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Welcome to the class website. I believe that a student's education is an investment in their internal personal bank account where anything is possible if a person tries, maybe gets a little help or direction along the way, and never quits. Of course, it all begins with one's attitude as experiencing success, happiness, accomplishing goals, and any other positive attribute starts with the mindset a person gives himself/herself. One other aspect to the recipe is most aptly put by Henry Ford: "Failure is only the opportunity to begin life more intelligently." It is through the victories and mistakes people make that help them learn, so the journey of learning is something not to be avoided but embraced. Plus, we must consider that we are meaning making machines who tend to impulsively judge everything in order to help us deal with the world we live in, so we will confront such inclinations to look deeper for the truth as we explore the day to day learning. In the end, students will come to reflect upon their lives and education in a manner best said by Walt Whitman: "The powerful play [of life] goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?" It is this challenge and the prior ideas that drive the work and journey my students will encounter throughout this year accompanied by all the standards we need to master in the Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening strands of the Common Core and state standards along with some extras to help round out the students. To begin this journey, let's start with the Latin phrase: "Carpe Diem." May the year each student encounters reach beyond their expectations as they grow and blossom into introspective, self-directed, confident, and powerful life-long learners.
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