Making Meets Professional Development

I've been doing a lot of making. I made an avatar of myself (see http://wilsonedci690.blogspot.com/2013/06/clmooc-making-me.html). I've made lots of dinners, including my own version of no-bake tuna-noodle casserole. I have been making things for my class and for next year's classroom. And I've been making plans about when my family is coming to visit for graduation this week. I have been making my garden look nicer by weeding and adding some spicy new pepper plants. These are all things that I have enjoyed doing because it has been a much needed break from the craziness of the past year. To be honest though, it isn't like I just think about making something and then it happens. I often feel the need to be truly inspired with my makes. Take the casserole for example:

I was hungry and I didn't want to leave my house. I was also tired of the same old boring meals and I realized that I had a can of tuna in the pantry. The lazier part of me thought 'Eh...tuna sandwich', but the part of me that wanted a nice hot meal remembered how my best friend's mom used to make tuna noodle casserole. I could smell it drifting throughout her house and how warm and creamy it always was. Now I was hooked. I NEEDED that casserole, but I had never made anything with canned tuna other than the aforementioned sandwiches and occasionally Tuna Helper (like Hamburger Helper, but more tuna-y). So, I grabbed my Good Housekeeping cookbook. It had a traditional recipe that required me to bake. It was 80 degrees outside and I was not going to bake. Period. So, I started looking online. There were some good options and some bad ones, but in the end, I decided it was best to remix everything I had seen. I took my memories from when I was little and combined the 20 recipes I had just looked at. Somehow, it turned out amazing!

I realized as I was enjoying the deliciousness that ensued, that this was exactly how I teach. I take memories of what worked when I was a kid, look online for about 20 different takes on that same idea, and then remix it all together to create a lesson that usually turns out to be pretty good. With teaching, it is a different kind of hunger that drives my instruction. I want kids to learn and enjoy doing so. But I don't want to force them. Rather I want them to want to learn. This is the passion that fuels my teaching and it is what pushes me each day to be a better teacher. Passion drives professional development because it gives us the insight to know where our kids are coming from and how true inspiration can motivate those same children. It makes us want to be better teachers, better people, better examples. When children see their teacher is passionate about something, it makes them want to be passionate too. It is important to make. It is more important to be passionate about what you make. So, don't make for make's sake. Make what inspires you and will inspire others.

#MCERT #CLMOOC #HamburgerHelper #passion #ProfessionalDevelopment