TpT

Lessons Learned

Teachers Pay Teachers Became An Answer

In 1981, a Master Teacher, who was my cooperating teacher, offered a thought-provoking question and subsequent challenge, that in answering and accepting, completely set the trajectory of my teaching for the next 30 years. She inquired, “What is your passion?” And immediately chased this query with the bold assertion, “Because it will take all you have and are and believe in and will sacrificially pour yourself into to reach these desperately at-risk students.” I love music. I love to write music and play music. “Perfect,” she nodded. “Then music it is. We will teach them to learn by inspiring them with music.” The children helped me write lyrics which became songs, their songs. Their songs contained their words and those words became sight words and gradually but with never-ending zeal, we learned to read their songs. In learning to read their songs, they learned to read. We sang. We learned. We reveled in the wonderment of learning. They taught me the power and the joy of using music to help students engage with content. From then on and for the next 30 years, I have seen over and over and over again, the power and the joy of sharing music to support and enhance all curricular content.  Through the years, my wonderful, courageous students have basked in the blissful and confidence evoking fun of music to learn. Even Bloom and Gardner, I believe, would have smiled broadly upon the highly creative, wildly engaging musical academics occurring day after day. Beautiful! Now, so very many years later, however,  hundreds and hundreds of songs written through all of these years to support learning have remained unscored and consequently un-sharable, inaccessible, and  stashed on a shelf, for in the flurry of  life and living as a teacher and a mom, taking precious time to learn to score music was of lowest priority. The songs remained packed in my memory with lyrics scribbled on loose sheets of paper in tattered, well-worn folders. With retirement last June came a gift of time; time to learn to score music and time to learn to share music. But where? Then came the strong suggestion of Teachers Pay Teachers, a brilliant online marketplace for the buying and selling of excellent and highly creative  educational resources, as well as a fabulous network of support, encouragement, and help for all educators. So last mid-September, Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) became the home of my new “music to learn” store called, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, and step by step, note by note, I am learning to transcribe those songs that have been swirling and dancing in my mind for an entire career.  TpT has provided a forum, a venue, a storefront, a chance for the previously inaccessible to be shared.

Only When the Snow Flies...

Lessons Learned

Embrace the Winter

Out the back door of our home in the country was a gigantic hill covered with trees, bushes, and berries of various sorts, and wandering circuitously through them all were paths, some secret and some not as secret. These paths were the routes to countless adventures upon which the children, grandchildren, Labrador Retrievers, and other friends would meanderingly rove throughout all four very distinct seasons of the year. But one particular path contained no winds or bends; it was stick straight. It was the fastest way to the bottom of the hill, and it was the winter season’s path of choice among the crowd of adventurers. It was the toboggan run, this path that was carved straight down through the trees. Upon this path, upon the toboggan, the riding team could quickly gain enough speed to send the forested world whizzing past in a white and chilly blur of excitement. With dogs frolicking and barking, pig-tails and snow wildly flying, raucous laughter rippling among the woods, and several evel knievel cousin toboggan drivers taking turns at the helm, time danced away on the wintery breeze for these rosy-cheeked adventurers on the back of the toboggan. Once through the trees that hugged the steep, straight path, the toboggan would burst out full-steam into the vast open field that rolled in gentle downward waves across twenty acres.  Hanging on to each other  fiercely yet hilariously with woolen-mitted hands, carefully keeping all appendages tucked safely and streamliningly onboard, the esprit-de-corps riders enthusiastically chased the previous riders’ path hoping beyond hope to exceed their distance record. Then together, with all woolly hands on the rope, the rider team, knee deep or more in snow, would lug the beloved toboggan back to the hilltop for another greatly anticipated run by another anxiously awaiting rider team.  Over and over and over and over again we learned to play, to share, to help, to be on a team, to love the outdoors, to take turns and be glad for each other, to drive, to ride, and that laughter and cousins and winter are another perfect recipe for awesomeness.

19 years ago...

Lessons Learned

Valentine, The Gift of Time Is A True Gift of The Heart

Twenty four hours. In the pediatric unit of a hospital. Any time spent here with your child for a reason other than visiting someone else is equivalent to eternity. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, was the diagnosis for my nine month old. His breathing was raspy and labored and the discomfort his little body felt from this struggle left him so very restless and irritable. My heart ached watching him fight this insidious enemy as in his hospital crib he attempted to sleep tethered to wires and monitors. With permission, I lifted him from the foreign, strange-feeling crib and cradled him in my arms where rest and a bit of sleep more easily came.  All night long, I prayed over this angel in my arms, as the excellent but stretched-way-too-thin medical staff frantically ran from room to pediatric room tending monitors and needs. Between RSV and the Rotavirus, on that particular night during that particular year, every pediatric bed was filled, and sick, hospitalized children were filling beds in other units. Two children died.  Rocking and praying my son through the night, there was peace in our little room despite the overwhelming  and overarching anxiety  wrapped around a stay such as this. The hospital night in that pediatric unit was noisy with the cries of children whose bodies were in tremendous distress and I wept for them through the night as their painful, fearful cries went on. I asked our nurse why their parents were not allowed to hold these children to calm their little bodies? Their parents were not able to stay the night, for circumstances and reasons that demanded they not stay. These little ones cried and cried alone, and I cried wishing I had more arms and more time to hold and rock and pray over these other precious lives struggling with sickness.  Sometimes there simply is not enough time to do all that we need to do because life is busy and hard and full of choices that frequently leave you feeling that none of the options are really that wonderful. Perhaps this is the place where we need to step in for one another and fill in those gaps with our time. We all have hands and hearts and arms to hold and rock. We all have bits of time here and there that we could offer up to help. All we really need is a desire to do something about the cries filling the hallway.  

Quiet. Stillness. Peace. Winter.

Lessons Learned

Winter’s Lesson

Winter has arrived here. That wise, celebrity groundhog has proclaimed and affirmed what we all unquestionably know will be the case; another six weeks of wintry weather. It is winter, and our world is frozen, hushed, and cloaked in shimmering whiteness.  The snow is deep and has been swept into impassable drifts along both highways and country roads. The whistling wind sneaks into homes through unseen cracks supremely taxing even the heartiest of furnaces and demanding multiple layers of woolen sweaters and fleecy blankets for all inhabitants. It is winter. Rosy cheeks, piping hot homemade soup, and fireplaces a’blaze are the order of the day, and we smile for each delicate, unique snowflake that lands gently on a tongue.  Although the wintry conditions are certainly extreme and undeniably dangerous, there is a stillness and a peace and a wonder-filled beauty about the snow.  It’s a sparkling, chilly blanket that frosts the landscape like a fluffy dollop of butter cream frosting atop a scrumptious cupcake.  To stand outside in the snow, to walk in it, to traverse it in snowshoes or skis is to understand the stillness of it, which without the experience of it is completely indescribable. The chaos and cacophony of life at its outrageously presto pace, in its constant stereophonic dissonance, with its hyper-stimulation of lights, colors, and images can indeed numb the senses with all of its uber-overdoneness.  How can we be still? How can our children understand peace? How can we learn to quiet our hearts and rest our souls? Beneath a blanket of snow, the earth sleeps for an entire season, animals hibernate, and farmers move indoors and rest their fields.  In the stillness of the winter, the stars in the night sky seem to twinkle with greater intensity, the creaking and humming sounds of the forest are seemingly amplified, and if far enough north, the glory of the northern lights dancing across the heavens in surreal technicolor splendor is beyond breath-taking. In stillness there is infinite room for creativity and imaginative pensivity because those things that crowd and clutter our lives and bring much noise are delightfully absent. When there is stillness or peace around, it feels somehow easier to find a quiet place within. As we warm our hands during the coldness of this winter, may we be reminded to also quiet our hearts, for in the quietness, in the stillness, in the peace there is a longed for and much needed joy, comfort, rest, and restoration.