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

I first noticed I was having trouble hearing when I was pregnant with my daughter, Megan, who is now 3 years old. I remember putting the phone receiver on my left ear and not being able to hear the other person on the line clearly. I would switch to the right ear, thinking, "How strange."  The day I had my 20 week sonogram and learned my second baby was a girl, I had an appointment with an audiologist. I explained I was having difficulty hearing and I underwent a hearing exam. I think the doctor was stunned that at 33 years old, I had pretty significant hearing loss in my left ear and some loss in my right ear. He suggested I get an MRI to rule out any brain issues that might be causing that loss. My father's family has a history of early hearing loss, so I was pretty certain I inherited that. I did the MRI the next day, but then Hurricane Sandy hit Long Island and I had to wait on the results. Thankfully, everything was fine. But I was left with the knowledge that my...

The plan was to put the kids to bed, then come write my blog post. Still not sure exactly what to write, but a nagging sense of inexplicably feeling lost kept floating up.  Instead, I found myself the "peanut butter" in a bedtime sandwich. Megan, my 3 year old, decided she needed a snuggle after 25 minutes of singing in her bed instead of sleeping as I wearily sat in the chair, waiting for her to doze off. Just as she climbed into my lap, Alex, my 5 year old, came in and asked me to sleep in his room that night. Now, I know, rule books say the kids should be sleeping on their own, in their own beds. Many times they do. But sometimes they don't. And tonight was clearly one of those nights. It was decided they would sleep in my bed, which has the most room. Alex insisted I go in the middle so I could be next to both of them. And so there I lay, the peanut butter to Alex and Megan's bread, the cream in the Oreo. Stuck in the middle with them...with blogging pl...

Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs to know that, no matter what, someone will hold you, hug you, help pick up the pieces, stitch it all back together, point out the rainbow when all you see is the storm. Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs that person you can call, at any time, day or night, whenever and wherever, Who always answers and always helps. No matter what you've done or failed to do. Steadfastly in your corner, Always on your side. Everybody needs a person like that. Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs to believe no matter how far you wander or stray from your beliefs no matter how conceited or vain or downtrodden and despairing someone always knows your heart believes in you despite your failings, your mistakes, knows your goodness  deep down in their soul. Before you can stretch and risk and be brave and daring, Before you can conquer your fe...

Oh, house hunters. Today you will notice a new house on the market, will click on the pictures, consider the location and price, possibly be interested in seeing it, maybe making it your new home. You'll think, "It needs work" and it does. You'll see that it needs some updating, for sure. But there's so much you won't see.  You'll see a porch. It was the porch where I sat on many summer evenings, fireflies dotting the night sky, chatting with my Grandy about life and his memories of growing up in Brooklyn. He used to have a black radio with an antennae on the ground next to him, listening to hear if the Yankees won. The porch overlooked a garden he tended to most lovingly. One of our most-told family stories happened on this very porch when I was about 3 years old. My father was trying to hang a plant and I pushed him, saying, "Excuse me, please." He didn't want to step on my Grandy's prize flowers, so he leapt over the garden, landin...

The important thing about being a teacher is you are doing your part to create a better world. You are teaching students what they say and do matters, and you are showing them the power of literacy to unlock doors, to open possibilities. You are teaching them to think critically, to ask questions, to challenge what has always been in the hopes of what could be. You are the smile that greets them, the ears that listen to them, the eyes that really see who they are. You are the heart that cares for them. You are the library, full of books, magazines, poems and words that will nourish their minds, hearts, and spirits.  When you are a teacher, you can get lost in all the "to-do's" and can almost convince yourself that the curriculum is king and the pacing charts reign supreme. You find your true purpose, once again, by realizing that the student matters more than standards on a page; when recognizing that the conversation about a book is just as valid, and maybe more so...

He hopped down the sidewalk on one foot, his joy and excitement bubbling over with each step. Just across the street we walked, but like another world- kindergarten. The first orientation for parents and students. How strange it was to be on the other side of it now- for ten years, I taught kindergarten and stood at orientations, smiling reassuringly about this milestone. Sitting in the cafeteria and listening to the principal and school specialists talk about kindergarten, I tried to hear what wasn't being said as much as what was. Tears fell as the psychologist read this poem . Letting go is not as easy as I made it sound when I gave the pep talk to parents.  There was a packet and many, many papers. There was a book (I f You Give a Dog a Donut ) which was lovely, I thought. There was a list of sight words and a conversation about early literacy profiles and being picked up for reading if you  score low. Worry filled my heart, because my sensitive, bright boy is so very ...

Sunday night, I participated in the #Read4Fun chat on Twitter. The topic was poetry, and the chat brought to mind some of my favorite poems. A long-standing favorite of mine is " A Valentine for Ernest Mann" where Naomi Shihab Nye writes, "Poems hide."  Today, I found a poem hidden in the oversized, dusty Nemo that has been sitting atop the mailbox in my classroom. Nemo originally came from the board walk of the Jersey Shore, where I surprisingly won him in a game in the summer of 2004. Nemo lived in my kindergarten classroom for a long time. Now he lives in 3rd grade and he's part of the background, largely ignored. My third graders and I were writing poems today, beginning with an image first. I brought in some objects from home and invited them to look out our classroom window, too, for ideas. At first, the room was chatty and I worried they weren't focusing, but soon they all found spots and there was a quiet hum of kids really working. I sat...

Two Saturday mornings ago, I received an email from a parent in my class. My student had been inspired by a school assembly called "Bash the Trash", where musicians used recyclable materials to make musical instruments. The buzz from many of the teachers, including myself, was that the assembly was a little quirky and not our favorite. Some of us felt ourselves being lulled to sleep as the recyclable instruments were played. But you just never know what is going to resonate with a student and this assembly really did for one boy in my class.  With his dad's help, he created musical instruments out of soda and water bottles and cans taped together. He wanted to make a video of himself playing his instruments and his dad even joined him in the concert. Then, he wanted his dad to send ME the video. It was adorable, but also made me stop and think about the nature of learning in today's world: We need to give kids lots of different experiences, including ones that ...

I tweet. I vox. I even snapchat now. But I haven't really embraced podcasts until the last couple of weeks. After reading a great post by Kimberley Moran about the podcast her students created, I knew I needed to listen more to podcasts. I couldn't really envision a way for my students to create their own podcasts or even why they should do that until I saw the value myself. Now I can say I am a podcast lover! One of the podcasts I started listening to was Penny Kittle's Book Love Foundation Podcast Teacher Learning Series . Today I listened to a podcast about teachers as leaders. During the conversation, a teacher shared how being part of a local site of the National Writing Project gave her confidence with her writing and support as she learned strategies to teach writing. Penny spoke about the model of teachers sharing with each other as being so powerful and how the Writing Project remains the most favored professional development.  This was music to my Writing ...

Back on March 1 , I wrote about the bridge we were stepping on as we crossed from March to April in this month of daily writing. Today, on the downhill, we now easily trot the last steps to the other side, the place we've been journeying to all this month, the bridge itself full of discoveries and adventures.  I found myself saying, "I haven't been reading much because of the blogging challenge this month", thinking about all the novels, chapter books, and picture books still on my TBR list. But, I caught myself after saying this, realizing I've been reading so much: so many moving, funny, surprising, brave slices. The reading and the writing have changed me- perhaps invisible to most, but the stories, poems, and posts I've read and written have changed me for good. (Nod to "Wicked.") So, Slicers, this is my poem, celebrating us. We did it. A badge of honor that always belongs to us! Here's To Us Here's to us. Here's to the...