Pressing On to What Lies Ahead

The proofreading sweater is now in retirement.  Yesterday was my final yearbook deadline - not just of the year.  It was my last ever yearbook deadline.  In my Thanksgiving post last November, I wrote about 18 years of being the yearbook advisor and why it was time for me to hand it over to someone else.  In that post, I promised to talk about what happens next.  

Let me go back to April of 2022 when I began thinking about this.  Our school has grown dramatically over the past 18 years, and when we got an email about our growing enrollment, I recognized that the methods I have used to make the yearbook all these years were not going to be scalable to this size.  One sleepless night, I had the thought, "In a few years, it may be time to pass this on to someone who can delegate better than I can."  Within a few weeks, I was thinking that perhaps this should happen sooner rather than later.  I wanted to make sure I stopped while I still loved doing it (If that sounds strange, listen to this episode of the TED radio hour in which Daniel Kahneman discusses the Peak End phenomenon of our memories).

But I am not a person who walks away from things easily, and I'm a pretty reflective person (hence this blog).  So, I started thinking about what I have loved about doing the yearbook all these years.  What things do I get from it that I don't want to lose?  There are a number of small things, but there were ultimately two major ones.  

1. Connections with many teachers - Our school is currently on two campuses, with our TK through 6th grade located down the hill about a quarter of a mile from our 7th through 12th grades.  While we have occasional large group meetings, most faculty are not well-connected with those on the other campus.  Because I might pop into a room with my camera at any time and send email requests for photos, I have more knowledge of what is happening in classrooms than most, and it is part of why I love the school so much.
2. Legacy contribution - Teaching is about projecting something into the future.  While we obviously do that with our students, it is important to think about the future of the school itself.  I have been at GRACE for 20 years, and preserving our memories in the yearbook has made me feel that I was making a tangible contribution to the school's legacy.

These were both things that I didn't want to lose, but I was uncertain about how I would maintain those things as I moved forward.  In the midst of all of this musing, I was having an email conversation with our academic dean about doing some presentations on cognitive science with our teachers for professional development.  It was then that the penny dropped, and I realized that this was how I could keep dual campus connections and make a contribution that would carry forward.  

I ran this by a couple of colleagues to see if they thought I was crazy, and they were excited about it.  I carefully crafted an email to my principal with all of these notions, thinking she would be shocked.  Her reply was two sentences - "Sounds great. I'll start working on it."  I ended the year with a pep in my step as I was having new ideas about how to pursue this new role - even though we haven't fully fleshed out what it will be.

This will begin, in part, after spring break.  I will spend six Tuesday afternoons presenting professional development sessions based on the things I learned at a Learning and the Brain conference about the science of learning, and the librarian and I are going to purge and reorganize our professional development books to make the shelf more user-friendly.  Since I won't constantly be heading out to games and events every afternoon, I have joined the Y (I've been going for two weeks now, and I sense blog posts with fitness class analogies in the works).

Next year, I will begin making resource recommendations to my colleagues (and by "begin," I mean "continue" because I've been doing that for years - it will just be official now).  I will teach a study skills elective using the works of Barbara Oakley and Daniel Willingham.  I will observe anyone who will let me and talk through cognitive science-based pedagogy with them.  I hope to make monthly presentations in faculty meetings on a variety of topics, starting with Working Memory and Cognitive Load.  I was also thinking it might be a good idea to send parents some tools to help their kids with studying.  There may be a few other things in the works as well.  If you think that sounds like a lot, I assure you, it won't add up to the amount of work I've been putting into the yearbook.

I will always be grateful for the 18 years I have spent advising the yearbook, but I am happy to press on to what lies ahead, empowering teachers in their decisions with knowledge of research and making kids better learners by showing them how their brains work.