Waiting to exhale

In February, 2011 I found out that I had been nominated for an R.E.B. Award for Teaching Excellence.  The R.E.B. Foundation is a supporting organization of The Community Foundation.  The program is based on the belief that a child's educational experience ... should develop basic skills and form life-long positive habits toward learning and discipline.  To that end, grants are awarded to individual teachers to support professional development and enrichment activities and to share educational ideas and experiences with teacher colleagues.  Grants support projects of the teacher's own design, including grants that support advanced degrees and world travel.

The process, from the time I was nominated until I found out that I had received an award took nine months.  Those nine months were quite excruciating, but on the positive side, I learned something about myself: I am not good at having to wait nine months to find out information.  I first had to answer three questions about my teaching, namely my experiences, goals, and philosophy of teaching.  There were strict parameters, including having to answer all three questions on one side of one page.  If you read my previous post you would know that in the past this would have been a gargantuan task because of my minimalist approach to writing.  However, I seem to have gotten over that, and now have a harder time limiting myself.  Whether or not that is a good thing, I am not sure.  I tried every trick I could to make enough room to fit my responses, including reducing margins, removing the questions themselves, and going with the smallest allowable font. 

Then came the first waiting period.  Did they like my responses enough to move me through to the next round?  Finally, I received the ecru envelope with the interlocking burgundy C's in the top left corner that I grew to love and anticipate, and found out that I had advanced.  Now came the hardest part: developing a proposal that I felt would re-energize and re-invigorate me as a teacher, as well as show the reviewers who I was as a person.  Proposals did not have to tie directly to what you teach in the classroom, but for me, I wanted it to.  Unfortunately my self-imposed criterion made things a little more difficult.  I felt like if I were a math or science teacher I could write a proposal to travel the world visiting and participating in juggling conferences.  I could have based my proposal on exploring the physics of different juggling objects as they move through space, or the mathematic principals behind siteswap juggling notation; but deep down I knew that was not what I needed to be doing.  Finally, after talking to some of my CRC friends, Anne and Bill, I learned of L'Arche International, and my course was set.  (I will write more about L'Arche International in later posts)  

I researched, budgeted, and began to develop my proposal during the summer.  Part of my proposal had to focus on my dissemination plan.  How was I going to share what I was learning and experiencing with my colleagues, families, and friends?  That is where the inspiration for this blog came from.  Once I finished writing my proposal I again had to go back to waiting.  I took this as another opportunity for growth, and tried not to scream with joy to every new person I came across about the prospective opportunity that might be waiting for me just around the bend.  The next step of the process was an interview set for some time in October.  Now, I say interview, but this was no ordinary interview.  This was a come in, sit front and center, and field questions from a twenty-person panel.  Yowza!  Although I consider myself to be a people person, the though of this interview gave me the heebiest of jeebies.  Everyone kept telling me that I would do fine, and fortunately they were correct, but that did not help me sleep any better the weeks leading up the the fateful date.  The panel could not have been more welcoming or reaffirming, and I left the room with a good feeling, but again, I had another month-long wait ahead of me.

My good friend Ed Bosha came to
support me at the awards ceremony.

Finally, in mid-November, I along with all of the other thirty finalists, their families, and administrators gathered at the Library of Virginia in downtown Richmond to find out our fates.  There was an electricity in the air, as everyone was waiting to see if they were going to be one of the lucky ones.  There were several speakers, with very nice messages about teachers, the impact they make, and the importance of recognizing all teachers for the work they do.  Unfortunately, I don't think any of the finalists were able to give their full attention to what was being said.  I know that a lot of my attention was going into drying the palms of my hands on my pants.  After what felt like an eternity, they began announcing the names of those who would be receiving awards.  Luckily for me, my name was called second!  My wife let out a squeak that I am sure had dogs turning their heads for five square blocks.  I am so happy and grateful to have been selected, and cannot wait to embark on my journey.

If you know of a teacher, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in the metro-Richmond area, that you would like to nominate for an R.E.B. Award I encourage you to do it.  Below are the links for The Community Foundation and the R.E.B. Award itself.

http://www.tcfrichmond.org/

http://www.tcfrichmond.org/receive/nominate-an-individual-for-an-award/reb-awards-for-teaching-excellence/