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Thankful

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Photo by Gratisography from Pexels I’m writing this during the 2020 pandemic, Covid-19, Coronavirus, quarantine, whatever you want to call it or what it might be called historically at this point. Regardless of what you call this time period, you all know what I am talking about. This is also coinciding with one of the biggest civil rights movements in our history. Finally, and entirely too late there seems to be a big push for anti-racism. While this is definitely a positive, there is so much hurt going on right now. It has drastically changed our lives and our world. This time of uncertainty, hurt, and turmoil might seem like a strange time to focus on being thankful, but that is exactly the time to focus on being thankful. The world is hurting, the United States is hurting, I’m hurting, my friends and family are hurting. It would be so very easy to adopt a doom and gloom outlook on life. There is so much “wrong” it can become overwhelming. If we put our focus on the wrongs, we c
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Your "WHY"

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Photo by Pixabay from Pexels Last year my staff watched the viral video, “Know Your Why”, from comedian Michael Jr.  If you haven’t watched it, I recommend you get on that! It is only a few minutes long and has a great message! If you don’t know how to work YouTube, live under a rock, or just don’t want to spend 3 minutes and 49 seconds of your life on it, the basic premise is that if you know your “Why”, your “What” becomes more impactful. How we applied this to education, was that our “What” is educating children, but we all have a different “Why”. We had each staff member take some time to reflect on their “Why”. We then took a strip of colored paper and wrote our “Why” in 1 or 2 words. These were placed on the wall right above where everyone signs in every morning with the phrase, “Remember your Why”. Every day, each staff member could find their word or even look at others’ words for motivation and to refocus before the day begins.  This knowledge of your “Why” is important fo
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Listen Linda

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Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash Listen, Linda. This is from a wildly popular video that was uploaded to YouTube around 6 years ago. To date, it has over 21 million views, so it is kind of a big deal. I will go ahead and admit that about a million of them are from my family alone. My mother-in-law just happens to be named Linda, so we found this video especially funny.  We even got our kiddos saying it to her, just to be funny. I will go ahead and say we definitely don’t condone the behavior in the video, and we don’t allow our kids to actually argue like that with us or Linda. As funny as the video is, there really is a lesson in there.  Two lessons that I think can be learned from this video are: We need to make sure we listen to each other to form consensus and move forward. Just like we check our hearing, sometimes we need to check our listening. We have a tendency to only listen to those who tell us what we want to hear. Lesson number one, in the video, the adult talks about th
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Procrastination

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I would have put this as my first post or at the very least posted it Monday… but I kept putting it off. I guess this is apparently something I still need to work on! I have actually had this one on my “to-do list” for weeks!  It took me a while to get here because I am a habitual procrastinator, but in all seriousness, procrastination can and does affect our productivity and the quality of what we produce. Oh sorry. I got distracted for a bit. Let’s get back on track! Wait. Where were we? Oh yes, procrastination, essentially putting something off for as long as possible. I know some of you are already getting your argument ready that you do your “best” work last-minute or that you work better under pressure. I too have used these excuses for my procrastination. That is what they really are, excuses. Most studies do not back up the theory that waiting until the last minute is beneficial. In fact, there are super-duper, horribly, awful side-effects to procrastinating! Probably the bigge
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I'm Sorry

On this Friday I have so much to be grateful for. I have a job that I LOVE that impacts so many, an amazing family, my health, a house, food, great friends, the list is literally endless. I am a Christian, so I also have my faith and God.  I am truly, irrevocably blessed.  But today, no every day for months, I’m heartbroken. I’m heartbroken because it is 2020 and we STILL have significant, major, inexcusable racism and violence. Honestly, I am heartbroken because it took me until 2020 to fully realize this. I guess I was in my own bubble. I live in a small town out in west Texas, we are pretty isolated, but that isn’t an excuse. I have really lived my life separate from all of the pain and hurt that still takes place in our country and pled ignorance. For this, I am sorry. I am sorry that I haven’t done or said anything. I am sorry that I have largely ignored such a massive issue. I am sorry to all of my friends, colleagues, students, family, acquaintances, EVERYONE of color that I ha
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Words

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Words matter.  Words aren’t just words, they are building blocks or a wrecking ball. Many things in life are made or destroyed by what we say. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. This is straight-up false! Words are powerful. Broken bones heal, I’m not sure emotional wounds ever do. This isn’t just a message for kids, although it is an important one for them as well. This is a message for us all. The words we use determine so much of the successes or failures in our lives. When rolling out a new initiative, the words you use to present the idea can go a long way to determining buy-in. The way you handle a “growth” opportunity with a teacher or student determines how the information is processed. If you correct in a positive manner, you promote growth, if you correct punitively, you promote resentment and have taken a sledgehammer to the relationship. Our words verbally, in written format, and digitally have the ability to change the world. They can aid i
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Lists

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How many of you like making lists? Are you a list person? I wouldn’t consider myself a TRUE list person, but I do make lists of my objectives for the day, the stuff I want to get done. We all know those TRUE list people, it is color-coded, using flair pens, with doodles to match. They make lists for EVERYTHING. That isn’t me, but I do find some pretty intense satisfaction marking things off of my list! I suppose the feeling people get when they watch the millions of “ oddly satisfying ” videos on YouTube, that’s the feeling of perfectly marking through the next item on my list. There are many benefits of lists. It is well documented, with the research to back it up, I might add. Here is a list of some of the benefits of  lists: It helps create order. It helps prioritize tasks. It provides a sense of productivity. It relieves stress. The list of the benefits of list-making could go on and on. Lists really are a great productivity tool. I highly suggest for everyone to channel their inne
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