I'm not bowing to challenges!

"A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it."

- Ray Davis

My week has been full of challenges!  If you've read my facebook posts, you know that my Monday morning started out with an encounter with a horse.  I was unloading my car in front of the school where we were presenting and had my back to Main street.  My partner says, "Huh, look at that."  I turned around in time to find myself face to face with a saddled horse that was missing its rider.  I was so startled that I screamed and the horse took off at a trot down Main Street.  About thirty seconds later a woman on a bicycle, talking on her cell phone came riding behind the horse clearly trying to catch the run away.  It was a hilarious sight and it made my morning!

This week was full of back to back presentations.  Each presentation began with the basics of Common Core State Standards and was followed by personalization requested by the local administration.  We presented how to use and design rubrics, how to apply cognitive learning theory in the classroom and how to reflect on the types of questions we ask students to answer.  Every stop presented its own challenges.  We had a web-based video that was a part of our presentation, but that didn't always work out, either because of firewalls, filters or a lack of audio equipment.  In one place we didn't have any AV capability so powerpoint was not an option at all.  We missed an entire presentation one afternoon due to my flat tire.  Wednesday afternoon dealt us our biggest challenge however, because that was the day my partner fell.

My partner and I have gone everywhere together.  It's worked out very well that we've been able to stay together, because there are other coaching partnerships that have not had that capability.  We've been able to prep together, speak together and clean up together.  On Wednesday Carri fell and fractured her elbow which meant I had to fly solo Thursday morning.

I got to our Thursday location and had a new set of challenges.  We design our presentations to be interactive and to include engaging activities in the midst of the time we spend talking.  One of the activities required inflated balloons, which were in my partners car, so I swung by the store on the way to the school to pick up a package of balloons that I needed to blow up before starting.  As I set up the room for my presentation things were going pretty smoothly until I plugged my jump drive into the computer and I had used a newer version of powerpoint than was available on this computer.  We'd presented in several places before this and hadn't run into that so I didn't expect to run into it there, but one of the faculty members graciously volunteered to convert it for me.  As all conversions go however, it wasn't totally smooth.  The conversion deleted graphics, changed animation and jumbled slides.  A few other minor challenges presented themselves throughout the three hour presentation, but overall I felt as though it went well.

I told Carri earlier this week that this job does not feel like work.  I log just as many hours as I did before, but I love my job so much that it is an absolute joy to work.  I found my niche!  I've found that place where I feel like I was meant to be.  I have a great partner and we're part of a great team around this state.  We're on the cutting edge of something big in this state.  I can't wait to see what comes next...challenges and all!