• You can hear 25 voices behind you and know exactly which one belongs to the child out of line.
• You get a secret thrill out of laminating something.
• You walk into a store and hear the words “It’s Ms./Mr.___________” know you’ve been spotted.
• You have 25 people who accidentally call you Mom/Dad at one time or another.
• You can eat a multi-course meal in under 25 minutes.
• You’ve trained yourself to go to the bathroom at two distinct times of the day: lunch and prep period.
• You start saving other people’s trash because, most likely, you can use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the classroom.
• You believe the teachers’ lounge should be equipped with a margarita machine.
• You want to slap the next person who says, “Must be nice to work 7 to 3 and have summers off.”
• You believe chocolate is a food group.
• You can tell if it’s a full moon without ever looking outside.
• You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, “You know, the kids sure are mellow today.”
• You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behavior when you are out in public.
• You believe in aerial spraying of Ritalin.
• You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
• You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your children.
• You can’t pass the school supply aisle without getting at least five items.
• You ask your friends if the left hand turn he just made was a “good choice or a bad choice.”
• You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils.
• You are secretly addicted to hand sanitizer.
• You understand instantaneously why a child behaves a certain way after meeting his or her parents.

If you haven’t read the recent Time magazine article about preparing our students to compete and thrive in the new century, take a few minutes to do so. It’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to read. Then think about what is happening in your own school and community. What are we doing right? What do we need to do differently? What obstacles are in our way? How will we deal with them? What resources are available to us?

Tag–I’m it! I was tagged by Karl Fisch for this “5 Things” meme. Sounds like fun, so I’m in. First, I was shocked to see my name at the bottom of his list. I feel like I really belong. (Sorry–having a little Sally Fields moment…remember “They like me.” I’ll try not to be that pathetic.) Oh, while I’m baring my soul here, I’ll admit that I had to look up the word “meme” to get an accurate definition of the word.

So, the way this works is that I’m supposed to list 5 things about myself that most readers of this blog (all 6 of you) probably wouldn’t know. While this may be a blatant attempt to get people to link to my blog, I hope that it might be a little more interesting than that. As a relative “newbie” in the world of edu-bloggers, I enjoy learning more about those I admire and read. This is my own small contribution to that new and growing circle of friends and colleagues. So, for what it’s worth…

1. I love to sing, and music has always been a big part of my life. My parents started me with piano lessons when I was 5, and I’ve always loved singing. In 2004, a friend helped me record a CD, and he thought we should make maybe 25-50 copies of the album. It was just for fun–a “friends and family” thing. We ended up making 100 and actually ran out. We did a second run (I still have some, BTW, if any of you are interested… Sorry–shameless self-promotion.) The album is like me, a weird mix of things–a little Shania Twain, some Karen Carpenter and Moulin Rouge, and my favorite, the Andrews Sisters.
2. I’m a high school drop-out. Yup. I admit it. In the same breath, I’ll tell you that I graduated from college when I was 18. You see, when it came down to my senior year, I needed just 2 gym credits and an elective to graduate. So, we called the Christian college that I wanted to attend (York College) to see if I could finish my classes in the fall and start college in January. When they found out what I needed to take, they told me, “Go get a GED, and we’ll see you in 3 weeks.” I’d never heard of a GED. We got all the paperwork going, but I couldn’t take the test until I turned 17, in mid-August. Less than two weeks after that, my mom dropped me off in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska, and I was on my own. At that time, York had only two-year degrees, so I graduated with an A.A. when I was still 18. Then I returned home to Pueblo (my dad had died, and mom couldn’t send me away to another Christian college), and got a B.A. in English. In my late 30’s, I was blessed to receive some inheritance money from an aunt and was able to get an M.Ed. I’m quite proud of that one. I maintained a 4.0 throughout while teaching full-time, commuting 75 miles a day, and raising two middle-schoolers as a single mom.
3. I LOVE my life and my new roles as wife and grandma. Yeah–I’m a grandma. I married my darling Lee in July 2005, and the package deal includes a wonderful step-son, daughter-in-law, and 2 precious granddaughters. My own two teenagers love being “aunt” and “uncle” now. The age structure of our family is a little different. My husband is 13 years my senior, so I am right in between him and his son Casey. His wife is older than he is, so I’m only 9 years older than my daughter-in-law. We’ve got the teens, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s covered!
   
4. I am the Scrapbook Goddess. I’ve always enjoyed crafts, especially crochet, cross-stitch, and paper crafts, but scrapbooking is my favorite. Our new home is big enough that I have my own scrapbook room/office. It’s my private slice of heaven. The room is filled with antiques which I love.
5. I am an Alpha-Geek, the number one nerd according to my daughter. I can’t function without my Palm Pilot, and I get nervous twitches when the Internet is down at school. My husband says he created a monster when he gave me a video iPod for Valentine’s Day. And now I’m a MySpace junkie. I originally got a “space” to snoop on my own kids and invade their space a little. (You can’t be too careful as a parent, says I.) Over the past few weeks, more and more of my students have invited me to be their “friend” and I’ve found it’s a wonderful way to connect with former students as well. It’s also been handy for posting bulletins about snow days. Another teacher at our school said he has received an assignment from a student sent to his MySpace. Cool, huh? In the last five years, I’ve watched the change from students handing in their work on those little black disks, to CD’s, to jump drives, to iPods, and now MySpace. To demonstrate my extreme geekiness, I’ll tell you a little secret. I have a goal for my blog. I can’t tell you how excited I was the first time I got an unsolicited comment. Somebody actually read the darn thing! You see, I have this “wish list” of people whom I would love to have comments from. Hey, some people collect autographs–it’s the same thing. I was so excited when Vicki Davis (The CoolCat herself) commented on my blog. I nearly passed out when David Warlick posted. For me, that was the “Holy Grail” of blog comments. Still on my wish list are Will Richardson, Dr. Tim Tyson, and many others I’m learning so much from. I would probably roll over and die if ever Maya Angelou wrote a comment.
   For your enjoyment, here’s a pic of the bulletin board in my classroom.

So, now it’s my turn to tag 5 of you. Please don’t leave me hanging on this… Let’s hear from Ray, Chris, Cheryl, Tim, and Midge.

Technorati Tags: KarlFisch VickiDavis DavidWarlick WillRichardson TimTyson MabryOnline MayaAngelou RayDavis ChrisHarbeck CherylOakes MidgeFrazel meme YorkCollege scrapbooking music

Last week in English 3, the students were asked to participate in our first blog. The prompt was about the number of Google searches performed monthly, and the question was about to whom we asked these questions B.G. (Before Google).

In responding to another student’s post, Tate included the following comment:

I think that the internet has expanded the chance of human knowledge as a whole because we have different things such as wikis and the sort where we essentially share a brain with the rest of the world.

WOW–This kid gets it! He understands the “flat world” concept. (Without having read Thomas Friedman’s book yet, btw).

I LOVED the way he stated “the Internet has expanded the chance of human knowledge”. The opportunity to grow as the human race is unbelievable. What an exciting time to be alive. Now, if we could just harness all of this for good instead of for evil…. (Where’s Superman when you really need him? Or how about Beowulf–now there’s the ultimately good superhero!)

Last year I was considering having a drawing of Plato’s Cave added to my classroom, perhaps at the door. (You know, come out of the darkness, become aware of the rest of the world, expand your horizons, etc….) Now I think maybe I should have a brain that looks like the globe.

Sometimes I look at these kids and think, “Wow–I’m so lucky to be a teacher, and to teach where I do.” Of course, there are plenty of days when you couldn’t pay me enough to put up with some of it, but then there are days, and there are Tate’s, and it’s all worthwhile.

Welcome to my class blog site!