Leading From The Heart

they were the best of times…

…they were the – you get the idea.

Yesterday I signed all of the paperwork then waited around for 5 hours and got the keys to my new house! I didn’t really wait around as much as drove around – luckily my father decided to take the day off of work to accompany me. We went out for lunch, we drove around the countryside, he bought me a mailbox – the kind with the little red flag to tell me when I have mail (original ‘you’ve got mail’ notification). We checked out the painting that was begun on my house. It’s barn board grey, which will look nice with the red roof.

That evening my car decided to go berserk and this morning I had to tow it to the dealership, making me late for work. A whole bunch of money later and it’s well again.

Today one of my students didn’t show for an important exam. He’s sabotaging himself and I can’t help but feel wounded myself.

Tomorrow we will have our closing ceremonies and our computer that has all of the certificates I need to print and then laminate to hand out during the ceremony decided to stop working. I’m also in charge of the decorating committee so tomorrow will be a long day.

Then I move on Saturday morning.

I’m so thankful for…

• My father, who was by my side throughout my signing extravaganza yesterday
• Helen, who is organizing the amazing gang of people who are going to help me move on Saturday – herself, Ross, Stephane, Tara, Magda, Laura, Liz, Bill, Angus, and Lucinda.
• Both of my parents, who are taking care of my 2 dogs for these few days before the move AND who are going to provide food and drinks for us all once we finish the move.
• The kids – Vanessa, Alyssa, Melissa, and Ashley – who are running with their decorating committee duties
• The towing guy, who hung around at the dealership to give me a lift to work afterwards
• Marie, for keeping an eye on the decorating tasks yesterday while I took the day off to sign
• Walter, who drove me to the dealer at the end of the day today
• Lucinda, who is on her way over to help me finish my packing
• Krissy, who stuck out that history exam to the very end despite being frustrated and unsure of what she knew

Life is good and so much easier because of all of you.

Do you add students as facebook friends?

I do.
I know teachers who absolutely refuse to as well. Where do you stand?

At the beginning of the year I tried different online techniques to give out information (homework, resources, etc…) and found more and more that students weren’t using the software or the applications. My facebook status updates usually looked like, “don’t forget to check the class site for homework”. Eventually I just put the homework reminder directly in the status update instead of sending them elsewhere.

I am happy that my students are comfortable enough with me to let me into their facebook worlds. I see their updates, photos, and videos and am able to celebrate or give a hug when needed.

I am the staff rep for our school’s lacrosse team and created a group for them where we talk about our practices and games and share pictures.

In the huddle, right before the winning goal was scored.

I absolutely love when I see status updates like

my house 8:00 to work on project or who is down for math group tomorrow?

I also love when students post links or videos to my wall as suggestions for classroom resources. Even especially when they ask questions about homework they are having trouble with.

At times, it is a convenient way for students to contact me about issues they are having, either with school work or socially.

At the beginning of the year I had my students on a limited profile list of some sort but I soon changed that as I realized that there was nothing that I posted on facebook that I needed to hide from them or anyone else.

So, where do you stand on maintaining a relationship with students outside of the classroom via facebook (or twitter or plurk or anything else)?