Having been home from my international experience for almost a year, I have had additional experiences that just add to the depth of my professional experience. I was recently hired to be the Bilingual Program Director for a district in the south suburban area of Chicago. This move to administration has done a couple of things for me in addition to the obvious: 1) It has given me a larger platform to share my experiences as a TGC fellow and my now more globalized outlook towards education with more educators; and perhaps more unexpectedly, 2) it has given me the freedom to spend more time learning, something I hadn't expected at all when I took the job.
As an administrator, I now have more time to read and to study educational policy, topics, research, and theory. The time I previously dedicated outside of the school day towards lesson / unit preparation and grading papers, I can now spend learning more and more. I wish that I had this freedom as a teacher, because I honestly believe that it would have made me a better teacher. I have had more "Aha!" moments in my study of professional books, blogs, newspapers and magazines these past few months as an administrator than any other time (excepting as a TGC fellow).
This new blog, "Educational Musings," is not only my attempt at keeping this website alive, but it is also a place where I can share articles, books, and resources that I find with a greater community. Essentially, this new blog is going to be a record of my own continuous professional development. It is my hope that what I share here will be helpful to other professional educators - teachers, administrators, parents, or other stakeholders.
How are you working towards your own professional development as an educator?