I have 5 more days in the US, 4 here in North Carolina with my son and his family and then 1 day in Washington DC before leaving for my new home in Africa.  As a person who has always considered herself a homebody, this is stretching me a lot.  I read an article this morning about the state of the telecom industry and the unreliability of wifi and I am worrying about how to stay connected with my family and friends who are such a great source of support for me.  I guess I will have to figure it out.

My son asked me a great question the other night that really made me think.  He asked me what I was most looking forward to.  I gave him a quick answer but then I really started thinking about the question more in depth.  I think the thing that I am most looking forward to is a whole year of teaching math at the high school level.

For the record, I loved teaching high school math.  I love that level of mathematics and I enjoy seeing students get excited about a subject that is difficult and frustrating while also necessary and essential for 21st century life. High school math is the gatekeeper to higher education so the ability to teach students and watch them reach their potential so they have the opportunity to go to college is a huge source of satisfaction for me.  I have missed it the last 12 years of my life while I have been in higher education. I am looking forward to seeing my students in Ethiopia reach that potential.  I am even looking forward to the challenges of having to negotiate two languages and limited resources.

I have also missed that age group of students.  They are just on the cusp of becoming adults. They have so much potential and aren’t yet jaded with ideas of what they “can’t” do.  At that age, they believe they can change the world.  At 49, I am still one of those people that never lost that belief that I can change the world and being around their energy always just fills up my spirit.

I left teaching in 2001 to go back and get a PhD because I didn’t feel like I knew everything I needed to be able to reach all my students.  I always intended to go back the classroom.  Teaching in higher education was never a goal for me. I left a very collaborative high school teaching situation and went to grad school and was captivated by research.  I think my love of research had more to do with interacting with a group of intelligent grad students and professors who were having great conversations and working together to find solutions for the problems in education.  Being an isolated faculty member in higher education isn’t like it was in grad school.  Research loses its luster when it is done in isolation.

The other issue I have in higher education is the content I am currently teaching.  I am a great math teacher.  I am great at facilitating professional development for teachers who like me, just want to know more about how to teach their students better.  I suck at teaching math education to people who have never taught before and who have no idea what teaching is really going to be like.  I find I have little tolerance for rigid ideas of what classrooms are “supposed” to be like. I think classrooms are as individual as the teachers and students who fill them and what works for one teacher and group of students isn’t necessarily going to work for another. So when I teach math education, I have tried to teach aspiring teachers to find their own way.  The college students I teach perceive that I am not actually “teaching” them anything.  The problem is that I can’t teach them what they want to know and I don’t have the patience and tolerance for consistently trying to break through their ingrained beliefs of what education is “supposed” to be like that my colleagues seem to be able to do.

Between the frustrations of research and teaching, I have not been very successful in my current position so I am most looking forward to the chance to get back to my roots.  I am looking forward to teaching high school math again. I hope it will help me make some decisions about my future.