Hearts Bigger Than our Classrooms ~ David Bowie - Heroes (Live AID)

Prompt: What are you most proud of to date in your teaching career?

It has to be that my heart is bigger than my classroom.

As I was pushing myself at the gym this morning, and pushing myself not to develop bigger muscles but to develop a BIGGER SPIRIT...

I saw a shirt that said:

DREAMS WORK

WHEN

YOU WORK

I immediately thought of how that perfectly matches my classroom motto:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

Which was inspired by Robin Williams who inspired me to leave the world of business to become a teacher because of his role in Dead Poets Society. 

When I asked him to send something that would inspire my students to achieve their own dreams, he sent this...

To Mr. Stuart's Class

Dream Big

And I thought, "Yes!" That's the answer!

He dreamed big and became big only because he DID big! 

And the birth of my classroom motto was born:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

So as I left the locker room ready to live life to the fullest and bring out the best in my students I heard in my head:

You are a developer of heroes today!

Believe you can do it

Because every one of them are worth it!

No sooner had I left the locker room than I ran into the mother of a former student who I used to read to @ 7 years ago. She wasn't even my student, but she was a wonderful young spirit who had just moved to America and was nervous about her lack of English. 

So to help her after school each day she would come up from her Kindergarten class to my 5th grade class where she, I and my own three children would lie down on bean bags and read stories to her. 

Looking down at her smiling face filled me with joy and I thought: 

When we are young

and covered in love,

We completely believe

we are gifts from above.

This girl is now in middle school, and has been covered in so much love from her mother and teachers that she is earning straight A's, excelling at track and chosen to be the vice-president of her class. 

When our hearts are bigger than our classrooms, we help change the world in a big way. 

Thank you te@chthought for your 30 Day Reflection on Gratitude. I probably wouldn't have written this without your prompt. 

And thank you Robin Williams and that young girl, Sofia, without whom I wouldn't have been able to write this post. I'm very proud of the hero you've become :-)

It's not a Toomah! ~ Powerful Ways for Students to Reflect

Teach Thought 30 day blogging challenge ~ Day 19 ~ Name 3 powerful ways students can reflect on their learning

Borrowing straight from Marzano's Element 13: What do I typically do to help students reflect on their learning?

1. Reflective Journals - a little too complex for too many of my 2nd graders in the beginning of the year (asks them to think too deeply too soon).

But this doesn't mean we don't do this ever. It means we build up to it by developing our higher-level and more sophisticated thinking skills, and then introduce students into when they are individually ready.

Because I'm a natural motivator and whole-child developer, I keep getting asked to teach younger and younger students. 

Being a bigger guy and former football player,  I truly feel like Arnold in Kindergarten Cop sometimes :-p

a. What predictions did you make about today's lesson that were correct? Which were incorrect?

b. What information in today's lesson was easy for you to understand? What was difficult?

c. How well do you understand the major ideas we are studying?

d. What did you do well today?

e. What could you have done better today?

2. Exit Slips

*I use this for homework. Students are told to go home and share their class notes from the day with their parents, answering the following questions: 

a. What do you consider the main ideas of today's lesson? 

- Desired Effect: Student lists the critical information re the learning goal/learning targets

b. What do you feel most and least certain about?

c. Do you have specific questions about today's lessons?

d. With which aspects of today's classwork were you successful?

3. Knowledge comparison

*We do this in class. I call it our JAM Journal (Journal in afternoon and morning.....JMA doesn't sound as cool as JAM!)

a. What is your level of knowledge at the end of the day compared to what it was at the beginning?