Flexible Assignments
My biggest reason for starting this blog has to do with my passion for learning. I find it to be a travesty that so many kids become disillusioned about education and come to hate learning, but my greatest disappointment with education is finding teachers who have forgotten that learning can and is meant to be fun. I always strive to make my assignments as interesting as I can, to choose readings that I think will be the most engaging for students, but that only goes so far. The question comes, how can I instill or revitalize the desire to learn and to create among my students? How can I get them to be so excited about writing, that they begin their own blog? How do I teach them that their words can be as infectious as the great writers we all admire?
The Elluminate Energy
Presence as an online teacher is very important. I have worked 3 years now at this online academy, and we have grown a lot over those years in terms of how, when, and how often we contact our students. When I first began at online, we had a vast number of students as a teacher and usually knew almost nothing about them. I couldn’t even have told you whose paper I was grading at any point in time. As advisors we knew our kids somewhat better, but we knew the ones who came in much more so than the ones doing their work out in the “cloud.” This led to a very low success rate of our students.
Mountain Majesty
There is something unquestionably powerful about the mountains. Their presence in our world is unmistakable. I am lucky to live in the shadow of one of the world’s great mountains, and blessed by the gift to be able to visit it often. Yesterday was one such occasion. I am consistently amazed by the majestic power of Mount Rainier. I am in awe of that mountain. Every time I go, I wish I could live there: play in the mountain meadows, swim in the alpine lakes, and commune with the ecosystem of creatures that exist there.