Labels

Friday, October 31, 2014

You Can Be Whomever You Want on All Hallows Eve

Jack-o'-Lantern 2003-10-31.jpgSorry, but I am not and have never been a big fan of this holiday.  Feeding kids gobs of sugar and scaring the be-geezers out of them, just does not align with my safe minded thinking.  Yet, after "skipping" the holiday for the past two years in my neck of the woods due to weather related disasters, I am looking forward (I think), just a bit, to this stressful, strange, scary, but still enjoyed holiday! 
While All Hallows Eve has both religious and secular roots in our society, our Halloween practices are in stark contrast to its dark and sinister roots.  
We carve pumpkins because they look really cute on dark October evenings.   We trick or treat in neighborhoods long after dark scaring ourselves just a wee bit, but gaining candy to nourish parents' sweet teeth all year long.  On this day alone, we can be whomever and whatever we want! 
And so, just in case you were wondering, Beary will be Gerald for today.  He lives in a Reading Room and reads all day long.  Elephant is one of Beary's favorite characters; so, it just seems fitting!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

#sol14 50 years


Long ago, when I Want to Hold Your Hand was the rage,
Before the The Long and Windy Road was clarified,
They looked into each others' eyes,
They held on tight,
They took a leap of faith, 
Promising to love, honor, and respect
They could not imagine the piles of toys, 
Immense joys, 
The hills they would climb together,
The travels and travails they would share,
The breathtaking moments and 
Unimaginable heartaches, 
They would share.
They could not imagine the power of faith,
The love of family,
The guidance of friends
That would bridge the worry, 
Help them overcome their fears, 
Surround them in glorious moments
As well as the dark days of life. 
They could not have imagined
Holding each other more tightly now,
Than 50 years ago,

They could never have imagined 
Kenny Rogers would write their story,
Through all the good and bad
I knew how much we had...
I've always been so glad
To be with you...
As long as it's okay
I'll stay with you
Through the years.


Saturday, October 25, 2014

#celebrately2104 Perhaps I was a little scared

As I reflect on this busy week, I realize that even though my sinuses are working overtime and I am exhausted from my day "off," I am also excited about the "challenge" ahead and reflective as to why we all need to "step away from the classroom" and into the role of "learner" every once in a while.

I took a bit of Dayquil before I headed to the Google Apps for Education (GAFE) conference yesterday and sure was glad that I could "override" the side effects of the little-people in my life who graciously share their colds. I wondered, for a bit, if I were too ill to go....but, perhaps, I was a little scared?

Of course, you have to "prep" to take a day off (if you are a teacher and caregiver) and then there are the logistical issues of carpooling and traveling to a "new" location by 8 AM.  Between all the work and the cold, I was thinking it was not worth all the effort......plus, perhaps, I was a little scared?

The presenters talked fast about the magic they had created with Google Apps and the potential to transform learning environments.  I took notes, on my tablet and contributed to a shared Google Doc about the day, but I also jotted a few things in a notebook. ........perhaps I was a little scared of remembering it all?

I am embracing the challenge of becoming a Google Educator even though I have a longer, steeper learning curve than many.  I am NOT a digital "native" and thus that "intuitive" part is not really there.  I have to have some explicit instruction, guidance, and feedback in order to "navigate" this digital work.

Certainly, I was disappointed I did not win the Chromebook give-away.

Certainly, I am a little scared because that is HOW we ALL feel when we are learning something new outside of our comfort zone.  

Certainly, I inadvertently sent a Google Hangout request to my "virtual friend" Linda Baie. Sorry about that. But, certainly, I would love to do that someday!

Certainly, I am reminded that my response is similar to my students, reluctant readers and writers, who do not find navigating the reading-writing world "intuitive." 
      
Certainly, it is easier to stay in our comfort zone, avoid risks, and avert failure.  It's hard to embrace "new" roles, relationships, and routines.  Even if you think you want something, it can be overwhelming when you finally have it!  

Perhaps, Certainly, Perhaps, Certainly I am a life-long-learning and I will get "there" - wherever it is I am going - with a little scaffolding, guidance, help.....  


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

#sol2014 On Monday Morning

The morning light was just clearing away the darkness on Monday morning and I was stopped in traffic (as you can see from the brake lights in the picture) while listening to 880 radio news repeat sad, but real, updates on Isis, Ebola, and traffic. 
To be honest, my thoughts were scattered like glass on a tile floor as I sat there not-so-patiently that morning, making mental lists of what I needed to do to get through the day.  There were doctors to contact and Caremark prescriptions robots to call.  There were caregivers to address and agencies to contact.  There were papers to grade and progress updates to complete for meetings.  I stared at the brake lights ahead and wondered if I should have stayed home just to get it all done?
Then, those scattered thoughts seemed to focus on the back of the car ahead of me.  It wasn't a normal sports car, that was for sure.  Its brake lights were huge, too bright and perhaps even a bit obnoxious; yet, the back of the car was incredibly sleek and to be honest, a bit "sexy" in its appeal.  So........
Stopped in traffic, I pulled out my cell phone to get a closer look at the kind of car sitting there in front of Al (my car) and me.  Zooming in...........perhaps a metaphor or what I needed to do to get through the day.......I realized it was a Bugatti sitting there, just like me, waiting for the problem to clear.  
I wondered where the Bugatti was headed.  I wondered if he/she had a mental list for the day, like me, or if they had some sort of computer in that car that made the list from your thoughts!  
I wondered if he/she had struggled to find warm clothes on this first cold morning, like me, or if they had an orderly closet organized by some "housekeeper" who season and color coded their clothes.
I suspect our lives are vastly different; yet, at 7:15 in the morning, that Bugatti driver and I were "connected" for a brief moment in time.
I suspect I really needed to "stop" for a moment on my commute in order to focus my scattered self and prepare for the day ahead,
I suspect the Bugatti driver may have "needed" to slow down and take in the moment too.   
When traffic, or life's events make you stop in your tracks, I guess it really doesn't matter how much money you make or what kind of car (Bugatti, Maseradi, Mazda) you drive or how many lists you have (or where you keep your lists).  You stop and focus, a little more clearly, on the path (or the car) ahead!   

Sunday, October 19, 2014

#sol2014 When you hold on tight

 
Long ago, when I Want to Hold Your Hand was the rage,
Before the The Long and Windy Road was clarified,
They took a leap of faith, 
Promising to love, honor, and respect
They could not imagine the piles of toys, 
Immense joys, 
The hills they would climb together,
The travels and travails they would share,
The breathtaking moments and 
Unimaginable heartaches, 
They would share.
They could not imagine the power of faith,
The love of family,
The guidance of friends
That would bridge the worry, 
Help them overcome their fears, 
Surround them in glorious moments
As well as the dark days of life. 
They could not have imagined
Holding each other more tightly now,
Than 50 years ago,
They could never have imagined 
Kenny Rogers would write their story,
Through all the good and bad
I knew how much we had...
I've always been so glad
To be with you...
As long as it's okay
I'll stay with you
Through the years

Saturday, October 18, 2014

#celebratelu2104 Moments

Ruth Ayers continues to challenges us to take a few minutes each Saturday and Celebrate the Week.  I have a "to-do" list a mile long and laundry a mile high, but I have a few things I want to celebrate, anyway.  
  • There were nine (9) accidents on the way to work one day this week and I was late for school. While traffic was a nightmare as we all struggled to regain time, they were just fender benders and thousands of us made it to work a bit stressed, but unharmed. It could have been much worse on a dark, rainy, leaf-strewn highway.  I told myself I deserved one (1) pumpkin flavored D & D coffee one (1) day this fall as a reward for my careful driving!  
  • As I finished a reading record on one of my struggling readers, I realized he had grown from a level D (92%) a month ago to a level E (94%) now.  As is often the case with kids who struggle with reading, he was reading a text he had seen before.  The best part was his comment at the end.  "This used to be hard for me. Now I can read it."  He was too happy to see the tears well in my eyes as he reached for a pencil he knew he had earned.
  • As part of my Beginning Reading and Writing class, I always teach one class around phonics.  I try to do hands on projects and use real materials that allow my grad students to try experience the subject outside of a theoretical framework.  Yet, they always seem to glaze over one hour into the class. This week, I brought some "concrete reinforcements" (candy) that I passed out throughout the evening for "hard work, great answers, and good effort" to make it fun!  I was reminded that even grad students, hungry ones in particular, will wake up and work much harder for a tiny Tootsie Roll!  One of my students will forever more be knows to me as "candy girl."  


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

#sol2104 Notes and Phone Calls






On Friday afternoon, moments before dismissal, on the eve of a long weekend, at the end of an unannounced observation, a student asked me if he had earned a "happy note."
I suspect I looked like I didn't understand (because I didn't)!  So HE leaned in and offered, "You know, the green polka dot note that makes me and my mom happy!"
I thought about the power of a note all the way home.  Taking home that physical piece of paper (with green polka dots) made this student and his mom happy in a way no email could!

Then, yesterday, after days spent beside the sickbed, as I wrestled with my own guilt about undone chores, as I struggled to get ready for the week, on the end of a three day weekend, I got a phone call!
"How are you," the little voice asked.
I suspect I sounded a bit surprised and at first I wondered if it was a wrong number; however, it became clear that the call was intended for me!
We talked about Elephant and Piggie, what we had done on our day off and how we were feeling about life.  That little voice certainly cheered me up  in the way no email could!

The "central message" I took from these events sandwiching my long weekend is this:

While social media keeps us all connected, 
Phone calls, notes and letters have the power to reach out and touch us all.
Small acts of kindness can indeed reap enormous benefit.
  



Sunday, October 12, 2014

10 Tips for Delivering Awesome Professional Development

10 Tips for Delivering Awesome Professional Development

It's a Three Day Weekend, So Why Would I Be Even Thinking of Homework

Spent some time this weekend, "killing time" so to speak, reading Twitter newsfeeds like this one....and oldy but goodie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/26/homework-an-unnecessary-evil-surprising-findings-from-new-research/

 It's worth your read, but here are a few startling quotes from this article about homework
1. No research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework (of any kind or in any amount) in elementary school. 
2.  Even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn’t been particularly persuasive.  There does seem to be a correlation between homework and standardized test scores, but it isn’t strong.
3.  There was a correlation between the amount of homework that high school students reported doing and their scores on standardized math and science tests but it was “very modest.”  The author concluded that it was not worth the family struggles or strife.  

Makes you stop and think about WHY we provide SO MUCH homework....?
Perhaps we should just let kids READ! 


  

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Everyone Wants to Copy This Pedestrian Bridge (It’s Not the High Line)


(Photo by Jeff Anzevino)
Seventy miles up the Hudson from the young but iconic New York City High Line, whose final phase with river views opened last month, Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park celebrated its fifth anniversary on October 3rd. The pedestrian bridge cost five times less than its well-heeled Manhattan cousin. It connects the city of Poughkeepsie to the town of Lloyd from a vantage point 212 feet above the water’s surface.
Poughkeepsie, the Dutchess County seat, is a city of 30,000 (when the neighboring Town of Poughkeepsie is factored in, the population crests 70,000) with a struggling economy. In June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh region’s gross metropolitan product performed the worst economically out of 100 metros nationwide in 2013. IBM, still the area’s largest employer, has been cutting jobs since the early 1990s.
Like many Hudson Valley towns and cities, Poughkeepsie flourished in the 19th century thanks to a combination of railroad and water access. It boomed with enough industry for business leaders to envision a rail link over the Hudson River, connecting the northeast to the Midwest. In 1889, the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge opened, carrying 3,500 railcars daily at its peak.
After fire struck in 1974, “the most common opinion was tear it down because it serves no purpose,” says Elizabeth Waldstein-Hart, executive director of Walkway Over the Hudson, a friends group that conceived the park in the 1990s. “It was a hulking, rusting iron structure that had been derelict for three decades.”
But history lessons die hard, and “a lot of people remembered or knew from their grandparents that when it opened, it was an engineering marvel, the longest elevated railroad bridge in the world,” Waldstein-Hart says.
The non-profit organization led tours to show residents and leaders the breathtaking scenic views of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains. The tipping points, however, came from outside help: first a grant to study the cost of removal versus repair, then an engineering study sponsored by the Dyson Foundation. With hard numbers — restoration ultimately cost $38.8 million — advocates could make a convincing case.
Serendipitously, their efforts coincided with the New York State quadricentennial. The Walkway project won state money, creating a hard deadline in order to celebrate Henry Hudson’s 1609 journey upriver. “It happened on time and on budget,” Waldstein-Hart says with pride, and was subsequently turned over to the New York State park system for operation.

(Photo by Jeff Anzevino)
Its local impact has been significant. “The Walkway was an angel sent from heaven to assist in the renaissance of the city of Poughkeepsie,” affirms Charles North, president and CEO of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce. Consultants hired by the Walkway organization estimated an annual direct spending economic impact of $14.6 million from 267,700 users. In year one, the bridge tripled that with 780,000 visitors and now regularly pulls 500,000 annually, with half coming from outside the region, including every state and 48 countries. Walkway Over the Hudson is currently collaborating with SUNY-New Paltz, a nearby university, to update the economic impact study.
Although the park’s Poughkeepsie doorstep is currently a gravel parking lot — something that will change as capital improvements are implemented — the Walkway benefits from its close proximity to public transportation. Poughkeepsie is the terminus for Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson Line from Grand Central Station and also an Amtrak stop. Jeff Anzevino, director of land use advocacy for Scenic Hudson, a regional land trust that supported the park’s development, calls this convenience “hugely important.” He says, “Many people do not drive or do not own cars. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have access to nature.”
The bridge is only a 15-minute walk from the train station, an uphill journey abetted by a $2.8-million elevator that opened in August, making the park ADA-compliant. Even as daytrippers throng from New York City, locally, “Walkway has made walking cool again,” says Anzevino, who lives near the park’s western entrance and commutes daily over the bridge. “I see lots of teenagers every day out walking the park after school.”
The public health impact, something that the Walkway group hopes to study alongside economic impact, has also been positive. “People tell us stories about losing weight or seniors that walk for heart health. On bad weather days, we get calls constantly asking if the bridge is open because so-and-so is trying to make it 300 days this year,” Waldstein-Hart says.
Meanwhile, as more New York City residents are priced out of the five boroughs, Poughkeepsie’s walkable scale, viable Main Street, easy transit access and historic housing stock suddenly have newfound cachet. “Poughkeepsie has lots of potential and the values of properties are such that investment becomes interesting,” says Steven Tinkelman, an architect and developer who has adaptively reused a former riverfront factory and old fire station as apartment buildings.

(Photo by Tim Middlebrook)
The Hudson itself is somewhat cut off from the central business district by the train, which skirts the water’s edge, a legacy of railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose estate is a National Historic Site just a few miles north of the Walkway. But with the crowds flocking to the park, the city council was prodded by Walkway, the Chamber of Commerce and Scenic Hudson to rezone the area from industrial to mixed-use, paving the way for better river access and more development all spurred by a pedestrian bridge. The experience is a stark contrast to Main Mall, a 1973 attempt to save Poughkeepsie’s commercial corridor by making it pedestrian only. It failed and Main Street was reopened to car traffic in 2001, with the last decade seeing steady investment in the old commercial building stock.
Now Walkway Over the Hudson is fielding calls from across the country about how to turn old bridges into parks as the U.S.’s industrial infrastructure ages beyond its shelf life. Advocates for bridges in Chattanooga, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota have reached out, alongside others in New York State, including, possibly, the Tappan Zee Bridge downriver. Length and pitch — the Walkway is a manageable 1.28 miles and flat — play a big role, meaning not every bridge is a good candidate. But as cities worldwide race to copy the High Line, the Walkway is a reminder that even without Manhattan’s population density, all it takes is a good view and a nice day to get people to lace up their walking shoes.
The Works is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation.

Gregory Scruggs writes about cities and culture, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.
TSign-up for our newsletters

#celebratelu2014 Powerful Twitter signs

Embedded image permalink



I was trying to figure out what to "celebrate" this Saturday.
My mother has not been doing well
A dear friend is awaiting major surgery
A friend's life changing accident
Gloomy rainy weather
I have lots to do
a late Friday post observation on which to "reflect"
Papers to grade
Pinecones calling
Nordstrom returns awaiting
.My house is a mess
The .the laundry as well as the dust bunnies are reproducing.
The fall weather means I need to find shoes without holes
Then this image popped up on Twitter 
And I stopped and smiled and reflected.
https://twitter.com/urban_teacher/status/520958126124961793?s=09

I do want to celebrate!
I am very grateful for Twitter 
And the reminders of life, love, and hope 
It provides, everyday.
I am grateful that my mother is a little better 
In this morning's light.  
I'm grateful for a pop-in observation 
On Friday afternoon, long weekend pending
(the kids put on quite a show).
I am grateful that I know crafting, creating, sewing, sharing,
and dreaming are more important than cleaning.
I am grateful for the energy to do what I can,
The faith to let go when I can do nothing,
The wisdom to know whether to intervene,
To wait, or to pray.  

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Sight word mastery in kindergarten? IRA says, "Better not be all you do!"

http://www.reading.org/reading-today/research/post/lrp/2014/10/09/should-we-be-teaching-100-sight-words-to-kindergartners-


Researcher Marcia Invernizzi says drilling kindergartners about sight words can do more harm than good. See what else she has to say about teaching young learners.

According to Marcia Invernizzi, drilling kindergartners with high frequency words on flashcards is unlikely to support the development of their sight word vocabulary.
READING.ORG

A Classic Tale


After all, he really was not ugly, just different from the others.
We concluded the central message was 
It's OK to be different.
Now, after CLOSE READING, thinking, discussing,
My students decided that the story REALLY should be called.
The Baby Cygnet
or
The Ducklings and the Cygnet. 

Close reading has us all
Looking at word choice, pictures, and characters
In a reflective and critical light.   

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Ivan and His Remarkable,True Story

Embedded image permalink

















Katherine Applegate's The One and Ony Ivan was as sad, but wonderfully written story about a real life gorlilla.  I didn't realize that the stroy was real when I first read it, but I wondered and quickly did a Google search to confirm my speculation.
Long before the CCS told us to do so, effective readers have questioned and sought confirmation of the content in narrative texts.  We often wonder if this could be true.
Thanks to Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla  (Applegate and Karas) we now have pictures and details to answer those questions that will inevitably surface.