teaching – Peaceful Reader

Tomorrow is CAUCUS day-a pretty big deal here in Iowa but for everyone as well because if we pick well it can be a positive push for the nation. For example if my choice Mayor Pete Buttigieg has great numbers at all caucus locations than suddenly people in other states will be saying his name a bit more often. It’s exciting stuff. I’m ready for it and I’m kind of ready for it to be over. If you are politically active it makes for busy days. On Friday night Groovy Girl and I walked for 2 hours knocking on doors for Pete. It was snowy, a little cold, and we had one or two really great conversations which made for a lovely Friday night.

February is Black History Month which I feel awkward about because I feel like this should be something integrated into our curriculum naturally all the time every day but I also understand the need to highlight and move beyond the quick Dr. King and Rosa Parks stories. The week surrounding Dr. King’s birthday I shared his “I have a Dream” speech with 5th and 6th grade students and we discussed then vs. now and racism today. I was a little taken aback that so few students really understood the reason for the holiday is to celebrate his birthday. Clearly this area does need constant work! My teaching plan for this month is to share stories about a variety of African Americans from history and the present.

I recently watched Ava DuVerny’s documentary When They See Us on Netflix and I highly recommend everyone watch this. It was a struggle to watch because it made me so angry! It’s helpful that it is offered as 4 parts which helped break it up for me. I literally couldn’t wait to get the last one to find the positive for these young men so wrongly accused and abused by the police and the whole system. It easily brings to mind all the more recent unjust deaths like Philando Castile. And while scrolling though Twitter I found Black History in Two Minutes narrated by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Challenge yourself to find something directed by, created by, or written by a Black/Brown American this month. I’ll be following up with more throughout the month.

Be peaceful with one another…

Google, Blogger, and I have a love/hate triangle going on right now. This is the second or third time I’ve been locked out of my peacefulreader blog. I pay for a domain name and somehow about a year ago Google decided that all paying domains would be part of G-Suite and it’s been nothing but trouble for me. In other words it’s not hitting my sweet spot.

Tonight, while I do have homework and a good book to read, I felt the need to solve the problem. I’m tired but it suddenly dawned on me that somehow it was not “reading” my G-Suite admin account. I tried a few more times to log in with no luck. One of our school techie’s advice is about turning the computers off, really off. So I logged everyone off my laptop, which should NOT be a family computer but is, and shut the whole thing down. While I was logging off it seems that Groovy Girl had herself logged in on a second Google page with Netflix up as well. So even though I was logging myself in as myself and then also as an administrator it was not really logging me in. The thread of her was being pulled from another page.

Once I turned the whole system back on and logged myself back in it didn’t even ask for the admin information it just let me back in. Whew. I feel so much better, less out of touch. Speaking of being in tough, I’ve spent the last two nights watching movie with Anton.

Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Will Smith in Collateral Beauty were two very thoughtful and exciting films. We’ve been having a conversation in our house about gaming, movies, and books – different kinds of entertainment. I’m not a fan of gaming-it leaves me flat-although the one time of the year that I enjoy having a controller in my hand is at Christmas when Kaylee, Tristan, Greg, and I compete in heated games of Jeopardy. Most people that love gaming find the idea of this silly but we have so much fun.

A movie or a book can help you see a bigger picture, give you empathy, make you laugh, or think, or dream. Same with a book. Video games are only going through repetitive motions. And even streaming shows can now get to an addictive phase I still think the lure of gaming for hours on end can be harmful. Those that are avid video gamers can probably argue this with me. I’ll take a book or movie for entertainment any time.

I have a whole ‘nother post I was working on about The Handmaid’s Tale before the shut out occurred. I’ll get back to that in a day or two. We have dance recital this Saturday-that’s an all-day event. And I’m working on grading library assignments and assessments in between teaching classes and adding in new books. I was able to spend the last of my budget money on a trip to our local Barnes and Noble last night. It was incredible-especially as kids pawed through the 2 boxes today looking at treasures. Seven of the books now have sticky notes denoting who gets what first. The joy of book lovers!

Tag: teaching

So Much in February

Ugh! I'm back.