The world seems so much smaller these days because of social media and the ability to contact people anytime anywhere. But walking in schools, I still get the feeling sometimes that classrooms are each in their own silo. Reaching out within a school does not often seem to happen as much as reaching out on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe it is because we are more…
So, when I decided to write a blog, I envisioned myself sitting down at my kitchen table and spending an hour here, an afternoon there, writing. Well, I was wrong. Well mostly wrong. Often I start a blog that way. Maybe a paragraph or just a sentence. But I have learned from writing letters to parents or articles for school newsletters, that I need to…
This week is July 4th week. Freedom is the idea running around in mind this week. What is freedom? So I posted the following on Twitter: Been writing a new blog post & July 4th has been on my mind. So I started to write a list of what FREEDOM is then I realized, I would like to ask others what FREEDOM is. So I…
These days as a consultant, my students are the teachers and administrators in my client schools. So when I have the opportunity to meet with students and model some of the ideas that I am discussing with the faculty, I jump at the chance. This occurred recently on a consultation in North Carolina. I was demonstrating the ease of use of a fun little robot…
As schools are ending or have ended, that brings graduations and moving up ceremonies. With this in mind, I am sharing a modified version of the 5th grade graduation talk I gave last year. I am a country music person. Several months ago I was walking, listening to my walking playlist and the song Voices by Chris Young came on. Now normally hearing voices in your head…
Over Mother’s Day weekend, I went to see Avengers -Infinity War. For many Mother’s Days, my family takes me to see the new superhero movie. I like superhero movies, to the joy of my three sons. So even though my youngest son was home from college and had seen the movie, and my older two were not home, I asked my husband to take me. As we…
The fascination of walking into another teacher’s classroom. We have all felt it. The “Ooh, did not think to set up my bookshelves like that.” Or the “That works well for a learning center.” Now, I am not talking about Pinterest classroom jealousy, rather the ideas that pop up when you enter another teacher’s room and wonder if yours could work that way too. That’s…
Accountability. A word that is thrown around schools, discussed with parents, and expected of students. But what is it? The New Oxford American Dictionary on my computer defines accountability as: the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility. So when we say students need to be accountable, we are saying we want students to be responsible? When we tell students’ parents to partner with us to ‘make…
A blog post I wrote in the fall was about creating a classroom community with your students. Creating a safe place for respectful discussion to occur, for students to take risks their with education, not “play it safe” for the grades. But what about the others who have also been part of your classroom this year? What about your students’ parents? Another blog post I…
My mind is currently a mess! Ideas for this blog start to percolate and then fizzle out. I have a list of ideas but none seem to develop into a full blog. So, today you are reading my list. Maybe jotting down these thoughts will help the ideas to grow and become clear expressions. Positivity – how to reframe thoughts into positive actions What background…
