Have a Good Life

So, I was the teacher of the month at my school for December. I wasn't actually planning on blogging about it, but I thought it would be a good time to draw attention to what my students are doing, since they are the ones doing all the heavy lifting. I realize that much of this probably is not that exciting to someone who is not in my shoes, but I am very excited about it. In December, I found out about a girl's blog in NY. I talked about her desire to make a difference in others' lives. She challenged a classroom to do the same. I talked with my students and they came up with some great ideas, and then we implemented two of the three best ones.

The first idea was to have a day set aside where the students could go to freerice.com and see how much we could donate. We donated over 750,000 grains of rice. We used almost all the computers in the library almost all day long and had 12 other teachers participate with their students.

The second idea was to create a wiki page for our team. This has been the most exciting because it got me started in with another teacher in Kansas doing a collaborative wiki for the Primary elections. Some, not all, of my students really took this idea and ran. I am very impressed. One girl has been editing a page called "Fun Stuff" pretty much every single day since we started. That is a big deal for a 7th grader. Of course, I finally post about her dedication the day she misses changing it. ;)

Anyway, my principal said that although I had only been at the school for a short time, I was already making an impact. I hope I really am. I hope these small accomplishments really do help my kids learn and make an impact. Otherwise, who really cares?

Have a good life.