First day

This is going to be short and sweet, as this laptop is making me really warm!!  NATURALLY, it is über hot this week, since we will be trapped in school.  And so of course people have been asking me if I am anxious to get back to school.

There is no easy answer to this.  The obvious answers are both YES and NO- but it is a yes and no.  I love teaching my kids, I love the energy, the creativity and I love my coworkers.  I don't like meetings, I don't like grading and the other busy work that goes with the job.  I love learning new things, I do like the challenge of finding best practices in teaching to a point, and I enjoy finding ways to connect with kids, but some of the extraneous things that accompany the job are deadly to ones joy.  AND people who think they can do it better are welcome to come in and walk a mile in my shoes.  I double dog dare you.

I THOROUGHLY love finding new ways to involve good technology in my teaching- which will be a challenge this year.  At least to start.  We lost our friend and colleague Mike Garvin this summer.  Our IT guy, our tech guru, our visionary friend who was responsible mostly, for pushing us into a truly cutting edge position in the realm of educational practices.  Our tiny little school is truly one to one computing.  The kids all have their own laptop or device to use during school.  Is it a perfect system?  Oh no, but it is amazing!  People here have no idea how progressive we are!  I don't think people in the community have a clue as a group, we are truly preparing our kids for a life that is going to be their reality.  If you don't like it or "believe" it or think they need it up here, well, you are kidding yourself.  So we as teachers are trying like crazy to stay one step ahead, and continue to prepare to teach in a whole new way at times.  Because you can't just switch up everything all at once, and like we all know- different people learn in different ways. Technology is NOT the best way to teach to everyone, but certainly it is a valuable weapon in our arsenal.

I am looking forward to continuing my elementary art blog, use twitter and Instagram and who knows what else in my HS, and generally be an advocate for integrating technology in our school day.  BUT i want it known that this girl is a hands on, draw with your fingers with pencil and paint with a brush, kind of teacher.  We can do some tech projects, but we also NEED to use art supplies!!!

So as we begin our new year together, we will muddle through and do our best.  And there will be a lot of joy!