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Showing posts from January, 2016

A Modern Teacher without Internet

The next time I buy a house, I will make sure that cable and Internet are connected before  closing. While it sounds like a weird contingency and is certainly something that I didn't anticipate to be a problem, buying a house that Comcast/Xfinity won't service until April-ish has really opened my eyes to how much teachers do outside the classroom and on the Internet. Over the past few weeks, I've answered emails, posted grades, and conducted research for lessons and classroom activities from my smartphone and laptop thanks to my iPhone's tethering capabilities. And because of this, I am realizing how limiting this situation really is. In this day and age, teachers are expected to respond quickly. When a parent emails, I try to respond within 24 hours.  If it weren't for my smartphone, some would go unanswered until I could return to work. I'm even imagining a situation where I didn't have my own laptop. I can't begin to consider how I could accomplis

My Grandparents' Stories

A brief disclaimer before reading: Cindy challenged me to just write for 15 minutes. We're holding each other accountable for blogging each week, even when things get hectic in our teaching lives. Because I still have a few lessons to ponder and assignments to grade, I didn't spell check or revise. As a writer, I just went with it. One of my goals for this year is to find more of a work-life balance. I kickstarted this over winter break by making it a priority to spend more time with my family, especially my 80-year-old grandparents. They just moved back to my community after moving away 25 years ago, and I am absolutely thrilled to have them so close. My grandparents grew up in Detroit and moved to Belleville in the late 60s. They lived for nearly 30 years in the house that my aunt still owns today, and moved to Petoskey in 1990, the year in which I was born. For 25 years I've only been able to know my grandparents from afar. Sure I would drive to them during the s

2016 Reading Goal

I accomplished my reading goal last night around 9:00 PM. I was incredibly behind before winter break started, and I was beginning to reassure myself that there's always next year. Luckily my local library has an expansive collection of graphic novels and picture books, so I was able to just barely reach 150 in time. I know numbers aren't important, but it does feel good to be able to say that I met my goal--even if it's in the last few hours of the year. As I look at my Year in Books available on Good Reads, I'm starting to think ahead and plan for my reading year ahead. Some things I want to accomplish in my reading life include: Reading more non-fiction . I know that there are well written non-fiction texts, but I tend to shy away from these. Even in my classroom, these are the least checked-out books. I need to not only do a better job selling these titles, but I also need to familiarize myself with more of these texts. I think part of the reason that I rea