My Fatal Flaw

There are things about myself that I have always known: 1) that I do not deal well with uncertainty and 2) that I often internalise my stress and instead of going to the source and dealing with it my conflict hating self just stresses quietly without sorting out what it is that is going on. These two things are going to be the things that I will have to watch over my journey. I need to be more patient - not constantly thinking, planning and worrying about the future. Central to this is the fact that I also need to trust more. Trust that I will be looked after if I continue to work hard and do the best that I can. Sometimes I lose sight of this and I feel like I lost sight of this over recent weeks and I am just beginning to pull myself back out of the fuzz. As part of the leadership course I am completing, one of my colleagues suggested that a female mentor would be really positive for my development and it seemed to me to be exactly what I needed. I asked our principal, who was so influential to me as an AP when I first started teaching, if she would be interested in mentoring me. We had our first meeting on Friday and discussed her experience of leadership and how she came to be in the role that she is in now.
Funnily enough for someone who is now a principal, she said that her aspirations were never to be a leader, rather it was others around her who saw her potential for leadership through the relationships she built up with the students and staff. She said she has never been in it for the money, but rather for the outcomes for the students and that the relationships are what she loves about the job and the ability to make a difference.
I think that lately I have lost sight of this as I have been putting pressure on myself to take that next step financially because at the moment money is scarce in our household as we scrimp and save for the wedding and our honeymoon and then a mortgage after that. So instead of focussing on what I love about my job and how satisfied I am to be doing something that challenges and motivates me, I have been getting caught up on the little things- the things that ultimately do not matter.
So one session down and already I have learned some valuable lessons. I need to make sure that I seek out the reassurance I need so that I do not lose sight of the bigger picture and my place in it. It was also nice to confirm that my Principal is happy with the role I am taking in curriculum development and that she feels that I am contributing to the future direction of the school. This is important to me as I work really hard to create innovative and practical applications for curriculum in the classroom on a wider, program, scale and I wanted to make sure that this fitted in with her vision too.
Ultimately I have to get over my desire for certainty. I have to realise that I am doing what I love and for now, that is enough and not to be looking too far into the future, or focussing on the negatives. On the horizon is a new curriculum redevelopment for me to sink my teeth into and it is exciting and has infinite potential at this stage as we research and plan and start to make decisions on what form it will take. I'm looking forward to our next meeting!

Did I mention I don't deal well with uncertainty?

It seems that things are always changing in schools and that is something that makes them such exciting, dynamic places to work. It also makes them the perfect place for someone like me to work (I hate doing the same thing for too long and love a change and to broaden my horizons). Strangely though, although I love change and new challenges, I don't deal well with uncertainty and at the moment it seems that my position as I know it is uncertain. Our school is undergoing a leadership restructure. The proposed structure that was put forward to management committee this week left my position up for discussion and debate. Many decisions about the leadership structure have been made, however the classification of the curriculum innovation position is yet to be decided. There are all sorts of reasons why this position is problematic for the school. This becomes problematic for me too though because I don't really know where I stand and at the moment I am just waiting for a decision to be made about my future. The position will exist, but the debate is about the pay classification of the position and whether it will be classified as a leadership position. I thought that during this leadership restructure this would all be sorted out, however it seems as though it is far from sorted. All I can do at this stage is wait for further news and keep my fingers crossed.