teach.run.pray.

The week before testing can be daunting. Reviewing for state standardized testing can be BORING...FRUSTRATING...EXHAUSTING. However, my co-worker and I decided to change that. Last Monday, students walked into a crime scene and became active detectives in Granger's Detective Group (DDG). The room was transformed  and a "possible suspects" board brought it all together. As students walked in, they were handed a detective bag. The detective bag was a Ziploc bag containing a small magnifying glass, a pack of sticky notes, and a pair of silly glasses. I even had detective/mission impossible style music playing in the background. The kids were totally stoked! I began class by welcoming the new detectives (of course I had my silly detective glasses on) and explained someone had snuck into our classroom over the weekend and completely trashed it, and they had to figure out who it was. I also explained that focused and hardworking detectives would earn a clue each day at the ...

About two weeks ago, I ran the Diva Half Marathon in Myrtle Beach with a close friend. Well, we didn't run it together, but we both completed it. It was not my best race-one of my slowest to be honest-but my less than average performance had everything to do with my life decisions that weekend.  We arrived in Myrtle Beach late that Friday. The week had been crazy busy and stressful. I was nervous about the race because I had been dealing with hip and glute issues again (and they were bad). I got out of the car Friday night in pretty severe pain and hobbled down the beach with my friend and her aunt. On Saturday, the pain subsided a little, but I was afraid I'd wake up race day, Sunday, and not be able to walk, so instead of taking care of myself, I made some less than savory decisions on Saturday.  After picking up our race packets and spending a little too much money at the expo and shopping, Allie and I decided to spend a few hours on the beach...with a cooler full of co...

Well, tomorrow is Monday and sh*ts getting real. However, I'm looking forward to waking up at 5:15 a.m. and going to work because I get to change the world one kid at a time Monday through Friday. Now, I didn't leave work Friday afternoon feeling this way-so let's backtrack. Friday started as any other day. I hugged each student as they walked through the door. I was excited to teach my curriculum for the day. I couldn't wait to do my read aloud because I knew how pumped up the kids have been about this book ( The Thief of Always by Clive Barker - if you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend you doing so-adult or child-it's amazing). This book has stirred up some incredibly deep class discussions, and the kids have been blowing me away with their insight. It has just been so much fun. Then, there was a data meeting during planning. A lot of the data being discussed I had already seen but from a different perspective-from a growth perspective, not a mastery per...

Most weeks, I put in approximately 50 hours of work into my job. Those 50 hours are completed in the school building, in other words, that's how many hours I spend at my workplace versus home. It does not include the hours I spend at home grading papers, writing lesson plans, searching for engaging ideas, or prepping classroom props for room transformations or fun activities. Now, throw a graduate-level class on top of that and maintaining a healthy marriage and social life. I stay pretty busy, and at times, it all gets very overwhelming, so I need ways to decompress. About 10 years ago, I took up running as a way to challenge myself. In turn, running turned into a major stress relieving activity for me, and I fell in love with the runner's high. I became addicted to the freedom and euphoria a hard sweaty run left me with. However, the past few weeks, I've had moments where I made every excuse in the book to not run. I avoided it. The desire was lacking. So, I skipped my ...

Earlier this week, my students were working away at their desks, and I was near my classroom window grabbing papers from a tray on my back counter. As I stood there turning all the papers in the same direction, in my peripheral vision, I noticed a flash of movement pass by the window. Instantly, my heart dropped. I stopped turning papers, and I slowly turned my head toward the window as my heart pounded in my chest. With a hellacious gasp of relief, I realized the flash was a small branch with dead leaves blowing by. Then, my mind went on a crazy adventure.  What if that flash had been a crazy person? What if I had looked and seen an ill-intended person pointing a gun at me? Would I have been able to get those 16 innocent lives safely out of the classroom? Would I have been calm enough to think rationally? Would I have been brave enough to put my life on the line for them? For the first time in nine years of teaching, I felt afraid. For the first time in nine years of teac...

A few weeks ago, I was lying on my right side  in bed . The front of my body was facing the front window of our bedroom. The front window of our bedroom is on the front of the house. We live on the corner, so from our bedroom window, we can see the house across the street and several houses on the street that runs perpendicular. I was having trouble falling asleep and through our blackout curtains, I eyeballed a blinking halo of light. The blinking halo was coming from a neighbor's porch. For close to a year or longer, we have occasionally talked about the annoyance of this blinking porch light. Why the neighbor doesn't fix it or change out the lightbulb, I have no clue. However, on this particular night, I found comfort in that blinking halo and not an ounce of annoyance. See, this flickering light suddenly comforted me. I no longer thought of it as something the neighbor needed to do something about. I saw it as a sign or affirmation of where I was - home. I could be...

As a teacher, for me, my biggest successes are the connections I make with my students. Not test scores. Not grades. Not reading levels. Connections.  And, for those who have read nearly all my posts, you know I have a soft heart for the hard to love ones, and I probably always will. However, I will hold kids accountable, and I will have them take responsibility for their actions. I will do my part in teaching them how to right their wrongs and how to learn from their mistakes. I will do my part in teaching them how to be mindful and thoughtful with their choices. And, I will always treat them with dignity and respect. After all, kids are human, and like us adult humans, I've learned they appreciate transparency as well.  Let me tell you a story about a boy. He's in trouble a good bit. He has a bad attitude. So, automatically, I'm drawn to him, and I wanted to connect with him. The problem was I didn't know how, and one day, when I didn't even mean to, I connect...