An exercise in transparency...

I've been approached these past few weeks asking: "what do you do all day?", "What does a Curriculum coordinator do?", "How does one coordinate curriculum?"  and "how do you determine which curriculums need coordinating?"

I also heard at a meeting today that I needed to be more visible.

All of these comments/questions (even though some asked sarcastically and some genuinely interested) made me realize today that there is a level of secrecy to what I do.  

• I'm not in a building, I'm in every building.
• I'm not in an office, I spend more time in other people's office.
• I don't teach students, actually I help teachers teach students.
• I don't report to a principal, in fact my boss is the Assistant Superintendant.
• I don't coach on the field, I coach in the classroom.

Many more realizations come to me throughout the day but it all comes back to the fact that not even I know what I do.  My first year in a new district, doing a new job, learning with an AMAZING mentor,  without the guidance from a predecessor.   I have much to learn.

In an effort to fill in that gap, be more visible and even more transparent I created a blog: http://wgsdsciss.blogspot.com/ 

In my role as the Science and Social Studies Curriculum coordinator I have many written tasks but many more that are unwritten.  The unwritten ones I hope to communicate in my blog.

I have a great system for completing tasks.  I use remember the milk (website, app and integration to google calendar) to prioritize and write down to do list items.  I check them off and can complete, change priority and postpone when I run out of time on a task.

In addition as I begin this new job it's important for me to have the ability to reflect from year to year month to month, day to day.  I know if I do not reflect on my tasks and reflect on my role I will not be able to improve from year to year.  I'm hopeful that this blog will serve as that space.

Daniel Pink often talks about ways to be more productive in the workplace.  As well as ways to make your workplace more efficient.  Keeping in mind that workplace efficiency typically stems from happiness in your job.  This blog I created will give me that space to assess my efficiency and effectiveness.  (By the way, there's an app for that)

When people ask me what I do, I hope to have a better answer than "I have people skills...." :-)