Must-Read Monday!

It's Monday - such a great day for carpe diem and just being awesome! (: 

Typically, my Monday posts have an overall motivational tone, building up for a great week and a chance to take a few steps closer to your dreams, but today, I am trying something different - a Must Read Monday! 

It's no secret that I love reading. That's an understatement, really - I am obsessed with it. I carry a book or my Kindle with me every where. I subscribe to magazines by the dozen, and visit the library more than three times a week. I love it, and as a nerdy girl and a teacher, I want other people to love it as much as I do, hence the birth of Must Read Monday. 

My current obsession right now is a suspense author, Michael Robotham and his mind bending thrillers. Michael's series center around Joe O'Loughlin, a criminal psychologist who makes a living breaking into criminals' minds and picking apart their actions. Robotham creates a literal page turner that winds together so many literary elements, but pulls it off in a flawless fashion. Noteworthy mentions by him: The Suspect + Lost (related titles), Shatter, and Bleed for Me. 

I am also reading a lot of DIY books, thrifty living, and urban homesteading - my mom and dad are twenty first century pioneers and have more than inspired me to take a leap into self-sufficiency.  My favorite two, so far this summer, have been: 
- be thrifty. edited by Pia Catton & Califia Suntree -> It's organized by categories into tips to be more thriftier in your daily life. It covers everything from home improvement to cooking to beauty routines. I think, especially in your twenties, that it is important to be financially literate and practice good money habits that can carry you through life. This book is easy and well written and filled with practical tips. 
- The Bust DIY Guide to Life by Laurie Henzel & Debbie Stoller -> This has been my favorite DIY book this summer. The cover is pink and immediately caught my eye, but the content kept me interested. Tips range from Repurposed Fashion to From Scratch in the food section. It is easy to follow and organized well, so you can look by section or from cover to cover. 

With Monday being such an important mental step in the week - it can be a struggle week or a success week, take your pick - it's important to find stuff for you to enjoy for yourself. For me, it's reading - for you, it may be something completely different, but that find that release and find that free time for yourself. It's invaluable for success. 

Until next time, loves 
- xo  

Weekly Wrap Up + Preview of Strategy Saturday!

It has been a whirlwind week and what a better way to reflect than Thoughts for Thursday. This week, I have been writing integrated literacy lessons for my district, which is one of my favorite things to do! It's very nerdy, but I love writing lesson plans - I love providing assistance to teachers who need more confidence in the classroom or to teacher who just want more - I love it. 

We were writing in a new lesson template, UBD - Universal by Design, which in layman's terms, is backwards design. By outlining transfer goals (what do you want them to do at 40 years old), understandings, knowledge (what do you want them to know), and skills (what do you want them to do) - you can better prepare for misconceptions or challenges your students may have. It also makes you plan the assessment first, which is just good teaching practice, but most people forget that essential step. If you know what the assessment will look like, you can better prepare your lessons, because you know the expectation. Planning your assessment first is for your benefit! If you don't have a clear picture or a clear set of expectations for your students to meet at the end, then your lessons will be poorly planned and executed. 

Okay - that's my soapbox for the day. (: 

This week, aside from being extremely busy in my professional life, I have had some not-so-busy moments in my personal life. It's been a slow summer for me - I haven't done a whole lot, I haven't hung out with a lot of people and it hit me this week. I've just been feeling very lonely and unfulfilled and while it's no one's job, but my own to make sure I am happy and fulfilled - we all have these moments. We all have moments where we wish our friends lived closer and reached out more. We all have moments where we wish we had all the money to travel all over. We all have those moments.  I had mine this week. 

Yes, I'm a positive Patty, but this week, I struggled to maintain it, but I am thankful for an amazing friend who reached out to me and got me to go to an amazing church service, where my heart was filled with Jesus and friend love. 

Little moments like that remind me to not be so hard on myself and the others around me - we are all going through silent struggles, and even if you're best friends, there might be things they aren't telling you, so it's your job (my job) to give people a little bit of grace and understanding throughout our journey through this life. 

So, as we put on our party hats and thank God and Ice Cube for Friday, remember to treat others with the same grace and understanding you give yourself. It goes a long way. 

ALSO: Strategy Saturday is tomorrow and the post will be focused on close reading in the content areas! Swoon - who doesn't love multiple reads and graphic organizers! 

Enjoy Friday, loves - until tomorrow, 
xo - Lucy 

Working Woman Wednesday!

It's been a while since we've celebrated a #workingwomanwednesday - hash tag and all. Today is as good as any, especially since today is the first Wednesday of summer vacation, and I'm still working. 

I'm attending a technology workshop for my district and while it does pay a stipend, I'm genuinely excited learn new strategies for technology in my classroom. I read a quote recently that teachers need summers to forget, or they'd never come back, and that teachers are solar-powered and recharge in the summer. I feel like both are true. Teachers need to forget the grueling hours and lack of encouragement from outsiders and we need to recharge ourselves, but also our toolbox of methods we use to teach our babes. 

Every artist seeks perfection, and I am no different. If you're a good or great teacher, you are always constantly seeking ways to better your performance and strategies. If you're a teacher, and you don't seek to improve yourself, then I have serious concerns about your performance in the classroom. 

So, here's to #workingwomanwednesday - here's to the ladies that do it all all the time, and never ask for validation - here's to the women who work on their days off and answer work e-mails while watching TV - here's to the girls who spend their summers at Food Lion and not the pool - today is for you! 

Filled hearts and refrigerators.

This weekend, my mom and dad came to see me and that was life changing in every way. 

It had been a very long time since I've seen my family. Trips home are expensive, and as a teacher, money is hard to come by, but time is also hard to come by, and for a whole host of reasons, this was our first visit in a while. 

I had surgery on Friday, and who doesn't want their mom to come when they have surgery? After a very long, long, long Friday, I finally figured out why I've been feeling so awful for so long. My stomach valve doesn't close, and so my body is constantly producing acid, which was making me feel awful all the time, but with modern medicine, I am already starting to feel better. I also moved this weekend, which is probably more interesting than hearing about my acidic stomach.

My new apartment is literally double what I was living in, and I couldn't be more happier! I have been looking forward to moving for a couple months - in fact, it's the only thing I've been looking forward too, given the state of my professional life. So, here I am, in a semi-unpacked apartment, with a heart and a refrigerator filled with love, watching The Little Mermaid, and attempting to relax before the EOGs start tomorrow. 

My students are ready. I am ready. I cannot focus on the anxiety that surrounds high stakes testing. A good/great/fantastic (whatever adjective you want to use) teacher does not let her students know failure is an option, because her attitude of excellence is so ingrained in herself and her classroom culture that her students do not know anything less. That is how I approach the next few days - by reminding my students that everything about them is amazing and that they are, by far, the smartest and most ready, because they're in my class. [: 

In other education news, this past week, the NC legislature presented a budget with an 11% raise! Can we believe our eyes? How generous of them? -_- 

Not. 

Don't be fooled by pretty presentation - they are offering a steak dinner on a trash can lid. Don't take the trash dinner. Don't eat their garbage. The legal jargon they have drowned the budget in is ridiculous - we get an 11% raise if we give up our tenure, if we challenge them in court, they put everyone back on the frozen pay scale - please, get your life, and take several seats, NC legislature. Go home. You're drunk. In a day and age, when teachers are leaving NC in droves, you are going to present this trash dinner - I'll starve. 

I don't know if I am going to teach for forever. At this rate, I'm seriously considering going to law school and fight them at their own game, but that's what they want - they want us to leave, so what do I do? What do we do, as a collective educational body? 

With the summer quickly approaching, everyone - educators and non-educators - need to be wary of anything that seems too good to be true, because more than likely, it is. 

In closing, it's the last week before the last week of school, and EOG week - I am going to make it one of the best experiences for my students that I can and with every action, attempt to show the world that there are teachers who do care and who do make this their life. 

Photo Credit: Google Images 

Thoughts for Thursday.

I am a sucker for alliteration - as most of my posts show. Today is no different - let's have some positive thoughts for Thursday. 

This week has been a whirlwind - as most are, but the urgency of the EOG has been looming over my head and my students, and we have been putting in work to see results. We've been working hard all year (don't get it twisted), but every great puts in hard work in the eleventh hour.

Despite my personal and professional life being in shambles for a ton of reasons, my time with students is something I crave. It's consistency, it's safe, and it's a positive experience. I love being in my classroom with them, and having discussions about humans and their impact on ecosystems, watching disgusting videos of parasites, and trying every operation to figure out a word problem - being their teacher, being a teacher is the only thing I am sure of in my life right now. 

This week has been hard, because I have realized that people I respected do not necessarily have respect for me. I won't get too specific or too personal for professional reasons, but I had a moment of clarity when my tender heart realized that not everyone, even those who I respect, respect or value me. This has made me reevaluate my choice to stay at my school, and where I want my life to go. 

I recently read an article about turning 25 (which I do this year), and the author made a point to explain that at 25, she had to make some concrete decisions about where her life was going and where it would go, and at the end of the day, she had to cut off activities that were toxic or not helping her achieve her ultimate goal. I feel like that right now. How much do I cut off - how much do I change, so I can achieve my ultimate goal? How much do I tolerate for convenience and comfort? How much of myself do I sacrifice for a chance to do what I want? 

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a private school in a neighboring city. I am completing applications for another round of graduate school (cheers to being a life-long learner!), and I am supposed to move into a new apartment next Saturday.

Whatever decision I make in the next nine days will affect everything for next year and potentially, the rest of my life; but at the end of the day, I only have myself to be loyal to - no matter how much I feel loyal to my work place or to a supervisor or a colleague - I only have myself and my dream to truly think about. 

Photo Credit: Pinterest 

Working Woman Wednesday!

Photo Credit: Kush and Wizdon

Wednesday - my favorite Addams family member, not quite my favorite day of the week, but I am a sucker for alliteration. (: 

There have been so many little moments in this week that have reminded me how grateful I am for my life and the people in it. My students, despite having mock EOGs three days this week, have kept positive spirits and handled it well. My mom has called me twice to wake up, since I forgot to set any alarm (Where do they do that at?) I haven't been to the beach since my senior year of college, so pretty much a million years ago, and my best friend and I planned a two day trip that I could not be more excited about. When you need reminding, your life will remind how much you have and how blessed you are and that's a beautiful thing.  

On the job front, since that was the main purpose for this endeavor, things have quieted. I could not afford to travel to California at such short notice for an interview, so they are working to schedule Skype interviews with me, and I have made a list of places I am interested in. As most in the educational field know, teachers hold onto jobs till the literal last moment, so right now, we are in a waiting game. We can definitely cross any place outside of the US off (for now.) Again, this is a journey - journeys aren't meant to a straight path or even a mapped course. You have to chart your own way. People can come if they want, but remember: success isn't an escalator, it's a staircase. 

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

My best friends are ten.

"I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. They answered me: 'Why should any one be frightened by a hat?'

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then, I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained." courtesy of GoodReads 

The other day, I was speaking to my friend, my adult friend, and I caught myself saying, "My friend Jane..." My friend immediately stopped me and said, "Jane? Isn't she one of your students?" We laughed it off, and moved on to another topic, but the slip of my tongue gives a lot away about myself. 

My best friends are ten. My students are my friends. I spend more time in their presence than I do with anyone else. Everyone can save their "You shouldn't be their friend" crap for another poor soul, because the reality is that makes me a great teacher. The literature on best practices is exhaustive, literature on reaching students of special populations is equally represented, but very few people mention the fact that if your students don't like you or do not feel supported, they won't work for you, and they won't learn. I had a professor in college tell someone who checked on my references that I was too passionate - you can never be too passionate, you can never love your students enough. It's a strength, not a weakness. The world should be concerned when teachers lose their passion and their love for their students. My decision to relocate and seek other avenues for my life has nothing to do with my students, but it has everything to do with what they are teaching me. 

This post began with a quote from The Little Prince, one of my favorite stories (and I recommend that every single person read it multiple times), and I couldn't feel more true about it's sentiment. The narrator, an airplane pilot, had dreams of being an artist, but grown-ups criticized in the way grown-ups do, and dashed his dreams, calling his clearly dangerous boa constrictor a hat. He was afraid to draw again, because of others' opinions, and how true is that for all of us, all of us who have already had grown-ups tell us that no one would be afraid of a hat? My students show me every day don't be afraid and don't care what people think. Wear what you want, act how you want, and inevitably, you will find someone and somewhere in the world who appreciates that. My students are fearless, and that is a true lesson I have learned from them. They come in every day almost totally unaware of what we are going to do that day, but they meet each day with a smile and an undying passion to learn and live and have fun. It's that lesson that has comforted me in the thought of leaving and starting new. 

To my best friends - thanks for teaching me more than I could ever teach you. 

Photos courtesy of Google Images

The Boa Constrictor