JAMES RUSH

This truly is important. In Alaska, though--espec. in rural districts--no matter how positive a culture you establish if you don't have the same sort of working relationship with your colleagues and (most notably) SUPERVISORS, your daily school "life" can feel far beyond challenging.

I cannot understate the importance of this small "chapter" within this course. Establishing & then maintaining positive relationships with students & their parents/guardians is SOOOOOO important. When students KNOW that their families support you, it actually can serve as a sort of "deterrent" to many poor choices and maladaptive behaviors.

Positive relationships also lead to students TRUSTING you, asking for assistance in other areas of their daily academic schedules. Building administrators NOTICE this positive interaction.

This was a good lesson component. It strives to emphasize the reality that mentor teachers can--and almost always do--have deeper, more lasting "impacts" on the new CTE teacher. 

Experience has taught me, though, that no amount of teamwork with a mentor can relieve the stresses encountered if you have an administrator that knows little to nothing about what you do...and espec. those that want to micro-manage your teaching & learning space.

I've learned that the field of education is both VERY rewarding and, concurrently, almost gut-wrenching and seemingly thankless. It can become quite difficult (quite quickly) to navigate the inner-"realm" as one strives to do the very best that he or she can. 

This is compounded by the reality of where I live and work: Alaska. Up here, just as we have educators that seem to get hired because they "have a pulse," we also have some VERY bad building (and Central Office) administrators. In Alaska, the CTE "world" is almost without limits--IF one can grapple with administrators that know almost… >>>

I've been "doing this" in one way or another--sometimes large and at other times pretty small--for 6 years now. Much of it I felt like was a "refresher"...while other elements were things I learned and seemed quite impressive. 

As much as I hate to say (or think) it, given the terrible political climate in our country today, I'm TRULLY unsure what really "matters" moving between political parties as one exits power and the other enters--and vice versa.