• Blog
  • About
  • Digital Portfolio
  • Presentations
    • Ontario Summit 2019
    • Petaluma iOS Summit >
      • You Can Explain Everything and Your Students Can, Too!
      • Getting Going with Google Classroom
      • Capturing Student Ideas with Visual Apps
    • ISTE15 >
      • Connecting the Next Digital Leaders
      • Hacking the Daily 5
      • Passion-Based Learning: Genius Hour, 20% Time, and Innovation Day
    • DENapalooza Vancouver 2015
    • PITA15 Whistler >
      • Passion-Based Learning: Genius Hour & 20% Time
      • Screencasting for Visible Thinking & Learning
    • CUE15 >
      • Hacking the Daily 5 - Rockstar Jam Session
      • Digital Citizenship for the 21st-Century Citizen
    • Odyssey15
    • iOS Summit Vancouver 2015
    • 2014 Presentations >
      • ERAC IL4K12
      • CUEBC14 >
        • Learn How To Drive: Storage & Collaboration in the Cloud
        • SAMR: A Technology Integration Model for Educators
      • SFU14
      • Union SD Tech Innovation Summit
      • CUE Rockstar Manhattan Beach 2014 >
        • Learn How To Drive
        • Screencasting for Visible Thinking and Learning
        • Hacking the Daily 5
      • CA GAFESummit 2014 >
        • Learn How To Drive
        • SAMR: A Technology Integration Model for Educators
        • Passion-Based Learning
      • JET14
      • MERITCon14
      • ISTE 2014
      • CanFlip14 >
        • Screencasting for Visible Thinking & Learning
        • Passion-Based Learning
      • Vancouver GAFESummit 2014 >
        • Learn How to Drive
        • Passion-Based Learning
      • Walnut Grove - Genius Hour in Elementary
      • Odyssey 2014 >
        • SAMR: A Technology Integration Model for Educators
        • Explain Everything! Practical Uses and How-Tos for Screencasting on Your iPad
        • So You Want to Mystery Skype?
      • Roseville GAFESummit - Passion-Based Learning
  • Contact
A Tech Teacher on a Mission

How the strike defeated me... and the healing process that follows

9/18/2014

 
This is a post I said I’d never write. I said I’d never include politics in my blog. Ever.

However, the fact stands that my blog is also a place for my reflection on my professional practice, and this is a situation in which I feel I cannot silently sit and merely internalize what is going on. I would actually define this post more as political impact on me as an individual than anything that would define my political views, though. So, here it goes:

This BC Teachers’ Strike defeated me. I say this as I look back on many months of consciously pulling away from social media, from blogging, from doing better work in my classroom. It has pulled me away from trying new lessons with engaging tools, from collaborating with other educators, and from personally feeling gratified with my choice of career. It has, in a phrase, temporarily deflated my passion toward teaching.

This job action experience, which has stretched back since early April of this year, began to highlight the ways in which our government devalued our profession. Now, don’t get me wrong, these were facts that I was already well aware of. So you don’t like teachers? Great, that’s your call... Moving right along.

But when those facts and opinions continue to get shoved in your face day in and day out, or it affects your job every day you start to feel pretty low. Oh, and the whole letting-down-kids, public ridicule, lock-out, not-getting-paid, piece? Yeah. Pretty low.

My biggest problems:
  1. I had no control over anything that was happening to my students, my colleagues, or myself.
  2. I was addicted to reading about it. 

I read everything I could get my hands on… about all of the things I couldn’t control. The latest move by the BCTF, the latest press conference by the government, opinion blogs, news articles, you name it. I would silently chastise media for focusing so much on wages and signing bonuses (which I could give a rip about) and their lack of focus on class size & composition issues, especially in the beginning. I would be glued to the #bced Twitter feed in all of its disgusting BCTF-vs.-Liberal-troll: Who’s-gonna-win-tonight glory. It was one of those things that you just shouldn’t look at.

But I couldn’t look away.

The things I read silenced me. Mean things. Nasty things. Lumping teachers all into the same, greedy, only-6-hour-workdays, only-work-9-months-per-year, lazy category. The worst part is… I  began to believe them.

Despite working on the professional development of others for much of the summer, I did very little to professionally develop myself. This was unusual for me. I started getting blocks in my thinking patterns every time I tried to imagine new lesson ideas in my head. My motivation for the program design work I had set up for myself at the end of last year began to evaporate, and quickly.

I started to quiet myself. Slow down. I did very little to add value to the online communities that I continue to hold in high regard. The social media outlets that I used to share prolifically to, I do no more. My blog archives became relatively empty when compared to the same time last year. I had nothing more to give, lest I be criticized. False hope pervaded every turn that we would be back again soon. I was hurt.

They defeated me. And I let them do it.

This week, real hope showed its face in BC education. Naturally, things started to change as the need to be prepared for the school year kicked back in. I have started reworking my grand plans that I hatched at the end of last school year. I am becoming excited once again about designing new programs for my classroom. I am cautiously regaining my optimism toward my career choice. The future certainly looks brighter. The time to start healing is now.

As we wait for the results for the potential ratification of an agreement, I can say I have begun to do just that. I know so many teachers in BC are hurting right now and that I am not alone. 

If you are not yet feeling on the road to recovery, join this challenge with me: take note of that first moment this school year where you burst with absolute joy in your classroom, school, or district because of your job. Write down a gratitude list for those moments that remind you why you love your career. Even for just the first week. 

I am using this strategy to heal the wounds; as deep as they have become, they shall heal. I look forward to sharing my list very soon to continue healing with BC educators… together.
Picture

    Author

    Victoria Olson
    A curious and passionate educator in Langley, BC

    Picture

    Picture

    Picture

    Picture

    Picture

    Picture

    Tweets by @MsVictoriaOlson

    Picture

    Picture

    RSS Feed


    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013


    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Augmented Reality
    Balance
    Blogging
    Camtasia
    Collaboration
    Communication
    Community
    Creativity
    Design
    Edcamp
    #EdFailFwd
    Education
    Efficiency
    Elementary
    Google Teacher Academy
    Guided Math
    Intermediate
    Ipads
    Multi Age
    Multi-age
    Pln
    Primary
    Pro D
    Pro D
    Pro-D
    Reflection
    Resource
    Screencasting
    Self Regulation
    Sharing
    Tech
    Things That Suck
    Think35
    Twitter
    Video
    #YourEduStory


    Want to subscribe to this blog? Enter your email address below for automatic email updates:

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo from hagerman