One of the most striking things about Our Kids is just how honest it is about the conditions facing students, 1950s-2000s. Many times while reading through the myriad narratives and individual case studies I saw myself. Many of the narratives suggested hardships brought on by the internal and external issues facing the family structure, whether a familial loss, a lack of training for careers, drug/alcohol issues, and mental/physical illness. While reading I would drift a bit to think about the issues in my own life and my will to succeed, but I would also think about individuals that I grew up with and built communities around in my early life: were these the struggles they faced as well? Do they understand the prevailing winds in our US economy and history that may have influenced their success?

If you ever spend time with me, I will probably wax poetic about the phrase, “Becoming”. I love the idea that no matter how good we are at our jobs or naturally talented at anything, we are constantly in the state of ‘becoming’, or trying to continually push ourselves and learn everything we can to be consistently better at what we do. That is why this weekly post is called “Developing Educator”. I don’t think anyone is perfect at teaching or the myriad works happening to support educators and students worldwide, so we all are developing, or becoming, educators as we work, build, connect, fail, and grow. It takes time and effort to build what we want to be, even if we may never get to perfection. We still strive to be better.

On August 1st, 2022 I am so excited to share my keynote at the Utah Charter Network Annual Symposium at Thanksgiving Point. My keynote is entitled “Reconnect with your passion as an educator through connection.” In it I share my journey as an educator to find my community in education and how I continue to share and build up my community in Utah and beyond. Check out the entire presentation above!

First off, like many teachers, I know that distance learning is not always a suitable replacement for in class learning, particularly in the elementary and secondary settings. It does not give teachers and students the same level of communication and relationship building.