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Dealing with Change

8/26/2014

1 Comment

 
Changing schools can be incredibly stressful. Each workplace has its own unique culture, both hidden and explicit. Additionally there is a whole new set of colleagues to understand, and who need time to understand you. In a collaborative work environment, like a school, I have found that it is essential to start on positive assumptions of belief in new colleagues and in myself. Most people want to be helpful, they mean to be clear. I will emerge from the fog of confusion. I will ...and here is the rub....feel competent as a teacher again.

This July, I started work at a new school. It is my fourth school in my 20 year career. I remember distinctly the cognitive and professional dislocation I felt during my last school transition. It seriously threatened to derail me, undermining my confidence and my identity as a teacher. Thankfully, so far I have been handling this transition with more grace. 

When you have been in a school for a long time, there is a known track record, a level of trust, familiar resources, known professional expertise and working relationships that you are comfortable with. In changing schools, all these are left behind. While I carrying with me a large pool of professional capital, in my current setting it is only privately held. In contrast, the collective professional capital of my new school does not yet belong to me. I know that it will only be a matter of time and experience, that eventually I too will be able to claim and be fully cognizant in the collective professional capital of this new workplace. For now though I live and work with a level of ambiguity that is uncomfortable and stressful. I am trying to rejoice in this: to claim it as my own professional Goldilocks Zone, or ZPD if you prefer, of professional learning. I do not believe in professional stagnancy. So while I am struggling, I also know I am learning.  

How has change impacted my life of late? It has not merely been a shift to a new school. Can I promote growth through practicing positive assumptions across all areas of my life? I have written before about developing growth mindsets and positive habits of mind in our students. Now my challenge is to develop these is myself amidst these changes:

  • Changed country from China to New Zealand
  • Change educational systems from an IB International School to the New Zealand public school system
  • Switching from Year 5 to Year 0
  • Living with family just down the road for the first time in 18 years
  • Started attending a new church community
  • Living in my own house instead of rented accommodation for the first time
  • Living on considerably less than my previous salary
  • Owning and driving a car for first time in 18 years
  • About to vote for the first time in 18 years - This one is really confusing me. Understanding a countries political climate is tricky!!!

1 Comment
customer writing link
7/9/2016 02:16:06 am

It is always difficult to adapt to new conditions. It relates to changing workplace too. I had such a problems too. You need to be open to new thinking and new ideas which allow you to grow.

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    Renee Stewart

    Forever curious, always learning, deep thinking teacher. I am a Year 5 teacher this year and am enjoying the transition after 3 years with New Entrants.

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