Weeding the garden

When they are gone, everything looks so much better.

This is why I chose the "handle" for my blog:  weeding a garden is much like improvement in one's world.  It is time to write about my extended metaphor for my life, my career, my world.

Each day in my classroom, it is my goal to improve how we write, how we speak, how we think, and ultimately, how we present ourselves to the world around us.  In English, that is done through words.  In Journalism (newspaper) and Photojournalism (yearbook), that is done through words AND presentation.

As the marking period ends, a good teacher must explain these concepts yet again - while we do it every day bit by bit, piece by piece, at some point we need to review the reasons, the method and the outcomes so that kids understand it.  I did that today with all of my classes, and I think they really understand that it's more than a numeric grade.  They have to learn how to weed their own garden - whichever one they are focused upon at the moment - and the weeds can get in the way of the beauty (or perfection) of it all.

Vision is really what it's all about.  One must define it (the beautiful garden, for example) before one can make it happen. 

I have so many gardens to weed right now, and like the gardener, I can only focus on one at a time.  In the classroom, blocks of time are set aside for each "garden" and one weeds that garden for that period of time.  But to truly make it beautiful, one may need a flashlight.

tbc.  (sorry, readers.  I am too tired to develop my metaphor tonight.  More later.)