Trust Your Gut I am constantly in awe of all my amazing teachers! I think we all have them in our lives. The ones who can help us with our day to day or who challenge us to grow. In our world of social media the idea of trusting your gut is pretty foreign. That's why I wanted to take some time and tell you what I have learned from our gut about the blog. I am often asked why I started the blog in the first place. Honestly it is quite simple. I love what we do as teachers and I was feeling like there needed to be a medium for sharing all the great things that we learn! But why now? Well for a long time I just felt like I was in a box. We have always felt called to make change in education, we have been talking about it, dreaming of the future and it has taken years for us to truly get on this journey together. Recently though I think we have finally crossed the threshold and it is my honor to share it all with you! So to answer the question....I started the blog because I want to change education. It is my belief that when we truly value each other's voices our world becomes a better place. We grow and each of us becomes more fulfilled when our potential is supported. That is why I love blogging with my tribe. It is so empowering to get new viewpoints and hear the wonderful things that people do in their schools everyday. I love the variety of blogs, the ideas shared and then later I feel like a million bucks because I have helped so many people find their voice. The most gratifying thing about teaching is knowing that I make a difference in peoples lives and knowing that it is because of the work I do with them. All that being said I do think its time to share something else with you all. A few months ago I got one of those questions that stops you in your tracks. It was a question about the blog that I could not answer. After listening to the voice of intuition I made a decision about the blog. Not really because I know anything, but mostly because I wanted to stay true to our mission. After some soul searching I decided to start a new mission. This blog is officially on its way to being a place of community, of learning and most importantly an open environment for all of us to share. My mission is to help more people understand how amazing each other's stories are and most importantly how much each of us has to contribute. If we do not support each other to thrive we will never change the world! Our time is coming and we need to start practicing for it right now. So what is the point of sharing all this? There are countless articles, videos, books and websites where we can learn about the world around us. Instead of always taking the easy way out of being informed, we are going to start asking each other questions! If you are struggling with something I will be asking you if you would be willing to help. If you know a subject matter well I want you to teach me. Instead of using Google to search for an answer I want us to be a team of people helping each other along the way. If you are not willing to share that is fine too! But if you are, that is how I intend to start this blog. So thanks for taking time out of your day to read this post and here's to the future! What else? Oh you know how it goes, we are always learning about best practices and tips and tricks. I was just thinking yesterday of sharing one. So this week I was doing another tip for the kiddos I am working with and I wanted to share it with you. When you are teaching a lesson with the kiddos do not give them an answer. Instead ask them a question, give them an open-ended question and see where the answer takes them. They will often come up with their own solutions that you never could have thought of! Wednesday, August 26, 2015 Just a reminder to all my amazing kiddos at school. Today is Teacher Appreciation Day. We will be visiting all of our classes tomorrow in order to make sure they know how much we appreciate them. This is also a great day to ask for the little things as well. I know my kids like things like notes and thank you cards and sometimes you do just need to ask! So I wanted to share with you a few ideas on thank you cards. 1. Make a card 2. Write a letter to someone who has inspired you or help you 3. Get a photo of your teacher and make a collage of them on a special paper. 4. Write out a list of reasons you like your teacher on a yellow sticky note or in your journal or notebook 5. Make an artwork as a thank you 6. Make an A3 sized thank you page with all of your teachers name on it 7. Make a paper bag book with the name of your teacher on it (like the ones you used to make when you were little) 8. Have a thank you event like the one I did with my students last year. So just remember that your teacher is a gift and they are teaching you something that is valuable in their life too! No matter what happens tomorrow be sure to say thank you to your teachers! Let's be our best selves today and remember that we are never truly separate from our teachers! Thursday, August 20, 2015 Hello! I was watching a talk by Dr. Dan Siegel and he was talking about this idea called "trusting your gut". The idea is you have to trust your own instincts as to what you should do. Not what your spouse, your parent, or your teachers think you should do, but what you know to be right for you. This is actually pretty similar to one of my favorite quotes, "when the student is ready the teacher will appear." That is the idea of trusting your gut. With regards to teaching and creating in the classroom, I have found this really to be true in my world. If something that we teach or create does not work for someone we simply have to trust our gut and change it for the better. When I first began teaching I thought that I needed to create a strict routine for learning. I felt like I was failing my students so I thought the way to fix that was to create an organized day. Instead I found that the kiddos were having so many issues in school that they would just become overwhelmed. It did not make sense to me to force everyone to do things the same way all the time. After some thought I started using my own gut as a guide and I changed things up a little. Instead of making sure everyone was completing all the work on schedule I decided that I would do it with only one class and then see how it went. What I found was that it was even better when everyone was able to do their work when they wanted. When I noticed this it made sense to me as my students always were getting out of breath trying to keep up with my "strict routine". In this instance I just changed my approach and changed my focus. What I learned from my teacher's journey has affected every aspect of my life. It has taught me that change can be scary, but that with confidence and openness to the unknown I can have a bigger impact on my own learning environment and with that the learning of those around me! So here is what I am really thinking about today. I am thinking about teaching you as much as possible about what you want to know. I want you to look over all the things that you are doing in school. Not just the ones we are having at school or the ones that you enjoy, but all of them. I want you to pay attention to the feelings you have. How your body reacts and then what you want to know more about. Then from there the power is in your hands. No one but you can decide how far you want to take your education or how long you want to keep at it. Just remember when you have a question or a feeling that you do not know, to just ask and trust that your questions will be answered. Don't hold back and always look for what's next in your learning. When we have a passion for something then our whole world opens up. Our world changes and we have so much more access to the knowledge we need. One of the benefits of online learning is that it is like having all of your teachers in your house! So I want to make sure that you see the learning around you! What is great about online learning is that it is not set in stone, but adaptable to how each student learns. Each day I have so many little bits of new information to learn. At times I will get so frustrated that I need to quit. Yet all I have to do is change how I see the situation and it can be different. That is how you have to see it when you are figuring out what you want to learn. I find that my brain can either accept new information or it can not. It depends on how I look at it. All that being said I want you to know that if there is anything I can help you with please just ask. I am so grateful for the time and effort that you take to not only learn but share with others. When you do this you make our lives a whole lot better! I can't wait to see what you discover in your world! The other day my boys wanted to help me water plants so they helped water them while I took a break. After the fact they looked over to see if I was upset that they had wate