Out of Context: Procrastination used Shakespeare to Scold Me: “Turn thee, Jaimie. Look upon thy Death.”

My first year experience with the National Board Process

                I tell my students repeatedly not to procrastinate. I always tell them that I will not take late work, but I do. I accept it because I have a secret: I am a massive procrastinator myself.

                I think it is a genetic trait, but my mother and both of my sisters are the same way.

 I have, my whole life, waited until the last minute to complete a task. I am procrastinating right now; I should be cleaning my house because I have family coming to stay, but I am writing this instead, a blog post that should have been written a week ago.

Do you see how sweet I was? There is not way that I was a procrastinating mastermind already. 

  In 1^st grade, I never completed my work. I HAD to wait until “crunch” time. My mother says that my teacher would collect my incomplete work, but I would somehow manage to steal it off of her desk during the day and finish it. It drove Ms. Edmonds bonkers.

                By late elementary and early junior high, I would only tell my mom about items that I needed for a project the night before. This always led to a very tense situation and an all-nighter for me. I pulled it off, though. I created a wonderful version of a cell with jello and craft material around the house. When I didn’t study for a Biology test, I would write, “I refuse to answer based on my religious beliefs.” I feel so wrong for doing that to Ms. Holcomb. She was a nice lady who deserved my full effort. In high school, I faked the resulted of a Science Fair project. Ms. Holcomb gave me a glowing review. That was a product about the effects of smelling essential oils. Anyone that knows my mom, knows that she has been reading books about natural remedies and creating products with natural ingredients for years. I didn’t consider it cheating at the time; I was merely using my resources by recreating the information in a different, more cutesy tri-fold board way. This was before the age of Web 2.0 and access to the internet, so proving that I had cheated would have taken a very keen mind with knowledge of the exact books that I copied.  

This is how us old people used to Google. 

It didn’t stop there, either. High school, the age of writing papers for class, was a time for me to refine my methods of procrastination. I was blessed with the ability to read very quickly and pull out the important details. Armed with my prompt and my highlighter, I would find what I needed and get started. Most of the time, I had read the literature prior to my essay; that did not encourage me to write about when the assignment was given. Nope. I had to push the deadline.

I had a couple of some new tools that I used right before deadlines, too. From high school on, I always had an intelligent boyfriend. I never seriously dated anyone that I thought to be less intelligent that I was. Please understand that I never set out to use my boyfriends for their brains; I simply find intelligent men to attractive (I liked my first grade crush because he had glasses and could read well). Having said that, it was convenient to have a boyfriend who was smart enough to help" inspire ideas and approaches to writing: about the subject at the time. The Ex was smart, but he was more science oriented, so I had to manage college on my own, but Neal was a blessing when it came to grad school and APA format. I would write furiously just before the submission deadline, and he would create my bibliography and check my in-text citations (I know MLA and procrastinated too much to master APA).

Lastly, on my post of shame as an educator, I was the Queen of Excuses and lies. This also started in elementary school. I told my first grade teacher that I couldn’t do my work because I needed glasses, but my parents couldn’t afford them. I also claimed that my parents kept me up all night working in the snow cone stand at the ballpark. Neither of these things were true. Imagine how my mother must have felt to get the “charity” phone call about taking up a collection at school to get my glasses (I still have 20/20 vision, by the way). I came home to my mother throwing all of my toys in trash bags, as she repeated the phrase, “My child does not lie. My child does not lie.” It was a moment of denial meeting acceptance full of rage, embarrassment, and sadness.

Disney had such an impact on my development. 

When the excuses and lies quit working, I started to create classroom disruptions or get into enough trouble to get a minimum of In-School Suspension to by myself some time. The only upside to this is that I can typically recognize these same tactics in my students. It is hard to con a con.

I made above-average grades in most of my literature and education classes, despite the grammar errors and typos that come with writing all-night. I made even better grades in grad school. By my mid-thirties, I had developed a confidence an arrogant attitude that I create my best work at the very end.

National Boards decided that it was time to teach me a lesson and kick my tail into submission.

I earn my Masters in the Art of Teaching, but that wasn’t enough for me personally. I wanted to become a National Board Certified Teacher. This is essentially the best of the best according to some and I have to agree. Although I procrastinate, I do have an ego to feed and a competitive nature that does not allow me to be stagnant.

National Boards is a yearlong process. It was similar to my pregnancy in a way. I spent months aware of the growing life inside of me, but as his due date drew near, I just felt completely unprepared for what was coming.

Part of my grad school process was to create a mock National Board portfolio. I held on to that because I made good grades on it and thought that it cut my work down by ¼. That was my first excuse in procrastinating. In November, I discovered that one of the most brilliant teachers that I knew did not pass her first round by less than a point. If a type-A perfectionist like her couldn’t make it the first time, then I felt like my organized chaos method was bound to fail. That was my second excuse. My third excuse had to do with the discovery of corporate involvement with the program. I will not discuss this for legal reasons, but it left me very bitter. This was not an excuse. This caused me to shut down completely.

I am no Mozart. 

The due date was May 16^th. I had done my recordings and some of my writing, but not enough. I spent my National Board days writing away, but would scrap everything that I wrote. Around the last week before it was due, I went into panic mode. I began to analyze my in-class videos and revising what I wrote to the point of insanity. When my supportive friends would ask how it was going, I would say, “It will be done.” Inside, I was filled with anxiety that I was not going to be able to create some last-minute genius or wiggle my way into an extension. I had had a year. This was all the curse of procrastinating.

The electronic submissions weren’t due until 2 a.m. Central time. I thought this to be a blessing at first, but I was becoming delirious from sleep deprivation. I know in my heart of teacher hearts that two of my entries were atrocious and I was humiliated to submit such crap. The only ones that I felt pretty good about were the ones that I had worked on throughout the year. I am still not sure if the final entry for my portfolio submitted completely because they shut the system down at 1:58 a.m. my time. 

It is certain that I will have to bank the scores that I made and re-do part of the process next school year. This is going to cost me some money and that just adds insult to my self-inflicted injury.

It took me two weeks to fully process how much I had failed myself. It took me two weeks to admit that I was a hypocrite for being so hard on my procrastinating students. I have yet to think about it without getting ill.

Having said all that, National Boards will tell you up front that it is a one to three year process to achieve National Board Certification. It is a challenge worth accepting and has made me a better educator already. I recommend it for anyone who plans on being a lifelong educator and learner. You can’t escape facing your personal and professional shortcomings while going through this process, which in turns creates an opportunity to promote best practices for learning in the classroom.

In November/December, I will get my letter that says that I did not score high enough to pass. I will cry. I will, however, make a timeline and stick to it. I will utilize the free support groups that were offered to me and take advantage of the expertise of my National Board Certified friends other than the night before it is due.

            

After all these years of knowing that “procrastination leads to aggravation,” I have learned that I can no longer stand in front of a group of kids and be a secret procrastinator. I have to evolve and model for my students how to get stuff done.

Until next time, LIVE LOUDLY!!!