Spring Hopping: Rock Springs

My daughter never wants a big birthday party. I always ask her...bowling, roller-skating...etc. She either wants one at home or at a park. This year she wanted to do one at Rock Springs at Kelly Park. We spring hop quite often since Florida is home to over 500 natural springs. Water temperatures in the spring year-round are about 72 degrees.  Weather is quite tricky in Florida in the winter. It can go from 80's to 60's to 40's quite easily when a cold front comes in. It makes planning her outdoors birthday quite tricky too. During the midst of one outdoor party at a park we had to do an in the midst location switch due to a cold front. Therefore we put her celebration off this year until March.

When I stood at the spring-head to jump in, I was shocked by how warm the water felt. It was an illusion of temperatures. In the summer the spring is still 72 degrees yet feels freezing in contrast to to the 90 degree temperature. It was amazing today where the water at 72 degrees was warmer than the air temperature. We had the run and the pool to ourselves which also made our day special.

During the later spring months and summer months this park often closes by ten am due to the sheer number of visitors.  This spring is a great first spring for people with small children.  There is a small sandy beach and a shallow wading area.  Older kids and adults enjoy the run and there are two of them.  The water is never above your waist in depth, but the run is swift and the water sparkling clear.  This spring is a local park.  You can get an entire carload in for $5 which is not what it would cost at another type of park for which Orlando is famous.  There are also hiking trails and campsites as well as ample picnic tables and grills.  Also there is no restriction on the type of floats that you can bring in, noodles or plastic floats, but they must be no longer than 5 feet in length.  The next time that you are wondering what to do, pack your cooler, flippers, and suit and head to the spring!

Transformation

I have wanted to teach myself how to make an infographic for the past two years. I finally had the time and patience to do so this afternoon. I used piktochart to make this. It took as long as I typically compose a post. I am so proud of what I learned how to do today! I hope you enjoy the titles I shared. They have influenced my life and my teaching too. Happy Friday!

Stories Needed!

A bionic-zombie super-teacher is how I often describe myself.  My faulty pancreas has been replaced by an electronic device, an insulin pump, and my right knee functions well due to a cadaver ACL tendon. I am strong and healthy and I am lucky to have an amazing health insurance.

Less than two weeks ago I upgraded my Animas Ping to the newly FDA approved Animas Vibe. It combines two machines, a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin pump into one device.  On the surface the Vibe and the Ping look quite the same.  The Vibe, however, is new and improved.  It receives data every five minutes from a wireless transmitter that I wear.  It is the best on the market according to my healthcare provider and the deviation from my actual blood glucose to the device readout is only about 9%.  I get high alerts. I get low alerts. I get fancy graphs that show my BG from one hour to the past 24 hours.

I still, however, haven't harnessed  the power of the all the data pieces. It was still too new for my HCP and I to use it appropriately to make some decisions when we visited this week. I now receive 288 blood glucose readings a day whereas I used to only have 6-8.  That is a ton of data to digest. Despite all of the data, the points are all irrelevant if she and I have no idea about my daily routines or any thing that may have made outlier data appear as we examine the readings for patterns.  The data matters; the story matters in both my personal and professional life.

I like to keep my data in mind as I muddle through student data in my job.  I am responsible for 1200 students who are in reading classes at our school.  I am bombarded with data.  Data from reading programs. Data from kids' pasts.  Data from other schools. Data from the state.  I am transformed by my students and their stories, their struggle.   I am challenged constantly to make sense of it all with their teachers. We muddle through the data and our instructional stories each day to make decisions As we enter into what has evolved into  testing season formerly known as spring, we need to be the teller of our story since everyone will learn about the data, but we know they need they story.
How will you share your story?

Eye-Spy

Enjoy two winter scenes from my Florida Sunday Runday! 

Mindset: What's Holding You Back?

What do you believe about yourself that you would like to change today?  I once thought that I wasn't a writer.  I was competent at it. I even wrote a dissertation with that belief system about myself as not a writer. No matter I still didn't see myself as a writer and wouldn't describe myself that way.  My belief changed when I started participating in the Slice of Life blogging challenge.  I got plenty of practice. I had a goal.  I received feedback. I put my time there. Now I believe in myself as a writer.

My daughter sees herself as not a writer and not a mathematician. When my daughter struggled writing her essay on Sunday night, she said, "I am just not a good writer."  I agreed with her!  As you are gasping to yourself about what a horrible parent I am,  stop now! I continued with these words, "As long as you believe that about yourself, it will be true."  I believe that!  I understand how her belief system will limit her growth in this area based on Carol Dweck's work, Mindset . I understand that not only does she need to practice writing but also rethink what she believes about herself as a writer.

Part of my job is motivating people and part of my life work is motivating myself.  Books like Dweck's Mindset inform me about my work and my world. At the core of Dweck's work is the idea that individuals can have fixed or growth mindset.  You don't necessarily have to be all one or the other. You might have a fixed mindset about certain aspects about yourself and growth mindsets for others.  What I find most interesting is that I have a growth mindset about my professional life and am constantly learning every day. Yet personally I limit myself personally.  "

I've been thinking about my mindset for the past two months and what changes I would like to make. I didn't set any New Year's resolutions and I didn't even choose my one little word this year.  I do know what I need to accomplish for myself personally.  Part of that challenge is grappling with my thinking about my issues.  I have a fixed mindset about some aspects of my personal life and that affects my behavior and my choices.  I have rendered myself powerless in some areas giving my locus of control away to external factors when I actually do have the power. I just need to shift my mindset.     One that I am currently grappling with is the belief that I am not a runner.  I am a runner, not the kind of runner that I would like to be yet.  In fact that one little key word, "yet" is a way to begin to challenge a fixed mindset when you hear or say the I can'ts or I am nots. The most important idea from Dweck's research is that we can change our mindset and help
 our students change theirs.  It just takes work.

Questions that I would like to keep thinking about.....

What are we communicating to kids as we, their English teacher say, "There is a reason I am not the math teacher? "

Where do our mindsets initially evolve from...when things become hard and we don't see improvement?  I remember being shocked when my daughter at 18 months said that she wasn't good at math.

A question that I would love you, my reader to think about...

What mindset would you consider beginning to unfix today?  

Orlando Wetlands

Some people come for the beaches, some for Disney, and some for the Orlando Wetlands Park. Who could imagine that a reclaimed water plant could actually be an amazing park to discover Florida?   It is the largest water reclamation plant in the world at over 1600 acres.  I know what you are thinking...reclaimed water??? Yuck!  What you will actually discover is one of the most gorgeous settings in Florida.  The water in this park is eventually released into the St. Johns River after it is processed through the cells.  

My friend Mary took me there in early November and I could not wait to go back.  It is closed from November 15th-January 31st as the owners retained the hunting rights to it. Otherwise it is a wonderful place to bike or hike via the berms.  There is an outlook now that brings you above the treeline for a unique view.  You will often find volunteers leading hikes on the weekend which is a great way to learn about the wildlife, flora, and fauna in the park.  Located in Christmas, Florida, northeast of Disney and southwest of NASA, you will be shocked about how nature has taken its land back.  

Gators loll near the banks.  Birds swoop for the fish and butterflies flit from flower to flower.  If you are reading this from snow-covered place, I am sure it is hard to imagine the lush Florida wetlands that are part of the water management system that I explored again last weekend in the 70 degree weather.  Our winter is truly the best time to be outside.  Bugs are at an all-time low and you won't sweat to death.  If you are here in Orlando, make a weekend plan to check out the wetlands park.  Pack water and a lunch, you won't be disappointed.  

It's Time to Write Again!

Today kicks off my fourth year participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge hosted by the teachers at Two Writing Teachers.  I look forward to reading the posts of new and seasoned participants. I created my blog in 2011 and posted exactly once. The following spring my friend Lee Ann invited me to participate in the challenge with her and I successfully completed 31 slices as well as more that year.  From that experience I co-created a slice challenge with my freshmen students and have since expanded by including blogging as a study of digital writing in the class that I teach to future teachers at the University of Central Florida. 

I have always considered myself more of a reader than a writer, but through the SOLC I discovered that my writing improved.  I can't say that I like it anymore than reading, but with anything that you put your time and attention to, you get better.  I didn't know that the power of your feedback through comments would matter so much and it does.  Through my personal growth as a writer, I have been able to bring what I learned about writing to my students and have in turned inspired their self-confidence in writing.  .  

I am excited to continue that journey this spring and look forward to learning and growing from all the participants in this slice challenge! Happy 1st Slice 2015!  Thank you Stacey and your community of teachers for continuing to put your energy here!  It matters!