I have been discovered and it feels great. I have a comment about my Bill Bryson books and someone from the world of blogging found me, responded to it and even left suggestions. I am really excited. Wonder who else is out there?
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2008/05/8-reasons-bloggers-hide-their-blog-call.html
This blogger has finally said what all teachers or at least some of the ones in my class are feeling about blogging. It is funny that we say, “we are just teachers and what can we possibly share?” I would like to add that at times this a lonely profession and we lock ourselves in a classroom. Some new teachers don’t even come into the lunch room. The real hear ache is when we promise a new teacher and then their year starts and we can not add the help we promised. Maybe with other teachers blogging ..help is a click away. Encouragement is a click away and well you get the idea. I also loved when the blogger stated that we are human and so having people respond to our blogs may be a little unnerving. But come on we all have survived being taken to the mat by colleagues we see everyday, We can stand it from people half way around the world.
For some reason, I continue to read Bill Bryson. Thanks to Karen who knows my love for Australia and suggested his Sun Burned Country book, Followed by thanks to Rue for hiking with such knowledge and humor the AT so I had to read A Walk in the Woods. So I decided to buy I’m a Stranger Here Myself for the most recent plane ride to Tampa. There are so many things I want to share with you but let me quote from page 52 as the author is trying to explain to the reader the concept of 1 trillion dollars in an attempt to understand the US debt as 4.5 trillion. Okay, here it goes…the author says to lock yourself in a vault with all 1 trillion dollar bills. Your job is to use a marker and mark each bill in the vault. If you mark one dollar per second, that would be 1,000 in seventeen minutes. After 12 days of continuous marking you would have 1 million marked., 120 days to mark 10 million and 1, 200 days to reach 100 million. In this way you would be a billionarire in 31.7 years. But now the fun starts. In 31,709.8 years you would have counted and marked your trillionth dollar. Is that a mind blower …or what? Thanks, Bill.
Okay, I admit I would never have found the Shirkey article unless it had been assigned for class, or highlighted on the news by Charlie Gibson. Yes, let me confess right now that I love watching television. When I get ready for school each morning it is on, channel 7 to be exact. That is how I get my first dose of news. I am not the teacher who gets the Times in her mailbox, carries it home, to have it pile up near the the couch until recycling day. I am not even the teacher who checks her netvibe page each day. Yikes..should I be admitting all of this? Well, I am in deep so let me continue. I even like some commercials, if they have physical comedy in the ads. I am the person that records all the new shows during the Fall and then decides which ones will be my favorite shows to watch through the season. I can hear myself in the faculty room, “Has anyone seen…..? But let me also say that I love the travel shows, history channels and anything having to do with foreign cultures. Have you seen walking through the Bible…it is wonderful! I understand that all this free time and cognitive surplus should be used better. But, searching the web and responding to blogs..ahhhhh; I just don’t think I am there yet. I still get very frustrated when it takes me hours to search the best price the my airfare or when I google something and the first three entries give me nothing of what I needed. What I really want is discovery through talking. Set me up on a hike with a national park ranger explaining the Grand Canyon or Mesa Verde ruins and I am all there to fill the cognitive surplus. I want people, with blood running through their veins and humor that I can hear, a shoulder that I can touch as the condor swoops near the Southern Rim. I want real interaction. Please don’t suggest I set up an avatar to help me with this.
I realize that I honestly do not know how I feel about technology in and out of the classroom. I am a little old fashion and I know from many life experiences that change is tough for me. But when I hear that so many things in my comfort zone will be obsolete, I am just plain scared. I suppose if I try just to stay slightly ahead of the curve I may be alright. However, I feel that I am way behind already so here comes the fear again. I am using my 50th birthday as a starting point to get more in-touch. Before the October first deadline I have made all my vacation plans on line, emailed my friends and stopped calling some of them, will be making my sky diving reservations on line, downloaded some photos onto Kodak Gallery and actually ordered clothes on line. But the greatest thing to show that I am not there yet on the technology spectrum is a recent date. The guy only had my cell number, I turn my cell off once I am home and use the home phone. So when I thought he was not calling…..right he was leaving messages on my cell. Okay I still have a long way to go.
My school recently lost an 11th grader to cancer. She was a gallant fighter of the disease for years but the shock still rang through our hearts. I was her kindergarten teacher and have taken her death very hard. Every once and a while I like to purge my memory box. This time it was out of necessity because I was having some work done at my house and all the boxes were littered across the garage floor. It was a late night, after the funeral of this fine young woman that I decided to look through my memory box of teaching things. I was careless, or was I, that I spilled a manila envelope of letters onto the garage floor. In my haste I began to gather them up but there was one that had blown slightly away for the others. Yes an angel was in my garage! I went to pick up this letter and it was written when this young lady was in kindergarten. It was a holiday card from her parents telling me how happy she was to be in my class and how thrilled she was to be my student. At her funeral, her friends told us how her humor was always present. With that I looked around my garage and wished her well in her journey to heaven.
Just wanted to let you all know that Room 8 has a classroom pet that has turned life in the class around. Cinnamon, our beloved guinea pig, has captured the hearts and imagination of all my students. It all began on October 1 when Munchkin, Jack’s pet gave birth to four lovely little guinea pigs, WE decided to adopt Cinnamon on November 1. I had a wonderful student teacher at the time that turned a pet into lessons incorporating social studies and map skills, science and the study of mammals, literature and “wonder” writing pieces. We exploded the purchase of guinea pigs as three classmates receives these pets for the winter holidays gifts and birthday presents. With names like Norman, Cupcakes and Cream we enjoy them all. The children know more about her habits, squeaks and needs than I do. Though she has decided to pee pee on a few of her human friends we really love her very much.
I really enjoy going to conferences. An administator once said that if you pull one thing out of a conference then it is all worth it. By “it” she must have met the lessons plans and schedules we leave for our substitute; the hours of work we put in even thought we will not be there. Recently the word substitute has been nearly erased from my school district. I was all set to go to a conference on Smart Boards and then the day before, yes after I had written out all my plans, I find out that I do not have a sub. I know these blogs are only being read by my classmates. However, if anyone out there ever stumbles upon my thoughts could you let me know if your district has the same problem finding people to substitute?
