Sails up and Away! - Full Speed ahead, Teachers and Sellers!

Welcome to another adventure. Winter is probably the worst time of year, for teachers and students both. 

February in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania is harsh. There's not much sunlight, energy is low. Yes... for everyone. Can we all just watch  Stranger than Fiction, Casablanca, or one episode after another of The Universe

until it gets warmer?

Teachers Pay Teachers. HUGE LIFESAVER. 

One of the bright and shining lights for me has been the TeachersPayTeachers' regional meetup, hosted by Bethany Lau of  Math and Science with Mrs. Lau,  Brynn Allison also knows as the Literary Maven, and Danielle Knight over at Study All Knight. 

The TPT Meet-Up and the Epic

This meet and greet on February 21, my first, was in many ways an epic adventure, complete with quest, epic catalogs, (or at least a brochure), epithets,  and what seemed to be like "interference of the gods."  I know you think I'm joking. It took us ONE hour to drive there in an "iron horse," - how's that for your epithet?- but over THREE hours to get back due to a dangerous snow storm. We did suspect some foul play from a wrathful god. And if not from a  wrathful god, than at least from one who probably was gambling with our lives. My guess is Bacchus. 

But neither wind, rain, fire (any R&B band actually), snow, or tumult can dissuade a group of TPT-ers from having their Regional TPT Meeting. And I for one am very grateful!

So here is a picture. We Teachers Pay Teachers attendees at the Panera Bread in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Can't we get a "Hollar" for all of the wonderful people, for the kindness, esprit de corps, and sense of  pure pluck?

And here we all are, joyful and awkwardly posed for longer than is advised by your local physician. But the photo is nice! And we all managed to fit...

Yes, We're Here to Help!

SO if you're a TEACHER like we are, exhausted by the STURM und Drang of it all and really just need a rest, well, Boy oh Boy are YOU in Luck. Whether it's the great anchor charts, flip charts, designated study guides for Gothic lit or any other genre or sub-genre, poetry annotations, labs for science, Power Points, C-V-C lessons... or well, are you getting the idea that I can go on, and on?

If we're willing to drive through a storm to see each other... imagine what we'd do to help you and your students?  

A Huge Sale is coming up on Wednesday, February 25th. 

Please visit some of these wonderful folks who I've met at the meet-up, and others who I've worked with in the past, and just gifted and wonderful creators and educators. Stop by their stores today or whenever you read this... you never know what great sale or freebie they may have in store to make your life easier! All types of products, resources, subjects, bundled items... 

OOOH, let the savings BEGIN! 

click on any Blue link in the body text, or  the logo links!

              Perfetto Writing Room              Study All Knight                       Kim Kroll

          

    Ms. Fuller's Teaching                   Carla Mcleod                          Dr. Ellen Weber 

          Adventures 

  

            

            Literary Sherri                       Brain Waves Instruction                Julie Conlon

                                       

             Life Long Learning                  Angie Kratzer                        Linda McCormick 

                   Room 213

KEEP On Teaching, Living, and Being Grateful for Each Other!

And to all my teacher friends everywhere, Thank you for what you do, everyday!

Gina, PerfettoWritingRoom (c) 

The Importance of Gratitude, During the Holidays and Year Round.

I've been a teacher for many years. Part of this time was spent as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. Years later, I am married, living in New Jersey, and creating teaching and writing materials for teacherspayteachers.

While I was in the Peace Corps...and anyone who spends their time in service I am sure can understand...that realizations assault you at all turns. Even the realizations you have at the beginning are questioned towards the end as you grow into a new person. It is true: the more you give to others, the more you receive in return. You often receive more than the people you help.

Throughout the many years of teaching, in New Jersey, as a tutor, adjunct professor, or high school teacher, and in Ethiopia at the high school level (grammar and English), I feel truly humbled.  It is an honor to teach and to be of service. I know. This is something people say all the time. "It's been an honor." You wonder, "What does that mean? That is just so disingenuous!"

But it IS an honor to help others. It is wonderful to be powerful, a mover-and-shaker, and an entrepreneur in the great and exciting world. But it is a gift to be able to help others, if only because you receive such a depth of satisfaction. It is humbling to know people in a more intimate way, to be allowed to help them, and to feel the reward knowing you had some small measure of agency in helping them grow or improve. THAT is why it is humbling and an honor. That is why to say "It's been an honor" is honest and not a lie.

To be a nurse, a teacher, anyone who helps others, and yes, a person who creates and makes things and puts them new into the world can feel this kind of gratitude about life and the work they do...


BUT HOW TO SUSTAIN A SENSE OF GRATITUDE IN YOUR JOB?
How do you keep feeling this way, when your students don't do their homework, the other teachers are really keen on entering your classroom to complain, the parents keep insisting their child did SO much better last year, implying it just might be your fault, or the upper management is not being nearly as supportive as you'd like?

The key to keeping a sense of gratitude is keeping above the daily grind, the annoyances, the pesky irritants.  Focus on why you ARE a teacher, what you love, and what you have and are grateful for.
Know why you are a teacher and be grateful for that, for your students, for all of the things you are, and can do and can change in the world and in your class. If you focus more on what you are thankful for, you will be happier and more productive. Also, you will concern yourself less with those things that annoy you and cannot be changed. Superintendents may come and go. Do you want to be grateful for the new books, the student who finally came out of her shell, and the angry student who did her homework every day this week, or do you want to feel shortchanged because the Superintendent changed the rule and now everyone has to go to school? Remember that you have chosen this job. If this is the case, you are free to "un-choose" it. Would you really do that? If not, then your time would be better spent HAPPY and grateful for what you DO have, and spent thinking about what you can do to make it even better.

HOW TO SUSTAIN A SENSE OF GREATITUDE IN LIFE?
To focus on what one DOES have, instead of what one WISHES to have, what one WANTS, what one does not have or worse yet, what others have, is a recipe for disaster. The idea of being grateful, in oneself, for what one has, to God, or for one's family or situation, very much seems saccharine and corny and also THEMED for the Thanksgiving and Christmas rush, conveniently sandwiched in between pumpkins  in October, and the need to join your local gym in January. Nothing could be more off or slant.

The happiest people are those that take time. Time to breathe and to realize "I am here, alive, and breathing. And right now all is exactly as it should be." Though this is for writers, teachers, designers, creators of all stripes, EVERYONE should know that all you have is enough. If you have a person to love, if you have food on the table, if you are warm enough at night, and if you can find some joy in the work that you do and the things that you create, be grateful for it, and practice focusing on those things that you DO have. The world will notice! You will notice, your family, customers, students will notice. And if gratitude is something you only do for a day, when then shame on the advertising executives.

GRATITUDE CAVEATS
PLEASE, don't misunderstand. I fall off the wagon all the time. Being grateful takes practice. My husband drives me crazy. I drive down the highway and someone veers over into my lane. While I usually feel bad because I just know through this Italian intuition of mine that it has to be an old person who can't drive very well, on this particular day I am incensed and frustrated and yell out in my car "Oh Yeah? Sure, why don't you just drive wherever you feel like it?"

Then I'm in Shop Rite, notorious for having small aisles (is this just near me?) and of course I'm in a rush and people love planting their cart in the center of the aisle to just stand and stare. This doesn't even make me upset. It's the maneuvering of the cart around them; there are always boxes of food not yet put away. Then another shopper shows up, and looks as me as if I'm in the way.

THE TAKE AWAY
And yet, I too try to feel grateful. In the end, character is what you do when no one in looking. No one may truly know if you practice being grateful for others year-round. But inside, you will know. You will feel lighter and happier. The carts and cars, the people by the water cooler or coffee station may simply not bother you as much. There is a freedom in that. And we return to the beginning, in doing something for others, we will get much more in return. Freedom, happiness, peace of mind? I'll take that everyday and twice on Sunday!