Each time I find myself working/living/existing in a new place or situation, I can’t help but recollect other times I have voluntarily placed myself outside my comfort zone, and tried to make the unfamiliar more like the familiar…or at least more comfortable. Moving to Singapore to complete this Fulbright fellowship – this migration for opportunity (using the vocabulary words from another blog post) – has certainly put me in a new place, literally and figuratively. Like other times, it’s disorienting, but ultimately it forces me to grow and learn in ways that I’d never imagined.

My first year teaching was at Harper High School in Chicago. I moved from SW Ohio right after undergrad to start my teaching career. I remember in an interview with another school, I was told that I shouldn’t teach in a CPS school because they had assumed that I ‘couldn’t handle CPS students.’ They were wrong. I enjoyed the time I spent teaching at Harper and it wasn’t the students who influenced my decision to leave. It was a few intractable colleagues in the math department who refused to collaborate, who did not want to try anything new, and who were forced to have even congenial conversations. That was what forced me to find another working environment. I had fun in the classroom, even though it was a completely new environment for me. It was easy for me to find my groove – planning lessons and assessments, delivering them, interacting with students, and cultivating my nascent practice in reflection on my teaching. Teaching is fun. I had much to learn in my first year of teaching and I learned it on-the-job. Each day of teaching was new and exciting and interesting. I’d come home exhausted, but wanting to go back for more the next day. There were times when I felt overwhelmed, but I was always grounded in the task I had to do – teach my students mathematics. With little guidance other than the textbooks bequeathed to me, I set about pursuing my task everyday. I knew what I was going to teach, how I was going to do it, and the trajectory of what I was teaching. I had found a rhythm to my work and my life through my teaching. I was again thrown off that rhythm during my first Winter Break when I had two weeks off. On the Sunday night before I returned to school, I remember worrying that I didn’t remember how to teach.  That proved to be a ridiculous fear, but it still crept up on my during my first few years of teaching after that.

Fast forward several years and two schools later when I took a leave from teaching to be a Teacher-in-Residence at Northwestern. I was thrilled to have been chosen and to join the research team at SESP. I had (and still have) a great deal of respect for the work that many of the researchers and professors do there. I got to peak into the world of educational research for a year. As interesting as the work was, it was also an unsettling time because I didn’t have the familiarity of teaching to rely on; I didn’t have the regularity of a teaching schedule. I remember thinking, “Where am I supposed to be at 1:24 pm?” The pace of research seemed slow, too. Everything had to go through an IRB request or have a literature review done first. In teaching, students show up at 1:24 pm whether you are prepared or not. The clock’s crusade in teaching can be unnerving, but it can also be quite the motivator to be prepared and to accomplish something. That something is usually a completed lesson or test or stack of papers to grade. It took me some time to adjust to not having an imposed structure to my day and using that freedom and flexibility productively. Fortunately, I had my research team to guide me.

Fast forward again to now, several years later, and I’m taking another leave from teaching, situating myself in not only a new work outside of ‘regular’ teaching, but also in a new culture, in a different country. At our Fulbright orientation in DC last August, we were warned that we will feel overwhelmed at times, that we will see and learn more than we could ever possibly use, and that we may even want to change the focus of our project. I have felt all these things and then some. Before I left for Singapore I was confident in what I had to do to complete my inquiry project and had a clear sense of direction with it. Now the pendulum swings in the opposite direction as I feel less focused and less confident. The more I learn about the Singapore education system, the more I want to ask “why?” and dig deeper, and this usually diverts me from the goal of completing my inquiry project. Even though I was warned, the temptation to digress is strong. Besides the additional stimuli of my new circumstance, I am readjusting again to having little-to-no structure in my day outside of the classroom observations and I don’t have the drumbeat of teaching to keep me on track. I’m getting better at staying focused without the comfort of the stringent schedule.

In the past when I’ve felt a little professionally distracted, I’ve had some excellent colleagues who have helped me discern my priorities and stay centered. While I have my Fulbrighter colleagues here, they are working on their own inquiry projects. I’ll see my faculty adviser in two weeks and I hope to have a semblance of structure in the questions I have for him. That conversation will be helpful. Thankfully, I have my educator-husband who is forced to listen to my ramblings and helps me stay on the straight and narrow. He’s a fantastic sounding board and gives me valuable feedback. If I haven’t already written about his support of this whole adventure, then I’ve left out a very important piece. Everyone deserves to have such a supportive life-partner like him. I’m also doing quite a bit of consultation with my colleagues in Chicago. While they are holding down the fort, they are also helping me lay the groundwork for the summer program that is the focus of my inquiry project. Beth and Robert are Co-chairs of the Math Department now and dealing with administrative issues. Per my requests, Gaby is trying out some online Desmos activities in her Algebra class so I can decide what might be appropriate in a summer program. If nothing else, this Fulbright experience affirms my proclivity for collaboration, in whatever form I can have it.

Some good news is that I did get to spend about 30 minutes talking to/teaching a class this week. The teacher asked if I would talk about STEM related careers. Via Facebook I reached out to NCP alumnae who are in STEM careers or on a paths to them. A handful got back to me and I was able to share what one of my former students does as a futures trader. The kids loved it and the teacher was impressed with my former student’s clarity in his writing, emphasizing that to the students. I’m hoping for even more teaching or co-teaching as this fellowship progresses. We will see what other teachers will allow.

Look! I’m kind of teaching!

Look! I’m kind of teaching!

Absent any other opportunities to get back to a classroom where all the magic happens, I’ll continue to work on my inquiry project. There’s a quote that goes something like, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” I’m still working on the educator corollary, but it has something to do with taking the teacher out of teaching and still being a teacher. If any reader out there can help me out with this one, I’ll be very appreciative.