Write 365

Once Upon A Time...I began this blog with the hope that it would not only push me to write more, but that it would also help me to refocus my thoughts toward a more positive attitude. Well, it's been a few years since I last wrote anything here, but I'm feeling the need to start again.

And that's the beautiful thing about life, isn't it? There's always time to start anew, we just need to find the desire and the willingness. I woke up this morning feeling that desire to be a writer again...the willingness, well, I'll just need to work on that.

In the past, I've participated in the 365 Photo Challenge and, as an amateur photographer, I truly enjoyed it. Some days were more challenging than others to find something worthy of that #365Photo, but I kept at it and thoroughly enjoyed it. This year, I'm setting a different challenge for myself. The title of this blog post probably gave it away, but my goal is to write at least one blog post every day of this year. Some of them may be fairly short...

"Working on report cards."

"Bad fish, bad fish!"

"This is Karen's mother. Please excuse her from writing a blog post today. Her brain is dead."

...but I will write something!

When I was growing up, I dreamed of becoming an author. The problem was I rarely seemed to actually write anything worthy of publishing. Or even sharing with the cat, for that matter. There's this line from an old Billy Crystal movie that has stayed in my head since I first saw Throw Momma From the Train:

"A writer writes. Always!"

So that is my goal. To write. Every day.

If you would like to join me, I'll be using the hashtag #write365 on Twitter.

A Reader's Field Trip

The Book Whisperer. Have you read it yet? This wonderful book by Donalyn Miller is a must-read for all teachers, not just reading or literature teachers. I read it last summer and it completely changed the way I think about teaching literature with seventh graders. And that's a good thing.

A very good thing.

On the first day of school this year, I informed my new students that their goal for the year is to read forty books of their own choosing. I expected groans and grumbling, but heard none. I did hear one student whisper, "Yes!" which surprised me...happily.

The sixth grade class at school is also aiming for forty books read by each student by the end of the school year. Sadly, they are way ahead of us! And my students know it. They actually brought it up in class yesterday, wanting to know what we are going to do about it. I wasn't really sure what they expected me to say, except for, "Well, we could read more!" (I'm sure my tone included a great big "Duh!!")

That wasn't good enough for Lexi. "No! We need a goal!"

We have a goal...forty books.

"No! We need a 'we're going to beat the sixth graders' goal! And I think it should be we read a thousand books more than them by spring break!"

A thousand?

"Yeah! A thousand more than the sixth graders. By spring break!"

A thousand? By spring break?

"Yes!!" She was probably thinking I'd had a stroke or some sort of mental breakdown since I kept repeating what she'd said. But, seriously....a thousand?!

Um, why spring break? Why don't we say 'by the last day of school'?

"No, it has to be spring break!"

Why?

"Because then we can set a new goal to beat them again by the end of the year!"

By now, most of the class is completely behind Lexi. Except Joey. Joey just kept rolling his eyes.

That's a lot of books, Lexi.

At this point, Adriana throws her hand up in the air. "OH! Miss McMillan!! I know!!!"

Yes, Audi?

"I know what we should do! We should take a field trip to the library! We could check out as many books as we want and then just stay there and read! All. Day. Long!!"

Actually, Audi, I love that idea!

A roar went up from the class, except for Joey. Joey just shook his head.

It looks like I'll be contacting the library over Christmas break to see if they do field trips. The new library in Walnut Creek is amazingly beautiful...we just have to go there!

Now, this is my kind of field trip! Plus, look at all the cool places to sit and read the day away:

There's even a gazebo!

So...who's with me?!?

Great Gobs of Giggliness!

Seventh graders are weird! I'm just putting that out there. For those of you who have worked with middle schoolers, this will come as no surprise to you. They are just great big goofballs...and they know it. And, quite frankly, they enjoy it.

So did I, today.

I have a very lopsided class this year: 26 girls and 8 boys! The silliness today had nothing to do with gender...it was just all weird. I got called over to one table because Ali wanted me to hear Dylan speak in a weird voice. Another table called me over because Shelby needed to share her random fact of the day with me (apparently this is a tradition with her). Just to be clear, everyone was getting plenty of work done...we were just having plenty of fun while we worked! Nothing wrong with that, right?

At one point, I interrupted them and said something to the entire class. What it was, I can't remember. I do remember using one of my weird voices. I did not expect to be imitated by someone I had previously thought was the shy, quiet type. It got very quiet, very quickly. I looked over at this poor child who was turning bright red and said, "Kalena, did you just imitate the teacher?" And she started giggling.

Well, I lost it. I started laughing so hard while at the same time trying to maintain my control and not laugh...can I tell you how hard that is to do?!! The trying not to laugh just made my eyes start tearing up and before I knew it tears were streaming down my face.

In the front row, poor West hadn't heard what had transpired, so he kept repeating, "What happened? What'd I miss? What's so funny?" When I could breathe, I said, "West, you kinda had to be there."

West cried out, "But I WAS there!!"

I almost had to leave the room after that. Seriously...I couldn't breathe!

Not a bad way to spend a day, wouldn't you agree?

Let Us Begin

It is that time of year, once again. Time for the whining to begin anew. "But I don't wanna go back to school!!" "I just got out of school, it can't be time to go back!!" "Please, oh please, can't I have a few more weeks?!" And that's just the teachers!

Yes, even teachers whine to their mothers. Somehow, whining to someone who is retired about having to go back to work just isn't all that fulfilling.

I'll admit it...I'm not looking forward to going back to work. I enjoy sleeping in, getting dressed only if absolutely necessary, eating lunch at a time other than 12:15, and, in general, being a lazy bum. I loved doing a little traveling this summer, a whole lot of learning, and meeting some of the most wonderful people I've ever known! (even though I knew them before I knew them!) I loved watching television, reading magazines, visiting bookstores, and having long chats with friends (online and on the phone), all without having to worry about the lengthy list of items that need to get done for school.

But I am most definitely looking forward to seeing all of my friends on Tuesday; the people who help create the wonderful community at our school; the people who keep me sane on a daily basis...or at least try to. It is for their sake as well as mine that I make the following statement:

Each day, upon waking, I will remind myself that I am a person of value. I have something wonderful to share with the people in my life, including my students. My attitude is my choice. I choose to begin each day feeling positive about life. I choose happiness.

Now, it is very easy to say that from where I sit at the end of my summer vacation. I know it will be much harder to maintain after, say, Tuesday morning when the alarm goes off for the first time in two months. I'm sure I'll need help in maintaining my positive outlook. Fortunately I have some wonderful friends who will help me with this whenever I need it, either with a supportive shoulder or a good swift kick. They always seem to know the right thing to do or say...even if I don't want to hear it.

But I thought I should have a back-up plan for when my friends aren't nearby; something to go to and find a bit of positivity when I'm in desperate need. So I Googled it. "Positivity," that is. The first site listed was The Positivity Blog by Henrik Edberg, a "30 year old guy from Sweden" (his words) who managed to make some pretty significant changes in his life, the first of which was to move from "a generally pretty negative attitude to a much more positive one." Well, that's exactly what I'd like to do. So I think I'll check out his blog from time to time (or whenever he adds a new post!) There are several blogs linked on my blog that I haven't viewed in quite some time. Why is that?

Actually, I think the question should be why do I take so little time for myself during the school year? Why don't I ever make the time to do something I love to do? Do I really think that I hold so little value as a human being that the needs of everyone else should come before the needs of this teacher? Those of you who know me well already know the answer to that last question. But I'm working on it.

My dear friend Teryl put out a question to our PLN (Personal Learning Network) the other day: "What do you do well outside of education?" As teachers we spend so much of our time (yes, even during our summer vacation) consumed with all the things that need to be done for our students, for their parents, for our school, that we can get lost in the process. But when asked that question, "What do you do well outside of education?" the answer should not be, "Umm..."

That was my answer, by the way. It's not that I feel I don't do anything well other than teach. That wasn't the problem with my answer. The problem was I had to think about it! "What do you do well...?" could also be interpreted as "What do you love to do?" That should not be a question that requires a great deal of thought. That should be the easiest of questions to answer.

"Umm..."

Ok, Teryl. I get it. We all need to have something outside of our careers that makes us happy. Just us! Something that we do only because we love it and it makes us feel like we are a person of value. Or it's something we do because it's a challenge and we know we can overcome it because we want to. I need to start exploring ideas, look at potential hobbies, try something new. Try something positive.

Umm...I'm open to suggestions.

________________________________

One quick side note. I was out running errands today and was struck by the number of people who crossed my path on this beautiful Sunday morning who seemed to be in wonderfully cheerful moods. It was infectious. From the mother and young daughter who were having a rather amusing debate in Target over which small whiteboard was "cuter," to the clerk who rang me up and just really seemed to be enjoying her day, to the young woman at the drive-thru window at Wendy's who, when I pulled up, greeted me with a very cheery, "Welcome to Wendy's!" She had the biggest, most genuine smile on her face. It was beautiful!

"Oh, um...thank you," I chuckled.

She handed my lunch to me with a, "Thank you so much! Have a wonderful day!!"

"Thank you!" I chuckled again.

She was just so cute! And sweet! And so sadly unique. At least that's what I thought at first.

As I drove away with a smile on my face - happy people will do that to you, if you let them - I started thinking that she really isn't all that unique. Kind, good people like this young woman whose name I did not manage to notice are really the norm in life. There are far more of them than I think most people want to admit. We seem to want to believe that mean, unhappy people outnumber the rest of us. Those are the people who make us miserable at work or who take the last parking space in the lot as we waited patiently for it; the people who hurtle themselves down the freeway at breakneck speed and cut you off and then make rude gestures at you. They aren't bad people, per se. Just unhappy. Or unknowledgeable. Yes, I know...I'm making up words now.

But think about it...of all the people you had to deal with last year - co-workers, parents, students - how many of them caused you grief? Which party represented the greatest majority? Those who were easy to deal with or those who were not? Of one hundred people in your working life, how many would you say negatively impacted your life? One? Two? Five? Ten? Even if it was ten out of one hundred people, that means that ninety percent (90%) of the people you worked with in one capacity or another last year were good people who positively impacted your life. I can live with that. How about you?

Try this experiment. The next time you go out to run errands, greet everyone who crosses your path with a cheery "Good morning!" (or whatever time of day it happens to be) Hold the door open for people. Let someone else go ahead of you in line at the supermarket. Sure, you'll get a few stares from people who might be thinking "Oh, crazy woman! Just smile and walk away!!" But for the most part, happiness will be met by happiness.

Try it. And let me know what happens. More importantly, let me know how you feel afterwards!

William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes." What would happen if many human beings altered their lives by altering their attitudes? What kind of change would we be able to make in our world if we just believed we could?

So, here's to a new school year! May it bring us joy with little sorrow, playfulness with little toil, and a wonderfully positive outlook with little negativity.

_________________________

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm A Genius!

Yesterday, while working with the eighth graders, I was the one who learned a really good lesson. It was more of a reminder, actually. So often I think we tell ourselves that young people know everything there is to know about technology; they are the "Digital Natives" after all, aren't they? Today I was reminded not to make that assumption.

Yes, most of my students can perform great feats of magic on their cellphones or iPods (at least from where I sit they can). But how much do they know about the practical aspects of technology? Do they know how to use a wiki to present a research topic? Do they know how to use their cellphone to take notes or write themselves reminders? How about keeping a calendar on their phone? On Google? Anywhere!

My students may adapt quickly to the technology they find themselves sitting in front of, but they are not born knowing how to do such things as work with HTML code. They don't have an innate sense of what is safe and/or proper online. What they do have is a lack of fear when it comes to technology. They'll try anything, do anything, without worrying about what might happen. I'm not sure that's exactly a good thing, but I do admire their willingness to try anything.

So, there I was, working with eighth graders on their Civil War wiki, and Andy asked me if I could help his group add some music to their page. "Sure, no problem," I said. "Let's see if we can find a widget that'll work and then we can just embed it into the site."

~blink, blink~

"It's really easy," I continued warily, "we just need to grab the HTML code and copy and paste it into the wiki."

~blink, blink~

"Andy?"

"Um, Miss McMillan, I didn't understand a word you just said there."

Why on earth did I ever think he would? Just because he knows how to use a cellphone? Seriously? So, I did what I'm supposed to do...I taught him. I walked him through the steps, trying my best to keep my hands off the computer, and watched as he put all those crazy words his teacher had just said together with a fairly simple process. It was a wonderful moment.

And then he said, "Miss McMillan, you must be a genius!"

Yes, yes I am. Now, can you help me get the pictures off my cellphone?

It's Friday!

It has been an incredibly long week. There have been far too many moments of frustration this week, including yet another pointless faculty meeting. Especially the pointless faculty meeting. But I've tried very hard to find at least a few moments of joy. Does it surprise anyone that those moments became easier to find the closer I got to Friday?

I didn't think so.

Yesterday afternoon, during my prep time, I walked over to the office for a meeting with the boss. She wasn't there. She forgot about our meeting that she'd just made about 30 minutes before. I took a deep breath and walked back across campus toward my classroom passing my seventh grade boys who were playing volleyball during P.E. (well, I'm not sure "playing" is the right word to use here, but it'll do until someone comes up with a new term that describes what the boys were doing).

"McTeach, come on! You HAVE to play with us!"

I don't have to do anything.

"Come on!! You know you want to!"

I know no such thing.

About five minutes after I got back to my classroom (did I mention it's a long walk from my room to the office?), the boss called and asked me to return to the office. I took a deep breath (or ten) and headed back over.

"Yay! McTeach changed her mind!"

Not exactly.

My "meeting" lasted all of about 30 seconds, and could have been accomplished via email. Or even a phone call.

When I started heading back across campus again toward my classroom, I heard Devin call out again, "Come on, McTeach...just one serve!!"

Oh yeah, I thought to myself, I'm ready to hit something!

I wound up playing volleyball with the boys for about ten minutes and had a wonderful time! Granted, I was the only one who seemed to know how to hit the ball, but that just made me feel even more like a rock star!!

Pretty cool way to end my day.

What a Lovely Shade of Red

I'm just sitting here in my nice quiet classroom trying to do a little reflecting on my day, and I'm really not sure what to make of it. Today had moments that made me want to pull my hair out (which I'm really trying to avoid as I'm letting my hair grow out right now), moments of joy and laughter, and moments of total embarrassment for the teacher. Well, just one embarrassing moment, really, but it was a good one!

Where to begin...

I began my day by introducing the seventh graders to a new website that I think is pretty slick for research, and showing them a quick video that explains some of the new changes in Google Docs. I'm not sure which one we were more excited about! Google has finally added a chat feature for Docs, so now my students can chat while working on a document. You know middle schoolers will love anything that includes the word "chat"!

We're also very excited about now having real-time collaboration abilities in Docs. My students will be able to see the changes their group-mates are making on a document as they're making them. We've had too many issues with students writing over one another in Docs because they can't tell where another person is writing at any given time. That has been changed! This is the video I showed my seventh graders this morning that explains these changes as well as the addition of Google Drawings:



I'm not sure what it says about me, but the fact that Google is adding rulers and tab stops to its documents made me happier than the new chat feature made my students. [It is NOT necessary for any students of mine who may happen upon this blog to offer their opinions of what this says about their teacher! Thank you.]


What I showed the kids next is a website I can't wait to start using with them! I'd heard about this new search engine when it came out, but the best I could do at the time was to bookmark it for checking into later. Late last night I watched one of the videos posted on the WolframAlpha site that explains how teachers can use this new tool. I found my way there after clicking on the link that Shannon Smith shared on Plurk. Turns out, Shannon and her mom, Nancy Brachbill, are two of the teachers in the video which I just thought was too cool for words! You can find the videos at WolframAlpha for Educators.

After watching one of the videos last night, I decided to play with the site a little bit [it was almost midnight...I really should have been asleep by then, but you know what they say about us edtech geeks and our new "toys"!] One of the first things I searched for was my date of birth. I know, I know...it's all about me, isn't it! So, I typed in this:

And the first thing I saw:


Oh, come on...you know it's the first thing you're going to do when you check out the site, aren't you!

Well, one of the first things that Shannon mentioned in her video was using WolframAlpha to search for vocabulary words. What a great idea! So, this morning when I was demonstrating the site for my seventh graders, I asked one of them to give me one of their words; you can see the results here:

As someone who enjoys writing poetry, I was especially excited to see, and show my students, that the search results include a list of words that rhyme with the search term. [Stick with me...this will come back to bite me later in the morning.] Of course, mentioning to my seventh graders that it provided rhyming words led at least one boy to call out, "Type in 'orange'!!"

Oh brother.

My seventh graders are currently finishing up giving their presentations about Africa. Each student researched a different African country and created a powerpoint to share what they'd learned in their research. I'm so proud of my students; they have done an amazing job with their presentations! But it took me all of about 30 seconds using WolframAlpha to realize that their research time probably could have been cut in half if we would have been using this wonderful tool. Here, try this and see what information just one search can provide you:

I'm sure you'll have roughly the same reaction that my seventh graders and I had this morning. Whoa! "Dude, that's totally awesome!!" Yeah, thanks Devin.

I tried to avoid the gazes of those students who were shooting me death glares. "You couldn't have found out about this before we spent 50 gazillion hours on this project???"

Sorry.

Fast forward about two hours...time for eighth graders. They are currently working on a research project about the Civil War, so I wanted to share with them this same website. I shared with them the birth date search...middle schoolers just love hearing how old and decrepit their teacher is. Then I asked for someone to give me a name to search for. "Bob."

Sigh.

I think I need a little more than that.

"Robert."

No, seriously. I swear I live in a cartoon. I'm just waiting for that darn anvil to drop. [It's coming, by the way.]

I decided to show them how to search for their vocabulary words. I asked an eighth grader to give me one of their words, and the first one that came to mind was "vex." [Don't get ahead of me, here.]

Now, picture me standing there in front of my ActivBoard, sharing this wonderful new website, thinking it's just the coolest thing since the invention of the modem; I haven't a clue. No, it doesn't even enter my mind that I am about to show a list of words that rhyme with "vex" to 34 soon-to-be giggling eighth graders. No, no...I proceed with "so if you're writing some fabulous poetry and you need to find a word that rhymes with 'vex'..."

That's when I saw it. The word that shall not be named. At least not in my blog that would eventually be spammed by who-knows-how-many who-knows-what-kinds of websites. I kept my face turned toward the board for a moment or two, but I'm sure the bright red glow from my face bounced right off that board toward all of my now-giggling students.

I tried to make like I had planned that all along by quickly adding, "Of course, I'm not really sure any of us wants to see what kinds of poems you can create with these words." But my brain was already composing a limerick or two while they continued to giggle.

Ok, one last search...somebody give me the name of a battle. [Quick!!]

"Wilderness!"

God love ya, George and Zane!


Joy and Laughter

There were at least a few moments of joy and laughter today. One of my favorites occurred during lunch recess. No, I wasn't shooting hoops, although I really wanted to. I had my camera in hand, and didn't feel like risking dropping it. I was taking some pictures when Kate ran by me, chasing after another student and yelling in a "we're just regular kids having some good old-fashioned 'tag you're it' kind of fun." Well, she nearly took out the teacher as she ran by, so I yelled out "Kate!!" That's when this quietest of quiet, reserved to the point of being almost hidden, students stopped, turned, ran back to me, threw her arms around me, and yelled "I love you, McTeach!!"

Oh, geez. "I love you, too. Now, get off!"

Laughter ensued.

"Oh, McTeachy!!"

Sigh.

Just another typical day in middle school.