Entering a new school and classroom months after the start of the academic calendar is a situation no teacher wishes for. In the past I had always brushed away suggestions that I should try teaching middle and high school. My transition from 5th grade to 8th and 9th was jarring. Entirely new attitudes, perspectives, and behaviors met me at the door on day one.
My new class was in the midst of a reality shift that was the sudden exit of their teacher. Educators do not enter a classroom looking forward to abruptly leaving it. We know the damage this can cause, especially in a world where teachers last (hopefully) three years before leaving the profession. Having done so to my old students two weeks prior I refused to have an encore performance. I steeled myself for the new challenge. I would fight past my prejudices about teenagers and my ability to teach them. This was an entirely new group of young people who deserved the comfort of consistency and sense of safety every student deserves. My 8th and 9th grade science and math classes were filled with good people with distinct personalities and dreams to match. By the end of the school year I recognized the moments of pride they gave me greatly outweighed my days of frustration.
Hardy Williams High School continues to be my standard for how an administrative and teaching team can work together. No one was perfect or feared asking for help. Between the very necessary stern voices and high expectations were laughter and support across grade teams. If an administrator was unable to assist a teacher in need it was because they were already in a room with another. When I recognized the specific supports lacking for science teachers across our school network I had the freedom to form a multi-school teacher team that met regularly to collaborate on lesson planning. Principals and assistant principals were leaders just as much as they were confidants.
Sadly, two years of that system’s extremely demanding teacher expectations left no room to relieve my mental and physical exhaustion. Managing students whose academic and behavior needs required more than I could give led to a debilitating mental state and need to take a medical leave of absence. I was genuinely considering if my days and the feelings accompanying them were worth waking up for. It was on my first day of leave, a time when I should have been resting and not pushing myself physically, that I had an almost yearlong immobilizing accident at my gym. With that said, the resulting journey which led me to Austin made it the best growth grown from tragedy that a person could hope for.