Upon further review....and now moving forward

I have not blogged the way that I have wanted to or planned.  But what has gone according to plan this year?  The short answer....Not very much.

What started out as a promising school year, turned into a very bumpy and draining (emotionally and physically) year.  It started in September when my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had a total thyroidectomy.  That bled into the beginning to mid October.  While recovering from that, she had a biopsy on a lung nodule.  Her lung collapsed and she was hospitalized for 2 days.  We dealt with that for a week before changing hospitals (The James Cancer Hospital is amazing).  After a couple of months and new docs, a lung wedge resection was done to check the same nodule.  This came back positive for Neuroendocrine cancer.  This saga lasted all year, and we continue the fight as there is not a cure for this type of cancer.

I tell the story not for sympathy, but to set the stage that I was in and out of school A LOT!!  So, I buckled up and did the best that I could with the time that I was there.  Looking back, I didn't get very much accomplished.  I felt like I was treading water.  I pride myself for getting in classes to teach guidance lessons.  That maybe happened 2-3 times per grade level, if I was lucky.  Also, I wasn't able to monitor my 504 caseload to the best of my abilities.  Being the advisor to National Junior Honor Society even suffered.

The first couple weeks of break have given me a chance to talk to my principal and do some honest and even hard to admit, self-reflection.  I am not beating myself up because I would choose to be by my wife's side again in a heartbeat.  I am however able to look ahead to what I want to accomplish for next year and moving forward.

After reading CULTURIZE by Jimmy Casas, I have been recharged to approach my job as a middle school counselor differently and set some objectives I want to achieve this year. 

My objectives for the year are:

• Meet with every new student to the school sometime the week after they arrive
• Have quarterly check-ins with the students on my 504 caseload to see what can be done to help
• Continue to grow the college/career readiness for the 8th graders 
• Offer small groups during the year
• anxiety
• depression
• executive functioning skills
• anger
• girl empowerment
• boys becoming gentlemen
• Documenting all my activities (Find a good way...)
• Talk 1 on 1 with every student on my caseload
• Develop better/more engaging guidance lessons
• Blog 1 time per week/biweekly

That sounds like quite a bit to focus on.  I am aiming to blog once a week or biweekly.  My aim is to post on things that I am learning.  I am going to link my blog to my school counseling page to encourage my students to follow and model lifelong learning and how to leverage blogs and social media (mainly twitter) to enhance their learning.  I have a great PLN on twitter that motivates me to continue learning and challenging me.  I recently jumped out of my comfort zone and volunteered to be one of the co-moderators for the school counseling twitter chat #scchat.  I cannot wait to learn alongside some amazing school counselors.

Jimmy Casas and Rick Czyk talk of the importance of taking control of our own professional development.  That is exactly what I am doing.  Twitter is an amazing resource for educators to meet people and grow/push each other.  

Jimmy Casas also talks about "Carrying the banner" in his book, CULTURIZE and Ryan Sheehy asks us to pick up the charge and "be the one for kids" in his book BE THE ONE.

My challenge to all educators...."Be the One!"