Episode IV: A New Job

Not sure where to really share this out since I don’t really do Facebook, Twitter is too short and Google+ and I have are taking a break from each other. 
So, I’ll use this blog of mine which I am trying to resurrect. 
and… here it is… “I am no longer a teacher.”

Well, not really. Let me try that again… “I am no longer a classroom teacher.”

I think I will always be a teacher, but I have taken a job at the Rocklin district office as a “Technology Teacher on Special Assignment”
[BTW, What started as a relatively short post about my change in a job got me to waxing poetically so please don’t feel like you have to read on. But if you do, I want to make sure I gave you ample warning that I do go on a bit!] 

This is the first time since 1997 that I have not had a class of my own to come back to in the fall. I talked with my wife and daughters about this and they are very supportive of this choice. The girls love that I teach at Rocklin high and feel that I am part of something great but understand circumstances which I found myself in. Andrea is the one who goes through my writing to proof my words and check for the correct placement of commas: oh you trick commas! 
I do not take this change lightly and have thought about this for a long time. I feel that my classroom is a place where I thrive. I have a passion for public education, social studies and seeing learning in the eyes of students. And the school which I have been fortunate to be at since 2001, Rocklin High, is a fantastic place filled with incredible students and staff; a staff which has been my second family for 14 years. 
So then, why on earth am I leaving? 
Well, I’ve been doing more and more trainings and professional development workshops both within my district and beyond and I find that work very rewarding and inspiring. As teachers we thrive when we get those “ah ha” moments with our students. I have found that same excitement when I see that reaction on the faces of educators. Having teachers and administrators share back with you about lessons and connections that they have made because of something you shared is pretty incredible. And now my district is moving forward with rolling out new technologies to all K-12 schools and to support that with a new hire of a Tech TOSA; and well… I got the job.
So here I am in the summer with no classroom to go back to, no curriculum to think to about, and no thoughts about “my” incoming students.
But I am thinking; thinking about how to help all the teachers, principals, librarians, coaches, counselors, and support staff and I kind of don’t know where to really begin! Many of my friends in the Ed Tech community have been great resources for me already and I would appreciate anyone else out there who can offer any advice to send it my way. 
I am finishing this blog post somewhere over the US as myself and a team of others from RUSD are returning from a Schoology conference. I guess you could call this my first days as a TOSA while I was out here. I’m excited about trying help all the schools and staff get use the Learning Management System to reach and connect with their users in so many new ways. 
Lastly, to all my friends and fellow educators at Rocklin High, I would like to say thank you for all the incredible moments I have had the pleasure to share with you over the years. 
We often say that Rocklin High is a special place. Well, as I think about this change for me I am thinking about the place itself. Because it is the places, those spaces, which is where those memories happened. Here are some of the memories I will have of these places.

• The Theater: From the taking my girls to Toepke’s musicals to the Faculty Follies (oh how I loved dressing up and being on stage!)
  
• The Library: From debates on mastery learning, the dress code (oh, the spaghetti straps debate) and  why we don’t give “D’s”, to saying farewell to Rick Morris.
• The Stadium: From Friday night football games coaching with Greg, Jason, Eckman, Spears, Kimmel, and  Marjama, to celebrating our graduating seniors at graduation (wow, reading the names of seniors this years under the lightning storm was quite a memory).
• The Amphitheatre: From the Every 15 minutes accident scenes to Flash Mob dance sequences
• The Large Conference Room: From organizing our prep period coaches on the white board with Stew to my first interview and being so nervous because I really wanted to work at this place (thanks Greg Benzel for being the first person who ever reached out to help me at this place).
• The gym: From the days when I was able to make it to morning basketball to watching with pride as my daughter walked into the Welcome Back Rally on her first day ever at this school.
• The Social Studies building. It was here where I had to come to work on 9/11 and watch a Tower fall and have 32 kids look up at me and try to have something to say. It is where I have collected photos throughout the years of our experiences as a department. It is where we share crazy stories about what we see in our classes from these students of ours. It is where I made a lot of friends. It where I have spent many a late nights with one of my closest friends Ryan Spears working on one of our crazy projects or videos (ask us about our Game Shows book one day, ugh). It is these teachers whom I’ve spent a lot of my life with. I’ve said goodbye to some of them over the years as they moved on. And I now find myself in that same place and oh trust me, by writing all this, I am asking myself again “why are you leaving?”
• The room labeled as L-5. I inherited this room from Marty Flowers and as I look back it sure has changed. I’ve added a Lazy-Boy, which I found on the street one day (my wife really questioned this decision since I often think that some guy may have died in it) and got a SmartBoard put in without really checking with  my principal Mike Garrison if I could (note to new teachers “it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”). It had a revolving door for roommates for a long time, Julianne, Sarah and April to name just a few and then finally just last year, it became completely mine. Oh how I loved decorating with Star Wars, Nevada Wolf Pack and the art and architecture from the world.
  

I’ve discussed the people I have worked with but one of the hardest decisions is about the people I won’t get to meet. Those students whom I won’t be able to call myself their teacher. The working with the kids is THE reason why I think we all do this job. To my colleagues who’ve made the jump to leave the classroom, they all mention this as the hardest part of their decision. Like so many of us, I take such pride in the craft that is teaching. I love the moments when I get to be in front of the class like a stand-up comic: I need to be funny, but not let the hecklers take away from the show; I need to tell stories and keep them engaged, but have them feel like this is fresh; and lastly I need to create moments that will stick with them. Hopefully these moments can be something truly important like how to express an argument or understand how the past shapes the world around them. Oh, by the way… I really love teaching social studies.
 
My wife and I made the move out here in 2001 from Reno. To me this was a town where I knew no one, but was ready for a change. There were forces pushing me out of Reno and looking for new beginnings. We had our first daughter and my wife and just finished grad school. We needed family support in raising our daughter and my wife’s family was in Loomis. I had experienced the passing of my brother in 2000 and as I look back at where I was, I needed a change. Rocklin was the answer. I found a home for my family, a school district where my wife and I could work, great schools for my two daughters to attend, friends who are like family and a sense of purpose.

So, thank you Rocklin for allowing me to try my hand at a new purpose. Here I come!