Building Better People

I had one of those moments that makes me proud to be a teacher today.

I'm the 7th grade B-Team Coach. We do not cut anyone from football, so what that means is A-Team takes what they need, approximately 40% of the players, and the rest are on my team. This is made up of a few players who have played football before, but mostly students who this is their first time in an organized team sport. And then there is my student who is Resource. Oh, and I am supposed to make sure that all of my students have equal playing time.

Resource, for my non educator friends, is what we call the Special Education students. Now this particular kiddo is very high functions, but does have an IEP with some behavior goals. Before every game he comes up to me to clarify that he is 3rd string X receiver, and that his only responsibility is to block. He gets very excited when I affirm that he is correct, and gets ready to go in. Every practice and every game, I put him in for a few plays to make sure that his parents get the pictures of him in the game, and he gets the time allotted for him.

So there we are at practice today, fresh off of our loss to Hopper. I had all of my receivers lined up running routes against a Defensive Back and a Safety each (1 guy vs 2 for my non-football friends), when my student walks up to the line. He went out for a pass, and to my surprise, the Quarterback threw to him, AND HE CAUGHT IT! Without missing a beat, he turns up field to try and get to the endzone. All of my guys on defense dove at his feet, doing their best to make it look like they were really trying to get him. When our receiver finally made it to the endzone, he was greeted by the entire team where they did a Touchdown dance!

I did not coach these young men to do that. It was never mentioned previously. The decision to make one of their teammates feel like a superstar was one that they came up with. I know Christina tells me that it’s about building better people, and not necessarily about building better football players, but today I think I did both.

The next chapter

I know I haven't typed on here for the entire school year, and maybe one day I'll post about that. Tonight I want to reflect on what today and tomorrow means to me. 

Today was my last day as an elementary school teacher. As I waved goodbye to my students as their school buses drove by, I was also waving goodbye to my time in elementary. I have spent my entire career (9 years) in elementary. I still remember my last day at Holmsley. I was emotional as I packed my things, and said my goodbyes to my mentor teachers. I was a newbie. I had just completed my first year as a teacher, and still had no idea what I was doing. All that I knew was that I was moving from 2nd grade to a new grade level in a new school, surrounded by new people. Tomorrow is almost an exact parallel. I am moving from 2nd grade to a new grade level in a new (to me) school. It was definitely the right decision then, and I'm sure this is the right decision now.

When I started at M. Robinson, I never imagined the friendships that I would cultivate, or that I would meet my wife. I can safely say that M. Robinson has been my family for the last 8 years. We have been through some good times, and some rough times. So many different things have happened in our time together. I have seen some of my dearest friends move on to bigger and better things. I have seen some phenomenal teachers start their careers and develop into teachers who I want to be like. And the students... The students have been wonderful. Each year they come in excited to meet me, and each year we part with heartfelt hugs and goodbyes. I am going to miss them. 

Tomorrow I am leaving a campus who is responsible for my growth as a teacher and as an aspiring administrator. I have had the privilege of working under 2 different principals, with very different philosophies. Both effective in achieving similar results. I have had the opportunity to work in 3 different grade levels, with 7 different partners. I have started a family, furthered my education, and reached every milestone that I have set out to conquer. Thank you M. Robinson family for everything. May my voice and spirit still ring through the hallways with my KTK YouTube videos. It's time to start my next chapter.

I am a Growth Agent!

This has been a busy summer for me. I tutored students across the country in math, trained teachers and administrators in my district on how to use their new Google accounts, refined my skills as a teacher through the use of professional development, completed my training to become an appraiser of teachers, and I got to hang out with my family. Whew! Yeah it's been busy, but good. Actually better than good, GREAT!

As school was letting out for the summer, I was recruited by a non-profit organization to tutor students in California and Texas in the area of Math. All of this was to happen over the internet via a live feed, and be completely interactive. I had never done anything like that before, but it was something that I had thought about doing for a long time. It was tough adjusting to the schedule, but as with any new position, I quickly found my groove, and was able to help to grow these students in the area of Math.

The week after we let out of school, I met with the Instructional Technology team of my district to plan how I would be presenting all of the Google tools to the teachers and administrators of our district. We sat in a round table discussion, developing the presentations, and making sure that everything would run fluidly. What was amazing, was that as the classes were posted, they were filling up. The head of the staff development for technology added classes to my load, knowing that I would be able to handle it. In all I grew 761 educators in four weeks time.

The week following my last class, I immediately jumped into taking my personal professional development. I had targeted that I wanted to grow in the areas of our Interactive Math Notebooks, and small groups, as well as have a better understanding of what a 2nd grade student in Cy-Fair needs to know, and how best to teach it to them. I am so fortunate to be in Cy-Fair, where we offer all of these professional development classes free of charge, and are led by amazing lead learners. I was able to pick up some great tips from more experienced teachers and grow as a professional.

The very next week I was fortunate enough to be able to sit with a group of leaders and complete the process of becoming certified in CFPDAS, our locally adopted teacher appraisal system. This training was led by a woman who had a wealth of experience. She led us through exercises that really stretched our thinking and grew us into becoming Growth Agents. In fact, she kept reminding us, and had us repeat that moniker. "We are Growth Agents." In this 2 day training, I was reminded that no matter what my title is, what position I have in the district, my job, my passion, is to grow those around me. It doesn't matter if they are students or adults, my passion is growing them to their full potential.

Between all of this, I have had to opportunity to hang out with my family. I have held my wife's hand while she takes tests to grow in her education, I have held my oldest daughter's hand while she grew up and got her first job, and first time driving on her own (I held my wife's hand through that as well). I watched my middle daughter grow out of her shell and show her inner rocker. And I have watched my youngest daughter simply grow. I am a growth agent, and I love being a part of the growth of those around me.

Summer is near! Part 2 (Profession)

As I said before, now is the time for some deep reflections. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the students, and I've been having them reflect on them as a class. So it seems only fair that I reflect on myself as a teacher.

I feel like I have grown a lot this school year. I went on a few interviews, none of which resulted in me taking a new position, but each gave me the opportunity to learn something. I was fortunate enough to get to sit down with my principal and talk to her about my 2 most recent interviews. She gave me some great advice about ways to phrase answers to where it shows both my classroom and managerial experience. So I have a few things to work on to be prepared for the next opportunity.

I have also taken probably the greatest professional development I could have imagined in the Google Teacher Academy. Those 2 days were the greatest opportunity for me to grow as an educator I could have imagined. It allowed me to expand my PLN to well beyond what I had already started. It also gave me some credibility to being a great teacher. Despite what some may think, being a GCT has nothing with how much technology I know, but with the way I approach and overcome adversity.

This summer I am going to continue to reach out to my PLN and grow as an educator. I will take the time to reflect on what I did in my classroom, and the best practices to use in my classroom next year.

Summer is near! Part 1 (Classroom)

Well, the end of the year is almost here, and do you know what that means? No, not sleeping in, it means reflections. I am breaking-up this post into separate posts because if I didn't, it would be a book! So this post I am going to reflect on myself as a classroom teacher.

At last year's Digital Learning Conference, I got to talk to Todd Nesloney (@TechNinjaTodd) and hear about his flipped classroom model. I had already been toying with the idea of flipping my classroom, and with a new curriculum, I figured, why not? I made videos and posted them on YouTube/DVDs and assigned them to my students. The level of student success was huge! It showed my students that they needed to prepare for class. The level of academic success wasn't as obvious unless you looked a little closer at the data. The students who did their "homework" were, on average, scoring 15 points higher than those who didn't. Now those 15 points may have still resulted in a failing grade, but it was still higher than those who didn't.

This year I also wanted to make a big deal about exposing my classes to a world outside of their community. I partnered with other teachers from around the world (Canada, Australia, Argentina, California, and Colorado), to local meteorologists, and finally even astronauts aboard the International Space Station. I think the impact of this experience may be hidden inside of them, but eventually the seed will sprout and they will realize that if they want to connect to someone, it's absolutely possible. I just want to stay on this topic for a second to reflect about ALL of the things that my students were able to see:

• Schools in Australia - opposite side of the world, opposite hemisphere
• Schools in Argentina - native Spanish speakers, opposite hemisphere
• Schools in Canada - a different climate than what they're used to.
• Schools in California and Colorado - still in the United States, but they're also different than here.
• Phil Bildner - one of their favorite authors, and then he visited their school!
• Chita Johnson - a local meteorologist who shared her job, and we shared our projects.
• Astronauts on the ISS - astronauts.... enough said!
• The Google offices in Austin - yes while I was out at a training at Google, I shared with my students what the offices looked like, and that I could check on them even from afar.

What a list! I think it's easy to say that I did all of this because, "I'm good with technology" but I think that would be missing the point. The point is that I enhanced the curriculum by showing my students what is possible. I got my students in touch with experts when it pertained to our current unit of study. I hope that those seeds have a long lasting effect on my students. I hope that when they get old enough to have their own social media accounts (yes I'm totally ignoring the fact that most of them probably already do), that they use it responsibly, and for good things.

Another thing my students were able to do this year was pilot Google Classroom/Google Apps For Education for our school district. We were the first classes to get into our GAFE accounts, and were the only elementary to do so. My students had to learn how to manipulate a brand new system, how to be patient, and how to share with others. In fact when I asked my students what their favorite activity was this year, they replied, unanimously, "Google Accounts!" There were actual tears, from fourth graders, when I told them that they couldn't use them for this last week of school.

I honestly feel like I have had a huge impact on my students. No it wasn't the greatest academic impact, and the reasons for that could be a whole other post, but it was pretty big in other ways. I'm not sure who said it, but "Students are more than a test score" and I am pretty sure that I have shown my students that this year.

Updates

I wanted to update all of my readers on the latest of what's been going on. First of all, I did not get the Instructional Specialist position. I did make it to a 2nd interview, which I've never done before, but ultimately I was not the right fit for their campus. I reflected on my interview, and I think where I went wrong was allowing the focus to be on the technology I was using, and not how I was using the technology to enhance the lessons. 

So as it stands today, I am going to be a 2nd grade Math/Science teacher. Now, I did put in some more applications for Assistant Principal, but I really just threw that line out there to see if I could get a bite. Don't get me wrong, I want those positions, but it's almost unheard of for a teacher to go straight to administration from the classroom.

Some other cool things, I was asked to be interviewed by Remind. I thought that was really neat! I've always just thrown my ideas out there without anyone really asking my thoughts. This time, however, I was actually asked for my thoughts! I also had the opportunity to present and write a blog post for the Texas Google Summit (TXGoo). This is basically a local conference where all presentations are on Google tools and how you use them in the classroom/school. It's like a big family reunion. :) 

I do want to brag on my students a little bit. So on their last 2 assignments, I have had nearly 100% passing!!! In math we were able to spend more time on the subject than they did throughout the year, and that really made a difference in my student's level of understanding. I'm not blaming the district, they did their best to schedule the curriculum to where everything the state asked us to cover, was covered by the STAAR test. And then my students just ROCKED their Science DPM! We spent a little time reviewing, but they just nailed it. I even told them at one point, that as a teacher, it feels so great to see your students using the strategies that you taught them!

Other than that, I'm just trying to make it to the end of the school year. I'm stretching my imagination on making the last few lessons the district has given me as highly engaging as I possibly can!

Sad Story...

I was all ready to post about how amazing my class did today, and that post will be out most likely tomorrow, when I heard about a teacher in California who took her own life. After reading this story, and listening to comments from my GTAATX cohorts, it got me thinking about what I've seen in my building. I believe that on my campus, there are no loners.

Now there may be more cliques than ever, but I honestly believe that everyone has someone to talk and relate to. Some may not think this is a big deal, or that work is for working, not making friends. I would have to disagree. I think that it is impossible for teachers, whose jobs it is to form relationships with students, to not form relationships with their peers. Does that mean everyone needs to hangout after school, or even eat lunch together? No, but everyone does need someone to listen while they vent.For me not only do I have my wife, but I have my teammates, and my friends on social media to talk to. Note I do not advocate venting on social media.

As teachers we are expected to be "on" all the time. This is hard, because sometimes we don't feel like we can let anyone know what's bothering us. If something is bothering you, please don't keep inside; please find someone to talk to, or write a blog post. Just what ever you do, please don't keep it all inside.

Why am I working so hard?

So here I sit at 10:00 at night trying to develop a fun and interesting way for my students to complete a review sheet for their upcoming benchmark. Those who know me, know that I'm not all about the paper and pencil, "sit at your seat and work this problem," style of teacher; I'm more of the "let's see how we can use technology to make this more entertaining" style of teacher. So why am I working so hard? There are plenty of other ways to make this "mandatory" sheet "fun" that don't involve technology. I'm sure there will be other teachers that use the, "finish this problem, and color part of a picture" way of motivating students, and while it's effective, it's just not me. I feel like the students expect the unexpected from me. I am the one who they see pushing the envelope on a daily basis. So why am I working so hard? The short answer is, because my students deserve it.

Journey to the Google Teacher Academy

My journey with Google started in June of 2007. I had graduated college and was preparing for my first job as a teacher. I think it was my friend Chris who first told me about this service that it like Microsoft Word, but it saves your files automatically and you can access it anywhere you have an internet connection. Having to write lesson plans at school and modify them at home was becoming tedious, especially when I couldn't remember which version on my 256 mb flash drive was the most accurate. Google Docs was the way to go!

Flash forward about a year, and I heard about this VERY prestigious and exclusive community called the Google Certified Teachers. If you put the word exclusive in front of something, I want it. Over the next few years, I worked diligently towards my goal of becoming a Google Certified Teacher. I kept track of those who were applying, watched their submission videos, and kept looking at the application. 2 years ago I found a podcast called Google Educast on the EdReach Network. The hosts of the podcast were all GCTs (Google Certified Teachers), that's what threw my desire into overdrive! I had already been using the Google Drive products in my classroom. I was drinking the Google Kool-Aid, and wanted to learn everything that I could about the products and how I could use them even better!

In May of 2013 I attended my first Google Event. It was the Texas Google Summit (#TXGOO). I dusted off my dormant twitter account and started following the presenters, and educators who I came in contact with. I saw how other people were sharing quotes from the presenters, so I started to follow suit. One of the sessions I attended was Amy Mayer's session on becoming a GCT. Here it was, I was about to learn how to get into that club that I've been eyeing for many years! One quote stood out among the rest. One little piece of advice I took to heart was when she said, "Be honest, but not humble." There it was. I was being too humble in everything that I was doing. I'm not one to beg for the spotlight, I prefer to let others know that it was a group effort. At that moment I decided that I was going to work on being more outgoing.

At the conference I also learned about these 2 people called the "3 Tech Ninjas" Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd) and Stacey Huffine (@techninjastacey). I started following them on twitter and learned that the things they were doing in a district VERY close to mine, were the same things that I wanted to do! Then the kicker, I heard that they were going to be at the conference MY district was hosting! I attended their session, and was inspired, but didn't have the confidence that I could do what they were doing. Then this past summer, they came back to our conference. Again, I listened to their session, but this time it struck a chord. Todd talked about how he shares EVERYTHING he does in his classroom. My curriculum was going to be all new, so what better time to make a change of the way I do things than now? I started a class blog and twitter. I pushed the envelope further than I ever had before. Curriculum Coordinators started hearing about the level of integration I was doing in my classroom, and how I was sharing it out on the internet, and it garnered interest.

Finally, I decided it was time to apply for the Google Teacher Academy! It was in Austin, so what better opportunity? I will tell you, when you fill out the application, be prepared. They will ask you some basic essay questions, but then you also need to submit your video. My advice is to complete your video first, and then work on the application.

My next post will be about the Google Teacher Academy!

Google kind of day

Yesterday was all about Google. First the domain administrator was finally able to cross all of the red tape and give my students access to our GAFE accounts. That alone made yesterday Christmas for me. We are going to spend a day just playing in Google. I'm going to let them explore the tools, and ask them to figure out a way to use the tool to explain a concept that we have learned or are going to learn, you know just in case admin comes in and wants to know why we're playing around. :)

You would have thought that would have been the highlight of my day, but it wasn't. The moment I received the email inviting me to the Google Teacher Academy in Austin was one of the greatest moments of my educational career. In the moments since that event, my phone has been blowing up. Between the voxer chat, the G+ updates, the hangout notifications, and the twitter notifications, my phone is living on the charger. I may need to trade it in for an android before December.

I am still amazed that I was one of the 50 educators to get into this Google Academy. Out of the hundreds who applied, I was selected!

Leo

Yesterday was the first meeting of our Leaders Empowering Others group. It's made up of many of our teachers who want to take the next step in our careers; be it administration, counseling, or instructional. It was great to see that there are many of us who want to take that next step. One of the activities that we did was to list the qualities that we see in leaders. Naturally this was a long list, but it got me thinking about the type of leader that I want to be. I've been branded as being a people pleaser, and to be honest, that's probably pretty accurate. I do love to please people, but I know that I can't always do that. I've actually been working on that as Technology Liaison. I can't always make people happy. Sure it's nice when things work out, but there are many times that I have to tell them no.

On another note, today my partner was out, and there was not a sub. I could have split them across the grade level and deal with what they missed at a later date, or I could try to take it all on. Thinking about being a leader, I went ahead and took on the challenge. Honestly, I think it's worked out pretty well. I mean yes there are 37 students in my room, but I have the assistance of paraprofessionals to help me along the way. What I have been able to accomplish today has been phenomenal! I was able to make sure that I had complete understanding in my science and math lessons, and then relate it to the reading and writing! There is something to be said for self-contained teachers. If you are able to integrate, and I know the curriculum departments don't always make easy to do so, you can really reach that deeper level of understanding.

Playing Catch-Up

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post. Sorry about that, I need to get better about posting more frequently. In the past couple of weeks my classes have connected through Google Hangouts to more people ranging from district personnel to NASA! It's really exciting when we're in the middle of class, and a notification comes up that someone would like to connect to our class.

I am having a hard time, however balancing this with my AM class. In this class there happens to be a couple of students who want to do nothing more than cut up and act silly. Naturally I look at the situation and try to determine if there is anything different that I can do. I don't want to reward those students who are acting up by doing this amazing technology and subject the rest of my students to them being rude/disrespectful to our guests, but at the same time I don't want the rest of the class to miss out on these opportunities because of a few people. Is teaching with this level of technology a right or a privilege? The things I'm doing aren't written anywhere in the curriculum, so I have to make time for the things we are doing. If the grades aren't there, then I have to go back to the more traditional methods.

In other news, I am now a snake wrangler. For those who know me, you know that I think snakes are amazingly interesting behind glass, where I am safe. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had to overcome that fear when I needed to capture a juvenile water moccasin.

I know what you're thinking, "That's a Copperhead" and that's what I thought too until doing some further research on the matter. First of all, it is obviously a venomous snake. Look at the head (venom glands) and the thickness of its body. Now a little herpetology for you. Copperheads have hourglass bands that are fairly thick. Water moccasins have bands too, but they are less connected. They also have a stripe on their face which you will see in the next picture. Let me set the scene for you. We are walking back to our classroom from Large Group (PE, Art, Music) when I noticed this outside of the door to go outside, next to our room. I got the students inside and working on their vocabulary while I snapped a few of these pictures and called the front office to get someone from district to remove the snake. Yes I said "removed" and not killed. In a situation where it's me or them, I take me, but this wasn't one of those situations, yet. So as I'm investigating this snake, another 4th grade Science teacher came up to investigate it too. Everything was fine. The snake was hanging out there, and we were safely inside the building. Just then, a group of PK students started walking on the sidewalk, less than 4 feet away. Now we have some danger. I quickly went in my classroom, grabbed my terrarium and with the help of the other 4th grade teacher, got the snake inside, lid closed, and escaped being bitten! 

There the snake is, not as happy to be in there, but safely secured from endangering any of our little babies. As I was scooting the terrarium to the snake, all I was thinking about was how I hoped the snake went inside, and not around the container. 

So like I said, it's been a busy couple of weeks! Today I did start beta testing flipping my classroom. We've been modeling for a while now, but this was the first time for them to try it on their own. It was exciting for me to watch their responses come in. I got 8 out of 38 students to participate. Tomorrow I will find out about the other 30. I asked that their parents write me a note explaining why they couldn't watch the video online. I already know about a couple of those, but I want to make sure so that I can begin to make arrangements for those students. 

I know this post is rather lengthy. I'll try not to wait so long for my next post.

Children

Yesterday was my youngest child's birthday, and it made me reflect on how having children changed me as a teacher. Before I met my wife I thought that homework was the be-all end-all of my classroom, but that all changed when I met my wife and her daughters. 

She likes to joke that she is a microwave, not a crock pot. With her it was an instant family. I quickly learned that what sounded like excuses from my students was probably true. I would hear time and time again that they didn't do their homework because there were a lot if tasks that they needed to do when they left school. After having a family I found out that it was entirely possible for them to not have been able to do their homework. There were times that after work, we would pick up the girls and have to go to the grocery store. By the time we got home we had to feed them, and get them showered and ready for bed. There wasn't any time for homework. 

Having kids softened me up as a teacher. I learned to work with the students and not against them. They really have made me a better teacher. 

On our way up.

     I feel much better after my last post. And true to form, things started to look up immediately following. No I didn't end up getting a "come and interview anyway" message, but I did get a "thank you for understanding." 

     Yesterday I received an email from one of our Instructional Technology Specialists saying that she wanted to visit my classroom and see how I was using our class blog/twitter/instagram. My immediate reaction was "Come on in!" I am very humble. I think that is part of the reason why I decided to start my own blog. This is a place where I can say what I am doing in my classroom. I can go back and edit my words so that things sound better. In a face to face conversation I hide behind bringing up those who are around me. The fact that someone wanted to come in and observe me is flattering to say the least. (Humble post coming in) I don't think what I am doing is all that spectacular. Now I won't tell you that when I'm trying to promote it. I guess it's that I'm worried someone will see what I'm doing, and knock me down a few notches. I can take criticism, that's not what I'm saying. I just don't want to be called a fraud. Any way, my guest came in and seemed to be pretty happy with everything she saw my students doing. It was definitely a giant leap up from where I was the day before!

Roller Coasters!

     So the last 24 hours have been a roller coaster for me. My class has been successfully connecting with educators outside of our classroom, they were nailing the content, I received some of my donor's choose items, and at the peak, I was sent an email inviting me to a panel interview for the secondary assistant principal pool! Wow things were going GREAT! I felt like I owned the world! Then came today.

     Today started off at the top of my roller coaster. I was scheduling meetings with my administrators so that I could be the best prepared candidate for my upcoming interview. But that was the turning point. My lessons didn't go quite as well as I had hoped. The majority of my students didn't do well on the mini assessment I gave them over the lessons I had been teaching for the past week. Then in my science lesson, I was working to try and get the next part up after I had walked around and assessed that my students were about ready to move on, and technology failed me. Ok so it could have been user error, but to my defense I have never really used Office 2013. I tried to pull up and present a power point, but it went to the wrong screen. Ok easy enough fix, I knew how to do that. I switched the settings, and then pops up some presentation mode! I've NEVER seen that before! So naturally I am trying to rid my screen of this invasive window, and down goes my power point. Geh! My students were nearly ready when I started this process, so they were definitely going to be itching to move forward. And that's when it happened. I made that critical mistake that teachers do. I sat down in my chair to regain focus, and get my power point going like it needed to be. I finally got it up and looked up JUST in time to catch the eye of my principal escorting a high ranking district official through our area. Yep! 2 minutes earlier, or 2 minutes later and they would have seen some amazing teaching happening, but as luck would have it, they saw me "relaxing" at my desk. So there I was walking around my classroom, hoping that they were still in the area and would swing back by and see that it was a fluke, being even MORE animated in my lesson, really trying to overcompensate for the poor timing that they had when they walked by. But alas, it was fruitless. As I hear it, there was mention about me "sitting behind the computer" to the other administrators. Then came the low point of the day.

     Just an hour after the whole power point debacle, it was time for lunch. I tried not to let what had just happened put a damper on my mood, I mean after all it was 1 time. I warmed up my lunch and decided to check my email. That's when it happened. That's the moment that my heart hit the floor. I received a follow up email to yesterday's great news. No it wasn't to confirm my interview time. Instead, it was an email to let me know that the previous email had been sent out by mistake by the system. Evidently every applicant was sent the email by mistake. Only those with confirmed appointments were to be interviewed, everyone else was instructed to disregard the email. I tried my best to hide my disappointment, but those who are around me know when something is wrong. I had to cancel the meetings that I had worked to set up with my administrators, and tell them the disappointing news. Sure there's a CHANCE, I could still get invited to the pool interview once they finish looking over the applications, but as someone who hasn't been able to make it that far in the process in the past, I am not holding on to those chances. It is what it is. I was overly excited to get an interview opportunity, and I'm disappointed that that opportunity is no longer happening.

     The reason I wanted to share all of this with you, is because I really believe that this is analogous to life.There are always ups and downs in life, with bumps in between. I try to always take the high road when it comes to a situation. Sure I could be angry and upset by today's events, but what would that solve? It wasn't the district's fault that the system messed up any more than it was my computer's fault that my principal came by at the mos in opportune moment of my day. Things happen. We have to learn to move past it. The same is true for our students. Things happen with their assignments. We can be upset that they didn't do well on the assignment, or we can take a step back and figure out how we can help them do better next time. Life is a roller coaster, and we are all riding on it.

My first post!

So I haven't done a traditional blog in a LONG time! I've used facebook twitter, but I wanted to make an honest to goodness blog, where I could post my reflections of what's going on in my classroom. Also, since I am having my students blog, I thought I should probably have one as well.

A few things about me. I am entering into my 8th year of teaching. I have taught Kindergarten, 2nd grade Language Arts, 3rd grade Math and Science, and 4th grade Math and Science. I am very adventurous when it comes to incorporating technology into my classroom. My school district is one of the largest in the state of Texas, just outside of Houston. The school I teach at is Title 1 with 1,100 students and 78% or so on Free and Reduced Lunch. Incorporating technology into my classroom is huge because it allows my students to explore the world outside of our "walls."

So it's a new beginning. I am starting a new blog, I have a new group of students, our curriculum is all new, and there are new faces at my campus. Change is good. I'm not always the best at accepting it, but when I'm deep in the groove of things, I realize that it is almost always for the best.

Our first week is flying by. Already my students have shown me that they are the brightest and hardest working students a teacher could ask for. We are working on making connections to other educators or students. As I said before, they are working on their new blog, and it's definitely a work in progress. Any advice on how to get them to be better bloggers is welcomed.

If you are reading this, thank you for listening to my rambling and unorganized writing.