Welcome!

While I’ve never been known to be short on words, the idea of starting a blog was never something I thought much about. What could I possibly have to say that people would want to hear? What could I offer that people would value? While I still very much have those questions, (and still no answers), what I do have is passion.

Education has been the only career I considered for my entire life. I knew from a young age that I was meant to teach. I never started to question my decision until I reached the classroom. Nothing can prepare you for the reality of teaching. It is hard. Very hard. And the only people who can TRULY understand are other educators.  “But you get three months off in the summer” (every teacher just shuddered reading those words).  First of all, we get about six weeks. And most teachers I know are working all summer, either at summer school, part-time jobs, or getting ready for the next school year.  Secondly, we work WAY beyond 40 hours a week during the year, and we don’t get overtime. So I like to think of it as “comp time.” The days are long, the money is a joke, and the profession isn’t really respected in our society, yet I have the extreme pleasure of working with some of the most dedicated educators in our country.  Why do these rock-star teachers show up with 110%, day after day, year after year? Passion.

Passion is what separates a great teacher from a good teacher.  Passion doesn’t mean that you do everything right in your classroom, but it does mean that you are ceaseless in searching for best practices.  Passion is what has teachers up at 1 am, thinking about a lesson they need to teach, a student they’re worried about, or a connection they think they missed. Passion is what has teachers spending their evenings, and weekends, and summers searching for new ideas, new strategies, attending professional development, and growing a Professional Learning Network.  Passion is what pushes us to tears, overcome with frustration, feelings of being inadequate, and not enough for our students. We want the best for our students. We want to prepare them for life, not for “the test.”

I once attended a professional development conference in which the speaker said “If you’ve got the passion, I can teach you anything else you need to know. The only thing I can’t teach you is passion.”

So I encourage you to follow along with my blogging journey. I’ll share many strategies, teaching tools, and best practices. If you bring the passion, I can teach you anything else.