May 1st: Celebrate Mother Goose Day
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Friday, 01 May 09 - 12:02 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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Yes, it is Mother Goose Day, May 1st every year.
To celebrate -- read a few nursery rhymes to your favorite child.
One of the games I use to play with my fifth grade library classes was list ten nursery rhymes working together as a team. They would be put into groups of five or six students. I then asked them to list ten nursery rhymes on a paper. Usually out of six groups, only one group would have a complete and correct list. Pretty sad.
Nursery rhymes are very important for children to learn.
It helps them greatly with pre-reading skills.
So read a few to a special child or if you have your own children, select one and repeat it for a week. Then pick a new one each week.
Mother Goose Society -- the official page with lots of ideas and activities.
National Education Week: Teacher Thoughts
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Friday, 21 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a student's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all my
situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a student humanized or de-humanized.
~~ Haim Ginott
A teacher's task is to take a roomful of live wires and see to it that they're grounded.
~~ Carl Jung
National Education Week: The Teacher
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Thursday, 20 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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THE TEACHER
The teacher looked ahead with misgivings, but with hope.
Would the way be smooth or rough?
Would it end in success or failure?
And she stood and looked and wondered.
And a voice said, answering: "There will be no end."
And the teacher smiled and said:
"I know it will end. I may teach one year, two years,
Or possibly many years,
But this I know: Someday it will end."
And the teacher went forward to teach.
And many gathered around her,
And they all had need to learn.
And the teacher looked into their eyes and desired to fill their needs
And she taught them with mind and heart and voice —
A mind filled with knowledge,
A voice speaking wisdom,
And a heart overflowing with love.
Then life changed, and the teacher taught no more.
No more did eager students gather around her.
"It has ended," said the teacher, continuing on the road of
life. "This is the end of my teaching."
And she believed this until...
A doctor stood and said: "I am here because this teacher taught me."
A lawyer stood and said: "I am here because this teacher taught me."
An astronaut stood and said, ”I am here because this teacher taught me."
An engineer stood and said, “I am here because this teacher taught me."
A teacher stood and said, "I am here because this teacher taught me."
And many in good positions stood and said, “ I am here because this teacher taught me."
And the teacher looked ahead of those who had been taught
and saw the continued steps of progress, work, and success before each one.
And joy filled the teacher's heart, and she said,
”This is not the end. There is no end to my teachings.”
National Education Week: Teaching
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Wednesday, 19 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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TEACHING
Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. Not only that, I'm to install a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, and observe them for signs of abuse.
*** I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook and how to apply for a job, but I am never to ask if they are in this country illegally.
***I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage a respect for the cultural diversity of others, and, oh yeah, teach, always making sure that I give the girls in my class fifty percent of my attention.
***I'm required by my contract to be working on my own time (summers and evenings) and at my own expense towards additional certification, advanced certification and a master's degree, to sponsor the cheerleaders or the sophomore class (my choice) and after school I am to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my current certification and employment status.
***I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority.
***I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a few books, and a bulletin board, and on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states.
***Is that all?
Author Unknown
National Education Week: How to Teach Learning
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Tuesday, 18 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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How to Teach Learning
Sing it
Seal it in an envelope
Twist it under a bottle cap:
"You Are A Winner!"
Tie it to the leg of a carrier pigeon
and let it soar
Hoard it greedily, with your back turned
Then share it with a magnanimous grin
and glittering eyes
Make it a surprise,
shining like a quarter
under a pillow
Whisper it,
like the tow of summer's breath
through the willow
Or
Hide it
just between the tart skin and sweet flesh
of an apple
Make it
Forbidden
Make it
Delicious
Then
Make
Them
Bite
National Education Week: Teacher's Prayer
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Monday, 17 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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Teacher's Prayer
Lord, help me to make my classroom a place
where love and learning come to life.
Guide me in all that I do that I may strive not so much to teach, as to awaken, not so much to instruct, as to inspire.
Save me from complacency of ready-made answers
by an ever-present sense of the wonder of your creation.
Above all, help me to give my students love ~
a love gentle enough to touch,
but firm enough to leave them room to grow.
And help me to give it now ~
that they may share it with a world in need of love.
National Education Week: God Created the First Teacher
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Sunday, 16 November 08 - 12:00 AM (GMT -05:00) By J M L in Education |
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God Created the First Teacher
On the 6th day, God created men and women.
On the 7th day, he rested.
Not so much to recuperate, but rather to prepare himself for the work he was going to do on the next day. For it was on that day-the 8th day-that God created the FIRST TEACHER.
This TEACHER, though taken from among men and women, had several significant modifications. In general, God made the TEACHER more durable than other men and women.
The TEACHER was made to arise at a very early hour and to go to bed no earlier than 11:30 p.m.-with no rest in between.
The TEACHER had to be able to withstand being locked up in an
airtight classroom for six hours
with thirty-five "monsters" on a rainy Monday.
And the TEACHER had to be fit to correct 103 term papers
over Easter vacation.
Yes, God made the TEACHER tough...but gentle too.
The TEACHER was equipped with soft hands to wipe away the tears of the neglected and lonely student...of those of the sixteen year old girl who was not asked to the prom.
And into the TEACHER God poured a generous amount of patience.
Patience when a student asks to repeat the directions the
TEACHER has just repeated for someone else.
Patience when the kids forget their lunch money
for the fourth day in a row.
Patience when one-third of the class fails the test.
Patience when the text books haven't arrived yet,
and the semester starts tomorrow.
And God gave the TEACHER a heart slightly bigger than the
average human heart.
For the TEACHER'S heart had to be big enough to love the kid who screams, "I hate this class-it's boring!" and to love the kid who runs out of the classroom at the end of the period
without so much as a "good-bye," let alone a "thank you."
And lastly, God gave the TEACHER an abundant supply of HOPE.
For God knew that the TEACHER would always be hoping.
Hoping that the kids would someday learn how to spell...
hoping not to have lunchroom duty...
hoping that Friday would come...
hoping for a free day....
hoping for deliverance.
When God finished creating the TEACHER, he stepped back and admired the workof his hands.
And God saw that the TEACHER was good. Very Good!
And God smiled, for when he looked at the TEACHER, he saw into
the future. He knew that the future is in the hands of the TEACHERS.
And because God loves Teachers so much,
on the 9th day God created "Snow Days."
Author Unknown
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