Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

Summer time for a teacher is a time when you realize that if you don't seize the day that -- bam -- 60 of them are gone before you know it and it's September. This year, I'm making plans to avoid that; in my journal, I've listed things that I want to do: join my brother's gym write (songs and stuff) do some wine tours play squash with my daughter squeeze in a 2 day camping trip read about 10 books and so on Gotta commit these things to paper -- it takes you one step closer to actually doing them. That's it; super short blog. I'm going to write a song now -- gonna call it "Summertime"

Here are some things I've learned after 22 years of teaching: It's a vocation, a calling, not a job. It takes a tremendous amount of hard work, commitment and a sense of humour to do it well. If you want to find excuses as to why you can't do better there are a lot to choose from. It's not in the budget, my admin doesn't support me, they're always changing things and on and on. If you want to find reasons to do better there are lots of those to choose from too. Right now I have 78 -- Tracey, Joel, Brooke, Rachel, Brandon, Julie, Jeff, Luke, Jordan, Cassie, Kasey, Kyle, and Joshua but to mention a few... I think you get the picture. No student wants to do badly, neither does any teacher or principal. If any of the above do do badly there's usually a reason. Unpack that reason and you can fix the problem; focus on the reason and you compound the problem. Or, like the Japanese proverb reads: It's better to fix a problem than to fix blame. People don't c...