The Journey Begins

A Capstone Course - that is what this internship is called.  This is when the rubber hits the road, the feet follow the words, the walk follows the talk....you get the drift.  Capstone sounds a little to me like a national park that I would like to visit where animals run free, the mountains scrape the sky and the waters are as blue as my son's eyes.  Hanging on to this pristine image of "Capstone" may just keep me focused throughout this internship voyage.

I am doing my internship at my former second home away from home - my old school board.  It is fun to be here and see former colleagues.  I worked in this school board as a teacher and not as an employee at the school board office.  I feel like I am watching the machine work from the inside observing all the administrators, consultants and directors work diligently to support the teachers and students of their schools.  Ironically, I can see the school where I taught high school English and Social Studies from the school board office. It feels (pardon the warm, geeky feeling) like I have come back to the old homestead.

These past two weeks of the internship have been about making a plan - identifying its objectives and its procedure.  What will I be doing while I am here?  What is my role?  What will I be producing?  What are the objectives of my project and of this internship?  In essence, these past two weeks have been an experience in establishing where I am in the internship, where I want and need to go, and how I am to get there.  At the same time, it has been about placing this internship with my personal and professional responsibilities and creating a map of how to be in each place - personal, internship, professional - without going off the metaphorical road or getting lost.