New Friends, Great Conversation, Same Excitement, Similar Worries

This weekend I had an awesome opportunity to meet some other teachers who are traveling along this  highway. I highly recommend other teachers who are similarly located to get together and talk, laugh, vent, and just open up about this WILD and CRAZY experience! As an administrator, as times, it was somewhat uncomfortable to hear teachers talk negatively about their administrators and their schools. I was thinking to myself, is that me....is that my school? I think far too often administrators and teachers end up on the wrong side of the isle working against each other, rather than finding ways to work together and support the work of all. One of my "new" friends asked me why I was leaving and I think she found my answer enlightening. I am leaving because of some of the same reasons that teachers leave:

1. Feeling unsupported
2. Higher levels of accountability without any high levels of guidance/support
3. Having to do more and attain more with less
4. Having to push more initiatives to teachers (who know better) and make them sound like those initiatives are what's best for kids.
5. Feeling like each year, no matter the gains made the previous year, you have to start back at the bottom of the mountain pushing the rock back uphill

But I am also leaving because:

1. I can allow my wife to focus on motherhood!
2. I can expose my kids to the other side of the world
3. Financial freedom
4. We can afford to have our parents to come and stay with us for extended periods of time
5. The opportunity to travel!!!!!
6. The opportunity to LIVE outside of the rat race and hamster wheel!

Overall, everyone was excited. Some of us a knew a little more than others about the process and what to expect....but then again, that's what this experience was about..SHARING with each other. I look forward to the next one in May...but for now...packing and waiting is my life:(