Favorite Tweets From Educational Gurus

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The educational world is filled with smart people. I must admit - all I expect them to tweet about is educational insight on just about anything.  Except for this one tweet from this "unquiet librarian".


Like Hamilton, I too aspire to write my own book, vignettes, poems, and/or memoirs.  This tweet hit home. Being a Latina, I didn't presume to believe that I would be close to my in-laws. Ever.  That is the greatest understatement. The Prays got under my skin faster than I said "I do". My father-in-law, or Suegro (as I lovingly called him), was more dear to me than any other kind soul on this earth.  My mother-in-law, Annette, was the nicest suegra ever.  (I'm only comparing to other in-laws and stories I've heard.)  I loved them very much. Unexpectedly, we lost them both within six months of each other, Annette first, to cancer. The humanity of this post solidifies the respect I have for this educational blogger and trailblazer. It makes me feel closer to her. It makes the gap between librarian majesty and librarian-in-the-making-peon disappear. We're all human. And I'm glad that this human wants to write about life like I do. Anything I read from Ms. Hamilton's feed will be revered with a little more than educational respect. 

"Experience: the most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn." - C. S. Lewis




As I stepped onto the cobblestone and beheld the ancient beauty of the Roman Forum, I breathed the Roman air and treasured the reverberation of every step. I wished I were the soles of my sandals. To walk where the ancient Romans once did. To feast my eyes and try to contain the majesty without seeming like the traditional gawking tourist. I briefly closed my eyes and imagined me all those years B.C. Imagined I too had business there. I too was celebrating the arrival of Marcus Aurelius, the glorious Julius Caesar, the victorious Marc Anthony. And the crowds to watch the gladiators. This was me two summers ago. (I'm blessed to say I walked the Roman streets twice.) I was there; I believed that time travel was real. I was living it.  I touched the walls of the colosseum.  I hugged them. I slowly looked up and above and beyond and around. I - was a time traveler.

Beside me, were the students I traveled with. They walked through the forum while staring at their phones. They knew where to step; their peripherals were stupendous. I couldn't believe it. They looked up to cross the street and then buried their gaze in their hands again. I still couldn't believe it. Here they were, walking in history... being history. Touching it. But the phone was more important - it was always more important. Everything from Whatsapp, to Twitter, to Snapchat. Couldn't they see? Surely they could make the time to plug back into life.

Lerman's Scoop talks about how this new generation of students has taken the use of technology overboard.  I've seen it. It doesn't only take over at home and with the mundane, it takes over before the wonders of the ancient world. And it's shaping who they are and how their perceive it.




Oh my goodness, gotta put it on airplane mode. God forbid the airplane crash because of me.  This was my first experience with airplane mode. Or Ohp! The stewardess said to put it on airplane mode. Hurry so she doesn't come and tell me to shut this phone off in front of all these people.  I like to compare myself to Chucky from the Nickelodeon cartoon The Rugrats. He's always cautious, always mildly paranoid.
It wasn't until my third student trip abroad that I found comfort in "checking off the grid" using this same feature. I will admit - I was thrilled to know it also saved me hundreds on my cell phone bill because every feature of the phone was deactivated.  There was no data, not network, not roaming, no texts, no nothing.
When I came across Vincent's tweet about avoiding interruptions, I thought, Hey! I had never thought of turning it on to get some work done! I think there's a time to unplug and get off the grid.  There's a sense of freedom, of release. I get this feeling when I accidentally forget my phone at home. I'm not saying that I'm always on the phone when I'm work, which I'm not, or that my work depends on me constantly being on the phone, which it doesn't, but it's still nice to know when to let go of technology.
Truth be told, the life of a teacher requires one to constantly be busy. One is always thinking, always grading, always planning. Honestly, I don't know of a successful, applied teacher who's always on his or her phone.





Mr. Barbosa: Teacher of the Year, history expert, department head, and technological genius. I wish I had a fragment of his brain. To know the things he does would make me almost invincible. It was Mr. Barbosa who first broke the technological mold when it came to experimenting with virtual reality where I teach. He orchestrated the first Google Expeditions with the College Transition classes. They had only seen videos about what their experience would be like. But when they put on the visors and were magically transported under the sea, on safari, or flying through the air, they're learning experience was completely transformed. Mr. Barbosa and his contribution to virtual reality learning was what I remembered when I saw these graham cracker visors. If these were real, he could've saved himself hundreds of dollars with graham crackers. How genius! And I also love how you can eat the visors after you're finished. Graham crackers are delicious!!!



In the hustle and bustle of life, even in a teacher's summer time, there is little thought of the less fortunate. I'm not proud to say it, and it sounds awfully selfish of a person who dedicates her life to a selfless profession.  Being desensitized to poverty is dangerous, but I believe it takes away its power. You always make it work. Growing up making ends meet, surrounded by my mother's family, and getting used to never seeing my dad came into mind when I read the following tweet:

I'm blessed to say that my father wasn't absent because of a divorce; he was always away because he had to find carpentry work outside of the valley (deep South Texas).  Regardless, his absence affected us and put something extra on my mother.  When I read the New York Times article titled, "Where Nearly Half of Pupils are Homeless, School Aims to Be Teacher, Therapist, Even Santa," I asked myself if I could be as bold and fierce. I thought of the many students whose lives are not only day to day, but hour to hour.  It's amazing to see that so many educators out there have more invested in their positions than money, tenure, or time. When an entire school has to mobilize to take care of students outside of the confines of what a school is supposed to be, it takes a whole different meaning. It canonizes the teachers, the principal, and every single person employed by that school. Every single one is a savior for each student. 
I never thought I'd become a teacher. Being a teacher is only something I played at when I was a young girl. It was dictating, shouting requests, and punishing with rulers. It wasn't until my life bent to the Fates that I realized I was called to this profession to save. To save students in any way they can be saved.  Some teachers try to save students from deeper waters than others, and some are in serious disaster areas.  Regardless of where they are, it gives me happiness to see that my colleagues get out of themselves to reach out to their students.  And although parting ways may be bittersweet, the personnel involved can always see there is a brighter future for the students whose lives they've touched. 




This Twitter page was the hippest of them all! I was incredibly gravitated to her sense of style and presentation. I wish to be this type of librarian when I grow up. One of her tweets talked about her trying to learn how to use SnapChat from her students with no success. I thought it was hilarious! When The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was on, the two young lads who created Snap Chat went on to promote it. I remember being enthralled with the idea that my posts would erase in a matter of seconds (this is before My Story and ads came into existence). It was something I wanted to learn but was skeptical about. I remember trying to learn from my students and feeling exactly the same way as Gwyneth! Luckily, a former colleague took the time to teach me the ropes. I love it! When I saw a decline in Facebook use, I tried to venture to what other technologies students were using. Snap Chat was one of them. Now that I favor information disappearing, I like Snap Chat more and more. I am eager to learn how to use Snap Chat to promote student involvement in the classroom and out of it. This How-To guide for students and parents seems promising.

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