Fake it until you make it

I don't know about other people and their jobs and responsibilities, but for me in my profession as a teacher I am scared of being discovered as a fraud. I am not quite sure when this fear started taking grip or at what point in my teaching career I started to question if I know enough, but it is there all the same. My job is to bestow great knowledge upon the youth of our country. Ok, I got that part, but what if I don't feel like I have enough knowledge. I tell my students my job is to corrupt young minds and torture them for eight hours a day. Funny thing is they love me all the more for it :-)

In the last couple of days I have started going to meetings and getting ready for the new school year. My contract days don't even start until Aug 8th, but as any other educator knows school starts at least two weeks before that. I was made department head of my history department this year. It should be an honor that someone wants me to be in charge, but with things being as they are in my school it is an honor and a curse. As I sat through meetings there was this little sound playing in the back of my mind, it was like a CD on repeat...."Fake it until you make it". I have believed this saying for years. I did this in my first few years of teaching until I understood special education and the laws surrounding it. Today I can still tell you information about IDEA and free and appropriate education for everyone (FAPE). I can argue with the best of them that all children have a right to an education and have a right to be educated in the public schools with everyone else. At present time, I am teaching regular education and at that History, a subject I hated and despised in school. I have been made department head with the responsibility of guiding and leading the department in a direction that will encourage student growth and success. Somewhere I keep thinking: "What the hell were they smokin' when they chose me for this job?" I am scared to death of being made to look like a fool because I am not as knowledgeable on a topic that someone else is. I am constantly reading and striving to learn more, but I never feel like I have learned enough of anything.

I know I am not a fraud. I am a highly qualified teacher who is certified in special education, ESL, and 1-8 all subjects. I have done this education thing for 10 years and my goal every year is to touch a child's life and help them to learn about the subject I teach and life in general. I just wish that knowing these things would help me to feel more secure that I am not going to be found unworthy. For the next 10 months, my life will be dedicated to my school and my students (also known as my 150 adopted children) and as for the department head position and other leadership roles I have been placed in, I am just going to fake it until I make it. At some point I will either shine through and feel like I know what I am doing, or fall flat on my face and have all my peers laughing at my failure (ok maybe they won't be laughing, but they will be happy it wasn't them). Either way, I will come out a stronger person and more capable of handling the things that come my way.