Happy New Year! Graciously say goodbye to 2017, whether with our limited perspective we saw it as a good year or a bad year. With gratitude for all you’ve learned and how you’ve grown, welcome 2018 with an open hand and an open heart, ready to receive the hidden gifts that will come with everything the new year holds.
I wish you and your loved ones a peaceful and joyful Christmas. May all of your Christmas wishes come true!
This season, especially during the next two weeks, is a special time not only for celebrating what is most important to each of us during this Christmas season, but also for spending time with family and friends. One gift that we each receive every year, if we choose to open it, is the opportunity to reflect on the previous year. We take stock of who we are and where we are at. We reflect on the success & failure and joy & sadness of the previous year.
The beauty of this gift is that while we reflect on the previous year, we are also drawn to starting afresh with a clean slate. We look to the New Year, a natural division in the calendar, to do something new, to change something we don’t like, or to do it differently.
Unfortunately, of the 41% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, only about 9% will actually feel they were successful in achieving their resolutions. 42% have already figured it out and don’t bother making them. If you are one of the 9%, I congratulate you on your incredible will power.
I, for one, got off this merry-go-round several years ago. I found something way better.
It’s less than two weeks before glorious Christmas break. Flexibility and Going with the flow are hallmarks at this time of year with all of the seasonal activities and interruptions. The last thing on your mind right now is the lesson you are going to teach when you return in January. Let me make that one task easy for you. I don’t want that first lesson plan after the holidays hanging over your head for two weeks.
As students get older and learn how to read independently, the amount of time teachers spend reading stories out loud to students gradually decreases. And it should. However, by the time students are in junior high and high school, students sometimes never have a teacher read a story to them. Of course students can read a story themselves. But there is something enjoyable for human beings when they hear a story read to them.