An Interesting Link

I was browsing the internet today and came across this link that I found to be quite interesting. The PDF attached explains what teachers should know and be able to do. I thought it was a neat way of looking at our profession.

Enjoy.

What Teachers Should Know

When the Teacher has ADHD...

This interview with a teacher who himself has AD/HD highlights some of the unexpected benefits of teaching a classroom "on" AD/HD.

"The day I learned I had AD/HD was probably one of the best days of my life," said Robert Cimera, a former teacher and current professor of special education.

Makes you wonder what assets might come with other learning/disabilities in the classroom. Hmmm....

To listen to A.D.H.D. Patient Voices, click here.

School of Fish

I heard somewhere that goldfish don't get bored because they have no memory. Not that my students have NO memory, but, well, sometimes they remind me of goldfish because they at least have an incredibly selective memory. One particular student oscillates from thinking my master teacher and I are each "the best, most nice teacher in the whole world" to "I hate this school! Nothing is fair and I always get in trouble, etc." No matter what happened the day before, every day is a fresh start with this guy. He wanders in and is soon hugging me. We even have a routine---he hugs me, I count to three, and when I get to three, he knows it's time to let go so that I don't suffocate (of course, that could be the idea?). Maybe an hour later he's plotting the ultimate revenge for being sent out of a read-aloud session to go and "think about his actions" and "rejoin us when he's ready to behave appropriately," but, ultimately, the hug always, inevitably, happens again, at some point, regardless of how horrible of a time we've had. I appreciate this because it teaches me about starting over each day with a fresh perspective as well. It helps me to remember to be more forgiving of others and, more importantly for my personality, to be more forgiving of myself. Everyone could benefit from some advice from a goldfish, it would seem.

Running Out of Topics

Hi Everyone -

I have been attempting to catch up on our blogs, our Wiki, our BB posts, and I have completely run out of things to talk about. JKG, you always have such fun topics. Why can't I be more like you?

I wonder if this is going to happen in the classroom. Have you ever had those moments where you are literally just done talking? You want silence? As teachers, is this possible? Do we sprint out of the classroom? I think that would be slightly humorous to see a teacher bolt out of a second grade room screaming something about not answering anymore questions about milkweed bugs. Lo and I almost see our Dyad teacher do that every time we are there.

Yikes.

Anyway, I am done with this sad little post. Enjoy your Tuesday off!

The Joys of Writing

I thought we could all appreciate this quote right about now:

"Writing, they say, is the most dreadful chore ever inflicted upon human beings. It is not only exhausting mentally; it is also extremely fatiguing physically.
"... so the horrors of loneliness are added to its other unpleasantness. An author at work is continuously and inescapably in the presence of himself. There is nothing to divert and soothe him. So every time a vagrant regret or sorrow assails him, it has him instantly by the ear, and every time a wandering ache runs down his leg it shakes him like the bite of a tiger. I have yet to meet an author who was not a hypochondriac.
"... The point is that an author, penned in a room during all his working hours with no company save his own, is bound to be more conscious than other men of the petty malaises that assail all of us. They tackle him, so to speak, in a vacuum; he can't seek diversion from them without at the same time suffering diversion from his work.
"... Why then, do rational men and women engage in so barbarous and exhausting a vocation ... vanity ... His overpowering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized countries, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression." (Selected Prejudices, 1927.)

-- Mencken, H. L. (1880-1956)

When this happens, I suddenly feel much older than my students...