Wow! Where does the time go! Here we are nearing the end of the first trimester already and it seems as though the year had just started a few days ago!
With the holidays approaching, I have been thinking about the theme of giving. Surely, regardless of the holidays we celebrate, there is an exchange of gifts. Some small and some large. There are gifts that we give that are lavishly expensive, while others come with no monetary cost but are invaluable to those that receive them.
So, at this time of year, I would like to invite you to participate in a virtual, online Pollyanna (of sorts) Traditional Pollyanna gift exchanges would require names to be placed in a hat and drawn at random. Then, you would give a gift to the person listed on the piece of paper you blindly chose. Usually there is a set maximum value placed on what you will spend and it would culminate with all getting together to exchange the gifts.
For our Pollyanna, I say we do this:
1. Everybody's name is in the hat, but instead of choosing one name, you choose everyone's name.
2. The gift that you give should cost you no more than $0
3. Instead of one day to exchange our gifts, we can give our gifts any day between now and our holiday break.
4. The meeting place: you guessed it....right here!
So, what gifts can we give to each other? Well....it's up to you. Maybe you could share a strategy that has worked for you in your classroom with a subject area. Maybe you share a story of encouragement...a success for you or someone you know. As teachers in a learning community, we all have gifts to share. The most valuable gifts we have to offer do not have a price tag, but may be just the right gift for all us...invaluable to others.
So...what gift can you give with us this season? I am eagerly anticipating 'opening them up.'
3 comments:
Given your new thinking about the nature of gifts we can share in a learning community I thought I would get the gift exchange started with a link to a very though-provoking video clip by Sir Ken Robinson.
The presentation is titled Do Schools Kill Creativity? Together we can work to make sure the answer is, "no they don't".
Here's the link http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66
A very interesting clip, Dave! Robinison brings up some good points (and humorous, at times) about how students can learn in different ways. Sometimes we lose site of that with all of the high stakes testing that goes on. Thanks for the link!
I'd like to give all fifth grade teachers this link
http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/write/107687.htm
It is a letter to parents giving them suggestions and strategies to help their children with writing. It may be useful to use when parents ask for ways to help their kids.
Happy Holidays!
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