The Final Countdown

Are you ready to close the page on this school year?

To be honest with you...this has been one of the toughest years I have had personally and professionally.  It seemed like when my attention was drawn to one, the other area exploded.  I was unable to to find a good balance this year.  The stresses from one area started to bleed into the other area thus causes stresses there.  I just couldn't find the balance this year.  I cried more tears, questioned my actions and myself, and asked "why?" more times this year than I have any other year.  

So...I would say it is fair to say I am ready to close the book.

But I try to be a reflective person.  Was it all bad?  Was there nothing good that happened?  

You know what?  It wasn't all bad.  There were lots of good things that happened.  And those bad things that happened?  In the moment, I didn't think I could walk away with anything positive from those situations.  But I did learn many things.

While my heart drives personal situations, my heart budges into professional situations too many times.  In the moment I would think of that as a weakness.  It makes tough situations at school tougher.  It makes hearing bad things about myself and our school tougher.  But I learned that putting my heart into my professional life makes me a better educator.  I have a better pulse on the emotions people feel.  I allow people to see my human nature.  I end up seeing beyond black and white in situations and understanding some of our students are living in tough situations.  My heart allows me to see that some of our students are here to learn and some of our students are here to be loved.  Education is not located anywhere on Maslow's pyramid for them.  What can we do for them to make their time with us the best it can be?  What can we do to help them see school as something valuable?

I learned that trying new things is great...even if they fail.  Those new things teach you perseverance.  Those new things teach to see things from a different perspective.  When they fail, they teach you to get back up and try again.  If you want to succeed, you have to be willing to fail.  You have to take risks sometimes.  You have to think outside the box.  You have to be willing to throw it all out the window and start at square one again.

I learned we all have inside of us what it takes to be great.  It often requires a lot of work on our part to do so, but the light is there in all of us to better.  Whether it is doing something better in our classroom, something to better our health, or even something to better our neighbor...it is within all of us.  We have to be willing to ask for help sometimes to find this greatness.  Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign we understand we all have limits and our fellow man is there to help us in times of need.

I learned that no matter how bad the year seemed, we made a difference.  Everyday that we came here and did what our heart and head guided us to do, we made a difference.

I thank you for the journey we have taken this year.  My experiences with you have helped me to say that even though 2017-2018 was tough, the lessons I learned were plentiful and meaningful.  

The Dog Ate My Homework

Remember when missing homework was blamed on the dog?  The family dog took a his/hers good share of blame for being the reason homework wasn't returned to school.  While in the beginning it was creative, it slowly lost it shine when it became the thing EVERY kid said.

We are living in an age when technology drives so much.  It drives how we communicate, socialize, buy, and even drive.  I can start my car with my phone...from anywhere.  Technology has shaped our culture and has begun to shape students and their learning.

I don't believe there is a student sitting in our building at the moment who won't take a class on-line.  They will have high school or college classes that are presented in various formats but all that will call for some type of on-line submission.  It could be discussion boards, content on-line, or turning in assignments on-line.

With this new means, brings a WHOLE new set of excuses for why homework is not done.  I spent time on Wednesday and Thursday in the halls listening to some of these excuses.  

You know what?

I don't buy them.

I don't believe that you submitted it and then it went away.  I don't believe that you sent it but they never got it.  I don't believe that your computer was locked up all weekend.  I don't believe that you don't have access to Internet so you couldn't do research, but you could play FortNite all evening on a phone that is more powerful than the computer we had in this building when I went to school. 

I'll give points for creativity and for thinking fast on their feet.  But like the generation before them, I think students are covering a simple fact.  They just didn't do it.  Wouldn't it be grand if a student said, "You know why I don't have it done?  I didn't do it.  I stayed up all night and watched season 4 of "The Office".  That was way more interesting than this."?

Here is a blog about some great excuses students have presented for not getting their homework done in the age of technology.

Happy Friday!

https://www.weareteachers.com/funny-homework-excuses/