The Sunrise Story

Time spent with family is good for the soul... Here they come! I love getting to meet the bus, especially on the day of my arrival! Intense concentration going on here! Auntie tried to braid her hair...this is my second or third try.  Wrigley gets so excited he leaps onto the bay window to see who's coming! Hard to get him into pictures this year, so I'm happy to get this one! Last day of school selfie!  I swear, I have more family here, but I adore my time being an auntie. More family pics coming soon. I hope you get a chance to enjoy time with your family this holiday season. 

I am sitting at a table in a library in my hometown. This branch is named Sixteen Acres Library. What is amazing about this is more than thirty years ago, this was the place of my very first job. I was a library page. It was a fancy name for someone who shelved books and helped with the summer reading program for kids. I loved that job! It was my first taste of freedom. I rode my bike down Plumtree Road to get here. I spent hours amongst the books. When I got my cart to shelve, I'd disappear for what felt like hours. I'd browse and find as many books as I'd shelve. Every once in a while, they'd ask me to shelve books in the adult section too. Those shelves were twice as tall and held so many volumes that I'd never even seen. I soaked it all up. Today, I sit in the place where I cultivated my love of books. I feel like I've come home all over again. 

DIFFERENT. That word. Oh, that word has not been my friend. I've always felt DIFFERENT. DIFFERENT means not the same, to which I translated to mean not fitting in, being wrong, and being alone. I've felt that way, in a big and small ways, my whole life. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's struggled with that word. DIFFERENT. As an educator, we "say" it's important to celebrate our differences, but we often don't show that we value those words. As educators, we look for the right answer and we need students to behave and we want them to be successful. None of those are bad things inherently, except who defines "right" and "good behavior" and "success"? We do. Do we allow, really allow, for DIFFERENT?  (This is not about blame. I'm not blaming teachers. I've done these things myself. It's about opening our eyes and asking ourselves if we truly value DIFFERENT.) These ideas have been bouncing a...

"Every day. I will write every single day. There's a lot to say. Every single day." -I committed to writing here every day during break. How is it that it's only day three and I've already run out of ideas? I know the answer. It's easy. I'm out of practice. I believe writing takes practice. I don't believe in writer's block. Writer's block is like getting a cramp when you're running. It doesn't mean you've forgotten how to run. It doesn't mean you give up. It means you have to breathe through it. The more you run, the farther you can go. Writing is like that. I haven't been showing up to this space. I'm out of practice. If I left or gave up, it wouldn't help, in fact, it would make things harder the next time I tried.  Show up. Write. Write even when there's nothing to say. Write even when it's crummy. Just write. This is how writers work. They write through the bad times and every onc...

Morning Announcements. The communications classes I'm teaching have taken over the morning announcements or the news, as we call it.  I have a confession about this...I was nervous about it and kind of dreading it. I had no experience and no idea what to do or how to make it good. I'm so glad that I stuck with it because it's amazing! How did we begin? We watched the news and talked about previous experiences with announcements and recording ourselves. We used FlipGrid almost every single class to get used to being on camera. We spent hours observing and rehearsing until the day we did it for real. Communications is the last block of the day, so we record the news the day before and push it out to the classrooms the next morning. Students work in pairs or groups of threes. They get their assignment, their press pass, and they have a limited amount of time to record their segments. They search the building for the very best place to record.  It's been two w...

I've been gone from this space for a few weeks. My initial reaction to that is guilt and shame. I remind myself that these few weeks have been filled with other kinds of writing and growing and learning. I'm back now. I celebrate returning to this space that always welcomes me home.  Winter break has begun for me. I plan on posting daily here as I have lots to process and share. Today, I want to celebrate creating. It's the holiday season and that means there are gifts to give. Every year, I make a gift for my friends, family, and students. The gifts come from my heart. For my students, I create a touchstone, a talisman, that holds our class motto. Here's a picture... Students seemed to enjoy getting these small tokens. I love to watch their eyes light up at this gesture. On a group text with colleagues, I randomly asked, "What's your favorite word?" I was sneaky and made these for my team members. Their reaction was fun to see, too! My next ventu...