Growing as teacher wobblers

I had a blog post started in response to the thinking that had been working it's way around my head.  It wasn't anything genius...heck, I don't think that even what ends up being my best writing even starts out that way.   My plan this evening was to do some reading and commenting of fellow SIer's blogs, then go back to wrap up this post that I had gotten started.

I'm not going to finish it, at least not tonight, for the reason that I've grown to love reading these blogs every night.  I came accross too much awesome thinking, now fresh in my head, and my blog post tonight needs to grow out of it.

Sarah S and Wendy were the writers' who did it. In both of their posts, they brought up their own ongoing wobbling through SI and their inquiry. Sarah said a few things that I completely connected with.

In her post, Possibly Getting my Mind Boggled, Sarah wrote about SI and finding this flood great ideas, feeling unsure because of new and challenging ideas, and at being loss about how all of the experiences in SI will translate into her classroom teaching this year.  I know exactly how this feels. I've felt it before, and I'm feeling something like it right now.

I'm sure that I don't know exactly what Sarah is feeling, but reading her post got me reflecting a little on the way I felt when I was wrapping up my first year of SI.  I remember this feeling stressing me out a bit.  I was anxious about some replaning that I know needed to happen.  I was wobblying in so many spots that I was worried about feeling less sure of myself and my practice. And I guess that I was also a little worried about loosing all of these great ideas and the connections to a community with whom I had grown so close.

I'm not feeling right now this same type of overwhelming anxiety, at least not to the same extent.  And it's not because I'm not wobbling, either.  The thinking, writing, and connecting with great teachers has got me all sorts of wobbly....I'd say even more so than when I went through SI as a student a few year ago.

It Wendy's post, Minds Converge,  that got me thinking about what it was exactly, that has changed in me.

 "...I'm growing in my wobbling," wrote Wendy.  As I mulled over this words, it started to come to me.  A brief statement, but a huge paradigm shift.

Growing in wobbling...

This seems so different than how we look at the school model and our positions as learners in general.  Wobbling is something that is seen as temporary, that we work to get past.  We encounter an area we know little about, wobble through figuring out some answers and arrive on solid ground.

Growing in wobbling....

Not growing at finding answers, finding the solid ground.  But in wobbling.  Growing in being off balanced, finding the questions that put you there.

Maybe it was in this areas that I have grown....I feel pretty sure that's the case.  But I was still a little stuck in thinking about what exactly this meant.

I left Wendy's blog, still thinking, and came across a tweet from Sarah, tweeting out the link to her blog:

Sarah Stadler ‏@SarahStadler202h

I think I'm getting mind-boggled? Getting more questions then answers? I don't think I'm doing this right? #unccwp http://sstadler.blogspot.com/ 


I noticed right away a new layer of wobbling in her tweet.  She was wobbling about wobbling, wondering about the value of the place she had put herself in.   Wondering if she was doing it right.

I typed up a reply that said "Yes!" but decided to delete it.  How am I supposed to know if she is doing it right when I am always asking myself the same thing as I'm wobbling through my own mess of loose ends and conflicting ideas?

Perhaps it's this feeling of not knowing if you are doing it right that is the best indication you are.

I need to keep thinking on that one.....