Why Do I Care?

As I spent my first, frankly exhausting week at my new school, I asked myself more than a few times why it was necessary to switch from my old school to my new school. Why did I go from a place where I knew the ins and outs of how everything was done, where I was a respected leader and people came to me with all of their issues to a school where I don't know how anything works and where I have to prove myself all over again?

If that was the only issue, that would probably be an occasional thought that went away, but it isn't. I'm learning a whole new way of teaching, one where no one is telling me what to do, where not only do I not have to follow the curriculum, but I"m encouraged not to. It's exciting and it's what I've told people for at least 6 months that I want, except that it's a lot of work, it's exhausting and it's causing me to wonder almost non-stop if I'm really a teacher, or just another one of those people who could teach well because I had pre-packaged curriculum in front of me.

If I fail this year, then that's what it comes down to. Do I think I'm really going to fail? No, I don't think that's possible with my obsessive tendencies. But what if I'm just mediocre? That would be devastating.

I've asked myself why I'm putting myself through this. Why does the education of other people's children matter so much to me that I'm willing to work so much harder, put in so many long hours and spend so much of my own money helping to create learning adventures for these kids, instead of just teaching from textbooks?

My answer here is not anything earth shattering, nor is it something that's easy for me to cling to when I'm feeling so uncertain. My answer is, because this is what's right. I don't care what the test scores say, this is what's right. More on this in a little bit.