New to Blogging

Today I am embarking on a new journey, one that I hope to be fun and encouraging. I have always thought about starting a blog, but like most things, I just continued to put it off due to time and life. Being an educator opens the door for many opportunities and items to talk about in a blog. I promise that I will never use real names of any of my students. If there is a name listed, it is definitely an alias I have given him/her to protect his/her identity.

My first post most definitely needs to be about my experience in education. I have been teaching for ten years. I have seen MANY changes in education in my ten years, but I am sure some of those changes will make other posts in the near future. I began teaching 7th grade reading and social studies. I was at that school for two years before going to the high school. I made the move to teach high school because I was the cheerleading coach and made the move because of that decision. I taught 11th grade United States History for three years. During my third year teaching 11th grade, I told my husband that I missed my middle school students. He looked at me like I was crazy, but said that if that was what I wanted to do then I should. So I expressed my desire to go back down to the middle school level to a teaching friend of mine at another school. It was almost instant. A position opened up at a school that afforded me the opportunity to teach middle school again. I have been there for five years now and love it. I now teach 7th grade reading and 8th grade language arts. I also teach two advanced content classes. I am glad to be "Right Down the Middle" because I know that teaching middle school students is where I am supposed to be!

I am married and have a sweet little girl. I enjoy reading any book, running, dancing, going to the beach, and spending time with my family and friends. I look forward to blogging and hope that I can keep up with it all.