Our return home has not been what we envisioned.  Instead of taking time to organize and put our house in order we have been hit with a heavy dose of responsibility reality.  Before you stop reading, don’t worry.  I’m not complaining or looking for pity.  Life simply takes some twists and turns and you deal with each day as best you can.  Actually, this post is about my cat and hope.

Our cat, Sweetie, was recently diagnosed with renal failure.  We are diligent about giving her two pills a day, have been mixing special nutrition powder into her food, and have started to give her subcutaneous fluids (I am still squeamish about this procedure).  Despite our best efforts to help her adjust to our house in Dansville, she has been living in the basement since we returned home.  We thought she was having trouble adjusting to a space that is much roomier than the one-bedroom apartment we shared back in Oneonta .  We also worried because we have not had a lot of time to keep an eye on her.  Yesterday, as soon as we finished administering the fluids via her IV,  Sweetie raced for the basement.  Before going to bed I went downstairs and could not find her.  My heart was heavy…I felt sure that she had found a spot to die.

Around 2:00 a.m. I heard the dog pacing and knew he was agitated about something…no doubt something was wrong with the cat.  Sure enough.  I jumped out of bed and raced for the cellar.  Much to my surprise the cat greeted me in the kitchen with a mouse in her jaws and a twinkle in her eye! She seemed to have an extra pep in her step as well.  I thought the cat had been hanging around in our cellar looking for a place to die; in fact, she  had been hunting the mice who had found a home while we were away. Did I mention that our cat is 16+ years old (approximately 82 in human years), de-clawed, and has lost 25% of her original weight?

As I struggled to get my cat to release her prey, I realized nature was once again teaching me a lesson…a lesson of hope and tenacity: “Keep going!  The prize is within reach no matter what your age (or in Sweetie’s case…health).”  Also….never presume to know what a cat is thinking!

If you have pets you might enjoy perusing the material and links found on my For the Love of Pets site. I originally developed this site as a research portal for students who were writing a persuasive essay to convince their parents that they should be allowed to own a pet. Click on the screenshot below to access the site and please feel free to share the lessons you have learned from your pets using the comment link at the bottom of this post.

Trust is Imperative to Learning…
Personal Philosophy for Learning (written when I was earning my MEd in Technology Education)

During lunch one day a colleague said to me, “I’m a life-long learner.” My response was, “We are all life-long learners; some of us just do it kicking and screaming, while others embrace it.” I don’t know where that response came from, but it seemed to sum up a lot of the feelings I have developed regarding the learning process and human nature. Learning occurs moment by moment as we observe and internalize what is happening around us throughout the day. We construct our own understanding in a unique and personal way, though our environment and the people around us may influence how we respond to the learning process.

I believe students who sit in today’s classrooms feigning boredom and acting like they have no regard for learning are actually demonstrating a learned behavior. They have learned that apathy is safer than appearing aware and focused. They have observed that students who are alert and enthusiastic are most often called on to express opinions. Successful students are often targets for peer ridicule. Expressing an opinion or showing enthusiasm in the classroom can be risky.

Educators, like good managers, must build trust in their classrooms by showing what Harkins calls the four C’s of trust: caring, commitment, clarity, and consistency. Caring involves respect and genuine concern for others’ feelings. Commitment is all about keeping promises. Clarity requires clear, unambiguous communication. Consistency is another word for reliability. Once trust has been established students are more likely to become risk-takers. Students who are willing to take risks are more open to learning.

I remember one student in particular that blossomed once I gained her trust. Julie was an angry, impulsive student with a short fuse. She scowled in class and openly told me she didn’t like any of her classmates or me; in fact, she hated school in general. Her grades were terrible and she didn’t seem to care. One late afternoon I ran into one of my past students while grocery shopping. Julie saw me give that student a hug and heard me tell her how proud I was to hear that she was succeeding in college. As I walked away from the student Julie came up to me and said, “Mrs. Farr who was that? Your daughter?” I laughed and said, “No, that’s a student I taught in another school district. She just told me she wants to be a computer teacher and she is going to college.” Julie said, “Why do you care so much about her” (she had probably noticed that I had tears in my eyes). I struggled to maintain my composure and said, “Julie, that young lady was kicked out of her parents’ home during her last year of school, lived with an abusive boyfriend, and seemed to be in trouble all the time. I am just so happy she has been able to turn her life around. I never gave up on her; even though sometimes it seemed she gave up on herself.”

After that brief encounter in the grocery store, I began to see a change in Julie’s attitude. I knew we had made progress when a month later she gave me a Christmas card. She had written a message in the card, “Mrs. Farr, I’m sorry I was so mean to you in the beginning of the year. I know you care. Love, Julie.” After Christmas vacation Julie started spending extra time in my room and worked to pull her grades up from 50’s to 90’s. Whenever I feel discouraged as an educator I pull out that Christmas card.

Once students are open to learning the educator needs to become the risk-taker. Educators must learn to trust their abilities as facilitators, observers, and learners. Learners? Aren’t teachers supposed to be the ones who teach? If only it were that simple. Educators must embrace the idea that life-long learning is essential to their success as teachers. Teachers who model an interest in life-long learning have a better chance of encouraging their students to do the same. My own children used to joke with me about my “homework” and teased that I was an “over-achiever,” but my daughter once told me that whenever she had trouble with an assignment in college she would think to herself, “If Mom can do it, I guess I can too.”

What is the “book” definition of a learner? The dictionary defines a learner as someone who learns; to learn is to gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery through experience or study. As educators we have already proven that we can learn through study…perhaps we need to step away from our studies and focus on learning through our experiences. Likewise, students should learn through their own experiences as well as their studies.

Educators need to avoid the trap of training students to use content to acquire knowledge — students must be guided to seek greater meaning. Students must learn to discover solutions and to resolve problems through guided trial and error. Educators must embrace the idea that uncertainty is sometimes part of the process that leads to comprehension and allow students to experience perplexity before they can attain understanding. Sometimes, learning needs to be experienced in a social environment: an environment that encourages interaction with peers and community members. It is imperative to reflect on how individuals learn and think; teachers must encourage their students to reflect about their own learning experiences as well.

The notion that learning is directed and that the teacher is the only guide in the learning processes is outdated. Students must learn to be the directors of their own learning experiences and be given the tools and support to construct their own foundation of understanding. Technology is one of the most powerful tools a teacher can use to guide students toward self-discovery and learning. Students who research using the Internet and database resources are exposed to information that might not be readily available in hard copy. Today pupils rarely face the challenge of trying to find information about diverse subjects. More often they are faced with the challenge of evaluating and disseminating abundant amounts of information.

As an educator, I can honestly say technology has given me access to materials that allowed me to design learning experiences for students that would not have been possible otherwise. When I developed a culturally diverse project for students that explored the contributions women have made in the business world I found that library resources were almost non-existent in our small rural school. I provided a list of 20 web resources that students could explore and navigate. Each student selected one woman in history and created a paper quilt block (using layout tools on the computer) that described that woman’s contributions to society and the business world. We used those informational “quilt blocks” to create a paper quilt that we displayed on a bulletin board in the hallway.

I also used technology resources to help students explore their personal values and career options. Students took online personality or value-based “tests” and worked on activities that were designed to help them construct their own meaning and reflect on their own values and observations. I believe those activities worked because my students knew they were working in a classroom where they were allowed to discover their unique learning styles and encouraged to share their opinions in an atmosphere of trust.

References
• Harkins, Phil. “The Linkage Management Development Certificate Series, Leadership.” Linkage, Inc. 1998. 05 October 2002
• Jonassen, D. H., K. Peck, and B. Wilson (1999). Learning with Technology: A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.
• Lexico LLC. Dictionary.com. 2002. 10 October 2002
• Roblyer, M.D. and Edwards, J. (2000) Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey