Just trying to swim...

You thought I was kidding in my last post when I threatened to reflect on the summer training as a whole.  Good news for you, thousands of faithful readers, I wasn’t.  Before I expel the deepest truths of my heart, however, I think I first owe everyone an apology.  I think blogs are best kept and followed when they are updated on a fairly regular schedule.  I admit that the past few weeks of blogging have been sporadic at best, with two entries coming back to back, and with gaps in between.  For this, I am sorry.  I know that makes things more difficult to follow, and you have my promise that I will try and post with more regularity and sanity.  Now with that out of the way, we can get to the meat and potatoes of today’s installment - the summer training.  

The summer training is now mostly over.  We have a few more training sessions and a final presentation to give, but I would say the majority is now behind us.  Naturally, I have practical questions that still linger and different people will have different opinions on them.  So much of teaching is based upon experience and personal preference, so there are just some matters that won’t really have a consensus.  With that in mind, I can focus more on the overall effectiveness of the training on a more macro level.  In an earlier post, I said that, “summer training was the best preparation I could have for something I can’t really prepare for”, and those sentiments are still ringing true.  I was just talking with a guy who is a graduate of the program, and is now about to embark on his career as a principle.  We were relating on how we are both about to be “shown the ropes” of our new respective positions, and the inherent learning curve involved.

Ultimately, you can only talk about swimming so long before you get in the water.  After that, you sink or swim, but no one is Michael Phelps over night.  We had a great summer school experience, but it was still a watered down version of what to expect.  We have had fantastic instruction and help, but it is still instruction and help, and can only take us so far.  I don’t know that any part of our summer training could ever be considered as anything but helpful.  We were given a real opportunity to teach real kids in a real school.  That said, though, there is only so much that can be done to try and replicate what school will be like.

I went down to Indianola this weekend.  I walked on the campus a little bit, I shook hands with some of the local residents, and I roamed the town that will soon be called home.  In the midst of so much obvious uncertainty, I was encouraged by my trip.  While I still feel like so much of our summer training has been like trying to drink from a fire hose, I also know that the peace I’m ultimately looking for won’t come from my effectiveness as a teacher.  Barring I get hit by a bus or meet some other tragic end, the sun will continue to rise and fall, and August will continue to inch its way closer.  There’s nothing I can do about that, but I can make preparations and try to be ready for that which I cannot see.

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