One eduTwitter narrative I have always sincerely rejected is the one that puts teachers or those outside of the classroom "below" classroom teachers. That said, there is a point to be made about not having recent teaching experience and speaking to it. 1/

And that is because in my 7th year out, not having a classroom, I can confirm I am running out of ways to speak about mathematics teaching and learning, as those classroom days get further away. Simply: my ideas have gotten stale. 2/

So it's been a ride: 3 years math resource teacher (great colleagues, but navigating a difficult corporate culture was hard for me), supporting classrooms at 2 schools for student success (very interesting), 3 years MOE (very interesting). 3/

And then I mostly did middle school, for the first 12 years. New challenge for 2021: going back to a K-5 school and putting all of this learning into practice. I used to love "mining" the world for interesting math to talk about. 4/

I used to love talking to kids about what they are thinking. Seeing progress. Interesting ideas and solutions to problems. That all fell away. It's time to go back. "Lace up", as they say. As they say: primary math is interesting and complex. 5/

The best place to be for teachers is at the nexus of theory and practice, so: learn new things, put them into practice. That will be great, and the next thing. Inspired by great folks like @heidsiwak and @cashjim that "went back"! -fin-