For the love of teaching and reading

 I feel it takes a special dedicated person to be a teacher.  You must have patience, compassion, acceptance, a sense of humor and a love of learning and sharing your knowledge. When I am working with teachers in the classroom one of main things I want them to realize is that they set the tone for the classroom.  The have the power to foster self esteem and self worth in every child they come in contact with.   Haim Ginott says it best in his "Between Teacher and Child"
 "I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climates.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis
will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized."

The Chinese Proverb says "I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember. I do and I understand.  That should be the early childhood education motto.  Children need to be given the chance to try, experiment, manipulate materials and play so that they can learn to understand how things work.


My favorite thing to do is read.  I read for knowledge and I read for enjoyment.  I have many favorite authors and a 5 shelf bookshelf with my "to be read" books on it.  My sister jokes that my biggest fear is finishing a book and not having another one to start.  As funny as that is, it is also very true.  I enjoy a wide variety of books and therefor I like to have many books at my fingertips because I just never know what kind of book I will want to dive into next.  My goal is for my children to love to read as much as I do.  Even though they are both able to read to themselves, I still read to them every night because that is our most precious time of the day together.  When it comes to reading there is a quote by Mem Fox (an author) that summarizes how truly important it is to read aloud to our children.  "If parents understood the huge educational benefit and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent-and every adult caring for a child-read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation."  Knowing how much I enjoy reading, I ache for the people who are unable to read.  I am going to attach a video clip of Alex "reading" when he was 2 years old.  I read him the same book over and over again to the point where he was able to read it himself and he is so proud that he can read!  Every child should have the opportunity to feel that pride in themselves!

I have been asked to pick one children's book that I love and explain why I love it.  I can't possibly pick one.  I have 5 huge rubbermaid containers of young children's books in our closet because I had to clear off our bookshelves to make room for our chapter books.  I would say one of the many I like is "Love you Forever" by Robert Munsh and Sheila McGraw.  I read this book to my students when I was teaching and I really felt a connection to the book.  When I had my first son the very first book I read to him the day I brought him home from the hospital was "Love You Forever" and I cried the entire way through the book.  I have read it to both of my sons on numerous occassions and tear up every time.  I would like to talk about one other book to leave you on a funny note.  "Cha- Cha Chimps" by Julie Durango and Eleanor Taylor is one of the funniest books I have ever read.  My children and I laugh our way through this book.  As a mom and a teacher I know there is nothing better than the sound of children's laughter. 

Below is a picture of my family.  Aaron is 8 and Alex is 6 (well 7 on Sunday and he would rather you thought of him as a 7 year old).