Ideas to Inspire

This spring break is unique in that because I have no students, I have no typical preparation or grading to do, so I’ve been spending my evenings reading and thinking about the craft of teaching, and especially the skill of questioning.Einstein has much to teach us about questioning.

If I were given a problem and one hour to solve it, I should spend the first fifty-five minutes asking questions and the last five minutes using those questions to solve it.
–Albert Einstein

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
–Albert Einstein

Information is not knowledge.
–Albert Einstein

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
–Albert Einstein

The only source of knowledge is experience.
–Albert Einstein

So what do Einstein’s quotes have to do with us as teachers?  We must continue to be curious, continue to be learners and pass that curiosity onto our students. We can’t just give lip service to the idea of “lifelong learning.” What did you learn about yourself, your craft, your students? Once we learn it, we must share it with our colleagues so that the curiosity gets passed on. If  we have a fabulous experience in our classroom, but nobody else knows about it, did it really happen? It is not our duty to share our “aha” moments, but it should be done out of love – love for our students as well as our colleagues.

Love is a better teacher than duty.
–Albert Einstein

Large

It happens in the woods

A laugh just pops out

It happens with a stone so big you could live in it

Round mounds of soil and stone

Perfectly dressed in radiant moss

Blaze of bees around a single blooming branch

Path so quiet one foot answers the other

Charred ashes by Jericho Bay

Blue dots on trees lining the trail

Sudden sweetness of it

Someone was here before you

Didn’t want you to get lost

Thank you

Someone

Thank you

Blue.

–Naomi Shihab Nye

Schooled by Gordon Korman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Gordon Korman has a knack for odd characters that buck the system of teen “normalcy.” This is no exception. Cap, or Capricorn Anderson, has been living on a commune with his grandmother Rain. At this point, there are just two of them left, so when Rain gets hurt and breaks her hip, Cap must leave his sheltered life and go to middle school. He sticks out like a huge bullseye of weirdness, but Cap has a lot to teach the students of C average middle school. High interest, low readability, appealing voice.

View all my reviews.

The path of the moon, our Hawaiian moon calendar and almanac is now online through KS publishing.

You can still order the poster size from them, but this one is free and interactive so that if you click on a date, it gives you the moon phase, and the information on fishing (lawai’a) and planting (mahi ‘ai).