tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71254817761049416172012-02-15T23:59:02.298-08:00Lefanim is a Hebrew word with two opposite but paradoxical meanings: "Once upon a time," and "To look to the future." As a teacher with nearly 15 years of teaching experience, my goal is to couple the lessons I've learned with the exciting and cutting-edge ideas of new educator Amanda Spence. The lesson of Lefanim is that we must know and honor our past, our roots, if we are to survive and embrace the changes the future brings in education.Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.comBlogger241100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-91550554511440056182009-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:002009-11-10T17:38:31.412-08:00

The LEA where I work has proposed a new policy for all teachers/classes that 0's can no longer be given to students for any assignment or assessment (turned in or not). Instead, a 60% will become the new 0. I have very mixed feelings about this proposed policy. I've read various things the past few years on this new trend, and right now, my PLC is doing a study on Rick Wormeli's book Fair Isn't

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-82389025350449404702009-04-19T17:56:00.000-07:002009-04-19T19:11:07.663-07:00

I'm back. Word constipation has been a challenge since early December but hopefully this post will get things moving again. Lately, I've thought a lot about new beginnings. This morning, it occurred to me that instead of trying so hard "to fix" things, perhaps I should focus on just starting over. Throw in the towel and know when it's time to say "Enough!" As a teacher but even moreso as a

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-22917129293980758302008-11-29T19:59:00.000-08:002008-11-29T20:19:18.189-08:00

I've never been particularly interested in pursuing the sweetest deals at 4:00 am on Black Friday, but yesterday, my sister Tiffany and I ventured out in the afternoon to see about finding me a pair of jeans. We wandered into Lane Bryant, but I was ready to leave in a few minutes. Seems they have completely revamped their traditional sizing. All pants now come in sizes 1 to 9 and in blue line,

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-4238560772365744952008-11-29T19:42:00.000-08:002008-11-29T19:57:20.489-08:00

Last week, a colleague/friend and I attended the NCTE National Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The focus of the convention was "Shift Happens." I went to a lot of sessions and heard a lot of speakers talk about the learning impact technology can and does indeed have on the 21st century student. As I've continued to chew on all I took in, a couple of moments of clarity have risen to the

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-17979750754474211232008-11-26T20:08:00.000-08:002008-11-26T20:27:25.984-08:00

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas music. I'm such a freak about it that yes, I confess, I've even secretly listened to it as early as August and sometimes into late January. But Thanksgiving signals the official okay that Christmas music is acceptable, so I've been uploading Christmas music onto my ipod. Thanks to Amanda, I've learned how to download songs from iTunes onto my computer and then to my

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-83445543060698622212008-11-12T19:59:00.001-08:002008-11-12T20:47:45.301-08:00

Today students in my first bell and Beta Club students packed and wrapped shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Shoebox. I really enjoy seeing the generosity of these students who relished the opportunity to make a difference. By the end of the day, there were 50 shoeboxes, and I suspect there will be a few more turned in tomorrow. Thanks to a gracious Beta parent, the shoeboxes are on their way.

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-61581095452685727432008-11-03T16:49:00.000-08:002008-11-03T18:20:16.479-08:00

So today's mandatory faculty meeting was the ubiquitous one where the insurance guy comes and attempts to persuade us to buy more health insurance, his rhetoric peppered with expressions like "Folks. . ." and "My (insert family member here) is a teacher and I know how hard . . ." and "We send you a check directly" and "Now, I heard this is a stress-free school but . . ." and so on. This speech

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-43032125511027218482008-10-19T12:28:00.000-07:002008-10-19T13:37:34.190-07:00

As I read and pondered on Valerie's last few blog posts, I began to think of the ever-popular catch phrase that we have adopted in education of "Relevance, Rigor, and Relationship". This has become somewhat of a mantra in some educational institution. I remember the first time I heard this phrase during my student teaching experience. At the time I thought that I understood all three concepts.

Amanda Spencenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-5186866413977389162008-10-19T10:36:00.001-07:002008-10-19T15:04:41.503-07:00

This past week was our school's spirit week leading up to the homecoming game last night. I know how hard our SGO sponsor, a 2nd year teacher, and the SGO student reps worked in overseeing this week's activities, so big props to them. Friday was class color day with each grade wearing the designated color. Class color day has disconcerted faculty the last few years with some of the issues

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-65269596271980255282008-10-19T10:21:00.000-07:002008-10-19T15:19:29.651-07:00

A teaching buddy of mine moved to a different school this year. Molly e-mailed to see if my colleague Linda and/or I had suggestions on how she could help US History students she has who are struggling with writing. When I copied Linda on my reply to Molly, Linda suggested I share my reply because others might be able to benefit, so I'm posting it here.Hello Linda and Val,OK - they all do their

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-20290802674282598452008-10-19T09:48:00.000-07:002008-10-19T10:20:34.100-07:00

Yesterday I had an epiphany: the power of metaphor lies not so much in the elaboration it provides but rather metaphorical thinking provides opportunity for me to articulate an understanding that I might not otherwise be able to articulate. Metaphor nominates a concept or insight. One of my teaching goals this semester has been to teach students to develop and use metaphors in their thinking

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-39560594975728918362008-10-12T12:49:00.000-07:002008-10-12T13:15:45.453-07:00

My friends Linda, Amanda and I were discussing how to balance all we teach in our classes in this 21st century. We have students who tell us that it's really not important to learn mechanics such as the rules for apostrophes because that is not truly relevant and useful knowledge in this new age of technology and 21st century skills. Sure, students can demonstrate they know the rules for

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-54906960310317464592008-10-05T10:32:00.000-07:002008-10-05T11:22:28.591-07:00

A week or so ago, one of my students asked me about the tone of the book she read for summer reading assignment: The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Part of her assignment was to describe the author's tone in the book and pull passages or diction to support her tone description. She stated in her journal that the book had absolutely no tone, something that really surprised me. I noted on her

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-2381566889846784042008-09-22T12:19:00.000-07:002008-10-03T11:00:46.488-07:00

This weekend, I decided to take a little "me" time. For the first time since school started, I spent my weekend doing exactly what I wanted to do and nothing else. On Saturday, I drug my husband to the organic food market and the Asian grocery store (a new find that I LOVE!!). Then on Sunday, after church, I perused the Internet and checked out two great tools that I have been hearing a lot of

Amanda Spencenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-78521800165205665732008-09-21T13:43:00.000-07:002008-09-21T14:00:39.916-07:00

I know it's one day early, but tomorrow is Memoir Monday, a strategy I want to borrow from one of my favorite blogs, Two Writing Teachers. Each Monday, we write a brief memoir and share on our blog. So, I've been meaning to write about the fabulous crab dinner I had with my family in August while we were on vacation. One of my students last year, Tyler, crabs and fishes with his father. His

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-2975303268646436552008-09-21T10:28:00.000-07:002008-09-21T12:03:57.952-07:00

I forgot to mention that we had a personal pledge for each of our students to sign so that we could celebrate and put them on our "Pledge Wall." This will stay up to remind our GPE students that they have committed to striving for excellence in every step of their GPE journey.

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-16747745803896018892008-09-21T09:32:00.000-07:002008-09-21T10:28:16.538-07:00

Well, a little more time has passed before I could get here and blog about how our first GPE blok went. 30 minutes was too short but we did make our students aware of the resources. And your idea to have them sign up for one-on-one tutoring sessions on how to use the sources is a good one. Sierra is so excited about how to incorporate pictures into her blog. Her blog is looking fabulous by

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-13271403473228783982008-09-06T14:24:00.000-07:002008-09-06T16:07:17.217-07:00

Don't you love it when wisdom comes right out of the mouths of our loved ones? Dave's right. So, let's go with your idea about setting up sessions for tutorials and help. Hey, we can put them on the google calendar that I'm going to figure out this weekend if it kills me. :) That way we can definitely differentiate and spend the time they're going to need one-on-one. Some of the papers on

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-39706321424316451382008-09-06T09:08:00.000-07:002008-09-06T14:35:50.022-07:00

The other day, when I was trying to find the shared drive which has been renamed, I noticed that there are some senior project papers from past years that have been saved as examples. Perhaps we could take a look at these and see what we can find. Also, maybe we could contact some of the other high schools in the area and see if they would be willing to share papers that they have saved. I think

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-4070937437862521552008-09-06T08:32:00.000-07:002008-09-06T14:41:03.449-07:00

GPE! I like it, and you're absolutely correct that we need to help our students see it as an experience in their learning journey. I agree that the pledge wall needs to be tactile to be more accessible and visible. I remember the art teacher created a very colorful and inviting goal chart last year for the couple of seniors she was advising. It charted the progress on all the subgoals of the

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-42236576689583362032008-09-05T12:02:00.000-07:002008-09-06T08:57:15.174-07:00

Today I was able to set up about ten of our advisees' accounts for delicious and gmail. The entire process took about 45 minutes. I think that it will be well worth the effort. While I was setting everything up, I had a few thoughts about more possibilities:On the students delicious accounts, we could have them place tags for research resources that we have used in the past and we know are

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-38385014495453208552008-09-04T16:21:00.000-07:002008-09-06T08:55:39.042-07:00

For me, one of the signs of really great collaboration is the positive energy and optimism I feel when walking away from a formal or informal "session." My head swirls with ideas and seeds planted each time we dialogue. Over the years, many collaborative opportunities have crossed my path (well, maybe a few I zestfully ventured off the path to discover and drag back to the main trail:) and I can

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-58200582469811990442008-09-04T05:58:00.001-07:002008-09-06T08:56:13.194-07:00

Lefanim, this word reminds me of an old, familiar pair of shoes. The fit is perfect and it provides a comfort that I think will carry us through our blogging adventure. From the beginning there has been an ease and comfort that has come naturally whenever Valerie and I have conversation about literature, life, and our common passion for teaching. My hope is that all of our blog readers will have

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125481776104941617.post-87144053961857292752008-09-03T18:51:00.000-07:002008-09-06T08:54:54.725-07:00

I guess it goes with the territory of being an English teacher, but I love words and all the vivacious possibilities of creating meaning with language. Lefanim is a Hebrew word with two opposite but paradoxical meanings: "Once upon a time," and "To look to the future." As a teacher with nearly 15 years of teaching experience, my goal is to couple the lessons I've learned with the exciting and

Valerie Personhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01752097151042870989noreply@blogger.com0