Lessons I have learnt from kids.

I have always loved being around children. Given that I've wanted to be a teacher since I can remember, this comes as no surprise. I've been babysitting since I was 12 years old and have always found a way to be around kids wherever I am. Especially lately, kids have given me an avenue for getting away with acting like a kid again myself: being silly, running around in my sock-feet and sliding on the hardwood floors, talking in silly voices, watching "PG" rated movies, and reading books that have pictures on every page.

It wasn't until just a few days ago that I realized how much I learn from being around kids. Maybe "learn" isn't the right word here. Maybe I mean "remember." I'm sure I once saw the world the way they do, but years of experiences later, it's sometimes hard to remember some of the simplest yet most profound things about life that kids seem to have such a sound grasp on. And even though, I may have forgotten, seeing the world through their little eyes is such a refreshing reminder of some universal truths.

1. Say "Please" and "Thank you" as much as possible.
2. When you're tired, rest. If you need to sleep but don't want to, you'll most likely just end up getting yourself in trouble or making a mess... or both.
3. Apologizing is never easy. Especially when you mean it.
4. It's always better to just walk away. Giving mean looks as you do so can be very satisfying, though.
5. Being honest is hard, but earning back someone's trust after you've lied is harder.
6. If you want it bad enough, you will FIND a way to reach it.
7. Take care of your second chance. There won't be a third.
8. If someone is mean to you, don't play with them. They're not your friend. Nor do you want them to be.
9. It's not okay to laugh at someone's misfortune. Quite frankly, it hurts their feelings and you wouldn't like it if you knew they were laughing at you.
10. Hugs fix everything. 
11. You never know when there's a monster under your bed. Better be careful... just in case.
12. Dessert always makes a bad day better.
13. There are just some things that only a Mom can do. 
14. Crying is not a sign that you are not brave.
15. 30 minutes can be the longest period of time in the world or the quickest. It all depends on how you look at it. 30 minutes at the park is way different than 30 minutes in time-out.
16. Take your time and do it right the first time. It will still take less time than if you have to do it over.
17. Eat your vegetables or you'll end up a cranky, old villain in a Disney movie.
18. Most things aren't that complicated until grown ups make them that way.

Stolen from Lauren

Don't aim for success if you want it; 

just do what you love and believe in, 

and it will come naturally. 

~David Frost

For the times we need them, now or next.

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” --Harriet Beecher Stowe

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back." --Maya Angelou

“We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more.” --Anne Sophie Swetchine

"...we grow old because we stop playing."

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about the good ol' days: Summers spent in the mountains of Virginia playing games with my cousins, Sunday afternoons when everyone took naps and we had to find ways entertain ourselves, those days on the playground when Jeremy and Marcus were hogging the monkey bars and we had to resort to other means of excitement. I started thinking about all the games we used to play and started to wonder, "Why we don't still play them?"

Okay so maybe we're busier, have other responsibilities and priorities. We're older now and have to behave as such so that means no games, right?

A few years ago someone sent me one of those Snowball fight-email-forward things. (I mean really, how lame are we that we can't even have a REAL snowball fight but have to have one via email instead?) At the very bottom of the email, which by the way was complete with an animated snowball splattering its cutsey little face onto the inside of the computer screen, was a quote from George Bernard Shaw.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." 

I have no real idea who this George Bernard Shaw guy is, BUT he makes a good point. As we get older we start taking on life: we get jobs, we work toward degrees, we start families, we take on leadership positions throwing every bit of ourselves into trying to succeed in those things. We take on so much and forget to enjoy whatever it is we're doing (yes, believe it or not, once upon a time, we chose to do those things because we actually liked them). We get so wrapped up in all the things we once loved and they begin to act as anti-younging agents... leaving no time for FUN! Oh sure, there's the occasional drink with a friend or movie night with the girls. But what about real, live, let loose, ask-no-questions, grass stained, music blasting, wind in your hair, spin until you're dizzy, laugh until it hurts fun?

No wonder we're getting old! In fact, it's a miracle we aren't eating at the K&W Cafeteria and buying Poligrip!We're not making any time for ourselves to have fun. And we've spent so much time thinking that we're "too old for that" we're probably also a little afraid of that much fun. We might look silly and we just can't have that... can we?

So, I have compiled a list with as many games as I could think of. Play them in your class. Play them at your chapter meetings. Play them with your coworkers. Play them with your family. Play them for yourself. Play them to stay young.

If you have some to add, feel free to share!

The Games We Play(ed)

• Bloody Murder: It's a combination of hide and seek and Tag. The person who's "IT" counts while everyone goes and hides. When IT finds the first hider, the hider yells "BLOODY MURDER" at the top of his lungs and everyone comes out of hiding and tries to run to base without being tagged by IT. 
• Red Rover: Oh come on, this one's a classic. Need I even explain?
• Dodge ball (in the circle): You know, not the kind they made that ridiculous movie about but the kind we played in elementary school. Half of the group makes a circle and throws balls (hopefully very soft, squishy, painless balls) at the other half of the group who are in the middle of the circle.
• Duck Duck Goose: Once again, need I explain?
• Chinese Freeze Tag: A funny twist on traditional freeze tag, to get "un-frozen" someone has to crawl between the legs of the frozen players without getting tagged themselves. Oh just the thought makes me giggle.
• Capture the Flag: Divided into two teams, each group has a set of flags (though because we were poor flags were often substituted by cones, rocks, shoes, hats, or whatever else we could find.) Members of the opposite teams try to cross over into "enemy territory" to steal their flags without being tagged. The first team with all the flags wins.
• Red light, Green light: The caller yells "Green Light" and you dance, move, walk, run, jump, climb. Just be ready to freeze in whatever awkward position you've got yourself into as soon as the caller yells RED LIGHT!
• Arm Wrestling: When's the last time you arm wrestled? Can't remember either, can you?
• Thumb Wrestling: One, Two, Three, Four, I declare a thumb war!
• Mother May I?: Yes, you may.
• Simon Says!
• Dance!: The Hustle, Thriller, The Macarena, The Electric Slide, The Chicken Dance. Heck, if you can remember the steps just do-si-do with someone until you're dizzy.

Now, who's up for a game of Red Rover? :-D

Writing about Fear seemed appropriate so close to Halloween...

As I once said, this blog used to be just a random collection of my ramblings about daily life, the things that bugged me, the things that made me laugh. Okay, well, now that I think of it, it hasn't really changed much. But when I switched over from random ramblings to random ramblings about teaching, I took down the old blogs and hid them in a word document I have saved on my computer. The other day when I was practicing my activity avoidance techniques, I stumbled across this file and started reading. I came across one particularly spirited entry from a day when something had bugged me.

The story went that my dog, who, though now is very large and ferocious, was a puppy at the time, escaped my apartment and ran out into the yard where a burly man was walking from the parking lot to his apartment. Upon seeing my puppy, Jasper, he proceeded to squeal like a little girl and began running. Now, anyone who has ever had a puppy or even a full grown dog knows that if you run from a dog, he will chase you. So of course, the moment "the man" started running from my dog, of course Jasper playfully chased after him. I watched dumbfounded as "the man" ran toward no apparent safe haven from an animal that could not possibly cause him any harm... well, not much anyway.

Reading back over the story, which in it's original form was far more drawn out and amusing (even if a bit insensitive,) I realized two things. First, it wasn't Jasper who made "the man" run. Jasper was a 4 month old puppy who was more interested in the grass than anyone walking across the parking lot. What made him run was his fear. His perception of something mostly harmless caused fear... and so he ran. And secondly, once Jasper realized that, for whatever reason, "the man" was running away, it was nothing but instinct to chase after him.

At that moment, like a ton of bricks, it hit me. My brain started whirling thinking about all the things I'd been running from lately. And every single one of those things was, without a doubt, chasing me down. In fact, most of them were gaining on me because my fear of them was holding me back; fear that an attempt, no matter how valiant, might end in failure. Fear that pain might be seen as weakness. Fear of taking the next step not knowing exactly where it lead. Fear of accepting a challenge I might not be able to overcome with flying colors. 

So now, it's time to stop running. Running takes a lot of energy. If we were using that energy to run in the right direction, imagine what amazing things we could do. If we can just get past the fears that hold us back, chances are, the thing we feared isn't really that scary after all. Most likely, our fear blew it all out of proportion anyway and we had nothing to be afraid of in the first place. And even if there is something to be afraid of, there's no way around it so we might as well face it, head on, and on our own terms. One way or another, we'll work through them and past them. You may not always come out looking too pretty on the other side, but at least you'll be on the other side, with your fears behind you and no where to go but forward.

"Now, THIS is the life..."

I absolutely love days like today. Not quite summer, not quite fall, the breeze just cool enough to give you goosebumps every once in a while if you're standing in the shade. And I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the afternoon in one of my favorite ways: at the park. Even better, I got to spend it with a pretty inspiring 13-year-old young man.

I sat on the swings, my favorite park installment of all time, and my friend sat beside me pushing the empty swing beside me back and forth a bit haphazardly. (Yes, there was an incident in which I got hit and while it's funny, it's not exactly pertinent to the story... but you can totally ask me about it later.) Though we had been talking as we were swinging, we both grew quiet and my mind wandered back to where it had been all morning. Writing my thesis, fixing my instrument, paying my bills, juggling my responsibilities as a graduate assistant, teaching myself fertilizer calculations, trying to NOT kill my plants in my greenhouse management class. Trust me, the list goes on.

As I sat swinging, staring off into space and probably looking very silly as my list played pinball in my brain, I was suddenly jarred back to the real world when my friend said something that has echoed through me all evening. He said,

Liz, THIS is the life!

It's one of his favorite lines. He says it when he's at the beach, the pool, the park,walking on the green way, and anywhere that he's spending time with his friends or family. I've heard him say it a million times. Yet today, for the first time, maybe because I needed to hear it, it finally sank in. I finally understood. Though he has his plate full, even for a 13 year old it's REALLY full, with his own tasks and concerns and responsibilities, he is wise enough to realize that that plate full of stuff is just that... stuff. My thesis, my classes, my job, all the things that have been stressing me out the past few weeks: while it's all really important, it's just my plate full of stuff that at the end of the day won't matter at all if there's not a life to carry the plate.

But the life... the life is the time spent enjoying the September sunshine. The life is swinging as high as you can because even at 23 years old you still get a rush from the flip your stomach turns. The life is talking with a friend. The life is everything outside of the stuff that you'll miss if you're not careful.

I know as well as anyone that it's easier said than done. But as your plate piles up with all the stuff that life serves you, you have to remember that when it's all that's said and done, it's the life that matters. Nothing else. And when you become overwhelmed getting ready for your fall plant sale, planning your class field trip to the state fair, collecting fruit orders, teaching classes, supervising FFA members at their annual tailgate social, AND running the ticket booth at the high school homecoming football game, remember what truly matters and make time for the life. And chances are, you'll be better all around once you do.

Giggle of the day

From a friend of mine who teaches middle school science:

"Once you become as famous as Cher, then you can just put your first name on assignments. Until then, it is First and Last names. Please and thank you!"

Sadly, I can take no credit for this...

I wish I could because the moment I read it, I fell in love with it and tried my hardest to ingrain every wise and insightful and botanical word into my brain and my heart. But alas, below you'll find the genius of another writer. I hope her words speak to you as much as they spoke to me. I never realized how smart trees are....

"Lessons I have Learnt from Trees"

1. Dig Deep. There's no environment that's totally without sustenance if you could take root there at all. Don't be afraid to stretch for what you need to survive.

2. Quick growth is showy and exciting, yes, but it's also brittle. It can't stand up to bugs, frost, or a good hard storm, and if you've let yourself explode into a spread that's really too big for you to sustain, you'll lose more than the spares when the storm rolls over your head -- it just might crack you in half. And nobody will even be able to use the wood afterward.

3. When the time comes to shed the extra stuff, just let it go. Clinging to dead leaves all through the winter doesn't make them alive again in the spring. Trust that you'll have the resources and strength to make new ones; you always have done before.

4. Make your space inviting, and all kinds of people will come to be in it. They might not be so reliable as friends are, but they'll bring their stories and their energy, and share a bit before they go. Hospitality is never really wasted, and the shelter you offer could save lives, faith, and souls, if you're willing to reach out a bit.

5. Never give up on where you came from, even if you didn't like it; the soil might have been rocky, sour and full of garbage, but the anchorage of what you have survived will keep you stable and strong in the face of the hardest blow. And the truth is, nobody but you can even percieve the knots your roots have had to come up into anyway. All that work has gone on under the surface and so if some of it was desperate, and other is sloppy, and other is overwrought and excessive, nobody but you really has to know about it. Value the experience for the strength and wisdom it's given you, and just leave the inelegant rest of it buried.

6. With patience and persistence, you can crack mountains. Don't underestimate yourself, either your productive potential, or your destructive potential.

7. Those who will not stand tall wind up breaking at the spots where they bent. Flexing with the wind is important, sure, but you've got to have a solid core at the heart of things -- a tree with no trunk is just grass, after all. If you let other folks get you all twisted around on yourself where it matters, you'll always have a spot where you never quite dare to trust yourself. It's better to stand straight if you can manage it, even if you have to back up and start again.

8. Don't waste energy envying other people's talents; you're good at what you're good at, everything else you really need, you can learn. If there's an oak that's stronger, or a willow that's more flexible, or a monkey puzzle that's more indie, or an apple that's more fruitful, well it's a better investment of your energy to put your effort into maximizing the places where YOUR virtue lies, rather than castigating yourself for not being all things better than everyone.

9. It's easier to weather the unexpected annoyances of life if you learn to grow a thick skin. Some bugs will always tunnel through, but generally it's best if you can let the world just roll off your bark and sink into the soil.

10. Leave your place better than it was when you came there. You can, through your attitude, your determination, and the sheer fact of your being there, turn barren soil into fertile treasure over time. You can inhale poisons, and exhale life, drink toxins and still bear wholesome fruit, and all it takes is the sort of stuff you do any day, wherever you are. A little effort, and a little faith can make your corner of the world into the very definition of Heaven by the time you leave it behind.

11. Don't fear tragedy; either the fire will be fierce and fast and clear out the underbrush, leaving you space to breathe afterward, or it will be slow and deadly, and you will go down in it. Fear doesn't change it either way; it doesn't give you any edge, or make the fire's character change. Acknowledge the risk of that which you cannot master, and then just go on with the business of growing as many rings inside your trunk as you can manage.

12. When the wind gives you music, dance.

From the Maple, I have learnt generousity -- It is no hardship to share my sweetness with others when I am overflowing with it. I still have all I need to grow my leaves, and set a million keys spinning into the wind before autumn turns my leaves to fire. I can afford to give, even when years are lean.

From the Oak, Hazel, Pecan, and other suchlike I have learnt merriment -- much as folks may poke fun and tease, the truth of the matter is, they never can resist the Nuts. They may praise you for your majesty and grandeur, but they're really there for the nuts.

And also from the Oak, I have learnt forbearance -- if I make a decision whilst I'm steamed, it's all too easy to settle into that new shape and forget that I ever thought anything else. It's important to check, after temper, and be sure the grain still lies true, or if it's changed, that the arc can hold.

From the Apple, I have learnt productivity -- it isn't for me to dictate where my fruit falls, or who enjoys it. It's my job to grow it, and to make it as sweet and as fine as I can manage to do, and if someone will come along with bushells and trucks and take the lot to market, or the cider press, then well and fine, and go me. But it's also all right if nobody but the squirrels and deer and ants find it and sustain themselves. It's not like I can go on a creativity strike now, is it?

From the Cherry, I have learnt pacing -- I must see to the needs of root, trunk, branch, and leaf before the needs of the fruit can be taken into measure. I am more important than that which I might create.

From the Saguaro, I have learnt oportunism -- guard your critical resources as fiercely as you may, but when you find you've enough to do so, splash out with all you've got, and do your best to make something fine from it. Flower as soon after the rain as you can manage. Waste no time designing the blooms -- just get it up, and open.

From the Palm, I have learnt pride -- those too lazy to make the climb, or too fearful to navigate my barbs, may pick at the fruit which I drop. Only the worthy will come up to where my very best fruit hides, and they deserve all the sweetest I have to offer.

And from the Fir, I have learnt patience -- folks are just going to tie weird, tacky stuff into your branches from time to time. They're going to tart you up and make you look ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. Be patient. They'll probably take it off again sometime after Easter. Then it's the palm's turn in the barrel.

http://cluegirl.livejournal.com/

**With a special thanks to @anandangel for sharing this with me. You have always been been my wind.

Lessons Learned from the Battle of the Bulletin Board

I knew early on in my life that I wanted to be a teacher. Though there were lots of red "future teacher" flags that went up (reading to my stuffed animals, creating pretend grade books and lesson plans, even making my stuffed animal students change classes at predetermined times... yeah I've always been a nerd,) the one that was always most evident to me was the excitement I felt the closer we came to the start of the school year. Shopping for school supplies, the smell of the freshly buffed hallways, the feel of the pages of a brand new spiral notebook... mmmmmm.

Gearing up for this school year as both teacher and student was no different. I shopped for school supplies, labeled my notebooks and dividers, and purchased my ceremonial new package of writing utensils for the semester (yes, there's a new package each semester. See? Nerd.) And since I'm also TA-ing this semester, I also had some teachery preparation. I fine tuned the syllabus, created the course webpage, helped proof the course materials, planned activities, assignments and guest speakers, but of course, as fate would have it that before all was said and done, I would have to have it out with a bulletin board. Now, while there are a lot of teachery genes I have, there is as least one that I just don't have: the bulletin board creator gene. There's a reason I didn't go into elementary education: you have to have the bulletin board creator trait before they'll even think of admitting you to teacher candidacy. 

I started by taking down all the old pictures and articles that were push pinned to the cork board. As I did, I piled them neatly on the floor so as not to lose them as I intended to reuse them to hold up the new displays. Five hours of struggle later, I finally finished. I had stabbed myself with push pins, stapled my fingers, and suffered the world's most painful paper cut ever, but I was finished. While I'd like to say I learned loads about bulletin board design and construction throughout this whole fiasco, I didn't. But I think what I did learn might be even more helpful.

1. You can not pick up a handful of push pins at a time. If you try, you will be stabbed in the palm of your hand, it will hurt, and you will most likely bleed. Such is life. One of the hardest lessons I've learned of late is that you can't force things to happen all at once. You can't always be in control and expect everything to happen on your time and your schedule. Life and learning happens one step at a time, each step building on the last. If you try to take too many steps at a time, you get tired, confused, and overwhelmed. Instead, you have to pick up one push pin at a time. It will take longer than you want it to, but eventually you'll have them all in the palm of your hand without an ounce of bloodshed. Which is always much nicer.
2.  It takes more than two push pins to securely fasten almost anything. You can try only using two, but whatever it is you're trying to secure will almost always fall off, if not immediately, then later on when you're not there to fix it. Just like picking up the push pins, fastening down anything takes time and patience and if it's not done right, eventually what you were trying to secure will fall down. Likewise in teaching, it's important to ensure that your subject matter is securely attached to your students. Just sticking enough pins in to make sure they can pass the test isn't good enough because, eventually, they'll forget whatever it was you were trying to attach. They need a firm, secure foundation to really make sure it sticks and to make sure that they carry what you taught them with them when they leave you.
3. No one may notice, and that's okay. You made a difference anyway. You may never get a "Thanks!" or a "Oh, you did a nice job" but somehow for someone you made a difference. Even if you never see the fruits of your labor, they're out there.
4. Stapling yourself in the finger hurts. And what hurts more is that you have no one but yourself to blame. There are all kinds of other ways to say this which makes me think that humans as a species are prone to doing this. You know, shooting yourself in the foot, sticking your foot in your mouth, stapling yourself in the finger. It's hard to hold up the paper with one hand while loading the stapler with the other and then pulling out the jammed staple and then stapling yourself with the first staple as it shoots out after being jammed while still holding up the thing you were trying to staple to begin with. Personally, I tend to think that I can handle way more than I actually can. I agree to participate in activities, take on extra responsibilities, commit more of my time than there are hours in the day. And what almost always ends up happening is that I overwork myself and burn out or some aspect of my life falls to ruins as I try to "do it all." But I have to constantly remind myself that it's okay to say "no" sometimes. Sometimes, you already have a full plate and to add anything more would throw everything you're working for off balance. Decide what's MOST important and do that. Let someone else take on the rest. Otherwise, you'll just end up stapling yourself in the finger and the only person you can be mad at... is you.
5. When someone offers to help, it's okay to let them. Should you run into a situation in which you find yourself trying to hold up the paper with one hand while loading the stapler with the other and then pulling out the jammed staple and then stapling yourself with the first staple as it shoots out after being jammed all the while still holding up the thing you were trying to staple *deep breath*  and some kind soul notices that you need help and asks if you would, indeed, like some help... SAY YES! It's okay to need and accept help. That's why we network. That's why we have mentors. And for the most part, I'd be willing to say, that's the reason we're all here... to help. (By the way, thanks @countrywandering.)
6. Finally, it's never going to be perfect. Give up on that immediately. Before you go insane. Nothing is ever, ever perfect. Not bulletin boards, not a day class, not a paper, not a thing. And while it's always good to strive to improve, striving for perfection is just silly and impossible. All you can hope for is that this time will be better than the last and that next time will be better than this.

So, while I still hate bulletin boards, it's done. It's proudly displayed on the first floor of Patterson Hall. Feel free to stop by and admire my handy work. It's the one with my blood, sweat, and tears all over it. It was a vicious battle, I'll admit, but I learned more about teaching from that board than I have all summer. Now, if only it had taught me something about creating bulletin boards....

1/4 of July

The Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. Parades line the streets, the air smells of charcoal and freshly cut grass. It's a million degrees outside but you don't really notice it. Moreso than any other day of the year you stand a little taller when you see the flag wave. And as sunset approaches, you wait in anticipation of what has always been my favorite part: the fireworks.

This year on the night of The Fourth, I sat in the grass, the West Virginia breeze just cool enough to give me goosebumps, looking skyward as usual. Brilliant flashes of light soared into the dark sky, lulling everyone into a split second of complete silence followed the thunderous explosion of colors and cheers and giggles of those around. As I sat twirling a poor blade of grass I abusively yanked from the ground, I heard the youngest of our group say something that caught me a bit off guard: "That one made it look like daylight!" At first I thought, "How silly! Why are they looking at the ground?"

At that moment, the next firework sparked and flew into the air but this time instead of looking up at the explosion, I turned my eyes to the ground. For the briefest and most isolated moment everything looked so very clear. The grass seemed greener, the water sparkled brighter, the faces of the children seemed to light up all on their own. Smiles spread wider, eyes twinkled, the trees seemed to be dancing too, and for that moment I realized that all of these things were so visible in the midst of the explosions above, I had just never taken the opportunity to pay attention to them.

My life has changed so much these last few weeks. In fact, they've been a sort of explosion all on their own. Events I had never imagined or expected to happen have set my world spinning and all I've been able to do so far is watch helplessly as the explosion alters the things in life that I used to think were most steadfast and certain. That night I realized that I was focusing on the wrong part of the explosion. There's not a thing in the world I can do about the explosion, but everything on the ground, that's a different story.

The light from my explosion has unveiled so much: things I thought I'd lost, things I thought I had but never truly did, things I had but never knew were there, and things I never knew I wanted. And they all look so beautiful in the wake of something so... not.

I've decided that these explosions of life, these fireworks, come in all different forms. Maybe your fireworks are moments of success. Maybe they're moments of complete and utter disaster. But whatever those moments are, steal your eyes away from those brief, all-consuming moments to see what you've been missing. It may be exactly what you thought or it could be something you'd never have expected. But no matter what it is, rest assured that it matters far more than the explosion and you'll be thankful you looked. The explosion lasts only a moment, but even in the dark, those things you find on the ground will always be right there. You just notice how beautiful they are when you need them most.

I know this one isn't very teachery and for that I'm sorry. I'm sure there's a way to tie it in if I think about it long enough. But for now, I'm not so worried. For now, in this moment, I am taking in what's on the ground: my friendships, my self, my strength, and the love that ties it all together.

A Mother's Day Message to Teachers

One day last week I got a text message from my teacher friend, Deana* :

Hope your day turned out better than mine.

My teacher senses tingling, I concluded that something had gone horribly wrong for her and wrote back:

Awe! What happened?

As it turns out, she wrote a student up for telling her to lick his... well, you can imagine. He received 3 days of detention until his parents came tromping down to the school insisting that he had done nothing wrong and that all 17 year old boys talk like that to their teachers. They also asserted that if they kept having "so much trouble with these Ag teachers" there just wouldn't be an Ag program anymore. They stomped their little feet away with the famous last words: You haven't heard the last of us! Mwahahahaha! (Ok, I added the evil laugh, but the rest was true!)

Deana ended her story with these words that shook me to the core:

Not sure I want to do this anymore...

Shocked and a little angry myself, I tried to encourage her as best as I could but it was hard. There are always going to be kids like that and parents like that. There will always be times when you feel like quitting. So what keeps us steadfast when it seems that everything is pushing us away?

My answer came a few days later when Deana sent an email:

Today I got a Mother's Day Card.

The Front of the Card says: Mother's day is for every woman who's ever made a difference in the life of a child.


The inside says: Mother's day is for incredible women like you.

Then one of the students wrote...

Although you're not our mother, you're still an amazing person and teacher and we all look up to you! It's nice to know we have someone so close everday that we can count on for simple advice or just someone to listen. You've made a difference in all our lives and we couldn't have asked for a better person to spend our mornings with. We love you!

Some friends and I went to see "The Backup Plan" last week. In the movie, one of the characters describes parenthood. "Awful, awful, awful, awful, AWFUL... and then something amazing happens."

Thinking about it now, teaching is probably a lot like that, too. There's a lot of awful out there. But what keeps us there is that moment of amazing that reassures us that we're in the right place. It's those moments of amazing that really make a difference in the lives of the children we teach. It's those amazing somethings we have to remember when we just want to quit. It's the heartfelt gratitude, the moment when they understand, the moment when they make discoveries all on there own that keep teachers teaching in spite of the occasional awful. And lucky for us, awful can always be overshadowed by amazing.

Thinking Beyond the Bubble Sheet

Perhaps unfortunately for students, schools today often heavily rely on standardized tests. You know... bubble sheets, #2 pencils only, all that jazz. On most of these tests, students are asked basic comprehension questions requiring them to utilize only lower level thinking skills to answer. So how can we spice it up and encourage our students to use a few more brain cells? I say we give them the answers.

Give your students the test with the answers already marked on the test. They may be the correct answers, they may not be; that's up to you. Then to test your students skills simply ask them to grade the test. Tell if the answer is correct or not and JUSTIFY the decision. If the answer circled is correct, explain WHY it's correct. And if it's not, tell WHY it's not and explain what might be a better answer. It may be a little harder to grade but it will definitely get your students thinking beyond the bubble sheet. After all, though it's hard to believe sometimes, that is what we teachers are here for.

Web 2.0 Compliments of AEE 526: Part II

Dabbleboard: The Whiteboard Reinvented.

Ultimate Research Assistant: Advanced Internet knowledge mining tool.

Zap Reader: Turn yourself into a speed reader.

english cafe: Improving English for everyone from ELL's native English speakers.

HowTo.Com: Find out "how to" almost anything.

Jing: Easily share your screen.

Mind42: A new way to create mind maps.

Web 2.0 Compliments of AEE 526

Glogster: Poster yourself.

Prezi: The new powerpoint.

iCurrent: Personalize your news.

CaringBridge: Keeping in touch when it matters the most.

issuu: Publish your own magazine

FunnelBrain: Flash card study groups

Hot Potatoes: The teachers puzzle/worksheet/quiz making best friend.

"Good morning class! Please clear your desks and take out your cell phones."

Cell phones have become quite the taboo in today's schools. Most schools have rules outlawing them totally thinking that cell phones are disruptive and distracting. One of my professors however asked a really interesting question: "Why?"

In our classrooms we have all kinds of technology that students have grown up using. And any of them have the potential to be a distraction to the students. But in moderation and under the supervision of teachers, they have all become enriching tools that not only enhance learning for students, but also make it more enjoyable.

So why can't cell phones be the same? Teaching methodology says that we should be capitalizing on what students are good at and what they enjoy doing when we're teaching. So why not integrate cell phones into our lessons?

For example, PollEverywhere.com (http://www.polleverywhere.com/) is an online tool that allows you to set up your own polls. Then your students can text in their answers and the website show a graphic representation of the results. This could be used in all SORTS of ways: learn more about what your students think, quiz them to see what they remember from class yesterday, get suggestions for future classes.

The sky is the limit with technology and chances are your students will not only learn more, they'll appreciate your efforts to integrate the world they live in with the world of the classroom.

Good fences make good neighbors, not good education.

A couple of months ago, the boyfriend brought home another dog. Though Edison, who we affectionately call "Eddy," was already 7 months old and mostly grown, he was the epitome of a new puppy. He ate everything, eatable or not. He woke me up at the crack of dawn nearly every morning by scratching whatever unfortunate part of me was sticking out of the covers. He wouldn't come in from the yard when it was raining until he was COMPLETELY covered in mud. No manners, no commands, no good.

Perhaps at first I was biased because I had raised Jasper and Helen from puppies. They know how to sit, lay down, and speak on command. They know what I mean when I say "Go to bed!" And they know how serious I am just by the tone of my voice. So needless to say, I had a hard time warming up to Eddy. By the time I did warm up to them though, I think he already knew that he wasn't my favorite. Whenever I was home alone, Eddy wouldn't come out and play in the living room with me and the other dogs. He laid in Michael's room until he got home. When Helen and Jasper cuddled up in bed with me, Eddy laid on the floor. It broke my heart that I had judged him so harshly and hadn't put the effort in but he seemed to have accepted it and just waited for Michael.

Last week, I was sitting at home alone catching up on Dr. Quinn. All of the dogs were in the fenced back yard. Just as Dr. Mike rushed off to rescue passengers injured in a train wreck, someone anxiously knocked on my door. A nervous man who I recognized as one of my neighbors all but shouted before the door was even completely opened: YOUR DOG GOT OUT! I asked him to describe the dog and knew immediately that it was Eddy. It seemed that he had found a way to jump the back fence and had landed in the apartment complex on the other side.

I grabbed the leash and followed the man to where he'd last seen Eddy and there he was: sitting, staring up at the fence, trying to figure out how to get back inside. He saw me and immediately hung his head in shame but I couldn't be angry. He was TRYING to get back to where he was supposed to be, he just needed help. I rubbed his ears, told him he was a good boy, and picked up all 50 pounds of him and carried him home.

Since then, Eddy has learned to sit and he doesn't jump on my head anymore when I bend over to pour food into his bowl. He follows me all over the house and lays at my feet in the bed now (much to Jasper's dismay.) So what made the difference? The only thing I can think of is that when Eddy was stuck on the outside of the fence I went after him. When I came to his rescue, maybe he realized that I do care, that my house is his home, and that he can be a part of what's going on inside the fence.

More than one of my wise professors has told me, "Kids don't care what you know, until they know how much you care." How many of our students today are just like Eddy? Sitting outside the fence, knowing that they need to be inside, they NEED an education, and wanting to be inside but not knowing how to get there? As teachers, it's our job to go after those students outside the fence. They need our guidance to help break down those fences that stand between them and their education: learning disabilities, lack of motivation, family responsibilities, sickness, worry, doubt, fear. They need our encouragement to know they can learn and succeed on the inside. And they need to know that they're not just another test score, IQ, or ID number; that they're cared about and they deserve an education as much as anyone else.

When I was student teaching, I taught a student named *Mark. When I met Mark, he was 15 years, 324 days old. Mark was only in school because the law said he had to be. I didn't know anything about him when I started teaching him, so I taught him the same as the rest of the students. I had the same high expectations and the same amount of respect. Though at first he was reluctant, he became really interested in Horticulture. He did well on his tests, answered questions and participated in class often. Even though it was first period, he rarely missed a day. When he DID miss a day, I always bugged him until he completed the makeup work. Though more than one teacher in the school had said that he was just biding his time until the day he could drop out, I was optimistic. What I didn't realize is that even though I had gone after Mark, everyone else had given up on him. He had been outside the fence for so long that no one else thought it was even remotely possible for him to make it inside the fence... and no one tried to find out.

The day that Mark turned 16, he came to my first period class, then he left the school and never returned. And I can't help but wonder, if more teachers had gone after him and would go after those like him, how might things have been different on both sides of the fence?

Mommy, do I have a pistil, too?

If you've ever spend a spring in Raleigh, you know that at this time of year is often affectionately known as "pollegeddon." Pollen from every plant in the city seems to be dispersed at the exact same moment covering cars, playgrounds, and sinus cavities in a thick layer of yellow misery. So needless to say, outdoor activities are frightening to say the least.

Earlier this week I was babysitting a little girl I have come to believe is either my long, lost niece or just a miniature version of me. At 6 years old, she wants to know everything and already knows a lot more that your typical 6 year old. This week, as we were making alternate plans because the pollen had demolished the local park, she asked her mom: "Why do we have pollen?" Her mom stumbled a little but gave a semi accurate, hardly scientific explanation and then said: "Liz knows more about it than me. You should ask her."

*insert dear in headlights look here*

My mind started spinning. How do you explain sexual reproduction of plants to a 6 year old without eliciting some sort of questions about sexual reproduction in PEOPLE (A topic I am simply not qualified or comfortable talking to a 6 year old about.) Quickly, I responded: "Your mom's right!" and tried to change the subject.

Though I had dodged the "birds and bees" bullet for the moment, I thought all the next day: How do you explain pollen to a 6 year old? How do you lay aside the science-y words and technical jargon stuff to explain the basic concept of pollen?

As I was sorting this out in my brain it occurred to me that even though I have a minor in horticulture and have taught this concept to high school students more than once, it was still a challenge to try to transpose what I knew into something that a 6 year old could understand. This was a whole new level of comprehension for me.

If this experience was such a challenge to me, the teacher, imagine how powerful this tool could be to encourage higher order thinking in students? Ask them to take a concept you're working on and put it into terms that someone from a different walk of life could understand: a 6 year old, a 90 year old, an alien from Mars. Just the process such an activity would lead your students through would challenge them to really think and could be the difference between a mediocre understanding and total mastery of the content.

New toys

Wordle http://www.wordle.net/
Wordle was introduced to me when I was student teaching and not only is it FUN, it's also really useful in a variety of ways. Take any body of text and paste it in and Wordle will turn it into a "beatiful word cloud". Every time a word is used, it appears larger in the word cloud. It's hard to describe in words, yet the words sometimes describe it best.
From Desiderata by Max Ehrmann


Sporcle http://www.sporcle.com/
Warning: Sporcle has the potential to be totally addictive. It's a collection of timed quizzes on a variety of lists. You can make your own or use the ones already there. Either way, inside the classroom or out, this is a great way to spruce up sometimes boring but necessary rote memorization type tasks.

Apparently you are not supposed to use allergy eye drops with your contacts.

One of my dearest friends from undergrad is now teaching Ag in Eastern North Carolina. On Friday she sent me an email:

Apparently you are not supposed to use allergy eye drops with your
contacts.

Do you know what will happen?

It will dilate your eyes.

I did not wear my contacts today or yesterday because my eyes were
bothering me. allergies. So I got some allergy eye drops the Visine
kind.

Today before second period I went to put my contacts back in because my
eyes felt better.

My left contact went it good. My right one wanted to be a turd and it
had something on it when I put it in my eye and so it immediately had to
come out. I did not have my solution....but I did have some eye drops!
Same thing right? WRONG!!!!

Then the bell rang for second period and I was getting somethings ready for class when one of the kids was like "what's up with your eyes?!?" I was like "I don't know, what?" He was like "one of your eyes is bigger than the other." I freaked out but tried to play it off.

So needless to say I look like a freak. And I did some Googling and
found out that this has happened to other people who had the same
reaction as me. Freaking out.

When I finished laughing hysterically, I realized that this was a perfect example of a cardinal rule of teaching: ALWAYS BE PREPARED!

You never know when your contact will fall out, your pants will rip, or you'll have an unfortunate incident while mucking stalls out at the barn. So you have to be prepared: spare set of clothes, coveralls, glasses or more contacts, and the right kind of eye drops, just in case.

Walking the walk

I'm not sure what this says about my ability to relax on break but..

Just for fun, I'm reading a text book on classroom management The first chapter talks about identifying the cause of behavior problems and one of the potential causes is demands and prohibitions: your expectations.

One paragraph says:

"Sometimes teachers state one set of expectations verbally but in subtle ways convey a different set of expectation through their non verbal behavior."

Thinking back, I was terrible at this. I would set the expectation that students needed to raise their hands to speak, but then in class discussion, I would respond to students who didn't raise their hands. I would set the expectation that cell phone were NOT allowed but then give students several chances to put them away. During my whole student teaching experience, I saw cell phones every day, but never took a single one away.

Now I see that every time I changed the expectation, I just confused my students. They were never quite sure which rules I was enforcing, which ones I wasn't and which ones I thought were important. And I have no doubt that if I had tried to start enforcing some of those rules mid semester there would have been chaos!

When I set expectations for my students, I have to be sure to enforce them; the same way, every day. Students need consistency. They need to know what to expect. As a teacher, I have to walk the walk when managing my classroom so that my students have the best opportunity to learn.

--Kauffman, J. M., Mostert, M. P., & Trent, S. C. (2002). Identifying behavior problems. In D. P. Hallahan (Ed.), Managing classroom behavior: A reflective case-based approach (pp. 3-20). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Cover your assets...

**For that often dry lesson on assets and liabilities:
Have the students draw their dream farm. (If they don't want to farm, maybe a dream house, or dream business.) Then have them go through and create an inventory list and determine what their assets and liabilities are. Then have them assign value to each item and determine their net worth.

Go get me a bucket of steam...

Some thoughts:

**If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never do anything creative.

**If you're green, you're growing. If you think you're ripe, you're about to rot.

**You don't know what you don't know.

**What am I doing as a teacher to get my student's best efforts?

**If someone questions my students about agriculture, I want them to be able to confidently, accurately, and passionately defend it and advocate for it.

A new beginning...

I've played with blogs over the years, usually only utilizing them when I needed to vent or rant. That's not helpful or interesting for anyone and probably not very healthy for me.

Also, over the years, I've kept a variety of notebooks to try to keep track of the things that I've learned on my way to becoming a teacher. Funny stories, interesting thoughts, and activities to try have scattered the pages of composition books and the corners of my notes for the last 5 years. Today, I set about trying to find all those ideas and thoughts but to no avail.

So I've developed a solution: I'm going to use my blog to keep up with the ideas and tips so that when it's time to use them, I'll be able to find them. And maybe, somewhere along the way, others will stumble upon my ideas and leave theirs in exchange for mine.