Image from @nba_paint on Twitter
Today, I am grateful for being able to watch Devin Booker play basketball for my favorite basketball team. He is on an absolute streak that very few players have ever accomplished. Hearing the stats that put him in the company of Micheal Jordan is wild! Shooting 20-25 and scoring 45+ on two free attempts is wild! Booker is 26 and is playing like one of the best basketball players in the world. Yes, the Suns are down 2-1 but that will change on Sunday because of how Booker is playing. Just need a couple more guys to come with him on this streak! Go Suns!
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Today, I am grateful to be reminded how immovable, rigid, our education system is and how educators benefit and find joy in this. There are some educators that want to maintain a rigid, inflexible, anti-learning, adult supremacy environment at school to create some sort of machine that does "their time" and "follows the rules." Super frustrating when all of what I value and appreciate as an educator are at the opposite end of those 19th-20th century mindsets. No matter what people say you have to look at their actions and who or what they allow around them. I am reminded of the crab mentality today. The crab mentality goes like this. You place one crab in a bucket and it will not try to escape. You place two or more crabs in a bucket and the others WILL NOT LET any crabs climb out. Everyone gets dragged down. No one can try anything that could possibly create the question that someone might need to question what they are doing and might need to adjust their mindset so that others can thrive. If this is still confusing to you, watch this video. Being a teacher is hard. I strive to be my best by reading, thinking, asking questions, growing. I abhor the mindset of making sure others cannot do something for the fear of making me look like I am not doing my job. I cannot get into the mindset of people who think they have to tear down or prevent someone from doing something because they themselves are unwilling to try that.
Progressive Education is about freedom for students to be curious, to create, to have space to do things they enjoy with how they want to complete it. Human Restoration Project has a whole bunch of resources if you want to explore this more. Reading thinkers and authors like bell hooks, Alfie Kohn, Monte Syrie, Paulo Friere and Howard Zinn has greatly expanded my thinking about education and how we treat learning and young people. This has taken me years to learn and apply and adapt.
I am going to keep learning so that I can create opportunties for all my students to experience freedom, joy, curiousity and be in relationship with their classmates. Today, I am grateful to be able to enjoy our students putting on a performance at the end of year dance recital. My son was not so excited to be dragged to the event but after he said that it was pretty cool! Congratulations to all the students who put on a great performance. Congratutlations to the people who worked behind the scenes to make this work! Today, I am grateful for the time I get to spend doing enjoyable things with my son. I picked up Dayterbug from school and asked what we should do. Dayt immediately said "golf" and I was all for it. He had a blast. Dayt stepped up to the first tee and smacked the ball into the fairway after I hit my ball into the water. We haven't been out much together but now that I have some buddies that like to go. I like seeing him be able to hit the ball, run after the ball and hit it again until he catches up. I want to do things with my son that are enjoyable for both of us, golf is it. Dayt has been making plans to go this weekend. lol. I love my son. Today, I am grateful for partnering with Shelby and the Care7 Program to bring her awesomeness to the classroom for our Psychology students. Shelby brings energy and passion to what she is presenting for the students and allows the students time to think about why they do what they do. I have really enjoyed listening and seeing her interactions with our young people. I need to continue to development relationships with students by speaking in terms young people can understand. This activity allowed students a safe way to express their emotions and thoughts about different social situations. Shelby did an awesome job working her way throughout the class and talking to the different groups and connecting with their responses! I can't wait to work with Shelby again to bring her awesomeness to more students! Today, I am grateful to be able to watch my daughter compete and have fun! Trin has grown as an athlete and competitor throughout this year and finds joy on the court. Although volleyball is not a sport that I have much knowledge about, still have no clue about rotations and movements, I enjoy watching Trin and her teammates improve and have fun. This weekend I was able to watch some games before I had to go to work at Four Peaks. I wish I didn't have to go to work and miss the last three games because they kept winning after pool play ended. I believe it is summer time now and I hope I can help find Trin opportunties to keep playing the sport she enjoys, obviously have a break and time to do other things. As a coach and parent, I am not a fan of year round playing the same sport. Competing in other sports works other muscles and gives a much needed break from the other sports. Now the culture of year round participation is so strong that our young athletes are being told that they are falling behind because they are not playing 365 and I think that is a flawed short-term thinking philosophy and only prioritizes the more is better all the time. I hope I can convince Trin and her mom to take some time off and be for a little bit. I am proud of you Trin! Today, I am grateful for who my son is and how he views the world and how he treats people. I love my Daterbug with all my heart. To hear about what he is doing in school makes me a proud parent because I know he is taking the conversations and lessons we engage with together and he is working with those when he is not around me. Hearing him be recognized as a risk-taker in his learning and wanting to try hard things puts the biggest smile on my face. Celebrating my son, and my kids, is so fun. I want more celebrations. I believe we all should celebrate more. Look for more opportunities to celebrate each other. Big and small accomplishments. There is enough things in our lives that we have to engage with that are not so fun and we should not limit our celebrations to *only* major things. More joy. More hugs. More laughs! Today, I am grateful for for being able to successfully complete the SEI class that I have been working on for a couple of months. My plan was to use my time on either Mondays or Tuesdays after school to spend 2-4 hours to complete this. Those were some really long days throughout this semester! Teaching full time. Working a second job on the weekends when I don't have my son. Then doing this. I want to engage with learning that will satisfy my soul as a learner. I enjoy reading about pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching a subject or concept), and having conversations with others who enjoy thinking about why we do what we do. This class gave me time to think about what strategies I should be using to help English language learners in the classroom. I want my classroom to be liberating and I believe that cannot happen if I cannot effectly communicate with all students who are in the room. I still have a lot to learn but I am currently enjoying this journey! Today, I am grateful that I am in a position to try to teach this concept to so many young people. We Rise Together. What is happening around us and to us affects all of us. If someone is being targeted and hurt, we are all hurt. If someone is struggling to find food, we are all hungry. If the sick cannot afford proper and humane health services, we are all sick. What we do to one, we do to all. There is plenty to go around for all of us to have our needs met but the idea of hoarding and needing more and the scarcity mindset hurts all of us. We Rise Together. Our school community rises together when all students are respected, trusted and given opportunities to learn in creative and engaging ways. When all teachers are respected and given the freedom to engage in the art and science of teaching. Our greater community rises together when everyone has access and eating healthy foods, a place to rest and relax, healthcare, ability to enjoy leisure. We Rise Together. I will continue to learn how I can present opportunities for all of us to learn about this and experience this because this is not the “majority” mindset and we are all hurting even if we feel we are in a good spot. We Rise Together! Today, I am grateful for the Suns continuing to play in the NBA Playoffs so that I have my favorite team to look forward to watching. The Suns beat the LA Clippers in 5 games, 4-1. Booker is cooking! He scored 47 in the closing game. This graphic is from a person I follow on Twitter, @nba_paint I like following the Timelines, Twitter and Instagram, when a major sporting event is happening to get commentary, memes and stats of what I am watching. These games bring me joy. I like seeing what will happen. Which players will show up. How the coach will or will not make adjustments. How the refs will make horrible calls if they are against my team but great calls when they benefit the Suns :) So much drama. Now, the Suns play the Denver Nuggets in the 2nd round. My prediction is Suns in 6 - WLWLWW. |
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Header (above) - Black Hills, SD, 2013 Portrait (below) - Me! Compadre High School, 2021 Dylan WinceI am not a writer. Archives
May 2024
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