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How Full Is Your Bucket? Chapters 1-2

           

        This book starts out with an outstanding premise stated by the author. Good ol' 79 year old doctor Don, dying of cancer, realizes that to be positive about a situation is a lot more productive than to be negative. Then, Tom Rath jumps in to help Dr. Don to get the book written before he has to go meet his maker. This came as old news to me. My perspective is from the well trained, seasoned warrior in a never ending war on ignorance. I agree 100% that when I have encountered the stupidity of people in leadership positions, it has always been my choice to make the best of things, go forward, despite destructive actions,  and to not surrender to their negativity. All, which would only defeat the purpose of my existence. I wish that the bucket filling, so highly touted in this book, would become the secret weapon of my leadership people.

Teaching is a rather unusual situation in a top down leadership model. Teachers tend to be bucket fillers by nature. They want to please people and make nice. Yet, experienced teachers who have earned advanced degrees and know from where they speak can't help noticing poor judgement and the axed hole in the sinking boat. Our bucket filling brain says, "don't worry, be happy" but,  our practical, tax-paying, and the I'm a citizen too,  brain says, " SOS!" Top down people tend to be oriented towards having everyone make them look good. They want promotions and no light shown on holes in the theory, or boats.  This makes for a more bucket dipping atmosphere which challenges the most enthusiastic bucket filler.

Our customers ( students) have very little choice in our work atmosphere. The other teachers and I work together to provide the best possible school for the sake of the children. Regardless of our success, our leaders try to stop the success. Sometimes, courage must be summoned from a deep  reservoir to do what is right for the children. Afterall, we are tax payers and members of this community. Will the old excuse, " we were just following orders" be accepted when the ultimate question is asked? The question," Why didn't somebody say or do something when you saw the boat was sinking?" could be answered with, " I didn't want to seem negative and was looking for what was right rather than dwelling on what was wrong."

Of course, we are not just standing and doing nothing. I write letters to my colleagues and praise them for their efforts. I make a special point of finding a way to make them feel special. In return, I get more than a bucket full of respect and true joy. The people with whom I work, and the families that I have grown to love, give me buckets full every day of love and respect. The children notice that I care about them. They notice how well the other teachers and I work to provide them with a good education. Thank you all, is the message that I give to them. Afterall, none of us would be here if we did not have to work. This is what we get for being poor and hired out. It is for these people that I do my best. i also know that the people in charge of our schools may someday have an epiphany.  They may come to realize that maybe I do know a little about teaching and they will allow me to teach. Until then, I will do my best.

 

Revisiting Reading Workshop Chapters 7-8 and till the end of the book

 

                     Chapter 7 gives the teacher guidance in the topic of Mini-lessons on Literary Elements   and               Literary techniques. Thank goodness! I have only known about this for 50 years. The lists are excellent for starting from scratch with a reading program. If everything in my room was blown away with the wind, this would give me the boost that I'd need to start over. New teachers should come to the profession armed with this information. It never hurts to have it repeated to those of us on the other end.  

Revisiting Reading Workshop Chapters 7-8 and till the end of the book

 

                     Chapter 7 gives the teacher guidance in the topic of Mini-lessons on Literary Elements  and               Literary techniques. Thank goodness! I have only known about this for 50 years. The lists are excellent for starting from scratch with a reading program. If everything in my room was blown away with the wind, this would give me the boost that I'd need to start over. New teachers should come to the profession armed with this information. It never hurts to have it repeated to those of us on the other end.  

Revisiting Reading Workshop 4-6

 

                      The chapters  4-6 give the would be reading workshop doer a clear guide to the effective procedures, strategies for choosing the right book, reading conferences, Reading strategies and skills instruction, and the lesson plans to go with the teaching. This is all an excellent way to be a teacher of reading. All of these strategies have been around a long time. I do most of them. I have found a very effective way to make all of these strategies work in my fifth grade. I guess that is why my test scores are out front of most of the other schools in our system. I'm sure that there are always more ways two improve. I will continue to practice all of the suggestions found in the book. I know my 5th grade readers appreciate my enthusiasm. The thank you notes from the parents of my children are great research documentation that I know what I am doing. Good reading!

arry on!

Revisiting The reading Workshop Chapters 1-3

 

                       The ideas in this book are excellent. Most of them are ideas that have been used by me for many years. The ideas that I do are: Mini-lesson and read aloud, response and reflection, on- task behaviors, classroom library, book nooks, and Keep Parents Informed.   I do regard my organization and materials to be superior to anything that I've come to know so far. The research for my program is very positive.  Data for successful reading lessons are found in all testing results. The format for teaching my way was given to me by progressive educators of the early 1970s. The authors of the book seem to have had some of the same influences that I had in college.

I do most of what reading workshop suggests. I will continue to do all of these things to the best of my ability. I hope that everyone agress that adaptation to the needs of a student are very necessary. It is important to be flexible. Reviews and enrichment opportunities come in different forms and at unexpected opportunities.  No teacher should be tied to a format that keeps the teacher and student from excelling. Great ideas.

Fish Sticks 78-122

  I believe that I left off at blazing my own trail. How true! This book does more than anything that I have encountered lately to illustrate a timeless point. Mountains out of mole hills have been made in the characters lives. If everyone would live by the golden rule which is the Samaritan IT, then we would all be fine. As usual, educational professionals are running around, dredging up trouble, when there is enough to do with just the normal amount of work that the students cause. I have enough to do preparing lessons and keeping the CO happy.  I plan to do my job very well and not shirk. Just yesterday I had a parent with 3 children at this school tell me that I was the perfect teacher. She felt that I had great passion for my work and that she hoped that I would stay at this school long enough to teach all of her children. Our conversation was so positive that I smiled for the rest of the day. Every day or so I encounter an adult that has either had me as a teacher, or has had a child in my class. They invite me to their homes and include me in their personal lives. Many of these people consider me to be family. I wish for everyone that chooses education to be as fortunate as I  have been in this profession. I had IT, as is expressed in the book Fish Sticks, when I decided to teach and have kept it all these years. I teach therefore I am, to turn a familiar phrase to my needs. You must believe that you are here for a purpose greater than the people that would try to spoil the experience. As is stated on page 117 of the book, Fish Sticks, " Many people talk about the importance of commitment, but commitment remains an abstraction until we take action. We demonstrate our commitment by taking the following actions: FIND IT LIVE IT COACH IT." This has been my mission for 28 years. I hope some day to know that everyone in the teaching profession is as successful as I have been in helping students, parents, and other teachers to be the best that they can be.  

Fish Sticks p.38-77

Fish Sticks started out in a dream world of people with no personal life. Now it has moved into a full scale nightmare with the arrival of the lady who has 18 months to go. They have already wasted an incredible amount of time on a bunch of junk that seemed to only half way work when the stiff nurse woman  comes in and makes it look even more foolish. I don't get any of the stuff that the nurses were doing in the first place. A hospital is a serious place for adults to work if they are trained and desire the job. I fully get the intrinsic motivation thing and because I am the age that I am, I know that "external energy" is very short lived.

Oh, by the way, I continued reading and realized that Miss Scallpell is a person that I like. She is the type of person that I appreciate because what she does has real value. It has always been my vision to earn a decent living doing something that I enjoy doing. I found out that I did eat and breathe school after I had taught school one day. I actually found it to be my calling.

So whatever happens, I'm  born to teach and I'm here to stay. I'm about atmosphere and not about moving ahead regardless of the cost. Good Samaritan is East Central. I wish that we could blaze our own trail as we did when I first came to the school. Our school is different from other schools and should not have to have the same exact trail as the other schools have.

Fish Stick 1-37

       

           I feel as if I have gone back in time to a moment when teachers were respected and people believed that problem solving was born from emnployees that loved their job. "One vision moment at a time" sounds like I wrote it. What's going on here? Do you mean that I should not be under pressure to be excellent and then be kicked in the teeth; no actually stopped from doing best practices to help a person get a doctorate, move on, then allow someone else to start best practices again. Oh! thanks for telling me.

Craft lessons 92-104

  

                          As a professional writing teacher, I am very impressed with the ideas that these authors have brought to my attention. It can be argued that students need more conventional instruction than craft lessons, but I believe that a mixture, or balance, in the instruction is necessary. I am evolving as a teacher as I reflect on my directions that I give to students. My intent is to facilitate students in an environment designed to bring students to their personal bests in all areas. I will use this book for guidance.Each lesson has suggested scripts for teachers who are engaged in being succinct, but motivating. Writer's Workshop, here we are!

 

 

Craft lessons p.79-92

     

 

            Actually starting with p. 74, the reader finds an excellent list of books to which the authors refer as lessons are described to the would be teacher of writing. All of the lessons are excellent and will be included in my writer's workshop time. From, "Finding A Focus" to "Using Interior Monologue" the amount of development of the student required is very sophisticated and the desire to write must be in evidence. May God have mercy on our souls as I try to do this after the students have been taught to Power Write.

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