This past week was my week of recharging. This week coming up is my week for revving and tuning up the engine. January 7th starts a new semester and I'm going to really challenge my students. I'm not sure how, but I'm going to see to it that everyone of them is well prepared for 3rd grade, because contrary to what everyone thinks every one of those dear sweethearts are getting up out of my class next year. I hope they're ready, cause I'm so ready.
I'm also going to blog more. I have some interesting topics. I feel I've been boring you all. I can tell from the comments I've been getting that I'm not engaging enough. I'm working on a few things to start posting next week as well. My goal is to post more regularly and to get some help in keeping this blog vibrant and interesting.
Alright about to hit the sack. Crossfit in the AM.
This Christmas break has been amazing. I didn't realize how much my batteries needed a recharge. Can't let them get this low again.
I want to wish all my teachers a restful break. I pray that this time is a great time to reflect on the things that are important to you. May you get clarity on the things that steal time from the important. May you be able to cut away those things so that you can be awesome at the things that matter. Have a fantastic Christmas and we'll talk again in 2013! The year of...
I'm heart broken for the parents, communities and children of CT.
I'm not interested in prayer in schools.
What?! Every Christian with a bible is ranting "God has been removed from schools and that's why we're...." Yes, I've heard that argument and I've even made it a couple of times. However it's wrong and it's not very smart. There is a talk show host who went as far as to say the reason this horrible event happened is because God has been taken out of schools.
What most people are asking for is a teacher-lead, school-lead time of prayer during a time of the day. 30 seconds during announcements, before lunch or something like that.
Putting prayer in school is opening a box to so many other things that teachers will have to tend to. I'm surprised no one has said it. We're already, Parents, Coaches, Advisers, Counselors, Teachers, Nurses and Referees. Now you want us to be Pastors, Priests and Rabbis?
Let me just wave a magic wand and "put prayer in school". Can't you see/hear all the howls from some parents because "you prayed in Jesus' name, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit".
...or You prayed in the NIV, but we only accept the KJV.
How about this one, ...We're Southern Baptist and you're a Mormon teacher, What Jesus are you talking about?
These are just a few, a very small few complaints out of the bag of insane complaints we'd hear. Let's not even talk about the fact that now America is a sort of kind of Christian. So many assume we're talking about praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Ok, but what about when America becomes a majority non-Christian nation? Think you'll be ok with us praying to another god that you don't think is God?
Ok, people, we're tasked with such a weighty chore that adding one more layer is going to only add more strain to the profession. I challenge that there isn't one profession that has so much heaped on it from all sides as teaching. If you know of one, please let me know.
For quite some time teaching has been the surrogate parent of the community. I know a lot of folk aren't going to like this, but you're welcome to comment. We've become EVERYTHING to these kids and it's made really, seriously...LAZY PARENTS. Yes, I did call most of us lazy. We drop our children off at school with very little and want a college bound, scholar in return. This might be shocking, but it's not going to happen. Neither is prayer in school.
If you want prayer in school send Prayers to school. Send kids who cherish the honor of speaking to an ever loving, God. Drop off a child who are confident in themselves, because they know that no matter what they're accepted by God and that He thinks they're pretty neat. Send students who much rather quote Be Attitudes than cop and attitude. We'd welcome students who rather than pick on each other and name call understand that everybody needs love and acceptance and they've found that in God. How do we get that, Jason?
This is going to REALLY make some people mad, so feel free to log off. In order to get the kind of student I'm talking about many parents need to parent and pastor their OWN kids. You're going to have to put prayer, God and all that in your home. Put it in your heart and in your kids hearts. I can tell you that the Love of God is absent from my community. I can see it in the words my kids use with each other and adults. It's obvious in the MIA status of support at home. I as a teacher am not going to do it for you. Sorry, but it ain't going to happen. What I will do is pray silently that you get a clue that these are your kids, your future and that you need to make the most of it.
I choose to make my wife and my faith a center of our girls' growth. If you don't that's on you. I simply believe it's much easier for you to raise your child than for your child's teacher or school to do it for you.
I found a way to bring my favorite workout to the classroom and I didn't even need to lace up my inov8s!
Tabata work outs can be summed up as 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. A goal is to not to slip below your first level of work. So if I do 8 push ups in 20 seconds I'd want to keep that pace the entire 8 founds. It sounds pretty simple, but it's not. It's so useful that it's easy to think it's not as hard as it is. I'm sure there's one out there, but I cant think of a exercise you can't do as a tabta.
Today I had my students do their regularly scheduled math drill as a tabta. I was pleasantly surprised how much they liked it. I had a 60 question single digit addition and subtraction page for them. I explained the "game" to them extensively on the front end. They picked up on it pretty well. I projected a huge tabata timer on the board. It chimed at the different rest/work intervals. They loved it.
I didn't make them keep score, but I will in the future.
Some spent the 10 seconds of rest looking over their previous questions to fix them when the 20 seconds of work started.
I need to do a benchmark drill to see help them plot some growth.
No going back over answers until they've finished every question.
Afterwards I asked the class write to me about their first tabata experience. Pretty positive for my class. They don't usually like anything new save for the overly dramatic and disruptive.
10 liked it and want to do their regular math drills like this
2 would rather do the regular 2 minute drill
I'm thinking that I could use this format for writing spelling and vocabulary words. I'm thinking that when their reading really gets better they could read 20 seconds rest 10. I'd enjoy seeing them write as much as they can and then rest and so on.
I bet I'll have them rascals out doing tabata sprints next time we get the wiggles, trust.
I think I've told you how much I like grilling. Since getting my Big Green Egg for Father's day I've cooked some great meals. It's a relaxing and enjoyable experience for me. By no stretch of the imagination am I a chef. I'm a weekend warrior at the best description. Mainly because I'm using others recipes, ideas and techniques. I'm not creating my own. I'm having a grand time, but I'm not waiting for a call from Food Network.
What could I do to get them to enjoy the academic process and even grow to the place where they're creating new projects and so on? Right now they're just consumers. They sit in the seat and wait to be fed information that they may or may not take fully. My task is to get them to move from the dining room and get into the kitchen. Then once there I need to get them excited about the kitchen so much that they want to create new dishes and meals.
My family raves about my creations. In my daughters and wife's eye I'm the best. Their involvement makes it easy to plan and grill. This is what makes the entire thing enjoyable for me.
How can I get my students and their families into education as such?
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