I think there’s a law that we have to do this.  I’ve been blogging for more than ten years, off and on, and I think I’ve set a goal every year to blog more.  And I’ve been promising my wife that I’ll take better care of my health for more than a decade, too.  So there’s that.  However, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to do this anyway.  I think it makes more sense to focus on broad topics.  So here goes:

1. HEALTH and FITNESS – I’ve been running on a more regular basis, though not quite “regularly.”  I ran my first 10k on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I finished the whole thing, despite terrible cold and some poor training.  Of course, “running” is kind of a misnomer.  Perhaps “shuffle” would be more apt.  I think a few glaciers passed me.  So, the focus should be to increase the distance I run in these races, or increase the pace.  I’m hoping for both.  I’d like to finish a half-marathon in 2016, and finish a 10k in under an hour (reasonable but challenging, for me).  I’d also like to get back into regular exercise, eat better, and lose a few pounds.  I turned 40 last year, and I need to get serious about my health before my health gets serious.
2. READING and WRITING – I’d like to continue working on my Spanish (still not good enough to talk to parents, which is my ambitious goal) and learning about science and social science topics that I teach.  I’d also like to develop a more regular writing habit.  Blogging is one thing – something that is good practice for a lot of things – but I have a few books in me, fiction and nonfiction.  Another teacher that I know from Twitter and EdCamp (Mike Matera) has written a book.  That’s like five or six.  I’m not saying that these people aren’t awesome, or that they don’t deserve a book deal.  It just seems like someone is reminding me, over and over, that I want to write a book.  Or ten.
3. LEADERSHIP – This is big, and a change for me.  I’m not enough of a leader.  I’ve made noises in that direction, and I’ve started to share my thinking more, but I think it’s time for me to be more of a leader.  I don’t necessarily mean at my school, or only at my school.  I think there are a lot of ways that I can be more of a leader (see #2, for example).  The big thing is just being a little more comfortable and confident in my role as a teacher.  I’m not sure what “leadership” means here.  It might just mean playing more of a role in the Illinois Writing Project, where I’ve been attending leadership meetings for a few years now, though not playing an active role.  It might mean other things.  It begins, first, with getting my “ducks in a row,” and going from there.

I think that’s enough.  I have specific goals for a few things, but I think these are more “areas of focus” for me.  I think my greatest strength as a teacher and thinker is in reflection, something that I’ve used to great effect in numerous places.  However, I haven’t quite been strategic about that strength, or I haven’t tried to get the most out of it.

So maybe that’s where we start.