My Wild Summer

Unfortunately, summer is almost over. In service starts tomorrow, and I'll be back my real life job.

As you may know, I spent my summer working at the zoo as a camp counselor, so it was pretty wild. I made animal puns all the time, and the campers LOVED IT (I think). But really, it was a wonderful summer job and I will miss all of my co-workers (animal and human). It was all the fun parts of teaching, plus animals! I'm not sure what I'll do when I don't get to visit the snapping turtle or meet a new animal visitor every day.

Our Australian friends!

My snapping turtle friend!

I also traveled to tropical Hawaii with my grandmother. Neither of us are big beach people, but we both really enjoyed the tours we did of Pearl Harbor, the island of Oahu, Iolani Palace, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The history of Hawaii is fascinating, as it is home to people from all over. America itself is a melting pot, and Hawaii exemplifies that as it has been explored and inhabited by people of many different cultures. And they all embrace the welcoming aloha spirit and strive to take care of their beautiful home. Also, I saw so many turtles and had some amazing Dole Whip. 

I was also supposed to travel to the country of Panama this summer with my dad, but we had some scheduling issues. We will now travel over Fall Break in October.

Lastly, if you are interested in helping me provide supplies for my classroom, please check out my wish list here: https://www.amazon.com/registries/custom/35FITXIC6LI46/guest-view.

I hope you all had an amazing summer and are ready for the school year!

Iolani Palace had electricity before the White House!

Turtle friend!

Aloha!

Byodo-In Temple

Exploring Oahu

Delicious Dole Whip

The volcano was smoking!

I Have a Bone to Pick

Listen, it's still summer. I don't want to think about school. However, recent events and remarks have made me think more about school than I really want to in July. No, I'm not talking about the back to school sections that are already up in stores. I'm talking about the comments of Dr. Larry Arnn and Governor Bill Lee regarding public school teachers.

In case you haven't heard, Dr. Arnn, who was hired by Tennessee's Governor Bill Lee as a charter school adviser, had these gems to say about public education: 

    "teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges"

    "education destroys generations of people"

In response, Governor Lee clarified that Dr. Arnn was not talking about Tennessee teachers, and he quickly turned a conversation about the remarks into a rant against the "left-wing agenda." It should be noted that neither Dr. Arnn nor Governor Lee have degrees in education, though Lee's wife does. Neither have worked in public schools. 

They piss me off.  In case you didn't know, teachers are pretty smart. And creative. And flexible. And responsible. We have to be to navigate the world of public education and reach our incredibly diverse students. I really would like to see both Dr. Arnn and Governor Lee teach or substitute for a day. Their comments and similar comments are part of the reason we have such a teacher and substitute shortage. Maybe they can help with that by showing how much smarter than teachers they are and modeling their ideas and methods in a classroom setting (eye roll).

Anyway, I don't want to spend anymore time on their nonsense. Please enjoy some pictures of things I did and read this month.

Also, if you are interested, here is a link for my classroom wish list: https://www.amazon.com/registries/custom/35FITXIC6LI46/guest-view.

He really likes Yosemite.

A cool, new piece at the Brooks Museum by Faig Ahmed from Azerbaijan.

Science! Evolution! Birds!

Yay! Fireworks!