ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Wendy
Starting Out
I started my career in the late 90s, before the Internet arrived in every home and cellphones weren’t in every backpack. I knew I was going to be a teacher from the time I was in grade 2. All that changed over time was the grade and subject. Every volunteer position, every summer job, and every university course I took was to better prepare me for the eventuality of having my own classroom. I was hired right out of Teacher’s College to a full-time teaching job and thought that I had it made.
Little did I know, I wasn’t prepared.
Change Took Place
Sure, I had classroom management down and I could follow the plans that other teachers shared with me but none of this addressed the larger, philosophical needs that I lived with daily.
I attended professional development sessions and I participated in a pilot program for report cards in my first year but something was still missing.
I absorbed every conversation I had with veteran teachers and listened to them share about their classes, their marking, their struggles with particular students. I wanted their “hacks” and strategies so that I could be a better teacher every day.
Then I figured it out. I hadn’t asked the right questions all the way along. I had been asking for help in the day to day experience of a teacher and I had successfully mastered going through the motions for a casual observer and probably for my classes but then I realized my real problem.
I didn’t ask why.
Why was the answer and the question to everything that I needed to be and needed to do as an educator.
I’ve spent more than 20 years working on my whys. Yup, there’s more than one. This isn’t a fluffy “why are you here” type problem. I know what I want. See the mission statement for that. What I came to realize was that I had to ask ‘why?’ about everything.
By making myself vulnerable. By being transparent in my failings. By finding others who also wanted the answers to 'why', I found my way into being a better teacher.
Now as the veteran teacher, I’m sharing with others what I’ve learned by asking 'why'. I’m coming alongside and sharing in the professional growth of others through asking 'why' and offering tools to help with answers.
Why is the question and why will lead to our answers.
MY MISSION
You wouldn’t know it when you meet me. I’m pretty unassuming and the title of both teacher and librarian has allowed me to hide in plain sight. But it’s true; I’ve been starting a revolution! My mission has been straightforward and simple: for classroom teachers to do better. I’ve been disrupting the workspaces of my colleagues for decades by coming alongside and simply asking myself and them, why? That’s a pretty innocuous conversation starter but it’s been the origin of great change. I want our kids to be more successful. I want our teachers to be intentional difference makers. I want our schools to be thoughtfully innovative. I want our districts to be pointed to and identified as doing good work. It’s not much but it’s everything.