Dear First Year Teacher

It’s back to school time!

Today I’m going to share an oldie but goodie.  I wrote the following list for a class I took in June of 2005.  I think it’s just as relevant today as it was back then.

Have a productive year, my teacher friends. I’m thinking of you always.Help the new ones along the way. The Good Lord knows we need them!

Survival of the First Year of Teaching

These are the important things to remember to help you survive (yes, survive) your first year of teaching.  They’re listed in no specific order of importance, because they’re all important.  Please remember the following:

1.  When you arrive at your new school, introduce yourself and always greet the office staff, custodians and aides.  They’re invaluable to you.  They can make your life easier…or NOT!

2.  Save everything.  You never know when you’re going to be asked about some random report, memo, or assessment. Don’t get rid of anything until the final report card is in the mail!

3.   Be as organized as possible.

•    Keep your files neat:

• Have a file on each student.  In that file save notes from parents.  Also save your personal notes and observations of student progress- you’ll be glad you did at report card time!

• Try to put things away after you’ve used them.  One can create a huge pile in a short amount of time.

5.  Have lesson plans ready each day, and be able to justify what it is that you’ve planned.

4.Dress for success. Dress for comfort. (HA! Try to make that work!)

6.  Take time to get to know the kids.  Talk with them at appropriate times— don’t let them

monopolize learning time with their stories.

7.  Don’t gossip or criticize.  But do vent (in an appropriate place) when necessary!

8.  Learn from your mistakes.  Think: How can I do that better?   What went well?  (and why?)  What went wrong?  (and why?)

9.   Give yourself a break.  Nobody is perfect.   Give yourself the time to master your craft.

10.  Be honest with your students and with their parents, but be tactful, too.

11.  Be in charge of what is happening in the classroom.  Don’t let students control what happens. Project confidence, even if you’re not! (That’s not to say to ignore the “teachable moment.”)

12.  Help student to learn to be responsible for their belongings and their actions.

13.  Talk to every person in the system that you think might be able to help you with a question or concern.

14.  Be flexible.  There are a lot of people who have a vested interest in these kids.  Everyone has to take turns!!!  

15.  When in doubt, ask yourself:  “Is what I’m asking of the child/ children  going to prepare them to be/make them a better citizen of  the world?”  Our ultimate goal is to give these people the skills and building blocks to become responsible, productive citizens!

And finally, from the late John Finnessey, Superintendent of Bettendorf Community Schools,  Number 16:  Be the kind of teacher who gains 20 years of experience in the first year of teaching….not the kind of teacher who teaches for 20 years, but has only one year of experience.  (circa Aug. 1996)

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine

When was was too much!

I read a lot of information, ideas, and opinions about writing. I’m always trying to improve my craft and my goal, as you may know, is to create a novel that actually gets published. If you’ve been following this blog you know that I’ve had a little luck but no real success in obtaining an agent to represent my book. So when I ran across something that suggested the writer do a word find for the (apparently) overused word ‘was’, I thought I’d give it a try. See what's what.

Oh boy.

In my 50,000 plus word-count novel, I used the word was 873 times. Yikes. Was was highlighted on the very first page EIGHT times! Er… I mean, I had used the word was eight times on the first page alone! (See how easy it is to overuse that little word?)

So, my novel, that I had revised a million times, is under yet another revision. I’ll give you an example of what I’m doing to this beast (the book) now.

 

This is how I introduced and described a character named Ed.

The man’s name was Ed, but he wasn’t about to introduce himself to this looser. Ed was not only broad shouldered, but tall too. He had a long, wide nose that looked like it may have been broken a time or two, and dark bags under his brown eyes. A black T-shirt, tight across his chest, was tucked into black Levi’s. His left arm sleeve was a testament to the far-east. Two large koi fish, one blue and one orange swam upstream through rough black waters. Around his wrist, a ring of lotus flowers fluttered from the black waves. Otto could not see his right arm in this light, but he had the impression that he probably had a full sleeve there too.

A large leather wallet was jammed in his back pocket. It was connected to his belt loop by a chain that swayed back and forth as he walked over to a Crock-Pot sitting on an old glass-topped end table. Full Contact Fighter was emblazoned across the back of his T-shirt. Ed scratched his head through a black stocking cap pulled down to his bushy black eyebrows and smoothed his Fu Manchu with his thumb. Both stall tactics that allowed him time to think. Ed scooped up a mugful of steaming, burnt smelling stew.

I used the word was eight times in those two paragraphs. Now here’s a revision, cutting the use of the word was in half, to four times.

The man’s name was Ed, but he wasn’t about to introduce himself to this looser. Ed was not only broad shouldered, but tall too. He had a long, wide nose that looked like it may have been broken a time or two, and dark bags under his brown eyes. A black T-shirt, tight across his chest, was tucked neatly into equally tight black Levi’s. His left arm sported two large koi fish, one blue and one orange swam upstream through steely waters. Around his wrist, a ring of lotus flowers fluttered through black waves- a full sleeve testament to the far-east, Otto concluded. Although he couldn’t see his right arm, Otto had the impression that he probably had a full sleeve there too.

A chain connected to a large leather wallet and his belt loop swayed back and forth as Ed walked over to a Crock-Pot sitting on an old glass-topped end table. Full Contact Fighter printed the back of his T-shirt in white block letters confirmed to Otto that this man could probably handle himself pretty well.

Ed scratched his head through a black stocking cap pulled down to his bushy black eyebrows and smoothed his Fu Manchu with his thumb. Both stall tactics that allowed him time to think, then he scooped up a mugful of steaming, burnt smelling stew.

By using the word was, I created a passive, rather than active story.  Active is more entertaining. Active writing places the reader in the story much better than passive writing does. And then I realized that I had been confusing passive with past tense.

Example:

A passive sentence goes like this:

He was walking to the gas station to buy a pack of smokes.

An active sentence goes like this:

He walked to the gas station for smokes.

Past-tense words are ones that end in –ed. Like walked, jumped, smoked.  I thought using a word like walked was passive when really it was just past tense.  By writing ‘he was walking’ I was trying to avoid passive writing when really I was only avoiding past tense words. 

In short:

Passive writing can use active, present-tense verbs.

Active writing uses past-tense verbs and that’s just the way it is. Past-tense does not mean passive.

GAA!  I hope this little tutorial doesn’t make your head spin!  It’s Live and Learn Time again (still) for me.

Gotta get back to my revisions- I’m only 30 pages in on my 165 page book.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine

Keep Calm and Work Part-Time

I am the oldest child in my family. As the first born child, I tend to be a self-starter, hard worker, and independent thinker. In my professional life I was successful, in part, because of my first born traits.

 

When retirement time came, I was ready to step out of the stressful hustle-bustle of my career and slow down a bit.  However, I knew that I would want a part time job after retirement- I couldn’t just stop everything and sit around the house watching dust bunnies grow under my couch.

And now, that time has finally come. And I love it! I’m  much less stressed and I enjoy the work I do. But you know what? It’s hard for me to control my “first born” instincts. I’m still getting used to the idea of being a peon. Being a peon is not a bad deal. Really. I do my job, I don’t have big decisions to make, therefore, I don’t have any career responsibility stress.

Except sometimes, I don’t just do my job. I’ve made the mistake of “making an executive decision,” when my job description is clearly not at that caliber. I’m still learning where the line in the sand is. I’m a hard conscientious worker and my employer appreciates that. Now if I can just mellow out and just do MY job. Only.  

The struggle is real.

So, I ask, what are you learning about yourself these days?

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine

75 Books

The Parade magazine that comes in our Sunday paper published a “summer reading issue” on June 26th. One of the articles was by author Ann Patchett. She was asked by Parade magazine to list the 75 best books of the past 75 years.  I read her list and I was not that impressed. Anyone can put together a list of best sellers. If she would have listed HER favorites, that might have been more compelling.

So I decided it would be interesting for me to do something like that. I use Goodreads to help me, yet it's still taken me a couple weeks to put my list together. The books I am sharing have all been in the top 100 most popular (not best seller, necessarily) for their year. I am only listing books that I have actually read. (If I did not read a top 100 in a particular year, I simply skipped that year.)

One caveat: Many of the books were not necessarily read by me the year they were published. Simply because A) I didn’t know how to read it yet or B) I hadn’t heard of it yet.

Oh, and one more thing: Since I was born in 1960, I thought I’d  start there and stop at 2015, however, for me 55 books was not enough. Ladies and gentlemen, this list is 75 books long!

Here. We. Go!

1960: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.

1961: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

1962: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

1963: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak,

1964: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory By Roald Dahl

1967: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.  (She started this novel when she 

was 15 and published at 17!)

1968: Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel

1969: the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

1970: Love Story by Erich Segal

1971: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone (I didn’t read 

this book until I had my one little kiddos.)

1973: Socks by Beverly Cleary

1974: Jaws by Peter Benchley

1975: Forever by Judy Blume

1977: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

1977: Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (This was my first in a long line of adult romance novels!)

1978: Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel (Used in my teaching years- a great beginner reader book!)

1979: Bunnicula by James Howe

1980: Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

1981: The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks (My last read aloud to my quickly growing kids!)

1981: Ramona Quimbly, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary

1983: Just Go to Bed by Mercer Mayer (A little critter fav in our house!)

1984: Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

1986: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

1987: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (A great kid book)

1988: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

1989: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

1991: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (The first is a series—I read them all!)

1993: The Giver by Lois Lowry

1995: Where  the Heart Is by Billie Letts

1997: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

1998: One Thousand White Women: The Journal of Mary Dodd by Jim Fergus

1999: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

2001: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2001: Deception Point by Dan Brown

2002: Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne (A kid’s book featuring time travel. I love my time travel books!)

2003: The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown

2004: The Jane Austin Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

2005: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (I read the whole series of this one too!)

2005: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2005: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

2006: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

2006: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

2006: Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

2007: The Shack by William Paul Young

2008: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read the whole series)

2009: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

2009: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

2010: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (I still can’t watch the movie…)

2010 I Am Four by Pittacus Lore (Fun Fact: Pittacus Lore is not a real person…the real author is unknown)

2010 Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

2010: The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin

2011: Divergent by Veronica Roth (Read this series too..)

2011: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (I didn’t read the others… really, this was more than enough!)

2011: The Martian by Andy Weir (This guy couldn’t get a publisher so he put his book on line chapter by chapter. It was so popular that publishers actually (finally) came to him!!!)

2011: 11/22/63 by Stephen King (A time travel novel- trying to stop the assassination of JFK. Great book!!)

2011: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

2012: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

2012: Gone Girl by Jillian Flynn

2012: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

2012: The Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Stedman

2012: The Rope by Nevada Barr (This is an origin story of how Anna Pigeon became a park ranger. There are several mysteries with her as the central character  that started way back in 2003)

2013: The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

2013: Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall

2013: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

2013: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

2013: Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

2014: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

2014: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

2014: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

2014: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

2015: Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

2015: Girl At War by Sara Novic

2015: Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

2016: Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets

There you have it! Seventy-five winners! I hope you give one (or more) of these books a try.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself

~Nadine

http://www.goodreads.com/book/popular_by_date/

Go Ahead, Read TO Your Big Kids!

* Due to technical difficulties on my part, this blog did not get posted at its scheduled time! Thanks for sticking with me, friends!*

I’m a member of an on-line Facebook magazine called Writer’s Circle.  Like all magazines, some articles appear more interesting to the reader than others.

A few days ago an article crossed my FB page that caught my attention. It was about the importance of reading out loud to your older children. The last chapter book I read to my “older” kids flashed through my mind, so I clicked on the link to find out more.

Scholastic, a well-known publisher of children’s books, hired a separate entity to find out reading habits of families with older children. The study concluded that 90 percent of parents read to their young children. (This is a good percentage! Way to go Mom and Dad!) However, the report also stated that by the age of 9, twenty percent of these same parents stopped reading to their children.

Nine-year-olds.
(Courtesy of Google images)

By the time they were just nine years old.

I think I understand how this happens. I taught this very age group. Nine-year-olds are typically in third grade. Third grade is a transition year. This is the year they’re not the babies of the school any longer—but they’re not the big kids yet, either.  Pre-school through second grade are the “baby years” of education. Lots of language/reading learning is done through songs, rhymes and games. A huge change in the delivery of reading instruction starts in third grade. By this time, most students are expected to be “good” readers. Songs and dance and rhymes and games are pared waaaay down in third grade.

Parents start to see their child grow socially, physically, and emotionally during this time. The children can read on their own, and don’t seem to need as much “cuddle time” as they once did.  This combination is the perfect set up for the demise of reading out loud to your kiddos. (It’s not your fault!)

The article contends that the reasons you read to your child(ren) when they were young, still apply to your older child(ren.) Not the least of which is having quality time in this fast, noisy world of ours!

The Indian in the Cupboard
by Lynne Reid Banks
(Courtesy of Google images)

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks was the last chapter book I read to my son and daughter.  They were in junior high, and I read it over Christmas Break that year. They didn’t sit by me. No. And I didn’t care. Each day that I read to them, Nate and Erin would flop down somewhere- gangly arms and legs akimbo- and listen to the story about the boy who had the responsibility of the life of another being, and the hard lessons that arose.

Summer is starting to fade. School is on the horizon. Pick out a good book and read it TO your big kids. They’ll love it. (Really- they just don’t show it like the littles do.)

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

I had my very first Jet Ski ride this past week. It was scary. It was fun.

Three friends and I took a girls vacation to Florida for a few days. While we were there someone (named Tara) came up with the idea to rent Jet Skis. (I’m unsure of the actual brand of personal watercraft we used, so for simplicity, we’ll just call it a jet ski- - kind of like facial tissues are called Kleenex. But I digress…)

Yum! Iowa corn-fed! Tastes just like chicken! 
(Courtesy of Google Images.)

I was less than thrilled. I don’t like deep water and I wasn’t too keen on being shark bait. But, I didn’t want to be a party-pooper, so I went along with the idea.

We rented two jet skis and rode double. Two of the girls were experienced drivers and riders.  Two of us had never been on a jet ski. So it was deemed that the experienced girls would drive us newbies around.

Tara rode with Becky. I rode with Karen. Becky is nice. Karen? Not so much.

I knew that riding with Karen would be an adventure. She’s kind of a crazy girl sometimes and even as I protested, she told me to step out of my comfort zone. 

It would be fun, she said.

 This is what I DO NOT want to happen to me!
(Courtesy of Google Images.)

As soon as we hit the end of the no wake zone she hit the gas! I thanked God right then and there that I was holding on tight. I told her that I would be super scared if I fell off and asked her not to do anything that would cause me to do so.  She honored my wish- just barely.  We went straight but we went FAST!  (No donuts! Thank Goodness!)

One time we both bounced on a big wave. Even though I was laughing, I was terrified when we separated from the seat. My zany chauffeur slowed down for a while to let me catch my breath, and from that point forward, if a big wave came our way she either slowed down, or warned me before we went through it.

Karen and me before I peed my pants. (We did wear life jackets.)

I had a blast!  I would do it again. I gave Karen a lot of grief over the next couple of days; contending that her driving abilities were less that optimal, but really, it was so much fun.

I have a pretty long list of fears. Some of them I’m trying to conquer. Some of them are better left alone. The Jet Ski Event was a step forward for me. I’m proud that I didn’t let my fear win out.

But don’t get crazy, here. I’ll never go haunted housing (again). Also, I will never para-sail.

So what fears do you want to conquer? I’ll send my friend Karen right over- she’ll take care of ya!

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine

Night Camping

The lighting of the tikis crew.

Last week I talked about camping with my book club girls. I think the real camping begins at dusk.  A dark night with a full moon gives the camping experience a little more teeth, don’t you think?

Someone's goofing off while on tiki duty.

We were walking back to the shed from the cemetery as dusk was settling in. Tiki torches had been placed around the perimeter of our camp and it was time to get them lit. The tiki torches give me a sense of security that no wild animals will wander into our camp. 

The fire, which had been burning for several hours, was now a bed of red-hot coals- perfect for our foil dinners. Our family calls the meal Hobo Stew. Some call it Hobo Dinner, still other names were bantered about but in the end it’s all the same great meal. A hamburger patty, sliced potatoes, carrots, onion, bacon and asparagus in butter, salt and pepper; all wrapped in foil and baked in the coals.

After we ate and cleaned up, we built up the fire and watched it crackle and burn. It’s that simple. Just relax and watch the fire and wait for the stars to come out.

Our moon.

Just before the moon rose above the trees we heard it. Coyotes howling in the woods. No matter how many times you’ve heard them, the cries of a pack of coyotes are unnerving.  After a few minutes they were silent and we didn’t hear them for the rest of the night.

I brought glow stick bracelets. We put them on our wrists and in our hair and took many group selfies, which pretty much did not turn out but made us laugh anyway.

We’d gotten text messages from our husbands about possible storms overnight. Because we’re such smart and resourceful women and we knew rain was a possibility, the tents were abandoned for the shed and blow up mattresses in the back of trucks with toppers.

We had a late-night snack of bananas and chocolate heated in foil over the fire, then squirted with whipped topping. Oh yum.  Then we decided to try whip topping (squirted straight into our mouth a la Tom Hanks’ character in Big style) with a Fireball chaser. That’ll cure what ails ya!

We may or may not have smoked cigars.

At 1:30 a.m. the rain started. We dashed for our respective sleeping bags and called it a night.

The scariest thing about the whole night was the very strong odor of skunk. A couple of weeks ago my husband and one of his camping buddies had a skunk come into camp. I was afraid of that happening again. I shined my huge flashlight over the perimeter to the woods several times but never caught sight of anything

.

The next day was still rainy. The grill wouldn’t work and the fire was water-logged. We had left over taco dip and Rice Krispy treats for breakfast, instead of the omelets we were planning. We packed up and were heading out when the minivan got stuck.

. 

All in all, the camp out was a huge success.The weather was warm with low humidity. It was a beautiful day and night up until it rained. We got drenched the next day, and we ended up having to get help from the men, but we had a blast at Girls Camp Out.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine