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

"So many faces in and out of my life, Some will last, some will just be now and then. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again." -Billy Joel, "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" Teachers are lucky enough to get two New Years' celebrations.  Like the rest of the world, we have January 1st as our calendar new year, but we also end the school year and then get a fresh start a couple of months later.  Here on Long Island, school ended on June 25th and my birthday is June 29th, which makes June a time of endings and beginnings for me.  As I turn a year older, my school year comes to a close, leading to reflection and goal-setting for the year ahead. It's been a time of goodbyes and hellos in our family too.  We said goodbye to our red Acadia, the car we bought when we knew our family was expanding, when my son Alex was not yet two years old.  Alex picked out our new silver car (still an Acadia- we are loyal...

As the summer officially begins, hot, hazy, and humid, I have been reliving the eternal winter of Arendale as my daughter Megan has rediscovered the movie "Frozen."  I know everyone is over it already, but Megan has decided we need to watch "Frozen" several times a day, sometimes beginning it again just as it ends.  She needs her Big Elsa doll and her Little Elsa doll to sit with her while she watches it, and scattered on the living room rug are little statues of that knave Hans, Olaf, Anna, Kristoff, and Sven.  I can't tell you the utter angst Megan experienced when Little Elsa went missing and several trips upstairs and downstairs did not yield her return (At the time of publication, Little Elsa has yet to be found).   This might be a little bit of a stretch, but as I have been watching "Frozen" on repeat, I hope you will go along for the ride with me.  I am going to name something that happened in "Frozen" and the possible teachi...

June 25th is the last day of school. Final grades, report cards, literacy profiles, organizing, and packing up the room are some of the essential "to-do's." As I embark on starting and completing these tasks, I don't want to lose sight of bringing a sense of joyful closure to my community of third graders. I want them to feel good about our year and our work together and I want to leave them with the lasting idea that they are all important and special. I have gifts for them. I asked each student to come up with a positive word or trait to describe each classmate. Then, I compiled the words to make a special word cloud for each student, using Tagxedo to create different shapes. I bought frames to finish the project. (Thanks to Pinterest for the inspiration) I also purchased a book for each student as a gift. Deb Pilutti, author of Ten Rules of Being a Superhero , was kind enough to donate awesome Superhero bookmarks, which I will wrap with each book...

Homework, Oh Homework.. The Case Against Homework  Will anyone rise to the defense of Homework,  on trial for killing the joy of learning? Certainly not the students  who groan as they copy down their assignments, rush through their worksheets without care, or conveniently "forget" their books in school.  Surely not the parents who, between cooking dinner and driving to basketball practice  and religion class  and gymnastics, have the unpleasant task  of making sure Homework gets done.  They feel just a twinge of guilt  signing the reading log, not at all certain if their child read but desperate to get Homework  and one more thing checked off their list.  The teachers, you say,  The teachers must be willing  to speak on Homework's behalf? The teachers hesitate,  thinking of their many wasted hours  standing in front of the copy machine cranking out endless worksheets of mise...

My mother texted me last week after spending an evening at my Grandma's house. She wrote: "G found a small manila envelope Grandy saved in a drawer. In it are all the write ups about you! She wants you to have it so I will give it to you to keep. He loved and was so proud of you. Even after all this time he is giving to us." It was the kind of text that takes your breath away, while your eyes fill with tears. This was the envelope my grandfather, Grandy, saved in his drawer. The articles are neatly clipped and focus on a service recognition I received my senior year of high school. I didn't know Grandy had saved these clippings, but it shouldn't surprise me. He was there for everything, the first 20 years of my life. He was a postal inspector who was able to retire at 55 years of age, so he was around whenever we needed him. Pediatrician appointments, early school dismissals, dance recitals, concerts, awards nights. Sunday night dinners and nights o...

When my sister rose to give the toast as Matron of Honor at my wedding, she told our guests about one way she could always bother me when we were younger: She would kick the pine cones when we walked in the park.  For some reason, I imagined the pine cones were with their families, laying on the cement clustered in groups.  She would laugh and say, "Oh no, the baby pine cone is calling out to his mother!" as she gleefully kicked the smallest one away from the group.  I would cry and put the pine cones back as we found them.  I am overly sentimental, I will admit, but I do think there is something to not deliberately hurting anything, even pine cones.  A few weeks ago, my son Alex was with other children who were squishing ants.  I am not an insect lover by any means and have gotten rid of many a bug, but to purposefully squish ants just scurrying by on their way seemed cruel.  I told Alex that ants were creatures who had families and we sh...

Anne Shirley is a kindred spirit.  I've read the entire Anne of Green Gables series and also loved the movie version featuring Megan Follows as Anne.  She was a character I respected, admired, laughed with, and was someone who I would have loved to call my friend.  She often used the phrase "kindred spirits" in her books and I've felt that way about special people in my life, too.   Anne Shirley said, "Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.  It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."  Becoming a connected educator has allowed me to see the truth in this quote and my world has become bigger, richer, more alive by the people I interact with online.  For a long time, I felt under the stormy cloud of the political storm surrounding education.  Article after article talked about low teacher morale, ridiculous and unfair ways to assess, misery in the education field.  When I dreamed of being a te...

Folding laundry in the basement, I listen as my four and a half year old son Alex plays nearby.  A battle is apparently raging where the good guys are fighting the bad guys.  Every so often I hear an "Oh yeah? See what you can do!" exclaimed or a "You'll never get me!".  He is completely engrossed in the story he is creating with the little figures he holds in his hands.  It dawns on me that Alex is only a few months younger than the kindergarten writers I used to sit next to for writing conferences. A light bulb flashes over my head in what Oprah would call an "Aha!" moment.   You see, I often struggled with how to handle my little boy writers.  We would be in the midst of a small moments unit of study and I would pull up a chair next to a little guy who would have a frenetic scene scrawled across his page.  He would tell me a very detailed tale about bad guys fighting and I would inwardly groan.  What was I supposed to do with THIS? This was...

The Teacher Manifesto Project, issued by Talks with Teachers, challenges us to post the "anti-resume" and reveal what it really means to be a teacher.  Here is my Manifesto: A teacher is a tree: firmly rooted in theory and experience, growing each day, yearning to touch the sky & the future, showing students that stars are within their grasp.  A teacher is a cozy home: comfortable and safe, providing warmth and shelter from the harsh conditions, relentlessly beating on the door.  A teacher is a library: knowledgeable, accessible, full of stories that captivate your mind and touch your heart.  A teacher is a coach who believes in you, challenges you, trains you, applauds you.  A teacher is a bridge, sometimes over troubled waters, but always the way to connect you from what you know and who you are to new uncharted territories of understanding and possibility. A teacher is a song that keeps playing in your mind and heart long after the last note was ...

This week, I read Sarah Brown Wessling's "A Letter to My Children: What It Means to Be a Teacher"   https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2015/05/01/what-it-means-to-be-a-teacher/?utm_content=buffer14eab&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer (I highly recommend you read it too!) Sarah writes, "What I want you to know is that there are things in this world that you will choose, and there are things in this world that will choose you."   That line struck me as so very, very true.  I believe that we come to occupations, and places and people for reasons that we might not even understand, but always for a reason.   I feel that way about my house.  The morning after our wedding, my husband Mike and I went to brunch. We were leaving for Mexico the next morning and that Sunday was meant to relax and catch our breath after our Saturday wedding.  On the way back from brunch, Mike told me there was an ope...