I Salute the American Soldier Update (16 YEARS AFTER ORIGINAL POST): Today, I reflected back to a day over 16 years ago when my three boys and I were at the dentist in Brandon, MS. I filmed them walking through a field of flapping flags that snapped to attention as the wind whipped through the rows and rows of American Flags. The city of Brandon allocated a large stretch of land within the town and displayed THOUSANDS of flags, in honor and memory of the soldiers who were fighting in the first Gulf War, as well as a memorial to those who had died and paid the ultimate price. In this video, my youngest child Avery was three. This year he graduated from high school and plans to enter college in the Fall and major in Software Engineering. My middle child, Alex, is married with a B.S. Degree in Nursing, specializing in dialysis, and my oldest son, Andrew, is also married with a B.S. Degree in Industrial Engineering. It is humbling to think that w...
A great book can ignite a love of reading for a lifetime. However, it has been my experience that getting some students to read is the equivalent of dragging an ornery horse to water, and although dying of thirst, the horse refuses to drink. As all good language arts’ teachers do, I have taken my class to the library and with pride, watched students eagerly walk straight to the book or series they cannot wait to read. Equally often, I have seen students, who have no real intent to check out a particular book, but do an excellent job looking absorbed, scanning shelves, eyes squinted, looking at book spines, while stealthily whispering to the friend next to them who is doing the same scan, squint routine about the latest drama fluttering around the halls of a typical middle school. Of course, as a teacher, I know this is normal behavior, any time students are outside the structure of the classroom and their regular routine, so often I have watched with a mixture...