It’s Monday morning.

For many people, Monday morning generally comes with connotations of dread at the return to the school or work week, but, as a child, I looked forward to Monday mornings.  I loved school and wanted to see my friends (in a time before social networking kept me connected to friends all the time). I felt competent, accepted and happy at school.  Then, I became a teacher, and though there were those occasional Monday mornings of doom, generally, I was excited to see my students and colleagues, get back into my routine and introduce new concepts.  Again, feelings of competence, acceptance and happiness abounded.

But today, I feel like I’ve entered “the new normal” — new to me but normal to everyone else — where this Monday morning, I’m just not feeling it.  Perhaps it’s because this Monday morning, rather than easing into the week with Office Hours (my normal routine), I’m off in a bit to 2 observations before heading to campus.  You’d think that being the one doing the observations the pressure would be off, but actually it’s been one of the most stressful situations I’ve been in in a long time.

Part of my job this semester (as I’ve mentioned before) is supervising student teachers.  In this role, I work as the liaison between the university, cooperating teachers and student teachers with a focus on mentoring my student teachers and helping them to develop in their emergent practice.  During my first 6 weeks supervising, everything was going smoothly.  I have a wonderful group of student teachers with a lot of potential as beginning teachers.  I also had a great group of cooperating teachers with whom it was easy to work.  I have been co-facilitating my student teaching seminars with a colleague with whom I have thoroughly enjoyed working.  It was all great.

And then came the second placement.  Same student teachers and facilitation set up, but a new set of cooperating teachers.  In my second group of cooperating teachers, while all of them are strong in their pedagogy, there have been definite differences between my mentoring styles and theirs. These differences and the ways that they’ve been expressed to me have left me feeling as if I have something to prove professionally, for the first time in a long time.  They make me question my professional identity and my extensive work mentoring teachers.  And, they just plain make me uncomfortable.

Honestly, I think this comes from always being such a “good girl” and a people pleaser.  I always want to get it right and have molded my identity constantly to please others.  But now I’m in a position where one size doesn’t fit all (did it ever, I wonder?) and where there is no prescribed “right.”  Right for me has to be based on authenticity, and while I sometimes wonder what is authentic for me, given my people pleasing nature, I think that deep inside I know.  And, I have follow my gut, even if it means that I am uncomfortable because comfort doesn’t lead to change and it doesn’t honor my commitments in life.

It’s Monday morning.  And it’s time to start a new week.