The last two victories don’t really fall into the same categories as the other four. One might have been a small victory had I been able to complete it; the other wasn’t so much of a creative solution to a problem, but a willingness to make a sacrifice to reward a successful outcome.
Continue reading Small victories – final chapter (for now)…
Small victories – final chapter (for now)
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm in
Small Victories Part 2
Posted on January 24, 2012 at 3:17 pm in
There’s no manual to follow when you become a teacher. I should be more specific. There are lots of manuals for different curriculum that you choose to teach, and nowadays there are even more manuals for curriculum that you have to teach. But there are no manuals that tell what to do when you get students with personality quirks and handicaps that prevent them from learning. There is a lot of theory with philosophical stands on what to do with different kinds of kids, but rarely do you get the specific issue you have to deal with spelled out for you. It’s like wanting to buy a new appliance and you check out Consumer Reports ratings of all the possible ones you might consider, only to find that when you go to the store, none of the models listed in CR are there. You have to take your best shot with what is available and hope it’s the right one.
Continue reading Small Victories Part 2…
Small Victories
Posted on January 20, 2012 at 4:42 pm in
“A lot of kids won’t tell you, this is the day that you can reach me.” I heard this at a conference I attended many years ago. Over my 33+ years as an educator I have found this to be true. There were challenges that I faced with students that required me to try all sorts of creative and different strategies to help guide them to be successful learners. Each challenge made me think about each individual that needed to be addressed to conquer their fears, to overcome their handicaps, to feel proud of their achievements.
As a collector of quotes, two more come to mind when I think of those years. “Challenges can be stepping stones or stumbling blocks. It’s just a matter of how you view them.” – author unknown and “What really matters is what you do with what you have.” – H. G. Wells.
I was successful for the most part as a teacher in guiding my students to be independent thinkers. But through all of those years I recall a handful of students that presented me with personalities, handicaps, and backgrounds that put me to the test of being an educator.
Here are some of those small victories. Note that the names of the students will be changed to maintain privacy.
Continue reading Small Victories…
From farmer to hunter
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 2:58 pm in
I spent 33 years of my life as an educator on Long Island. Most of those years were spent in the same school district. During my tenure as an educator I would begin each year with an unknown group of children that I was to work with. I had a planned curriculum and a design on how I wanted to approach that class or classes. The first few days were always a learning curve as I assessed the students needs and personalities and adapted what I had planned to do to the climate of the group. As the school year progressed I continued to adapt to the needs of the group, doing more open ended projects with the more independent classes and more structured assignments with the more difficult ones. Each day I went to school I knew what I was getting into or what might happen since I had been with the same group over time. One could consider me a farmer of sorts. As I cultivated the field of learning, I could work the soil, pull out the weeds, and fertilize and support each plant when needed to allow them to grow. Granted there were obstacles along the way, but I was usually in control.
Then I retired. Though I’m still an educator, it is interesting that the two career paths that I am following now has changed my persona from a farmer to more of a hunter.
Continue reading From farmer to hunter…
College memories
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 3:06 pm in
As my son starts college I am reminiscent of my days long ago when I left home to embark on my first year to be on my own at college. I was the only one in my family to leave my parents’ home when it came time to move on from high school. My two older sisters both went to a local college, Hunter College. They lived at home and commuted to school using the NY City subway system. I had a choice. I had applied and made it into a local college, City University, and applied and made into the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Stony Brook was on Long Island, over an hour and a half drive from my parents’ house.
When I was of college age, my sisters had already moved out of my parents’ house. It was my sisters that convinced, or rather told me that I had to move out of the house. Stony Brook would be the choice I made and in September of 1968 my brother-in-law, sister and my parents drove me and my belongings away to college. Continue reading College memories…
Laughter
Posted on June 11, 2011 at 1:53 pm in
This piece of writing was done in a writing workshop. We were given 20 minutes to write. The topic I chose was Hearing – the sound of laughter.
It’s been said by many that laughter is a form of healing. It takes less muscles to smile than to frown, so you shouldn’t waste your energy on frowning. At least that’s how the saying goes. In reality I’m not sure if that is true, based on some Internet research. Growing up I found that I smile a lot more than I frown. Maybe that is why people say I look younger than I really am – Positive energy.
Homework again?
Posted on May 31, 2011 at 9:43 am in
A recent Board of Education meeting brought up the subject of homework again. This rears its head every 5 to 10 years. Usually there is discussion for a while, mostly complaints: There’s too much homework. Why does my child have to do school work at home when they have finished 6 hours of work in school? There’s not enough homework. Vacations are for families, not for schoolwork. My child spends 4-5 hours a night on homework. Homework looks just like busy work. Does the teacher even look at what they are assigning?
Occasionally after discussions, surveys are taken, sometimes decisions and policies are made and then we wait another 5 to 10 years until the topic comes up again with a new set of parents.
As a teacher I always had a different take on homework. I must note that I’ve always taught elementary students through 6th grade; I was the sole provider of academic work and homework, which is different from the concerns of Middle and High School parents, where teachers from different classes all assign homework with little knowledge of what other teachers have assigned. For me the expectation was that I had to give homework. Homework was supposed to be an extension of the class work that we were doing. Early in my teaching it was difficult to come up with homework since I felt that most of the things I taught worked better when I was there to mediate. There were other subjects that I didn’t feel was as prioritized to focus on which I was mandated to teach and give as homework. One principal said to me if I give homework in certain areas, even though I didn’t want to, it would appease the parents and thus allow me to do other things that I wanted to do that might have more resistance. This actually worked out to be a good philosophy; only I didn’t use it as a way to appease parents as much as I did to appease my administrator. I had the range of parent complaints of there is too much to there is too little homework (on the same assignments).
Steering the Craft – Sentence/Paragraph exercise
Posted on May 3, 2011 at 9:53 am in
This is a continuation of the exercises from the Ursula K. Le Guin’s book, Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew
Part one of this assignment was to write a paragraph of narrative, 100-150 words, in sentences of seven or fewer words. Each sentence must have a subject and a verb.
Sitting at my writer’s desk and looking out my window this is what I saw:
A woodpecker sits on the feeder. It is outside my balcony window. It has a red head. It is searching for bits of food. There is not much food left for it. A squirrel pauses on the ground. It looks up at the woodpecker. It must decide soon. Should I try or not? Though tempting, there is a cage. The cage protects the food. The woodpecker leaves. The squirrel advances. Cage or not it will eat. As it climbs it surveys obstacles. Poking through the cage it tries. It does not get much seed. The woodpecker was not a neat eater. It was very picky. Much of the food was tossed aside. “Aside” means it landed on the ground. Looking down the squirrel notices something. There is more food on the ground. It would be much easier to get. Squirrels appear to have little brains. They also perseverate. It continues to try the cage.
Part two was a lot harder. Write a half-page of narrative, up to 350 words, which is all one sentence.
Continue reading Steering the Craft – Sentence/Paragraph exercise…
Steering the craft
Posted on April 11, 2011 at 10:51 am in
I’m reading the book by Ursula K. LeGuin entitled Steering the Craft. It is a book about story writing. There are a number of exercises in it to try as you read the book. Here is the first exercise: Write a paragraph to a page that is meant to be read aloud.
My thoughts on deer:
Destructive deer are determined to drift onto my lawn and property. Seeking out fragrant flowers and shrubs that satisfy their never-ending appetite they enjoy frivolously feasting on our bounty busting branches that were beautifully set-up to enrich our landscape. They show no care for the work we have done to make our land pretty. Chomping on the tops of plants, leaving nothing but stems and roots. Leaving their droppings whilst pursuing their plunder, destroying all of the perennials and decorating our lean lawn with putrid poop to be stepped upon. Have they no care for our desires.
What can we do to stop them? Barriers and sprays don’t work. They shiver and shake when we’re around to see and fly at the least provocation. They patiently wait eyes and ears at the ready for any moment when we are not around or our backs are turned to again nibble and gnaw at our gardens. Then there are the ticklish tics that they bring and breed. Creeping, crawling little suckers of blood and bringers of disease that latch onto our clothes and skin as a reminder of the plunder of plenty that the deer have wrought to our humble hovel.
Some day, yes, some day we will prevail. But till then, we will continue to plant knowing that success is but a dream.
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Unfinished story
Posted on December 4, 2010 at 1:45 pm in
You’ve heard of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”? Consider this my “Unfinished Story”. What I’ve written is exactly what was going around in my head one night. It was pleading with me to be written down. So I have done that. I’m welcome to any suggestions as to where I should take it from here.
Once there was a story. It was a simple story about a king and a queen. They were unable to have children and wanted an heir. As in most tales they made a deal to have a a child. Of course the condition agreed upon required them to give up something valuable when the child reached a certain age. The condition didn’t concern the king or queen when the agreement was made, however when the child came of age they needed a way to break the agreement. The story unfolds and a quest is taken until finally all things work out in the end except for the proposer of the deal. As I said a simple story.
But now our story begins, because this story had nowhere to go. Yes, it was created. There was a wonderful beginning and a happy ending, but until it could be shared it had no life.