An open letter to teachers, care-givers and parents of spirited children everywhere: Dear Caregiver, I am sorry my child lay on the floor today and refused to participate in your class. I also apologize that she further disregarded your implicit instructions pertaining to scheduled activities, not to mention more than once did exactly the opposite …
I am a kindergarten teacher. I have the unique privilege of teaching children who WANT to go to school. Children who look downcast when you tell them Saturday is a day off and that after Saturday is Sunday-another day away from school. Children who share that what makes them happy is ‘going to school’. Children …
I’m starting to think the new normal for me is crazy chaos. I woke up an hour past my alarm this morning. I woke with a start, bolting out of bed like a crazed woman at a red-tag sale. Catapulting myself pell-mell down the staircase and into the shower, where I had just enough time …
As a secondary piece to that last post, I thought I would follow up with what happened next…after the E/N/T specialist appointment. As I had been given the information that there was a problem, somewhere in THERE- just not necessarily with my voice box and vocal chords primarily, I left thinking that I might need …
What do you do when your livelihood- your means of employment- is wrecking your body? I am sitting in Dr. Camphos office waiting to see him for the first time ever. He is an ENT- Ear/Nose/Throat specialist. I look around the room, and see an ad stuck up on the wall behind me for Botox. …
I like to think I am intelligent, thoughtful, curious, bright. But today, I realized that even those who think they are the smart ones have a little foolish going on. For starters. I have not yet been able to remember and sort out the right names for the seven students in my room. That’s right- …
If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, I would have politely laughed at them. If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, and one of my students would be my charming little M.A., I would have (politely) laughed at them and then high-tailed it …
First day of school bloopers: I got called Mrs. Wood (which ran a close second to “what’s your name again???”) all day. I think it was the “smell ya later” that the infamous D.W. (our vivacious former Vice-principal) said on her way out the kindergarten door, that really stuck with them. As I was on …
I am checking e-mails when I come across one from a colleague of mine. He and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum in the areas we teach and also have very different social circles within our work environment. However, as we had collaborated ideas at the committee level over the past year, this …
The journey to peace comes by way of blessings. Counting blessings. Those little and big reminders given to us so that we can remember this: life is good. That life is more than good- it is stellar. Even in the moments we oft would erase. For those moments build character and endurance. They make us …
I sometimes think about alternatives. What is it that makes one conversation interesting and another one not so much? Why is it that one minute I am happy and another minute, sad? Why are lions not tame and puppies wild? Why is dessert last and veggies first? Why am I so consumed with alternatives and …
My Jumping Jellybean settled in for the evening inside her bedroom, I lie down on the double bed that serves as center piece, for evening stories and prayers. Tonight’s Bible verse is this: “…always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else (I Thess. 5:18b).” That pretty much sums it up. At …