Jumping In

I’ve been planning this new blog for at least three months, probably longer. I could list a bunch of reasons why it’s taken me so long to get it up and running, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear them. Let’s just say that this experience reminds me of my student teaching days when my mentor teacher told me I was in charge of teaching an interdisciplinary unit on forest animals. Where I was teaching, there were only standards and frameworks. No curriculum guides and no textbooks. So, I was basically creating this unit from scratch. Each day, for about a week, my mentor would ask when I thought I’d be ready to start teaching the unit, and each day, I’d tell him I was still working on the lesson plans. Finally he told me, Kid, sometimes you’ve just gotta jump into something and let it take you where it takes you. Have some faith and confidence in yourself that you’ll be able to make it all work out just fine. And he was right. Once I got the unit started, it actually made it easier to plan the remaining lessons. Our third graders loved it, and I received outstanding observation reports from my mentor and supervisor.

And so I finally realized, late last month, that it was time to follow my mentor’s superb advice once again. So here I go, jumping into the blogosphere with stories about my kids, my relationship with my husband, my work, and the things in life that make me stop and think hmmmm.