Going with a Frog-Theme for Tonight with Optimism and Hope for All the Peepers Who May Have Sprung to Life a Little Too Soon

I hit the lottery by choosing Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius, to pair with Beers and Probst, Disrupting Thinking, and K. Hinchman and H.K. Sheridan-Thomas's Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction. This is probably my 12th time teaching this particular course and shifting to Gholdy's book and changing it up for a new Beers & Probst one may be the best decision I've made as an instructor. Every word of each chapter talks with the others, and I'm in awe at how much influence this has on the products created by my graduate students and the ways they are already thinking about instruction.

Of course, Alfred Tatum remains central to the framing of the class through the promotion of textual lineages - it is the heartbeat. Always props to him.

Whenever I sit down in a panic to think through what I'm going to do to build upon the previous weeks, the authors simply provide all the language and thinking I need. I simply can point to them and conduct in-class activities that are logical, timely, and relevant. 

Now, today is also National Goof Off Day, and I was thinking about the poor tree frogs, the peepers, who came out of their winter rest to start singing love music over the weekend. They have been extremely loud and beautiful. I worry, though, because winter always returns and the warm temperatures are unlikely to remain. It's not as harsh as Syracuse and I remember fearing for frozen peepers on my tiny house on Eastman Ave. They would freeze, yes, but also would thaw. I just don't want them harmed.

And each week I choose a theme of photographs to frame the conversations and although I thought of spring flowers to freshen the mood, I went with a frog theme, hosting a different piece of frog art for each slide. I was thrilled to find Kermit in a photograph when I typed "Frogs Learning" in Google. He will help me to round a grand slam for the evenings shenanigans.

It's not shenanigans, really, but if there's one thing I try to leave my classes with, it is joy...that learning can be fun, and that humans are better humans when they are enjoying their learning and growing together (tears fall from pain, but also from laughter). 

I also benefit from joy, especially after a spring break that was loaded with work and the absolute panic that there is no time to accomplish all that needs to be done this week. It is an overly loaded (and serious) one. I just hope to maintain my integrity and leadership.

So, Kermit, I'm channeling you. You were center of the Muppet Show and have always been a daemon of sorts to me....frogs it will be. With some goofiness. It's serious work, but when things get most intense, my natural instinct is to find a way to laugh...or at least hope to. Today, I begin with a spastic Kermie yay!