What Are You Thankful For?

Sometimes I must take a few steps back before I realize what is in front of me.

When you teach it is easy to get caught up in the daily labors of teaching. Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to visit friends in New York City, and friends and family in Philadelphia. As I reconnect with people who I have not seen in a long time, the teacher stories start to flow out. I am thankful for the people who listen to these stories, and the people who read my blog, write me emails, send me texts, call me weekly and help me stay sane in the midst of the daily insanity that is teaching.

As I take a few steps back from my life as a teacher my spirit to help close the achievement gap on the path to ending educational inequity is reignited. I also realize that in some ways I have made great gains with my students. We are reading our second novel now (Lois Lowry's The Giver) and I think 85% of the kids are actually enjoying it! My students responded to a very complicated discussion question on our class wiki about the importance of diversity last week, and this week they made connections between the movie The Truman Show and our book. Amidst all of these fun activities we are achieving mastery of our objectives for the year.

Before I left Charlotte for the holidays someone advised me to "remember to tell some good stories," and after a chaotic week at school I was not exactly clear on what those were, but after a few steps back it is clear that the good definitely outweigh the bad.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thank you to my friends and family!

Falling in love with Charlotte

To start, some images from my dinner this evening, inspired by my farmers market finds this weekend. Roasted squash and eggplant (from the farmers market), israeli couscous, and heirloom tomato mozzarella salad with a pesto vinaigrette (tomatos and basil for pesto from farmers market). Turned out to be delicious!

As I am getting more and more settled into my new city I keep finding wonderful and special things that Charlotte has to offer. This week's find was the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market. Here are some photos of my finds:

Squash, peppers, eggplant, and a white cucumber!
Beautiful and delicious yellow heirloom tomatoes.
And a little more.
I am so excited to be able to share little pieces of my life here with all of you. This week is an easier week, because I only have new teacher training on Thursday. Otherwise I am just planning on my own time for August 25th the first day of school! I am going to decorate my classroom this week, so stay tuned for pictures of whatever that turns out to look like.

I titled this post "falling in love with Charlotte" because I am really starting to feel at home here. This city just has so much to offer. On Thursday I went to a great art house movie theater that is right near my apt, and Saturday I explored some of the night life in uptown (Charlotte calls its downtown "uptown" because it is on a hill). I can't wait to share more of my finds, and start to share my classroom stories!