It is hard to believe that I am about to embark on my thirty-third year of teaching in less than a month. In 1988 when I was student teaching I never dreamed that I would be the “old guy” on the staff. But here I am. I remember having a dinner with some other student teachers with one of our faculty advisors. A question asked was, “What is your greatest fear?” What I find interesting is my answer hasn’t changed. I am afraid I won’t be good enough.

Thirty-three years of experience and I still enter my classroom worried that I am not good enough to provide for my students the learning opportunities they deserve. The challenges have changed over the years. When I started I had more freedom to choose what I would be teaching and what I would make the focus of my lessons. I was the creator of my curriculum with a few guidelines. I remember an HR question from my early days in searching for a position that basically wanted to know how if I planned with the entire year in mind or something less. Now, I am provided curriculum with dates that I am to give unit tests (that are district-wide tests). I miss the freedom of being able to have my students write from their hearts. Now it is all about providing evidence from sources. The assignments for the students are not inspiring. The canned curriculum is aimed at the standardized tests. The standardized tests are what is important (according to virtually everyone who doesn’t work every day inside a classroom).

Despite the challenges, I do my best to embody for my students what I hang on my wall: ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!