Moving on!

The school year is about to expire. With it, I will end my time as Instructional Coach with Sioux Falls and be moving on to a new challenge in my educational journey. I will be an instructor at Dakota State University, in Madison, SD. I will be teaching social studies methods, geography methods, Native American studies, and The Middle School. I am excited for the challenge and the opportunity to work with college kids. I hope I can bring fun, engagement and excitment to these students and show them that school should be fun and exciting! It should be emotional and something you look forward to. To show them that school isn't just a building or a classroom, it's just learning and growing as a person, whether that's in social studies, math, or just as a person. Whether that's in a building or a coffee shop or a football field or walking down the street. School is a place that we want students to grow and be curious and to think and to wonder. My goal for my daughter's teachers is the same every year: Make sure they like school at the end of the year. If, by the end of the school year, they don't like school, then the teacher failed. Make sure they continue to be curious. Nothing would upset me more than for a teacher to crush my kids2-year-oldy. Kids are born naturally curious. Hazel, my 2 year old daughter, is curious about everything. How something works, how something feels, what happens when you touch something, what happens if you throw something, what something looks like, what her sister's are doing, what's happening on t.v. or the ipad or outside. I didn't teach her that. She was born that way. Not because she's special, but just because that's how it works. Kids are born curious, then at some point, they lose that or it's taken from them or it's crushed. School should be a place that grows curiosity and a place filled with emotional attachment. So how do we foster curiosity in our students? Be curious yourself. About a new topic. About life. About anything. It will spill over and ooze out into your classroom and your students will know what it means to be curious.