Tag Archives: writing

Hope and good deeds – 9/11

country, Family, growing up, history, Learning, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Today in History, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday was 9/11. We will never forget. Ever.

For my students it was 9/11, they do not know. Most of them were not alive when the day unfolded and our world changed, forever.

neverforget

9/11/2001 was my son W’s first day of pre-school – he was three. He remembers momma standing in front of the television crying and asking her what was wrong.

Momma replied, “Bad news.”

To him, and all of us, 9/11 is the day of the ‘Bad News.’

Yet, it doesn’t have to be the day of the Bad News.

At school, we were looking for a way to mark the day and remember. The flag flew at half-staff, we observed a moment of silence, and the above ‘Today in History’ slide  appeared in the daily announcements. Then, our school went about our day – learning, guiding, leading, assessing, re-teaching, and so many other verbs. We do it every day.

After the announcements were finished, I showed the video below. Please take a moment to watch it – the video is 2 minutes and 19 seconds long. It will be time well spent, I promise.

Continue reading Hope and good deeds – 9/11 →

Connected

Family, Learning, Photography, Weekly Photo Challenges, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

It’ has been almost a month since I responded to a Word Press weekly photo challenge. I’ve been doing the photo challenges off and on since Mary from Wilderness of Words introduced me to them. Thank you, Mary.

https://me.sh/13zb3v16

The photo challenges have me connected with a different way of sharing how I make the days count, every day. This week’s challenge is connected. The verb “connect” is among the most versatile ones in contemporary usage. We turn to it to describe an emotional click with another person, but also to talk about the status of our (ever-proliferating) gadgets. The word has it’s origins in Latin

con + nectre

which in Latin translates ‘to bind with’ using the word formula

con means with and nectre means to bind, 

word meaning = suffix meaning + root meaning + prefix meaning

Once upon a time, I taught English Language Arts and we studied word parts and word part meanings. Continue reading Connected →

quiet Saturday mornings….

Family, growing up, history, Learning, Science, teaching, , , , , , , ,

I love Saturday mornings. I usually get up early and it’s quiet. I brew coffee, bond with Ivy, read the newspaper, or scan e-mails, and say a quick prayer for the day.

my messy desk - needs a makeover and I need to do it.
my messy desk – needs a makeover and I need to do it.

Instead, this morning I slept late, I needed to sleep late. It was a late night and the outcome of this week’s football game was not good. We were on the road. We had a couple of injuries and the Tigers didn’t play well, coming up on the short side of the score, 13-17. It’s a long season and we have seven more games, at least. W and the players who didn’t get in last night, will play this morning at home.

It was a good week at school. I know 97% of my students on sight Continue reading quiet Saturday mornings…. →

Failure is expected….

country, Family, growing up, history, Learning, Reading, sports, Teaching and Learning, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,

The 2015 high school football season started this weekend. It’s W’s last season of high school football and perhaps ever as a player. Friday night the Wheaton Warrenville South Tigers began the season against their cross-town rival, Wheaton North. I watched from the North sidelines as part of the chain gang. I kept my mouth shut and my enthusiasm to myself. I kept my eye on the field and moved with the ball.

my shadow cast upon the sidelines
my shadow cast upon the sidelines

It was a good game and the Tigers came out on top, barely.

The game was scoreless at the half. 0-0.

The third quarter began and The Falcons quickly scored a touchdown to lead by seven. The Tigers answered with a touchdown of their own and the game was tied at seven all. It stayed tied until the end. Then, the game moved to overtime.

Overtime rules are different. Each team gets the ball on the ten yard line and gets four downs (plays\tries) to score. The team that scores the most points wins. Simple.

Both teams failed to score in the first overtime and the teams switched ends and started over. In the second overtime, the Tigers failed to score on three downs, then, kicked a field goal to lead for the first time in the game. Then it was the Falcons turn. They ran three plays and failed to score, then lined up for a field goal, too. Continue reading Failure is expected…. →

Tuesday’s Tune: Anticipation

Family, Songs, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Tuesday's Tune, Writing, , , , , , ,

After two days of meetings this week on Monday and Tuesday, full of reminders, staff get-togethers, and new curriculum; I get a full day to work in my classroom today. O and I were there last Thursday and I was back Friday afternoon. I am excited.

me, taping the wall
done taping, the front left corner of the room

The seventh graders read a book in ELA, The Giver by Lois Lowry. It’s a new classic dystopian novel for kids it was published in 1993 and it was made into a movie and released in August 2013; read the book, it’s better. Trust me. In the first chapter, Jonas a twelve year-old boy and the main character, describes his feelings about the upcoming Ceremony of Twelve in December as he rides his bike home. At first, he describes his feelings as being frightened, but realizes the word doesn’t describe how he feels about the changes which lie ahead for him. When he reaches home, he realizes he isn’t frightened, but apprehensive.

I’ve been back and forth to school several times in the past week. My rides to and from school have had similar thoughts – making lists, thinking, worry, apprehension, fright (sort of), and I decided I am full of anticipation and even perhaps, like Jonas a little apprehension.

I remember a song from my youth about anticipation, Heinz used it in its ketchup commercials to highlight how thick its ketchup was – it was so think, it took a while to begin flowing out of the bottle. As a scientist, I know it’s because t’s a non-Newtonian fluid that exhibits characteristics of both a sold and a liquid.  But’s that’s another story.

Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune: Anticipation →

Today in History

country, Family, growing up, history, Learning, Life in General, Reading, Today in History, , , , , , , , , , ,

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” ― George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Five Volumes in One

This fall, I’ll be teaching history full time for the first time in my teaching career. I am excited and I am worried. History gets a bad rap, especially with 13-14 years olds. Many folks believe history is remembering all sorts of dates and facts, and while that’s part of it, it’s not the reason we study history. We study history to learn from our mistakes and move forward as a people, as a society.

This past year, I taught one section of history and it opened my eyes, again. American society seems to repeat itself every other generation – the issues my great grandparents faced, my generation  faces today.  In the 1840s immigrants – the Irish – were blamed for the country’s ills. Three generations later in 1900 – 1920s a different group of immigrants – eastern and southern Europeans were blamed, today it’s yet another group of immigrants longing for freedom.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
From the “New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

In the last quarter of the school year, I suggested a daily dose of history and volunteered to manage it. Administration ALWAYS appreciates initiative and follow through. Each school day I’d select an event and create a slide for the morning announcements. My colleagues knew I was behind it and let me know they appreciated the reminder of the importance of each day. Sometimes, I’d tweet it with my school twitter account – @ScullenWatkins.

Continue reading Today in History →

Tuesday’s Tune: “Blue Skies”

Family, growing up, Life in General, Music, Photography, teaching, Tuesday's Tune, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,

I am number that third guy who walks into a music store searching for a tune he’s heard, sometimes I’ll have the tune, or maybe a bit of the chorus. Sometimes I have it correct, most times though, I am all messed up. Eventually I get it right and find the song.

Monday morning - nothing but blue skies do I see
Monday morning – nothing but blue skies do I see

Blues skies made an appearance yesterday. It was great to see them after Sunday’s storms. Storms rolled across the lake in waves Sunday afternoon. The first wave came around noon and brought wind, thunder, lightning, and rain. The second wave came a couple of hours later. The third wave came around 5 PM.

B and I had decided that gardening would have to wait for another day and she took off with O and friends to let the kids see a movie and to shop – she needed paint for the downstairs powder room among a few other items. I finished my chores and decided to watch a baseball game upstairs when the last wave rolled through.

5:09 PM Sunday August 2nd

I had my back to the lake Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune: “Blue Skies” →

Inspiration

Challenges, Family, growing up, Photography, Reading, teaching, Weekly Photo Challenges, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

Sunday morning at the cottage, Ivy is sleeping, and O is awake upstairs. It’s quiet and peaceful, it’s an inspiration.

We’ve been Up North over a week and each day we’ve been chipping away at our chore list: getting a chore here and a chore there knocked off the list. We have a summer’s worth of ‘to dos’ to accomplish while we are here, there’s always something to do, even when I’d rather read a book or gaze out over the lake. But, we’ve also had time for a boat ride to watch the sunset. Inspiring.

sunset Lake Margrethe - Monday, July 26
sunset Lake Margrethe – Monday, July 26

We were having dinner with friends the other night – they came here for ribs and beans and we were at their place for ham and potatoes last night – we were talking and they shared they had been looking at other cottages around the lake and decided that where we are, they are four houses down the shore, can’t be equaled. I agree. I get up in the morning and look out over the lake, enjoy a cup of coffee and think, dream, or I can sit on the deck and read a book, and the lake lies before me. Continue reading Inspiration →

Six degrees: Friday’s Flashback

Family, growing up, history, Learning, Reading, sports, teaching, , , , , , , , , ,

We live in a small world. 70 percent of Earth is water, the rest is land.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
— Neil Armstrong Apollo 11 astronaut and first man to walk on the moon.

'Earthrise' first photo of Earth from space - December 1968 courtesy of NASA
‘Earthrise’ first photo of Earth from space – December 1968 courtesy of NASA

I grew up in Houston in the late 60s and early 70s. I remember the night Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, but I was more interested in football, and other sports, than I was in space.

My parents moved to Sugar Land, a small growing suburb of Houston, in 1967. We moved in in early August and my mom still lives there. The same year, the Regners moved in next door. Tom Regner and his wife, Shirley, moved in next door. He was 21 and less than a year out of college with a baby on the way. I was six years old and my world was small, very small, little did I know how truly small the world was.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Mr. Regner played football for the Houston Oilers. He was drafted in the first round, the 23rd overall pick in the 1967 NFL draft. His NFL career lasted until 1972 when he was traded to the Baltimore Colts and he retired. He came out of retirement in 1974 to play for the Houston Texans of the World Football League. After the season, he retired for good and opened Venetian Village, an Italian restaurant.

Mr. Regner always seemed larger than life; Continue reading Six degrees: Friday’s Flashback →

Why I blog… Blogging 201

blogging201, Family, Learning, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Writing, , , , , , ,

I started blogging five years ago, it had been an awful school year and I had been out of my comfort zone the entire year. The previous summer I had lost my dad, in fact today is the sixth anniversary of his passing. That summer, the summer of ’10, lay ahead as an open wound with questions about my past, present, and future. Towards the end of the school year, I had experienced a few successes and school ended on a high point for me as an educator and human being.

That school year ended on a Friday – May 28, 2010 – and I came home from school to an empty house. B and the kids had left for the weekend to visit her mom and dad in Ohio. I had stayed home because I had a cough and we didn’t want to get my in-laws sick. I had a lot of time on my hands and thoughts running through my head. The combination is never good and the blog happened somewhere between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I bought the url – MakingtheDaysCount.com, and dot org, dot net, and dot info. I had wanted MaketheDaysCount.com, but it was taken, already in use. I bought a hosting package and jumped in the blogging water.

theoldcourse2015
The goal initially was to share how I made every day count, in some way and to write about it. Continue reading Why I blog… Blogging 201 →