Why Not Me?

Why not me?  It's become a bit of a mantra over the last year or so, especially after my position was cut down from full time to 70%.  As a teacher who is usually on every committee, suddenly being unable to participate in the things I normally would left me feeling out of touch and isolated.  (sidebar: I know I could have still been involved in those activities, but among other things, I really could not justify the cost of child care while waiting around hours after my clock day was done to wait for said meetings.)

I needed to find other ways to be involved.  Both my personal and professional sanity required it.

My "Why Not Me?" journey had actually begun the school year before.  We kept talking about getting our district on social media, but it hadn't actually been done yet.  I was very familiar with Facebook and fairly comfortable with Twitter.  Why not me?

Then I went to an EdCamp in the fall and learned some really cool tech tools that other teachers might be interested in.  Someone needed to share this cool information with them.  I'd never shared at a staff meeting before though.  But why not me?

Around the same time, I was getting frustrated that I couldn't easily share information on our social media pages because they were blocked.  Someone needed to convince administration of its benefits for all.  Why not me?

At the technology meeting where I was presenting about social media to administration, it came up that there were issues with maintaining our sets of iPads because we no longer had someone to maintain them.  Why not me?  (This also gained me an additional hourly position to help staff with tech needs!  It doesn't make up for the part time position, but it helped lessen the financial sting.)

I kept seeing people at other schools getting amazing new instruments and equipment for their students.  Our budget wouldn't even come close to letting us get anything along those lines.  Then I did some research on some local groups, applied for grants, and was awarded enough for a class set of Orff instruments and a new tuba.  Why not me?

Someone really should start playing with the new Makey Makeys the high school bought.  They're such cool kits that can really bring out some creative thinking.  There are a lot of ways people use them to make music.  Why not me?

There are some more local EdCamps coming up soon.  Someone should tell people about them and how awesome they can be.  Why not me?

After a series of events including projects with the new Makeys, the Makerspace at MACUL, and recently reading Invent to Learn, all I can think about is how cool it would be to have a makerspace at our school.  Someone should find ways to make that happen.  Why not me?

I hope this doesn't come across as my own personal horn tooting post.  While this has probably been the most professionally challenging year I've encountered so far, I feel like it's also the year where I've had the most professional growth.  Finding different ways to be more impactful both in and out of my own classes has left me feeling more fulfilled than when I was a part of all of those committees.

Our situations may not always be ideal, but as has been said on many an inspirational poster, the only thing we have total control over is how we handle them.  So when the next new situation comes up and I can have a positive impact, why not me?