Courage Doesn't Always Roar: A Teacher's Quest to Be Better Each Day

I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, from the age of 5 on.  I never wavered and easily chose my college, Molloy, because they were known for having an excellent education department and they were gracious enough to grant me a full scholarship.  My favorite courses were my education ones in college and when I was hired to teach 6th grade in the weeks after graduation, I was beyond excited to actually get to be a TEACHER.   Then, reality hit.....rather hard. Teaching was far more difficult, exhausting, heart-breaking, than it ever was all those times I "played school" in my bedroom with far more agreeable stuffed animal students.  Parents yelled at me.  A student threatened me.  I felt alone and unsure and I worked ALL the time, arriving hours before school started, staying hours after school ended and then working at home.  I was never done with my work and felt like I was sinking. After having spent my entire life working towards being a ...

     They are never ready for their "Ready New York" books.   I call it their "favorite red book" but we all know it is their least favorite thing to do, aside from marking up words in Fundations.  I find it somewhat amusing that they are never ready to do "Ready New York" work and they are always disengaged doing "Engage NY" modules.       Our recent English Language Arts module centered around frogs.  Bullfrogs. Toads. Tadpoles.  Weeks and weeks of frogs.  The first book in the module, Bullfrog at Magnolia Creek , actually elicited boos and jeers when I attempted to pull it out for the 8th day in a row.  They were drawing a line in the sand and begging me to forgo the frogs.  New to third grade and the world of "modules" (the word alone strikes me as cold, futuristic, sci-fi-ish), I was trying to follow the handy-dandy script written for me on the Engage NY website, which tells me each time I open it ...

Thankful Thursday: Honoring Mrs. Skeggs      Every Thursday in March, the Farmingdale Federation of Teachers, to which I belong, is taking time to thank a teacher who made a difference in our lives. I would like to thank the late Mrs. Colleen Skeggs, my preschool teacher.      I stand in the back row, second from the right, one friend away from Mrs. Skeggs.  I look thrilled.  I've heard that I didn't have the easiest time separating from my mother during this, my first school experience.  The stories actually go that I sobbed so much that my mother sobbed too.  Eventually, she had a neighbor drop me off at school which seemed to help with my separation anxiety.  In this picture, taken in the early 1980's, it is funny to see my classmates as little kids, about my son's age now.  I still see many of them on Facebook- accomplished, successful, parents themselves.      I was only four at the time, so my sp...

     My daughter, Megan, turns 2 this Sunday.  Last night, I was feeling nostalgic for her little baby self and pulled up some videos from last year.  There was one where she sat in her high chair, trying out the word "cheese" for the first time.  Her vocabulary at 11 months was limited- Dada, cheese, sock.  Fast forward a little over a year and she now sings full nursery rhymes, says long sentences made up of many words, knows all her colors (including aqua).  Where a year ago, she had just a smattering of hair, now her signature trademark is her 2 blonde pigtails.  A year ago, she was just starting to toddle, pushing a toy for support.  Now, she runs, climbs stairs, hangs from rings and walks the balance beam at her Little Gym class.      What a difference a year makes.     I was thinking of this in light of our youngest learners in school.  Yesterday, I sat in a meeting before it was my turn to...

"Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moon-beams home in a jar, Or be better off than you are, Or would you rather be a....." (If you can't get that song out of your head now, or are feeling nostalgic, check out the song here:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWKXU0ApF08      As a kid, I loved that song where you might rather be a fish or a mule until you realize that there are some not so nice things about being something else.  Yesterday I read Dev Petty's adorable book I Don't Want to be a Frog!  to my third graders.  We are doing our "module work" (visit engageny if you still have the pleasure of not knowing what I am talking about) which is a nonfiction focus on frogs, rendering my students not the biggest fans of those amphibians.  So I thought the book would add a little levity, which it certainly did.  But it got me thinking......why do we so often wish we were someone else?      Today I plan to read Jame...

May the pencils all be sharpened.  If they are not, may the pencil sharpener work.   May everyone be healthy.  If not, may they make it to the garbage can in time.   May there be patience.  If not, may I at least be able to fake it. May there be joy.  If not, may I find a way to infuse some.  May there be questions.  If not, may I ask ones that make students wonder.  May there be kindness.  If not, may I lead by example and show kindness to all I encounter.  May there be enthusiasm.  If not, may my excitement light the way for learning.  May I be humble enough to ask for help, generous enough to give my time to someone who needs it, brave enough to teach from the heart, wise enough to do the right thing in all circumstances.   May I find balance so I can be present for my own family too and may I put myself somewhere on the to-do list so I can keep doing all the to-do's with some sem...

Alex "There are so many bears in the world, dear, but no other bear that will do.  You are the bear of my heart, dear, and I am the one who loves you."        The beautiful words in Joanne Ryder's book, Bear of My Heart , made me tear up as I read them, my large pregnant self awkwardly perched in the tiny seat in the children's section of the Wantagh Library.  Though I didn't know my baby yet, I knew he would be the bear of my heart.        My Alex is now nearing four and a half years old and it is hard to remember that there ever was a time when he was not here, filling my heart.  He was the baby I prayed for desperately, the one I wasn't sure I could have.  Test results said my chances of having Alex were not very good, yet another reason I hate to put any faith in tests.  One month later, with just the smallest of interventions from a specialist, as I hid in my classroom closet on my cell phone to hear ...

     When I was pursuing my Masters degree in Literacy Studies at Hofstra University, I remember the day that Professor Jane Flurkey told us, "You need to know what you believe and why, or else you will use whatever they hand you." I carried that with me for years, the notion that the teacher needs to understand how kids learn, what engages them, what best practices are, and use that knowledge to construct lessons and learning activities.        I'm not sure anymore if my professor was right.  What does it matter what I know and believe when no one cares or respects it? When I am a cog in a machine and everyone above me knows better about how kids learn and the materials I should be using?  When the curriculum I am given is dreadfully dull and is not how I think you engage children in learning, but we are told that "we are using it" no matter what the people on the ground and in the field say about it?     It makes me un...

They look so innocent here,but.... Snow Day Bosses The last remnants of my patience Scatter to the floor with the goldfish she tosses gleefully from her pink chair. They lay next to the crumbs of crusted play-doh Multicolored bits thrown earlier Like little pieces of my sanity. Frigid weather and constant snow Leave my internal landscape jagged and sharp, cold. An endless storm of Caillou  and Dora and cries of "Mommy get this!" Bottles, sippy cups, diapers, wipes Upstairs, downstairs, up again, down again. Snow days are no vacation at all When your demanding,  unreasonable bosses Are 4 and 2 years old. 

Thankful Thursday In Honor of Victoria Soto      During the month of March, the Farmingdale Federation of Teachers, to which I belong, is designating Thursdays as day to express gratitude publicly for teachers who have helped shape our lives.  We are doing this to help remind the community of the power of teachers to change lives, something that can get lost in the constant narrative of politicians and media who claim that schools are failing and that teachers are lazy and inept, needing merit pay and mass firings to light a spark under them and make them try harder.        On my own path to becoming a teacher, I have been so fortunate to have had teachers who inspired me, believed in me and encouraged me.  I am sure that I will be writing about those teachers who I personally have known in the Thursdays to come.  Today, I am taking the time to honor a teacher who I never knew, but continues to inspire me by her heroism and sac...