The Difference It Makes

When I think back to the cookie cutter approach to teaching, learning, textbooks and tests of my own 'education', I shudder.  Mind you, I was one of the lucky ones; book-learning came relatively easy for me.

 Seeing my name on the wall didn't bother me-I got STARS!

I LOVED to read and write and spell!

But not everyone did.  Not everyone could make the grade.  

Some children never got a spelling star.

Some kids hated to be asked to read aloud.

Some kids hated school.

WHY?

Christmas Gifts Welcome in the Classroom

                          

As we returned to class this past week and carried out the annual Show and Tell ritual, I was struck by the number of digital gadgets my students had received...

Laptops, I Pods, tablets, Wii systems, e Readers, Nintendo DS contraptions, cellphones, digital cameras...all in the hands of my ten-year old students!

I was also struck how - when I was not much older than they are - reading science fiction, that the fiction included handheld devices that one could speak into and see the other person!  How impossible that seemed back in the day of the rotary-dial telephone.  Web-camming is a new verb and now we can Skype with students around the world in realtime!

When I was my students' age the word computers evoked an image of the roomful of computer framesNASA had to use in order to guide the various space  missions. 

(And yes, I watched the televising of those first steps on the moon on a black&white TV!)  

These days many of my students own personal computers that fit into their jeans pocket!

                           

Back at it!

For a multitude of reasons I have not been posting here for months.  Not that I haven't been working and writing!  I have been teaching in the busy, messy, noisy way Vicki Davis talks about.
And I have been continuing my graduate studies.  And my volunteer work... and my family life!

With two students who have autism and another whose first language is not English ...in addition to the other smiling/not smiling faces in our class this year, I have been extra busy as a teacher since September rolled in.  (There aren't actually enough hours in the day, are there?!)

Or at least I felt busier!  And stressed out a little more too!

Teacher stress is very real but it's not unmanageable.  Recognizing that you are experiencing it and acknowledging that it is a normal emotion in this profession is perhaps key to staying sane!