Why I Teach....

We complain and we whine and we love our kids.  We are thrown many curve balls in any given day.  We are blamed for society's woes and illnesses.  But, it is letters like these that make my day and make me realize why I do what I do.  Why I do NOT want to be an administrator, and why I do NOT want to be anywhere other than where I am.  I am a teacher.   And, I LOVE it (even after 25 years).

Hi Ms. W,

    I just wanted to let you know (even though I'm not your student anymore) that I'm doing a TED talk! I recently gave an "I Believe" speech in my English 9 class, and it ended up getting more attention than I thought it would. My teacher told me that I HAD to share my speech with more people. I sent her a recording of my speech, which she then forwarded to the librarian, who happens to be an organizer of this program called TEDx Youth in Ann Arbor. It has a committee of people from schools around Ann Arbor and they take high school students as volunteers to share their ideas with others. I met with the librarian (Dr. Sara Duvall), who wanted me to share my speech at the event on Saturday, March 22nd. I ended up agreeing to do it, so now I'm doing a live TED talk (kind of a smaller, toned-down version) at Skyline! The point of this message is that while it might have seemed like I wasn't really listening  to the TED talks in advisory when you played them, sometimes I did (when I was there). In the back of my mind, I kind of knew that I wanted to do one, but I had no clue about what. Now I know. So thank you for being my favorite teacher (twice, along with advisory teacher and Chicago chaperone) and for forcing the TED talks into my mind, because without that, I wouldn't be who I am today.

                                                                            Sincerely,  XXXX

           

Challenges in 2014

Thanks to Jen @ Teach Mentor Texts, I have become more apt to publicly state that I WILL READ...such and such.  And, I WILL DO such and such in the year 2014.  So, here are the challenges I am accepting.  Some are the Un-Boring List for 2014:  Here is the one I created-

Un-Boring List for 2014

Hold a Book Swap Cocktail Party for friends
 Take kids to Chicago to visit Robie House OR Falling Water
 Read 100 picture books
 Participate in Teachers Write over summer
 Take a jewelry making class with Abby
 Write more
 Do book drops at coffee shops
 Make garden “growers” as seen on Pinterest and located in my Greenhouses and Gardens page
 Plant LOTS of lavender!
 Build a bread oven in backyard
 Have an adventure over the summer with kids—hikes, bikes and trails
 Take Anne to Sarnia
 Have a graphic novel read a thon
 Start a YA book group

 So, those are my goals.  I've already started the YA book group:  got a date, members and a book (BEING HENRY DAVID by cal armistead).  I wrote like crazy during the "Polar Vortex" but have to get back to it now that life is back in full swing.  Daily blog posts are my goal.  

My next goal is the Book Gap Challenge, started by Donalyn Miller in a Nerdy Book Club post.

So,  here is my personal Book Gap Challenge for the year.  These are books everyone seems to have read in high school or college except you.

   1.  The Little Prince

   2.  Hatchet

   3.  Catch-22

   4.  Heart of Darkness

I think that's it for the first year of this challenge.  

Next:  Picture Book Challenge.   I noticed from reading several blogs that I am getting severely deficient in reading these amazing books!  Now that my kids are older and reading on their own or more sophisticated books, I have failed to take these out of the library and read them.  So far,  here are the picture books I've read in 2014 and my goal is 365.  One book-a-day.  

The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter and Giselle Potter

Stones For Grandpa by Renee Londner and Martha Aviles

The Boy Who Loved Math:  The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos 

                                by Deborah Heiligman and LeUyen Pham

Tea Party Rules by Ame Dyckman and K.G. Campbell

Penny and Her Marble by Kevin Henkes

The Dark by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen

God Got A Dog by Cynthia Rylant and Marla Frazee

Red Knit Cap Girl by Naoko Stoop

Relish by Lucy Knisley

I LOVED this book and devoured it in one sitting.  Part memoir, part recipe book, and all great art, this is a book for everyone.  I love reading about food, especially when it involves recipes like these:

and these:



The colorful art along with the tantalizing food descriptions of Knisley's life growing up in New York City and Rhinebeck really brought me into the food life.  Her mother was a caterer and gardener and her father a great lover of food.  Knisley truly led a charmed foodie life and was introduced to the most amazing food at a young age.  I especially loved the chapter on croissants and was incredibly surprised to find that the ultimate croissant for her was found in Venice, Italy! She is also brutally honest and real about her love affair with McDonald's in the midst of the yumminess of all of the other good food.  Knisley is NOT a food snob, but shows appreciation for all kinds of food.  I bought this one and passed it on to the students after I gushed about it. Then, I cheered when my phone told me her first book, French Milk, was ready for me at the library!

Boy 21 by Matthew Quick

I am beginning to believe that Matthew Quick doesn’t write anything not worth reading. In Boy 21, Finn; a rising high school basketball star; is approached by his coach and asked to do a favor.  Coach asks him to take care of his friend’s son who is going to move into the area, live with his grandparents, and attend school with Finn.  However, it seems that the boy’s parents were murdered and this boy (Russell) will be living under an alias because he was the top college basketball recruit in the country.  In other words, Finn is going to be harboring a huge secret, but Boy 21 is harboring an even greater burden.  Since the death of his parents, he now goes by the name Boy 21, because he believes he lives in outer space. And, that is how he talks to Finn most of the time, like an alien. 

While this may seem like a cheesy storyline, Quick handles this with his usual grace and adeptness.  The relationship that blooms between Finn and Boy 21 grows and blossoms as Finn tries to bring him back down to earth to deal with the reality of his life.  While coach has told Finn that Boy 21 refuses to play basketball since the tragedy, Coach convinces Russell to play and opens an entire Pandora’s box of issues for Finn and his chances at college basketball.  On top of all of this, Finn and his girlfriend are growing further apart and his legless, alcholic grandfather seems to serve almost as his Jiminy Cricket conscience through the entire novel.

This is a beautiful novel about humanity, friendship, love and integrity.  And, like all of Matthew Quick’s novels, there emerges hope at the end.  I would LOVE to see this one go to the screen too!  

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi  by Neal Bascombe. 
This gem found its way to my doorstep via the wonderful people at Scholastic.  I snatched it out of the box before my daughter grabbed it and now she is itching to sweep it off of my nightstand.  How much I learned from this book!  Although I've taught the Holocaust for all of my 24 years of teaching, I didn't know the story of how Adolf Eichmann came to be captured and tried in a court of law- captured by the Israelis (most of whom were Holocaust survivors) AND tried in Israel.  How fitting!  It's good to know that justice reigned for some part of this heinous era in history. 

Most impressive to me was the reconnaissance that went into hunting down, staking out, and capturing Eichmann.  Then, after he was captured, it was another week before he could be sneaked out on an Israeli aircraft.  My very favorite line came from one of the flight attendants on the plane where no one knew what was going on.  He whispered to the man in charge:  "Do you have Mengele or Eichmann?"  Oh, how I wish Mengele would have suffered the same fate.  This book is scheduled to be released on August 27th (according to Amazon), and is well worth adding to your classroom bookshelves.

Titanic: Voices From The Disaster byDeborah Hopkinson

The genre of narrative nonfiction has hit an all time high in the publishing world.  Previously, there were so few engaging nonfiction books for children and teens, yet now the genre has virtually exploded.   This Titanic book is unlike any you’ve read before.  On one hand, it is the same old Titanic story…the boat still sinks and thousands of people still perish.  However, in this version, we get to follow real people and learn their stories as they travel on the fated ship’s maiden voyage.  Some were there by chance and some were there on purpose.  Some were rich and some were traveling in 3^rd class.  But, each of them has a rich story and Hopkinson follows each intriguing sea biography to its end. 

For instance, while we know there were not enough life jackets on board the vessel, this rendition takes it one step further to show how difficult it was for some of the men to find safety and how some of them bravely sent the rest of their family on while they went down with the ship.  I even learned something-- as I thought that all of those who stayed on the Titanic as it sank perished, but there were survivors who were not on the lifeboats as well.

Filled with pictures, diagrams and real time drama, this novel will keep the interest of students not just because the story of the Titanic is interesting, but because they become caught up in the lives of those on the ship.  The novel wraps up with some unconventional pieces in a Titanic book.  The Epilogue begins with a description and pictures of Ballard’s 1985 discovery of the Titanic wreckage.  This is followed by a glossary, details of the lives of the real people followed in the book, a timeline, famous Titanic figures, survivor letters from the Carpathia, facts and figures, how to be a Titanic researcher, the commissioner’s report, launching sequence of the lifeboats, survivor statistics and a bibliography.  The detail in this particular Titanic book is what makes it award worthy.