Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

I’m going by the upper road, for that still holds the sun, I’m climbing through night’s pastures where the starry rivers run: If you should think to seek me in my old dark abode, You’ll find this writing on the door, “He’s on the Upper Road.” Streams in the Desert - July 2 There are times we must move on. We've lived in a place that served a purpose. We've gotten comfortable there. We've had good times there. Yet, there are new travels ahead with a new purpose and new mission. As we've been talking on my Facebook page about whether we miss our students, I'm struck by the comments of those teachers in transition between schools. Leaving a school must have heartache in it. Every teacher I know who is a great teacher loves their kids and many colleagues at any school - no matter how tough. My Mom still shows me the platter presented to her when she left her first school. My sister still misses some of her colleagues and talks fondly of her first class at Gwinet...

It took the little boy behind me in seat 15A to realize how totally not ready I am for this. "Daddy, I'm so not scared. I'm never afraid of anything, no not nothing," the tyke says as we taxi down the runway. Just last week, I said, My son is #98 in this picture. He had a great senior year. Now, I have to let him fly.   "Yes, Kip, I'm ready. I know it is time for our son to go to college. This is a good thing, we're ready. We'll adjust and he'll still come home sometimes. Sure, it is time. I'm OK and this is a good thing." Right. I'm flying back from Dubuque, Iowa where I was presenting to 750 wonderful educators. Even there, I gave assuring words of how ready I am to move my son into his dorm at Georgia Tech today. "It is time," I said confidently, believing it. As we taxied and took off, the little boys tenor changed. "Yeeeeeeeeeeh," he said at first, excited to be airborne. But then, just ...

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a heck of a teacher dear. ;-) My trip last week to Atlanta has me thinking about the importance of speech therapy and how I'm glad I got it for one of my own children. Last week, I was at the Georgia Tech men's basketball game and sat in front of eight boys who were about ten. I admit, I'm a people watcher - but not really a people watcher but a people lover. Precious children with the world ahead of them just pull on my heart strings every time. As I sat down, the boys were getting settled and one of them commented. "Hey, look, there's girls dancing." "Hey, they don't have many clothes on." All at the same time all eight of them said. "coooooool" (I guess they were just getting to the age that it was ok to say that.) We were sitting in some great seats that my Dad got us because he supports Georgia Tech's fundraising program. At halftime, they were debating what they ...

Words are wimps I'm supposed to turn in the words for my son's annual ad today. I've been writing at 5 am. It is just one page. One page to summarize how I feel and what I want him to carry with him. But one page can't capture it. It won't. It can't. I have to pick the words that will inspire him and hope that 18 years has been enough time to tell him how much I love him and all the things that he needs to know to make it in this world. So, how can I leave a tiny piece of me on this page, so that when I'm gone, he can look at it and say ... "yeah, that's my Mom... that is what she would say to me if she were here right now." How can capture a bit of immortality -- or at least a fleeting bit, as long as he's alive, because in the end, he's the only one who will really read or care what I said. Tidal Waves of Change I was completely clueless about what this means and still am. It is kind of like playing in the surf at the bea...

Student success starts at home, but it can be tough navigating the waters of learning. In the first post in this series , I shared the facts about how success starts at home, in the last post we covered the first three items in my list of 10 tips for starting student success at home. This is a series I wrote for the Lifetime Channel that I'm also posting here on my blog. 10 Tips for Starting Student Success at Home (4-6) 4 - Success in the classroom is not just mastery of the subject matter but mastery of a child’s relationship with his/her teacher. We all have to get along with people they don't like for the rest of their life and classroom is life. Children will have bad bosses one day and they may have a bad teacher today. I am preparing them for how to deal with a bad boss when I teach them how to deal with a bad teacher. Sometimes my child can learn more from a bad teacher than a good one if they learn to be strong, do the right thing, and work hard. I cannot always i...

A cross post with my blog over at the Balancing Act on the Lifetime Channel. (View part 2 life on the Lifetime blog) The fact is that student success is more highly correlated with the parent than the teacher. A 2005 study through Harvard ( Parental Involvement and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis ) that looked at all research studies about parenting and school success found that: "Two of the patterns that emerged from the findings were that the facets of parental involvement that required a large investment of time, such as reading and communicating with one's child, and the more subtle aspects of parental involvement, such as parental style and expectations, had a greater impact on student educational outcomes than some of the more demonstrative aspects of parental involvement, such as having household rules, and parental attendance and participation at school functions." Have you ever heard the statement: "How do children spell love? T-I-M-...