Trust

Trust is a critical component of life.  We need to be able to trust our family, our friends, and our co-workers.  And we also need to have a certain amount of trust in humanity and of our surroundings.  After reading the chapter on trust from Houston and Sokolow, I came away with many valuable ideas. 

One of the ideas that I found to be important was when the author wrote that when you give trust, you receive it.  I think this is a critical piece of understanding trust.  Unless you are willing to open yourself up to trusting others, you will never receive trust yourself.  I also liked when the author stated that bad things happen but do the good thing anyway.  This can be a hard concept as when bad things happen to you, it’s hard to trust enough to continue doing good things.  This has sometimes been a struggle for me personally.  When bad things happen, I find it hard to trust enough to continue doing good things. 

A key statement in the chapter is that you can’t do anything for someone else that you can’t do for yourself first.  I found this statement to be so true.  If you are unable to trust in yourself and do things for yourself, then you are unable to trust and do those things for anyone else.  My favorite statement from the author was that the world is made up of a lot of imperfect people trying to move forward.  I really liked this idea.  We all make mistakes but we are all just trying to survive, keep moving on with our lives and trust that everything will be alright.

The Future of Technology

Technology is an important factor in the future of education.  While it will never take the place of a teacher, technology can assist in bringing learning to a higher level.  Technology is something I will continue to integrate into my classroom as my district is extremely committed to using the SAMR model to integrate technology into all classrooms.  I am looking to further the integration of iPads in my classroom and will continue to investigate new apps to help kids grow.  I plan to continue to focus on the SAMR model to bring my lessons to a higher level.  I will also continue collaborating with my grade level to share ideas and best practices in this continuance of technology integration.  Technology is not going anywhere so we need to jump on board in order to move our schools into the 21^st century.

February New Strategy

This month I am beginning a new pilot reading program in my classroom.  Our district is looking at purchasing a new LA curriculum and they have asked some of us from each grade level to pilot the programs.  Having never had an actual reading program in our grade level, this has been very interesting.  I have enjoyed having a program with student books, technology pieces, and more teacher resources.  I am excited to continue the pilot program and see where it leads!