More or Less Knitting

I finished this sweater a couple of weeks ago (including the sleeves, one of which is in my hand in the photo). The pattern is from this fall's issue of Knitty, designed by Ashley Adams Moncrief. Yarn is from Webs, five balls of Berroco Air, color Geothermal, a bulky wool with a little bit of nylon or something for shine. Hooray for Webs clearance! $15 to make this sweater--and my time, which I happily gave. Which actually leads me to the "less" in this post's title. I just went to a great conference (the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum), and I feel reinvigorated about the work that I am doing. Every once in a while, the thought flashes through my brain that maybe I should do something else ... go to med school, or become a lawyer. I also have moments of keenly feeling the reverse, and the Fall Forum filled me with a sense of ownership, that education is my field and what I am doing is my work. I rarely feel this in the classroom, though being a classroom teacher does bring me many moments of joy and pride in my students. The ownership comes to me more from working with adults, organizing ideas and analyzing them, trying to fit thought to practice. I think I am really a pragmatist about most things, not much of a theorist, and the same is true when it comes to education. So I am excited about the leadership role that I have at Young Women's right now, and I am very hopeful that in this third year there, I can contribute more than I gain (while still gaining a lot) and push the school forward, with the help of my wonderful colleagues--one of whom announced today that she is leaving us. Next week. She found another job. I am wondering how to feel about it, how to acknowledge my feeling that it is unfair to the girls to do this in the middle of the year while recognizing all her contributions to the school over the last seven years and her needs for self-actualization. It doesn't seem right to mask or hide any of my thoughts, nor does it seem likely to be good to just lay everything out there. What do leaders do in these situations?

I am unlikely to be knitting much in the next X weeks. I am going to finish Denali's hat (I have to post pictures of the one I knit for Mali!), and throw myself into work. While maintaining a sense of perspective and humility. Wish me luck.