With all the conference excitement this month, plus I was writing that book, I forgot to publish this post describing our July teacher of the month – jen Schongalla. I ap0logize for that. Jen is definitely one of our rock stars here.
Jen is just so cool and real and direct and uncompromisingly honest in her communications with us here on the blog. She describes her teaching in the real way. I find it amusing to see that she has made a few comments here literally within minutes of my posting this – so go read them and you can see why I say these things.
Jen simply does not shy away from all the barbs that come with teaching. She doesn’t run and hide and try to find things that would make the work easier. She wants to be effective and she knows the theory and she feels the burn and then stands in the moment and hangs with it, so we can say that she is a master of Skill #22 in TPRS in a Year!
What is better than being able to hang in a class and feel the burn? That’s what jen brings to her classroom. That is what I have always wanted to bring to my own teaching. But it’s just so darned scary.
So we all thank you jen for being the teacher and group member you are. Keep on sharing those truthful insights with us this year too – we need to hear them! You have compared your practice of teaching to the practice of yoga and I love that analogy – they are both, indeed, practices in the truest sense.
I sense that you know that we will never be finished with this work, that there will never be some level we get to where we are done. It is a good lesson for all in the group. What a great lesson for all of us to learn. Indeed, we will never reach some level of expertise where we can say we are done.
And jen – did I mention jGR? I know that not everyone uses jGR to the extent that I do, but I am sure that there are many here who would like to thank you for it. It was Robert who started rolling the Interpersonal Skill snowballs down the hill in 2011 (a neat trick in Los Angeles) but it is you who made a snowman out of them up there in New Hampshire.
So jen thanks for being part of our group. I think you are fantastic. You get it. I am sure that I echo the sentiments of many others in saying that.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edavGZ4UoIU
(I also really like that I am able to write in such a positive way about a colleague. When do we do such things? For many of us, it’s all about criticism and how we’re not good enough in our professional lives and how we always need to improve and if we just do what the observer says we will finally be o.k. It is good that we can just stop and say words of appreciation like this to each other as we slug our way through what I consider to be the most difficult profession in the world. (It’s not like we are going to be met with the loving open arms of our administrators and colleagues, bless their hearts, when we go back into our buildings this fall, right?)