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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Forever Gone (for Laura)

Forever Gone
My heart stops

I can't breath

I think see you there

But know you aren't there

I feel you near me

But you are far far way

for you my friend are forever gone

When I think about it

My lungs get tight

My heart starts racing

My eyes get blury

your gone forever

That hurts so much

It cuts to the core

I can't see to find my way out

I wish I could find you

I pray to find you

I never will because

you my friend are forever gone

Saturday, November 10, 2007

An Educator's Delima

For those who do not know, I am a teacher. I teach in a small town school in Texas. I have less than 100 students total in my classes. There is a down side to this small town life, our school is a what's considered a low-income school. To translate that to everyone, people don't make alot of money there, so the school doesn't get alot of money. That tends to give way to several delima's. There are field trips we would love to take, but can't afford. There are books we need, lessons we want but cannot afford the supplies. We do what we can with that we have and make the best of it. Many times we spend money out of our own pockets to pay for our students supplies. Our logic is simple when we do spend our own money. I make more money than that single mom feeding five children, right? What is 50 cents for a piece of posterboard to me, versus what that 50 cents means to her? What about when that 50 cents is times 20 or 30 or 40? Sad but true. I am seeing how poverty affects our children and how something as simple as school supplies can be to expensive for some. More importantly I'm seeing how lack of funds can aversely affect a classroom. I am blessed with some supplies in my room and I never take those for granted. I often think I shouldn't complain or even worry about it. However, there are things that I would love for my students to do that my budget won't allow.

Now normally I wouldn't brag about a website or even try to tell you about one on here; however this site is, as my kids would say "da' bomb". It's a website for teachers to help get funding for projects and field trips their students normally would not get. It's www.donorschoose.org . Here's how it works, a teacher places a lesson plan on the website with the amount of money needed to complete that lesson. Philantropists can browse through the plans by region, grade and even subject. You pick a project and make either a partial or whole donoation. Once the donation goal is reached for that project the teacher is sent the money and a camera. They are to impliment the lesson and take pictures of the students completing the lesson. Once we take the pictures, the donor recieves copies of those pictures so they can see how their donation impacted those students.

There are several sites like this. My school even has a program with in our community for projects such as this. The concept works. It allows teachers to get money where budgets and grants fall short. Teachers can write to get grants for large projects however many times it's the small things they would like to do that fall through the cracks. There are districts where teachers must supply their own computer or projector. These are costly items and many times a teacher's salary will not allow the luxury of surviving and buying these items. I don't know how many people are aware of this site but I wanted to spread the word because it's an awesome way to help impact students lives in a positive way.

As a teacher, it's difficult to have all these great ideas you want to share with our students and the realize that the money just isn't there. This is a great way for teachers to get the extra money they need to help their students.