Last night CTLB and I presented our spring exhibition project to our grad school class. Our assignment was to create our perfect school, focusing on instructional program, depth vs. breadth, cycles of inquiry, teacher evaluation processes, summative and formative assessments, what a graduating student would know and be able to do, a senior project, and habits of mind. There was a bit more to the assignment, but that’s the gist of it. I don’t want to bore the non education people out there.
Rather than just present a boring powerpoint, I came up with the idea of creating a school website in order to present our materials. (For our last exhibition, we created an iMovie, so we felt that we had a reputation to keep up in the creativity department). We worked hard to create the content and put the site together. We finished the site on Saturday afternoon and felt so excited about presenting it on Monday afternoon.
We were schedule to go first, so we got there early and set everything up. The room in which we were presenting has an in-focus machine installed on the ceiling, with the cords installed into a podium. I set my MacBookPro up, tested that I could get on the internet, and adjusted the size of the display. It was all set up and ready to go.
Ready until a teacher from another group decides that he wants to make sure his computer will work, so he unplugs mine and starts testing it out. The thing that kills me about this is that we used this same room last time, so there would be no reason why his computer shouldn’t work. Plus, each team had 5 minutes in order to set up for their presentation.
I’m sure you can see where this is going, but once I replugged the computer up to all of the technology, my computer froze, I couldn’t get on the internet, and the display wasn’t coming up. I started to panic inside, but wanted to keep it cool and collected on the outside. Luckily CTLB remained calmer than me. I really had no idea what we were going to do. We had worked so hard and prepared so well, and now our worst nightmare was coming true.
The team that was supposed to go next offered to present in our place so that we could figure out our computer issues. They had a Mac as well, and wouldn’t you know that they couldn’t get the in-focus machine to display their powerpoint either? Somehow that other teacher had screwed up the in-focus, but none of us could figure out how to fix it. A third team had brought a backup in-focus, so the second group was able to present. The problem with the backup in-focus is that the display was really small, because the table it was on couldn’t be moved back too far (no extension cord to plug in).
The third team went, and was able to use the podium in-focus without problems. (They had a PC). I started to have hope that we’d be able to use it, too. All of the other teams went and then it was finally our turn. We tried to use the podium again, but my computer still wouldn’t work. One of the other teams let us borrow their laptop (a PC) and we were able to present.
Both CTLB and I are pros, so we did a great job with our presentation. We weren’t nervous or flustered at all. We were proud of the material we were presenting, and thought it came across. Then we finished and got the comment sheets from the other teams. They were all really impressed with the information and our hard work, but thought the display of the website was too small. (The PC showed the display much smaller than my Mac was set to). I was hurt that the other groups chose to nitpick, especially because they saw how much we had struggled with the technology.
Our evaluator told us that we had done “exceptionally well,” which translates into an A on the presentation, hopefully.
At this point, it wasn’t even about our grade anymore. Both CTLB and I had this really awful feeling of letdown, rather than the relief we thought we’d feel knowing that we were done with our first year of grad school. We were so excited about our website, and knew that we rocked the assignment. We were confident in being able to put together a really kickass presentation. Because of this, we had this false feeling of failure when it didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.
This seems to be a recurring issue for me. I have such high expectations and get so excited about things, and sometimes I’m let down. I’m not saying that I want to change this outlook, though. I like that I go into things being really fired up and into it. I’m glad that I have high expectations of myself because it’s one of the reasons I’ve gone so far in my life. It’s just hard when things don’t work out the way you hope for, especially when you’ve planned and perfected everything. Or so you think until life sets you straight.
We came back to my house and drank a bottle of this great Spanish red I had bought a few weeks ago. Vino Sin Ley (which translates to “outlaw wine” or “wine without laws”). Delicious, smooth, and full-bodied. We started to deconstruct the night, but then when the wine kicked in, we dropped our bad feelings and started talking about life; something we hadn’t done in so long because we had been so focused on (and consumed by school). CTLB and I have only known each other for 3 years, but she is by far one of my closest friends. Last night we had the opportunity to talk about everything — religion, our families, hopes for the future, our childhoods, etc. No topic was off limits, and it felt so good to sit outside and enjoy the warm night air with a few glasses of wine and several ciggies. At one point, the owner of the Ethiopian restaurant next door came and brought us out two glasses of honey wine. The stuff tasted awful, but it was such a sweet gesture. We took a few courtesy sips and then dumped most of it into a nearby garbage can. We left just a few drops in the glasses, in case the owner came back out and wanted to see us “enjoying our wine.”
When I woke up this morning and started thinking about everything in the shower (the place I do my best thinking), I realized that if you put it into perspective, we did an amazing job on our final exhibition. We had a fully functioning website that not only looked amazing, but had incredible content, as well. We poured all of our knowledge and effort into it, and it shows. All of our friends and family who viewed the site loved it. They were so impressed and proud of us. And most importantly, we were so proud of ourselves. Small problems with technology and some overly critical comments from our classmates shouldn’t take any of that away.
CTLB said she had the same feeling today. She said that if the people in our class really cared to see the site better, they could, since we included the links in our handouts. Plus, all that matters is that we know we did an amazing job, and our colleagues, friends, and families all had wonderful things to say.
Today, as I write this, I do feel relieved. My life can get back to normal…well, somewhat. I still have tons of essays to grade before this school year is over, but I’ll have more time to concentrate on all of that now. I learned so much this year from my grad school program, and really, that’s what counts.
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