C4T #1

See Mary Teach

Paper Reinforcers


Mary Worrell is a teacher from the U.S. in the Netherlands. Her most recent blog is called "Paper Reinforcers". She starts off talking about how she spent a great deal of time fooling with office supplies. She would go through phases where she would change her penmanship.  All of that was when she was younger before she was a teacher. Now she has a powerful love for technology that has taken over her previous obsessions. Her organizing hides the things that she lacks. She goes on to talk about how she came from a family of ADD and ADHD. She herself was never diagnosed but she suffered never the less. She can do almost anything except handle a deadline of writing. Which become problematic being she has professions of being a teacher and journalist. " Anyone can write, but to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. You can’t just think about writing and expect a piece of work to appear." She avoids writing altogether. Yet with her students they write daily in journals and practice freewriting. She states that it is the act of writing that is so important. You may not understand yourself until you start writing and maybe why she avoids it is because she is not ready to see those things. She has much creativity and ideas yet doesn't put anything to paper. She says she is going to go into the new year different and challenge herself to change her old ways. "remind myself: every lesson is a draft."

I found a couple of things that I really connected with in her writing.I have ADD and ADHD. I believe it plays a huge role in how I am going to teach my children. I know what it feels like to be restless and unable to sit down. I am going to provide as much physical activity as I can. I am not going to just lecture at the front of the classroom either. I love how she said “your notebook is your textbook”. I find that so very true. I feel that I would be lost without my notes to guide me. I feel as though they are more important than the textbook. I love how she engages the students with freewriting. I believe it is so beneficial to the students. I feel as though it really helps the students express their feelings and get them out so they can see them.  

Your PLN gives you more people to disappoint

She is a new teacher, teaching in a different country, and building up a new school. Her Personal Learning Network contains teachers from around the world. With so much stress from being brand new she constantly finds herself questioning everything she does. She is thankful that she has all of the teachers behind her to help through all of this but she also finds an added disappointment attached to it. She holds these teacher in a higher royalty then the others that surround her. She feels as though they are the experts.  She goes to them for advice but still feels as though she to branch away and do this on her own.

I know very little about Personal Learning Networks. So I can only imagine what they do or how much stress they could cause. I feel pressure just being in the classroom with one experienced teacher, I couldn't grasp the stress I would feel if I had a whole network of them. I do feel though that they must offer some web of confidence.