I’m a Self Promoting Idiot
Yeah, I’m feeling it. I’m feeling it all…. because somehow I have, yet again, lost focus. I’m worrying about the results.
I’m worrying about my success.
DEAR TROUBLE(D) STUDENT
Dear Trouble(d) Student,
I am sure you think all I want is for you to sit quietly, do your work, and learn. You are wrong. I want so much more.
ON THE PASSING OF A FORMER STUDENT
When I look into their faces as I read them the poem, I still see the young man (who was almost constantly in a cast of some sort) sitting in a middle school classroom. I see his energy and exuberance in their young and promising eyes, and my heart breaks again… and again… and again.
Teacher Confessions
I love teaching. ….. At least, I did. Now, I’m not so sure. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to teach. I was made to teach. I am now in my 11th year as a teacher, and something in me has changed. I have the opportunity to work outside of the classroom every other day, and it […]
CONFESSIONS OF A SPECIAL EDUCATION PARENT
My heart breaks when I receive documentation from the school concerning my son’s reading ability. We did everything you are supposed to do. We have read to him from infancy, we practiced sight words for hours and hours, we read, and we read, and we read. Yet, our twelve year old son still finds himself in the very bottom percentile […]
YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE
There is something about hearing I am not alone in the struggle. I am not the only one in need of grace. The best part, though, is the grace. The grace connects us. I love that. Yes, there is connecting in the fighting and the uphill climbing, but the real bond is in the grace and the overcoming.
I WANT CONTROL
I can try to do things the way I’ve always done them, which is guaranteed to fail in an environment that is no longer in my control, or I can learn to dance.
GIFTED AND TALENTED
The students that are non standard according to the academic world are trapped behind desks where they are pushed to operate in their weaknesses rather than their strengths. They are told they need to work harder and achieve more and that they are not enough in themselves. (Does this sound familiar to any of you that are trying to live up to the false standards our culture promotes?)
JUST ANOTHER DAY
As an imperfect perfectionist, one of my biggest problems is that I can NEVER do enough. I don’t mean this in an overly dramatic sense. I literally cannot physically do enough to accomplish everything that I feel should be done in a day. Two major factors in my life make this particularly true: my job and my children. These two factors entered my […]
GRACE UNDER PRESSURE
There are more lessons to create, more papers to grade, more parent emails to answer, more meetings to attend, more papers to grade, more standardized tests to prepare non standard students for, and, of course, more papers to grade.
When I grade the papers, every error I mark is either me failing to teach well enough, or the students failing. If the students are failing, aren’t I still failing?