Kids Deserve It

I met Todd Nesloney online several years ago. He was doing a Summer Learning Series with his staff and decided to share those lessons with the general public. I loved getting those weekly e-mails with tasks to complete. It introduced me to programs that I still use like Canva. It got me more involved in using Twitter. And I brought those things back to my own staff. In short, I was already a big admirer of his.

And then he wrote this book:

I was able to relate with so many ideas in this book. If you read my blog at all, you know I'm kind of a rebel. I am the one who will speak up in  meeting and ask-is this really what is best for our students? I'm the one who raises my hand in team meetings and says-that's a great idea, but I'm going to do it a little bit differently with my class. I have a passion for finding new ways to challenge my kiddos. I try new things all the time. Because of this I often feel like a Lone Wolf. Luckily, as the book points out-there are many of us out there and with the invention of social media, we can all connect with our ideas.

They talk about things like making people feel important-using people's names. I ensure that when my class goes through the line in the cafeteria, we know all the ladies' names there to thank them personally. And guess what-they always use my name and know the names of my students as well. The authors encourage us to be a cheerleader for everyone, to take risks and do something different, something memorable with our kiddos.

I highlighted a lot of ideas in this book and will come back to it before school starts to remind me to keep staying fresh and relevant. I actually even wrote a Donorschoose proposal to see if we can get some copies to do a staff book study-fingers crossed! :)