Today, I am grateful for who my son is and how he views the world and how he treats people. I love my Daterbug with all my heart. To hear about what he is doing in school makes me a proud parent because I know he is taking the conversations and lessons we engage with together and he is working with those when he is not around me. Hearing him be recognized as a risk-taker in his learning and wanting to try hard things puts the biggest smile on my face. Celebrating my son, and my kids, is so fun. I want more celebrations. I believe we all should celebrate more. Look for more opportunities to celebrate each other. Big and small accomplishments. There is enough things in our lives that we have to engage with that are not so fun and we should not limit our celebrations to *only* major things. More joy. More hugs. More laughs!
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Today, I am grateful for for being able to successfully complete the SEI class that I have been working on for a couple of months. My plan was to use my time on either Mondays or Tuesdays after school to spend 2-4 hours to complete this. Those were some really long days throughout this semester! Teaching full time. Working a second job on the weekends when I don't have my son. Then doing this. I want to engage with learning that will satisfy my soul as a learner. I enjoy reading about pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching a subject or concept), and having conversations with others who enjoy thinking about why we do what we do. This class gave me time to think about what strategies I should be using to help English language learners in the classroom. I want my classroom to be liberating and I believe that cannot happen if I cannot effectly communicate with all students who are in the room. I still have a lot to learn but I am currently enjoying this journey! Today, I am grateful that I am in a position to try to teach this concept to so many young people. We Rise Together. What is happening around us and to us affects all of us. If someone is being targeted and hurt, we are all hurt. If someone is struggling to find food, we are all hungry. If the sick cannot afford proper and humane health services, we are all sick. What we do to one, we do to all. There is plenty to go around for all of us to have our needs met but the idea of hoarding and needing more and the scarcity mindset hurts all of us. We Rise Together. Our school community rises together when all students are respected, trusted and given opportunities to learn in creative and engaging ways. When all teachers are respected and given the freedom to engage in the art and science of teaching. Our greater community rises together when everyone has access and eating healthy foods, a place to rest and relax, healthcare, ability to enjoy leisure. We Rise Together. I will continue to learn how I can present opportunities for all of us to learn about this and experience this because this is not the “majority” mindset and we are all hurting even if we feel we are in a good spot. We Rise Together! Today, I am grateful for the Suns continuing to play in the NBA Playoffs so that I have my favorite team to look forward to watching. The Suns beat the LA Clippers in 5 games, 4-1. Booker is cooking! He scored 47 in the closing game. This graphic is from a person I follow on Twitter, @nba_paint I like following the Timelines, Twitter and Instagram, when a major sporting event is happening to get commentary, memes and stats of what I am watching. These games bring me joy. I like seeing what will happen. Which players will show up. How the coach will or will not make adjustments. How the refs will make horrible calls if they are against my team but great calls when they benefit the Suns :) So much drama. Now, the Suns play the Denver Nuggets in the 2nd round. My prediction is Suns in 6 - WLWLWW. Today, I am grateful for finding and playing games with my kids. Jenga was the choice last night and next time it will be Sorry! or Uno. I dominated Dayterbug in Jenga. I beat him all three of our games. I enjoy this time because we talk crap to each other throughout to try and distract. We make up rules throughout to make it a little harder for the other person. I will not try to lose any game against my kids because I know that they will not do the same for me when I get older. No mercy :) Today, I am grateful for going to my daughter's track meet and being outside at the end of the day. When I lived in South Dakota and taught middle school, I was also a high school boys basketball coach and middle school track coach. Basketball is my favorite sport to play, coach and watch. Track is my favorite sport to coach because it was nice to be outside, weather permitting, and offer strategies and technical work for young people to think about as they are competing to help them perform better. Even though you are racing or jumping or throwing against other people at the track meet, the real competition is with yourself and improving what you can do. After you do that, you can see where you stand with the other people who did the event with you. It is a mindset to be in competition with yourself to do the best you can do and not judge your performance based on what everyone else did. Do not get me wrong, there is a meet at the end of the There was the organize chaos of the picture but having the athletes pay attention for the calls for their events and then having them show up and perform was cool. This time I was in the stands watching my daughter run the 400m. Probably the hardest race because it is suppose to be a sprint and 400m is a long time to sprint. She did awesome. Kayleah got a PR, personal record. I need to get outside more. I need to get active so that I can run a 400. Today, I am grateful for spending time with my son. In the car on the way to the theater, Dayt says, "Dad, let's plan what snacks we are going to get." I love him with all my heart. Popcorn, duh. Sodas. And M&Ms. I love hearing my son giggle and make laugh at things that he sees and hears. Super Mario Bros was a cool reminder of the characters and games that I have spent hours playing through as I grew up and now my son gets to exerience the joy that these things brought me. I enjoy going to the movies because it feels like an unreal experience. The enormous screen with the loudness of the speakers transporting us to the different worlds. My son was all bubbly and excited to doing something that was out of our routine. I will continue to find things my son enjoys and do them with him to hear is joy! Today, I am grateful for being selected as the AEA representative in a three-year program called Leaders for Just Schools through NEA, National Education Association! Saturday, we had our virtual kick-off of the program that took us through the history of NEA and it Racial Justice path. I was interested in the learning of the 1966 merger between NEA and the American Teachers Association (ATA), an organization that was representing teachers of color during the time of legal segregation. Jim Crow, legal segregation, racism is not history, it is our present. We can feel it around us. Everywhere. We have many organizations that we know that found their beginnings during this time. Many of the laws that we know are meant to protect people against discrimination found their legal beginnings during the '50s-'60s-'70s and we are experiencing those laws trying to be weakened and replaced or ignored today. I am proud to be a member of an organization that says the following statements that were at the beginning of the training on implicit bias and stereotyping.
I am proud and grateful to be selected to represent Arizona Eduction Association and Tempe Secondary Education Association. I have a lot of learning to do to be an ally and co-conspirator and I want to use my privilege to play a role in fostering and growing our communities that benefit everyone and all of us win. "Never forget that Justice is what love looks like in public." - Cornel West Today, I am grateful to hang out with good friends and get whooped by the youngest person in this photo in Yahtzee. Having opportunities to hang with colleagues outside of the school setting is refreshing. Laughing together. Sharing food. Playing a game that brings joy, more so to the winner. The afternoon started on a downer with finding out the Book Fair had closed for a couple hours before the evening event. I thought we would go and get some food and hang out for a bit and then make our way back so Dayt could buy some books but we were having too much fun. I went to the bathroom and on the way back I saw the stack of games and Yahtzee is my all-time favorite game to play. I have many memories playing with my son, my brother, and my father late at night through the holidays and then during the summer. Dayt scored a 424 with three Yahtzees and the rest of us had zero. We got whooped. 424 is a great score but it is not even Dayt's best in his career, that is the 477 he rolled last Christmas. He got 2nd that game behind my 591! I can't find the picture of what my father rolled that game because he was right there too. We had nine Yahtzees rolled. I had 4. Dayt had 3. My father had 2. Just wild! This was fun! Today, I am grateful for picking up my daughter from volleyball practice and having dinner with her. Trinity Grace brings a smile to heart. I love her sense of humor and how she explains the world and how she is experiencing it. She was looking dope with my Suns gear. We went to Four Peaks and had nachos and garlic cheese beer bread. Delicious. I love when I am able to spend time with Trin because usually when I text, I get one or two word responses. When I call, it is quick. She says she does not like to text or talk on the phone. We laughed that this really limits how we communicate to just when we are in the same room together. I love her. Going through my divorce the hardest part has been that I am not around all the time. I am at the events. I am at the games. But being around in the in-between hours where I can throw a pillow that her or her sister and see what they are doing and talk about what they are doing or thinking or wanting to do. I love spending time with Trinity Grace and I am looking forward to the next time. It better be soon! Love you Trinity Grace!* *Trin was not impressed with me for sharing this photo :) |
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Header (above) - Black Hills, SD, 2013 Portrait (below) - Me! Compadre High School, 2021 Dylan WinceI am not a writer. Archives
April 2024
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