Whispering Shadow

I finally struck of the most important of my to do list. It said "Make a comprehensive to-do list." I have always been a 'lists' person. I make lists both for work and personal life. My dependence on them has increased more as a teacher because there is always much to do and much more gets added every single day. If you want to make the most of everyday, I feel it is best you don't spend time drifting through the seconds, minutes and hours. I was struggling to cope up with the first few days of school as I was taking it one day at a time considering the flurry of changes in plans and classroom structure. I was also suffering from the hangover of a superb holiday. Three days of school and not surprisingly, the latter has disappeared. I have spent the whole of last evening on my action plan. Now that I have the to-do list, I suddenly find there is more mind space to focus on 'doing' rather than 'thinking about doing'. Not that all the tasks ar...

Being the person I am, I am continuously discontent with the state of things unless they reach near perfection. Some people work till they get it right. Some people work till they never get it wrong. I fall in the latter category. The role of a teacher has put this spirit to test  - and frankly - I find it incredibly hard to be gentle on myself. However, in accordance with my mid-term self-assessment, I want to take note of positives that have been in this semester: 1) The Artists Project:  We started a project where kids are exposed to and trained in one of four art skills - dancing and drama, art and crafts, painting or public speaking for leadership. We only managed to have the selections and introductory sessions in this semester - and I am happy that the kids left the rooms excited waiting to see what was in store for them next semester. 2) Keeping the bar high:  I set extremely high expectations with my class. I was strict with the rules and task adherence. The...

I was telling her about my lesson on "Characteristics of Living Things" in which I taught my kids about 7 vital characteristics which all living things show - nutrition, reproduction, respiration, growth, movement, excretion and sensitivity. There were seven, yes, but these seven did not explain how the basic element 'fire' was not a living thing. Being neuroscientist in the making, I thought she would have a better answer for KIDS. She left me with an answer and an afterthought. This was what she told me: First of all, these seven characteristics are not shown by ALL living things. For example, viruses do not show most of them. Viruses are said to be the bridge between the non living and the living. You should read these articles I am sending you to understand that. Secondly, the most consistent and measurable characteristic of a living things that their level of entropy actively keeps reducing. And then I get a quote from the wiki article stating: Later, b...