Puff the Magic Dragon

Time to start up the blog again.  I grew up listening to my parent’s music, and Peter, Paul and Mary were some of my favorites.  I recently bought a Peter, Paul and Mary album on iTunes, and it’s wonderful.  For many years, I have had a pretty strong emotional reaction to “Puff the Magic Dragon”.  It’s the line “a dragon lives forever, but not so little boys…”  Today, it struck me, that I can feel around here a bit and probably uncover something.  Quite obviously it has something to do with fear of growing up.  That is not a new concept for me, but there is more to it.  It’s a separation thing.  “Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave.”  I never believed in lifelong friends.  I could do it myself, and I could do it better.  That belief does not serve me.  Can’t beat it away with a hammer.  Can’t use dynamite.  Gotta let is slide off like a rotten mushroom.  Like water off a duck’s back.  Like hot fudge on mint chip ice cream.  Easy.

5 days a week my body is a temple. The other two  it's an amusement park._1314001101155

IN other news, I’ve recently been advised to treat my body as a temple.  Which I am enjoying playing with.   Hot baths and candles and broccoli and mac and cheese.  My body loves me.  I love it.  And with a little intention and focus, it’s fun to treat myself. Hot stone massage tomorrow!

Oh, and I think there’s another thing about Puff.  Part of my not growing up.  It’s because it says “not so little boys”.  I lived as a boy in my head for the first few years of my life.  I remember the day my mom told me I had to wear a shirt to go outside, and my brother didn’t have to.  And I decided that my life was now limited.  I really was a girl, and that sucked.

Here’s to the beliefs that are floating away today…that my life is limited…that I can do it better by myself…that my body is a garbage pail.

Hello abundance!  Hello cooperative creation!  Hello temple of myself.  Feels good.

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A veteran teacher turned coach shadows 2 students for 2 days – a sobering lesson learned

This is so helpful. It keeps me strong in my desire to get kids up and talking.

Granted, and...

The following account comes from a veteran HS teacher who just became a Coach in her building. Because her experience is so vivid and sobering I have kept her identity anonymous. But nothing she describes is any different than my own experience in sitting in HS classes for long periods of time. And this report of course accords fully with the results of our student surveys. 

I have made a terrible mistake.

I waited fourteen years to do something that I should have done my first year of teaching: shadow a student for a day. It was so eye-opening that I wish I could go back to every class of students I ever had right now and change a minimum of ten things – the layout, the lesson plan, the checks for understanding. Most of it!

This is the first year I am working in a school but not teaching…

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