Outside your comfort zone

One of the most important things that a STEAM/STEM teacher can do is to step outside his/her comfort zone!

As a teacher, I ask my students to take risks everyday!  Try coding...engineer design challenges...learning topics...etc...

This summer has been about me trying new things...power tools (reciprocating saw, drills, etc...)  I now get to step into the role of the learner!  I have been working on clearing out some of the brush/tree line space between my neighbors houses and ours.  We have limited tools, but an end goal in mind.  My husband or son usually use the reciprocating saw (since we do not have a chainsaw yet!), but I have used it.  Wow...I was so scared at first.  Moving to the country has changed my mindset to "I can do this".  Grit has gone up!  Self doubt has gone down.

Secondly, I volunteered twice at our local playground community build.  My ten year old wanted to volunteer, so off we went.  It was a great parent/child building.  He got to show me how to use tools like an electric drill as well as a battery powered drill.  My ten year old got to show me how to make counter sink holes, put in screws, and more!  We laughed and worked hand in hand.  I was the learner and he was my awesome teacher!

The third area of growth has been related to the garden.  I have never grown a successful garden.  Now Wattsburg Elementary School has a thriving garden with some support from awesome parents and fellow teachers!  Plus, I learned to blanch peas, beans, and argula.  Finally, I made zucchini bread. My kids ate the WHOLE loaf in less than one day.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and the payoffs are huge.

Finally, I have taking on a prayer hour at church, read books for myself, and more,

I feel that I ready to empower my students more, empathize more, and have a different outlook.  I know how scary new things can be, but how to rise to the challenge.

So how have you stepped out of your comfort zone?

Part of the train - we laid the decking

Ben demonstrating how to put in the screws!

One of the finished products from our bonding!

Summer 2018 Library Adventure

I started in the library in fall 2007.  Every summer has meant a new project or goal...carpet (in 2009), genrification, weeding, creating a STEAM program, and more!

This year has been even better with a "partner in crime".  On Wednesday, Erin and I arrived to aggressively weed the elementary library shelves.  I weed about 500 books a year, but the collection still needs work and change!  However, we walked into a carpet project.  Move all of the books from the non-fiction section off the shelves plus S - Z of the everybody section.  We have 13000 books in the library and had to move over HALF the books...so at least 6,500 books were relocated to boxes, tops of shelves, extra spots, and any other creative location.  The fun in this is that we just finished inventory and straightening the shelves in JUNE!

Shelves partly in/partly out

Moving book shelves still loaded is super tough!

Out go the shelves

"After" picture

My autographed picture of Arthur by Marc Brown

On Thursday, Erin and I took on weeding the middle school library.  The average age for the collection is 27 years old and the shelves are completely full.  We started with non-fiction, then biographies, and finally fiction.  We pulled items on a variety of criteria.

So far, we have officially weeded a total of 1832 books.  The next step is to get the list of books to be discarded sent to the school board for approval, then mark them "discarded" and black out barcodes.  Teachers have 1st choice, then students, the rest will either go to a charity or our district's Little Free Library.

Carts of weeded book

Another angle

Behind the desk...ready to weed!

1960's book with the description “Discusses modern communications equipment including teletypes, typesetters, teletypewriters, radiophones, Telstar, etc.”

1960's Wasp Book

1984 Computer Olympics book

Our goal is to give the students high-quality and high-interest items to read in the library!  Look for more updates on summer 2018's library adventures.

In addition, there are many articles on "School Library Journal" that support weeding your books!
Here is the latest...Winning at Weeding

Based on the "Office of Commonwealth Libraries", our non-fiction collection should not be older than 10 years.  See page 7 Guidelines for Pennsylvania School Libraries
WOW - lots of work to do to meet that goal (and some very empty shelves!)


BOOKS ON HEREDITY FROM 1960's and 1970's had to go!

What middle school wants to read books on meetings and meetings rules?

Fiction can be out of date as well!  Here is one example with one of the original check out slips!