Goodbye...Hello

Today is the day I say goodbye: it has been a good tenure. This afternoon I will preside over my last meeting as chairperson for the school district's Professional Development Committee. Much has been accomplished this year. Three successful New Teacher Academies were launched to further develop understandings and support of those who are newest to "the trenches" (which reminds me, I really should begin writing my speech for Monday's banquet!). As a committee, we have finalized a new district-wide Professional Development Plan for the upcoming year, laid groundwork for an array of workshops for professional summer learning opportunities, developed subcommittees for program evaluation, and analyzed structures for increased vertical collaboration. I am extremely proud of ~ and excited to continue ~ the work that will ultimately lead to the Commissioner's Award for Excellence in Staff Development for the school district. For me, the benefit of all these exercises has been in the shared learning experiences I have enjoyed with teachers and administrators representing each of our public schools. I work with a fine group of individuals who diligently seek ways to improve the education of the students in our community. Of this privilege, I am grateful.

One ought everyday at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if possible, speak a few reasonable words. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I love this quote, both professionally speaking and otherwise. I try to make each day worthwhile. I want that for my students as well. We have been using Byrd Baylor's book The Other Way to Listen to develop the ability to look with poet's eyes and listen with poet's ears... This book begins, "I used to know an old man who could walk by any cornfield and hear the corn singing." Later, the old man in the story hears wildflower seeds bursting open in a canyon: "He said it was the quietest place he'd ever been and he stayed there long enough to understand the quiet." Still later, "He told me how a friend of his once heard a whole sky full of stars when she was seven. And later on when she was eighty three she heard a cactus blooming in the dark...The old man said, 'Most people never hear those things at all'."

Teach us delight in simple things."
~Rudyard Kipling

Today we spent time in one of my favorite classrooms, the outdoors. The first graders took their tasks seriously...observing, listening, inferring, interpreting, writing. These children, themselves, are among my favorite poems. They greet the world anew each day and say simply, "hello." For the privilege to work with them, I am truly grateful.

How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.~Annie Dillard


I love you,
too.