inspired students to think deeper, to care about more than the grade they received at the end, and to have learned a new thing or two about American History. I, by and large, stayed out of trouble and was able to connect with my students in ways I never have before.
Have no fear, though, I remain the anti-teacher of the year.
PS--I plan on doing lots of learning the year, mostly living vicariously through my becoming-an-educational-consultant husband. I also plan to read Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer? this summer (even though I won't be teaching history, for the first time in my career...) and some of Marzano's books as well.
