I am tried. Exhausted. Spent and empty. For some inexplicable reason, however, writing/blogging whatever you want to call it,  seems to be the only activity that restores my energy. Let’s see where this train leads.

After four days of working as a Technology Facilitator, I jokingly asked my principal if I could go back to being a classroom teacher. He grinned, “No way man. You can’t go back once you have jumped into the rabbit hole.” Fair enough, so let me vent a bit. Things that are bugging me about my new job:

There is always something wrong. Every second. All day. Everyday. There are issues. And while it may be self-induced, I feel I need to solve them all. Right now. In addition to my own anxiety about the glitch in Gmail contact creation, people stop me in the halls to ask  how to add a tab in their browser, or pull me over because their keynote isn’t working. The false mantle of expertise is heavy and often gets in the way of what is important– planning my units for my Grade 10 English class that starts next week. I am quite certain,  this balancing act will be more manageable with time. I am excited to watch myself learning how to be patient and kind and open.  I often find myself wanting to belittle how little some people know, it is shocking, but then I imagine them as if they were a kindergartner, or my daughter, and remind myself that I am still a teacher. The difference is that I have a whole new batch of students. Yes, they are grown college-educated adults, but they still need differentiation. They still need to be told they are doing a good job. That they will get it. That it is normal to be nervous about learning. This understanding makes the job worth it. Teaching adults is more complex than teaching kids in many ways. This complexity is helping me be the best educator I can be. It is reconfirming my understanding that teaching is a social experience, and it is about building and maintaining relationships first and foremost. Teaching is always an act of love and trust.

Having said that, I am tired of feeling as if I am the sole defender of all things digital. I sometimes feel that people are projecting their fear, frustration, and resentment with technology towards me. As if I am somehow responsible for their inability to navigate this changing world, or worse that I blindly believe that we are headed in the right direction, simply because I have chosen to explore what the digital world means to my life, my family, my students. Just because I enjoy investigating the digital age, does not make me blind to the necessity and wonder of the world beyond screens. I don’t like the assumption that I prefer to chat on a phone rather than a face-to-face conversation, or that I enjoy the anxiety that comes from being over connected. That I have somehow forgotten what it feels like to close my eyes and enjoy a passing breeze or the warm sunshine on my neck. Watching the giant bees penetrate the flowers on campus. As if technology could ever surpass the subtle beauty of a string of words on a page. I feel that when people see me, they only see a screen. Cold and metallic. I find it hard to express the breathing, stinking organic mess that operates the device they see.

I am sure, as always, I am over thinking and being too sensitive, but this is why I write– to sift through emotions and find clarity. Reflection should show us something right? It is still early days, but I feel like I am being pulled in many directions, not necessarily places I want to go. After a day of putting out a series of fires, I spent an hour in my classroom: moving furniture, blasting the Strokes, and putting up posters and quotes to populate and give birth to my new space. Tomorrow, I will find some plants; I am pricing a cheap guitar for the room , and next week I will spend time with some young adults who don’t expect much from me. We will laugh, get to know each other and begin to explore.