Today, I am grateful for a friend who makes me smile, Mr. Otto. He was responsible for getting some muffins for our Staff breakfast for Friday and he had an event and I was fortunate to experience his event through voice to text messages and a phone call. If you have not ever received a voice to text message from Otto you are missing out. It is an adventure. This time though they were coming in so fast that I had to read backwards because the messages were disappearing from my screen too fast. lol. Muffins were found BUT it was a super interesting hour. Reading the messages outloud the next morning got him all worked up again. lol. I am grateful for my friends but I ain't reading all that!
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Today, I am grateful to have a buddy, Jason, that likes to golf and invited me to go out after school. Golf is fun. So freaking hard but fun. Every shot is different. Different lies for the ball. Different levels for where your feet are. Super hard. Then having a buddy who will say something if the shot goes somewhere it's not suppose to, is fun. Getting out in the sunshine is fun. Hitting my driver and having the ball actually go where I want it to go is fun. Making a long putt is fun. Today, I am grateful to get out on the golf course and having opportunties to hang with buddies. Today, I am grateful for the music of The Head and The Heart.
The Head and The Heart is one of my favorite groups.
I hope to be able to see them live at some point on their tour this year! Maybe this summer when I am traveling to Idaho and South Dakota, our paths will cross! Today, I am grateful to be able to watch my daughter Kayleah compete on the soccer field.
I love how much she cares about being a good teammate, doing what her coaches are asking her to do and her competiveness in wanting to win. I know how hard Kayleah has worked to improve as a soccer player and I love watching her on the field. Today, was a beautiful day outside. Sitting in the sun and drinking a Mountain Dew. Dayterbug was off kicking a soccer ball into the fence and coming back with red cheeks. I cannot wait to see what her sports career looks likes going into high school next year. I will always be there to support her and cheer her on! I am so proud of you and all of your hard work Kayleah! Today, I am grateful for the ability to recognize when I am looking at something from a certain perspective and being willing to listen to other perspectives with an open mind.
I saw this graphic on my socials timeline and liked it. It shows the same amount of water but the perspective of the person looking at the glass and water can interpret it differently. I find myself fluctuating between these different outlooks while in this season of my life. This year has included almost completing my first year at Tempe HS, going through my divorce, working a second job to make ends meet, meeting new people, interacting with students, watching my own kids get older, watching my own kids compete in sports they find enjoyable. There has been good days and crappy days. There has been hopeful days and days that I could not wait to be over. I am trying to do better about recognizing what perspective/outlook I have and navigate those emotions and feelings. Today, I am grateful for this area of growth in my life. Today, I am grateful to be able to experience Buff Bash 2023!
This is my first year at Tempe High School and hearing how excited seniors were for this event because it had not happened since their freshman year was cool. The pandemic disrupted all of our lives. Some of us were more fortunate than others but all of us experienced some level of disruption from school, shopping, going to the movies or restaurants. Things changed. Events that schools "normally" put on were put on hold and then people moved on and others decided to shift things around or off of their plates and we end up not having the same events as before. It was fun to see young people moving around and interacting. It was fun to hear people laughing. It was good to be outside on a beautiful day! I wanted to contribute so I stayed after and picked up garbage and found all these tickets! Lucky me! The nachos were all sold out though! Next Year! Today, I am grateful for windows in my classroom.
In my first six years of teaching, my two classrooms had a wall of windows and I really enjoyed seeing the sunshine, cloudy days, rain, or snow falling throughout the seasons. The last three years before this school year, I had an interior room that did not have any windows and I believe contributed to my poor mental health, along with other things happening in my life. This year, this, almost literal wall of windows is beautiful. Knowing the science behind learning and teaching psychology about learning, mental health and physical health, natural light is a necesity. I cannot believe that we allow children to be in rooms for hours throughout their days without natural light. This concept is absolutely wild to me and makes me think that as a society we do not like children. I have not turned my overhead lights on all school year and will continue to just use the couple of lamps I have, only. The natural light is beautiful and I want my students to be in an environment that is calming and good for their mental health. Today, I am grateful for being able to create interesting lessons for students to engage with.
I want to make this learning opportunity interesting and meaningful. I want to connect what we are learning to the students lives and the students lives to what we are needing to engage with. I have not had a year, yet, and this may not be totally positive, that I have done the exact same thing with the exact same lessons. I have tried different projects and different ways of engaging with the content to hopefully find a way for all students to see and feel their successes throughout the school year. I have great pride in the time and effort that I have put into creating my website for students to access the history, psychology and government that we are engaging with. I ask and guide students through creating their own portfolios so that they can see that they can create their own website as well. Everything that I do I do so that students can see that I give everything that I have but I also help guide them through creating it themselves so they can do it on their own. I do not want to be a gatekeeper. I reflect regularly if what I am doing is preventing someone from achieving or going where they want. I am not a holder of knowledge that others cannot have. I give freely of all the resources and understandings as I have and continue to grow through these interactions. I hope I can play some small role in students and colleagues learning journeys because I know that every student interaction and colleague interaction has impacted me to be the educator and person that I am. Today, I am grateful for getting out of bed and being here on a Monday. Some times that hardest part is showing up. I am tired from working over the weekend but I want to show up. I just checked, we only have 7 more Mondays this school year. That is wild. Today, my goal is to make this a good Monday. Today, I am grateful for the ability to make ends meet. I am a full time educator. I take pride in what I have created and present to students to engage with. I often arrive at school an hour before school and stay after so that I can complete what is needed without taking it home with me. I want to do good work for my students. It makes me super frustrated that I have the need to get a second job to fill the gaps that my teaching pay leaves with what I am doing to live. I have a reliable car. I have a one bedroom apartment. I have nice things but I do not believe I am living or spending way outside my means. But still, I need to have a second job in this stage of my life. This is why I am involved in our teachers union, to advocate for all teachers to be respected by the pay we receive. I have been able to meet so many cool people while working at Four Peaks. Today, while being outside, I took a second to take a deep breath and be grateful that I am able to do what I need to do at this stage of my life to provide for myself and my kids. |
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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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