Perspective

    I have been away from the blog for too long now. I realize that keeping up with our classroom on Facebook, my own side business blog, plus my own personal stuff is more daunting than I first thought.  I would love to find time to get on here each day and share with you all the happenings and daily discoveries in our room, but let's be realistic-that isn't going to happen...  So I will set forth a new goal of at least twice a week.  Manageable right?! Let's hope so.  I have so many ideas to share and thoughts about my experiences as a teacher.
    This past week's tragedy has really given me pause in how I would handle a situation like that.  In all honesty upon hearing the news the first thing I wanted to do was go home and grab my own children and hug them tight.  But, my job is to provide security and peace to the 25 children I have in my own room. And truly I do think of them as my children, for at least the small amount of time I get them for each day.  And just like with my own children I get frustrated, excited, sad, and amazed by them everyday.  I took time to gain some perspective with my own children at home and those here at school. I try to think about how I want them to feel when they walk in the door and then return home. I want them to know, like those children in Conneticut knew that they were cared for and worried about and the reason why we push them so much is because we want them to grow up and be happy and successful.  Notice I did not say wealthy, because we must first focus on raising happy and successfully independent children.  The whole child.
   Today as many of my students expressed their concerns when we had our own lockdown, we talked about how we take every measure to keep them safe.  That their job right now is to do the best they can so they can grow up and be the change they want to see in the world. I want them to work toward being positive people in our society.

Erin