Those of Us Who Overextend Ourselves

I think some of us who have had challenging lives just need to give more back.

It's like we're more comfortable living under the same amount of stress we grew up with.  Or we try to fix in other people's lives what we couldn't fix in our own families.

The problem, of course, is that however many other lives we help, we still don't heal our family, our experiences, and the wounds remain.

Play to Win

The sheer volume of things I accomplish in a week as a turnaround teacher simply because I have to is amazing.  I have never been so efficient or productive in my life.  But that leaves little time for sanity and humanness.

My Wind Ensemble director in college, Steven J. Moore, was a University of Kentucky graduate, so he loved college basketball, and basketball strategy became musical strategy.

He would often tell us this.  When playing a challenging opponent, a team who has the lead may stop playing to win.  They start running the clock - just playing not to lose.  Precisely here, they play worse, and they begin to lose.  In Wind Ensemble, we were up against a worthy opponent in the challenge of the musical piece that was before us, and he charged us with playing not to lose.  We were losing.  He challenged us to the offense: get on top of it.  Be on the offense, not the defense.  Play to win.

Beauty

There was a gentleman who's eye I hoped to catch.  No, more than that.  Though not yet enough to merit so much thought and attention (Dietrich von Hildebrand would disagree!), our few recent interactions caused me to desire his attention and awe.

Classroom Management

I have found only one prayer that helps my classroom management: "Lord, make me smaller."

Classroom Management

Aaah!!!!  By now, we’ve all felt it.  In its more severe form, it sounds something like, "I thought I could teach . . . but maybe I was wrong!" or, if another more experienced adult is in the room, a quick glance screams, "HELP!"

Fortunately, Judy (our internship sight professor and rock), CLC (Collaborative Learning Community) discussion, and some other informants come to the rescue.  And some of the things we talked about over the summer that were real nice in theory.  Now, the trick of putting it all into action.

My Clinical Teacher put it well. "They're good kids, but if they're talking, it gets in the way of instruction." Our class suffers from a light version of the problem, but my CT nailed it. Classroom management is an essential prerequisite of effective instruction.

Gifted and Talented

From the data neurobiology is providing, it is evident that nearly all children are born with very complex and unique brain structures. Although each child is different, they all seem to have extraordinary potential. I believe that, if given the opportunity to develop optimally, most children could perform at the level we now call gifted, and it probably would be more natural for them to do so. (Gargiulo, p. 539)

What on earth!?  We’re anti-tracking.  We’re anti-label.  And rightly so, in order not to track students into less than they could be, to know that they are first a person, and not a label.  Then why do we call some “gifted and talented?” You better believe I know exactly who they are calling gifted and talented, and if it’s not me, I have received a very clear message about my abilities, and my in-ablities.