Loving travel, Living through teaching, Playing sport, Being a mom

     Blogging is a new venture for me and I am still figuring out what I really want to talk about and share with others.  I have been gifted enough throughout my life to have had many different experiences.  One of those has been travel.        I can thank my dad for introducing me to the world beyond the neighborhood and making me want to venture forth...  We did not have money growing up.  My parents were both workers who made the bills month to month with not a lot left over, so my dad's creativity in creating opportunities was a huge influence in shaping who I became as an adult.  Most of our vacations were spent in state parks camping.  It was magical (although my mother would disagree :) ).  I learned to love the outdoors and camping and exploring.      This translated into my 20's when I received the opportunity to travel with a group of college professors to Ireland.  I worked and sav...

 Today I wanted to continue the discussion on teaching and schools.  I had several people comment (on Facebook and in conversations) their thoughts, agreements and disagreements to the statements about teaching.  I wanted to take the conversation a little further and talk about schools and the systems in general.  Please understand that I will be making statements that are general in nature and obviously do not apply to all, that there are always exceptions and situations that are contrary.  But for the purpose of this discussion I am referring to the general, not the specific and if we want change we CANNOT keep doing what we have been doing and expect different results....that is, in its essence, the definition of insanity.    So I mentioned yesterday that I believe that no matter where you attend school in the USA that your standards should be the same, the curriculum should be the same, the materials you have access to should be the same, pay and b...

    Yesterday I introduced the topic of Teaching and Education and today I want to take on a small, but so important piece of that puzzle, public school TEACHERS.  As much as I would love to debate/discuss the pros and cons of all types of teachers (public, private, age-level, home school) I am just going to focus on the public side of teaching for this discussion.   In full disclosure I have been a teacher and administrator in the public schools since the late 1990's, mostly in high school but I also have taught at the middle school level, I also taught at the college level for several years.  Although I never taught the primary level, I did have a prolonged internship in a grade school while I was working on my doctorate and earning my Superintendency license.  So that is my background.  I mentioned that I have "taught" since I was 15yrs old, but I have memories of "playing school" when I was much younger.  My grandmother was a teacher for ...

 I have spent the majority of my life in the pursuit of knowledge and sharing that information.  I came into the profession of teaching naturally but haphazardly.  I started teaching without realizing that it was what I was doing.  I was a swim instructor at 15 years old.  I loved it, and taught lessons for over 10 years.  I was a girl scout and taught lessons at summer camps and later as a leader of a troop.  In college I got the opportunity to travel to Ireland with a group of college professors.  It was a life changing opportunity that I knew I wanted to pass on as an opportunity for others and began planning and booking (low cost) travel for other students.  I became a teacher after a cousin of mine encouraged me to sub (due to a shortage) and while doing so I fell in love with the profession, thus I returned to college to earn a teaching degree and began my life's work.   I am sure you are asking why this topic...well I am goin...

Well I am not 25 years old anymore. A day of grocery shopping and shoveling mounds of dirt to the low spots in my yard have wreaked havoc on my body. Today we get to go for round two. We still have quite a bit of dirt to move and grass seed to get down and trying to finish up this weekend project. So I am starting with a slow morning and a cup of coffee. All those muscles that I haven’t used are screaming at me already but I know it will be ok as I get going. I am starting by watching all the morning news and my dog is napping on my lap. I will soon watch my church service and eat a bit of breakfast. Then I will be back outside enjoying the beautiful weather and day and count my blessings that I can do this work. I hope you have a great Sunday morning and that the time change did not cause you to miss anything. I hope you take the time to recognize all the blessings you have and that you take some time to soak up some sunshine.

I’ve always found Fridays to be an interesting day. I can remember when I was growing up. People would say TGIF and other similar phrases that led me to believe that that was the day of the week that they look forward to the most. I have never been a big fan of Fridays day over others not for any particular reason. Honestly, I prefer Mondays and I’ve always look forward to a Monday because it was the day that reestablish the routine in my life, and as I got older, I enjoyed my profession and so I looked forward to starting work again on Mondays. I mentioned that I did not prefer them over other days, (I’m sitting here chuckling to myself) because the older I’ve gotten by the time I get to a Friday I’m ready for an early evening in my PJs either reading a book or watching some TV or sitting out on the back porch. I know when I was younger Fridays were kind of the day that a lot of people started their weekend and went out and I think to myself now I just don’t have the energy for that....