Cuban Book Crisis

Recently for a genius hour, I discussed communism and the Cuban Missile Crisis with all of my seventh graders. Some of their eyes glazed over, but many of them seemed truly engaged with what I was saying. I did my best to weave the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis into something that would keep...

A Few Remembered Things

Ever since I returned from the CCIRA conference, I have been meaning to blog about lots of different sessions and ideas that I came away with. To give you a very brief overview of the conference, I left feeling rejuvenated in my practice and it also reminded me of some simple truths that I had...

Feedback Promises

Recently, I have been reading a professional development book over giving effective feedback that my district asked me to read at the beginning of the year. It's not a thrilling read, but it has made me think about how I am interacting with students and how I am responding to their work and their behavior....

Little Victories

My parents once told me that when you turn eighteen you know everything and that every day after that birthday, you realize how little you actually do know. It's like all of that self-confidence and wisdom slowly leaks out of your brain somehow for the rest of your life. I find this to be very,...

What Are We Saying?

Words are everywhere. We read them. We write them. We speak them. We hear them. They permeate almost every single part of our existence. We even think in words. Words have enormous power. War. Hate. Peace. Love. Words are our ideas and our hopes and our dreams. With this much power, I don't feel like...

Slowly Slumping

Recently, I've been slacking in my blogging and in the effort I put into just about everything. I've been burned out for awhile now and it's catching up with me. I can't keep continuing to care and things are getting more and more demanding, asking that would I please reconsider and dedicate more of myself...

Don’t Suck on the Bones

Rule Number on of David's Fossil Lab: Don't Suck on the Bones.This Monday, we began a new unit of fossils and evolutionary biology with a little bit of geology sprinkled in. Our supervisor was out and we mentors had free reign.... which produced some interesting results. We spent more time learning through playing and the...

Paralyzing, Exciting Change

Occasionally, we come to points in our lives where we have to make really big, really scary decisions. We can see our lives going one way or another and thinking about the different directions makes our heart pump a little faster and our excitement rises and we are terrified. I have been thinking, for over...

Making Waves

This is my first ever blog round up day and I hope that you are all just as excited as I am. The NASA blog project for my NASA mentorship is off to a great start, even though there was a little trepidation from several parties at the beginning. There are five blogs so far,...

Up and Up

Sometimes in life we are wrong about things. I think I may have been wrong about this NASA project. Yes, I still believe that we may have too many people involved. I am still confused about our final goal. Yet, it's not horrible. It's actually kind of shaping up to be a fun and fairly...