Friday, August 2, 2013

It isn't as hard as you think.

My friend, Cindy, has been encouraging me to blog for almost 2 years now.  I kept putting it off until tonight.  I love shoes!  So I will probably be using a lot of analogies/connections to shoes as I blog.  As I was sitting here tonight contemplating starting a blog.....this shoe popped into my head as the perfect start.  I had to go get them from my closet right away!
This is one of my favorite pair of shoes. (Stay with me for why only 1 is pictured)  I wore this pair to school one day for our 'Red Carpet Celebration' for student growth.  All day long I heard, "Mrs. Bronn,  I love those sparkly shoes but how in the world do you walk in them? They are super high."  My answer, "It isn't as hard as you think.  See the big base at the bottom?  The heel really isn't that hard to walk in because of  the big base."
This is where I will start.  I have been in awe of learning this summer.  I have truly built a PLN with Twitter and have grown and enjoyed so many amazing teacher blogs this summer.  I feel my brain is "sparkling" with excitement, passion, & new knowledge.  This is where my 'walk' will begin.  When I first started reading other teacher blogs they seemed really 'high' above what I was ready to do.  I'm not the greatest writer and they could share thoughts so fluently & eloquently.  The more I talked with friends & my PLN I realized.  "It really isn't as hard as it looks."  I have had amazing opportunities and coworkers over the last 21 years of teaching that I have a 'big base' and now it's time to go higher, like this heel.
So tonight I will start to walk some of this sparkle out! 
I currently teach 2-6th grade gifted students.  Our district is amazing but can only afford 1 elementary teacher for gifted students at this time.  This has brought an interesting challenge for me.  I work best through collaboration and talking things out with others.  Kind of hard to do when you are the only one doing what you do.  I think it's kind of like trying to walk gracefully with only 1 of these shoes on. (Thus why I started with only 1 shoe in the picture instead of the pair)  I so needed at least 1 other shoe to balance me out.  Regular classroom teachers are pulled so many directions that I know it is hard to find time to talk to another teacher about what is going on in her classroom when the students I get from them are the few students who are actually doing well in their class.
Last year Twitter became my 'other shoe'.  It was amazing.  Every chance I got I would check my Twitter feed.  I would favorite a lot and 'lurk' way to much really.  Then in May, I slowly started responding in #chats like #tlap and tweeting on my own.  When I was frustrated I would see encouragement everywhere.  Like @RefranzDavis @BigPurpleHat or @burgessdave. I love teaching my students technology they can use to show what they are learning and I became inspired by all the wonderful things teachers in my PLN were doing all over the country. Like @ipadSammy and I've become a Techlandia junkie!   I started reading blogs of the people I followed & it energized me.  (Kleinspiration.com is one of my favorites.) I am probably more excited about teaching this year than I was 21 years ago when I first stepped into a 2nd grade classroom.  This blog is where I'll come to walk out this new journey before me.  I hope you will join me and we can be a pair of sparkle gold Aldos instead of just 1 sparkle shoe trying to walk gracefully and go higher than we ever thought possible.