A New Beginning

This summer has been summarized by change.  I’m changing schools, school districts, and subjects taught.  The thing I’m most excited about is that I’m going to be closer to home.  My commute wasn’t awful, but now I’ll work about ten minutes away from where I live.  This is going to allow me to work with kids in my community and hopefully allow me to bring about change for the good in my area of Denton.  I was so sad to say goodbye to Coppell, but it was a move that I had been thinking and praying about for a long time.

The other main change that I’ve been thinking a lot about is leaving the G/T classroom for a district that does not have a specifically gifted history classroom.  In my new district they have Pre-AP as their only distinctive grouping.  I’m not going to start a debate for one and against another because that’s not productive at all.  The change is stirring up philosophical questions for me like, “is separating gifted kids what is best for everyone?”, “what is the best way to break up students into leveled groups?”, and “how will my teaching need to change given my new context?”  I’m not sure that I have answers to any of these questions, but I’ll be wrestling with them throughout the next few school years for sure.