1. Meeting 1:  PRAXIS III Recalibration.  While the presentors provided updates for assessing new teachers in Arkansas this spring, I sat gathering ideas and reminders to assist my mentee who will be assessed also later this spring. Dana Huff at huffenglish.com blogged today about assisting and working with with new teachers.  Please check out that link also.
2. Meeting 2:  Arkansas Association for Professional Teachering (AAPT) Annual Conference.  This group works to assist those seeking National Board Certification, a strenuous, but, oh, so rewarding process.  This year a peer friend and I are hosting a share group for our part of the state and are assisting ten candidates through this process.  This conference provided some great reminders, and we wish now that we had encoaraged more of our candidates to attend.  Since we did not receive a snail mail agenda nor did I think to preview their website ahead of time, I went to this meeting with what I thought would be presented and came away knowing the truth! (Yes, therein lies a lesson!)
3. Meeting 3:  Arkansas State Beta Club Convention. Two days in Hot Springs, AR, with twenty-seven extremely bright and respectful young adults resulted in one of our students winning first place in English and receiving an invitation to compete at nationals this summer in Orlando, FL.  Oh, the rewards of working with the bright minds of our future!

Now to the month of February…may it be as professionally rewarding as January has been!

Tonight I heard that laugh.

The laugh came from a little boy who was completely entertained by the talent we have within our drama department as they performed Hyronomous, the Frog.

Was it the actors and actresses who stimulated that laugh?  Was that laugh the result of committed parents who taxied their young adults to and from practices or worried because their babies were out late for these rehearsals?

The answer is yes and no.

Without that teacher, that director behind the scenes who had the dream, the vision, that child would not have laughed tonight.

For many of us, who teach…day in and day out…who do not have the creative outlets of the drama teachers, we do not hear such laughter…oh, wait…yes, we should, for we each have talents hidden in every subject area.  It’s just our job to find the magic release so that the laughter may abound in our classrooms!

Yes, I am preaching to the choir…or in this case to myself.  The answer within my particular curriculum area is with the use of technology, with maybe, possibly, such a blog as this one.  (My peer Lisa Huff is also encouraging me in this area with our school newspaper, as well as Mr. Joel as he also motivates us beginners.)

Oh, the talent…let’s not waste it.  Let’s listen for that belly laugh!  The laugh that still rings in my ears even as I type this note…can you hear it?