#OneWord 2022: "Difference."

      Do you know "The Starfish Story?"

     This story is why I chose the word "difference" as my #OneWord2022.  The first time I heard this story was when a friend of mine used it in her speech to the school district after being recognized as our district's Elementary Teacher of the Year.  Just to know this lady leaves you feeling blessed! Instead of saving starfish, though, she used it as a simile to saving the children that we teach and challenged us to make a difference in the lives of our students.  Well, sweet friend, that challenge was accepted the moment I heard this story! 

     Twice, in my teaching career, I have heard an administrator say to me, "You can't save them all."  I have to admit, both times this really angered me.  The first time, I was too dumbfounded to even have a response. The second time, I was a more seasoned teacher, and I had been busting my butt for a particular student. Following a parent meeting, the principal looked at me and said, "Well, you can't save them all." I was livid! All the time and energy I was putting in to this child. All of the interventions and documentations. I could see the potential in this student! I looked at her and said, "Seriously?" "Yep." was her response. I stood up, looked her straight in the eye and said. "If making a difference every day, in the lives of my students, is not my goal, then I'm in the wrong damned profession!" and walked out of the conference room.  How can a building, or even district leader be so callous?

     This is my mantra:  "It made a difference to that one."  It ties in perfectly with my mission and goal in life of being a trauma-responsive teacher.  This is why I have chosen "Difference" as my #OneWord2022.

"Covid Kids"

      Let's talk about our children for a minute.  Let's talk about what they have been through the past eighteen-ish months.

     In March of 2020, the world was plunged into a global pandemic from out of nowhere.  Many schools shut down during Spring Break Week and didn't reopen for the remainder of the school year.  Our students were rapidly taken away from school, as well as their friends.  Younger children, I can tell you from personal experience, had a very difficult time adjusting to this sudden loss of socialization.  Our children were thrown into the middle of something that even the adults in their lives could not begin to explain or even understand.

     Teachers were sent scrambling to figure out how to keep teaching, even if the students were not in the classrooms.  The difficulties that came with this were endless, but teachers being teachers, persevered and kept on teaching, innovating on the fly.

     When school resumed in the fall of 2020, children now needed to wear masks if they were in the classroom, be in smaller groups, and take unprecedented safety measures just to be in school.  Dividers were put in place to separate students. Groupings were not allowed. Adult family members were not allowed in the buildings.  Everyone was on high alert.  Each time a child sneezed or coughed, teachers all wondered if they had Covid.

     And the masks!  This was also new for our students and their teachers.  Not only did masks make breathing more difficult, they also got pretty nasty if the children wearing them were younger.  Because we were all thrown into this "new normal," families struggled to keep masks clean, or, as in the case of paper masks, keep their children from breaking them.

     Another problem that masks presents is the inability for others to read facial expressions.  Our students aren't able to read the emotions of their teachers when this key piece of non-verbal language.  Children learn language from verbal, as well as non-verbal clues. By wearing masks, part of the learning of language skills is taken away from interactions with peers, as well as their teachers.

     So, take these same students, whose world has been turned upside down in the last year and a half, and use the same assessments and expectations of our students as we did pre-pandemic.  How is that even fair?  Educational pundits will tell you that students in our classrooms are vastly different now than they were before the pandemic hit, yet we're assessing them with the same tools and the same expectations as we did before the pandemic.  How is that fair to our students?

     Our expectations need to change! There needs to be more focus on the social-emotional well-being of our students.  The whole "Maslow Before Bloom" adage could not be more true of today's students.  Yet we continue to assess, and we continue to push, without much thought about the pressure this is putting on our "Covid kids."

     Here's what I think, and it may not be popular with some who take the time to read this. I think we should, first and foremost, provide for the social and emotional needs of our students.  It would be great if we didn't have to assess them at all, but I know that's not going away.  Those assessments should not be used for a grade. They should be used by the teachers as a measurement tool, only. Trust the teachers to know what their students need.  Trust the teachers to guide their students to academic growth.  Let the teachers provide for the social and emotional needs of their students first, no matter how long it takes.  As the great Rita Pierson once said:

     

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is a day set aside to honor all of those, living or deceased, who have served in the Armed Forces, while Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who lost their lives protecting the very freedoms we are blessed to have as Americans.

I would like to honor my family members at this time.

My biological father, Roger O Clemens, who served in the Air Force. He lost his life in Vietnam. The impact of this tragedy had lead to making me the kind of teacher I am today.

My brother, Roger O. Clemens, Jr. (Chip). Chip served for four years in the United States Army. After leaving the service, he became a paramedic/fire fighter, climbing his way to the top, becoming a captain.

My adoptive father, John S. Kruse. He served in the US Navy as a Seabee. Seabees were a construction battalion responsible for building the infrastructure necessary during WWII. He served on the island of Guam.

My nephew, Kyle A. Kruse. He served in the Marine Corps during the Afghanistan War. He was later a government private contractor, also in Afghanistan.

My Uncle, Paul H. Kruse. He was a Navy pilot.

My nephew, Richard A. Kruse. Was a Navy pilot, graduating from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. He was a flight instructor for the Navy, and later served in the South Dakota Air National Guard.

I am grateful to them for the sacrifices they made for my freedoms and for their service to our country.

Then What IS the Answer?

      Unless you've been living under a rock, you have heard all about how this year's students need more Social/Emotional Learning than ever before! Many will blame it on the pandemic.  Others will blame it on the home lives of the students, or a host a many other reasons.  As I was lamenting about this in a chat, a principal put the blame on the classroom teachers. He said that the kids are dysregulated because teachers are dysregulated and that the students feed off the teachers' energy. While this may be true, it's also very unfair, in my opinion.

     I have to admit, this response really pissed me off! Teachers are working harder than ever before. The responsibilities that have been heaped on them are staggering!  "You need to catch those kids up!"  "There is a learning gap!" You've all heard it. Listen! We've ALL been trying to adjust to life in the midst of a pandemic. I get it! But, to put the burden of "catching kids up" fully on the shoulders of the teachers is just plain WRONG! What if we just accept the fact that there is a learning loss. through no fault of anyone, and assess their growth rather than putting unrealistic expectations on them?  Or better yet, let's not assess at all and just build strong relationships with our students and let them guide the instruction?

     There is a teacher shortage. I know of several districts that are still trying to solve staffing issues.  Who suffers?  The kids! The needs of those kids that we teach every day are being slighted without enough staff to support their varying academic and social/emotional needs.

     And another thing: Our kids' ability to have meaningful connections is suffering. Why? I've shared about this before. Readily available technology.  This was a problem, pre-Covid. It's a bigger problem now.  Kids don't know how to have a real face-to-face conversation. Their manners are horrible. Their eating habits are even worse. And peaceful conflict resolution? Forget it! Many kids spend more time on a device than they do engaging with their own families.  Sad, but true.

     You're blaming dysregulated teachers for their dysregulated students? Seriously?  If that's the case, what's being done for those teachers to help them be less dysregulated? Smaller class sizes?  Nope.  Decreased assessing? Nope.  Decrease in the number of "hats" the teacher wears? No. Time to relax and reflect? No.

     I'm so tired of the assumption that teachers will do more than is expected of them. We always have. When you push too hard for too long something's going to give. There are so many excellent teachers that just can't handle the pressure anymore. We should have never let it get to this point. So, what IS the answer?

Please stop! I Don't Like It!

 ***OPINIONS ARE MY OWN***

     Can we just please stop with the whole "Learning loss" and "It's because of the pandemic" narrative?  It's not like our kids are the only ones who suffered from the pandemic. The pandemic is world-wide, for crying out loud. EVERY STUDENT, in the WHOLE WORLD, lost instructional time.  Why are we expecting any of our kids to be where they were, according to some random list of standards that were established pre-pandemic? 

     It's not fair to our students and it's not fair to put those kinds of expectations on our teachers. No wonder so many schools can't fill positions or have teachers leaving the profession in droves!  Historically, teachers have always done more than what is expected, paying for supplies out of their own pockets, meeting with students outside of the instructional day, attending their students' extra-curricular activities, lesson planning outside of their allotted "planning time," in the evenings and on weekends, all for pennies on the dollar.  Other professions are able to leave work at work. They walk out the door at 5:00 and they're done for the day. Not teachers. We think about our kids and new ideas to inspire them 24/7. When will enough actually be enough?

     Now teachers are being required to "catch students up."  Seriously?? Catch them up to what?  Maybe, just maybe, we should be honoring our teachers for putting their lives on the line each and every day, for their students.  Maybe the standards should be changed to meet the world in which we're living, a world dealing with the pandemic.  The Delta Variant seems to be attacking the younger children. Just last week a middle schooler in our state died from Covid.  We have students who don't, or won't wear their masks.  Every day, teachers and their students run the risk of catching this horrible disease, and yet, the teachers keep on teaching.  Why? For the love of the children. For those light bulb moments? Because it is truly an honor to impact the next generation. 

   So, please stop! Stop blaming learning loss on the pandemic. Stop saying the we need to catch our students up to where they should have been before the world was plunged into a pandemic. Stop piling more and more on the plates of our teachers. Many of us are at our breaking point.  Just stop! I don't like it.

It Never Gets Easier

      Fifty-three years ago, on September 17th, life changed dramatically for me. I was only seven years old when my father's plane went down just three miles short of the runway in Ubon, Thailand. He was flying missions for the United States Air Force in Vietnam.  I will never forget that knock on the door and the two Air Force officers in their dress blues at our front door. Sometimes I still dream about it. For the longest time, I wondered why I was always in a kind of funk around this time of year.  As I did more research into my father's death, the reason became clearer in lots of ways and muddier in others.

     Clearer because I now knew why I am always in a funk this time of year. It is the anniversary of the death of my father.  While that was such a long time ago, I can still remember how it affected me. I remember hiding under the kitchen table, refusing to go to school, because, in my seven year-old brain, my dad died when I was in school and if I go to school, my mom could die, too.  I remember going to his graveside services on Long Island, New York.  I would still like to visit there some time.  The family name died with him overseas, as my step-dad adopted us a few years later.

     Muddier because, when his plane went down, he was flying a fighter jet, which was weird because his training was in flying B-52 Bombers.  Why was he flying a fighter jet?  No one knows. All they know is that he was coming in too low and his co-pilot told him to pull up. He did not and was pinned beneath the wreckage. They say that he died instantly. Did his plane flip? How was it that he ended up under the wreckage? His co-pilot survived the crash, by some miracle.  I did receive a detailed email about that night from him, years later, as I was doing my research.  God bless him. He'd only been in Vietnam three months and had never flown with my father.

     Don't get me wrong! I had the most amazing life, growing up on the farm in Nebraska!  I am forever grateful for the life and the family and friends that I have.  Still, sometimes I find myself wondering how different my life might have been, had my father lived.

                                                

     

Math

 Math. One of the scariest words to me.  It's really a shame that one bad experience can impact my life decades later.  It's a shame what some teachers can do to students and the lasting impact it can leave.

This is my story: Sophomore year of high school. Geometry. I got a 46% on my first test. ( I was a A/B student). When my teacher handed the test back to me, he said, "I didn't expect you to do well. You're a girl and girls can't do math. " in front of the whole class. Real motivating, right?? I wanted out of his class. My parents decided that he should come out to our house a couple of nights a week (after football practice, of course) and tutor me, with my mom present, so she could help me on the nights he wasn't tutoring me. (My dad was doing field work. My mom was also a teacher.) I don't remember how far into this new regiment we were, but it wasn't very far, when he said to my mom. "I thought you were smarter than this." Seriously?!?!  I got to switch our of geometry. I took Home Ec. instead. One day, I was standing be the door of the Home Ec. room, across from the Geometry room and the teacher saw me standing there. Do you know what he had the audacity to say to me??  "So, you'd rather be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of your life?" If I had known then, what I know now, I would have made sure he lost his job!

Years later, I'm in a professional development workshop on Cognitively Guided Instruction in Math at a former district. The instructor, who is now a dear friend of mine, gave a problem. All of the stress and anxiety came rushing back. I got tears in my eyes as I remembered what that high school teacher had said to me. The instructor came over and explained it, step by step.

This summer, when I was looking for a new job, one of the online applications had a cognitive assessment piece. I'd never seen one of those before in a job app. When I got to that section of the application, it was all math problems and TIMED! Ugh!! I froze again! I just clicked on random answers. I couldn't even think through how to solve the problems.

All this to say that, as educators, we have the ability to encourage our students or to give them a lifetime of stress and anxiety. When you are teaching, please be aware of the words that you use and how those can either make, or break, a students for years to come. Are you going to be a encourager or a discourager?

Patiently Listening....

      Oh, my goodness! What a summer it has been!  After returning from Luke and Alex's dream wedding, we listed our house. Then the donating, selling, downsizing, and packing started in full force.  In the middle of all that, we decided that we should be looking for our next house wherever I got a job.  Umm.... stressful, nerve-wracking, frustrating, and time-consuming doesn't begin to cover it!  And it all started AFTER July 18th!

     My first interview was with Warrensburg, MO. It's a small college town about an hour and a half southeast of Kansas City.  Over the summer, they had added a brand new Early Childhood wing.  The principal called me when I was driving back to Hutchinson and asked if I was interested in the position. I told her that I was interested.  Here's the thing, though. Missouri does not have a reciprocating agreement, in terms of teaching licenses, with Kansas. They border each other! They share a city!! Ok.... So I begin the application for my teaching license in MO.  Guess what??  They make the applicant send out letters to verify past employment. Every other district I've ever worked in has done that based on the information on the resume.  Secondly, I had to be re-fingerprinted. No big deal, right?  WRONG!! I had to be fingerprinted at one of their licensed facilities. I was told to go online and see if there were any of those facilities closer to me.  There were two in Wichita....but they didn't do fingerprinting for teacher licenses. GRRR!!  Then the phone calls started.  "When will you be in?"  "You need to schedule a meeting with the superintendent."  Hells bells!!  They hadn't even gotten all of my 37 years of employment history, yet.  I hadn't been offered the job.  There was a voice in my head telling me that they were trying to push my application through before receiving all of my employment verification so they could place me at a less expensive step on the salary schedule.  I couldn't sign a contract that didn't honor and value my years of educational service.

     The next interview I had was for a position in Warsaw, MO. On the way down, we stopped at a LICENSED fingerprinting location.  True to form, the stupid machine wouldn't register my prints correctly, so I had to try each set multiple times. (that should have been a sign) It's a small town located near Table Rock Lake. Heavenly! Right??  We even looked at some houses while we were down there.  I wasn't offered the job...

     Next, I had two interviews, on the same day, in Lawrence, KS. (I decided I was done messing with MO and all of the hoops I had to jump through to get one of their darned licenses!)  The next day, I had a Zoom interview with one of the building's Early Childhood staff.  That night, around 9 pm, I received an email telling me that I would not be considered for that position.  That kind of blew me away because the principal had given me her cell phone number and said "This would be your room."  The other building principal, that I thought I'd had a great interview with, didn't ever reach back out to me, one way or the other. I even emailed her, asking if she had made a decision. Crickets.

     And then there was a district in Arkansas.  I did a Zoom interview with the entire kindergarten staff. I think there were five or six. This was on a Friday afternoon, after they'd been in back-to-school meetings all day. Not ideal, but workable. That night, I get an email saying that they had "chosen to move in a different direction."  By this time, I was just done! I had been praying every night for God to direct me to where I was needed and for help to be patient with the process.  Honestly, I was thinking about reaching out to textbook companies and child development companies to see if they were looking for sales reps.

     And then Topeka called...  Friends!!  They wanted me! The director of our site is from Nebraska so she gets my Husker obsession!  In my Zoom meeting with the director and the principal, the principal said, "Here's why you need to come and work at Pine Ridge Prep."  So, last week I began year 38 at Pine Ridge Prep. I *thought* I was going to be an extra set of hands and follow the Guest Teacher, who was already in place.  Nope! I was literally  thrown into the fire. Luckily, I can deal with that. Abbey and Alex are gracious enough to allow me to stay with them for time being. So, I drove to Topeka on Tuesday night and started on Wednesday. After I got there, I learned that Open House was that night. Sure! No problem! Kids started Thursday. I felt woefully unprepared, but I punted and no one was the wiser.  Friday, I taught all day, hopped in my car at the end of the day and headed home to Hutchinson.   Oh! And guess what??  I received an email telling me that my Missouri teaching certificate had been processed and I could go to the Missouri Department of Education's website and print it off...  

     I went though my YEARS of teaching ideas that are in plastic totes in our basement. I had purged and organized them at the beginning of the summer, so that was an added bonus! Now my car is loaded and waiting for the return trip to Topeka. I have lesson plans and I feel much more organized!  Ready and waiting to see my sixteen cuties tomorrow!  

Two Words

 Friends! This post has been tumbling around in my brain for quite some time. The title is "Two Words" for a reason. There are two words I never dreamed of hearing in the same conversation. Those words are "PreK" and "Rigor."

My "why," my core values and beliefs are that Preschool should be about exposure to new and different ideas. When I first started teaching preschool was about exposing children to social settings and helping them focus on  a story, get along well with others, shapes, colors, and the alphabet.  While this is still true about Preschool, some of that reasoning has changed. In my mindset, preschool is still about those things AND a lot more of the social and emotional learning.  Some of our youngest students come to us from homes where the net family income is below the poverty line. Others come to us from households where they are a part of, or are witnesses to abuse, whether that be physical, sexual, or emotional. 

In Education right now there is a phrase that is pretty popular. It is "Maslow before Bloom." Abraham Maslow studied human behavior and other psychologist after him put his works into a pyramid of social-emotional needs, beginning with the most basic needs of all humans. Those are physiological needs of every person.  Are they safe? Are they hungry? Are they clean? Do they have shelter? Are they getting enough sleep? These are just a few of the basic human needs.  These needs needs to be met for every one of our students before they will ever be able to learn.

Bloom's taxonomy, on the other hand, refers to educational objectives and the way we learn them.  The six levels of objectives are:  Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. So, basically, what "Maslow before Bloom" means is that a student's physiological needs need to be met before any learning can take place.  

Another favorite phrase of mine that I've seen quite a bit on social media is "If a student can't learn, love them.  Your love will teach them!" This is why I spend the first month or so of school building a classroom family, learning routines, and teaching expectations. One day, my principal covered my classroom. When I came back, she told me that my kids could have run that classroom by themselves. She said they knew exactly what they were supposed to do and when they were supposed to do it. That's high praise coming from an administrator!

Back to the two words. In my heart of hearts I believe that children need to have their basic needs met before any learning can take place.  Did my kids learn last year? Absolutely!!  Eighty percent of my class scored eighty percent, or better, on the end of the year assessments.  Our assessments were based on the Kansas Early Learning Standards, put together by shareholders across our state. Our progress reports were developed right off of the state standards.

Three years ago I was honored to be invited to a conference.  One of the sessions of that conference was a Q & A with our State Commissioner of Education.  The conversation got around to full-day PreK.  At my table, I was grumbling.  You see, I was part of kindergarten moving from a half-day program to a full-day one.  What became of this was that kindergarten teachers were being asked to cram developmentally inappropriate lessons down their students' throats. The kids weren't getting it.  Why? Because their little brains were not developed enough to understand the content.  There were high numbers of referrals for interventions.  I couldn't do it. I had to get out.  So, I moved to PreK.  My tablemates at the conference asked me to ask our commissioner about his vision for full-day PreK, so I did.  Here's what the commissioner said, "I believe that every child under the age of eight should have a play-based education.  He received a standing ovation!  So, when I hear someone say to me that there needs to be more rigor in PreK, I get angry, frustrated, sad, and confused. I wonder if that play-based message is being delivered to building and district administration.

In my classroom, our students learned so much through play. During centers, my rock-star classroom aides and I would teach children in all aspects of their education. The students thought they were playing, but in truth, they were learning. Some of them received remediation, some of them enrichment. This was based off the individual needs of each child in the classroom. We had a plan of what each student needed and we worked with them to achieve what they needed to learn. Did the kids know what we were doing? Nope. They just thought we were playing with them. Also, to the naked eye coming into my classroom, it looked like we were playing. However, we weren't. We were teaching.  If you come to my classroom and don't see rigor, that doesn't mean it's not there. The data speaks for itself.

Mental Health and Self-Care

First of all, I truly apologize for my blogging absence. When I resigned, effective the end of the school year, my school-owned laptop had to be returned, as well. Therefore, I have only had my phone and Kindle to work from, until I got a personal laptop late last week. So, I'M BACK!

The abrupt exit of the super-talented Simone Biles from Olympic competition brought the topic of mental health quickly into the living rooms of the world.  While I LOVE watching her perform, I am  so proud of her for being on the world's stage and having the courage, yes, COURAGE, to face the world head-on and say, "This isn't right for me right now." She's already highly decorated, has four moves named after her, is unable to receive the full point value for the moves she does, and truthfully, has nothing left to prove. I commend her for thinking of herself, and her safety, both physically and mentally!

Even though we are not Olympic athletes, we still need to be cognizant of our own mental health. Personally, this has never clearer to me than it became in the fall of 2018. Like Simone, but nowhere near her level of expectations, I experienced the mental health perfect storm. South-Central Kansas was having a monsoon. Seriously!! Many roads were closed and flooded. The rain was torrential! I had a speaking engagement in Wichita, about forty-five minutes from home, in good weather. I had never driven in Wichita by myself and I was driving the school district's car! To top it off, there was no Guest Teacher for my classroom because they simply couldn't get to the school. My two paras were running the classroom. While I was at the conference, I learned that they were not even following my lesson plans and the kids were running amuck.  Just great!

I made it through my presentation and then was the lunch break. As I was going through the smorgasbord line, I felt the beginning of a migraine. Mine are brought on by stress and I have a medication I can take at the onset of a migraine to lessen the severity. However, this medication also messes with my vision and makes me dizzy. I couldn't take the medication and safely drive a vehicle that I wasn't familiar with, during a monsoon, back to Hutchinson, so I left the conference right away to hopefully make it home before a full-blown migraine hit me.  The perfect storm--literally.  I didn't work.

When I got home, I went straight to bed, fully clothed. I did everything I was supposed to do-ice pack across my eyes, heating pad on my lower back, no lights, no sound. It was too late! The nausea hit. I couldn't even lift my head from the pillow. I've never had a migraine like that one, thank heavens. I told my husband that I needed to go to the ER. He tried to get me to his car, but I couldn't make it, so he called 9-1-1. Let me tell you, the paramedics that I had were simply AMAZING! I couldn't see them because of the ice pack over my eyes, but they were so very kind and compassionate. Because I couldn't walk and they couldn't get the stretcher into our bedroom (tight corner),  they had to fashion a lift of sorts with a tarp to get me to the stretcher. Remember the monsoon?? Yep. I had to be wheeled to the ambulance during the monsoon.

When I got to the ER, they did all kinds of blood work, an EKG, and hooked me up to all kinds of machines. They gave me something in my IV that was *supposed* to take the edge off. I didn't make a dent. I remember them asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10. I told them "18." They said their scale didn't go that high. I said they needed to revise their rating scale.  They kept adding more anti-nausea meds and pain meds to my IV until I could finally carry on a bit of a conversation. They still weren't sure what was going on with me. When I heard them order a CT scan, still with the ice pack over my eyes, I asked my nurse what that was for. He said that they were looking for a brain aneurysm. Let me tell you, that will scare the living daylights out of you real quick! After all of the test results came back, the ER team decided that it was "just a really bad migraine." and finally sent me home around 4 am. It took at least three or four more days until I was fully functioning again.

All this to say, take care of yourself first! This was my self-care wake-up call. I learned, that night, to listen to what my body is telling me. Here's what I discovered: if you don't make time for self-care, your body will do it for you.  I've learned to pace myself and to not put too much on my plate. I've also learned that it's okay to spend the whole day on the couch reading some trashy romance novel. In fact, when I feel like things are piling up and getting overwhelming, I read. Reading is my escape from whatever my reality is at that moment. 

It's also okay to say, "No." or "Not right now." We have to be okay with not doing it all. On the flip side, others need to be okay with hearing it, understanding, and giving grace.

It's okay to cry. Sometimes things just get overwhelming. Crying is cleansing. It's too bad that our society has been taught that crying is a weakness. IT'S NOT! I do my best problem-solving after a good cry! I bet I've cried three or four times in the past few days. Trying to get a Missouri teaching certificate, even though Missouri has a reciprocal agreement with Kansas, and my Kansas certificate is valid for four more years, is freaking impossible! Not to mention that school starts in just three short weeks. So while I'm going back and forth with the Missouri certification people, I'm also blogging for you guys. And you know what? It will all work out.

Friends! Take care of yourselves. Last school year was crazy with all of the protocols and it looks like it's going to be the same for this year, I'm sorry to say! Lean on each other! We're all in this together! Share your stories. That's how we build strength. That's why I'm sharing mine!

Podcast Guest

 

I was so honored to be a guest on the Character Strong podcast! I hope that other feel empowered to share their stories!

Here is the link!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-characterstrong-podcast/id1454582540

"I'm Not a Teacher"

      This is something I heard from a parent in a different district/building the other day, with regard to Remote/Hybrid Learning At first, it made me a bit crazy. I thought, "Surely, you can help your child with his/her school work." Then I remembered that other grade levels are much more difficult than what I do each and every day.

     I know that last year, when the pandemic hit and our school buildings closed, I tried to make things as easy as I could for the parents. I read my students stories three times a week, asked the families to share pictures from a weekly scavenger hunt, and ask the kids to get on Zoom at three different dates for a class sing-along.  My main goal was to make it fun and educational for the families and not something that felt like a chore. They were dealing with enough. We all were.

     But what about those older kids? What about those families that don't understand the principles of "new math," or work full-time, or lost jobs because of the pandemic? There is so much on their plates and helping their children with school work isn't that high on the priority list. What about them?

     This is why grace and communication are so very important right now. None of us knows the personal battles others are fighting. Show grace in all that you do!

One Year Ago

     One year ago we had a meeting after school to talk about how the week before going on Spring Break would look due to rising concerns about Covid-19. How would we distance our students? What would meal delivery look like? Just get us through the coming week and then students would be on Spring Break and our building would be deep cleaned.

     One year ago, I told my students that I loved them and I would see them on Monday for some St. Patrick's Day fun and learning.  Little did I know that would be the last time I would see them in person (something I still struggle with).

     One year ago I had set up leprechaun traps that students had made at home, as a family engagement activity, to catch that pesky little leprechaun.  This activity was never competed.

     One year ago, the whole district met in learning teams to determine how we would move forward with Remote Learning. What would it look like? How would we make sure ALL students had access to instruction? How would we know our kids were safe? The PreK team met together and came up with an amazing plan for connecting with our kids through Facebook, a platform the families of our students were already familiar with.

     One year ago The Dream Team (my classroom paras and I) signed up to help sack breakfasts and lunches for families to pick up, curbside, at the school, to feed the students during the shut-down and make sure they had access to healthy meals.  Selfishly, it was a way for the Dream Team to stay connected, since we wear all reeling from the abrupt shut-down of the district buildings.

     If I'd only known, I would have hugged those sweet children harder and longer.  I would have tried to give them more memories to carry forward. I would have tried to help them feel less scared and uncertain of all of the changes that were coming.  It was too abrupt.  To this day, it's still hard to wrap my head around.  That it all happened on Friday the 13th is not lost on me.

It's "Just" Preschool

 It's just preschool. If you want to see my blood boil, say this to me. I've made teaching our youngest people my life's work, It's not "just" preschool. Preschool is foundational for future educational success.

Research suggests that a strong preschool program leads to improved school readiness, higher graduation rates, and lower incarceration rates.  It is also a financial benefit to lower- and middle-class families because quality private preschool programs can cost as much as college tuition!

Preschool is foundational because it provides their first exposure to the school setting. This sets the tone for all future school successes. It is the perfect opportunity to get children started off on the right foot.  With adults that truly care about the children and nurture them, children develop positive feeling about school in general.

Good preschool programs, additionally, help build a child's self-regulation skills and social-emotional development skills such as taking turns, sharing, cooperation, working together, and problem-solving.

Effective preschool programs foster a child's creativity and curiosity. Open-ended questions like, "Tell me more about....", "Why do you think so?" "What do you think will happen next?" Questions such as these foster a child's imagination and lead to a greater sense of wonder in a child's developing brain.

Lots of people think that preschool is play. You bet it is!! Play is the way a child learns. It is the way that  a child experiences the world and play helps them engage on a deeper level. At a conference I attended awhile ago, our State Commissioner of Education said, "I believe that every child under the age of eight should have a play-based education." He received a standing ovation!

So, do not belittle the value and importance of my chosen career path. I don't put down your chosen career. All jobs are important. When I ask you to support your child, trust me that, after thirty-eight years and two degrees, I know what I'm talking about. All I want is for your child to be safe, happy, and to love learning. That's it!

Early Childhood Education Myths

 Myth 1: "It's Only Babysitting" 

Ugh...  Did you know that ninety percent of a child's brain development occurs between birth and five years of age?  That's right! NINETY PERCENT!  Holy cow!  That means that in every moment a child is awake, it's a learning opportunity,Early childhood learning is divided into five primary domains. Those are: social, emotional, physical, communication, and cognitive, or thinking on their own.  All of these things, along with a child's health and safety, are things that every early childhood educator must keep in mind on a daily basis.  Most all early childhood educators that I know, get into this profession because they absolutely love children!

Myth 2:  "All you do is play all day." 

The great Fred Rogers said, "Play give children a way to practice what they are learning."  Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imaginations, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. Through play, children learn how to interact with the world around them. Children cannot do this through screen time.  Screen time is not true interaction or playing. Play needs to include some form of physicality, whether that is fine motor or gross motor.

Myth 3: "Anyone Can Be a Preschool Teacher"

To teach public school preschool in Kansas, the teacher must have Early Childhood Certification. In my own educational experience, I graduated with a double major in Elementary Education and Early Childhood Development, with a minor in Music Education. I then went back to school and got a masters degree in Education.  Teachers are constantly taking workshops and classes in order to keep current with educational trends and how best to serve the ever-changing needs of their students and their families.

Myth 4: "Parents Don't Need to Be Involved in Preschool"

Say what?!?  Families are entrusting their child's teacher with the best of them, their children!  Families know those children better than any teacher could ever hope to. It is vitally important to the child's education that their families ARE involved. Teachers and parents need to work in tandem to help each child be successful in school. Right now, with the pandemic, it's hard for parents to be involved. Many schools are keeping parents out in an effort to curb the spread of the virus to the school population. You can still keep parents in the loop though texting, a variety of apps, newsletters, social media, and a good, old-fashioned phone call.

Myth 5: "Surely Preschool Teachers Are Paid Well"

The average annual cost, per child, for child care in the United States is $8,300 a year. In the program where I work, most of that funding is through a grant from the state.  The yearly enrollment fee, per child, for our program is $65...for a year! This goes to offset the cost supplies for learning activities.

The reality is that preschool teachers are amongst the most undervalued professional out there, ranked even lower than janitors. Yet these teachers are tasked with providing learning opportunities for our most valuable natural resource--our children. I'm lucky. I do not work in a private preschool setting, although I have. Because I work in a school district, I am paid like all other teachers, based on education and experience.  Still, teachers fresh out of college, with student loans to pay, can barely make it on a starting teacher's salary. This leads to many truly amazing teachers leaving the profession, even though they love children. It's a sad commentary.

Several years ago, when a parent said to me, "It's only preschool," I'm not sure they expected the "education" they got, but that kiddo never missed another day of school that year!

Thinking Forward

 .....I have a dream.

"The color of their skin."  Why does skin color matter?  Dig deep and ask yourselves that question. If your answer is that people of color are bad, are "thugs," are criminals, I can guarantee you that there are just as many white people that fall into the same category. Our daughter is a social worker in the prison system. She can back up my claim. Everyone makes poor choices at some point in time. It's part of the learning process.  The fact remains that, based on skin color, there is no difference.

"The content of their character."  Do a Google search for people of color that have changed history. Here are just a few: Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander-the first black women to ear an Ph.D in economics and a law degree. Maya Angelou-a poet. Her works have been considered a defense and celebration of black culture.  Arthur Ashe-Tennis player and founder of the Arthur Ashe Foundation. Received the Medal of Freedom, posthumously.  Ruby Bridges-a just six years old, she was the first person of color to attend and all white school, playing alone at recess, but not missing a single day of school. (How would you feel if your child had to play alone just because of the color of their skin?) Kobe Bryant-besides being a great basketball player, he and his wife started a foundation to address homelessness in Los Angeles. Octavius V. Catto-in part responsible for the 15th Amendment which barred voter discrimination based on race. Bessie Coleman-the first back woman aviator, earning her wings in a record seven months! Rudolph Fisher-physician, radiologist, novelist, and musician. Sojourner Truth-an abolitionist who lectured about racial and gender inferiority. The women of "Hidden Figures," the story of the African-American women behind the scenes at NASA. They are Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughan.

     On this, the weekend before we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his words have a profound meaning to me, particularly. You see, eight years ago, on January 18th, we were blessed with our first grandchild. I have said all along that this child radiates pure joy!  Friend! This child is going to move mountains and change the world.   In this photo she is just five years old. She is now thirteen. She is in Junior Honor Society, Honors Band, and plays libero on a traveling volleyball team! She is spunky and sassy and an absolute joy to be around. Just to know her is to love her!

     Had it not been for forward-thinking people, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would she be a part of our family? I can't be sure, however I know that our lives are blessed and so much better because of her. I thank God everyday for her mom and dad who went through insurmountable odd to bring her into our family. I wish I could share their heroic story, though it is not my story to tell. We are blessed!

Craziness: Things I Never Thought I'd See or Do

 

Never, in a million years, did I ever dream I would be living though a worldwide pandemic.

I sure never thought I would see American people, out of control, storming the capitol building in Washington, D.C. I thought we were more civilized than the third world countries I seen taken over by coups.  No matter which side of the aisle you're on, the violence and destruction of property is never acceptable. Never! Making a noose, waving weapons in the air, making threats of violence, these I do not condone.  I teach my students about the importance of using your words and not weapons and violence. What about what those children are seeing? Grown Americans acting like fools, going against what those very children are being told is not okay. How do we rationalize that to our young, vulnerable, children. That are watching and listening. You can be darned sure they are taking mental notes.

And speaking of young children; when I began my teaching career back in 1983, I never dreamed that I'd still be at it, and still loving what I do!  

And while were talking about professional experience, there is no way I ever dreamed that organizers of national educational conferences would ever think that what I had to say was important. That being said, I am putting together a presentation to share at my 3rd national conference, and then meet the man who gave a work and meaning to how I thought education should always be. Who knew??

And lastly, who would have thought that I would be a published author? I was a contributing author to "Stories in Edu: Sailing With a Fleet." A my new friend and edu-hero, Jim, (pictured above) would use a quote from my story in his presentation!