Much Love to My PLN

It was my intention to blog every day of the NECC conference, but for me Washington DC moved fast and late into the nights. I still want to write about the things I learned, but I am still processing. The thing I do want to talk about is my social network.

I was very excited to go to Washington DC knowing I was finally going to connect with my PLN face-to-face. I have met with some of my online friends before and am constantly amazed by how powerful the experience can be. This time was no exception. Sitting in my in-depth session on Sunday, I was watching the Plurks abound from my friends in the convention center. A large concentration of them seemed to be in one room and my session ended before theirs did. They told me to come on over. I was going to hang outside the door and wait for them, but one of them ushered me through the door and right into the group. I can’t even fathom how bonding can be that instant, but it was. We all went to the Keynote together, but during it I got a text from Audra, the Rapid City teacher and great friend of mine that had come with me. Her mother was in the hospital and not doing well. She was going to have to leave. I went back to the hotel to spend the evening with her. She took off the next morning. Normally, I don’t think I would like to be in Washington DC by myself, but I never felt that way. A core group of us seem to form and I was always included in the plans. We all checked in with one another and found we enjoyed each other’s company immensely! I think my greatest learning came from this group of incredibly creative and talented people. We are from South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Pennsylvania and New York. These people have a real love for students, education, and technology. Just being with them gave me the recharge I most certainly needed after a difficult school year. I love the timing of this conference because it is early enough in the summer to give me time to play with some new applications and plan lessons that are relevant and engaging for my students.

I got to see much history of the United States while in DC and I love that, but I think watching how people connect and network in this modern world is every bit as interesting. I have heard people complain about how the internet is ruining people’s communication skills. I find it to be absolutely the opposite. I have the privilege of communicating with people I would never have had the opportunity to before and we are exchanging ideas that I am sure would have been much slower to reach South Dakota years ago. I find that so exciting.

I know there are many people that are reluctant to connect with strangers via the Internet and with all the bad things that are out there, I understand. But sometimes if you don’t take some chances in life, you miss out on some amazing things. I think there are ways to take that risk and still be pretty safe and I am so glad I am connected!

Washington DC - Day 1

Today was my first day in Washington DC. A dear teacher friend of mine, Audra, came to NECC this year with me and we flew in two days early to do some sightseeing. It has been a wonderful but exhausting day!

First we found the Metro and headed for the Ford Museum. We were disappointed to find that it was closed. But they assured us it will be open tomorrow. We went across the street to the Petersen House, the house where Abraham Lincoln was taken after he was shot and where he died. You get to see the front room where people waited and the bedroom he was in. Being in the midst of that kind of history was amazing.

Next we headed for the National Archives. Being from South Dakota, we are not used to this kind of heat with humidity. I felt like I was melting. We had a rather long wait to get in, but it was worth it. We spent a great portion of the day in the Archives. They have an 11-minute movie that started us off and then we started in the exhibits. We went to the Boeing Learning Center and it made me wish I were still going to be teaching American History this year! At the end of our visit there we made it in to the Rotunda where we saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, among other primary documents. I can only telling you that it took my breath away! To be in the same room with the same original documents that this country was founded on was incredible!

We then headed to the Museum of American History. We grabbed a late lunch and then started at the top and worked from there down. Unfortunately, the lines were long. We saw the American Presidents’ exhibit and much more about Lincoln. We saw the war exhibit. We saw the First Ladies’ exhibit (which was a very long line) The 2009 Inauguration pictures were wonderful. Again, being teachers, we wanted to read everything at all the exhibits. So we also spent too much time there. We really wanted to make it to the Holocaust Museum, but it closes by 5:30. There was no way to have enough time there. We have decided to put that off until tomorrow.

We finally made our way back to the hotel. Our feet were hurting and we were sweating buckets. So second showers were in order before dinner. We have eaten at the same restaurant two nights in a row. I suppose that is bad when there is so much to offer, but the host at Rumors is awesome!!! He has lived here 41 years and is a wealth of information. He has helped us plan our days and we have enjoyed talking to him. Plus the food is great. A huge storm moved in at the end of dinner and we had to duck in a drug store part the way back to the hotel while the worst of it blew over.

Tomorrow is another full day and I can hardly wait. Washington DC is an amazing city! So much to do and so little time!

Today's pictures can be found on my Flickr.

TIE Conference 2009

Today we started the TIE conference! It is an event I look forward to eagerly each year. I started with a four-hour in-depth session on Thinkfinity with Lisa McNeely. We started off a bit rough. The Internet only let a few of us in and never for any great length of time. It made it very hard for Lisa to do her presentation! I was able to get mine to connect (for a while anyway) so we plugged mine in to the projector and off she went. Lisa managed amazingly well, despite the technical difficulties.
I have heard a lot about Thinkfinity (mostly from Lisa) but have not had the time to explore this resource. I am thoroughly impressed with all the resources available within this site. They address all subjects and are set up with 21st century skills. I already found a lesson using resumes that I intend to use this year. There were a lot of things I wish I would have seen earlier this year!
This site also has amazing maps! I am going to spend hours looking at all the resources available from all the content partners. I am already pretty familiar with ReadWriteThink, but I even found new things from them.
Thanks Lisa for all the great help and encouragement. I loved seeing your favorites and exposing me to so many of the things that are available.

Five Changes to Education--A new Meme

A dear friend of mine started this wonderful meme and has made me really think about the future of education. You should check out Terry’s blog at http://tjonajourney.blogspot.com/. We are hoping that this will create some thoughtful discourse on the state of education. There is much finger pointing, some of it deserved, buut let's dream of a world that we get to make decisions and where the learning and the kids are FIRST and all the real world of budgets and excuses are last.

List FIVE changes you would like to see in the educational system. Your responses should represent your perspective and your passion for learning and students.

Here is my list:

1. Technology would not be something that we strive to integrate, but something that is a natural part of the classroom, just as it is a part of the world today. Our students do and will live in a different world than most of us grew up in. It is imperative that we, as teachers, do our very best to keep up and prepare them for that world. We must help them learn how to think deeply and problem solve as they will encounter problems we can’t even fathom today.

2. Teachers should never have to move up to administration to make a decent living in the education world. I believe that tiered licensure is a great idea. Teachers should have the option to be teachers or to take on more responsibilities as master teachers helping mentor other teachers. Teaching should not be done in isolation and many of us have so much to offer to our fellow teachers.

3. Merit pay has a place in education. Why should a teacher down the hall make more money than another just because they have lived longer? Teachers should be paid according to the skills they have and the success they have in the classroom. The tricky part is figuring out who decides the pay. There are far too many administrators that have their own agenda and would not be able to make fair decisions. There are ways to do this fairly and the TAP program seems to have it figured out. And, yes, I work in the state with the lowest teacher pay in the nation, so I do believe we are underpaid. My pay may not force me out of the profession, but it certainly is impeding many districts from having quality applicants for many of their positions and that concerns me!

4. Teacher training would properly prepare teachers for the classroom and there would be support in place to help new teachers through those first few difficult years. We are facing a teacher shortage and we lose many of the ones we do get in within the first five years. Many of them come out of the university with stars in their eyes and are not rooted in the reality of just how difficult the job is. Good teachers work long hours prepping lessons, grading papers, and continually learning. The school day takes far more energy than they are prepared for and there are a lot of extra duties that they have no idea about. Too many college professors have not been in a K-12 setting for a very long time, if at all. It is one thing to teach theory and another to give them the tools they will need to survive!

5. Professional Development must be teacher-driven. The best professional development I have every gotten was the National Board process, but it was something I chose and something that was about my classroom and my teaching. I have also learned much from some conference I have had the great fortune to attend, but my principal is very good about letting the staff ask to go to conferences that interest them, although she will sometimes point one out to us if she thinks it offers something of value for us.

6. I am going to add one real fantasy wish. I wish that teaching would once again become the highly respected profession it once was. In some regards, this is our own fault. I have heard far too many teachers say, “I am just a teacher.” There is no just in what we do. We should be proud of the impact we have on our students’ lives and our role in shaping the leaders of tomorrow. We need to be willing to publicly express our pride in what we do. But most teachers are humble and believe we are serving the greater good quietly on the sideline. We are not in the business to toot our own horns. We just want the respect to magically be there.

I tag the following people... All from a variety of perspectives. If you have been tagged, tag as many people as you choose, but try for a variety.

Kevin Honeycutt - http://kevinhoneycutt.org/ (Tech integration specialist)
Karen McMillan - http://notesfrommcteach.blogspot.com/ (Teacher)
Heather Burleson - http://isidoresearch.blogspot.com/ (Teacher and Tech Integrationist)
Cynthia Garrety - http://www.plurk.com/cgarrety (University Professor)
Sharon Elin - http://edutwist.com/elin/ (Instructional technology integrater)
Kymberli Mulford - http://kmulford.edublogs.org/ (Learning specialist)

National Board Certification

Friday, November 21, 2008 I was sitting at my computer just before 7 AM waiting for that magical moment that I could press the button and see if I had achieved National Board Certification after my second year through the process. My husband was by my side assuring me that he felt good about it, but I was mentally preparing myself to take on a third year. I was beyond delighted to see that I had succeeded!

I must say that I am thrilled beyond words to be Nationally Board Certified, but there is a tiny part of me that is sad this phase of the process is over. Going through certification has been the best professional development I have ever had. It was personal - about me, my teaching, my students, my classroom. I have changed a number of things over the last two years and really feel like I have grown as a teacher. I have learned much from reflection and it is a practice that I will continue.

I am excited that 16 members of our staff have signed up for Take One! this year. I am going to get to assist them in the process and that is very exciting. I hope they get as much from the experience as I have.

All in all, professionally, I am having a fabulous year!

Reflections on the Past Year and Some Current Thoughts

Last weekend I had to prepare remarks for the South Dakota Board of Education about my year as a Milken recipient. I love times of reflection because I truly grasp how fortunate I am. Not only did I receive the Milken and all that goes with that, I had a number of opportunities open up before me. I was asked to serve on the Governor’s TCAP Summer Study Committee and I learned more than I could have imagined from there. I am part of the first Teachers Advisory Committee to the Board of Education. I was part of the planning team for the Governor’s Teacher Leadership Conference. While there I got to be part of the opening and speak to about 400 teachers. I was also presented a plaque from the Governor for my Milken award. I was introduced to the state legislature and asked to speak to the Board of Education at the beginning of my year. I had the opportunity to submit some of my lesson plans to Corwin Press for publication. (But since I haven’t heard back, I am not hopeful!) I got to witness the South Dakota Teacher of the Year process up close. I always knew we had some amazing teachers in our state, but having those teachers in the room was inspiring!
I was also names one of Black Hills State University’s 125 Accomplished Alumni. This was quite an honor. It was their 125th anniversary and they selected their top from everyone who attended the university. They treated us to a great lunch. Introduced us all with a short bio and gave us a medal. I was also asked to ride in the Swarm Day parade the next day and be introduced at half-time of the homecoming football game.
I have also had an impact on how my district recognizes and utilizes national award winners. We have the newest Milken in our state right in our district again and I suggested that we honor the fact that we have so many in our district and perhaps pull these people together to do some good for the district, particularly in the area of good PR. In this day and age, teachers need to be recognized in the public as the professionals they are!
I enjoyed my time with the board on Monday. They are always very receptive to hearing from teachers. I also enjoyed my time to reflect. It made me think about the growth I have experienced over the last year in particular!
I realized over the past year that I have gotten over my fear of public speaking. I also realize I have some pretty definite opinions on a few things about education. I worry about how prepared new teachers are fresh from the university and what kind of support they get when they get into the trenches. I worry that we are truly going to see the effects of the teacher shortage soon and it is going to cause things we really don’t want to see happen. There are already rural schools closing and overcrowded classrooms. I don’t think most teachers are doing a very good job of integrating technology in the classroom and we are currently teaching the students that are going to have to be proficient with that when they get into the workplace. I worry about South Dakota being lowest in the nation for teacher pay. I think it is going to prevent us from being competitive attracting new teachers and we are going to lose them to neighboring states.
Perhaps most of all, I worry that our profession as a whole is not as respected as it once was. In many ways, I think teachers are our own worst enemies on this one. Most teachers are very modest about what they do. We are called to serve and we feel no need to toot our own horns. I most certainly understand that. But it has led to people saying things like, “Oh, you are just a teacher.” It has also become the fall-back career – well, you can always TEACH! Sheesh! Where did this come from? When parents drop off their children at the school each day, they are leaving us with their most precious possessions. They better hope we are up to the task of not only caring for these children, but helping them become the productive members of society that we need for them to be. I know I take this responsibility seriously – as do most teachers I know. I think we should, at the very least, be respected for our choice to teach!

It's been a tough year so far!

This is shaping up to be a tough school year. Two students that were in the other 8th grade Core last year have committed suicide this year. Two of my current students have been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts this year and five students in our school were hospitalized this week. This just terrifies me! We have heard about suicide pacts and I know a lot of our kids are feeling stress.

I think the economy problems must be playing a factor. I know it hurts all of us, but those in poverty situations must find it overwhelming. It is good to see gas prices coming back down, but I know that has caused a great deal of turmoil for many of my families. Food is more expensive and when you can barely feed your family how can you deal with that?

I try to keep my classroom a safe environment so that kids can stick to the task of learning, but they come in with so many things on their minds it’s no wonder they have trouble dealing with English. And that’s if they make it there at all. I had a student missing this week whose family is dealing with a fire in their home. Grandma is currently taking care of 9 grandchildren and they had a fire in their rental home. The oldest grandson awoke and alerted all the family and three of the boys helped get blankets and such and take care of the babies and little ones in the snow while the fire was being put out. Now they are displaced and have no money to survive on. He is supposed to be back in school next week, but only time will tell.

I have another student that has been a handful for a week – picking on other kids and generally just messing around. A few conversations with administration and I have discovered that his younger brother (6th grade) is struggling with cancer. I am certain that my student is worried and also probably not getting much attention at home right now.

Another young man’s house was foreclosed on and he has missed school to help his family move. A young lady had a note intercepted that discussed her first sexual experience. There is one that is struggling because English is not his first language and is not spoken in the home. I know there are several on probation or DSS is involved. My list of IEP students is very long.

Logically, I know that I must continue to keep my classroom a stable and nurturing environment. I know it is often the only constant place in their lives. While I empathize with their problems, education is the best way out for most of them and I must continue to not only give that to them, but to make them see the value in it for their lives.

Emotionally, I am struggling a bit this weekend. I know it is the suicide thing that is bothering me the most. I don’t know how to deal with that. Our two that are back from the hospital concern me. One is acting out a bit and everyone is afraid to come down on her the way we should. One is still in contact with the boy she has the suicide pact with. How much are we supposed to be watching her? And as I look out on the sea of faces, how many others are feeling that death is the only way out right now? What more can I do for them? Our counselor is overloaded and seeing students as fast as she can.

I try very hard to not take this kind of thing home with me, but this weekend it has not given me that option. Worrying about my kids is weighing heavy. Maybe I need to take a suicide prevention class of some sort. (Like I have any more time in my schedule to fit in more stuff.) Maybe something smaller, like some sort of Thanksgiving activity where I tell each of them how thankful I am to have them in my life and why? I don’t know if that would help with the big stuff in their lives, but even though most of them know I care, it never hurts to tell them again and tell them why. Hmmm…. Something to think about!

Thanks for listening to my ramble and I am open to any suggestions for my kids you might have.

South Dakota's Governor's Teacher Leadership Conference

We in South Dakota have a great working relationship with our Department of Education. They are so much more than a regulatory board. They truly are about being support for the teachers in this state. They have a good understanding of teachers’ frustration with pay, but are limited to solutions, so they try to support us in every other way they think they can. The Governor’s Teacher Leadership Conference is a good example of that.

This year’s conference was a bit different that past conferences. This year we combined the veteran teacher (the teacher leaders) with the new teachers (the teachers within their first five years of teaching.)

Sunday Afternoon

The first day was Sunday, October 5^th. First the planning team got to have brunch with our Day One Facilitators, Dr. David Henderson, Maggie Anderson, and Treopia Washington. David and Maggie were the first two Courage To Teach facilitators that came to our state and started the fabulous program. (I have written about this before as I got to be part of the second cohort.) Treopia is Vice President, Partnerships and Minority Affairs, The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in Washington D.C. I have gotten to know her through the National Board process and the fact that she has organized a program in my school where 16 teachers and principals are taking the Take One! part of National Boards this year at no cost to them.

At one o’clock the Day One Facilitators met with the teacher leaders. We had the opportunity to do some reflection – as we do whenever we do Courage work and then come together and discuss those reflections in groups of three. We talked about the poem, The Woodcarver by Chuang Tzu. The poem is about how we are called to excellence as both a teacher and a person. It also made us think about how we help others reach their levels of excellence.

Here is the poem:

The Woodcarver

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
"What is your secret?"

Khing replied: "I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

"By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

"Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
and begin.

"If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

"What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits."

- Chuang Tzu
from The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton

The part of this poem that struck me most was how Khing prepared himself before he went into the forest and before looking at the trees. I rarely take time to prepare myself to be in the right frame of mind when coming to my students. I prepare my lessons and I know what I am going to assess, but I needed reminding to just clear away all the other junk that gets in the way before seeing my students. It is the only way I will be able to see their potential. It was a very powerful reminder for me!

Sunday Evening

That evening all the teachers came together for a celebration dinner. Secretary of Education for South Dakota, Dr. Rick Melmer and Governor Michael Rounds took the time to honor a number of teachers. We have three new Nationally Certified Teachers in our state, Nicole Keegan, Rapid City School District; Angie Hejl, Yankton School District; and Doreen Schultz, Edgemont School District. I was fortunate enough to work closely with Nicole Keegan during my first year through the process. All three of these ladies are hard-working, dedicated, fabulous teachers and are much deserving of the recognition.

I was also honored as this year’s Milken Award Recipient. It has been a truly amazing year and I think this is just the beginning. While the Milken Award is amazing, it truly inspires you to go out and do your best work in the coming years. I think that is coming for me.

We got to recognize the seven regional winners for Teacher of the Year and had an unusual experience. This is the evening they name the state Teacher of the Year and our winner could not be with us that evening. Paul Kuhlman was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the announcement. He is one of five finalists competing for the Discovery Education 3M Top Science Teacher. Gov. Mike Rounds and Dr. Melmer called Kuhlman from the awards banquet to let him know he was our winner. He is a math and science teacher in the Avon School District and a truly amazing and inspiring man. I wish him all the best in the coming year.

The other highlight of the evening was our speaker: Michael Geisen, the 2008 National Teacher of the Year. After only seven years in the profession, Michael won this prestigious award and is as energetic as he is inspirational. Since he talked a lot about 21^st century tools for our 21^st century students, he was talking my language and I enjoyed him very much.

Monday Morning

Monday was our long day of the conference and started off with a bang. The planning team had the privilege of sharing some classroom and/or personal stories that we wrapped in sections of Randy Pausch’s book, The Last Lecture. I have read the book and it made me cry more than once, but I also laughed. We picked sections of five chapters and our planning team of ten divided it so that one person read a passage and one person told a story that went with that theme. I braved telling a story, but in my usual lack of self-confidence, worried that it wasn’t the right story or I wouldn’t fit in with the other four stories told by teachers that I truly look up to and admire. In the end, I think it was a fabulous rainbow of stories and they all had their place. Somewhere during the worry about WHAT I was going to say, I forgot that I was speaking to 300+ teachers. That part never bothered me. I guess my fear of speaking in public has diminished a great deal! We ended on a story (or stories) told by Reva Potter that had us laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face. What a marvelous way to send teachers off to their morning sessions.

During the morning sessions, run in five rooms by the planning team, we had the opportunity to discuss and reflect on perseverance, high productivity and effective communication, commitment to students and their learning, and being members of a learning community. In our usual fashion, we had planned less for us to talk to them about and more for the teachers to group and discuss among themselves. One of the things I always enjoy is to have them think about the phases of their teaching year and at which parts of the year they felt most and least effective. Then we show them a chart of the national averages and they are always relieved to find that even the most experienced teachers hit those low points. Our final activity was to send them on a “Walk and Talk”. They paired themselves with a teacher they didn’t know and talked about some of the challenges of their year and ways they were going to get around those.

Monday Afternoon

The afternoon session provided the Department of Education to highlight some of the groups around the state that are in place to help teachers. These groups moved around to each of the five rooms to give presentations. They were (taken directly from our agenda):

Better Than a Byte of Google: Online resources for you and your students

Never enough time or money to find all of the good “stuff” on the Internet? We have it for you! Explore the reliable online resources available to all schools from the South Dakota State Library to meet your K-12 curriculum needs.

High School 2025

Back in “the day,” schools focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic. A high school of the 21^st century focuses on three new Rs: relationships, rigor, and relevance. Without these, schools won’t ever get to the 4^th R: results. This session outlines key practies to prepare students for success in the 21^st century world.

Healthy Students, Healthy Schools

We’ve all seen the headlines about youth obesity rates, teen drinking, suicide, sexual activity, drug use and physical inactivity. Do you eve wonder how bad the problems really are? Do these issues affect school performance? This session covers South Dakota data regarding youth risk behaviors and how they relate to academic achievement. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, School Height Weight Report, and School Health Profiles will be highlighted.

Teacher 411

From e-mentoring to differential pay, this session covers big-picture initiatives designed to enhance teaching in South Dakota. Learn what some districts are doing to recruit and retain good teachers. You’ll also get a refresher on renewing your teaching certificate via the state’s online system.

Native American Education: Success Begins with Understanding

This session will look at the many ways poverty impacts the educational process. We’ll review socio-economic status indicators, achievement data, and talk about issues and possible solutions to helping all students in poverty, particularly our Native American students, reach their highest potential.

There was a lot of information packed into the afternoon. Every bit of it was wonderful information, but I think for many it got to be a bit too much sitting in their seats and just listening. I saw a number of people doing other things. We may have to rethink how we do this next year!

Monday Evening

Both before and after dinner we were entertained by Sheltered Reality Drum Group. These are some very talented young people that choose to spend their time doing something wonderful to impact the environment around them instead of making some bad choices.

We also had another amazing speaker, Shannon Pickard. He is a comedian with a message. He often speaks at schools and universities and has written, “The Choice is Yours: A Formula for Success.” He was entertaining and engaging and we picked up a brochure to see if we can bring him to our school to talk to our middle school students. I think he could have more impact than many of us teachers! I hope it works out!

Tuesday Morning

We started our morning with one of my favorite speakers, Dr. Julie Mathiesen. She is the director at TIE (Technology & Innovation in Education) and spoke to us about 21^st century learners. I was very pleased that I was “in the know” about much of what she talked about and that my thoughts parallel hers. I think it is so important that we keep talking about how we should be doing a better job integrating technology into the curriculum at every teacher gather we are at! Now I need to spend some time in Second Life so I quit flying into walls and dressing like a newbie!

Our last sessions were by grade level and again facilitated largely by the planning team. We discussed a lot of technology, as that was our theme for the day and showed them Karl Fisch’s video “Did You Know.” We also had them group up and talk about how 21^st century skills look in the classroom today, what we think will happen, and what we would really like to see happen. Nothing is ever going to change unless we start really discussing the changes and why they need to happen!

Tuesday Lunch

We had one final lunch and were delighted to have Treopia Washington speak. Her brother, Ernest Green was one of the Little Rock Nine and was the first to graduate from Little Rock Central High School. She is an amazing speaker and history really comes alive from one who knows. She has promised that the next time she is in Rapid City during the school year, she will plan of coming in and talking to my 8^th graders. What a great opportunity this will be for them! I will make certain they see The Ernest Green Story before she comes.

All in all, I think the conference was a huge success. I saw new teachers feeling a little less alone and teacher leaders really stepping up to help them. I got to visit with a lot of teachers about a variety of topics and I got to hang out with some of the best of the best in the state! It is my very hope that I will be on the planning committee again for next year. I would love to be able to be there as the newest Nationally Board Certified Teacher in the state as well. (Although I am prepared for it to take me another year.

Teaching with Fire

Fire by Judy Sorum Brown

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

I start my blog this evening with this poem. I first read this poem during a Courage To Teach retreat and it had such an impact on my life that I make certain to revisit it as often as possible. When I read this for the first time, I was working on my Master's Degree and National Board Certification. I also served on several committees in my school and district. I had three sons living at home and a husband of three years. I was encouraged to do Courage to Teach by a wonderful that I have come to truly love. I wasn't sure I could put one more thing on my plate and she assured me that this was the only time in the year that I was going to take to nourish my soul. She was right. I had so many logs on my fire that I was truly going to burn out. This poem made me look at the spaces. From time to time, I need to think about those spaces and make certain my logs have room to breathe. This summer I chose to not take any classes because I knew I wouldn't have enough space. A few years ago that wouldn't have been my priority. This year I am going back to school feeling rested and recharged. I still have a lot of logs on my fire, but since I have been taking care of myself, I see that fire only getting brighter.

Courage To Teach truly changed my life. I am bonded to my cohort and have support like no other. I find peace when I reflect and get in touch with my inner teacher. It is an experience that I wish more teachers would have the opportunity to have.

The final part of the poem mentions that the fire knows how it wants to burn. I have a plan for my next five years, but I keep my mind open to how the fire wants to burn. My path has changed since I first became a teacher and it may change again. I must follow where the fire takes me. I wish for all teachers to take care when laying their logs this year!

Everything In Its Proper Order

In the past few weeks I have been saddened at the thought of my youngest son going off to college. I know this is tougher for me this year after having lost both of my parents and having the oldest son graduate from college - while living at home - and moving to Kansas. Tonight I am sitting in a motel room in Marshall, MN watching my son sleep and instead of being sad, I am feeling like a very lucky woman. Jamie is 18, focused on what he wants to do in life, and very passionate about getting the education that will move him towards those goals. He is mature and ready for this phase in his life. His choice in colleges was a well thought out and logical decision on his part. We arrived here this afternoon after a six-hour journey in two cars. We explored the town and went out for dinner. He made me laugh until tears were literally streaming from my eyes. He is so excited about college and is approaching it with curiosity instead of fears. I will miss him and he may experience some feelings of home sickness, but this is the way life is supposed to work. If I shed a tear tomorrow on leaving, I will do so steadfast in the knowledge that this is right.

I have further reflected on my other two sons tonight. I suspect that is normal during a pretty life-altering event. Chris is in Kansas working in an aerospace engineering company. His actual project is secret, but when he mentions it at all, he does so with pride and enthusiasm for what he does. He is taking advantage of the tuition-paid college classes his company provides him and is working on his engineering degree while working about 60 hours a week right now. A few years ago, Chris had trouble deciding which direction he wanted his life to go in and now he is thriving. Again, he is farther away than I would prefer, but what mother could want more for her child than to hear absolute joy about what he is doing? I am proud beyond words.

Tony has also struggled at finding his path in life. He is in his third year at our local technical institute and on his third program. He is studing auto mechanics and has taken a second job working in a garage. Tony has ADHD and to be honest, I am shocked he is continuing his education. He struggled in school every year and graduation was a major accomplishment. He still struggles, but firmly believes that he has to have an education to get ahead in life. Tony often presents me with challenges, but when I take a step back and realize how far he has come, I can only be amazed.

Do I sound like a proud mother? Well, I am. Day to day life with three sons has had its moments - good and bad. My divorce from their father 8 1/2 years ago was traumatic and trying for all of us. But we all survived and have gotten to a point where I am watching my little boys turn into incredible young men. While I would like to take the credit, it isn't that easy. The one thing I do seem to have passed on to my children in my love of learning and my belief that education unlocks doors. Seeing it in action only inspires me to pass that on to my students. I know they short time I have within the classroom makes it harder than with the long-term relationships with my sons, but I still believe I have the power to influence and that makes getting up each morning exciting.

Tomorrow I leave this college freshman in his dorms and go home to prepare for my 8th graders. How sad can I really be?