I have spent the better part of the past decade in residence life. Upward Bound and Darrow School serving high school students. Johnson State and Vermont Technical College working with college students. I have enjoyed helping them grow, and in turn I have grown.
While I have been away from the profession for a short time, perspective has been gained which I believe will make me a better educator.
I am a good mix of relaxed intensity. By this I mean that I will put my nose to that grindstone and get the organizational and infrastructural tasks done which need to be accomplished. This is done so that when a customer or colleague comes to me with an issue or request, I am able to react with a warm flexibility. I can accomplish that with no worries. Or, alternatively, I can’t quite do this for you, but here’s another option.
My future is in curriculum development. The curriculum development I want to be a part of is dynamic, in tune with brain science, and adaptable to the individuals in the audience. It makes use of emerging technologies and innovations in content production and consumption. It prepares students for a world that is far less rote and static than the Agro-Industrial understanding of the world for which we still prepare our children.
This curriculum is not yet developed, frankly it is still largely in my head. However, the naturally dynamic nature of residence life education provides a great canvas for the type of curriculum development I want to produce. What I want to provide my students is a curriculum and a community building experience. Podcasts that generate conversation. Workshops that are engaging and interactive, which both convey information and provide students new formats for conveying their own information. Passive education which takes lessons from the world of marketing to get a point across.
Residence life education will be a fantastic sandbox for the curriculum ideas I have, and both I and my students will benefit from the experience.
My family and I have made a decision to return to Higher Education and Student Life. Or at least make it a strong enough possibility that we are traveling to Chicago in March for the Placement Exchange conference. In addition to the application work that needs to be done every day, I realize that one of my most challenging aspects of the professional job hunt is the interview process. That being said, I have learned the power of scripting from my time in hospitality. The script does not need to be memorized verbatim every time, but it does create a great foundation from which to build.
So the current goal is to start each day with a new question. By the end of the day I need to have an answer ready to write. I can edit or amend later, this is not journalism, this is…well…battle.
Somehow I am supposed to move forward. Frankly I have to one way or another. At work there is a new position with a lot of work to be done and little opportunity to actually accomplish that work. At home, I seek to accomplish some of that work, explore my entrepreneurial endeavors (podcasting and writing), and follow leads that might be more sustainable for my family in the long run. Little of that group actually gets accomplished as I need and want to spend a majority of my home time being a Daddy to my infant son.
In a lot of ways I enjoy what I do. It fits in a lot of ways with my goal of helping to realize the solutions for the future of rural New England. We are not the heartland. We are the inhabitants of tiny towns and rugged terrain in an era which increasingly depends on a critical mass of population. A critical mass that few towns, businesses, and events will ever achieve. A small town in Middle America is 20,000 people, the size of some of our (Northern New England’s) largest cities.
