The Idea

No, this is not the post where you will find out whether I passed any or all of the components and received National Board Certification, but in this mini-series, we are going to go on a journey together and you are going to get a much more detailed description of my entire National Board Certification experience than maybe anyone (even my posterity) needs. It’s a monster of a story and recording this experience has been on my list of things to do for about six months now. There’s nothing like finishing a school year, working a summer job, and moving across the country to provide plenty of time to NOT write your story down.  Let’s begin!

“National Board releases scores and certification decisions no later than December 31 each year.”

That sentence has been weighing on my mind for the past couple of weeks. Any day now I will find out the results of that arduous certification process. How is it already December 22? How am I done with my first semester of teaching in an inner city high school? I have been waiting for this exact moment (Christmas break) since before I started the school year. If a teacher can make it to Christmas break, they can make it the rest of the way. I am now on the downhill slope and it feels soooo good.

Also, as is typical for the end of any year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my past year and my journey with National Board Certification is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.

I first heard about National Board Teacher Certification (NBTC) at a conference I went to in San Diego (Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers - ECET2). When I first received the letter saying that I had been chosen to attend the conference, I thought it was a joke. My principal received a letter as well and called me in asking what the conference was. I told her I assumed it was a spam conference and I wasn’t really interested in attending. Little did I know how big of a deal this was. ECET2 is very exclusive. You have to be nominated by someone else who has attended the conference. Your airfare, hotel, and food are all paid for. You meet with other educators from around the nation, and as the best of the best, it’s an uplifting and inspiring couple of days. It’s not the usual professional development where you have a few of those teachers (or maybe a lot of teachers) who are burned out and OVER the education scene. You are surrounded by hard-working, motivated, innovative, and creative educators. You want to attend every single break out session, but you’re limited to only a few because time is an unfortunate parameter.

A big piece of ECET2 is educators sharing their story. I loved this idea!

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put us up in a delightful hotel that overlooked a marina. I could have just hung out in my hotel room because it was such a pleasant, comforting place and we all know how much I love time to myself, but I also desperately wanted to be where everyone else was. What an adventure it was to be there. The leaders of the conference reiterated that this is a conference to CELEBRATE us. They wanted to give us the best of the best and thank us for what we did. I wish every teacher could attend such a conference. You leave that conference feeling like you are on top of the world. You are reminded of your purpose and capacity as an educator and you go back to your small atmosphere of influence realizing that it’s not as small as you thought. We are a nation of teachers and there are resources and supports everywhere.

This was my assigned group. These were powerful teacher figures. 

That conference changed my life and I will forever be grateful for my dear friend and exemplar, Tabitha Pacheco, for nominating me.

During one get-to-know-you activity we had to share our aspirations for leadership, involvement, continued education, etc in the education world. I felt like I was a small minnow in a sea full of blue whales and the only thing that I could really see myself reaching for at that point was National Board Certification. I figured that was a safe choice and I was intrigued by the idea of receiving my NBTC. I figured that would be later on in my life though.

Here was my meager attempt at sharing what I wanted to aspire to in the education world. Seeing other teachers' accomplishments and dreams showed me just how much is out there!

The very next fall (about 8 months later), I felt prompted to work on my National Board Certification. The idea kept popping back into my mind, which is always an indicator that I need to listen carefully to what I am feeling. I looked into NBTC and figured, why not? If I was prompted to do it, it must be time.