Cluster Meeting Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am going to a meeting involving all the teachers in our cluster. We will listen to a speaker and then we will break into groups to discuss how we can support each other as teachers in our particular subject areas. I'm hanging with the Maths/Science teachers. I did some collegiate work in Writing last year so time for a change. As a generalist it doesn't matter where I go but I do have a Science degree and I am peeved at how Maths and Science always seem to be the poor cousins to teaching Literacy. Thirty teachers in the writing group and only one primary teacher in the Maths Science group - me - with nine other secondary teachers.

The drive is about two and a half hours and I shall have to get up early.  I will leave my husband with the bulk of the getting kids ready for school routine. I will just have to get myself organised and then I get all that solitude and think-time in the car.

The drive home may be a different matter. It will be tiring and I will inevitably go over in my head all that has happened during the day. On the positive side I may be excited at some new thing I have learned or someone interesting I have connected with. On a more depressing note there may be the recollection that I put my hand up one too many times during the question and answer session or appeared too opinionated at the small group session. I do have strategies but when my blood's up I find it hard to control myself.

 One strategy I use is to calculate how many people are in the room and how many questions are likely to be asked and then work out how many times would be socially acceptable enough for me to raise my hand or give a comment. Sometimes the speakers are interesting and I am keen to get more information. Sometimes they are just relabeling old ideas in a fancy packaging. Then I can't help it and find  myself and asking them things like "if they mean Vygotsky's zone of proximal development?" Then I look just like a 'smart-arse' and they come and find me at morning tea break and try to engage me in conversation. I don't like to stand out but have an uncanny knack for making it happen.

There will of course be food provided that I shouldn't eat because of my dietary restrictions (Like most Aspies I know, I have a noncompliant digestive system when it comes to wheat and dairy) but I will of course not be organised enough to have brought anything of my own that is near as yummy.

I will also get to catch up with colleagues I haven't seen for a long time and it does give me a little adrenalin rush doing something different for the day. But I know that I will be a wreck when I do get home. Worked up and hyper from the social activity. My long suffering husband will have to hear the debrief, my kids will not get the attention they require from their mother and I will have to face my own school workmates the next day.  I live in hope that the day will go well.