As you learn from your mistakes~

Good morning everyone out there and best wishes for a wonderful Friday to be coming your way.  It's still pitch black outside as I type these words to you and even though it's 5 a.m., a steady stream of cars are already making their way along Highway 50, some going east and others going west.  The lights from the city of Montrose are shining down in the valley and from where we live atop a small hill, a little rise in the road, we have a great view of life.  Have  I ever learned a lot about geography here!  Words like "valley, ranges, western slopes, the front range, mesa, cliff, canyon, oroyo" and a whole lot more are part of every day life here in Colorado.  At home in Kansas, I just lived in the flatlands, yet they too had their beauty. I suppose that, come to think of it, I've known those words all along.  But it wasn't until I came here to south western Colorado to live, that I really understood what those words meant.  I do now.

More than six weeks have passed since the start of school here in our part of the world and I cannot tell you how fast they have really passed by us.  Remember back when we were kids and we thought that school would never end?  I do.  You'd be sitting there at your desk, looking at the clock and swearing that the hands not only hadn't moved, they had gone backwards.  From the other side of the desk, the teacher's side, I can tell you that someone sets the clocks to the "speed up" mode most every day of the week.  Each day when I leave and head back to home, I continually find myself wondering if we accomplished everything that we were supposed to.  How many tasks were actually completed and if not, then how in the heck will we be able to finish them the next day?  It's amazing what we ask of children each day, some of them not even out of the womb but 5 or 6 years already.  Times in education change each year and although I don't always agree with it, "change" is what it is and you go with it.

I have learned so much in this my 36th year of being an educator and the greatest thing that I've learned and have said over and over is this~For all of the things I know, there are twice as many  more things yet that I don't know.  I've made mistakes, more than a few, as I've gone through the first part of this quarter of the school term.  Yet through those human errors, I've become a better teacher and for crying out loud, that sounds like a good thing, right?  That's how I'm looking at it.  The 17 students in my class have made mistakes as well and every time that we can, we learn from those mistakes too.  I figure it's the only way that we can improve and if we are not there to get better, then we probably ought to all go on home.  That will never be my choice.

You know, we were watching "The Blind Side" the other night (for about the 40th time) and even though I've seen it a lot, I still get kind of choked up at the end where Sandra Bullock's character talks about what would have happened if they hadn't taken in the young man named Michael Oher.  She wonders and probably justifiably so, if young Michael would have ended up dead on the streets, a victim of drugs/violence.  It always makes me stop to think of the kids that I see every day and if I think long and hard enough about it, then I have to accept the fact that there have been many kids just like Michael in the schools that I have taught in over the past nearly 4 decades.  The truth is that right in Olathe Elementary, many will perhaps sadly find themselves in the same proverbial "boat".  That always make me pause and to be honest with you, makes me sad.  

In just a few hours, I'll be with 17 fourth graders who, for better or worse, I have come to love in a very short period of time.  Each morning when they enter my classroom, it's a brand new day for them.  It doesn't matter if we had difficulties the day before because today it's a "do-over" for them and for me as well.  Our work is cut out for us and the task is sometimes very overwhelming.  We have to work hard to help them to improve their reading and math scores, to make them better writers.  I hope I can facilitate the kind of learning that will accomplish that goal.  Gotta tell you, and I'm not the only teacher that knows this, it's not easy.  But we keep trying, all of us to get them there.  I take a lot of comfort in knowing that right now, all over this great land of ours, excellent teachers are at work giving their all to get their students where they need to be.  Pray for them, please?  When you see them on the street, in WalMart or at grocery store, offer them a word of thanks.  They are doing everything they can with limited time, resources, and sometimes energy.  But they do it, day in and day out, for one thing only~their students, your children and grandchildren.  

Well, the day will begin soon and it's time to get another Friday started.  How many mistakes will I make this day?  That answer is simple....enough to learn by.  Have a good Friday, the 27th day of September of 2013.  I predict that when the day is done, it will have been a great day to be alive in.  Get out and find your life's destiny my friends...it's waiting for you to arrive.

Me with my first ever snowman, named Eleanore from this past February back home in Hutchinson.  Making another snowman, this time out of Colorado snow, is on my new bucket list.  I hate snow but I have to admit this was kind of fun.  It was nice to be like a fourth-grader once again.

Shoot, this kid knows ALL about geography.  My son Grahame and I from 2011.  He was getting ready to leave for a 30 day hiking journey along the Appalachian Trail.  This guy was born to be a traveller, a pilgrim of sorts.  Love him so very much.