Reflecting on 2015...

Listed below were my 15 Intentions for this past year.  Having now looked over them, my first reaction?  I'm a failure!  I sure was busy, though, to have been such a failure!  May we check out this list?

• Read and complete more classics.  Six is my goal with Rebecca being my first choice.

• Have yet to begin Rebecca, which means, no, I did not meet this goal. Read fewer books than in several of my past years.  Hummmm. 

• Complete more professional reads.  I have a “basic” ASCD membership and with it, I receive five newly released PD books.  I want to read three (front to back) before this year is over.

• No, glanced at all of the books.  Read none of them.  I did complete Reading Nonfiction.  This may just be one of those books that changes who I am as a teacher...if I were allowed to change.  Maybe those choices will be mine again one day.

• Complete more woman-hours improving my marksmanship.  Plus, this means quality time with The Hubby.  Yes!

• No, not nearly enough hours spend on this...although I still appreciate being an owner of several.

• Completely learn more gospel songs…especially those in our church song book.  So many beautiful songs in that book.  Songs I want to learn.

• Began the year learning...and learned a few along the way.  Not near the number I had hoped to learn, though.

• Continue book club involvement:  both for our BHS Reads and for the Paper Chase Bookstore.  This year, I signed up at Library Thing for the 75’ers…to read 75 books in 2015.  (Today, I started the first one!)  Here’s a link to my reading intentions for 2015.

• Yes (my first!), I did remain involved in these book clubs; even wrote and received a grant for one them!

• Complete Bible studies with the group of ladies that meet at our church.  Just really love this time.

• Yes!  Love the Making Choices Bible Study group.  Now, we are studying Beth Moore's Jesus The One and Only (our third study for this year:  we also completed Esther and Stronger).  Very good time!

• Completely read the Bible through this year by signing up for and completing Joanne Weaver’s challenge.  I am also happy that Beth Moore’s SSMT is back.  Click here for more info.

• Will finish the Old Testament.  What an amazing time for me.  This read was a chronological one, one I recommend for all.  Thus, I did not complete this Intention, but I did complete what I needed for this time.

• I began Moore's SSMT...did not finish.

• Develop more “complete” relationships with my students.  I want to go back to being THAT teacher, the one they remember years later as the caring one, yet the one who has high expectations.

• No, probably not for the Spring 2015.

• Yes, for Fall 2015, for I had to step back from curriculum expectations and remind myself of a reason I teach...the students, especially when the other reason I teach was stripped from us:  curriculum and choices therein.  What a year.

• Develop more complete professional relations.  I would like to become more active on the state level in our reading association and within our state’s National Board organization.

• Yes...was just asked to serve on the Arkansas Reading Association Board.

• Yes...presented at both of these organizations' state conferences.

• Write.  Blog on one of my four blogs a minimum of two times a week and possible submit an article to a professional magazine.

• Yes...and no.  Not nearly what I should have written.  Reflection is so powerful.
• Moved my blog here.  I decided to no longer pay for my Edublogs, and all my other blogs are with Google.  Here we are!

• Cultivate relationships.  With friends.  With my children.  With my husband.  With our families.

• Yes...and no.  Made a few choices this year that resulted in my withdrawing from some relationships...hummm, maybe this one should go within the next bullet.
• I have so enjoyed getting to know the ladies in my book clubs...Paper Chase and Making Choices.  I am blessed by theme.

• Say no.  No.

• Maybe?

• Teach.  Complete my four units of study more.

• Yes...for Spring 2015.

• No...for Fall 2016.  What a semester.  
• Yes...for Fall 2016.  Behavior-wise, I am blessed with some of the best classes I have had in some time.  The dynamics of every class is just right.  If you are a teacher, you understand what sometimes happens when one class exits and the next enters.  Amazing what combinations of students may result!

• Tammy Time:  quilting, crocheting, reading, gardening, painting.

• Yes...and no.  Need more of this.

• Peace.  Quiet.  Fit.  Smile. These were my four words for My One Word Challenges for the previous four  years.  These words have had such tremendous impact on my life.  Please, please consider going tomyoneword.org, learning more about this inspiring opportunity, and committing to whatever word chooses you.  I don’t want to leave these words behind…want more of all four!  Plus, now, I am ready to COMPLETE  my next word….

• Yes...and no.  Need more of these words, also.

Am I a completer?  Yes.  Completely?  Not in the ways I had intended, but I did accomplish much this year, more so for my spiritual self than for my professional self.  With that, I am very okay.

Professionally, this fall semester just about resulted in the death of me as a teacher.  Sounds dramatic, doesn't it?  At times, too much drama was involved, sometimes on my part.

For the first time in my career, I challenged a text...a challenge for which I was not respected and turned quite ugly, probably resulting in damaging my career within the district I teach.  I know it resulted in the lowest points in my career.  

I will never challenge a text within this district again.  While I do definitely see such decisions as part of my job (why should this ever be placed on the shoulders of students...and their parents, when we should make those calls before they get that far?), this point of view, though, is not supported within my building or district.  I am to teach whatever is placed before me in a very thick three-ring binder (no, not a textbook...or is it?) and accept whatever content might be within.  Here enters my spiritual side...when things become bigger than I am, I have learned to turn them over to Him.  This resulted in three texts being pulled.  He is the completer.  There...I am finally learning.

Now, to begin thinking about 2016.  Yes, some of these Intentions will again be placed on my next year's list...along with others.  AND, as these years advance, I am allowed to add one more...16 Intentions.

On what have you reflected?