The Bow Tie Teacher

No goals left behind

I like this time of year, December-February. I enjoy planning, thinking and setting goals for the year. I always set aside time during this season to just think, dream and plan. 5 out of 7 years I set and accomplish the goals I set. This year I'm going BIG. I'm going to accomplish 100% of my goals. And, I'm not going to set only 2 goals so I can get it done. I have 9 good, strong, SMART, life changing goals set out with a plan to get each of them done. There are 2 elusive goals, however that have evaded me for YEARS. This year the year I turn 40 I will see them accomplished. No goals left behind. Here we go. Want to know what my goals are for 2014? Just watch...you'll see them soon enough. 

Here's my plan. I will share my goals at the end of January. 

1. Research my goals. I like to know what I'm getting myself into. I'm not GREAT at research, but I'm pretty good. 

2. I Decided that either I'm going to obsess over this or not. If I'm not going to obsess over it, then I'm not going to do it. 

3. Reduce the picture. Small bite sized pieces, daily steps, weekly steps, monthly steps you get the point. 

4. Make it public. I chose to blog about it. You can ask me questions about my goals. I'll gladly share where I am. 

5. Seek accountability. I LOVE to surround myself with people doing stuff. I want them to intentionally and unintentionally prod me on. 

6. I now expect it to be hard, but along with the struggle I expect, seek, look for the strength to get this thing done! 

7. Encourage and seek encouragement. 

8. Visualize the goal completion. I spend a little time daily thinking what it will be like to be as fit as I can at 40, to be debt free, to make my job the career I never hat to work at ever again, to be a multi book author. I like the picture now I need do it so you can see it, too.  

9. Learn from failures. If the goal is worthy of my time then failure isn't a STOP sign. It's a This ain't the way sign. 

10. Focus on 1 goal at one time. I need help on this. I tend to keep my goals in a family so I can do more than 1 in at a time cause they're related. 

11. Practice walking goal out every single day. I have to obsess about being the man God wants me to go. It has to consume my thoughts, words, actions and deeds. Then it will become easy.

12. Take responsibility for all of it. It's all mine. The success, the failures, the set backs the set ups. They are all mine. 

Lucky Number 13. Celebrate cause the journey was well worth it. 

Merry Christmas!

It's here! Christmas break is finally here what took ya so long. This school year has gone so slow fast.  I can't believe it's only Christmas break. So much to do. So much done. 

Christmas is a great time to reflect, relax and recharge and not see your students for 2 weeks. The 1st Sememster has been good in a running a triathlon with a brick tied to your head kinda way. My students are fantastic in a herding cats kind of way. I'm really going to miss them over the break dear Lord, don't strike me for that blatant lie. 

Can't wait to just kick back on the couch with some hot chocolate and catch up on some grading, paper work and grades. No seriously most of us do school work on our breaks, that's not cool at all. For most of us this is a real time to breathe. The year sometimes goes so fast that it's hard to catch a breath, think and figure out what in the world am I doing fine details of life. 

Got my list of Christmas wishes, too

• That each of my students want to do better than they did the 1st part of the year. A full book bag would be nice, too! 
• Better organization system. Less paperwork in general, please
• Consistant parent involvement. Ok, I'll settle for working phone numbers
  
• Fewer meetings. No joke there. Fewer meetings, dear Jesus! 
• The perfect lesson plans. Just kidding my lessons are the best
  
• A steady stream of iced coffee pumped into my class at an ideal 40 degrees. I'll take freshly squeezed green juice in January and February, tough
• Some means to squeeze 2 more work home hours into the work home time
• A new pair of work running and lifting shoes 
• To be very comfortable with all my body weight workouts by dropping some bodyweight!

Ok, the last two had nothing to do with work, but they help me relax, relate, release so I can do my job. In all seriousness this school year's been a hoot and a holler. I expect some great things to happen in 2014 like Spring Break and Summer. 

I pray everyone has a safe and restful Christmas break. May all teachers experience 30 days worth or rest, relaxation and family. May every second of rest be better than 2 hours of work. Keep your head up and we'll see you in 2014. 

Merry Christmas I ain't politically correct and Happy New Years! 

 

Bullying

It's been all over the news. It's been everywhere and it seems like it's getting worse and worse, bullying. When I was a kid it was called being a kid, but what's happening today is pretty rough. 

A parent came to me today to tell me her child was being bullied. I told her to have him stop by my room tomorrow and we'd talk about it. I chose to write out my thoughts cause I think this speaks to a much deeper issue in the Bully and those being Bullied. Here we go. 

    You are not going to like what I have to say. You're going to be mad and you're going to maybe cry, but I'm only telling you this because someone told me this same thing multi-decades ago. 

    You're a man. You may not like it and you may not feel like it right now. If the Lord allows, you're going to know that you are a man one day. And the only thing more sure than that is that Life is going to do her very best to kick your butt every day from this until the end. 

    You're going to have to resolve one day and it better be soon that you're going to stick in there and keep getting up and keep moving forward every time she knocks you down. Oh and she will. She's going to knock the wind out of you more time than you can count. You're just going to have to keep getting back up. 

    One day you'll have a family, kids, job and all those wonderful things that come with being "grown". Along with that you'll have scars, a lot of them. The thicker your skin the more surface those scars and the less deep wounds they'll be.

Some will hurt and some will cut you pretty bad. You're welcome to come to my class when they get real bad and we'll talk, heck we'll even cry about them. What you're also going to do is walk out of here, stand up and fight another day. 

People tend to want to delittle those they see as a threats to the norm or just "too big for their britches". You have a choice to let them drag you down into the small space they fill or to rise above them and shine like a star. I think you know what I want you to do. 

You're going to have to look many a person in the face and let them know who you are and who you're not. You're not defined by anyone, but yourself and your God. If you allow every person you meet to validate and define you, you're in for a life of struggle and pain with no growth or end. That would be hopeless and sad.

But if you know who you are then anyone else's definition of you can only be to small. You're so much more than what people see and because of that they have to try to box you, define you...contain you. 

Bullies are only powerful if we cheris their words. Actually, they're crying out for the same attention they want to give you. They need somone to validate, define, honor their words. You don't realize just how much power you have and your bullies DO! 

You're going to have to walk away from a lot of folk and stand up to some as well. You're going to ball your fist up and want to scream.  But this will still be true. You're a man. You're going to have to rise above this and whatever else comes at you. 

I hope I didn't undersell this. I hope I didn't make you think that this was a walk in the park. Lady Life has taken many a better man then me out. She does do her job well. You're better than you know and you're stronger than you figure. Stand up to her and her attack dogs. Let them know that you aren't some soft serve on a hot day. You're here and you plan to remain well after their words have faded. 

A fidget solution

If you teach boys you know they have an extra battery that allows them to just do to much. Not sure why, but God chose this and it's just the way it is. 

 

I saw this somewhere and thought I'd give it a shot. 

I used some stretching bands from the gym. Shout to my coach at Crossfit South Cobb. I tied it up as a rope around the bottom of the chair and bang! It worked excellently. The Energizer Bunny has been tamed. I only did this to 1 chair and so far the kid was on point. Actually he was only off task when he wasn't in his chair. Hahahaha. 

 

I'm thinking I'll attempt it with another real mover and shaker. This one sadly, I think, will try to break the band more than anything else. I have two others that could use it so I'll fix their chairs in the AM. What I will do is make it a reward to those who get better at classdojo and the 7 habits. 

My other classroom fix the Anchor chart hanger has been outstanding. I just scored a few more hangers so I think I can hang every chart I have right now. I won't mention that I've made 4 charts since I did this video Tuesday!

 

This week has been good. We have some lofty goals, but we're ready for the challenge. How was your week of teaching and learning? 

Blog abandonment

This week was so draining. I don't want to drone on and on about how this week was a BEAST. You don't want to hear that. 

What I will say is this, no question this week built my faith. I have been working on building margin in my life. Even with this week beating me up I didn't get to my limits.  I know this week coming, I'm going to be pushed more than last week. Thankfully, I've already planned for it and I feel grace to do it. I can see that consistent on going improvement will yield huge results. 

To give balance I've found it really tough to plan/think LONG term about my lessons and class learning. I talked about in in my Avengers post aout making the lessons catchy to get the kids excited about the next lesson. I've had some success in my re-growing veggies lessons in science, but not so much in my other lessons. Just need to work on this for sure. 

I have an evaluation this week and I feel good about it. I picked up some great skills at a workshop a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, I've been kicking it hard so Monday will be the best teaching anyone has seen cause I've been doling out the best daily. 

Crossfit this week was strong. I didn't make it to Crossfit South Cobb everyday, but I was able to sneak into Basement Crossfit and keep my goals in line. I've been juicing well. It's not hard now at all. I'm down nearly 13 pounds. I hope to be able to plant our garden next week or the following week. 

Let's get at it. 

If you need wisdom

This week was tough. It was very draining. To call it what it was, I was at my Whit's End by this afternoon. Thankfully that's where I'm supposed to be. 

Honestly, I think I rely on my own insight/wisdom to much. James 1:5 gives very clear directions on what to do when you need wisdom. Sadly, we "try" to long and never actually ask God for wisdom on a matter. We think we are supposed to have the solution and that asking is somehow not good. 

All this week I've been coming to grips with the fact that I don't know what to do to help these students get excited about learning. Yes, I have a lot of ideas and I have access to some great thinkers, but if James 1:5 is to be trusted I need to ask God a lot more than I have been doing.  

Yesterday I started asking God and expecting to receive some insight on Room 157's residents. I certainly made some inroads and next week I'll see more. I know that I made some major changes to make this last 9-10 weeks of school better and more powerful than those before.

Like I said in another post, the House must work in order for other things to work. I do believe that. However, I'm charged with the task of helping these kids. If God's word is true then I have the access to the Resource to make a difference even with no support at home. Ok, off to enjoy my weekend. You do the same. 

The Crossfit challenge ends next week and I certainly think I'm on track. I have 6 more days of my green juice fast. Overall I'm down quite a bit of weight and I'm certainly doing well in my workouts. Can't wait to report back on my win in the challenge. 

Looking forward

   Tomorrow starts another semester working with a great bunch of kids. Our next phase of our journey begins soon. I know that I have the skills needed to help them progress on and become the citizens that they were intended to be. Tomorrow we go at our goals with a new drive and passion. Tomorrow we move from 2nd graders to Rising 3rd graders. There are great things in store for us, tomorrow. 

    Today, however, I'm going to get my last mid day nap. 

Don't play the game...play the man.

Everyday we play a game. Sometimes we're up. Sometimes we're down. No matter what we're in a game and we need to win. You have to know the defense and the offense, that's a given. But do you know the players better than they know themselves? 

 

A person once said "Don't play the game, play the man." In my case it's "play the children". I need to really, really dig down into the fine details of each of my students to raise them up to where they need to be. If I play the "class", I'm only going to reach 60% of them at best. Some way I'm going to do a better job of dealing with each student and each of their abilities so I can help raise up 100% of them. Like I've said this is an All Star class. They have a lot of talent and they're sharp. It's going to be tough, but so is getting beat down everyday. I just choose what hard job I'm going to do, cause I'M playing the children not the class. 

As a recap, my time frame analogy was spot on! For literacy, it worked like a charm. Now I need to improve my content. Thankfully, I do have the times down. Looking for a timer that I can set multiple times for, if anyone wants to suggest one. Next I'm going all in on my math times. Haven't had any feedback on it, but I'll get myself on a better schedule and time this week. By end of 1st 9 weeks I have the SuperLearner Central running like a well-oiled machine. 

I already have my lessons done and sent off for next week. I have my emergency sub plans done. I have my new BBoard ready. Just need the kiddos to work on their work to put up.  Not sure what I need to do to get the "authentic" student work quality up. I do models and I have them follow me, but they're just not that creative and imaginative. Wonder how to teach that. 

Crossfit South cobb will see my carcass tomorrow. Can't wait. Today's WOD was fun looking. I didn't get in there. No excuse will be given. I will be there tomorrow and I will have down that gallon of water to keep me hydrated. 

Some new class decorations

I scored some new superhero toys from a consignment sale. As I find them I'll add more to my city scape. Even got a black suit Spidy to swing from a building. 

Got to have our friendly neighborhood spiderman guarding the city. 

Ready for a restful weekend, NOT! I have so much to do I'll be coming to work Monday to rest. Dear Lord!

Shame on parents

    I've been talking to a few of my teacher buds who've shared with me some sad news. Many of them are meeting parents of students in their class for the first time DURING AWARDS DAY or End of the Year parties. That's just sad. Many express that they've reached out to them, called them, left messages, but they've never met the parents. That is until the end of the year.

    I have another friend who told me that she has a child in her room that really requires a lot of Love and Grace. He's a handful. Come to find out that he has a sister in a lower grade and she's a jewel. Here's the kicker, the mom has volunteered in the sister's room as recently as this week! Never has she done so for the brother. SHE'S BEEN IN THE BUILDING WHEN MY FRIEND HAS CALLED HER ABOUT HER SON'S BEHAVIOR. Amazing. 

    Now, I'm not calling for the OverDue parents that over due everything. They fuss and cuss about everything under the sun about their child. Such that you start to think this is a personal issue for the parent rather than the student. I mean the kid did miss 8 questions o the spelling test. A grade of "B" is the right call. Moving on. 

    I'm sure any parent would be all over if their kid got into Harvard or some IVY league school on a full scholarship. There'd be a bus carry all the family members who'd show up when that same student became a doctor. You know like I know that if a student signed on with a professional sports team they'd have to have a security guard to protect them from all the family that would come out of the woodwork. However, a 7 year old can get on the bus, ride 10 miles to school, interact with 19 or so other 7 yr olds and multiple adults, eat 2 meals, and get back on the bus a all without a parent. Then the kicker is parents not show up until they do so with flowers and balloons for awards day? SERIOUSLY?!

    I can't believe that. Thankfully, I met most of my students parents at least once. I'd much rather more interaction with them, but that's another point. Being a parent isn't spectator sport. I'm not sure exactly what analogy I'd use, but I can certainly tell you that it's not drop in one time a school year. Being and Being Present are two different things all together.     

    Rant concluded. Jason steps down off his soap box to enjoy Day 99 of the Burpee challenge. Working my crossfit plan. I need to improve my eating, but that's certainly another post.