HHH’s National Board Certified Teachers were asked to share their certification experience and the impact the experience had in their classrooms. As there are several HHH members who are currently going through the certification process themselves or who are contemplating participating in the future, teachers also shared some advice for those members.
The HHHTA is proud to share these stories with the HHH Community!
1. What prompted you to go through the process to become a NBCT?
After 20 years of teaching, I decided to take on the challenge of the National Board process. Call it vanity. Call it insanity. I knew I was a good teacher but I wanted to know how I rated on a national level. Similar to the concept of a seven-year itch, this was an opportunity to challenge myself professionally - and it WAS a challenge. There is never a good time to do it - at the time my son was 3 and my husband was working six days a week in the city. Trying to find time to analyze my practice and my reasons for every decision was exhausting. I have always reviewed and changed my lessons year to year but this required a new kind of analysis.
One of the hardest parts of the process was promoting my "accomplishments". It was hard to be my own cheerleader as it did not come naturally.
2. How did the certification process impact your classroom (ie: increase in parental involvement, improved teaching techniques, becoming more reflective)?
One of the most important impacts on my teaching was the realization that I needed to give more "power" to my students to take charge of their own learning. I am very much a micro-manager of their learning and the reflective process forced me to understand that creating more opportunities for students to lead the learning was not necessarily a less effective teaching tool.
3. Did the certification process impact you on personal and professional levels?
As part of the first group of HHH teachers to take on the challenge of National Board, it was refreshing to work closely with the other members of the cohort and wrestle with the process. I don't remember ever feeling so nervous about anything the way I felt waiting to see if I had passed. The utter relief upon passing makes me laugh at myself now - it just goes to show how much of myself I had invested in the process.
It was a tremendous amount of time and effort in a relatively short period of time but well worth the experience. It was a professional challenge and interesting to be judged against a set of standards with which I was unfamiliar.