The Principle of the Path | TonyMorganLive.com

The Principle of the Path | TonyMorganLive.com

The Principle of the Path

AUGUST 16, 2009 IN UNCATEGORIZED WITH 12 COMMENTS

I finished Andy Stanley’s most recent book, The Principle of the Path, last week. Andy is one of those guys that seems to have figured out how to get from here to there, so I figured I’d read his book about how to get from where I am to where I want to be.

Here are some of the highlights from my reading:

• “To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.”
• “Direction–not intentions, hopes, dreams, prayers, beliefs, intellect, or education–determines destination.”
• “We should break the habit of drawing a circle around individual decisions and events and dismissing them as isolated occurrences. These are steps. Steps that lead somewhere.”
• “Prudent people look as far down the road as possible when making decisions.”
• “Christians start talking about forgiveness as if somehow forgiveness serves as an escape hatch from the outcome of bad decisions.”
• “When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity, and common sense point in another, that’s when really smart people start doing really stupid things.”
• “Your heart can’t be trusted… The truth is, if you let it, your heart will direct you down a path that leads to the very spot you most want to avoid.”
• “The choices are now. The outcomes are later. The decisions you make todayhave ramifications down the road.”
• “One never accomplishes the will of God by breaking the law of God, violating the principles of God, or ignoring the wisdom of God.”
• “I am constantly amazed at how resistant folks are to take their cues from people who are where they want to be.”
• “We don’t drift in good directions. We discipline and prioritize ourselves there.”

Simple principles in this book, but their implications have an enormous impact on the outcomes of our lives.

I encourage you to pick up the book. I’m leaving lots of great quotes and stories out of this post. Among other things, I cracked up when I read Andy’s version of “The Italian Job”…and it made me want to visit Italy that much more.

Here’s my Amazon link if you’d like to order the book online.

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The Power of Empowerment

This comes by way of the John Maxwell Daily Leadership Promises that are sent to my inbox everyday. I always find them encouraging.

The Power of Empowerment

"All authority has been give to Me in heaven and on earth." Matthew 28:18

The ability to empower others is one of the keys to personal and professional success. John Craig said, "No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others."

When you become an empowerer, you certainly work with and through people, but you also do much more. Simply defined, empowering is giving your influence to others for the purpose of personal and organizational growth. It's seeing others' potential, then sharing yourself-your influence, position, power, and opportunities-with others with the purpose of investing in the lives of others so that they can function at their best.

The act of empowering others changes lives, and one of the greatest things about it is that it's a win-win for you and the people you empower. If you empower others by giving them your authority, it has the same effect as sharing information. You haven't lost anything. You've increased the ability of others without decreasing yourself.

Excerpt from Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell.

If you want to sign up for the daily emails, see here http://www.iequip.org/daily-devotional/

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Winston Churchill's Top 5 Fundamentals for a Successful Life

I subscribe to the  http://www.positivityblog.com/  emails. This came today. I thought I would share. 

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Hi!

Winston Churchill is probably no stranger to anyone. He was an inspirational British leader during the Second World War.

He was also a writer, historian, poet, artist and the only British Prime Minister to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Here are a few of my favorite fundamentals from Churchill on how to improve your life.

1. Focus on what you are doing right now.

"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time."

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see."

When you start to look too far into the future then any task or project can seem close to impossible. And so you shut down because you become overwhelmed and start surfing the internet aimlessly instead. That is one of the reasons why it is good to plan for the future but then to shift your focus back to today and the present moment.

Then you just focus on taking the first step today. That is all you need to focus on, nothing else. By taking the first step you change your mental state from resistant to "hey, I'm doing this, cool". You put yourself in state where you become more positive and open, a state where you may not be enthusiastic about taking the next step after this first one but you are at least accepting it. And so you can take the next step. And the next one after that.

The thing is, you can't see the whole path anyway and it will shift and reveal itself along the way. That's why the best of plans tend to fall apart at least a bit as you start to put it into action. You discover that your map of reality doesn't look like reality.

2. Be an optimist.

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else."

Focusing on what helps you sure makes a huge difference compared to if you keep focusing on what is wrong in every situation or what makes you more of a victim. It's like living in two different worlds.

How do you make the shift to a more optimistic attitude? Well, it takes time. But gradually you can change it. Two of my own most favorite for doing this tips are:

• Positive influences. Fill your mind and emotional system with positive input from people, music and programs/books. Other people's thoughts have a big influence and emotions are contagious. Limit your time with negative people. Reduce TV or magazines that may make you feel worse about what you don't own or your body. Or just create fear and negativity within you (for instance a lot of news shows). Limiting negative influences can make it a lot easier to keep the positive attitude up.
• Set the context for your day. What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. We have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. You can use that your advantage in few ways. You can for example do the hardest thing on your to-do list first. When it is done you'll feel good about yourself and it makes the day feel easier and you'll have less inner resistance to getting the rest of the tasks of the day done.

Just practicing these two things in a consistent way can make a huge difference in your life.

3. Be persistent. Don't give up.

"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential"

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

Since society often tells us to look for quick fixes it's easy to make the mistake of giving up to soon. After you have failed perhaps 1-5 times. That's the "normal" thing to do. But what could have happened if someone just kept going after that? And for each failure learned more and more about what works?

I think people often make a mistake of giving up too early. Your mind probably has a reasonable time-frame for success. This might not correspond to a realistic time-frame though.

It's useful to take a break from advertised perspectives and let more realistic perspectives seep into your mind. Learn from people who have gone where you want to go. Talk to them. Read what they have to say in books or online. This will not give you a complete plan but a clearer perspective of what is needed to achieve what you want.

Now, that's not to say that you should never quit. But it can be helpful to keep going on your current path for a while longer.

And that's not to say that you should do the same thing over and over in exactly the same manner. It's better to do and get an experience. Take the lessons you can learn from that real life experience. And then adjust how you do things as you try again.

It obviously helps immensely if you find what you really like to do. And what you really, really want. Then you'll find the inner motivation to keep going, to get what you want and to build on inner strengths like persistence.

4. Don't lose the enthusiasm.

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

It's very easy to get down on yourself and your results when things don't go as planned. What was once enthusiasm can quickly become apathy and pessimism.

But how do you do keep up the enthusiasm after things have gone wrong and you just feel like giving up? Well, as I mentioned in the previous fundamental, it certainly helps to have something you really like doing and something you really want.

A good additional tip is simply to ask better questions in "negative" situations. Instead of asking yourself why this or you suck ask yourself questions that empower you.

Questions like:

• What can I learn from this?
• What is the hidden opportunity in this situation?
• What is one positive thing about this situation?

5. Remember, most troubles never happen.

"When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened."

One final, quick thought. But a very important one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you think back and remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more worry from your thoughts.

This makes it a lot easier to start doing more of what you really want in life. And to move through your day to day life with a lighter, happier and more optimistic attitude.

I hope you found something helpful in this email,

Henrik

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First Year Reflection

               My one blog stalker, Amy, constantly reminds me about putting up a new post. I usually reply with the standard, “I’m busy.” deal. Which tis’ true, but I have learned that everyone is busy and if you want something done, you must make time for it. So right now, I am making time. I am listening to Spotify at the moment and am settled in to write a little. Even though this is the end-of-year reflection, I’m going to start with beginning of the year and how it went.

                At the beginning of the year, I felt overwhelmed a lot. Mainly with just getting everything done that I needed to in a day. I was struggling with time management. I was taking a lot of things home to grade. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I wasn’t exercising. I just existed day to day. I enjoyed getting to know all my students and demonstrating how the class was going to be “controlled” this year. I say “controlled” but it’s more of just a calm atmosphere filled with minds that are yearning to learn new things.  It took me a while to create the atmosphere, but in the end it was totally worth it. It was built on trust and not fear. Not demeaning, but uplifting. Not self-centered, but selfless. If there is one thing that I want my students to know, understand, and be able to do when leaving my classroom is how a community can help each other along each other’s path to success, to not put others down, to lift yourself up, and that anything worth achieving takes lots of hard work. That’s what I like to emphasize early on in the year. If all that happens, then the rest of the year will flow smoothly as students accept others for who they are and begin to show love towards one another.

                Around Christmas break, I felt things were going pretty smoothly in the classroom. I was still struggling with some time management, but it was getting better. I continued coaching for the 9^th year and picked up the 8^th grade assistant basketball position. The “A” team finished 18-1, losing their final game in the semi-finals of the county tourney. I think having their 7^th game in 6 days finally took a toll on them as they succumbed to the eventual county champ. The “B” team finished .500 at 4-4. I loved coaching this group of kids. They worked hard and had great attitudes. Basketball proved a little more demanding than in previous years because I was teaching as well. I worked a lot of Saturdays to stay caught up and ahead.

                Towards the end of the year, I really noticed a behavior slip in most of my students. I wasn’t sure if it was summer jitters or what, but it seemed a lot of the kids’ behavior took a nose dive. I was having conversations that I hadn’t had to have all year. I was getting upset more often at the negative choices the students were making. We only had 12 days of school in April and I think those small breaks gave them a taste of summer and it was tough to reel them back in during instructional periods. With all that being said, I loved having this group of kids. I have watched them grow physically, (Man, some of them got tall in 9 months!) intellectually (Oh, the things we covered this year!), emotionally, (they are teenagers now and mood swings can be quite frequent), and in some cases, morally (to see perspectives from other points of view helps to really see the unseen in situations). At the end of the year, I had tons of gift cards, money, notes, emails, and gifts from the parents telling me what a good year their son/daughter had in my classroom. For me, this is what I live for. Just a simple thanks. I don’t need money or gifts or anything like that. I get me fill and my battery recharged with simple thank you notes. I save all of them and they carry me through tough times. Thank you to the students and the parents for a great year.

                My passion this year has intensified as the year has gone by. I really enjoy the standards for 6^th grade and I think having something that I enjoy translates into a great experience for the students. I have been doing a lot of thinking over the summer about next year already and how I want to change things. This little story happened about 3-4 years ago. One of the players dove for a loose ball and ended up busting his chin on the floor. He wanted to keep playing, but everyone knows that if you’re bleeding you have to come out and get it all cleaned up before you can reenter the game. This player never took a play off. He played extremely hard and did the “dirty work” for our team at the time. As he came off the court to get a band-aid, I told him that it wasn’t blood that was dripping. I told him it was “Passion Juice” that was squirting out. I have some of that Passion Juice inside of me right now.

                I love my team. Let me repeat this. I LOVE MY TEAM. I couldn’t be any more happier with the people I get to teach with every day. They support me like no other. They help me. I try to help them when I can. That ratio is somewhere around 85% to 15%. The 85% is the help that I get for my measly 15% of giving back. I always feel that all of us are on the same page. Yes, of course, we might not agree whole-heartedly on everything, but we listen to others’ opinion and choose what is the best route for the students. And if it wasn’t the best route, we go back reassess the situation and start again. These coworkers are not just coworkers, but my friends. There are seven of us that teach 6^th grade, one special education teacher, and one special education aide. I love them all. They make coming to school (I don’t call it work, because it’s not “work”) so much fun and enjoyable.

Sidenote – When I was filling a maternity leave in 5^th grade, I was one of two 5^th grade teachers. We taught some of the same subjects and we taught some different subjects as well. For the ones where I was the only one to teach that subject, I was my only resource. There wasn’t anyone who was working on the same standards as I was. I was responsible for everything. Like I said earlier, I have 6 teachers who I can collaborate with on the same thing. At least 4 of them teach the exact same subjects that I do. I think this has really helped a first year teacher. So, if you can be choosy, really you can’t in this economy/marketplace, BUT if you could choose, I would choose some sort of setup like I have currently.

                Two years ago, if someone would have asked me who I was I wouldn’t have really been able to tell them. I would have given them an IDK. I had my education degree. I substitute taught. I was an aide. I filled a maternity leave. I filled 3 small leaves. I coach basketball. On the side, I work as a screen print graphic designer (that sounds more professional than “I design t-shirts”) and a senior portrait and wedding photographer. I earn money at these things. Not a lot, but some. Within the last 6 months, without me really thinking about it I became an educator. If someone asks me who I am or what I do I immediately say, “I teach 6^th grade.” I don’t know when this transition happened for me. I think it was more of an internal thing and it outwardly came out. I’m now living as an educator. I love it. I love the feeling of helping others be successful and helping them along the way. Educating is what I want to do, to be, and to still become.  

                Right now, my summer plans are to lay low. Lindsay, my wife, (she is a K-2 literacy aide and all-star cheerleading coach) is still working this summer coaching and running summer care. I’m sitting at home right now writing this. I’m trying to lay low and lose some weight. My goal is to weigh 220 by time school starts back up. That’s a pretty hefty goal for me. (Did you laugh at the use of hefty there? I did.) I’ve always been kind of big. I got some blood work back and I had some bad news. I’ve been running a lot. It’s working. I need to eat better and exercise more. Other than that, laying low is the key this summer. I’m not even photographing any weddings this summer. Lay low. Be slow. That’s how I roll.

                The Common Core Standards go into effect this coming school year. I’m ok with it. I think it’s good. I think it helps to let everyone in the country be on the same standards for each year in school. My school district is going away from the A-F grading scale and will start to implement more of a mastery scale based on the standards. I think it is ok. Change is always tough, but sometimes necessary. We will use professional development to come up with sample tasks for each standard that the students will be mastering. You can check out www.masscustomizedlearning.com on what our district is striving for.

                In Indiana, the state is mandating that every school district go to a teacher evaluation model that they developed called the RISE Evaluation and Development System. It will be interesting to see how I do. Our administration has had training all year on what it will be like. The main thing I got from what our admin have told us is that they will be in our classroom a lot more than this past year. They will be doing the evaluating along with some other teachers who have went to the training as well. I now know what I will be “graded” on. I’m not a fan of merit pay when dealing with people. Merit pay with products, say like in a factory I totally get. You can definitely count that. I don’t think that my pay should be tied to students’ performance on one test. This year during the ISTEP+ test, the air conditioning was not working. It was up to 88 degrees in the computer lab. The servers kept timing out after each question for each student. That downtime between questions was up to more than 5 minutes as times. What do 6^th graders do when working on a test and it times out? Spinning in their chair comes to mind.  Being a distraction comes to mind as well. How accurate are their tests going to be with all those unfavorable test conditions? Straight from the site - “Measures of student learning make up between 20 to 50 percent of a teacher’s final evaluation rating.” I’m not scared of the evaluation. I am confident in my abilities and my students’ abilities. I just don’t think it’s the right way to do it.

    What I want to accomplish next year -

1.       All my students, which will be around 64, to be reading at grade level or above.

2.       All my students pass the ISTEP in ELA. I would have liked to have more of students pass the test this year.

3.       Assess my student’s knowledge more often. I don’t mean more testing, but more ways of authentic assessment to show growth of the material.

          When you get to the end of the year, you look back and see of all the improvement that students have done. Where they came from. What they did. Where they are going. That is what matters. It’s in these moments where a thought becomes an idea, and idea becomes a goal, and a goal gets accomplished.

It’s in the journey.

Have a good summer. I’m layin’ low. 

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1 Week from Spring Break

Hello all of my blog readers!.................chirp,..........chirp................Nothing? Guess I need to update a little more often.

Anyway, I have one more week until Spring Break. I am ready for a break. Most of the break will be spent around our house and doing a lot of spring cleaning inside the house and out. I'll be doing some school stuff, but I'm going to try and get away from it a little as I gear up for the final 2 months of school. On Friday, I will be having my final observation discussion with my principal. I'm nervous about it. Actually, not nervous. More of an anxiousness for feedback on how I am doing/improving/not improving whatever it is. My personal opinion is that I'm doing okay. It can always be better. I get that. I am always harder on myself for self-grading. I think I just hold myself to a higher standard. I also strive for excellence, but know perfection is impossible, but it's still what we should strive for.

In reading right now we are finishing up the novel Crispin: The Cross of Lead. I have really enjoyed this book as have most of the students. I'm looking forward to the projects that the students will be making to demonstrate their learning. I'm not sure where we'll be heading after break. I'm thinking a lit circle type thing, but I'm not sure yet.

In SS, we are finishing up the Renaissance and European Exploration & Colonization. I have to grade their tests, but I'm thinking they did well on these. We're also starting our country projects that will take 2 months to finish. The students will be responsible for 5 hundred word essays that will be combined into 1 essay in the end over their country. I'm excited about them. Thanks to Kim for all the information and class discussions about these.

In Language, we are finishing up our fractured fairy tales and we will be making them into a book and publishing all of our fairy tales. The kids/parents will have the option to buy a book if they would like.

I've also been doing a lot of leadership type readings with my class. I scour the internet for leadership articles that relate to my kids all the time. It's usually part of their Wake-Up-Work for the week. It's just something that I like to do. For some of the kids they really get it. They understand that I not only want them to be good students, but also be good people when they leave my class. To be successful is hard work. It's getting things done when you don't want to do them. It's going the extra mile for someone just because you care about them. I want kids to think of others first. It's tough to teach in a society of me-ness, but it's worth it.

Best part of the past week was going to the Butler/Pittsburgh game at Hinkle. Dad and I sat in the 3rd row, right behind the Butler bench. Doesn't get any better than that. Actually, there is something that was better, but I'll tell you about that on another day.

Happy Leading,
Mr. Miller

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End of Tri 2

It's been a while since my last post. Between posts I guess you could say that 8th Grade Basketball happened. It took up a lot of my free time, but it was totally worth it. I loved it. Due to the extra time spent in the gym I adjusted my schedule a little. Saturday mornings became my work day at the school. We typically had practice early Saturday and I would just stay and grade and do all my work and copying that needed to be done for the upcoming week. I got behind on my grading early on, but eventually got it all caught up in time for the end of the trimester.

Organization - My organization has been pretty awesome for myself. It's not that I'm not organized (I usually know where everything is), it's just a little sloppy. I've been keeping things in folders and writing all my plans for a unit into the folders as we go through the year. It's been really helpful as I am making notes about what worked and didn't for each lesson for next year. Thanks to my friend, and probably only reader of this, Amy!

S2S - conversations about goals with my principal has been good. I feel I'm on the right track. 

Team - I can't speak enough about the awesome team that I am on. I love coming to school everyday. I say this all the time to people who ask me about how things are going. I literally love them. I hope that I can give as much to them as they have given me this year. 

ISTEP - ISTEP starts this week. I'm nervous. Not because I think my kids don't know the material, but that some of them won't give their best effort and not be extremely serious with the test and just blow it off a little. 

Classroom management - I feel ever since we had 2 four day weeks in a row, that the classroom has been loud at times. I've had to get on them a little more than normal, which I don't like, but I know I can't be a nice guy all the time. Speaking of Classroom Management/Engagement, my teaching partner Ben is changing things up in his class and has instituted a ClassRealm based off of Role Playing Video Games. Check it out here - Follow this Link.

Language Arts - We have LA at the end of the day. I'm not too keen on this as it turns into the loudest time of the day as they are ready to go home and get the day over with. Their attention level usually goes out the window by then. We've talked about changing the schedule for next year a little, but nothing is set in stone yet. 

Reading - We're currently reading the novel Crispin: The Cross of Lead. I'm really liking it. It goes along with social studies and the Middle Ages. I'm a little upset at the effort being put into their packets. I've graded a couple of these this weekend where nothing had been done. I feel like it's my fault because I haven't been checking them during the week and letting them show me how responsible they are. I guess they are showing me that they are not too responsible and I can't really trust them on their own yet. 

Social Studies - we just moved out of the Middle Ages and now into the Renaissance. I really like teaching social studies because it's something that I enjoy learning about as well. 

It's almost spring break which I am totally pumped about. 

I'm out, hoping IU can pull this win off against Purdue. 

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So Much More

Today, I experienced a first. One of my students stole a piece of candy from me. My candy jar sits on top of file cabinet behind my desk. It's open for all to see. I hand them out at certain times. My teaching partner walked in and saw the student getting something out of there. He hid it from him when questioned. I am furious. Those of you that know me, know it takes a lot for me to get upset to the point of yelling. I didn't yell. I actually told my teaching partner this while discussing it with him, "I'm so mad right now, I'm going to write a poem." So, this was the poem that I wrote while I was cooling off. I was so mad that I didn't even talk to the student the rest of the day and am saving the discussion for tomorrow so I can talk to him about it. Anyway, here's my poem that I wrote.

So Much More

It feels like a piece of me was taken.
It was only a small piece, but it feels like so much more.

Just a piece of chocolate,
a measly 5 cent piece of chocolate, you say?
Oh no.
It was so much more.
You see, we had built up trust.
Our trust was based on the fact that I had no reason not to trust you.
You had my trust when you walked in the door the first day.
But now, I feel like I can’t trust you at all.
Not only have you broken the trust of me, but the entire class as well.
Anytime something comes up missing,
even simple things like a pencil, or an eraser,  
who is everyone going to think is the person who took it?
Maybe the piece that you took was waiting to be given to someone who earned it?

It feels like a piece of me was taken.
It was only a small piece, but it feels like so much more.

I’m not mad at you.
I’m disappointed in the decision that you made.
Mistakes happen.
It’s how you respond to the mistake that tells about the character of a person.
The response makes all the difference.
You’ll have to earn my trust back.
I won’t give it to you easily or quickly.
You’ll have to work at it.

It feels like a piece of me was taken.
It was only a small piece, but it feels like so much more.

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First Trimester Ends, Basketball Begins, Negative News

It's another Saturday night. I'm chillin' at home thinking about things and watching some college football. Oregon and Stanford are on now and it's been good so far. I watched some college basketball earlier today as Butler squared off against Evansville in the Aces' new Ford Center Arena which looked pretty nice from the TV angles and whatnot. It felt good to watch some basketball on TV finally. I only have over-the-air channels so I'm pretty limited in my viewing of sporting events. Anyway, I liked seeing some good defense played today. I'm usually an offensively wired guy, but this year I've been more focused on defense and having players in the correct position. (While I'm on this - note to self - teach kids how to defend off-ball screens.) First game of the season on Monday.

On to classroom education related news, the student that I mentioned in my last post about being unmotivated has moved to a different school. Hopefully, the attitude changes at his new school and he can get back on the learnin' train because I feel he will be slipping lower and lower if something doesn't happen. I will miss his love of skateboarding. He talked to me almost daily about it. Speaking of moving schools, a different student had his last day in my class on Thursday. He is a very well-loved kid among all the students and teachers. I will miss him. A couple of students and their parents brought in a couple of gifts for him on his last day which was so nice of them. He absolutely loved all the attention he received. Sometimes, I wonder if everyone had his point of view how the world would be? He was always so happy. I hope I get a chance to run into him again one day.

The first trimester has ended and I gave all my students the grade that they have earned. Some students need to work harder, others need to not socialize so much, and others are doing a great job. So the process starts over. I'm ready to get back at it. I hope the students are as well. I sent out a survey to all my parents and the  response has been very positive. I would like to have some more participation on the survey from the parents. I might do a little bribing :) The positive comments are what keeps me going and pushing on.

In negative news, there is a reading committee task force that is meeting and making decisions for how our school and grade levels will proceed. Some things I agree with and others I do not. What bothers me the most is that I had this expectation of what a typical day would be like for me; teaching 2 subjects, reading and social studies + language arts. I have a feeling that I will also be teaching math as well in the future. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, it's just not what I think is the best way for me to make the biggest impact with my students. Yes, I understand that it looks like I don't want to do something because it will put more on my plate, but in all honesty, that is exactly what it is and I think it will have a negative impact on myself, which will in turn have a negative impact on my students. When I was filling a maternity leave, I taught all the subjects besides science. I felt totally overwhelmed and didn't feel that any of the subjects received my best work. I always felt I was rushed and every subject was getting about 20% worth of what it should be because I was always thinking about what was coming up next. This year, I have two subjects that I teach twice a day and end the day with language arts. In all of my teaching experiences, 8 weeks student teaching 6th, 8 weeks student teaching 4th, and almost a full semester of 5th, this year, 12 weeks into 6th grade, I feel the most comfortable and the most able to meet the needs of my students. I do not feel overwhelmed...besides what I do to myself because I do procrastinate a little :) I feel that I am mostly prepared every day to teach. Being an expert on one or two things is more beneficial than knowing a little about many different things.  In almost all of my college education classes, there was always a section that instructed us soon-to-be teachers on teaching for depth, or quality, versus teaching for quantity. For a little professional comparison fun, lets look at some other careers who do some sort of a specialization. Lets check out the medical field. Doctors. You get sick you head to your family doctor. They check you out. If any additional action is needed they send you to a specialist. Hand, eye, brain, surgeon, and so on. Same with dentists. There are orthodontists, oral surgeons, etc. Let's take a peak into a career that creates something, which is kind of what I think teaching can be linked to. Construction companies. Most of the time the same construction company is not going to do every single thing that is required to building a house. That's why there are excavators, plumbers, electricians, HVAC people, flooring installers, drywall hangers, painters, carpet layers, brick layers, cabinet makers, roofers, and of course the construction company is not going to move you in, so there is also the moving company. All of these little pieces of the puzzle are specialized units which contribute to the whole entity that eventually will become a house. Conversely, I imagine if you asked the electrician to hang the drywall, roof the house, and to do the plumbing, one, it would take that person a lot longer to get all of that done, two, it probably wouldn't be totally up to par with someone who specializes in each of those jobs and only does those specific things.  I love sports, I have coached basketball for a number of years. Let's look into the professional sports arena where players and coaches are earning money to support themselves and their families. You hardly ever see athletes competing in multiple professional sports. Yes, Deion and Bo and the ones that stand out, but Jordan couldn't even pull off the baseball thing. Lets look at coaching. Typically, there is an offensive and defensive side to most sports. Are there not specialized coaches for each side at the professional level. Within those sides of the ball, there are also specialized position coaches: running backs coach in football, pitching coach in baseball, post men coach in basketball, and throwing coach in track.  I also am a photographer. When I start talking about photography, Zack Arias, is one of my huge inspirations. He has said multiple times that you have to find your niche. You can't be a jack-of-all trades because you will never fully develop all of them into something that is worthwhile to shoot and create. My wife and I specialize in seniors and weddings. Of course, we do shoot other things, but we don't do them enough to be great at them. In my opinion, 6th grade, where some of the content is pretty heavy, teachers need to specialize to some sort. In the grade above, all the teachers are fully specialized. So when thinking of the transition from  6th grade to the 7th, there must be a huge, drastic amount of difference between teaching them, correct? I don't think so. The new common core standards deem that otherwise, at least in Reading/Language Arts. If the only thing that I don't teach is science, my students will only switch classes for one period. I don't think that is setting them up for success the next year when they will have 7 or so different teachers all in one day. It's more of a disservice I believe.  I've listed my personal reasons why I'm not in favor of this. Is it research-based? Probably not. I did my own personal research through my life's experiences.

In reading, we just finished a Jerry Spinelli lit circle. I was pretty impressed with some of the students abilities to understand the books through discussions. We will be overlapping some social studies this week and doing some Greek Mythology in reading. Next up is poetry. I'm really excited about this.
In SS, we are in a unit on Greece and will soon be into the Romans.
In Language, we are currently working on prepositions.

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Soreness and the Unmotivated

Sitting here watching the USC / Stanford game. All I have is over-the-air tv and I'm a little upset that I have to watch two teams from Cali instead of the Big Ten game of Wisconsin and Ohio State. One, because I really like watching the Wisconsin offensive line do their thing. Two, because I live in Big Ten territory (Indiana). Finally, three, because my Hoosiers are not doing too swell and at lease one team will win the Wisky/OSU game will have a winner wearing the color red. :) Come to think of it though, I am a little interested in this game because my beloved Indianapolis Colts are .........well.........not like my normal beloved Colts this year and Andrew Luck is the projected number one pick next year in the draft. Normally, the number one pick wouldn't have any business being drafted by the Colts, but this year, like I said, it's a not been a typical year for the Colts. Anyway, this past week has really worn me down. Every night this past week, I had something in the evening that wasn't there last week. I am an assistant basketball coach for the 8th grade team in my building and practice started this week. So that's another two hours after school that I have that's new. Side note - I love basketball. I have been an assistant coach for the varsity/jv team in some fashion at the school where I graduated high school from the past 9 years. I am pretty excited about the guys that have made the team. They seem really receptive to instruction and they work hard. I'm trying to get a feel for how the head coach is going to run things in practice and when I can insert my voice in to the conversations. I'm looking forward to a good, productive season based on daily improvement. On Wednesday, I went to a David Crowder Band concert with a good friend. John Mark McMillan, Chris August, and the band Gungor also performed. It was totally amazing and I'm so glad I went. The only problem for me was that it started at 7:30 and ended at 11:30. I got home around 12:45. It made for a late night, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that there weren't any chairs for the fans of the concert. So, yes. 4 hours of standing at the concert + 2 hours of basketball practice on my feet + a full school day as well made for some pretty sore feet, legs, and knees. I was tired, so I decided to go into school on Saturday and get caught up. Plus, I have a sub on Monday, because I have a reading/language arts curriculum meeting. I had to get all of that stuff ready as well. I despise getting sub plans ready. I feel it's necessary, but so time consuming. Plus, our schedule is kind of out of whack on Monday due to Halloween and the kids dressing up like Eerie Illnesses. Other than being really tired and my feet really sore, it was a pretty good week.
I'm still in amazed wonderment of the staff that I get to work with. They make me want to come to school  everyday. Also, my kids are really good and them make the school day go so fast because of their eagerness to learn and do get better. On Monday, my kids will be taking their Acuity diagnostic tests for SS. I'm a little nervous about this, because I feel that some of the questions are too specific about some things. I think in SS, kids need to see the big pictures and not necessarily the small dinky things that mainly just come back to memorization about key things. Anyway, it is what it is, so it be what it be.
Something I'm struggling with is one student who honestly could care less about anything in school. He doesn't want to do anything. Asks questions like "Why do we have to do this?" "Why do we have homework." "Why this?" "Why that?" He really has zero motivation to do anything school related. He really likes skateboarding, so I try to incorporate some of that type of stuff into our conversations. He did do some great work the other day when some of his lit circle group was helping him. I emailed his mom and told him that he had did awesome that day! I figured he would maybe start putting forth a little more effort. Alas, he didn't. Gotta figure out another strategy.......

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We're all Connected

 In band class this week, my students had some trouble focusing on whatever the band teacher had planned for them to do that day. It has been a common recurrence so far this year on Friday when they have that special.  This Friday, before they went, I reminded them about making a change for the better. I went to pick them up from band and when I got there I found out that not much had changed. Apparently, some of them crossed the line from being funny into being more of a distraction to others and because of the distractions they didn't, as a class, get to play their trumpets. When they returned to our classroom we had a good discussion about how our actions always have some sort of reaction. Whether positive or negative there is a reaction to it. The reaction that my class had was that they didn't get to play the trumpets. They were upset about it. Also, the discussion in the band room went over their time in band by 10 minutes. So, what did that end up meaning? It meant that when they got back to go to science they were late by 10 minutes. Which in turn, made my teaching partner's students who come to my class for social studies at this time, late as well. We talked about how everyone is connected in one way or another, and how we are all linked as one. During this time, we should have had a Free-Write-Friday in Language Arts while we watch our student led news show production on our projector. But, we couldn't. I think it really opened some of their eyes to have a broader view than just themselves.

I watched this today. I got inspired. You should too. 

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