My daughter Laura invited me to tag along with her on her trip to Idaho this week for the Special Olympics World Games. She’ll be blogging about her experiences here and all that she is learning, but I wanted to introduce the readers who follow me here to Noah Gray. Laura got to hang out with him last night because both of them were asked to speak at a dinner for the Global Youth Activation…
My daughter Laura has invited her younger sister Nina to team up with her in helping to make a difference during the holidays again this year. I will selfishly admit that I have been eagerly awaiting this second challenge since LAST year, because our family has an incredibly good time keeping up with all of the amazing things that people do. There is nothing like beginning and ending each day in December with messages from people…
I’m grateful for so many things today: my husband and my children and our collective health. I’m grateful for our sunny little home and our friends, who fill our lives with laughter and a deep sense of belonging. I’m grateful for the work that I’ve been able to do this year and the teachers and administrators that I’ve come to know in the process. I’m also grateful for the friends and colleagues who make up my…
Last week, Jenny Luca and I invited teachers and students from across the globe to join Working Together 2 Make a Difference, an online community where all of us can collaborate about our local efforts to serve different worthy causes. As our membership continues to grow, Laura and I wanted to provide a little incentive to those who post about their projects first! If you’ve joined us there already, please consider building out your pages…
Today is Blog Action Day, and I’ve been spending the last week or so trying to conceptualize a proper post for this event. There are a thousand or more ways to write about poverty and so much that can be done to battle it. Too often, the topic overwhelms me. It’s hard to know where to begin…..so I’m starting small. Conversations about poverty always leave me remembering my great grandmother, who traveled here from Europe all alone…
I had a lovely weekend. Saturday was spent with the writers and teachers of the WNY Young Writers’ Studio. Several new high school students joined us this time around, and we welcomed Pam Marchewka-Cornwell, a teacher from Alden High School, to the community as well. We used our time together to explore the ways in which we might gift others with our writing, which is a goal that we’re preparing for in anticipation of the…
Ten months ago, my eleven year old daughter took on a year-long commitment to service. Beyond that, though, she took on a year-long commitment to blogging in support of that work, and this meant that her dad and I took on year-long commitment to incredible uncertainty. Eleven year olds tend to lose interest in things after a certain period of time. In our household this period of time typically translates into three weeks, max. So,…
Matt Meader has been a fellow of our regional Deep Curriculum Alignment project for some time now, and my first acquaintance with him was through this initiative. Today, I had the opportunity to hang out with him in-district, where I was asked to meet with his high school ELA department to discuss differentiated instruction. Naturally, this led to a conversation about web 2.0 tools, student engagement, and defining authentic purposes for our kids….and ourselves. Take…
Thank you to Andrea Hernandez and her fabulous students for a very special morning. Laura really enjoyed her Skype session and is already hitting me up for a webcam. Fortunately, I am in the midst of purchasing a new laptop, and the model that I have in mind has one built in. I foresee fun days ahead. Roger’s comment on yesterday’s post makes me smile. It’s always wonderful to receive this sort of feedback from…