School's Out For Summer!

I closed the door to my classroom for the final time this school year. 

This past year has been a whirlwind to say the least! 

Last May I was closing my pastor's wife's classroom for the summer. I had been long term substitute teaching for the two years since graduation. The job market was looking bleak for educators with budget cuts and uncertainty. I spent the summer passing out resumes and scouring the internet for any possible opening. 

On the night of Open House for my district I had no thoughts of an opportunity opening for me. 

My phone rang. 

The Assistant Principal of a school I had only subbed at once was on the other end of the phone. 

"Are you available to sub? Can you be here tonight?"

I.was.so.there!

On that night I met a group of students that would wind up being my very own class. :) 

I was with my 2nd Graders from the first day of school, and became permanent in October. 

This has been a wonderful year! I had an amazing team of mentors! 

I am so thrilled to spend this summer gathering ideas not for some abstract classroom in the future but for my new group of 2nd graders. 

Next year's Open House will be bittersweet because my partner in crime is moving downstairs to 3rd grade. Jennifer welcomed me the first night, and has been a wonderful friend and mentor! 

I am so excited for our newest teacher and teammate Mackenzie! Next year I won't be the NEWBIE anymore. ;) I hope that I am able to be as welcoming and helpful to her as Jennifer has been to me. 

Let the SUMMER begin!

Let's Give This A Try!

Hello!
I am totally new at this blogging thing, so I will start with introductions. I just finished my first official year of my dream job, teaching 2nd grade. I have wanted to be a 2nd grade teacher since I, myself, was in the 2nd grade. I have had the best time with my first little class, and it came to an end on Friday.

About halfway through this school year I discovered an online educational charity called DonorsChoose.org. Through this website I have stocked my classroom with many essentials that I would not have been able to get without Donors Choose. Many other exciting things have come from my Donors Choose adventure. Google visited my classroom and funded every project at my school and in the Atlanta area. I started a giving page to help other teachers fund their projects through contests and trading. I have received such awesome feedback from my giving page, And How Are The Children on Donors Choose, that I have decided that my newest adventure will be to start a blog this summer to document my adventures in teaching and on Donors Choose.

You can find my giving page at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/And-How-Are-the-Children-on-Donors-Choose/682076805185297?sk=timeline

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?id=387923&active=t

and follow us on twitter @howrthechildren

I will close with a great story that I have heard in many trainings and college classes. Many people wonder where I came up with the name for my giving page and now my blog. So, here is the story behind it. It's a bit lengthy but worth the read.

Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Masai. It is perhaps surprising, then, to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Masai warriors: “Kasserian Ingera,” one would always say to another. It means, “And how are the children?”
It is still the traditional greeting among the Masai, acknowledging the high value that the Masai always place on their children’s well-being. Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer, “All the children are well.” Meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place. That Masai society has not forgotten its reason for being, its proper functions and responsibilities. “All the children are well” means that life is good. It means that the daily struggles for existence do not preclude proper caring for their young.I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children’s welfare if in our culture we took to greeting each other with this daily question: “And how are the children?” I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day, if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of or cared about in our own country.I wonder if every adult among us, parent and non-parent alike, felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our community, in our town, in our state, in our country. . . . I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation, “The children are well, yes, all the children are well.”What would it be like . . . if the minister began every worship service by answering the question, “And how are the children?” If every town leader had to answer the question at the beginning of every meeting: “And how are the children? Are they all well?” Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear their answers? What would it be like… I wonder?