Day Three Reflection

I watched J.K. Rowlings commencement speech at Harvard and Steve Job’s commencement speech to Stanford University.  Both speakers discussed personal failures and how it shaped the people they each have become.  When I think about the times I have failed I realize I learned a lot more about myself as a person and how those failures made my grow and become a better person.  As educators I feel it is our responsibility to help guide students through what to do if you fail.  How do you pick yourself up and move forward? How have others done it? Are you really failing? Tough topics, but what I believe are essential life skills. 

 The second biggest thing they both spoke about was creativity. J.K. Rowlings called it imagination and  Steve Jobs quoted it best as “stay hungry, stay foolish”.  As a kindergarten teacher it is easy to watch 5 years be foolish, crazy, alive with laughter and a jest for life.  My 9 year old is totally embarrassed now when I sing and dance down the aisles of the grocery store. She used to sing and dance along with me. What has happened that being foolish isn’t cool to her anymore? Is she already afraid to be foolish?  Is it a developmental thing or has our society already told her that isn’t what you should do? Although that might be foolish to her,  I can’t think of a time recently when I did something foolish.  As we discussed in class today, when do I carve out time for me?  Something I worry about because I don’t want to get burned out in this career. I want to be refreshed and ready for a fantastic year. I think one of my goals will be to do something foolish once a month, and also be willing to try more tech. things (skype, tweeting to experts, kids documenting their own work on the I-Pads) will the understanding some of these initiatives might fail, but hey we are still learning!

  Today’s class was hot and at times I felt like we were in a sauna.  That said,  I enjoy learning from and with my peers. I found it very helpful to work with a group of peers to find the answers to your questions.  Lisa is always great about teaching me how the different options in google docs, thanks Lisa!  It was great to try google presentation and surveys.  I hope to use those more with students and with parents. I am the type of person who learns better with hands-on experiences so trying to find the way to label and filter in gmail was especially helpful. If you told me how to do it, I would forget how to do it within a week. The social bookmarking sites will save me a lot of time trying to remember where I bookmarked at article or project I wanted to do with my class.  I hope to have my sites all bookmarked with keywords by the end of the week.  I am getting nervous about our presentations.  I hope to have a better understanding of what I am presenting tomorrow morning... also hoping for cooler temperatures too.