They Don't Teach This in College

I woke up this morning dreading today.  To be honest, it's not today that I dread but tonight.

After a full day of teaching, we start up parent/teacher conferences at 5:00.  Since we have 55 students in our 5th and 6th grades, our conferences are more a "come if you want to" event rather than having appointments.  This amounts to me having no idea what's going to happen.  You think you have all the plates spinning at the correct speed and all the balls moving in the right direction, then a parent walks in the door and lets you know that you're a flop.  Not cool.

That's not even what I am dreading.

Tonight, after the conferences, my colleagues and I will attend the viewing for the mother of a sixth grader at our school.  Let that sink in for a second.  One of my students lost his mother this past weekend.

There comes a time in life when math and grammar and reading and history just don't matter. I am well trained in how to be a professional teacher, but no one teaches you how to deal with a kid who is grieving the loss of his mother... or a class of kids who wonder who will be next.

Cancer is running rampant in our 6th grade this year.  One girl lost her mother four years ago.  A student who withdrew earlier this year has a little brother with leukemia.  I can think of two parents (a mom and a dad) who are both cancer survivors. And those are the cases I can think of off the top of my head.

We're all going through the motions of school this week like nothing is wrong, but you've got to know that there's this underlying sadness that we're all feeling.  You've got to hand it to this kid.  He's been here all week, and I fully intend to see him today.

As I drove to school today, I allowed the somberness wash over me as I listened to my new favorite album. "Oh great God give us rest."  May God give you peace and rest today as you deal with the entire child, not just the intellect.

Tech Integrators - December 8, 2011

I am sitting in the Philadelphia International Airport awaiting a flight home after a funeral, so I have some time for blogging.

My first thought is about my iPad, my music, and the Internet here in the airport. Every time I bring up Safari, my iTunes cuts out. So I turned on Pandora. Same thing. Now I'm listening to Muzak. Ugh!

Here is an article about what to do before you unleash a 1:1 program on your middle schoolers. The #1 thing? Email training. Interesting. I think my students are being trained on Office right now, so we're a bit off the radar here. I know that in one of my wiki projects I had to put the kabash on goofball emails as teachers and parents had to read them. Craziness. Here's the link. http://tericeschneider.com/?p=11

This article is about 10 months old. Ancient for this discussion, but it has good questions to comsider before you get into a program. A lot of it is for administrators and the IT department not the teachers, but there are some good thoughts for classroom teachers as well. Are you teaching in project-based environment or are you still the lecture-style teacher. If you are putting machines in there hands, you have to be prepared to give up some control.
http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/preparing-your-school-for-an

Do you use Twitter as a teaching tool? I have a hard time allowing my 10- to 12-year old students get ahold of Twitter. I must still be a bit old fashioned. However, this article gives reasons to ponder it.
http://www.teachhub.com/twitter-classroom-discussion

I'm a gmail guy. I really think a third of my life is run by Google, and another third is run by Apple. This article helps us guide the way to meld the two together. I need to do this.
http://lifehacker.com/5859854/

If you're not following the Nerdy Teacher, then start now. Here is his list of 5 most needed apps in school. What would you put on your list?
http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2011/11/in-next-few-days-i-will-be-rolling-out.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed