One Wild and Precious Life

I was sitting in the library a couple days ago trying to figure out how I could make shelf dividers for the non-fiction books (which I FINALLY got sorted--but more on that in a minute).  As I strolled around looking at what I had available to me, I was suddenly flooded with memories of my grandma Hettenhaus.  It took me a minute, but I realized that what was coming back to me was all the time that I spent with her during my summer breaks and the work that I would do with her.  Grandma watched us during summers when mom and dad were at work and being grandma, there was no way I was going to spend those days doing nothing.  She'd take me to work with her at our grade school where she did things like strip and refinish the floors.  She made me work with her in her garden or do chores around the house.  She'd send me off to farms to help pick stones or bale hay.  I helped her fix things--and learned how to make do with what was at hand.   It was ...

 In this second year of service, I think I'm not alone in thinking about what I'm going to leave behind--what impact will my time here have?  I hope that one of the biggest impacts I have is showing the kids that I work with that they are valuable, loved, and that there are adults who will listen to them and who will not beat them.  I also hope that my students will be better readers and that they will want to continue to engage with books and learning after I leave.  I also hope to leave the teachers with a literacy resource center with teaching materials and equipment that support them.  So what has been happening in the last few weeks to help in laying these tracks? Recently, I was working with one of my small groups and had so many "proud teacher" moments.  We had spent the lesson working through a text that was challenging for them--I knew it was going to be a hard task.  But we did a group reading together and they worked hard to sound out all of...