Not What Is Missing-What is Going Right

 S is making me a cake for my birthday. She is looking for the plate. "You don't want to miss your birthday party. You want to celebrate it. I'm decorating it." You have to remember these moments. You can't dwell on all the disappointments and lack of connection with people because there are these moments too. Where you feel perfectly happy and fulfilled. The way the psyche works and the way the memory works is that it searches out when something is wrong and you forget when things are going right. I have so much to be thankful for. 

The inbox is always full. The house always needs to be cleaned. No of this will matter when your life is over. Who will be there at the end? Who will you think about and a smile will come to your face? Where will I go after I die. How old will I be when I die and how old will my kids be? Will they remember me with fondness? Will we be close until the end? I am not close with my parents. Was I ever close? We used to watch Sunday football games. We used to go to my soccer games and vacations together and we/I felt happy. We used to swim in the pool together and have bbq meals in the hot summer nights. 

How do you know if someone in your family really loves you and it's not just fulfilling the minimal family obligations? Who would really go out on a line for you? Who would stand by you when the chips are down? I saw who supported me when I was going through marriage challenges. When I called in that parking lot to tell my parents what had happened I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. There was not a human being on the other end of that line. 

I have learned certain lessons of compassion from all the different kinds of books I've read. I have a flexibility with people and a willingness to see things from his or her point of view. 

I have been a teacher for 15 years. I have had many positive experiences with students. I have tried coaching soccer, teaching advanced classes, starting classes, advising clubs, going to trainings and signing up for professional development. I have worked hard to build up my classroom library. 

What are the techniques or teaching philosophy ideas that I keep coming back to? Choice in reading and writing. Students learn writing by writing. Quickwrites. Gradeless classroom with maximum feedback while they are writing drafts. Writing conferences. Reading conferences. Book talks.