Daughter of the World

My grandparents, who met working at a leper colony in Panama in the early 1930s, used to tell me, "Molly, you are a daughter of the world. You must take this seriously and give back." I believe this is why I went into education; it was inevitable. It was the most tangible way I could see to give back to the world and try to make it a better place than it was when I came into existence.

Teaching NWP Colleagues how to Twitter
Thanks Katrina Rene for the photo.

But our role as educators has changed tremendously in the last five years. In the age of Common Core, no matter how we feel about it, we must figure out how to teach the skills that will help students gain access to learning in our content area. For me, this means reaching out to other educators to share my own learning and hopefully learn something from the people I come into contact with.

My work outside of the school day mostly involves the National Writing Project and its affiliate, the Denver Writing Project. The writing project has trained be to be a teacher consultant, a person who can take my own learning and teach other teachers, and also learn from them. Through this work I have been able to learn about how to implement the Common Core through the work I did with the Literacy Design Collaborative. I have received opportunities to meet amazing educators from around the country, and I have been able to create great professional relationships with these people.

The power of the work outside of my school day is that I have a network of teachers from across Colorado (where I live) and most amazingly from across the country. I pull from these teachers to learn what is happening where they live. There are days that I get discouraged about what is happening in my school or my district, and they reassure me that it is happening in their workspace as well.

There is power in a group of people who want the best for their profession. There is power in knowing that there are people outside of my immediate experience I can draw from when I need help. There is power in moving beyond our buildings to see different ways to accomplish goals. This power to create a place for teachers to talk really does make me a daughter of the world, one where we help and take care of one another.

Are you an island?

Yesterday I sat in a room at the Gates Foundation where I listened to my new friend Ian Simoy talk about how the experience of teaching can be isolating and make educators feel like they're living on an island. Then someone remarks how he really is an island; Ian lives in Oahu.

Me looking crazy with Ian Simoy
and Joan Hurley

But Ian does not manifest island-ness. No, he is connected and networked with educators from across the country.

I began my own teaching career 1994 in Nepal in the Peace Corps working in a tiny village cut off from the modern world. In all ways I was the proverbial island Ian spoke about yesterday. But being alone in a village where I had to make it or break it gave me the fortitude to understand that my experience there depended solely on me.

My failures were completely mine. My successes were too. My life-changing epiphany came when I realized that I could bring other people into the success I was trying to create for myself.

This is when I began listening. Listening to my villagers, listening to my family members. Yes, I needed to listen to get the language down, but I have brought this home with me.

Listening to people about their experiences has brought me to every great teaching epiphany I have ever had. I never imagined when I began my career I would still rely on this epiphany that took me so long to learn: that I must listen to others, especially when they feel passionate about something. It might lead some really great places.