Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Ten years ago today my daughter was born and so began a journey of miracles, for, you see, Holly was born with pulmonary atresia.  Three surgeries and several miracles later, all of a sudden, my baby is ten!

I am blessed and do so look forward to many more decades of fun…and miracles.

Happy Birthday, Holly!

Author Pat Conroy wrote this letter to the editor upon hearing that parents were attempting to “suppress” his novels The Prince of Tides and Beach Music.

While I have not read his novels, I do appreciate the reading of his letter, not just because of his focus on English Teachers (!) but because of his practical “real” approach to life.

If you have not read the letter, please do so.  Prepare to be inspired, to be moved.

A final note:  I rescued The Prince of Tides from the “free” soon-to-be-discarded table of books in our high school library.  A nice hard copy with the dust-jacket still in tact.  Now, if for no other reason, this letter makes me want to investigate this novel’s journey.

What are your thoughts on censorship in our schools?

Recently, I came across two lists of tech tools; both have some interesting links:

• 25 Free Apps and Websites for Tech-Loving Teachers posted by Mr. Joel at So You Want to Teach?
• How to Become More Tech Savvy This Summerby Jim Moulton at Edutopia via their e-letter.

I know…a little overwhelming, aren’t they?  My suggestion?  Find good homes for the children and a “honey-do” for the husband or significant other and take an afternoon for yourself…some down time with tech tools.  Okay, that makes me sound like a nerd!  But….I just happen to like nerds…

Do you like nerds?  Then, PLEASE check out this self-created video by author John Green that I discovered on his blog.  He is also the author of An Abundance of Katherines, Looking for Alaska, and Paper Towns, (the first two of which I have purchased to read!).  This just might be a great video to show on the first day of school!  What do you think?

Do you have favorite tech tool lists?  Please share!

During one of our breaks today at a committee meeting, I overheard…then barged into…a conversation about another vampire author, one who is from my home-state of Arkansas.  Please meet Charlaine Harris, creator of the Sookie Stackhouse aka Southern Vampire Series (nine novels so far)…and soon to be an HBO series entitled True Blood.

Am I recommending this series?  I have no idea!  I have not read any of these novels.  I just think it is so cool to learn about another author from Arkansas!

As I checked out her blog (another author to add to my Google Reader author folder!), I appreciated this quote:

In writing, there’s no such thing as free time. You can either be building a new house, or shoring up the foundation. ~ Charlaine Harris

I am not ready to build a house yet, so I will just keep working on this blog’s foundation.

I accessed this article “Single-Sex Classes Being Praised on Many Levels” via Smart Brief’s e-letter.  Interesting, this author debates the pros and cons of such a setting. 

This article caught my attention because of a conversation I overheard my daughter and some of her friends having as they were discussing the “boys” in their classes.    The gist of their conversation was this:  “We would get more done if the boys were in another class.”  Now, this, of course, is not a scientific study…maybe just common sense?

When I ponder on my upcoming classes this fall, I know that if my classes were split by gender that I would be researching for very different sources for each class to read and my “hands-on” activities would vary also.

What I appreciate most about the school district being featured was the principal’s comment:

Principal Maribel McAdory said everything from the color of classroom walls — boys had blue, girls yellow — to the volume of the teacher’s voice was a research-based decision intended to foster educational progress.

Research is always a good place to start…even if that research comes from fifth and sixth grade girls!

Just read Will Richardson’s latest blog post “The Larger Lessons,” which continues the discussion about tech tools being simply that…a tool that teachers should use to educate the minds of those who entered our doors.  A tool.  Not the curriculum.  Not the reason I teach grammar, writing, vocabulary, reading.  Just one of the many tools that I have at my disposal.

It’s one of the reasons that I get continually frustrated with NECC sessions and Tweets and blogs that celebrate tools without giving weight to the considerations that goes into choosing a tool in a pedagogical sense. We need more sessions on “why?’ not “how?”…

While many if not most of these lessons can be learned without technology, I think transferring those lessons into the contexts of online networks and global, cross-cultural, sometimes anonymous interactions is not necessarily fait accompli with our kids.

As a Year 2 Web 2.0 learner, I really appreciated this post.  Last year I was truly overwhelmed just learning the reality of the existence of Web 2.0…I was fairly content in Web 1.0; actually, until peer Lisa Huff, no one had taken the time (or was it that no one else knew about Web 2.0 either?  Maybe?) to show me, to teach me, so that I could then learn.

This year, I am still overwhelmed.  I have spent several days this summer learning more tech tools.  Now, as I sit here and as I talk to my fellow comrades who are also now entering the land of Web 2.0, my head and theirs now are spinning with the “why.”  Which tool do I use with what Framework?    Which ones (besides blogs and wikis) am I the most comfortable with in showing my students?  What lessons would best be enhanced with Penzu, Protopage, WikiSpaces, Webspiration?

School starts in about four weeks.  Am I crazy, or do I need another workshop?  A shop where we actually “work” on these very decisions.  While my being crazy might be debated, the answer to this question is yes.  We need another workshop.  Oh, my.

This morning I posted a comment on Twitter…and got “slammed,” as noted later in a Direct Message by another follower.  Just have to say…these comments bothered me.  Why?  Not because everyone should agree with everything I say.  Free country.  We all have a a right to our own opinions.  Very much believe in that First Amendment!

I am bothered/disturbed, though,  for two reasons:

1. In that box that will only contain 140 characters, one can only say so much!
2. By the time I noted the replies to my comment, it was buried under several screens of comments.  Gone.  Like my voice was lost.  Like I could not even defend myself.  Therefore, here I will thank those who responded, for dialogue is a strong tool, and respond to the last two comments and maybe continue that dialogue here, where one does not have to be immediately present to still respond in a timely fashion. (Yes, it’s true I could reply to them…but I still feel that this somewhat random response twelve hours later is “lost” within all the other comments.)

Original Twitter comment:

Attended a workshop this week based on Dr. Ruby Payne’s work on poverty…very interesting and so applicable for many of my students.

Replies to this comment:

• jennann516@tgillmoreThat workshop is so eye-opening. The part abt material goods vs paper (ie deed to house, insurance, etc) rang so true.
• JenAnsbach@jmiscavish @tgillmore After working in a high-poverty special needs district for 6 years, I found Payne’s work offensive when I read it.
• jmiscavish@tgillmoredon’t drink the koolaid yet-her thoughts really simply a complicated situation: http://is.gd/1DgTd (This is a link to a paper critiquing Dr. Payne’s work.)

To Continue the Dialogue:

On Thursday and Friday of this past week, I did attend a workshop during which Dr. Sue Dehart (a humorist also!) presented the work of Dr. Ruby Payne.  All attendees (125 teachers both from my district and several surrounding schools) received copies of A Framework of Poverty and a workbook of modules (prepared materials for immediate use!  So exciting for any teacher!)

Honestly?  I have not read enough of Dr. Payne’s works to consider myself a valid reference, but after listening to Dr. Dehart for twelve hours, I am confident enough to promote her presentation of Dr. Payne’s work. 

• Day 1 was full of statistics and good reminders (vivid enough to immediately call to my mind students I have had, those I still have, persons who live in my community, those who my church have helped in the past…yes, people in poverty, those people, who, unfortunately, I forget and do now acknowledge enough as I sit here in my middle-class arrogance.  By the way, that descriptor is mine…not one I heard during the workshop).
• Day 2, one in which I left with much applicable material, was simply the use of graphic organizers, which I totally support.  Very much. 

As I peruse the last two comments, I would have to ponder along with the Twitterer who left me this Direct Message:  it’s worth noting that political agendas are connected to acceptance and rejection of her work. Fact becomes irrelevant as agenda takes over.  With this I would and do truly empathize.  Politics within a school district is frustrating.  Very.

One additional note:  I went to that workshop totally unenthused about the topic, preferring to be almost anywhere (with the exception of jail, the grave, and the hospital…just a few that come to mind!).  What is important to note here, though, is that I left a more sympathetic, caring teacher, who hopes to make a more positive impact on her students…and her neighbors and fellow church-goers… this fall.  Yes, that is what is really important to note here.

My journey continues through the highways and byways of 21 CLC through two avenues:

1. My 21 CLC Professional Learning school team.  I will record those thoughts at this blog:  Mrs. Gillmore’s 21 CLC Journey.
2. Classroom Redesign…yes, a newly redesigned classroom, which includes a class set of mini computer and other tech tools.  Too cool, right?  Thoughts about this journey will be recorded at this blog:  Cafe Gillmore.  (The six teachers involved in this project chose “Cafe” as  our theme…as our motto and as an inspiration for interior decorating!)

I hope you check back and check on my progress…and leave any tips to make this journey even more successful.  Thanks!

There was a time in my life, I would have denied knowing myself as I am today.  NEVER would I have been reading more than one novel/book at at time!  It’s okay.  I liked myself then, and I like myself even better now.

Here is what I am currently reading…as they lie about in the various spots of my life:  purse, desk, bedside table, side tables…

• Nosey in Nebraska by Mary Connealy:  A collection of three novels, this one caught my attention at Wal-Mart because of the individual novel titles – Of Mice…and Murder, Pride and Pestilence, and The Mice Man Cometh.  Catchy, uh?!  I have read the first one:  an easy, entertaining, light read.  Just what I need during these summer days with my Diet Coke, iced tea, or lemonade!
• The Hunger Games by  Suzanne Collins author of the Underland Chronicles:  I received a free copy of this novel (Thanks, Scholastic!), lent it to a student who loved it, have seen various reviews of this novel listed on other readers’ book lists, and, so far, am enjoying this one…if one is supposed to enjoy a novel about kids killing kids…more about that later when I review this novel at Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews.  Lots of good info here at Scholastic that students would love as they read this novel.  This series continues with Catching Fire, being released September 1.
• Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom by Will Richardson:  I am about halfway through this one and most of it has been a review (have picked up some good tidbits, though, and reminders) as the first part of the book is about blogs and wikis, which I use.
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow:  Thanks, Mrs. Ann, for reminding me about this one!
• Readicide by Kelly Gallagher:  Read on Dana Huff’s blog that she is going to complete this book and comment on it.  I, too, did not finish the novel as the group read it on The English Companion Ning.  Found another way to read and share!
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink:  This one I am reading with my 21 CLC team at school.  “Meeting” Mr. Pink online during our meeting next week, thanks to Lisa Huff, coordinator of these teams within our district.  By the way, Pink just released an educator’s discussion guide to this book.

Are you, by chance, reading any of the above?  Comments on them?

It’s happened.  There’s just something about that holiday.  The Fourth of July.  Maybe it’s the boom of the fireworks.  The spark in the sparklers.  For nineteen years, it has happened:  that first hint, that first inkling to begin working on lesson plans!

Last night I researched for a newspaper unit.  This morning, I revised my research PowerPoint for English 11, whose topic will be based on next year’s National History Day topic.  Just checked out a link that Lisa Huff emailed our 21 CLC team:  VocabSushi.  Now thinking about a two-day yearbook workshop, I am going to host for my yearbook staff…

Tomorrow I return to workshops (Lit Lab Revisited) after a three-week break…the longest break I have had in several years.  Very nice!  Cleaned, painted, built, cooked, planted, read:  yes, a very active three weeks!  Very enjoyable!