Search Institute

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we at Search want to recognize those teachers who have inspired us. Feel free to leave the name of your own teacher who has influenced your life in the comments below.

Deena Bartley, Project Coordinator

One of the best memories I have of my high school days was made during my junior year when our concert band participated in a competition of bands in New Orleans. During one of the pieces, I had a very difficult French Horn solo. I had to go from a low note to a very high note in one jump and sustain it, which is difficult for a musician at that level. What’s more, this was a true solo — there were no other instruments playing softly as support. Mine was the only sound in the room of judges for five long measures. I was nervous! What was exhilarating was that I played that solo the best I ever had in any of our practices.

I had the privilege of visiting my alma mater, St. Olaf College yesterday to meet with a group of college juniors who are preparing for their student teaching next fall.

We met to talk about some of the thinking they can do before they even start their careers in order to best position their own boundaries and expectations around teaching and a joyful, meaningful life.

Sitting in the room, I couldn’t help but be saddened by the notion that half of these bright young people might very well be in and out of the profession within the next five years. To that end, we talked about how it is they were going to seek sustainability in their own professional lives.

One of the key questions of the day came from a young woman who asked, “I’ve been told that the first three years or so are going to be really bad and THEN things will get better. That seems like a long time.

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05-08-2009 @ 06:39 PM

Scott (not verified) said ...

It makes my heart ache to hear new teachers make comments like those you described. As an administr

Hello good people.

I spoke last week to a fantastic group of after-school professionals about workplace climate issues, staff retention,and personal job satisfaction. We had an excellent time together and the energy and conversation in the room was inspiring.

Since then, I’ve gotten equally great emails from quite a few of the session participants. Common to these emails have been pressing and challenging questions about the realities we all face when we come back from a conference or some type of departure and are suddenly met with the day-to-day stresses of our work.

I thought I’d share a few of these questions and my replies in hopes that you can find some fodder in your own work:

Question: I came back to loads of problems and issues, its hard to bring in new ideas when I can’t even get my team to complete basic directions. Any ideas?

My response:

_Now for the bigger question: how to get a BIG idea addressed when the little things aren’t even getting done.

Good afternoon all!

I was asked some months ago to submit an article to a developing website. So I said, “Sure! Why not?”

Last week TeachHub.com went live and I’m really impressed. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found that many education websites that I choose to visit often. This one looks different. So check it out.

The article I submitted titled “Top 12 Way to Enjoy Your Job” is presently on the K-12 page. Enjoy.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME “REGULARS” ON YOUR WEBSITES ABOUT EDUCATION?

Comments

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04-29-2009 @ 04:20 PM

Annie (not verified) said ...

Thanks for the shout out, Nathan! I'm a big fan of eSchoolNews.com and the TeacherLingo.com blog

09-07-2009 @ 07:54 AM

Character Education (not verified) said ...

Thanks for sharing the post