by Krissy.Venosdale | Dec 22, 2014 | Reflect
After the hub-bub of holiday week at school, I’m left with a pile of things to take care of to get our home ready for the holidays. The tree is far from perfect, the light up holiday hedgehog I put in the yard got wet in the floods of Houston’s December rain, and blew a fuse, and yes, THAT locked up our garage resulting in a locksmith call. I could only laugh. It’s almost like a scene from Christmas Vacation. I prefer not to comment on which of us, my husband or me, is Clark Griswold.
And if I’ve learned one thing from teaching, from learning, and from life, it’s embrace the chaos. I’m still modeling this for my daughter, who wondered in the car while the rain poured and the locksmith was on his way, “If we’d be in the car until Christmas.” And then she offered to help me break a window out in the house. Glad we’ve raised her to be helpful.
Through it all, as the season draws in, I’m thankful for so much. How can I even put it into words? There’s certainly no way I can. But I’ll try.
I am blessed because of…
Family that loves me, supports me, and fills our home with a happy kind of chaos.
People who “get” me.
People who push me to grow as a professional.
Google Teacher Academy.
My daughter’s school, that is exactly what she needs right now, and what she’s always needed.
Online connections who’ve become a daily part of my life and learning.
Work that focuses on improving learning and teaching outside the box.
Innovation and humor being listed in my job description.
Opportunities that both scare me and invigorate me.
A job that feels like a hobby.
Full sets of Sharpies.
Time for creativity.
Leaders who ask me giant questions that make me think.
Colleagues who’ll take a risk with me.
People to laugh with on a daily basis, even if that means laughing at myself. Especially that.
The perspective that kids who think differently, need different.
A daughter who wrote, “To the smartest and nerdiest lady I know,” in my holiday card.
Two dogs, 2 hedgehogs, and a kitten… like I said, happy chaos.
The ability to choose joy.
Oh, and locksmiths.
And with that? I can’t think of one thing I’d ask for this Christmas. Except maybe a waterproof extension cord for our holiday lights in the Houston rain.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Dec 15, 2014 | Reflect
I still remember the shine of the wax on the freshly refinished floor of my new classroom that year. I can still smell the new paint, and see the old surfaces recovered. I could look out my classroom window and see the Mississippi River, from my 3rd floor view in South City St. Louis. I hadn’t met my students yet. But I already loved them. This empty classroom? It. Was. Mine.
It’s almost hard for me to believe all the time that has passed. Gifs are no longer cool on websites and blogging has become a thing. I’ve learned what it’s like to be a parent and love a tiny person you’ve just met. I’ve watched education evolve, but my love of learning?
It has grown. Deeper. Stronger. Farther. The kids I’ve learned from, the husband who’s been there every step of my journey, the daughter who reminds me that the world is not about labels, but it’s about overcoming and embracing who we are. The adventures at NASA, the degrees that added letters to my name, a trip to the White House, moving to follow one dream and finding another. I take none of it for granted. No regrets. There are days I’d love to forget, but there isn’t one thing I’d take back. Because every single step has led me to where we are now. Like some crooked path that’s unfolded through a forest, exactly the way it was supposed to. I use to just forge ahead. Eyes on the trail, searching for the next thing. A keynote. A goal. Another blog post. Another box to check in my list of goals. Another degree.
So, I think I’ll just sit down here for a while. Right here on the trail.
Sit. Step. Reflect. When I think back to the students I spent that first year with, I realize how quickly the view became a moment in my rear view mirror. These days? They pass too quickly. And before we know it, we realize we’ve got to slow down. The moment in front of us? It’s all we truly have. And it matters more than anything else.
So tonight, when I say goodnight to my twelve year old, hug my husband of almost 15 years, and make some plans for tomorrow, I’ll remember how much it all matters. I can still smell the wax on the floor of my first classroom and I can still see the kids that first year, on that first day. It somehow makes my heart hurt that it’s gone and swell that it happened.
I just hope I never lose sight of those details. The things that mattered to me then? They matter to me now… even more. Helping colleagues. Creativity. Inspiring others to dream big and take risks, or dip their toes in. Integrating technology beyond an event. Catching pieces of the world in lessons that matter. My classroom webpage said it all my first year of teaching… “Let Learning Take You Around the World.” And over time I’ve realized it’s not just about going around, but through. Relationships. Growth. Pushing yourself and supporting others.
And sitting down to realize what’s happening. Because sometimes we realize we have so much right in front of us. And if you found out that this was going to be your last year on earth, and you realize that what you are doing is EXACTLY what you’d continue to do even if it was your last year, you realize something. The trail you are blazing, it’s filled with amazing details all along the way. This place you work in? The people you spend your days with? What a huge gift. You are both challenged and supported. Your dreams are both expanding and coming true.
And you’d sit down and take a look.
And breathe.
And write this blog post.
It wouldn’t matter if there were a hundred tomorrows or just one more. You’d be satisfied with exactly where you are in the moment.
And that? It’s the best feeling in the world.
Because right this moment is all we have. We can’t hold on to it, but we can make it count.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Dec 13, 2014 | Reflect
It’s easy to schedule a page to read about inventors. It’s easy to know what kids have read about inventors.
It’s not easy to toss a pile of materials onto the table and predict what kids will design, create, and invent. It’s not easy to circulate the room, with kids brainstorming, struggling, and you must resist the urge to rescue them in the midst. They don’t need to be rescued. That’s hard. We are trained to be rescuers.
It’s easy to give kids a pattern, the exact materials, cut to the exact specifications, and help them make that. It’s easy to staple all 24 of the similarly designed patterns to the wall and know by looking that the goal of “copying yours” was met.
It’s not easy to step back and see what kids create when there is no pattern. It’s not easy to watch projects evolve in different directions, based on kids’ ideas, and become something that wasn’t written in a lesson plan, the way most of us were trained as teachers to do.
It’s easy to distribute 24 identical worksheets where kids will label the parts of a circuit, collect answers, and pass them in. It’s easy to look at those worksheets and see when answers are wrong.
It’s not easy to put building materials on the table, ask kids to design a game with a circuit, then build it. It’s not easy to see the cardboard flying, the wires being bent, and trusting in the process. It’s not easy to feel that uncomfortable.
Creativity at it’s best isn’t on a schedule. It isn’t predictable. It isn’t planned. It isn’t easy. But, it’s what happens when we allow time. Energy. Resources. Exploration. Freedom. Learning unleashed.
We’ve kept the tight leash on learning for far too long. It’s easier to do that. It’s easier to train kids to bubble in answers. It easier to predict and plan for regurgitation of “learning things.” It’s easier to control learning. But, setting it free? Something that you can’t even predict will happen. Something created inside the minds of your students. Something you provide the diving board for, but the jump is ALL theirs. Take the risk. Unleash the learning. Let them go.
You’ll still be there. Stoking the fire. Guiding with your questions. Modeling thinking outside the box. But, you? You’ll be in the midst of learning unleashed.
The only thing you’ll regret is that you didn’t do it sooner.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Dec 12, 2014 | Reflect
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by Krissy.Venosdale | Dec 8, 2014 | Reflect
That’s me. Laying in a field. At NASA. I know, it’s a dramatic photo. Well, it was a dramatic moment. I had flown from Missouri to Florida to see the final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour. But, it was a scrub. That shuttle never lifted off that day. I remember one of the NASA employees said it best, “Space is hard.” It was. It is.
Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t.
It took me 3 tries to get into Google Teacher Academy. It took me two tries to get on the NASA Zero G plane. I applied twice to get into Honeywell’s Advanced Space Academy for Educators. It’s taking me extra time to finish my doctorate because I decided to move to Texas in the middle of writing my dissertation. Watching my dad’s struggle with Multiple Sclerosis, my daughter’s struggle with a variety of acronyms that she continues to overcome, all of it has continued to remind me to keep going. Struggle. When it’s important, you just keep trying. Because it all matters.
Today as I walked into my office, still feeling the joy from Google, I started checking emails and organizing my to-do list, and I opened my NASA-TV link to see that Orion’s launch was on a hold. We had talked about the idea of a Moonshot at Google. 10x thinking. What is your big idea? So watching Orion’s launch made me reflect even more. But then…. Anomalies. A Scrub. Man, I thought, I remember that feeling.
I thought of all the people involved. Working hard to innovate, to create, to design, to collaborate, and to build a spacecraft that will take humans to the red planet. Imagine their disappointment on scrub. I hope they all had teachers who fostered resilience, risk taking, and most of all, the spirit to embrace when things are hard, and keep going when things get tough. They must have, because I’m sure this wasn’t the first design, or the second, or the third that finally made it to the launch pad. Whether it’s the launch of a spacecraft or the launch of an idea, it’s all the same to me. It’s learning. It’s real. It’s challenging. And scrubs? They happen. Because when learning is authentic? Problems aren’t pretend. They are real.
The really hard stuff can either make us wallow or it can strengthen our wings. We can sit and look back, think, rethink, over reflect, and drive ourselves insane. Or, we can pick up, move on, learn something, and fly toward the future. For the record, I didn’t stay laying in that field long. And a few weeks later, I returned to that very spot, once again flying from Missouri to Florida, and was standing, with my camera in hand, and I got to watch and see the shuttle ease of the launch pad in what seemed like slow motion, crackling and lighting up the trail behind it. Then it slipped gracefully into the clouds and humans went to space. I took the photo below. It’s blurry, it’s grainy, and I love it. It’s a moment that proves to me what happens when we push our own limits and keep going.
Just like that. A choice not to wallow, but to move forward and try again. And on the days when I feel like wallowing, I just look at this picture and I remind myself… scrubs happen. But launches? They are worth every bit of the struggle.
And I keep going.
