Anyone who thinks teaching is an 8-to-3, fall-to-spring job has certainly never spent any time as an educator nor probably spent any time with an educator. There is always a new curriculum to incorporate into instruction, a shift in educational priorities to adapt to, a new set of standardized testing to prepare students for, an upgrade or update in the use of technology to support instruction, and an ever-shifting mix of students with learning and behavioral challenges whose learning we support with a variety of adaptations and accommodations.
I am a Veteran Educator. That means I have been around a long time and have worked in multiple settings with a variety of student groups. Having worked at many different levels, I learned early on that there is always something I can learn to help me improve my craft.
In some ways it seems like yesterday and in other ways it seems like forever ago that I shifted my career trajectory from developing computer systems that supported the insurance industry to developing young minds to hopefully love learning and seek answers to questions they wonder about.
Motivation in Transition
As educators, we each have student groups and content we love teaching and we tend to be most effective in supporting and advancing those groups’ learning. I started teaching adults technical computer programming skills since I had a background in programming from my industry experience. I expanded my teaching craft by increasing the number of programming languages I could use to code and then shared that experience with my students. I thought it was important to be able to share as much real-life content as possible as I helped to prepare the next generation of computer professionals. My students motivated me to expand my knowledge base so I could better prepare them, but motivation for growth comes from many places.
A move across the country at a time when technology was just entering public schools provided me an opportunity to share my technical skills with teachers to help them overcome their fear of this new technology. This shift took them out of their non-technical comfort zone while students embraced the opportunities that technology allowed them to explore. This was the first time I was able to work with elementary students. I knew how to work with the teachers, but the children were a new population for me. The changing demands of a job motivated me to look for how I could improve my craft and make the use of technology interesting, engaging, and effective to advance student learning. I had some bumps along the way of working out how to engage both the teachers and the students; but it was here, through this experience, that I realized that working with young people to develop new skills was what made my heart sing. Now the challenge was how to get a position where I could be a public-school teacher. I had technical degrees, but no education degree or credential; and without the proper credential, there were no open doors available to make my heart sing. The solution? Find a teacher-prep program, complete the requirements, get the credential, and look for those open doors.
Growing through the Unexpected
I learned so much completing the requirements of the credential, I thought I was set. I did not realize at the time just how much ongoing learning and growth was ahead of me. When I started, chalk on a chalkboard, transparency film on an overhead projector, and film in a movie projector were standard ways of presenting visual information that supported what was being taught verbally. Does anyone else remember that “technology”? Over the next couple of decades, we worked through whiteboards that became interactive whiteboards, VHS tapes that became DVD’s that became content available on streaming platforms, computer labs of desktop computers that we shared with everyone in the building to one-to-one computing where everyone has their own device. With each technological shift, there has been a need to grow and embrace both the advantages offered by the new technology and pitfalls that come with the shift.
There are so many options for us to grow, both, professionally and personally. I attended a series of seminars when we shifted to whole-language and guided-reading language arts instruction. I leaned on the expertise of my peers when I could not sort out how to cover all the components of the new math curriculum in the amount of instructional time allotted to math in my teaching day. I was able to give back to my peers when we got a new reading program that was more technology-intensive than many of them were comfortable with. A strong peer-support system was essential to my professional and personal growth as we all had different gifts and talents that helped the group - we just had to be willing to both share our talents and accept the benefit of the knowledge and experience of others.
Ann Potter, MSM, MEd
This willingness to lean on others was critical during the worldwide pandemic of 2020 and has continued after we have since returned to the classroom. During the pandemic, we relied heavily on each other as we shifted instantaneously from whole-group and small-group, in-person, interactive, collaborative instruction to instruction through the camera and screen. No one knew how to make it all work, but we knew we had to figure it out so that learning would keep happening. I am proud to say that my colleagues and I all did our best while we developed many skills and strategies that very few of us even knew about in early 2020. We grew in ways we never could have imagined just a few months prior.
Living the Life of a Lifelong Learner
In the years since coming back from the pandemic, I now find myself seeking growth in new areas. I continue to see the effects of isolation, remote-learning, faces hidden behind masks, and an exhausted population in the students and adults with whom I work. I have had to learn that “students were always able to <insert skill here>” has little usefulness anymore. My current students missed the interactive experiences that allowed them to develop those skills. I need to have patience and use explicit language to teach skills students had historically developed by the time they got to my classroom. I have also had to learn that students now learn differently - attention spans tend to be shorter, perseverance with difficult tasks is a challenge, and some phonics and listening skills are undeveloped or underdeveloped, but the ability to interact with technology is masterful.
I am a veteran educator. I have had an amazing career. When I graduated from my undergraduate training, I would never have predicted where my career path has taken me. When I look at the skill set I had after completing my teaching credential and compare it to the skill set I have now, the foundation for working with children, delivering instruction, and supporting learning was constant, but the techniques I have used to accomplish those things have changed over time.
I have grown in my practice over the course of time and don’t plan to stop any time soon. My growth has been motivated by interest in a topic or skill, a shift in career direction, demands of a new instructional curriculum, shifts in the technology available to support instruction, and shifts in the experience students bring to my classroom. I have been able to use professional development seminars and conferences, college courses, my peers, and trial-and-error to grow and enhance my ability to support both my students and my colleagues.
Ann Potter, MSM, MEd
You are never too old or experienced to try new things, take a leap into a new direction, or seek new knowledge and information to grow - and to help those with whom you interact to grow with you too. While I am a veteran educator, my curiosity and pursuit of growth continues as the next step in my career path takes me into my next exploration. As I continue to work with TLC, I am still learning new things like asynchronous learning modules, podcasts, and blog posts. My career is a constant reminder to me that I truly am never too old to learn, grow, and expand my skill set. I still wonder what I’m going to be when I grow up!
written by
Ann Potter
Ann Potter is an instructional coach specializing in early childhood development, play-based instruction, and early elementary instructional practices. She has been a reading specialist, general education co-teacher, inclusion teacher for students with emotional disorders, extended school day lead teacher, grade-level technology lead, and paraprofessional supporting elementary technology instruction, but she started her career as a software engineer for a computer consulting firm. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys traveling and has continued to support her community as a reading tutor and daycare provider. Ann is an Instructional Coach for Early Learners with her Bachelors in Business Administration, Master of Science in Management, and Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction.
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