Encouragement Comes When you Least Expect It

Day 14 of my Shut up and Blog Challenge. I began this challenge to become a better writer and I believe I have. Today, I received the ultimate compliment from my husband Kevin. Seth had gone to a play with a friend so it was just Kevin and I running errands. In the car, I read Kevin my late bloomer post from yesterday. After I was done, he said, "That sounds just like a magazine article." My Kevin is famous for not giving compliments. He just thinks they are insincere sounding and he's above all that. My first reaction was, "Are you being sarcastic?" Sarcasm is his thing but he was quick to reassure me he was being honest. It felt pretty awesome. 

When we got home, I decided to start shining up a story I had written for my creative writing class on Coursera. I'm hoping to enter it in a flash fiction contest. For the uninitiated, flash fiction is a full fictional story with less than 750 words. My story was at a thousand words so I had the task of not only shortening it but polishing it. Two hours later, I had to walk away from it. I managed to get it under 750 but it cost me one of the more interesting parts of the story and my title. However, the backstory was too long and drawn out. I wouldn't say I have writer's block but perhaps writers remorse. I want that part of my story that I cut, back. I just had to get some breathing room from it. Walking away is usually the best solution. Anyway, I was feeling a little crappy but encouragement comes from the oddest places sometimes. 

I opened my email and found a weekly progress report from Grammarly.  Grammarly is a website that I registered for free for that checks your spelling, grammar, and usage. It is very user-friendly and I write with it every day. For instance, right now while writing this post, I see about ten red underlined words that Grammarly is flagging as incorrect. 
Well, today I discovered they keep track of your writing and send reports. I love getting a grade or a rating and look! It says I wrote more words than 92% of their users! I either have a whole lot to say or too much dang time on my hands. No matter. I love being the top of the group. 

Well, it gets better. I have a larger vocabulary than 98% of Grammarly users! That is pretty awesome and the best part is that it gave me the drive to write this post. Well, my eyes are starting to cross so I'm going to bed. Have a great night and remember to show me some love in the comments section. 

Confessions of a Late Bloomer

I have a confession...I am a late bloomer. Frankly, I didn’t have the luxury of being a late bloomer as a child. I was a latchkey kid who at the age of six, got myself ready for school every morning. How did this happen?

Being the youngest child of older parents who divorced when I was five probably had a great deal to do with it.  I will also let you in on a little secret you probably don’t know unless you are the youngest in your family. The “baby” learns a survival skill their older siblings don’t: How to manipulate others to do our bidding!  Siblings get exasperated by our lack of independence but they always just sigh and do it for us anyway. I had the double distinction of being the youngest cousin on both sides of my family and referred to as “the baby” until I went to kindergarten. I have a memory of my family getting ready to go somewhere and mom asking, “Where’s the baby?” I was four!

Like all late bloomers, I had a knack for finding friends who were willing to do my bidding when my family wasn't around to do it for me. My mother lamented often and loudly about my messy room. One day, she walked in to find all my clothes and toys neatly put away. "You cleaned your room?!" She said, excited. "Naw," I replied. "Donna and Lee Ann did it."  Did you notice how shamelessly I fessed up to the fact that my friends had cleaned my room for me? 

Well as great as it was to have everything done for me as a child, it didn't make the road to adulthood very smooth. While all my classmates were anticipating college, I didn't have a clue if I would even graduate. Though it worried me, it didn't worry me much. That, I believe is another side effect of being the youngest in the family. We are eternal optimists. No worries. It will all be okay.

Not all youngest children are late bloomers but I painfully was. I graduated from high school later than my classmates. When I did go to college, it was at the age of twenty and only after my older sister Linda filled out the paperwork and drove me to take the ACT. My mother saw to it that I was enrolled because my Army colonel dad insisted.

Though he didn’t have the high expectations for me that he did for my brainiac older sister Linda, he did have my college career mapped out. His plan? Go to business school and become…wait for it because this is hilarious…AN EXECUTIVE SECRETARY! Isn’t that a hoot? Dad was extremely intelligent but HELLO! Pampered, absent minded (a.k.a. ADHD) late bloomers like me do not make good executive secretaries. Can you imagine?

After two painful years of business school in which I suffered from extreme anxiety, upset stomach, and dismal grades, I quit. Or should I say Dad let me quit? Off and on for the next ten years, I worked in a daycare. Oh, and can I say this? Childcare work is the most thankless job in the world. It did, however, teach me one thing. I learned I loved children and I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

My twenties were spent in relative solitude. My business school stint had turned me into a shy person. I didn’t date and I stopped going out with friends. My mother, bless her soul was my greatest fan and unfortunately, my greatest enabler. When not working for a tyrant at a daycare, I spent my time reading and worrying because I now knew I was a late bloomer but felt helpless to make it better. 

At the age of thirty, I met a coworker at the daycare center where I worked. For Heidi, the daycare was just a temporary stop on the road to college. Heidi was on fire. She was going to be a teacher and further, she was going to change the world. Even after she left the daycare, and started college, our friendship continued. She couldn’t imagine anyone not going to college and so for over a year, she pestered me to apply for college. I was scared but she wouldn’t let up. I applied to college and started part time in the fall of 1994. 

Unfortunately, my friendship with Heidi didn’t last past the first semester of the night class. I was, after all, a late bloomer and I felt so out of my element with girls who had been in college for a year and who knew exactly what they wanted to teach. Heidi and her college friends seemed snobbish to me. Side note: Heidi is now a professor and child advocate in Florida. Hello. Can we say Facebook stalking? I'm rather shameless about it so don't bother. 

 After that class, I started taking day classes and I made my own friends. These girls didn’t know any more than I did and a few were bigger late bloomers than me. I found my voice and then no one could shut me up. For the first time, I found I was good at school. Making A’s was my fix and I loved school and people asking to make copies of my notes because I always seemed to know what I was doing.

"The Mac Daddy Caddy"

Despite my success in college, I was a late bloomer who lived at home with my mom and didn’t own a car but I tell you what! I was straight A student! Doesn’t that count for something? I graduated at the age of 36. My dad, I think for the first time was proud of me and for my graduation, he gave me his 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. It was in mint condition and the size of a small yacht. My nephew Mitchell dubbed it the “Mac Daddy Caddy.” It drove smooth as melted butter and I loved it. 

The summer after my graduation, I met Kevin, my future husband. My friend Lee Ann (who as a child had cleaned my room) kept telling me about this great guy she had met who was looking for an old fashioned girl. I kept putting it off but finally said yes. It was instant like/love for both of us that July night. 

A month after meeting Kevin, I heard about and applied for a job at a school district thirty miles from home. I got the job. Kevin and I married the following March. Was my reign as the queen of the late bloomers finally over? As much as I made up for lost time, my life's ongoing theme of late bloomer continued. I didn’t have my first child until I was almost forty-four. That wasn’t really my fault but despite my advanced age, I was as inexperienced as most twenty-year-olds. I am now and will always be a late bloomer. Like my childhood self, I have managed to surround myself with people who get that and love me in spite of it.

In the eighteen years, I have been teaching kindergarten, I have met several late bloomers and their despairing parents.   In an effort to calm their fears, I tell them to not give up and that I too was a late bloomer. A late bloomer who has a Master’s degree in education and graduated with a 4.0! That’s the thing about late bloomers, if given enough patience, love and a little push in the right direction, we do eventually bloom. 

Little School, Big Heart

Earlier, I had halfway written a post when I had a few phone calls about school and got kind of off track. This post will be short but I just want to say I love the people I work with. We are like a big old family. Sometimes we grumble at each other but you know what? At the end of the day, we know we are family.

Times have been tough in Oklahoma and there have been many cuts to education. Our little school has been hit pretty hard, but these people have rolled up their sleeves and dug in and done what had to be done. They aren't always everyone's cup of tea and some love them and some perhaps not so much, but they are going to teach every person's child to the best of their ability. Well, that's all for tonight. Just had to share my love for these people. BTW: It's day 12 and I'm still blogging. Just had to throw that in there. Have a great evening.

The Most Dangerous App on Your Students iPads: The iTunes Store!

Saaay What??? For Real? I don't think so. That's what you may be thinking and until this week, I too would have scoffed at that one. Be patient and I will explain.

This is the first year my students have each had their own iPad. On those iPads, they only have learning apps and the Apple apps installed at the factory. I felt secure letting my student's work independently on the iPad without wondering what they were getting into. That is, until this past Monday.

A little girl asked if she could listen to music. I assumed she meant within the reading app she was working on so I said, sure. A few minutes later, I heard her say, "They just said a potty word in that song." I assured her that wasn't possible. I mean, after all, ABC Mouse wouldn't allow that. Right? Well, guess what? She wasn't on ABC mouse. She was on the iTunes store. Seems harmless enough except...NOT! I made her get off the iTunes store but curious, I went scrolling through the artists featured on the opening page and the first one I clicked on had explicit lyrics.

All my kinders have to do to get a big dose of "potty words" is to click on a song that is labeled "E" for explicit. Imagine any song you can buy on iTunes. When your student clicks on it, they get to hear the thirty-second snippet of that song.

This was the opening page on iTunes. See all those little red "E" boxes all over the page. All those indicate that a song has explicit language. I clicked on one and got to hear the "F" word and women referred to as "bitches". How would you like your son or daughter coming home saying those words?

What to do? You can't delete the iTunes store off your student's iPads. There are a couple of options. One that I used back in the days when I let my student's use my personal iPad and didn't want them Facebooking on my behalf was GUIDED ACCESS. With this setting, you put your student on the game you want them on and then the only way they can get out of it is with a passcode. Click here if you want to know the specifics of how to do this. This, however, can be time-consuming when you have a classroom full of kids. Another option is to "hide" the iTunes store app. After researching it on Google, I found there is a simple way to hide apps you don't want your student to have access to. For that little gem of information, click here.

Now don't get me wrong and Apple please don't sue me for slander. I've got nothing but love for Apple and I am a total iPad devotee but I don't want my babies getting into stuff they shouldn't so Apple hang up the phone with your lawyers. Ha! As if. Well, I hope this was helpful and I want to shout out to my little Lindey Joy who first discovered the potty words. Thanks, girl. 

Have a great evening everyone and show me some love and post in the comments. 

Shut Up and Sleep!

Tonight's post should be called "Shut Up and Sleep. That dear friends is what I'm doing. Have an awesome night. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Shut Up and Blog; Day 8-Surprise I'm at a Loss for Words!

Well, day eight and I'm still blogging along. Today I started the third course in my creative writing specialization on Coursera-Setting and Description. Today's assignment was short-only 300-700 words. Normally, I struggle to reign myself in and stay within 1000 words but today I kept a sharp eye on the word count and when I finally reached the minimum 300, I was like, "Woo hoo!" It was hard! Here was the assignment: Take ten seconds of real time and slow it down and describe it in detail. The instructor Amity Gaige was very helpful and gave several examples but I still struggled. I decided to take something that had happened to my friend, Chris when he was just a lad of sixteen and the sake of lengthening the story, I made it much worse and dramatic. Luckily he and his friend Dalton was fine. BTW: I was so glad when Chris totaled that car with the hay bale. Kevin and I gave him that little Geo and after watching him drive to school one day, swerving and laughing like a lunatic with his friend Dalton in the passenger seat and his little brother Michael in the back, I felt a collision with a hay bale was the least of what could have happened. Chris has since gone to college and grown up into a responsible young man. Thank you, dear Lord Jesus! Here is my story: 

SURPRISE ON A COUNTRY ROAD
At the top of the hill, the headlights flashed shockingly upon a round, four by four-foot bale of hay directly in the path of the small car. Reflexively, the two inhabitant’s bodies stiffened in response. The young driver sucked in a harsh stream of air as he jammed his sneakered left foot hard on the flat, rubber surface of the brake pedal, pushing it completely to the floor and despite the obstacle of the floor beneath it, continued to push. The passenger mimicked the driver’s motion though he had only the floor beneath his feet. The sound of screeching brakes and flying gravel hitting the metal underbelly of the car accompanied the involuntarily screamed “Noooooo!” of the car’s passenger. While the passenger clung to the handle above his head to slow his body’s trajectory forward, the driver’s hands gripped the wheel and fruitlessly turned it sharply as the left side of the small bumper crumpled beneath the impact of metal hitting the tightly compressed hay. Hay exploded into the air around them and then began its floating descent to the gravel road.  The energy from the collision quaked through the young occupant's bodies, propelling them forward hard against their restraints briefly before the loud burst of airbags discharging from the dashboard flung them in the opposite direction, their heads smacking against the headrests. Like a slinky at the whim of a child, their bodies changed their forward and back motion to lurch harshly to the right as the landscape spun outside the window. The metal guardrail on the passenger side passed in and out of the window’s view before looming largely in the passenger window and crashing through it in a loud symphony of glass and metal that rained down upon them, leaving moonlit glints of glass embedded in soft flesh and trails of red making a slow path down the still, young faces.  

Goodbye Miss Jane

Today our community said goodbye to a very special woman. Big Pasture bus driver, Jane Green. As a teacher, I don't always get to see the homes my students come from. Picking up and dropping off children each day, Jane got a glimpse into the home life of our students. You can't imagine how important a bus driver is unless you're a kid who comes from a less than perfect home where you may never get a hug or smile. Imagine that yellow bus pulling up and opening the door is a smiling Miss Jane with a warm hello and good morning. In the life of some children, Jane's warm smile was a beacon that made their day a little brighter and my job as a teacher, a little easier. Jane treated every child, no matter who they were, (or how they behaved on her bus) with kindness and love. She leaves behind a legacy of caring and generations of children who adore her. My love and prayers go out to her husband Toby and the entire Green family. She will be greatly missed.