This, my friends, is what my life has come to: a daily checklist. (more…)
Tag: Learning
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I Hate Deadlines
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
— Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
I’ve come to despise deadlines. I’ve never been one to strictly adhere to a schedule, but I’m starting to develop a complete intolerance for deadlines. As I see it, suggested timelines are the way to go. (more…)
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Tomorrow’s Visualisation Exercise
Holy busy, Batman!
Sweet mother of all things human, I’m busy. Even taking the ten minutes to write this post feels like I’m cheating on my commitment to learning how to teach students.
Did you know that I have every minute of every school day mapped out for the next three weeks?
Anyway, tomorrow at 9:30 am EST I will be conducting a visualisation exercise with the students to introduce the science unit on space. I wrote it up, so I thought I’d share it with you, after having left you so lonely for so very long.
Image Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Worker_ant_carrying_leaf.jpg Here it is:
Imagine that you are an ant. You wake up in the morning, and stretch out your six legs. First the three on the left, and then the three on the right. You fall over a little bit, because you’re still pretty tired. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.
You grab some breakfast, a nice fresh bit of leaf that you found yesterday while you were out. It’s a bit dry, from having been in the anthill overnight, but it’s still refreshing. You are starting to feel better about the day ahead of you.
You wish the Queen Ant good morning when she walks by, and she smiles at you. You finish up your breakfast, brush your mandibles, and put one shoe on each foot. Then, you begin the climb out of the anthill, following your buddies.
Once you reach the top of the anthill, the sun beats down on you, and it’s warmth feels nice on your back. You are ready for the march ahead.
You’ve reached your destination for today, after a 100-meter long march. It’s a large, green, leafy plant that you’ve only ever seen from a distance. You notice that one of your shoes has come untied, so you lace it up before climbing the stem.
You keep climbing, and climbing. You’re getting pretty tired, and you look down to see how high you’ve climbed. You’re almost 30 cm in high! You can’t remember the last time that you’ve been so high. Only five more centimeters to go.
You’re there! You’re on the strongest branch, with the most leaves on the entire plant! You march confidently out to a leaf that is glistening in the sun. You know that that is what you’re going to take home with you tonight.
You walk, carefully, out onto the leaf. It’s shaking a bit, and your feet are feeling unsteady beneath you. You start cutting the leaf free from the branch. It’s pretty hard work, but, then, the best leaves always are tough to cut away.
You’ve almost cut the leaf away, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, a gust of wind comes rushing by! Woosh! You close your eyes out of fear.
When you open your eyes, you look around and realize that you’re floating, high, really high, above the ground. You peak over the edge of the leaf, and see the world below from a bird-eye view.
Don’t you wish that I were your teacher?
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Ira Glass – Dangers of Good Taste
Ira Glass on the dangers of “good taste”: pic.twitter.com/Vg90q133XR
— Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters) March 6, 2014
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I’m Testing 10 Organizational Strategies
I read other people’s blogs, and one blog that I’m particularly fond of is Rachel’s. She’s an editor, and on her blog, Freelancing to Freedom, she provides little nuggets of advice that reflect her experiences. In her latest post, “Ink Blotches“, she writes about using her diary to stay organized.
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An Autobiography
I’ve grown accustom to taking a drive in the evenings, after my usual nap, to grab a coffee in the nearest city. The drive takes about an hour, round trip, and is a good time for me to reflect on what’s going on in my life and the rest of it. For some time now, I’ve been thinking about writing an autobiography. (more…)
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Thinking About Women
I recently started teachers college, and it’s shaping up to be a very busy semester. I have nine weeks of class before five weeks of practicum. That’s a lot of work to accomplish in 14 weeks. And, get this, the first week is already over!
Tomorrow morning I have a math exam, which I’m sure I’ve touched on, so tonight I decided I would have fish for dinner. You know, brain food. (more…)
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First Day at Teachers College
Today began like most other days do: I woke up. My darling mother, worried that I would sleep through my alarm, called me at 6am (4am where she is) to make sure that I was awake and ready for the day. She also reminded me to eat before I left for school.
So, I woke up. Went through my morning routine, more tired on this particular morning. Then, I found myself running late. I’m always running late. (more…)
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My First Laundromat Experience
The laundry room in my apartment building closes at 10 pm. This is too early.
Tonight I wanted to do laundry, but I couldn’t because it was getting close to 10 pm. So, I searched out a 24-hour laundromat in town. Can you believe that this town of 30 000 people has a 24-hour laundromat? Mariposa is full of surprises. (more…)
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Math That’ll Mess With Your Head
I just went into the school’s office to register for a brush-up session for Primary/Junior (K-6) math. You see, as part of my program, I have to sit an exam that’ll test my competency in math. I believe this is Ontario’s way of ensuring that teachers actually know math, before they teach it. (more…)