Month: November 2016

     I am grateful today for the opportunity to work with kids. Children work so hard to understand the world. The questions that they bring up truly show big hearts and open minds. Just being able to work with kiddos and hear those questions and see the way that they are forming their understandings of the world, gives me hope for our future. Yes, there are some kids that are being brought up to think in ways that will not promote peace and justice. However, there are many children who will grow into people with open minds and big hearts. I am grateful for the opportunity to give them things to think about and guidance along this path. 

     I smile all the time. So when it came time to pick something that makes me smile to write about, it seemed like it might be hard to pick. But then, I thought about my days at school lately, and I knew what I needed to write about. 

    I am so grateful for all the love that comes my way through drawings and letters from my students. I have a wall behind my desk that is dedicated to being a gallery for things I am given. It is overflowing with drawings and little notes. Each time a student gives me something, it makes me smile. I am sure that is why I keep getting things. The students in my classroom see how it makes me smile when I get things and they really love to make me happy. 

    It is sometimes hard to remember why I like doing what I do. These little notes and drawings help to bring focus to why I am there. Each small gift from a student gives me a small moment to celebrate. That is priceless. 

     Every morning, I spend an hour with myself. I use the quiet hours of the early morning to read, write and reflect while I drink coffee. As an introvert, this quiet time by myself is like a battery to charge my soul. If I don’t get this time, I am a little off the rest of the day. 

     For the last year or so, I have also added meditation into the morning routine. Taking the time for stillness has really helped me to learn control of my emotions at high stress times. I use guided meditations to help me to center myself and begin my day in a peaceful place. 

    I am thankful that I am able to have this morning quiet to begin each day. 

     I vividly remember the first time I heard that people were working on a technology to create the internet. I was in my first year of college, in 1996, and fascinated by the fact that I could send message to my friends at other universities. At that point in time, the University of Minnesota had come up with an e-mail system that could be accessed from ones university account. It was like science fiction coming to life. We were hearing rumors about this thing that would exist where people could look up information right from their computers. It seemed so unbelievable that something like that would exist. 

       Fast forward to 2016. We have computers that fit in the palm of your hand, maps that are scary accurate at telling you where you are, virtual tours that make you feel like you are in that place, and video calls that let you see your loved ones face to face and feel like you are in the same room. Twenty years have passed, and hardly anyone can imagine doing things the old-fashioned way. Many people have a smart phone and look things up all the time. I pull my iPhone out during many conversations to look something up. We have apps that track our health data. There is an entire library of music on our phones or in our computers or both. It is incredible how these technologies have continued to improve. 

    I am grateful for the technology that helps us be informed and to keep track of our loved ones. 

I am a few days behind on my gratitude challenge, so I will catch up in this post. Today I am grateful for hobbies, work, and friends and family. 

Hobbies

I am thankful for my blog. I started it to keep the assignments for Teachers Write the first summer the program was offered. Then, I continued to post in it in order to have a forum to make book suggestions to my middle school students. It has morphed and changed throughout the years.  Now, it is a place for me to reflect. There are two regular posts that I keep up with for the most part each week. A Monday collection of what I have been reading, and a Saturday celebration of the week. I enjoy taking time to write reflections and I definitely benefit from looking for celebrations. It has helped me be more mindful. 

Work

Teachers have a very difficult job. It has become more difficult in the last few years, with more paperwork and more expected of us.

My class this year has 27 students. 5 of those students have anger management issues, 3 students are newly arrived refugees who are learning English, 6 of those students have IEPs, and many of those students have attention issues and extremely short attention spans. According to our first district assessment, 4 students are on level in reading and 4 students are on level in math. Everyone else needs extra support to get to grade-level. I don’t say all this to complain, just to paint a picture of my current reality. I am exhausted at the end of every school day. 

It is true that I have to work extremely hard and that my job sometimes (always) stresses me out. Yet, I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to be a teacher. I thrive on the challenge. I know how much these little souls need consistent love and encouragement and I know I can do that. It is rewarding to see the lightbulbs come on, to receive the hand-made presents and the sincere and tight hugs. I can honestly tell you that I am making a difference in the lives of many kiddos. That is powerful stuff!

Last Spring, I read Sir Ken Robinson’s guide about finding your element. I found the ideas very enlightening, but I didn’t really need to do the exercises. My element has already been found. I am very grateful for that. 

Friends and Family

I am grateful for all the people that I love. I have a great network of supportive friends and amazing family. 

     I am thankful for our cars. It is nice to be able to afford two vehicles so that we each can get to the things we enjoy. Although we could get by with one car, I am so grateful that we are able to continue to have two cars. 

   I absolutely love our Toyota Venza. We bought it new last year and it has all the bells and whistles. It is so nice to have a car with extra cargo space. 

I am grateful for the cars that we have that help us to get to the places we want to go. 

    I am so thankful for the ability to read. In recent years, with my diagnosis of Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis, I have been much more aware of how lucky I am to be able to see well and think well and read every day. 

   Reading has always been the thing I write under hobbies on surveys. I read avidly and voraciously. I love to read so many different types of books. 

   I read self-improvement books in the morning each day and then throughout the day I find time to read novels. If not any other time of day, I read for at least 30 minutes before bed. Because I am a teacher, I believe it is part of my job to read young adult and children’s titles. I love breezing through new children’s books and connecting to other teachers to share the love. 

I am thankful for reading.