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Hello,
Well I'm kind of old...47.
I teach 1st grade. I paint and draw. I copied something from somewhere else and put it below because I couldn't think what to say.........If I ever figure out how to import pictures from Picassa I will.



I enjoy reading, making art, teaching elementary school, working on things connected to my family and life.... I work on writing anecdotal stories as records of experiences teaching. You could read them at
sarahpuglisi.blogspot.com
(though you won't surprise me if you don't)...most contain grammatical error.
You also can read a few at Sarah's Notes on:
susanohanian.org
(That's a site that is worth anyone's time for it seeks to save public education. Her kindness in placing my stories there dumbfounds me.)
i write Amazon reviews I don't know why.

Currently I see education as needing effective teachers of life-learners and critical thinkers in areas of poverty and inequity,to speak out to counter/discuss/explain their realities. It would be my contention they are better able to contextualize and to address changes being legislated and orchestrated in NCLB that affect profoundly what is happening in public school classrooms.

For me, from a career teaching in areas of poverty, the current educational changes are leaving behind the very ones that deserved improvement and hope.This is in part due to over-emphasis on testing and narrowed curricular focus on test prep and basic skills. I see some of this as deliberate and some the blindness and greed of our times as well as the complexity of the issue. Those children whose stories I write are the students I served in a 24 year career.My contention is individual children are lost in this model as fixes homogenize and become bureaucratic "solutions". No art, music, science, social studies, the removal of the "doing" replaced with the "telling", "testing" and the great ASSESSMENT myth.
In the land I occupy, no literature now for the kids ,and no rich journey into thinking.

I am also a mom, have ongoing issues with GIST cancer, have syringomyelia.The later has affected me in profound ways most notably with severe daily pain and losing function of late in walking. This is defining ultimately, but it has also redefined my relationship to life. And it has stolen vitality though not the capacity to give love or want to work with those freed from temporal concerns and interested in valid, authentic meaningful communication. I'm just a fairly simple person trying to cope.

Ummmmmmmm....