geek.teacher

When I was leaving my last job, the school psychologist told me that the school would be a poorer place for my departure. One of the reasons, according to him, was because of what he referred to as the loss of “institutional memory.” After eight years in my district, and seven in my school, I had amassed a fairly decent knowledge of not just what was happening in my district and school, particularly in regard to special education services, but even more importantly, I knew the history of how the current decisions came about.

In the field of Upper Darby, I knew where all the mines were laid. I had helped to lay some of them myself.

Today was my first faculty meeting at my new school. I stepped onto a new minefield, but this time around I had no knowledge of mine placement.

Needless to say, I stepped on a mine.

Without going into detail, I said something with which some people rather forcefully disagreed. Based on my previous discussions with my Principal and Superintendent, I knew that I was accurately describing my job and the use of my new computer lab accurately. Some teachers were passionate about how they did not want things to be the way that I envisioned.

I’ll admit, it was a searing first experience in my new school. But it was an important one for two reasons:

If I bomb out on my first day like this, I can only look better to everybody over time.
It forced me to seek out other teachers in the building who were able to provide me with that institutional memory.

While I may not have the full map now, I at least have a rough outline of the minefield. I know which areas represent some of the fears teachers have based on their prior experiences. I was able to tweak my plan a bit to hopefully allay some of those fears.

Hopefully I’ll avoid causing an international incident.

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