Morning Surprise!

February 5, 2009 at 8:59 pm | In books, school, teaching | 1 Comment

I work in an amazing place!  I teach in an inner-city school with the majority of children from low-income homes and a high ELL population (mostly Hispanic.)  We are one of the few small truly neighborhood elementary schools left.  We have about 300 students.

I work with an extremely dedicated staff and for a fabulous principal!  Our principal was an amazing teacher before she became administration.  Her reputation as a teacher was impeccable.  As an administrator she is always trying to balance things for her staff.  She has high, but reasonable expectations.  She expects you to work hard, but she is working harder.

My co-teachers are not only talented, but incredibly professional.  If you need anything, they will help you.  We share ideas, lessons, and materials not only within grade levels, but across grade levels.  We truly work as a team.  It is wonderful.

They care so much and so intensely that it always surprises me.  I know that a large group of them have been praying for my family and my husband’s job situation regularly for months.

Today when I got to school one of my grade level partners came to visit me.  A few weeks ago she had introduced us to a book called Wolf! I loved it!  It is about this wolf that wants to learn to read, and I think it has enormous potential to help teach my students about reading workshop and what good readers look and sound like. This morning she presented me with my own copy!  It almost made me cry, because it was so thoughtful!

This is actually the third surprise book that I have received this year.  That amazes me even further.  The first was an amazing book about academic vocabulary from an ELL teacher that left our building.  The 2nd was this book I kept checking out from our professional library.  Our darling literacy leader surprised me with a copy of The Daily 5 after I was bemoaning returning it–again.

I have worked in my 20 year career with many talented teachers, and at good schools.  This one is different.  There is no competition.  We realize our success depends on their success.  We are interconnected, dependent, and all valued.

On My Mind

January 26, 2009 at 8:49 pm | In Working mom, books, family, finances, marriage | 1 Comment

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about finances lately.  That of course is bound to happen in this current economic crisis.  For those that don’t know my husband was laid off awhile ago, and has not been able to find a job.  This seems to be becoming a more common problem for many families.

We are currently participating in a course that our church is offering on financial management.  We have learned so much and are actually able to put most of it in practice even on one income.   The course is Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  I like it because it is very “real.”  His strategies are doable.  They take in account that I will need a little bit of “blow” money.  Most of all I like that it requires both Todd and I to work together.  This has not been our strong point.  For some reason, I can’t talk about money without having an anxiety attack–seriously.  I blame it on growing up broke.

On a different, yet similar note, I am listening to a book on tape right now that is amazing.  I was basically forced to listen to it, by my husband and children.  They had listened to it over the past few weeks and had finished it.  The book is call The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It is a book about vampires.  Normally that probably wouldn’t catch my interest very much, but this is a really good book.  I want to hear more, and more, and more… you get the picture.

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