New School Year, New Adventures

Teachers report back tomorrow in my school district, so it will be a day full of meetings and preparing for the new school year.  Of course most have been going in all month to set up their classrooms, plan lessons, and get ready for the new group of students.   I haven't!  I officially retired on June 3rd, after teaching for 28 years, 25 of them at the same school.

People have been asking me all summer, how it feels to be retired, and I have been saying, "It feels like summer."  Now that my friends are talking about setting up their classrooms, it is beginning to feel like retirement.  It is very odd to see the pictures my friends are posting of their classrooms, and to not be part of that.

To be honest, I thought I would be sadder than I am, but I am pretty excited about the new adventures I am beginning to embark on.  I have spent the summer gardening.  I grow a lot of perennials, and this summer I had the honor of having my yard declared the Yard of the Week.  Well I was excited and honored at first, then it began to feel like pressure.  There is always more mowing and more weeding to do.

My back yard has a vegetable garden that gets a little bigger each year.  I already have plans to expand it more next year.

One of the great bonuses of being retired, is that when everything becomes ripe and needs to be canned, I will actually have time to do it this year.  I just made my first batch of sweet pickles earlier this week.  We also had our first corn from the garden.  This is the first year that I have tried growing corn.  I am a city girl, but I feel like a pioneer when I grow my own food.

Retirement also gives me more time for all my other hobbies.  I spend a lot of time knitting and I have been taking knitting and crochet classes all summer, and yesterday I just bought a brand new sewing machine.

It will be so nice to have more time to devote to these creative pursuits.  Earlier this summer I turned the background fabric from my bulletin boards into these pillow cases.

I think they turned out pretty darned good.  I was also impressed with the fact that the fabric had not faded.  It had been up in my classroom for the past 12 years.

While I have left the fourth grade classroom, retirement does not mean I am done with education.  On Tuesday I finished taking an online class about teaching online.  This is one of the OLLIE classes offered by our state Area Education Agency.  OLLIE stands for On Line Learning for Iowa Educators.  This is the 4th class in a series of five, that I have taken.  This one was about facilitation of an online class.  I learned a lot, and I may teach online in the future.

My newest adventure is volunteering at the school where a friend is the principal.  This is a much more diverse school than the one where I have been teaching.  In the next few weeks I will be working with students on reading and writing skills.  There are 38 different languages spoken by the families that make up this school.  I have asked to be included in some of the ELL staff development, because I have little experience in this area.  I have a lot to learn!  Later in the school year, it is also likely that I will fill in as a substitute teacher, both at this school and at the one where I have spent the past twenty-five years.  I also hope to do some of my digital story telling with students at both schools.

I wonder if I can fit all this stuff in?  "Retired" I may be, but once a teacher, always a teacher, and if you are a teacher, you are always a student as well.  So I am still learning and still taking notes.  My classroom has just moved.  This school year is going to be a lot different than the last 28, and I am very excited about my new adventures.

A Knitting Disability

One of my hobbies is knitting.  I first learned how to knit when I was ten years old and in Girl Scouts. We learned to knit a pair of slippers.  I may have tried it a few times after that, but I didn't really knit again until January of this year, when I found and made that very same slipper pattern.  Since that time I've been enjoying taking classes, learning new stitches and improving my skills.  I am fascinated by how each stitch works together to create the fabric, and then finally a beautiful usable item.

Yesterday I took a class to learn how to knit a shawl.  The pattern is called Highland Fling.  I had met the instructor before. I knew her to be a very skilled knitter with a brusque style.  At that first meeting she asked me why "I knitted like that", and had I thought about "changing."  Last night she told me I knitted "funny" and again reiterated that "I should change."

You see, I have a knitting disability. I am left handed.  I didn't really know it was a disability until I began taking classes.  After all, I have been left handed all of my life, as are about 10% of the population, so it seemed natural to knit left handed.  Apparently, most left handers adapt and learn how to knit right handed.

Knitting left handed does have its challenges, because all knitting patterns are written for right handed people. The left hander needs to analyze and reverse all the directions.   When given time and quiet to think about things, I have been pretty successful in doing this.  This shawl is the most complex pattern I have tried.  Given time, I know I can do this, but being yelled at because I don't understand immediately was not very helpful.  Nor was being asked to change who I am.


While I did think about gathering up my things and fleeing, I'm glad I stayed.  It was a good experience for a teacher to have.  Every now and then, we need to be on the other side of things.  It made me think about what our kids go through, especially those who struggle. I want to become more sensitive to my students who process and learn differently than the majority.  We need to give kids the Quiet (see my previous post) and space to learn and think.  


How many kids feel secure in their own uniqueness at home, only to lose that sense of security once they enter a classroom.  Kids should not have to change who they are to be successful  at school.  Nor should they be humiliated because they don't learn or process in the same way or as quickly as others.  Increasing our time for small group work in both reading and math is an important way to respect this uniqueness.  Also providing students with a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning will be helpful.  


Most important, I need to slow down, listen, and monitor my own tone of voice as I am working with students.  How many kids withdraw and shut down because of the sarcasm or irritation in a teacher's voice.  Last night's experience was a reminder of that. When it comes to fight or flight, I always pick flight.  I'm going to make sure my kids don't have those feelings because of something I do.  I rededicate myself to making my classroom a safe place to learn.


There is room for all of us in this world, even those of us who are left handed knitters.