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- A Teacher’s Year
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- Educator of The Week
- 365 Education Quotes
Take some time to enjoy and appreciate nature. Make it a point to see a sunrise at least once each year. See the sunrise over the mountains. See the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain (Acadia National Park, Maine), the first place the sun shines on America. See the sunrise over the ocean.
Maybe you’ll learn about the secret of life.
This particular sunrise was October 30, 2026 on the final day of term 1. On a commute to school, stop to see the sun rise. This will slow the commute by 3 to 4 minutes. Appreciating nature, helps put life and teaching in perspective.
The very next song on Sirius XM radia was U2, “Staring at the Sun.” Sometime the universe speaks to us.
Author of The Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, Jack Canfield in the DVD The Secret shared the following:
Think of this. A car driving through the night, the headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York, driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet. And that’s how life tends to unfold before us.
And if we just trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that that and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, your life will keep unfolding. And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you want it. (29:56)
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (30:03)
This is a great life philosophy. Veteran teachers know to just keep looking for the next exit sign on the highway of a school year. One BIG exit is happening today, the end of term one.
A teacher can get off the hypothetical exit, use the restroom, grab a coffee, and maybe get a bite to eat. The teacher then returns to the never ending highway of a teacher’s career. The next exit will hit you before you know it, don’t blink. It is the Election Day Professional Development day. Students will be in school for one day and then have election day off. Another quick exit comes up with Veterans Day, followed by Thanksgiving.
Teachers know exits come at various intervals and the traffic of the school year has a big impact on how quickly or slowly the exits come.
NEW SONG: “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?” What Connection does this song have to anything… probably nothing. But it is a song about horses, so enjoy the four legged friends in your life. Maybe watch a nature documentary, such as Dolphins with a beautiful soundtrack by Sting.
Fall foliage in New England is amazing. The post was composed while voice typing on the way to school. It’s not common, but it can be therapeutic. It also has been helpful in inspire some creativity. Another benefit is developing the skill of creating lessons out of nothing.
(On the way to the school a Letter of Appreciation was mailed.)
The New England leaves on the trees are so many different colors. Some are nearly bare, while others have a majority of leaves remaining. The leaves remind us of the different types of students. At the high school level, there are social groups (trees). On these trees, each leaf is different. Each leaf is at a different stage of development. Each leaf will fall off at a different point when it is ready.
Next Song: “The Greatest Show on Earth” This is a song we are not very familiar with so we are going to do a little bit of research. We will look at the lyrics and listen to a video sometime in the future. Some teachers embrace the role of performer in attempt to make their classroom the greatest show on earth. Those teachers we applaud.
It’s not easy to be a performer. It’s tough to meet expectations. It’s tough to take the stage when things may not be going well outside the school.
(We are behind the school bus that is on his way to a preschool program at the Boys And Girls Club. And we are stopping at a local high school with athletes getting ready to compete in state playoffs.)
Next Song: “With Or Without You” Educators know from experience that school goes on with or without you. Each year teachers. Each year teachers go. Teachers go on leave, switch schools, get laid off, leave the profession and retire.
Developing a lesson with the students.
One of our classroom and life philosophies is “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Once in a while it is ok to develop a lesson from scratch in front of the students.
A high school football team installed a new offensive formation called war. In a sports class, the curriculum often has a unit about the connection between music and sports.
War is constant in the world. So this lesson also could be experimented in a US history class. The original song was written by Edwin Starr. Bruce Springsteen did a cover of the song and had a visual video of it. The video is 5 minutes and 35 seconds long.
After watching the video have the students write a reaction to it. This is a great stand alone lesson that would fit perfectly on November 1, the one day of class before the election.