Blue-Sky Teaching

This week was difficult at my high school.  We lost a teacher to cancer.  A teacher who was young, energetic and cared so much about his students, his football players, his family.  As I sat this morning in the warm September sun on the bleachers of our football stadium, I watched his young wife, their toddler sons, his parents.  I watched the bleachers fill with faculty, students, coaches and friends.  Graduates came back.  Faculty who've moved on came back.  And we mourned, and we celebrated Jon's life. Jon was pretty quiet in my eyes.  We taught at different ends of the building and our paths only crossed occasionally.  My first year, I got lost in his wing of the building, trying to deliver my keys so he and his class could change my car's oil for his automotive car care class.  Not only did he change the oil, but he told me he was concerned about my tires being low and he didn't think I'd rotated them lately, so he and the kids ...

This week marked our one month anniversary.  We've been back in school since August 16th.  The whirlwind of learning names, settling students into a routine, and figuring out my various classes' personalities is slowing.  Instead of slowing down, this week, my busy is shifting - it's a conscious choice -  purposeful and necessary. In the very beginning of the school year, our busy is wide.  We have to get to know the students in our classes.  For me, this means knowing who they are, what they like, and looking deeply at temperament.  I have to read them carefully to see what interests they have, what home and family might be like, what they are passionate about, and, maybe most importantly, what calms and reassures each student and what sets them off.  This kid excavation is necessary and all-consuming at the beginning of every year.  I can't help kids read and write their best if I don't know them. The other part of the all-consuming bus...