One of my assistant principals is the pastor of a church in Montgomery, and he had previously invited me to visit his church. When the assignment was made, I immediately thought of him and his church. I asked him about it in passing, and his face lit up. He seemed as excited about the possibility of my visiting as I was.

So, this morning, I taught my class at my church, and then I jumped in the van and drove down to Montgomery to visit my coworker’s church. I will end up writing up the experience for the class, and when I do, I will focus on the experience as a whole. Tonight, I am focusing on one particular aspect - the fact that I was blessed with the opportunity to see a coworker, a man that I have known for the past year, in a whole new light. There are several images that I will never forget.

Anderson smiling as he visited with his church members before the service. At school, he has to wear his assistant principal hat. Whether he is dealing with students or with faculty members, he must constantly wear the hat of an administrator. The role of pastor is quite different, and I am glad I got to see him as he reached out to those he shepherds.

Anderson speaking with the children about light and darkness. Since several of the kids either lost power or had it blink off and on during the storms last night, the time was perfect to talk about living a forgiven life as walking in the light versus walking in darkness. My favorite part of this scene was watching Anderson as he hugged each of the children, smiling and laughing the entire time.

Anderson as he preached. Considering the communication skills I had already observed, I wasn’t surprised at all by his eloquence or passion. I was, however, blessed and challenged by it.

Anderson as he stood by a young man. There was a young man who responded to the invitation, coming forward and sitting in a chair as one of the elders of the church stood beside him. Anderson came around, knelt by the young man, and shared with him quietly. There is no way I can accurately describe the look on his face as he stood beside the young man with his arm around his shoulders and his head bowed, but I am glad I witnessed it.

Anderson as he stood with his arms outstretched, praying a benediction over the congregation. ‘Nuff said.

Prior to this morning, I knew that Anderson was a follower of Christ and a pastor, but that knowledge was theoretical. Today, I got to see it being fleshed out. Today, I was able to see a totally different side of a man whose office is just two doors down.

I was blessed by what I saw.

So, I signed up and began to tweet myself. (Wow… that sounds almost naughty. It’s not. A “tweet” is a message on Twitter, and it can be used as both a noun and a verb.) I discovered some friends on there to follow, and I even had a few choose to follow me. I figured out how to integrate it with my Facebook account, and I discovered that I could tweet with my cell phone by sending a text message. (Wow… again that sounds naughty. I know I have been teaching ninth grade for a long time… maybe I am just stuck there developmentally?)

And now I love it. I don’t have a huge following or anything, and I am not following some vast number of people. I just think that the concept is great, and it allows for great communication among a group of people in a quick time. I felt that way even before I found this article on CNN.com that tells about an American student in Egypt who was arrested as he was taking pictures at a demonstration. As he and his translator were being taken to jail, he was able to shoot a one word message on Twitter: ARRESTED. Within seconds, his network of friends and supporters were working to get him released. Before he had even arrived at the jail, his friends in the States and in Egypt were working for his release.

Wow.

I have been wondering about the implications for the classroom. I truly believe this has the potential to be a useful tool. After all, most of my students and many of their parents use both the web and text messaging. Right now, I am planning to set up a separate Twitter account for academic use. At the beginning of the semester, I will give the students a handout showing them how to sign up for an account and how to follow me. I will also send a handout home to the parents explaining the same. I will then use Twitter to update parents and students alike about assignments, projects, and the like.

Just last month, I did some research about various parental notification systems. There are some incredible ones out there, and most of them aren’t cheap. Some are web-based; others use auto-dialers. Some brag that they offer dozens of languages so that messages make it home in a form that the parents can understand. The goal of all of these systems is improved communication between schools and parents. After all, we all know that informed, involved parents can vastly improve their child’s chances of academic success. 

For the record, my goal as a teacher is not merely to improve the communication between parents and the school, but also between parents and their children. Who knows? Maybe my shooting out a tweet that reads, “Great job, 3rd block! You did great today!” will spark some conversations around dinner tables.

To be completely honest, I found the article referenced on the blog of Susan Brooks-Young, a leader in the educational technology realms. Thanks for pointing me toward it, Susan!

What if I were a character on the Simpson’s? I think I would look a lot like this picture.

But what if I were on South Park? I think I would look a lot like this:

What do you think?

I don’t really remember going to kindergarten much. My parents registered for for two different years of private kindergarten, and I do remember going some when I was four and five. I also remember when I was four and I went streaking at Little Big Top in Troy… and went home with a note pinned to my shirt. I suppose that is a story for another day.

When I think about kindergarten, I think more of when my brother Matt started school. He is five years younger than I, so I started fifth grade at the same time that he started kindergarten. We rode the bus to school, and I made sure he sat with me. I felt some sort of need to protect him at the time. Sure, I was fine with beating the crap out of him at home, but I had to make sure that nobody else did it. (For those of you that know Matt… I was bigger than he was at the time. It wasn’t until he hit his mid-teens that he outgrew me.) When the bus driver assigned us different seats, I am pretty sure I lied to her and told her that my mom was going to be pretty ticked off because she wanted me to sit with him. I suppose the threat of an angry parent was enough to scare the bus driver into submission because she put me and Matt in the same seat.

On the first day of school, I remember my mother making a huge deal over Matt. She asked him dozens of questions, and I stood there silently while I was ignored. I sulked masterfully, and then Matt made The Proclamation.

“Guess what, Mom? I learned to read today!” he exclaimed. Sure enough, he produced a purple mimeographed piece of paper that he had colored. At the bottom of the page was one sentence, and he read it to her.

Oh, crap! My world was sinking. All along, I had been the Smart One. Kim, our sister, was the Responsible One. Matt, as the baby of the family, was the Youngest One… and I was the Smart One. (Also, the Lazy One, the Disobedient One, the Rebellious One, the Lying One, and in later years, the Tattooed One… but always the Smart One.) Suddenly my world was topsy turvy… Matt had learned to read, and he did it on his first day of kindergarten!?!??! If I was no longer the Smart One, who was I?

We went by the hospital on the way home that afternoon to see my grandmother. I am not sure what her ailment was, but I don’t remember it being too bad. As we got out of the car, my mom poured salt all over my wounded heart when she said to Matt, “Hey, Matt, why don’t you show Mom-mom how well you can read when we get to her room?”

“Okay, Mom!” the little turd said happily as we got out of the car. Of course he was happy… he had taken my throne!

As we crossed the parking lot, Mom looked down at Matt and realized he was empty handed… the purple mimeogrpahed sheet was still in the car. (Have I mentioned that he hadn’t even done that great a job coloring? I am pretty sure that I remember stray marks all across the lines. How could he read when he couldn’t even stay in the lines?)

“Matt, you don’t have your sheet!” Mom said.

Matt quickly replied, “It’s okay, Mom…. I can read it without it!”

Hallelujah! The little turd could memorize, but he still couldn’t read! I was still the Smart One.

Don’t tell him this… but twenty-five years later, I still am. For real… don’t tell him. I may be the Smart One, but he is the Big One, and he could kick my butt if he got mad enough.

Tomorrow morning, I officially begin the ‘06 - ‘07 school year. Students don’t come until Thursday, but I have three days of inservice beginning tomorrow. (To get an idea of how teachers really feel about inservice, imagine a three-day-long root canal. Without anesthesia. Come to think of it, inservice wouldn’t be so bad if I was hooked up to a tank of laughing gas. I wonder what it would take to get one of those?)

I know that some of you reading this are thinking that I should shut up my whining. After all, I do get those two months off. May I politely remind you that I don’t get paid for those two months? Yes, I get a paycheck during the summer, but like everyone else, I only get paid for the time I work. Since I don’t work during the summer, I don’t get paid. It is not a paid holiday, it is simply time away from work. And in the case of the summer of ‘06, it was time away from work, but time spent workng on graduate studies, workshops, and several days of inservice.

At any rate, I am back to the saltmine tomorrow. And you know what? I am excited. I truly am. I miss my students, and I miss my classroom. Thursday, I will meet approximately 75 students that I will be investing my life into for the next six months. I will be trying to teach them language skills, but more importantly, I will be teaching them about life. We will discuss life, love, danger, fate… and oh-so-much more.

I can hardly wait.

The article points out that many teachers quit because of the lack of pay. My father argues this point with me often and points out how great my salary really is. He is such a gifted communicator that I often find myself believing him, smiling with him as I agree that I really am well paid. Then, once a month, I get a stub that shows me how much has been deposited into my account, and at that point, I am reminded that my father, a wise man indeed, doesn’t know everything.

Maybe I should just go paint signs.

First of all, you simply must read the story of a man and his tapeworm over at The Worm Within.

And I hesitate to post this here in case my students should think this is a good idea. Just so you know… it SO is not.

Also, I have continued to work behind the scenes of the blog learning some of the ins and outs of the software that I am using to run it. I have even added another blog to the site, and I am using it exclusively for school-related stuff. Check it out… several of my students have been.

I have also added a forum to the site. I am not sure what all I will do with it yet, but I wanted to see if I could handle installing it. I am hoping that my students will use it, but who knows?

“This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

“Don’t let circumstances get you down… soar above them!”

I have heard all the platitudes, and I know all the catchy bumper sticker slogans that encourage positive thinking, but the fact is, today pretty much sucked.

For starters, I stayed up too late. I am at least partially to blame, because part of that time, I was staying up watching Battlestar Galactica on my iPod. (Do you even know a bigger geek?) When I finally turned off the iPod, I rolled over…

…and the hamster that Ian and Laura gave us decided it was time to begin conditioning for the Rodent Olympics. Around and around that little wheel went, and Booger (the aforementioned hamster) went nowhere. The noises generated a 10 on the annoyance scale, right above fingernails on a chalkboard. I really must remember to thank Ian and Laura appropriately. Any suggestions?

So the alarm went off at 5:51, and at 6:09, I stopped hitting the snooze button. I managed to get showered, dressed, and to school without incident, but then first block left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the day.

Without going into detail, suffice it to say that a student chose to be offended at one word that was used instead of paying attention to the entirety of a conversation. Don’t you just love when people do that? You know, when they take things out of context in order to justify their own thoughts and feelings?

I suppose we all do it from time to time, but the fact is, today I was the victim of this instead of the perpetrator. When I am the one twisting around someone else’s words… well, that’s one thing. When someone else is twisting my words around… well, that just tends to tick me off. Especially if the end result makes me sound as if I were saying the complete opposite of what I was actually saying.

At least the school day is over. I now have a weekend to enjoy with my bride and my two little monkeys. They don’t twist my words around… they just sometimes ignore them.