the osc blog: May 2014

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Understanding by Design

Last week was teacher appreciation week, hopefully you told your inspiring educators how you feel. I did. Ms. Pilon was a great inspiration in me wanting to become a teacher. She was, and still is, such a committed educator who genuinely cared about the content and her students that I aspired to be like that when I made my decision to be a teacher. At sixteen, I told myself I wanted to become a teacher, and since then every career-oriented decision has been driven by that.

It was as if at that age that I realized what I was designed to do. It made sense. I've always enjoyed people, I like speaking in front of people and showing what I know so that they would know those things as well. Once that moment clicked it never unclicked. However, because it came to me at an age where choosing a college major and making other decisions came soon after, I felt I had some things figured out before many peers. This causes me at times to be not relatable. For example, I have young relatives whom are "lost," but the age at which they feel lost in what they're supposed to do, I had finished college and was well on my way to my own classroom. Not trying to toot my own horn, and one would think they would turn to me to ask me about their direction, but quite the opposite. I've been seen as the anomaly who was exempt from some treacherous soul-searching mountain climb. What's funny is that I've know people who have it way more figured out than I do, and I feel the same way about them. I suppose we all feel that way about someone.

As I reach the halfway point of aptly reading Little Women with my sixth graders, I think about their directions. I'm positive that among them are those who already have a plan in place and those whose plan will unfold with life experiences. Either way, my belief that everything happens for a reason stays true.

I sent Ms. Pilon a message saying that she was that influence.

P.S. My friend Yaya wrote an amazing blog that just got published, congrats: http://www.childrensrights.org/news-events/cr-blog/building-the-strength-to-speak-up/

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Theron and the Millennials

I was watching Charlize Theron host SNL last night and she mentioned that the last time she hosted the show was in 2000, fourteen years ago. This led me to the thought process of how I think of my students and the fact that they are millennials leaves less and less common ground. In other words, I'm getting older and the gap is getting bigger. This wasn't just prompted by last night SNL's episode, but it was also prompter back in the last day of April. The typical joke is that Justin Timberlake meme mentioned that "It's Gonna be May," a spin off of the NSync song, "It's Gonna Be Me" poking fun at Timberlake's pronunciation. I digress, when I showed the meme to my coworker, she led me to a Buzzfeed list that mentioned this that the graduating class of 2018 high schooler will not know. The list can be found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/extremely-upsetting-facts-about-the-class-of-2018
It mentions how they don't know that Destiny's Child is a trio, or at all. It came full circle as Charlize Theron mentioned how she was in a skit where she played a member of Gemini's Twins in 2000, an SNL group made to parody Destiny's Child.

Funny how those things go, but some things stay universal among the generations. For example, my niece's favorite franchise, which is all things Oz, came to life as we saw the theater production of "The Wizard of Oz." We got to meet the cast as well, it was great fun.