I can, I shall – I did! #1000in2014

I just completed another 500 miles in 2014.  After doing my first 500 I decided to do it again.  I want to see you and your students also set goals but keep at them and reach what you have set out to accomplish.

Set goals, design mission and vision statements but focus on what you have done and reflect periodically making the necessary adjustments. This is a follow up to my previous blog post “Setting Goals and Reflection

There were days that I was at first not motivated to get outside and do my walk/jog/run morning activity but I persevered.  The following chats, etc. helped keep me going:

The Breakfast Chat #530   I look forward to this spark chat (5:30-5:45am EST – Mon-Fri.).  It gets my Twitter day started.  Luckily I don’t need or like coffee as I am wide away when I arise (yes, I do sleep a few hours).  After the chat I would hit the road.  It was dark before we set the clocks back.  I got to see students waiting for their school buses at 6:15am, horses grazing and then the beautiful sunrises. I try to make it home to prepare coffee for my wife when she gets up.

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On Saturdays I try to get my usual minimum of 4 miles in before the very stimulating #satchat for educational leaders (7:30am EST/PST).

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Sundays it is easier as #sunchat starts at 9:00am EST.

My Walk Tracker Pro app also was a great help to keep me motivated as it tracked my mileage and spurred me on to complete my miles in less than 13 minutes.

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One of my heroes is @Principal_EL and it was a tweet by him in January that alerted me to the #500in2014.  He set out to accomplish this feat but got injured along the way. It definitely slowed him up but he did not give up and is back on track. Also have to give shoutouts to @Vroom6 who also came back from an injury.  And I could not leave out @WonderingWinter who had to put up with the climate of Vietnam to complete her #500in2014

Here is an update on the progress of the original 52 of the #500in2014

13 have completed 500 miles in 2014

4 have completed 1000 miles in 2014

I wonder if this is the same percentage of people who make New Year Resolutions and then keep them.

I am worried as we are not in shape physically, mentally or educationally.  It is easy to make resolutions, mission or vision statements but living up to them should be our goal.

 

 

Read Across America – Read Across States

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” 

I truly enjoyed reading The Cat in the Hat Comes Back by Dr. Seuss to five classes of students in a Google Hangout whose wonderful teachers are:

Amy Pratt @apratt5 – Texas

Paula Naugle @plnaugle – Louisiana

Nancy Carroll @ncarroll24 – Massachusetts

Jennifer Regruth @JennRegruth – Indiana

William Krakower @wkrakower – New Jersey

We were also joined by Sandra Paul @spaul6414 Director of Technology.

Before the show began I had no trouble figuring out which class was from Indiana as one student had a Colt’s sweatshirt on and in another class a young man was wearing a Dallas Cowboy shirt so that must have been the Texas class!  The real surprise were the students in Paula Naugle’s class all wearing paper hats just like the Cat in the Hat.

To begin I decided to give the students a little background.  Not only did Theodor Seuss Geisel who we know as Dr. Seuss was born (March 2, 1904) in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts so was my wonderful wife Gail.  As a child I had visited Springfield to visit my great uncle and cousins.  In fact, it was only a couple of blocks away from where Gail grew up.  Who would have known Springfield would play such a big role in my life? 

I told the students that Dr. Seuss grew up near one of the largest municipal parks in the United States.  Yes, Forest Park contains over 700 acres.  It now has baseball diamonds, an ice skating rink, one of the first public pools in the country, ponds, lawn bowling, bocci, a rose garden, dinosaur tracks and a zoo.  Dr. Seuss’s father was in charge of all of the parks in the city.  I am sure his son spent a lot of time at the zoo in the Forest Park.  Reading his books he did take a lot from his experiences growing up.  The animals at the zoo (elephants…), motorcycle (Indian motorcycles were built in Springfield and yes there is a Mulberry Street.

We used to spend our summers in Springfield at my father-in-law’s home right across the street from Forest Park.  Our children went to day camp in the Springfield area.  I can remember several years where I can to commute from my summer job in New York to Springfield on weekends.  One summer I even got a job at the local college teaching computers in a summer program that my daughter attended.

Since The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was written in 1958 I had to explain that the $10.00 shoes were expensive then.  An average price of shoes nowadays would be at least $60.00.

I also told the children about my mischievous grandcat.  He is far different from the mild mannered cats that my children grew up with.  Yes, during the story The Cat in the Hat sure caused a lot of trouble but lucky he had his little cat friends to restore everything to normal.

I want to compliment all the children and their teachers as my audience was excellent.  If you haven’t tried a Google Hangout  (My Google Hangout page: http://cybraryman.com/googlehangout.html) I highly recommend them.  You can get 10 people or classes at one time. 

My Dr. Seuss page contains the YouTube of my reading as well as lot of great activities and lessons.

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

Model Fitness and Good Health

Yes, we must prepare our students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and to be able to collaborate on a global level but I feel more important we want them to learn how to be healthy.  Children need to eat properly and exercise in order for their growth and healthy development. This is a lifelong skill that I feel is essential. We, as educators/parents should be modeling ABCDE: Act Boldly to Change Diet and Exercise for our students/children.

I must commend these educators who lead by example in terms of fitness:

David Britten @colonelb, Salome Thomas-EL @Principal_EL, Bob Dillon @ideaguy42, Josh Stumpenhorst @stumpteacher, Joan Young @flourishingkids, JoAnn Jacobs @JoAnnJacobs68, and Philip Cummings @jasontbedell Jason Bedell among others.

It is felt that children who have good nutritional habits and exercise regularly feel better about themselves, perform better in school, and can cope with stress better.

Take a survey of your students and see if they are getting enough exercise and eating properly.  Children should be getting at least 60 minutes of exercise on a daily basis and this does not mean playing games on their Xbox, texting or watching TV.


The fact that I exercised regularly and ate properly kept me well, gave me more energy and led to an excellent attendance record.   My track teams appreciated the fact that I ran with them. I tried modeling good nutrition yet my students used to laugh at me when I ate a salad for lunch with water as my beverage.  When I taught in my school’s health careers program I was very pleased at the end of each year when some of the students would thank me for changing their lives when they followed my preaching of eating properly, exercising and getting enough rest.

 

My new workout sneakers.

2013 is here and I will soon be eligible for Medicare and I will continue to exercise regularly and be more careful with the foods that I eat.
 
We all can achieve more if we are healthy as we have more energy.  Too many children are not getting enough exercise and eating properly.  Please model proper health to your students/children. 

Hope everyone has a very Happy and Healthy 2013.

 

Shape Up! Lead by Example

ellipticaljabI always attributed my excellent attendance record while teaching to the fact that I exercised regularly. Now, I am on a mission to try to get my Twitter friends to get moving.  Then, I would like to turnkey that idea to have them get their children and students to eat better and exercise.

My turning point in terms of exercise occurred while hiking with the Boy Scouts at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. We carried everything we needed on our backs and camped out in fields.  Earning the hiking merit badge was a big thing for me.  In college I enjoyed middle distance running and even squeezed in a couple of marathons when it was not popular to be running in the streets in the 1960’s.  When I starting teaching I got together with the gym teacher & school patrolman (NYC Police Dept) and we successfully coached our school to beat over 125 schools for the city track championship.  I helped my new school the next year do the same.  Then I had the privilege of running our school district’s track program which was extremely successful.

I will never forget the first track practice.  The students who came out challenged me to a race. There was no way I could beat them in sprinting so I told them we would warm up first.  After running for a mile and hearing them all huffing and puffing I then sprinted and none of them could beat me.  Trickery worked but I did gain their respect.  We taught them that through hard work they could achieve.  I enjoyed seeing that carry over to their school work as well.

When I was involved in my school’s health careers program I made it a point to teach them good nutrition, exercise and the importance of sufficient sleep.  One young man at the end of the school year came up to me and thanked me for changing his life.  He had been severely overweight and was constantly teased about it.  He took my advice, ate more nutritiously and exercised and now felt really good about himself.  The students who saw me eating salad for lunch used to laugh at my dining choice.  I was trying to model good eating for them.

Needless to say when a group on my PLN on Twitter started the Twitter Exercise Motivation Team #temt I immediately jumped on that bandwagon.  Yes, even I need encouragement to continue exercising.  It does not matter what form of exercise but it is important to do something.  Yard or housework, yoga, dancing, spinning, running, walking, swimming, and jogging are just some of the things you can do.

If you have trouble exercising by yourself make it a family fun activity or find a workout buddy.  Please lead by example and have your family and students follow your exercise example.