Personal Change - A New Beginning

Four months since my last posting, which again, points to the turmoil and conflict in my life of late. In my last post I talked about change and three things to consider, since I was in the midst of some major changes in my own life.  To recap:

1. Change is emotional.
2. Resistance/reluctance to change is multidimensional
3. Some changes may not be for everyone

I am here to say that I have just about finished my first week of 'unemployment' because I decided to take change by the balls and do something drastic - quit my job. I gave it the old college try - 9 months of trying to adjust to the emotional and cultural changes of going from a small, education, technology driven company who's culture and approach to education I truly believed in and felt empowered by, to a large, educational corporate company, where I did not have this same sense of belief in the mission and felt at best, marginalized and insignificant.  What I learned is I am NOT a corporate girl. I want to be in the trenches, I want to be with teachers and schools, hands-on, making a difference one classroom, one teacher, one district at a time.  I crave the personal approach.

So.  I quit.

I have suffered all three of my points mentioned above - the change from what I had been doing, with a company and philosophy I believed in was incredibly emotional for me and I admit it...I couldn't get past that.  Emotion drives what I do and I want to be able to approach my work with teachers and schools with emotion and passion - I want to believe in what I do. My resistance or reluctance to assimilate into my new position, one that was 'handed to me' rather than one I chose, was because I felt like I was giving up the best parts of myself and what I do - being out with teachers, interacting with the educational community on a personal level, embracing and supporting teachers and schools. And finally - I just needed to face the fact that this change, working for a large corporation, was not a good fit for me. Perhaps it's a power thing - I was blessed these last few years to be in a position in a company that allowed me to grow, make decisions, create the vision for what and where things were going.  That disappeared. Perhaps it's a belief thing - again, I worked in a place where I believed everyone wanted to help teachers improve and where our products and resources were truly the best out there.  I no longer had that belief.

Now I am on a journey to the ultimate change - changing my whole career. Granted, a large part of my decision was the looming deadline to finish my doctorate degree - May 2014.  Drop dead date or start over.  (Yikes...that is NOT an option). Quitting my full-time job is allowing me the time to devote to doing my research and writing, something I have not had the luxury of doing since I started this endeavor (hence the two extensions). It is also a chance to forge my own path - create my own next steps.

I want to continue to support my passion of helping teachers, in particular help them integrate technology into classroom instruction, but really, to support innovative and different ways of structuring learning. I am hoping that I can work with schools and districts to support their changing efforts around technology, math, instructional practices.  I would LOVE to be involved in helping schools change how they do things - from classroom structures to curriculum to instructional strategies.  I am a big believer in blended learning, technology, problem-based learning - giving students the power to learn on their own and construct their own meanings and helping teachers support that type of learning.  Ideally, I would love to be a part of changing education - how schools and teachers support learning.

So, who knows...this change could be the start of something wonderful!  I have high hopes. If you have a job...let me know!!