Today, Annika shared a picture of her chicken alter-ego. It’s a blue chicken with an iron beak that can eat anything and his name is Hozay. It’s pronounced Jose, but it’s spelled Hozay. When she plays farm at recess with her friends, she becomes Hozay, a legendary chicken. This delights me.

It was good to come home to that, because I’m feeling pretty lost right now. I went to the opening of a conference that is absolutely delightful – it’s put on by the MN State Teachers of the Year, particularly Katy Smith, in conjunction with the National Teacher of the Year program, and I was super excited to be around so many strong teachers and leaders. I found, however, that I felt out of place, or lost. I don’t feel that way a whole lot anymore. I’m helping to facilitate circles tomorrow, so I’m hoping it was just that it was a late night and a crazy day (I spent, like, three hours at the car repair place this morning/afternoon when I expected to be there only an hour, among other things).

I think I’m feeling lost a little bit because I’m on uncertain ground: I’ve only been teaching at Roseville now for almost five months. I am teaching all sorts of new things in a new environment where I am at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and I guess I’m not feeling much like a teacher-leader right now. I wonder if, and when, I will feel that way again.

When I started teaching, I had a million creative ideas – projects, service learning, large school events and productions… I delved into things that engaged students and that I loved. I grew as a teacher and as a coach, but the profession changed and started prioritizing things like data and rigor above other values, particularly relationship building and equity. It became toxic for me and I left to try something new, right in the middle of a year.

That’s hard to explain to people – what kind of teacher up and leaves in the middle of a year, in the middle of their classes? After more than 14 years – what kind of person does that? I’m struggling with answering those questions, or not answering them and having to deal with the hushed looks from people that poorly mask their disapproval. I’m quiet-sobbing even as I write this (so I don’t wake up Dak).

I know there is so much more I need to process with this. I feel shame that I couldn’t handle the problems at my former school, and I feel shame about feeling like I abandoned kids who I care about. I feel shame that I maybe made the year more difficult for my former colleagues, something they didn’t need. I feel self-doubt about whether I did the right thing, even though I feel so much more at home at Roseville.

So I’m not feeling my place as a teacher-leader this weekend. I’m feeling out of place and not confident. I am going to go anyway, embrace my discomfort, and hopefully grow. As Katy said in her opening remarks tonight – we maybe smell from the trauma we are around so much in this profession, but hopefully I can shower in the hope from other teachers this weekend. Lord knows I need it.