I have been reading and taking notes on books like a madman lately. Meanwhile, I am also collecting all the dispersed ideas from the past year, organizing my trials, attempts, and aspirations from many places. They are all converging together in pages in my classroom and today I organized them. Yesh, there is a lot.

There are core values, vital behaviors, narratives, routines for students AND for me, things to measure, class structure overhauls, cultural elements, project ideas, lessons to teach, and so much more.

Collecting all of this has been years in the works.

Organizing it has taken massive effort and time.

Prioritizing it is more difficult than I anticipated.

Figuring out how to weave it all into a strong coherent but SIMPLE structure is too hard.

So I had to pull back and really consider. How do I start all of this.

The story of the class – in the minds of my students – has to be first. That narrative can’t play second fiddle to anything. So as I tackle it again tomorrow, there is my starting point.

I hope is gets simple soon.