Well, three months from today will be July 20. Three months from tomorrow, I head to St. John's. When I get there, I just want to have fun. I'll have a couple of weddings to attend--one of my closest girlfriend's and my own! In order to have fun, my thesis will have to be sitting with my committee. That means I have exactly three months to finish writing it. And I can do it. More importantly, I will do it. All the work won't be finished by July 20. I'm sure I'll have plenty of revisions to tackle once I return at the end of August. But I work well with direction, so I'm really not worried about that stage. It will be a lot of work, no doubt, but I won't be as afraid of it as I have been of writing this initial draft.
Our upcoming wedding is not the only thing motivating me to finish this summer. There's even more excitement/craziness looming for the fall, and that is what has really lit the fire to finish. In September, I will be returning to school teaching part-time. Yes, I will once again be a grade 7 instrumental music teacher. Three sections of grade 7 in total. That will be on top of my university teaching. So it's going to be a full-time workload. The thoughts of taking this on while preparing for my PhD defense are a little daunting, to say the least, but at the same time, it's the exact kind of pressure I need. I have stumbled upon a great opportunity to get back into the classroom for a year, and I just could not pass it up. I have learned so much about what I believe to be "good" teaching and learning in the past six years of graduate school--and especially in the past three years of being a teacher educator. I am very excited to see how I do with putting all that into practice. I am a very different teacher than the last time I stood in front of a grade 7 class. It's also going to be an incredible opportunity to be working as both a school teacher and a teacher educator at the same time. What better situation could you be in to explore the relationship between theory and practice in an authentic context? I think all parties will benefit--me, the grade 7s, the teacher candidates, my colleagues. And I just have to say that I will have the tremendous fortune of working in a department of music educators that are truly fabulous. I have worked with them all over the past three years, as they have come into my classes to work with my teacher candidates, and my teacher candidates have gone into their classes to get their feet wet with some mini-teaching experiences. Stepping into a one-year gig where you already know and respect your colleagues is a real gift. I received a note from one of my teacher candidate students yesterday--he said that he hoped I would find my way back to an elementary or high school classroom again, as my kindness and understanding are needed there. I repeat that here not to flatter myself, but to say how precious that kind of feedback is. One of my own university professors once commented that he thought I might scare kids... I don't think he could say that now. I have grown so much, not only as an educator, but as a person, mostly through my experiences here in Toronto. I'm really looking forward to bringing that new sense of self to a classroom of beginning band students. So there you go... lots of changes ahead!
In the meantime, I have successfully graded all of my papers by the last day of classes and submitted my grades two weeks in advance of our deadline. I set a goal, and I actually achieved it without procrastinating or making excuses as to why I couldn't get it all done. I was even firm with extensions so that I would get everything done within the timeframe I had set for myself. Now it's thesis time! Full-time! Challenge number one is already upon me. I am heading to St. John's for a week tomorrow. It's going to be great to see people and finalize some wedding things, but I absolutely must continue with my thesis work every day. I need to find a place to work without distraction, somewhere like Lit, where there's free (or at least cheap) wireless and where I can work for hours without having to spend too much money of the caffeine. I have to keep the end in mind, and the end is a completed thesis. I will not reach this end without a daily commitment to my writing. I think I will bring my Stephen Covey books on the plane with me tomorrow to reinforce those ideas.
Until next time... Thanks for reading!
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