The "Big Rock" theme from last class affirmed what I already knew and had been living in my life for many years. Long ago I was interested in the theme of living simply. At that time, I read and reflected on many books on simple living and had conversations with friends who also were exploring the same topic. I came to the understanding that I needed to accept the things that I really wanted to pursue and I would know what they were by listening carefully to the voice of my being. I set out to only say yes to what I really felt strongly about and no to everything I doubted or questioned.  I’d like to think that each idea I heard my inner being saying to me is representative of my rocks in my pail.  In order to live simply, I only put into the pail what I really find necessary in life.  Of course my faith, family, friends, and job are in the bucket.  I have two boys so each of them gets a separate rock.  My oldest son needed so much of my time while growing up that he was the biggest rock in the bucket.  I wouldn’t add anything to the bucket until he left home for college.  I was always thinking about going back to school to get my master’s degree but I wouldn’t add that into the bucket until his rock was less big; consequently, I had to wait for 9 years until his rock finally shrunk in size.  Last year he went off to college and so I had room for a new rock and thus began my journey of going back to school.  My program is very important to me so it takes up a lot of space now.  I focus on my schooling because I made the commitment to let it take up much of my bucket.  I find that sacrifices must be made rather than jamming rocks into the bucket that don’t fit.  Our inner being will lead us in the directions we must go only if we become still enough to hear its voice.

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After graduating from college in 1990, I started working in a different profession and hadn't any updates in lesson planning since that date.  Nine years ago I started teaching and still was using planning from the 90's.  Now, college students are being taught Backward Design.  Obviously this is new to me and yet the design has some similar elements of long ago.  One of the differences starting from an essential question.  I really like this change.  I use to start with my goal and objectives.  I know can turn my goal into a question.  I have been teaching my first design unit these past two weeks.  I feel really on top of where I am going and what I want the kids to come away with.  I have been frequently asking myself the essential question to make sure I am sticking to the plan.  Having my questions planned ahead of time is making the conversation more deep and rich.  I use to wing my questioning and it was mostly fact based.  Planning ahead, thinking about enduring understanding, knowledge, and skills, along with assessment has made my travel time theme much more in depth.  In the past I knew what I was going to teach but I didn't have it thoroughly planned out.  Now, I feel much more confident and can reuse them from year to year, tweaking the plan as needed.  I want to sit down with my planning partner and write a backward design plan for all of the themes in the 2nd grade language arts curriculum.