Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

In the last year and a half, administration has been offering me new opportunities to develop programs that change how our school operates.  At first this seems exciting.  I worked with some students and teachers to create the IMPACT program.  Then, this year, they have entrusted me with helping to develop a plan for restructuring and creating a new school.  Now, there is a strong possibility that the new school could work as a technology magnet. 

When I began, this was exciting.  It still is.  I love the challenge and the creativity.  Yet, there is this sense that I have no idea how well any of this actually works.  For example, we can boast about the IMPACT program, but does it really change students' lives?  I'm not so sure it lives up to the hype.  I feel the same pressure about the new school.  What if we work our asses off and the best we can pull off is slightly above mediocre?  Now, as I work on the idea of a technology magnet, I begin to wonder if we can actually bridge the Digital Divide. 

Perhaps it's the classic case of Peter's Law - the notion that we are all promoted to our level of incompetancy.  Or maybe it's the case of being too much of a rookie and just now realizing that there is nothing truly special about what I am planning.  I mean, when we work on a mural, I can talk it up as much as I want, but it's really just eight kids with some markers or paint putting a picture on the wall.  When we create a documentary, it's really just teaching kids how to edit videos and ask questions. 

I feel like the Wizard of Oz. They hype me up and market me as if I was something different; as though I, as a teacher, did something others don't.  That's simply not the case.  Nothing that I am doing is new.  I am not in Hogwarts.  I have no magical powers or special formulas.  I'm not David Copperfield, able to make the Statue of Liberty dissapear.  Yet, I wonder if I do contribute to these illusions, whether in conversations or blogs or websites.  I've been complicit in marketing myself and now, as the Wizard of Oz, I'm waiting for that moment when they pulll off the curtain and see a guy manipulating technology and all that's left is the smoke and mirrors and a man who is as broken as the students he teaches.