Forgetting the Golden Rule = Clash of the Humans

I am more and more amazed at what people think, and then say or even post on social media. Some may be saying the same about me after reading this post, but whatever, because mine is a message of tolerance and acceptance not one of "My way is better than yours" or "I was here first."

My hometown has experienced a transition of population over the last twenty years or so. People from far away places, with alternate beliefs and ways of life have moved into the area. I think this is a good thing, but many disagree and loudly so. These people are called "Ridgers" or "Hippies" by their so-called haters. They call themselves "Progressives." Many came to Viroqua, WI seeking out the advantages of having access to a Waldorf education in a small town setting. Plus, I live in "the driftless area" meaning that the glaciers did not come through here, leaving the beautiful landscape of green rolling hills and coulees. Visitors often say how they'd love to live here.

My little town was going down the path to becoming a ghost town or at least with an abandoned Main Street. Can you guess whether or not we have a Wal-Mart? Of course we do. That's the first sign of a dying town. It's like when sitcoms will bring in a new child to the family to try reviving the series. It usually only lasts for a short while. People think that Wal-Mart will save the day since now we have access to cheap (in both senses of the word) food and clothing. Residents are then bewildered when the family-run businesses of our Main Street were closing their doors as they cannot compete with WalMart's pricing. I'm happy to say I have not shopped there since 2/11/11 as I try to support the locally run businesses, but I digress.

The newer residents of the area have influenced many changes for the good that people seem to overlook or forget about like a food co-op, several new businesses on the Main Street, a community theatre organization, and some new restaurants. If it were not for many of the newer residents bringing life back into our downtown, it would be a long line of empty buildings.

This lead me to think about the same thing in schools. What if your child were to be "the new kid" and he or she dressed differently, spoke differently, liked different foods, or had a different religious belief? Would you want your child to be treated like the outcast or to be welcomed into the group? Would you like your child's uniquenesses to be seen as assets or problems? Would you want your child labeled with a derogatory name? I think we know the answers to these obvious questions. We were all taught the Golden Rule when were were younger, but it often leaves the forefronts of our minds. We all need to be reminded of it; some of us more often than others. We need to ask ourselves, "Why do we treat others as we would never want to be treated?"

If we were all named Jenny, had blonde hair and blue eyes, measured 5'7" and agreed on everything, wouldn't the world be a boring place? I think so.

How Well Do We Interact with Our Stakeholders?

Today, I helped conduct part of a market study at my local Food Co-op as one of my duties of being on the Board of Directors. We are working on our vision and deciding what steps to take in the future. We're seeking out opinions from the owner-members since it is THEIR food co-op and therefore, what they want matters. This got me thinking: How well do we do this in schools?

Parents, students, and community members are also "owner-members" for our schools. Do we ask what their vision is or the direction in which they'd like to see the school go? I am not familiar with many schools that do this. If there are schools in my area that do this, they're not telling the story. It should not just be the school board, or the administration or school employees who make these decisions for the school. Stakeholders should not have to come to a monthly school board meeting in order to share thoughts; their thoughts should be sought out on a regular basis throughout the school year. This means more often than the one open house at the beginning of the year or the two parent-teacher conferences during the year. The more engaged families and the community are in our schools, the more likely students are to succeed. Students need to see that people care and that they are watching.

Schools are not only missing out on opportunities for feedback, but also for compliments. My experience is that, for the most part, families seem pleased with the schools in this area. Is someone seeking input from stakeholders at sporting events or fine arts productions?  If more people were encouraged to share their thoughts, opinions and insight on a regular basis, many hands would make light work.

My Biggest Secret as a Teacher

"Lean in closely," I'd say. My eyes would shift to my peripheral vision on each side to check for eavesdroppers and then I'd whisper, "I'm not a reader."

I hated that I didn't read. I could handle 86-page Judy Blume books, but nothing else could hold my attention. If it wasn't a magazine article, it was too long. I wanted to read the John Grisham novels, but I'd instead have my husband read them and then fill me in afterwards. I figured that I'd watch the movie, so I wasn't missing out on anything. I never understood it when people said that the book was MUCH better than the movie. How could that be? For a person in her 30s with a Master's degree, one would expect more.

When I assigned reading to my students, I'd only give them a few pages, as at their age that's all I could handle successfully. When I was a student, if my teacher assigned an entire chapter to my class, I'd totally skip it. Who knows how much of  U.S. history I still do not know; how embarrassing.

One of my beloved friends and former colleagues, Jennifer Malphy (@jmalphy), inspired me by piquing my curiosity about so many books. She is so gifted with regard to finding and keeping up-to-date on young adult novels and getting middle schoolers to start reading and keep reading. So goes the theory, "You are what you teach," I was essentially a middle school girl who wanted to read but wasn't an avid reader and didn't know what to choose or where to begin.  She, being as interested in technology as I am, explored Nooks with me. She for the school library, and I for personal use. I decided while being a self-proclaimed "gadget girl," purchasing an eReader might be the answer to my problem. Jen had been researching about the successful use of them in school libraries.

After I purchased a Nook for myself, I also bought them for my own children, who already liked to read. I implemented them into my Science and Social Studies classes instead of using textbooks. I brought my family's Nooks to school, as well as my iPad and iPod touch with the Nook app. I was also fortunate to have some to borrow from the library, as Jen had purchased eReaders by then. It was an amazing transformation I saw in my classroom. Students who were reluctant readers would read and even volunteer to read aloud. Students would put their heads together with ANY other student and happily share a device, as I didn't have enough to be 1:1. Everyone in my classroom was engaged in reading! I was so happy with the result and I've since shared this with other teachers, encouraging them to use eRaeders in their classrooms.

I am happy to say that I've now read more in the last five years than in all my years before that put together. I've burrowed in and lost hours of time with my nose "in a Nook." The first movie I saw after reading the book was "Eat, Pray, Love." And I finally get to say, "The book WAS better than the movie."

Being By Myself Doesn't Equate to Being Alone

I'm on day 2 of +Akevy Greenblatt 's 30 day blog challenge, and I'm still up for it. :)


I've been thinking about my drive to be connected and my every-growing love of solitude and how they should be at opposite ends of the gamut, but are they really?

I work essentially "alone" in my home office for eleven months of the year, and being a very social person, people often ask me, "Aren't you lonely being home alone all day long?" I usually answer with a laugh, because I actually have the freedom to be much more connected while working at home than I did while working in my former "brick and mortar" school. Besides talking with my students and their families via Blackboard and phone, I have several social media tools accessible to me.

I now have the ability to check my Twitter feed every so often and keep in touch with educators from all over the world. Twitter was blocked at my previous school. I'm a member of some group chats and can reach out to those fellow educators as well, but phones were deemed "off limits" from 7:30am to 3:30pm except for our "30 minute duty-free lunch." Over the summer, I've become a member of a few Voxer groups, and I've added professional contacts to my Facebook friends, which previously has only consisted of personal friends and relatives and I look forward to those connections continuing into the school year.

Since my current school is a charter school and all of the 2,200 students are there by choice, there is a different emphasis on reaching out to the world. We have a PR person on staff and coordinate special online and face-to-face events to get the word out of the great things that we do. In a day and age of school branding becoming ever popular in addition to Wisconsin's school choice option for families, I'd think that telling one's story would remove the blocking of social media, but that's just my opinion. I am just happy to say that I am connected.

The Challenge Begins

I started a blog, because that's the thing to do - share ideas, get feelings and experiences "out there" or at least documented. Well, I've had lots of ideas and feelings and experiences, but not much documentation of them beyond the 140 character limit of Twitter.

For some reason, I psych myself out of blogging before I even begin. I have ideas in my head and think, "Who will care about that?" or "How will that be lengthy enough to bother with?" In my head, I know that blogging is for ME and that the topic or length do not matter, but when it comes to putting pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboard rather, it has not happened much. I read others' blogs and think, "I have that same thought and could have written the same thing." or "Wow, that was short but good." I've heard +Josh Stumpenhorst aka @stumpteacher, relate it to his daily running routine he's established. If he can run for hundreds and hundreds of days in a row, then I can certainly blog a bit more often.

Enter +Akevy Greenblatt, aka @akevy613, with his 30 day blog post challenge. Just in the last two days, he's inspired me and pushed me to push myself to get back on the "blogging horse." We even might be guest bloggers on each other's blogs in the future for a change of pace and to help establish some camaraderie.

I love a challenge! Game on, Akevy and check you rear view mirror, Josh.

Round Two - Ding Ding

I am getting ready to start year two of online teaching. I'm looking ahead but also looking back as last year was such a blur and went so quickly. The best parts of last year were all of the thank yous and how at the end of the year, the students kicked their studying into high gear as they saw what they had left to accomplish in the time left. I loved how there was so much more time for 1:1 connections with my students and parents. I had very few barriers with the various tech tools that I've been learning about over the years. All students had a device! The cherry on the sundae was that for the most part, there was no internet filter. This was bliss. I felt like I had freedom to teach and the time and tools to do it.

There are many myths about K-12 online schooling. I think the biggest is that students who school at home are missing out on social interaction. Students who school online are not lacking socially. Many of my students actually have more social opportunities. One of my students met Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and had lunch with the governor of Minnesota. Another one of my students schooled from a beach in Florida while on vacation and of course was proud to give us a tour during class. Another would go to a college campus with his mom sometimes for class. Students are much more mobile when schooling online. But even if not, we are social while in class just as in a physical classroom. Think of the connections you've made with those you've only met online. We have homeroom gatherings and school gatherings in addition to regular classes. We play games and have just-for-fun social times. We also meet face-to-face. There are several outings scheduled each month. These are optional and are all over the state, but are also opportunities for students to meet those whom they've only met online. Remember how excited you get when you meet someone face-to-face for the first time? Kids act the same way. It even makes the state testing exciting because we get to meet many students for the first time. How many brick and mortar students are excited about state testing because they get to see their teacher? It's little things like this that make me anxious for year number two to begin.

The best description of how I felt last year would be "happily overwhelmed." I sometimes felt as if I had no idea what I was doing, but couldn't stop smiling because of course I knew what I was doing. The best description of how I feel now is just "happy" because I have the best job in the world. I am a teacher.

ICE 2013 - What's the Point?

I anxiously awaited #ICE13 for what seemed so long and it went by so quickly. Making the most of each moment with little down time makes experiences become memories before I'm ready.  One might think that the carefully planned workshops, sessions and keynotes might be the highlights or foci, but I look most forward to connecting with people. I got to see friends that I see fairly often, enjoyed more "first time F2F meetings with tweeps" which is always worth any amount of miles traveled, but I still missed out on a few people which unfortunately happens. I never crossed paths with +Pernille Ripp, merely glanced at @teach42 (Steve Dembo) and missed out on a first F2F with and @ipadsammy (Jon Samuelson). On the flip side, I reconnected with @jenwagner (Jen Wagner), had a short conversation with +Josh Stumpenhorst and was reignited by @bengrey (Ben Grey) with his insightful, though-provoking session. I also was introduced to many like-minded individuals. Some "new" people were actually ones that I "knew" on Twitter as we'd followed each other for some time. Meeting in person gives those relationships a new layer and takes them to a new level.

So the next time you get a chance take the trip to any conference, EdCamp ,or other professional gathering, make the time and spend the money. You'll get more than you pay for - really.