After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
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Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Author: amybisson
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It’s a rite of passage, I guess. Yesterday my third graders bumped up to meet their fourth grade teachers. My students were pretty evenly distributed across the four fourth grade classrooms so while they will see some familiar faces next Fall, they will have an opportunity to meet new friends. While my current kids were…
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Our elementary school, like many others, has a moment at the beginning of the day for school-wide announcements. In our school, the Morning Announcement also includes the Pledge of Allegiance and our school’s Learning Pledge. Each morning, coming together as a school community, we recite both pledges together. As you can imagine, sometimes a student…
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We have five days to go. I find it incredible that this journey of an academic year is quickly coming to the finish line – or more accurately, getting ready to crash and burn. It’s a time of year when every culminating activity that was ever invented gets scheduled: field trips, tests, report cards, field…
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I have an emotional relationship with alarm clocks. Not the hate relationship that most people have because it interrupts sleep. My relationship is far more basic than that. When Adrien and I were first married, we saved extra pennies in a jar until we could afford a radio alarm clock. We finally achieved our goal,…
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A lifetime ago, I was involved in music. Growing up, as I did, in the midwest – home of Friday night football and marching bands – I can’t even remember when music performance wasn’t on the radar. As an elementary school student we were prepared to be in the high school music program fairly early,…
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The public hearings on the 2010-2011 school budgets begin tonight in Lowell. No one thinks that there is any way the schools will be able to get through the next fiscal year without massive cuts of programs, services and teachers. The last several years the budgets have been decreased and belt-tightening measures have been put…
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This week I was asked at a Team Meeting what I thought about particular student’s participation in MCAS (this student has serious health issues which limit school participation). Was there an alternate way to assess this student that would enable us to know what had been achieved? And that got me thinking about what I…
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If you have been reading the postings of the Massachusetts DESE, you may have noticed their new campaign for “Amazing Teachers”. This appears to be a recruitment program to entice teachers to work in the Tier 4 Schools — those who are being carefully scrutinized because test scores haven’t moved out of the sub-basement. So,…
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I’m not sure I really appreciated Lowell’s place in history. We live immersed in the history of the Industrial Revolution here in Lowell, and oftentimes we don’t see or appreciate it. Carved out of Chelmsford, Lowell traces its beginnings to the 1820s. Lowell was a planned manufacturing center for textiles. This week, my third graders…
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Because our school’s literacy program is tightly tied to Fountas and Pinnell (and whose isn’t?), my students have actively used Readers’ Notebooks for quite a number of years. The conveniently packaged sets from Heineman are sold in 5 packs for $28 (web price, regular price $40!). Multiply that $28 by at least 5 for a…
After An Educator's Journey 