August 8, 2014
Welcome to From the Falcon's Nest! This blog is designed to share educational
updates, thoughts, and experiences from the desk of the elementary principal.
Let me introduce myself. I am Erin Sieh (pronounced
"see"). This is my first year as an administrator and I am
lucky enough to be starting my career as a principal at Freeman Elementary
School. Freeman is a consolidated district that began in the fall of
1998. I will be sharing more on the history of the school in a later
post.
My
education career started back in high school when I was a senior and wanted to
be a teacher’s assistant. I really enjoyed my math teacher at the time
and thought maybe teaching math would be a good idea. I spent time
helping a junior high math class discover more complicated numerical equations
and patterns. As I spent time in that environment I began to think I
wanted to study the field of education in college. Hastings College was
where I decided to go, but I was still toying with the idea of becoming a
nurse. I had a love of music which made me also consider minoring in
music. You see, I have a lot of interests and I like to be busy so it was
tricky to narrow down what I wanted to do. I quickly decided my first
year of college that education was the route to take, instead of nursing, but which
area of education was not so clear.
I began taking lots of English classes thinking I
wanted to be an English major. A person
can never have too many books after all, but WOW, was there a lot of
reading. I read so many classics in
college. (Oh that Jane Austen class during Interim was a treat!) As much as I loved reading, I realized that there
were a lot of other people that had such a deep understanding of the materials
that I questioned if I could serve the students in the best capacity as they
needed. I liked math, but not calculus
and trigonometry. So I was in a
bind. There were a lot of subject areas
that I was interested in but not enough to major in just one area.
Thankfully I had an amazing advisor who
suggested I take a look at an elementary classroom. I thought she was crazy and I wasn’t that
excited about it because junior high was where I thought I was destined to
be. So to appease her, I gave it a
shot. It didn’t take long to realize
elementary was definitely where I needed to be. Since that elementary
practicum, I never looked back.
The rest of my college days were spent studying
the elements of being a teacher, making lesson plans, bulletin boards, grading
student work, and absorbing as much as I could about the field of education. I quickly made friends who were emerged into
the same classes as I was and we bonded over which teaching materials were the best
or sharing our favorite children’s literature.
By the time I graduated I was over the top excited to have my own classroom. Certain I was going to be a 3rd
grade teacher somewhere I started applying all over eagerly anticipating a
phone call to accept my first “real” job.
In the end, I took an elementary music teaching
job in Blair. I taught K-2 grade music
in 3 different buildings. Even though I
wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a music teacher I was still excited to jump into
the teaching world. Much to my surprise
I enjoyed teaching those little kiddos music.
They were SO excited to come into class every day to sing and dance and
play with different musical elements.
The highlight of the year was usually the spring concert, despite the
stress that led up to it.
After two years, we moved to York where I subbed
around the area in every grade and subject possible…except Ag or shop class I
guess! That was invaluable
experience. Wow! After that I decided every teacher should be
a sub if only for a few months. My
chance to become a classroom teacher happened after my one year of
subbing. I was given the opportunity to
work as a 5th grade teacher at a private Catholic school. I will share some of my experiences from that
in future posts. After learning the
ropes, I decided that I loved it! I did
some junior high coaching as well.
Soon it was time to start thinking about a Master’s
degree, but picking the area was more difficult. After much exploring and research I was
determined to study administration. Most
people said I was crazy to want to be a principal, but I was excited about the
idea. I wanted to be an advocate for
teachers and help them grow professionally.
I spent summers driving to Lincoln to take classes at UNL and during the
school year, took online classes. After
living in York for 5 years, we (my husband and I) decided it was time to move
to a bigger city. We ended up in Gretna
where he commuted to the west and I commuted to the north. I went back to Blair where I taught music,
but this time I was going to be a 3rd grade teacher, where I always
wanted to be (I thought).
Shortly after our move I finished up my Master’s
degree from UNL in Educational Administration.
It was important that I finished my degree before we had kids knowing
that it would be so tricky to be in school, teach, and have a baby. Five months after graduating, we welcomed twin
girls to our family. Upon receiving my
degree I started to view education a little differently. Half the time I was looking through the
looking glass as a teacher and the other half as an administrator. For 3 years I soaked up as much about being a
principal as I could, emerging myself in literature, and spending time
attending conferences and workshops about administration. I couldn’t wait to be a principal, but knew
the timing wasn’t quite right. I was sad
to think about not having a classroom of my own students that I could teach and
grow with every day. There were so many
special families that walked in and out of the classrooms that I taught in, but
I knew there were more ways I wanted to help in schools.
This last spring I was offered the Elementary
Principal job at Freeman. Words could
not express how excited I was to be starting down the administration path. One of my colleagues congratulated me by
saying, “Congratulations, welcome to the dark side!” That is a big joke in the admin world, but I
was determined to not make the word “principal” a bad thing. I constantly told people that I wanted to be
a principal, not for headaches and complaints, and negative parent
conversations.
I wanted to be a principal to make school an
enjoyable environment to be in. I want
staff to get up saying they can’t wait to go to work. I want students to love their school, have
pride in it, and discover a love for learning even when things get challenging
or there are tests to take. I want to
build relationships with families and the community, to showcase the school in
a positive light and be proud of the work that goes on daily. There is so much negativity in the world
today and education has their fair share of it but what doesn’t get recognition
is the positive, the good things, the amazing things that kids are capable
of.
So here I am, starting out my journey on the
other side of the desk this fall. I wake
up excited to get to the office and start making a difference. This year making a difference will have a new
perspective. I get to work with everyone
in the building, all families that walk through the door, and the community.
I hope you enjoy reading posts From the Falcon’s Nest this year. I welcome your questions or comments (as long
as they are respectful) any time.
So here’s
to a great 2014-2015 school year!
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