A lot has happened since I last wrote…After that post “My 19th Year as a First Year Teacher”, I learned (the week before school began) that instead of teaching my cherished Grade 6-9 class, I would now be our small school’s Kindergarten to Grade 2 teacher. I was willing, but what a shift to make so quickly! While I packed up one classroom, and set up another, I tried to re-acquaint myself with the abilities, needs and desires of 4-7 year old learners. I had taught primary children before, but only in the context of the one-room school; I had never taught an entire class of early learners, and in many ways I did feel like a first year teacher. But I was also thankful for the lessons I had learned over the years, and I found I could respond to the myriad of challenges with enough wisdom and grace to (mostly) smile rather than cry over all the lessons I was learning. In retrospect, I hadn’t realized how ready I was for a change – ready being different from prepared! But eventually I found my inner primary teacher, grew to love my new role, and believed this was where I would happily spend the last decade of my teaching career.
But a funny thing happened on the way to retirement: perhaps it was completing my Masters degree, or this recent change in teaching position – both invigorated me and deepened my understanding while honing my skills – but I felt ready for another step, and after two years with my treasured primary students, I stepped into the role as teaching principal at our small school…
During my first year as principal (which further broadened my perspective and honed my skills and also, unexpectedly, compartmentalized and challenged my teaching; the subject of a future post, perhaps), I learned that a proposal I had written about studying multigrade teaching and learning in BC had been accepted!
The proposal was submitted on behalf of the BC Rural & Multigrade Teachers’ Association that multigrade teaching and learning be studied as an innovative approach to personalizing education. Our proposal was accepted in September 2015. You can read more about our project on my K-12 Innovations page . And if you are a multigrade teacher, you can participate here until September 30th, 2016.
And so here I am, three busy years later, blessed by a writer’s dream – a rainy west coast July. Time to reflect. Read. Write. To ponder. And, at last, to post.
Welcome back.
Multigrade Teacher 