Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. 

Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor…

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.

Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.

~ Mother Teresa

Every morning, right after my first cup of coffee, I struggle with checking my Facebook feed. Lately all it does is make my heart catch in my throat, speed my pulse into triple digits and leave me feeling….well, a bit helpless.

I hate feeling helpless. It goes against everything I profess about ‘walking the talk’ and teaching audaciously. Feeling helpless is like taking no steps forward and ten steps back.

That’s simply something I’m not willing to do at this point in my life.

In my classroom, I see a microcosm of our world; children from different backgrounds, races and religions. College interns come to my classroom every day,  struggling with student debt and affordable housing, all while trying to work and study and figure out what they want – or will be able to – do when they graduate.

I feel it all around me – the tension, the fear in the eyes of those afraid of what is to come, and the rising sense of a societal acceptance to speak out unkindly, to group together and cast sideways glances at each other. I don’t like it. It scares me, it worries me and wakes me up from a deep sleep.

Last week, I created a ‘hope’ wall for my students. I wanted them to feel safe sharing what they hope for in their life, and I wanted to be able to make it visible.

From the hope wall:

“to make new friends”

“to do better each day”

“to make my parents proud”

“to be nicer to everyone”

“to help others to the best of my abilities”

Every day a new anonymous ‘hope’ appears. Hope for good grades, for friendship, for acceptance. Someone is hoping for a tattoo….one to be a pilot, and another to meet Alex Morgan.

I felt like this was one thing I could do to overcome feeling hopeless: I could grow hope and simultaneously, I could spread love.

For me, teaching is a service job as well as a profession where I utilize my creativity to first connect, then instruct. I’m constantly striving to creatively connect with my students, to get them to trust me – and themselves. I want to teach my students how I want my own children to be taught – I want to use this platform, this opportunity, to spread love in whatever small (and hopefully large) ways I can.

These small steps, this little bit of teaching audaciously, helps me feel less hopeless. I imagine all of us just doing a little bit, every day, to help our country move forward in love and kindness. If you’re feeling like I am, I urge you to just find one thing you love to do – take one small step forward each day to spread love wherever you go, however you can.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Happy birthday to me! This is 51…a morning spent under the glitter of Christmas tree lights and flickering candles, a hot coffee and a cuddly pup by my side. I sit and wonder how to describe my gratitude about turning another year older, scribbling in my journal as a cold rainfall trickles down the gutters and peaceful holiday tunes ease me gently into the day…

5 Gratitudes for 51 years:

I’m grateful for 51 years of growing, becoming wiser and more centered with age. Life lessons are easier to recognize now compared to in my 30s and 40s, and thinking deeply has become a routine part of my day. I’m grateful for silent nights, for comfort, for ritual and for learning to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

I’m grateful for many relationships, but mostly for my children. To say they bless me daily would be an understatement; as we age, I treasure their laughter, their logic, and their unconditional love. More than any experience, motherhood is the most transformative. Watching my 20 and 17-year-old babies blossom and branch out into the world fills me with a sense of purpose and a feeling of contribution to our world.

I’m grateful for quiet mornings; summertime when the windows are flung open to inhale the fleeting hours of soft air, springtime when the backyard orange blossoms share their perfume, autumn when the transition feels most abrupt, and winter, wrapped in fleece and fog, candles welcoming the dawn.

I’m grateful for teaching, for a job which both fills my days with learning and laughter and challenges me to be creative, compassionate and caring. Every day offers me a chance to make a teenager feel cared for – and I get so much more than I give to them.

And finally, I’m grateful for the women who came before me, women who laid the path I walk every day. Mother, grandmothers, great grandmothers, and all the strong and caring women who did what they knew how to do, I thank you. Please know that you fill my heart and mind with your love and stories, with your gentle touch and creative spirits. Because of you, I know better. And when I know better, I can do better.

Happy birthday to me. May this next year be full of joy, peace, and kindness. Thank you all for playing an important role in my life.

May I learn more, do more, and be more.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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I cannot deny it any longer – I’m in love with Chromebooks.

Chromebooks have transformed my teaching. All those times in the last 25 years when I used to say, “Well, that would be easy if I had a class set of computers” has turned into my reality.

Chromebooks have become a wonderful tool for teachers in the 21st century.

A recent article in Education World tells us that “For the first time, Chromebook sales surpassed 51% in the K-12 market nationwide in the third quarter, according to a recent report by market researcher Futuresource Consulting,” according to USA Today. Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?

Because when schools embrace Chromebooks, and teachers step out of their comfort zone to use them in their classrooms on a regular basis, students are happy. And happy students means more learning. And more learning means higher test scores…

Now, I’m certainly not a digital native. In college, I typed my thesis and remember the woes of correcting ribbon. According to Education World, “Getting teachers and students to adopt (sic) to new devices in the classroom isn’t always easy. This is where the Chromebook shines. Simplicity always makes for easier transitions into blended learning and these devices are tailored towards doing so.”

I have to agree. In my classroom, I’ve stepped up and bear-hugged those 34 Chromebook machines that reside in the front of my room. I’ve seen more experienced teachers light up after their first successful foray into Google-land. It’s taken some effort, to be sure, but here are the top four reasons why I’m in love with Chromebooks in the classroom:

1. Student access to information.

Every Monday my AVID students use a Chromebook to log into their School Loop account. They check their letter grades, view their grade trend and record the number of ‘0’ marks they have. Just like adults monitor their checkbook, having easy access to their performance information allows my students to analyze their success and plan the week. When my English students ask about missing work, or what they need to make up from an absence, they can take control by using a Chromebook. My students routinely use Chromebooks to turn in digital assignments to their School Loop account, too.

2. Improved communication.

With Chromebooks being Google based, students have the easy capability to collaborate – with each other and with their teachers. We regularly utilize Google Drive for assignments, including presentations with Google Slides, collecting data and assessing students with Google Forms, editing with Google Translate, and analyzing data with Google Sheets. When absent, I can share a document with a student and chat through the comments feature.

3. Easy ability to create projects and study tools.

Before, I was lucky to get my students into a computer lab with desktops chained to study carrels. Now with Chromebooks, my students routinely use technology as their first ‘go-to’ point for projects and study tools. They love creating study flashcards and playing review games using Quizlet. When we wrote narratives, after drafting using Google Docs, students used their Chromebooks to create professional looking books on Storybird.com. To introduce the novel The Pearl, my students used Chromebooks to create Prezis about different research topics. Chromebooks make activities like web quests easy and fun, not to mention the ease of delivering lessons through sites like TedEd and the Khan Academy.

4. Enhanced inquiry options.

Years ago I decided not to be a walking answering device. I was tired of spelling words and being asked to provide answers to factual questions. With Chromebooks, my students have learned not to even ask (“She won’t tell you, you know” they are fond of saying). Instead, they’re learning how to figure out the answers to their questions, how to be independent thinkers and learners, how to analyze information and evaluate sources. And best of all? They’re satisfying their curiosity and developing skills to take with them into all aspects of their lives.

And best of all? With increased use of Chromebooks, my students not only are feeling like school is fun and time flies in the classroom, but they are also satisfying their curiosity and developing skills to take with them into all aspects of their lives.

That’s Chromebooks for the win!

I’d love to hear your favorite ways for using Chromebooks in the classroom – drop me a comment and let me know!

I wrote this article first for  The Educator’s Room. 

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Teachers, how do you communicate with parents? Are you leveraging pro-active communication, or waiting until ‘something happens’ to make your first contact (definitely not ideal). I know a large part of the education workforce is comprised of ‘digital immigrants’, but with a little time and motivation, all teachers can (and should) utilize technology to increase communication with parents and students. It’s definitely not too late to start this school year. Here are my eight favorite ways for teachers to communicate with parents (and students) – let me know if I’ve missed one that you use, and which way is your favorite! And parents – what tools do you use to connect with your child’s teacher, and how do they reach out to you?

Still smiling after a long week of teaching!

Teacher Tips To Communicate With Parents

• Email – This is the easiest way to start communicating with parents. If your school doesn’t collect email info at registration, consider asking for it on a take-home handout, or better yet, create a Google Form (see below) and ask for it. I know teachers who send out weekly updates, communication when they start a new unit, or only email at grade reporting time. I personally like to send out proactive, positive emails at the start of the year to build my relationship with parents before anything challenging happens. Teachers can even keep documents with scripts they use on a regular basis as a template. Email is perfect for beginning digital immigrants!
• Weekly progress reports – As an AVID teacher, I require my students to utilize a weekly progress report that they take to their teachers for information about their grades and citizenship. They also set goals and track their GPA. This year I’m going to experiment with using Google forms for students to enter their data and then share with their parents. I think a running record of grades, citizenship, GPA and goals would be a great conversation starter for dinner table conversations, and by sharing it with parents, we would ensure they have seen the most current information about their child.
• School Data Systems – My school uses School Loop for grading and data, and I’ve found that updating the assignment calendar weekly and entering grades bi-weekly really has made grading conversations much more proactive and meaningful. For big assignments, I quickly enter a ‘0’ if not turned in on time; this reminder has really helped increase my turn in rate, and parents appreciate the timely feedback. I do educate my parents at BTSN about my turnaround rate for grading, and let them know that it’s not up to the minute. I remind parents to use School Loop as a conversation starter, and to have their child follow up with me (rather than the parent taking me on) so we can resolve any confusion.
• Remind – Knowing that teens respond much more readily to texts than email, I began using the Remind.com system to send communicate reminders about assignments, due dates, or just to send encouraging messages or digitally share relevant materials I come across when I’m not teaching. I love that Remind doesn’t require the sharing of phone numbers – it’s a free service that allows subscribers to send/receive text messages. Set up and subscribing are easy – and teachers can set office hours, too!
• Social Media Facebook/Instagram/Twitter – Since social media is such a part of our society in the 21st century, why not harness its reach and use to communicate what’s happening at school? I know many teachers and counselors who set up Facebook pages (separate from their personal page) to share relevant material for their students. Parents love to see what’s happening in the classroom – why not set up an Instagram account for your class and post snaps of lessons, activities, and field trips? Twitter is a fun way to showcase what’s going on at school, too.
• Websites – Blogs are a fun and easy way to communicate both informational materials as well as showcase student work. WordPress and Blogspot offer free blog space, as does Google Sites. If your school site doesn’t offer you a website, try using a blog to start one for yourself. Kidblog is another fun tool for student blogging. Digital portfolios are gaining in popularity, and I’ve set them up with both Google Sites and by creating shared folders on Google Drive – quite a few of my teacher friends use Seesaw and love it. I’ve also used YouTube to post and share class videos – you can set your channel to private and just share links with parents, too.
• Google Calendar – I love all things Google, and Google calendar is an awesome way to communicate with parents. I use it for scheduling conferences by creating a separate calendar and sharing it with families. Google calendar is also great for scheduling and communicating about field trips and special events, as well as for setting up guest speakers.
• Skype, Google Hangout – Once you’re comfortable with utilizing tech for communicating with parents, you could rely on Skype or Google Hangout for virtual conferences – it’s a perfect (and free) tool that could help you meet with parents who have trouble making it to the classroom during the school day, or could help teachers with their own small children find a more convenient time to meet with parents. There’s nothing better than face-to-face time, even if it’s virtual!

I’d love to hear your ideas for communicating with parents and teachers in the 21st century – please leave your favorite methods in the comments below!

This post originally appeared on The Educator’s Room.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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“I’ve gotta use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Donald Trump says….“And when you’re a star they let you do it,”…“Grab them by the p***y,” Donald Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Like so many of us, Donald Trump’s statement made my stomach churn. It made my mouth drop open – not in surprise that he said it (because women hear this all the time) but in shock that he got caught.

Getting caught just isn’t a thing that happens to men like him.

It’s time to let Donald Trump be the poster boy for rape culture.

Last year in my 8th-grade classroom, though, I caught one. He was one of those quiet-yet-aggressive boys. He wanted everyone to think it was someone else’s fault. He wanted to blame other people for his actions and used his juvenile logic to excuse any poor choice in behavior as being because the other person ‘didn’t like him’.

The problem is, when he grabbed a girl’s p***y right in front of me, he got caught. And boy, did he choose the wrong person to get caught by.

I yelled – and everyone got quiet. Shaking, I  sent him outside. I couldn’t look at him. My head flashed back to all sorts of times when boys/men have grabbed/yelled/fondled/brushed against/pushed/rubbed/ground themselves against me or other women.

I thought I was going to get sick. And then it got worse.

The girl – the victim – seemed oblivious. She told me it was nothing, that it was OK. That he was a friend.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing come out of this 13-year-old girl’s mouth. She was condoning rape culture before she even knew what it meant. She thought it was acceptable to be grabbed in the ass, to have her pussy reached for and owned by another 13-year-old boy.

I went ‘all mamawolfe’, as my students have tagged me, and told her why it was #notokay. How what he did was a sexual act of violence, even if he AND she claim it was nothing. I told her about how she owns her body, and no one EVER has the right to touch/grab/fondle her without her explicit consent.

I was trembling, and I was scared.

I think I scared her, too.

I could see other students straining to hear our conversation, despite my attempts at privacy. That’s not easy in a classroom full of kids. In all honesty, I wanted to stop everything and have this discussion straight up with my 8th graders. I wanted to call it out, to shout out that ‘grabbing ass’ is not EVER OK. I wanted to teach them right then that all people deserve to have personal space around their body until they INVITE someone in.

But you see, I’m just a teacher – not a parent. And yes, this was most definitely a teachable moment. And yes, my female student got my message. How could she not – just looking at the tears in my eyes, and hearing the tone of my voice, and seeing the shake of my hands, she got it.

And the boy – the perpetrator? He got it, too. He got told about sexual harassment. He got a call to his mother. He got to ‘apologize’, and then he got to come back to school just like every other day.

I wonder, though, if he’s watching the news now. I wonder if he sees how just because he’s a man he cannot and should not grab anyone’s pussy, EVER.

I wonder if he gets that he’s part of rape culture in America.

And the girl? I got to contact her mom and tell her exactly what happened and what I said to her daughter. It made me nervous, to be sure. Exposing this disgusting yet all-too-real aspect of femininity doesn’t feel like my job as a middle school teacher. But when this happens right in front of me, I realize it’s precisely my job.

It’s time to stop hiding behind ‘it’s OK:. It’s time to let Donald Trump be the poster boy for rape culture, misogyny, body shaming, and derogatory language about women.

Let’s find a silver lining around all this shameful behavior. Let’s use this as a chance to teach our children – to REMIND our children that this isn’t just a women’s issue – that this is a HUMAN issue. Let’s let this painful political season end on a note of hope – that somehow, this nasty and vile and disgusting little secret that all women have been hiding is real, and it needs to stop.

It’s happened to me more times than I can remember.

It’s happened to my friends, my sisters, and probably even my mother and grandmothers. Just look at how many women are feeling empowered to share their story now.

I hope it hasn’t happened to my 20-year-old daughter.

I fear it has.

Girls, you are not damaged. You are not to blame. You are strong and beautiful and real and smart and you need to know this is not okay. This is not how you should be treated, and don’t ever settle for someone who makes you feel like a victim. This is not locker room talk, it is not office talk, and it is not acceptable. Real men don’t grab p***y because they can.

Real men make you feel loved.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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