It's All Worth It!

It all started in 2008, when I was frustrated with classroom management. It was my second year of teaching and I was teaching Kinder. I was not being successful with the techniques I was using on my own so I decided to YouTube classroom management for Kinder. The first video that popped up was Andrea Shindler's Whole Brain Teaching video. I sat in amazement as her kinders were all focused on her then turning to their neighbors and teaching. I couldn't believe she had ALL her students fully engaged! I knew I needed to learn more about this Whole Brain Teaching. I watched her video again and began taking notes. The next day I used some of the strategies in my kinder class and WHOA they were responding VERY well. I used a little at a time, getting comfortable with WBT. The next couple of years I began to incorporate more and more into my classroom. I was constantly on wholebrainteaching.com looking for more ways to help my smarties become engaged in their learning. I joined the book club and read, WBT for Challenging Kids.
Fast forward to 2013, I was teaching 1st grade. I became an intern with WBT and began my certification process. I wanted to use what I've learned to help other teachers in my building and most importantly be the best WBT teacher for my students. I was eager to film my first video for certification. Unfortunately, my video was not exemplary. I knew I needed to step it up and grow. I made another video for the 14-15 school year. I was better and did grow but again my video was not exemplary. Now I was DETERMINED to be certified! I attended the 2015 WBT National Conference in Pineville, LA. I met Coach B, the mastermind behind WBT, and he encouraged me! I attended his advanced class and learned so much more!
Now it's the 15-16 school year and I made my classroom a WBT model classroom, worked with my smarties EVERY DAY, and watched every WBT periscope I could. I was feeling pretty good about my video for this year. So I did it, well I guess you can say my smarties did it. They worked SO hard to help me get certified. I sent my video to Nancy Stoltenberg and she raved about it!!! I thought to myself, this is it!! She sent the video to Coach B. I was waiting to hear back and received an email. It said for me to give Coach B a call. He had some suggestions for me. I dialed his number, had my pen ready to take notes. Needless to say, he said I DID IT!!!!! I can't begin to tell you all the excitement I felt!! Tears streamed down my face. I did it. My video was finally exemplary and it was all worth it!