Good evening RMS Family! Are you ready for the ride of a lifetime? The RMS Energy Bus is all gassed up and ready to roll into year one! Will it be perfect...not even close...but are we gonna give it our all...ABSOULTELY!!! There will be kinks, there will be hiccups....but BELIEVE ME when I say....we will get through it by sticking together as a team and success will find us! I have the right team...in the right seats...on our bus! So keep that positive outlook, proactive approach to obstacles, and most importantly BELIEVE in our kids! Want a reminder...check out my friend Dalton Shermon, a keynote speaker for Dallas ISD! He made me a believer...and I'm sure he will make you one too! If after watching him...you still don't believe in the impact you have each day...I heard Walmart is hiring! :) Check out his keynote below!
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Game On ~ Back to School!
Game ON team! Those first day jitters are setting in, sweat on the brow from all that hard work preparing, and that nervous excitement of a brand new start in our brand new home is just around the corner...yeah, I'm talking about YOU not the kids! They have their own jitters! Will my teacher be nice? (of course) Will I know anyone? (by the end of the day, sure) Will I get lost? (heck yeah, we still do sometimes). The bottom line is we all have jitters...but by working together and helping each other out...we are bringing our "A Game"...creating the RMS legacy...and we will undoubtedly successsfully sail through this O-CEAN of a first week together! :) This will be the first year I have not seen my girls start school...and I am really struggling with the little one, since she is entering the big "K" this year! If I seem a bit weepy...it's that not from our O-cean sea-sickness! lol
Now go 'em team! Go out there and be the next "Ms. Miner" to our RMS Longhorns...the first impression in the LASTING impression! See ya in the morning...hope you enjoy this letter as much as I did, it's our turn to "bring it"..that special "something" that makes kids just think you hung the moon... and I have no doubt that this is the team to do it!!
Why I Hated Meredith’s First Grade Teacher: An Open Letter to America’s Teachers By: Kylene Beers
When my first born headed off to first grade, 21 years ago, she held my hand as we walked down the hallway of Will Rogers Elementary School in the Houston Independent School District. We walked into Ms. Miner’s room and Meredith’s steps grew more hesitant. This wasn’t the University of Houston Child Care Center, the place she had gone for years while I was a doctoral student at UH. This place looked different – bigger, more official. There were big-kid desks pushed together in clusters. And though there were centers, they were not the dress-up center or the cooking center or nap center or water play center of the Child Care Center.
The room was filled with children she did not yet know, with books she had not yet read, with a math center that had lost-teeth and birthday charts, and with a big poster by the door labeled, “Our Classroom Rules” that was still blank. “I don’t want to stay,” she said. I didn’t want her to, either. I wanted her still with me, only me. I didn’t want to give up those first six years of childhood just yet, those years when her world mostly revolved around her parents and new baby brother and a silly dog with big ears and afternoons spent in our local library reading book after book after book or playing in our neighborhood park, sometimes just sitting on the grass, watching the ants march by. With every ounce of courage, I said, “Oh, you will love first grade. It was my favorite year in school. I loved my first grade teacher, Mrs. Allen, and I bet you are going to love Ms. Miner, too.” Meredith looked doubtful and so very small. And then Ms. Miner, long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, saw us, came over, and bent down to Meredith’s level. A first year teacher – the one I had told the principal that if he was willing to listen to requests I wanted – Ms. Miner was full of energy and excitement. She loved books, wanted to be a great teacher, and had obviously spent weeks making her room look inviting to these 22 six-year-olds.
“Oh, you’re Meredith! I recognized you from your picture! Come here and let me introduce you to some others. And let me show you all around the room. And, hey, you brought Corduroy as your favorite book and that’s one of my favorite books, too!”
And then, somehow, without me even realizing, Meredith’s small hand moved from mine to Ms. Miner’s and she was gone. She was swallowed up by the sheer joy this other woman brought into her classroom, into learning, and into my child’s life. “I guess I’ll be going now,” I said to Meredith who was busy putting school supplies away in her desk. “So, I’ll be just around the corner at our house,” I said blinking hard to keep away the tears.” I think she nodded. Perhaps she even paused to wave. My feet couldn’t move and Ms. Miner gently helped me and a few other moms out of the classroom. “She’s really shy,” I said to Ms. Miner just as Meredith sped by holding a new friend’s hand showing her “all these hooks where we can hang our backpacks.”
Meredith was breathless with excitement at the end of that day – every day – and by the end of the first week, our family had a new member: Ms. Miner. Each afternoon and for long into the evening, I had to listen to “Ms. Miner said . . .” and “Ms. Miner thinks . . .” and “Ms. Miner showed us . . .” and “Ms. Miner suggested . . .” and when I slipped and said, “Oh damn” at dinner burned in the oven, I was reminded that “Mom, Ms. Miner would never say . . . .” Right, I smiled through gritted teeth. ”Ms. Miner says that manners are important,” Meredith said as she explained why we must always put our napkins in our laps, something that I swear I had mentioned a million times.
For the entire year I watched my child fall in love with school, with learning, with figuring out, and most importantly, with her first grade teacher, Ms. Miner. Meredith, who had once hated ponytails, now only wanted to wear ponytails. And blue skirts, “just like Ms. Miner’s.” “And Mom, my name starts with an M and Ms. Miner starts with an M. Isn’t that great!! We match!” Yes, Meredith, just great. Really great.
Though I had been a teacher for years before having Meredith, before sending her off to first grade, I had never truly understood the power of a teacher in a child’s life. We give our most precious and priceless to you – dear teachers – each year, knowing you will teach them, but also hoping you will care for them, help them discover how very much they matter, watching over them, and being there when they have been hurt by the ones who won’t let them sit at the “popular” table – and then you do just that and they fall in love with you. It shows up in different ways, as they grow older. But it’s still there, this deep affection and respect. And, certainly, it’s harder to forge those bonds when there are 150 students instead of 22, when the day is fragmented into 45 minute segments, when education seems to be more about the test than the child. But I promise, underneath that bravado of the seventh grader or swagger of the tenth grader you will find that small first grader who wonders, “Will my teacher like me?” And when that child – that teen – knows that you believe he or she matters, then that student will do most anything for you.
To this day, Meredith remembers you, Ms. Miner, and to this day, I so hated how much she loved you that year. And, simultaneously, I am so grateful that she did.
And so, teachers, across this country during the next two weeks, most of you will be opening your classroom doors in a first-day welcoming for your students. As a teacher I am proud to stand beside you in all that you do. But as a parent, well, as a parent I stand in awe of all that you do. And to Ms. Miner, thank you!
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Children Close Their Ears To Advice But Open Their Eyes To Example!
Faith...we all have to have a little FAITH...especially in our line of business. Parents are sending us the very best they have, and every one of them is "someone's kid"...so as a huge part of their day we must always keep that in mind and treat them (and model)respect as well as instill in them an attitude of BELIEF...that they can achieve anything they put their minds too! You will hear me say...over and over again that I have seen kids outperform their IQ time and time again...why??? For the sheer fact that their teachers made them feel that they BELIEVED in them and EXPECTED them to achieve. No matter what...they ALWAYS told them they COULD and WOULD find success (yes, even when they had doubts themselves...they knew the kids would never see or feel).
Did you know....
...so it's up to us to be that positive example for them! I couldn't be more proud to call you my team and I know that at RMS we are going to lead by example, practice what we preach, and BELIEVE in our kids by focusing on their strengths and not always their faults! Check out this story below...eye opening and sooooooo true! Have a marvelous Monday, and thanks soooo much for coming out for the meet and greet! It was a huge success thanks to your smiling faces and helping hands! It was noticed and very appreciated! :)
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Have FAITH In Your PEOPLE And Give Them The TOOLS To DO Wonderful Things!
What an appropriate quote for us! At the retreat you were all given ipads...a really cool tool, no doubt, to get familiar and play with over the summer, so that you can come back with some amazing ways to utilize them in your classrooms! Yes, you were given a TOOL so that you can do wonderful THINGS with/for our RMS Longhorns! So as we are drawing closer to the beginning our inaugural year, I hope you have done just that. If not, you better get busy. I expect to see this tool as well as the many others that you have at your disposal used DAILY...not just by you but by the KIDS. When I look for tech use on PDAS it will always involve student use of tech...not so much you. Like the quote says...Ihave faith in YOU that you can do it! Will you be perfect? Maybe...but that's not what's important...what is, is that you are TRYING new things and growing. We are all going to be learning new things...yes me included! :) But you know what they say...practice makes perfect and with this Energy Bus team, I have no doubt we are gonna wrap the year up as tech savvy bus drivers! :)
I found this article on twitter...it has a lot of great starting points for YOU and your TECH TOOL! Let me know which one you will be trying!!! i wanted to give major KUDOS to those of you that came to help out at the Parent Meeting! They were verty impressed by your positive energy and smiling faces! Keep it up...you are already making us shine!!! Love it!!! See EVERYONE Thursday at the Meet and Greet, it's from 5-7, but I am asking thateveryone be in the library at 4:30pm for assignments. Thanks!
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