What Do You Do With An Opportunity?

                                                                      When your heart tells you it's time to make a change,
                                             

                                                        to give a listen!


     When we moved to Hutchinson, seven years ago, I was fully prepared to finish out my teaching career here.  I wasn’t looking for a job.  I had called a former principal of mine to let him know I would be in the area and subbing in the schools.  The teaching position basically fell into my lap.
      After five years of teaching kindergarten, another opportunity came along, to teach preschool in the same district.  Again, I listened to my heart and ask for a transfer, which was granted.  The two years I spent in this building were magical!  I was given the power to do what was best for my students, by a principal with an early childhood background.  She “got me.  She understood that I knew what my students needed and gave me the freedom to teach my students how I saw fit.

    Again, my heart is speaking, and I must listen.  I have submitted my resignation to my current school district.  I am going to another district, to teach preschool.  The people that I interviewed with were fantastic!  I was barely home from my interview when they called and offered me my choice of three, yes three, positions, all early childhood!  I listened to my heart.  It told me it was time to go.  On to a new adventure!  

Still Trying to Process

Still Trying to Process

     Friends. I.CAN’T.EVEN.  I’m still trying hard to process everything I heard and learned at the Bridging to Resilience Conference I attended in Overland Park, KS last week. 

     I am humbled to have been in the company of such brave and courageous young people, who shared their stories of hope.  I think that’s the thing that has hit me the hardest.  These young people, who have experienced poverty, abuse, homelessness, addictions, bullying; the list could go on and on.  These young people bravely got up on the stage, in front of nearly 400 people, and shared their stories.  Now their stories of courage and of hope, and of resilience should be a lesson to us all!  These teens are nothing short of amazing!

     The brave women, who were part of a parent panel, who also shared their brave stories; stories of how their poverty, their addictions, their abusive situations, impacted the lives of their children.  They shared the hard work they each put forth in order to have a better life for themselves and their children.  In addition, they shared very real, very painful ways that we, as educators, put them in difficult spots.  Home visits (“Do you want me coming into your home and passing judgment?  Even if that judgment is unintentional, we can see it on your faces.”).  Classroom requests (“Billy needs a sack lunch for the field trip...tomorrow.  Folks.  I don’t have dollar one in my pocket to do this on such short notice.”)  We do these families such a huge disservice when we don’t seek to understand their circumstances, friends!  So powerful!

     Because I’m still processing, I’m going to leave this blog here, for now, and blog more later, as I continue to process.  These people are the ones that touched me the most.  These once-broken, resilient, courageous people who shared their most personal stories with those of us blessed enough to attend this conference.

What Kind of World Are We Leaving Future Generations?

What kind of world are we leaving for our children and grandchildren?  We are very quickly becoming a nation that has little regard for human life.  Upset over a break up?  Shoot up your high school.  Don’t like someone whose beliefs or the color of their skin is different from yours? Kill them.  Is this really the world we want for future generations? 
Where is empathy?  Where is “love your neighbor as yourself?”  Where is talking through problems, issues, concerns?  Where is responsibility? 

We are becoming a world where the only way we communicate with each other is through electronics.  I can't begin to tell you the number of children I see on electronics when I go to the grocery store!  Instead of giving them electronics, talk to them about environmental print, colors, shapes, counting, sorting.  I could go on and on!  Will it take more time?  Yes! Are you building relationships with your children? YES! What's more important?  Getting your shopping done as quickly as possible, or building relationships with your child(ren)?  Not too long ago, I was in a store when I saw a grubby little boy ask his mom if he could have a book.  Yes, A BOOK!  Do you know what his mom said to him?  "Go put that damn thing back!  You know I can't get you that and still get my cigarettes!"  True story!  Put down your devices, think about your child,  and TALK and LISTEN to one another.  The art of human conversation is on a rapid decline.  No one listens to each other any more.  We’re all too busy on our electronic devices.  Relationships aren’t important anymore-just things.  It’s a crisis in our very culture.  What is it going to take to turn this culture crisis around? It’s becoming a culture where things are more important than people.  Where life holds very little value.  We need to build up and value our relationships with one another. I’m very worried for future generations.
This quote is taken from an emergency room doctor: “It is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self. It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that ‘I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me’.”
We need to teach our children the importance of relationships with other human beings, that it’s okay to be different, that it’s okay to look different, that it’s okay to have different likes and dislikes, without having huge arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong!  I explicitly teach my students the difference between fact and opinion.  “Mrs. Jenkins!  _______ says my picture is ugly.”  Fact or opinion?  It’s just someone else’s opinion and if you like it, that’s okay, while then teaching the other person that it’s not okay to say mean things to their classmate, how to disagree, and the art of apology.  Those are all things our children need to learn.  Maybe if we can teach them these things, the world they will live in, as adults, will be a less cruel place to be.  

 

A Bad Case of the Nerves

A Bad Case of the Nerves

   My first presentation at a national conference:  YIKES!

                                                               

                                                                                                           

     What was I thinking??  This is WAY outside my comfort zone! 

       

However, through the encouragement of some pretty important people in my life, I’m taking the plunge!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

     Here are the things going through my head:

v Is the presentation long enough?

v Will the people in attendance listen to what I have to say?

v Will they care?

v Will they think the ideas I share are worth implementing?

 

                                                                 

  I’m very thankful that I’ve got Spring Break to put the finishing touches on my presentation!

Relationships

I am submitting the following for a story in a book that will be published later in the year:
This is my story of how an amazing woman changed my life so completely.
     When I was seven years old, my father was killed in Vietnam.  He was returning from a routine flight over Vietnam in a fighter jet and crashed just three miles short of the runway.  No one can explain the crash or why he was even flying that plane.  You see, he was trained on the big planes, the B-52 bombers.  Why he was flying a jet is still a mystery.  His plane was not shot down, nor did he report any mechanical difficulties.  It just went down.  He was pinned beneath the wreckage and it is said that he died instantly.  His co-pilot ejected, but at such a low level, broke his back.  The search and rescue team found him, with his parachute still attached, leaning up against a tree.
  The black car, with the two men dressed in full Air Force dress uniforms knocked on the door of our tiny duplex in Lincoln, Nebraska, before school, on September 20th, 1968.  After they left, I remember sitting, with my younger brother, on my mom's lap and just crying our hearts out.
     Later that week, we had to fly to Long Island, New York because that's where my dad was raised and where the family burial plot was.  (His mother did not want him buried in Arlington.  She wanted him closer to home, as he was her only child.)  I remember staying at my grandparents house with a family member during the church service because my mom thought it was best that my brother and I not go,  and then being picked up and taken to the graveside service.
     Upon returning home, I remember being so afraid that something would happen to my mom and not wanting to go to school.  I remember screaming and crying under the dining room table that I didn't want to go to school.  The logic of a seven-year old:  My dad died when I was in school, so maybe my mom would, too.
     Enter two women for whom I will never be able to repay their debt-Louise Shuman and Maxine Moore, the elementary school counselor and my second grade teacher, respectively.  My mom would drop me and my younger brother off at the designated door each morning and one of these ladies would be there, waiting for us.  I remember spending time in Mrs. Shuman's office, coloring and talking.  What I remember most is Mrs. Moore.
     Mrs. Moore would allow me to come into her classroom before the rest of my class to do odd jobs for her, which included sharpening pencils, passing out papers, and the like. These are things she would have normally done herself, but she saved them for me.  We would talk and this would allow me to feel comfortable in the classroom before the rest of my classmates arrived.  Her compassion, caring, and understanding were  game-changers for this scared little second-grader!
     You would have thought the story ended there, but it did not.  The next year my mom remarried and we moved to a farm a couple of hours away from Lincoln.  However, we still kept the same dentist.  Every time we'd go to the dentist, we'd have an after-school snack with Mrs. Moore.  Secretly, my mom and Mrs. Moore collaborated to make this happen!  So, I never lost that connection that Mrs. Moore and I had built.
     Along the way, I had many other highly influential teachers.  Mr. Larry Fletcher who taught high school English.  Mr. Fletcher taught me that learning can be fun!  Each week, we'd play "Password" with our spelling words.  In the rural farming community where I grew up, class sizes were small.  One section of English met during Band, so all of the Band kids had English together.  When we competed it was always boys against girls and the girls always won!  The overly-competitive boys could never figure out how.  Here is our secret:  We all knew sign language!  My mom was a speech pathologist and one of her students was deaf.  She taught him...and me...sign language, which I, in turn, taught to all of my friends.  It didn't matter who was in the seat for "Password," because we all knew sign language!
     Mrs. Diane and Mrs. Collen Norvell (now Sipich) taught me the value of music.  Going to music contest was the highlight of my high school years!  We listed to so many talented musicians on those trips.  I have life-long friends from other schools because we have bonded over our shared love of music.  I still love to sing and play the piano.
     Mrs. Fran Conneally.  Fran was the Queen of Handouts!  She was forever copying news article for us to discuss in class.  She was the only teacher I ever had in high school that asked us to do a research paper, complete with sources and a bibliography!  I am so thankful for her passion and her leadership.  I'm pretty sure I would never had survived college without all that I learned from her!
     Years later, I returned to Lincoln for college.  I bet you can guess who wrote one of my reference letters for acceptance into the University of Nebraska-Lincoln!  Because of her amazing influence and compassion, I, too, decided that I wanted to be a teacher!   I had a double major in Elementary Education and Early Childhood Education with a minor in music education.  Many evenings you could find me at Mrs. Moore's home, studying and talking about issues in education.  In addition, on those weekends that I didn't go home to the farm, you could find me at Sunday dinner with the Moore family!
     Now in my thirty-third year of teaching in the area of Early Childhood Education,  Mrs. Moore is on my mind each and every day!  She was the first teacher, of so many, to have a positive impact on my life. I do my best to emulate the care and compassion I learned very early on from Mrs. Moore.  The relationships teachers build with their students can be long-lasting.  You never know how your influence on the life of a child will take them!  In all that you do, show every child that you love them and want what's best for them.  This is something I learned from my second grade teacher, Mrs. Maxine Moore!

My Hearts Hurts

      Another school shooting, bringing the count to 18 school shootings in the 45 days of this calendar year.   

 

Teachers, who put the lives of their students before their own.   

                         Students, whose full potential will never be    realized.   

     Parents, who will never see their child alive again.   

 I don’t have any answers.  I just know that no parent should ever have to bury their child!

I Was a Starfish

I Was a Starfish

     It was September of 1968. I had just started second grade a month prior. Life, as we knew it was about to be turned completely upside down.  There was a knock on the door and there stood two uniformed Air Force officers.  My father had become a casualty of the Vietnam War.

     He was returning from a reconnaissance mission to an airfield in Ubon, Thailand when his fighter jet crashed, just three miles short of the runway.  He was trained to fly B-52 Bombers.  No one knows why he was flying a fighter jet that night.  The co-pilot ejected and lived.  I had just turned seven.  My brother was 5.

     To understand the mind of a seven year-old is a challenge.  I reacted by not wanting to go to school. I can remember hiding under the dining room table of the duplex we were living in.  I was afraid to go to school because my father had died while I was at school and I didn’t want my mother to die while I was at school.  That’s how my little brain was processing this tragedy.

     Enter Maxine Moore and Louise Shuman, second grade teacher and elementary guidance counselor, respectively.  These two women helped me get back in to the school routine, going above and beyond for this little starfish!  Mrs. Moore would greet me at the door and whisk me away to her classroom where she had “jobs” waiting for me.  We would talk while I passed out papers, fed the fish, or sharpened pencils.  Gradually, through the compassion of these two women, I began to feel less afraid. 

     But, wait!!  The story doesn’t stop there!  Mrs. Moore and I stayed in contact with each other, even after my mom remarried and we moved two hours away!  When I moved back to the city I’d been living in during second grade, to attend college, guess who was my biggest cheerleader?  You guessed it!  Mrs. Moore!  Her home was my “safe place” when college became overwhelming.  I’d go there to study, to talk about trends in education, even for Sunday dinner!

     Mrs. Moore lived to be 102!  I’m convinced that there were other “starfish” that also benefited from her love and compassion.  I will be forever thankful for her love and compassion for this little starfish!  She is the biggest reason I became a teacher, too!