Two opportunities I'm excited about

Two opportunities I'm excited about.

I have two exciting opportunities to share with you.  If you love to read and write like I do, there are two classes that start in September for readers and writers and they are both FREE.  Yes!!

1.  Course Title: Laura Ingalls Wilder: Exploring Her Work & Writing Life

Missouri State University
Sep 22, 2014 to Dec 1, 2014
Cost per enrollment: Free

(This starts tomorrow!!)  You can join anytime.
I'm so excited for this class.  I am a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.  I have read all of her books and have visited 5 of her houses.  I grew up watching Little House on the Praire and we have a lot in common.  First of all we are both named Laura, she was born in 1867 and I was born in 1967.  We both lived in Minnesota, both of us are teachers, writers, and mothers.  I am excited to be a participant in this class and learn more about Laura and her writing life.

If you want to enroll in the class, please visit this link:  https://www.canvas.net/courses/laura-ingalls-wilder

2.  Course Title:  How Writers Write Fiction
Course Dates: Friday, Sep 26 to Friday, Nov 21

Provided by:
The International Writing Program
Iowa Writers
Instructor(s): Christopher Merrill, R. Clifton Spargo


CLASS SESSIONS
Opening Lines, Opening Doors
Putting Setting to Work
Learning and Building the World
Animating the World
Structures and Storytelling
Constraints and Styles
Revision and Rediscovery

I love to write but never have enough time for it.  It is usually what I push to the side while I am busy doing other things.  Well, I am trying to give my writing a chance and so this will be my 3rd writing class of the year.  I am super excited for this class and can't wait to improve my craft.

If you would like to join me in this course please visit this link:

http://courses.writinguniversity.org/course/how-writers-write-fiction

Let's Learn Together!

Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher, You change the world one sticky note, one scrap of paper, one note card and one heart at a time!  You are awesome! Love, Teacher

Dear Teacher is a new blog that I read everyday because it inspires me to be a better teacher and person.  Dear Teacher is on a two week break and she asked me to write a guest post or be her "Substitute teacher" on her blog for a day.  Today is the day!  I am so excited and thrilled to be a part of this amazing blog if only for a day and it is my first writing experience as a guest poster.

My guest post is on ways to chill, relax and rejuvenate over the summer so you can go back to school refreshed and ready to be a awesome teacher.  I know you are wondering if I included reading on this post and the answer is, Of Course, I did.  Go check out some of the books on my summer reading list.

Please go read my guest post and check out the amazing Dear Teacher blog at
http://dearteacherloveteacher.wordpress.com/

Let me know what you think.
Oh and please pass this on to all the teachers you know out there that need a little pick me up.
Have a wonderful, awesome, thoughtful, super, relaxing day!!

Buzz. A Memoir by Katherine Ellison

Buzz.  A Year of Paying Attention.  A Memoir by Katherine Ellison

Katherine Ellison has ADHD and so does her oldest son, Buzz.  She is married and extremely busy, disorganized and frazzled like most ADHD moms, me included.  Buzz is 12 and is seemingly out of control.  He has no friends, he tells his mom he hates her, he constantly picks fights with his younger brother Max.  Katherine wonders where she went wrong and how she is going to survive motherhood, as Buzz moves through junior high and high school.  So she makes a plan to pay attention to paying attention for a whole year.

Katherine with her son Buzz in tow, set out to investigate ideas and solutions that will help them to reconnect and find a way to be less angry, less distracted and more in tune to their brains and how they operate.  In Buzz, A Year of Paying Attention, Ellison investigates medicine, meditation, brain scans, Neurofeedback and more.  She drives and flies with her son to many different locations to learn all they can about ADHD.  ADHD is a work in progress.  It doesn't effect any one person in exactly the same way and so what works for one person, may or may not work for another.  It is important to explore ALL your options.

As a mother who has ADD and two kids with ADHD, I found this book to be extremely valuable.  Ellison and I have a lot in common and it was helpful for me to read that some of what she goes through is just as horrible as what I go through.  Ellison made me feel validated and that it is OK to be a work in progress as a parent.

For years, I have been against medicating my kids.  I worry and as Ellison points out, a lot of parents worry about medicating their kids.  It is not a decision to take lightly. That being said, my husband has been pushing to medicate our kids.  After reading Ellison's book, I am willing to give it a try with limitations.  So we will probably take the step when school starts in the fall with a two week trial.

I wish that insurance covered more than just medication for ADHD.  I continue to dream about a day when kids go to a school that is active, where kids can control their own learning and not remain seated in a desk all day.  Where educators facilitate and not have to give test after test or can choose to do something creative over reading the paragraph and answering the questions.  Schools should be a place where all kids can succeed, not just the "good" kids.

Ellison's book is great for parents of kids with ADHD.  Please read it.  She tries a lot of different methods and solutions (some are very expensive) so we don't have to.  She rules out what doesn't work and shares all the information available in her research in the pages of Buzz.  As a parent I found it vey valuable and of course it is helping me on my own parenting journey.

My advice and Katherine Ellison's advice is to keep trying.  Never give up on your kids.
So I will continue to search for what is best for my kids and continue to read books about ADHD.

Square Peg by L. Todd Rose

Square Peg.  My Story and What It Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries & Out of the Box Thinkers by L. Todd Rose with Katherine Ellison

Square Peg is, in part, a memoir about L. Todd Rose's experience growing up a misunderstood, wild and out of control kid with ADHD.  He is every teachers nightmare, throwing stink bombs in school.  He ends up making a lot of mistakes including, failing high school and is three steps short of being a juvenile delinquent.  He had a couple of things going for him though, a mother who loved and accepted him and the will to succeed.  He uses this will to succeed to reinvent himself.  Square Peg is the story of how he went from being a failure at the very bottom of the educational system to a Harvard graduate student.

Square Peg is also a book for parents and educators who are looking for answers for helping kids survive and thrive in a failing education system.  If you have a child with dyslexia or ADD or Asperger's you probably already know that your child doesn't do well in the current educational system.  Rose provides specific techniques and ideas on how to be a better parent and how to be a more effective teacher when working with kids that are active learners.

Both of my kids have ADHD and Dyslexia.  School has been a major challenge for both of them.  I am  a high school teacher who wants my students and my own children to succeed and yet I know that what L. Todd Rose states in his book his true, School is failing to educate some kids.  We must find a way to teach school so that every learner can succeed.  Right now dropout rates for high school students are staggering and many of these students are "intellectually gifted".

One of the ways to reach struggling students is to use digital technology in the classroom.  Currently I am teaching with digital media (Ipads in the classroom) and am rethinking and relearning a new way to teach my curriculum.  I am trying to create a paperless classroom (the wave of the future) as well as being creative with lessons on the Ipads.   I love it and I believe my students do too.  I plan to teach the staff in my building some of the techniques I am trying digitally in my classroom.  I love to be an innovator!  Did I mention I have ADD?

Square Peg arrived on my doorstep at the right time.  My son is struggling in school and one of the reasons why is because he is bored with worksheets.  Rose's book has given me a new outlook and strategies to help him and encourage his teachers to think "out of the box" when they teach him.

I LOVE the way the book is set up.  Each chapter begins with a relevant quote and the chapters are easy to read, entertaining, informative and positive.  At the end of every chapter are listed the Big Ideas as well as Action Items.

Square Peg is a informative book for parents and educators alike.  I think it might be my new teaching mantra as I have recommended it to several of my colleagues already.  I'm going to end with one of my favorite quotes included in the book.

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."
John Dewey

Movers Dreamers and Risk-Takers by Kevin Roberts

Movers Dreamers and Risk-Takers.  Unlocking the Power of ADHD by Kevin Roberts

Seven percent of the world's population has some form of ADHD.  ADHD is the acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  There is no complete set of criteria as ADHD manifests itself differently with each individual but there are commonalities.  Most ADHDer's are easily distracted, unorganized, and seekers of fun.  Traditionally they don't perform well in school because they dislike mundane tasks and sitting still for long periods of time and schools are not set up for the ADHD learning style.

Most ADHD individuals are highly creative, impulsive, intelligent, thrill seekers.  Yet many suffer low self esteem and a lack of motivation and follow through.  If you have ADHD, or are a parent of children with ADHD or a teacher, Movers Dreamers and Risk-Takers will be beneficial to you. 

Roberts grew up in a ADHD family.  He grew up to become a teacher, a comedian and an ADHD coach with a degree in ADHD studies.  He wrote this book based on his experiences with teens.  It is a funny personal look at his life as well as tips and ideas on how to respond, react and get results from your under achieving child.  This is a positive, powerful approach to (quoting the title) Unlocking the Power of ADHD.

Several parts of the book resonated with me, as my kids and I all have ADHD.  Obviously, it runs in the family.  Once I started reading Movers Dreamers and Risk-Takers, I couldn't stop as I was so inspired and my brain was going crazy with joy that someone in the world understands what my kids and I go through on a daily basis.  So much of my day is spent avoiding negative criticism (from certain people) that it is refreshing to read a positive approach at looking at ADHD.

Here are two of my favorite quotes and words to live by from the book.

"Play, excitement, and humor energize us, making us more powered-up to then tackle work that needs to be done.  Lack of these things, on the other hand, drains us.  Pg. 115

 "We have to be careful that we don't put creative people into the straight-jackets of conformity.  We live in a world that, in many ways, teeters on the brink of disaster.  The creativity so common among ADHDers is something the planet desperately needs." Pg. 119

My favorite bumper sticker and mantra sums it up nicely:  WHY BE NORMAL?

Super-Parenting for ADD

Super-Parenting for ADD.  An Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child by Edward M Hallowell, M.D. and Peter S Jensen, M. D.

As a parent of two children with ADHD, I need all the help and strategies I can get to help my kids be successful.  This book was great for me as a parent.  ADD is described in the book as having a race car brain with bicycle brakes.  I told my kids this and we all agreed it is an accurate, positive description.  ADHD runs in the family so for our little family of four we could potentially have four race car brains inhabiting our home and leaving tracks of debris all over the house.  Welcome to my chaotic super creative life.

One of the things I am going to do this year is educate the teachers of my children better and work on improving their 504 plans.   This book contains a section that you can photocopy especially for the teacher that gives positive,  instructions for helping your child be successful.  I am totally photocopying this section.

If you know any kids with ADD/ADHD most of them believe they are stupid, lazy, disorganized, angry, no one likes them, etc...  It is always negative feedback from their teachers, bus drivers and their own opinion in many cases is negative.  My biggest goal is to be positive this year, as it is so easy to fall into negativity and as a teacher and a parent negativity really hurts kids.  This book does an excellent job of taking a so called negative trait and showing the reader the opposite positive trait that any parent would be proud of.  So instead of saying your child is stubborn use the positive trait, persistent instead.  The authors takes about 10 traits and explains to the reader the positive and negative aspects of each component.  Very helpful.

What I didn't like about the book is that the authors talk about the Kolbe model and suggest you and your child as well as their teacher take an online test to determine your preference but what they don't tell you is that it costs fifty dollars.  What I find frustrating is that these tests cost to much for the average person and I wonder why they can't be priced more reasonably or even offered for free.  Most parents who have kids with ADD/ADHD need help now and paying a lot of money isn't always the best option.

What I have found to help me is having my kids see a child psychologist once a week as well as reading blogs, the ADDitude magazine and books.  Here are a few websites I would suggest:

www.additudemag.com
www.letsgetfittofocus.com

Blogs I like:
A Mom's View of ADHD
Life in our ADHD family

I really love my kids and my crazy ADD life.

Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn is a author of 11 books on education, progressive schools and parenting. He is a former high school teacher who currently lectures at many universities in the United States. I was lucky enough to hear him speak and meet him on Monday, May 10th.

I have never read a book by Alfie Kohn and so his ideas about education would be new to me. I briefly leafed though two of his books before he started speaking. Kohn had a large impact on me on Monday.

First: I felt validated as a person and a teacher. Always a sign of a good speaker. Seriously he talked about how homework, tests and grades are detrimental to the learning process. So much of the homework out there is meaningless. Students of all ages should explore and create what they what to learn. Not what is teacher directed or expected.

Second: Classrooms should be student centered. The teacher is merely a vessel to guide students, not the all-knowing goddess of the classroom. Why do we need homework and tests? They do not prove that anyone has learned anything, only that students have jumped through designated hoops.

Third: AP classrooms are not conducive to learning. It takes the choices right out of learning. Students must listen, read and take a test. For some students, this is how they like to learn, for other students the AP model is way off base. Demanding a whole grade to step up to the challenge of an AP class is down-right nonsense. It is setting kids up to fail.

Thanks you Alfie Kohn for validating me as a teacher. I am going to see if I can move my teaching and my classroom into a more progressive model. I am getting off my soapbox now.