Mrvaudrey

2014 Reflection

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mrvaudrey

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The best record of the good things in 2014 is my Twitter feed, so here are some of the best moments from 2014, in Tweet-form, semi-chronologically:

January of 2014, John Stevens and I gave a training for the Mariposa County math teachers called La Cucina Matematica.

A year later, we’ve done sixB or sevenB of them (allB wayB better than the first one), and it spawned a website and we’re both getting calls to train staff across the country. Pretty sweet.

A few months later, I interviewed for a job in-district as Professional Development Specialist.

That meant leaving the classroom mid-year.

Even though I had more time at home, the jobB wasn’t professionally satisfying. I enjoy doing math with students, I don’t enjoy structuringB curriculum maps for integrat—Yegh. I’m bored already.

I did have more time to blog, though.

So eight weeks later, I interviewed and accepted aB different job. It was immediately fantastic.

In between all of that chaos, we had a baby on Father’s Day.

clayton

My wife looks terrified because baby ClaytonB didn’t cry/breathe right away. It was the longest, scariest 7 seconds of my life.

But he’s fine now.

If you’re curious, he has a hashtag on Instagram and so does his sister, which makes compiling pictures really easy with IFTTT.

Then I settled into the glorious routine of “figuring out a new job that hasB noB job description,B total autonomy, and a supportive supervisor who’s a hoot”.

Out of “the rat race”, so to speak, of day-to-day teaching, I had more mental energy to play with my kids, read books, and think about education and my future in it.

This new job is just as supportive as the classroom position when it comes to attending conferences and presenting. It’s notable that some of my top tweets of the year happened during CMC, CUE, and GTA.

 

Also, I had a little help compiling this list from My Top Tweet and some fancy Googling.

For 2015:

I turned 30 in 2014. While that meant throwing a 1997-themed birthday, it also meant looking forward.

What can I give to Education thatB nobody else can give?

While I may never have a good answer for that, I’m getting closer to a coherent response.

In 2013, I gave 150 students a fun place to talk about math; a safe place to take risks and trust each other.

In 2014, I taught (or attempted to) a hundred or so teachers about how to buildB their classes into that type of class. Also, some other like-minded individuals and I began to wonder, “Could we find a way to effect greater change in Education? How do we get there?”

In 2015, we will keep asking hard questions and dreaming. We’ll see what happens.

~Matt “I wanna change the world, but I also want to teach” Vaudrey

Comments

One response to “2014 Reflection”

  1. Rich Lombardo Avatar
    Rich Lombardo

    Great post Matt and congrats on your son! Being out of the classroom is still a struggle for me especially since our closest school is an hour away and we have others that are as far as six hours. Good luck in 2015!

    Reply

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