If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will notice that I, Mr. Nola Nerd Couple, write the majority of the blogs. Mrs. Nola Nerd Couple wanted to write more and even made a resolution about it:
My third resolution deals with this blog. I love the idea of growing our name, Nola Nerd Couple, into something bigger, but that only comes by actively producing content. My resolution is to produce a blog post and have it set to publish every Tuesday at 9am…
Well, she didn’t keep her promise.
She did write a blog here and there, but I wrote most of them. The reason was that an AP position opened up at our school at mid year (we are on a 4×4 so technically it’s the start of new classes in January.) Being an experienced teacher, our school wanted her to teach the class. Thinking about the kids, she took it.
Planning is most of the work for new teachers and for teachers who are teaching a new course. To be successful, you have to work as many hours outside of the classroom as you spend inside of one. Teachers have a cliche: fail to plan means you plan to fail. This is one of the few absolute truths in our profession. So she had to ignore the blog to focus on planning. She spend every evening and most weekends of that half of the year planning. Even in the summer time she spent around 40 hours a week planning. I had a new course too so we both spent our summer “vacation” working.
Even though she planned all summer, in the fall she tweaked her lessons. She scrapped some, researched others, and revised some from the spring. She only gave up Sundays instead of all weekends like in the Spring.
All of that hard work was validated this week. Before Thanksgiving break, she was nominated for teacher of the year. Actually, so was I. We had to turn in a portfolio and were observed teaching. Some of our school’s best teachers were nominated so the competition was stiff.
On Monday, one of our assistant principals walked into her room, and yelled “Y’all should feel lucky to have her as a teacher, because is our Teacher of the Year!” The class went nuts. She was shocked. Our principal instructed her not to cry. Meanwhile, when they announced it on the loudspeaker, students asked me if I was happy. I was smiling when I told them no and that I lost to her.
Of course, I’m happy for her. No one knows how hard she works better than I do. She earned her Masters degree in History while teaching full-time. She was going to do the arduous process of becoming National Board certified before she got this new prep. Now, with a year under her belt, she needs to go for it. I consider myself a very good teacher, but I’m not on her level. She outworks me at every turn. While I was at a concert the other Saturday night, she was grading. While I was cycling on Sunday, she was planning. Now, she still does plenty of our nerd stuff…nothing can stop her from going to different cons. She just didn’t get to write about a lot of them.
In this case, I think we can forgive her for not keeping her resolution. I mean she is the teacher of the year!
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