Reflections by Estillette

What is the difference between people who are stagnant versus people who are growing? What is the difference between people who accomplish goals and people who are too afraid to even set them? In observing teachers, leaders, students, and staff members in education over the last 15 years, I've noticed that people with a   positive attitude   get significantly further; further in professional achievements, further in building relationships, further in overall personal satisfaction.   Positive people are ones who others are naturally attracted to.  They make you feel better by just being around them.  You leave them with hope and renewed determination.  On the other hand, negative people leave you feeling down, depressed, and hopeless.  Which would you rather be?  Which are you? As Henry Ford said,   "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." The most successful teams I've seen are those that are made up of a mix of positiv

I have always felt very strongly about teaching students skills that they will actually use in the real world and helping them to develop into a wonderfully well-rounded person.  Now that I'm a mom of a two year old, my feelings about that have intensified. In teaching young students, my number one goal is creating a literate, thinking person; one who can read and write for a variety of purposes, including enjoyment.  Somehow, in our endeavors to reach certain state and national standards we have lost sight of that. Although we have testing standards we have to reach, that must remain the secondary goal for us as we plan instruction.  We must first foster a love for reading and writing and develop deep comprehension and thinking in each.  After that is established, we can show our students to how the concepts and strategies we have taught them will translate into a test.  We can teach them the "test genre", but only after we have established a solid foundation of

Wow!  I started in Castleberry ISD fourteen days ago.  I came to the district feeling confident because I used a lot of the same curricular resources and data management programs.  I still feel pretty good about that.  What I feel inadequate about is where I am technology wise. I guess I've been hiding in a rock somewhere.  I've heard of people using social media and a variety of technology to communicate and learn, but I hadn't explored any of that at all.  Well, guess what?  I have no choice now.  Right away, I joined my colleagues in a Digital Leadership academy.  At the end of my first day there, I had Tweeted, blogged, and build a Weebly (webpage) for the first time! I'm thankful that I have the chance to learn how to do all of this in context so that it is meaningful for my role and my content area.  The teachers of the group have been great in modeling a program or strategy, then giving us time to practice immediately with people all around the room wh

I just joined the Castleberry ISD team as ELA Director a week and a few days ago, so I’m a little behind in the Digital Leadership game.  I’m going to dive right in and absorb everything I can.  Unfortunately, in my last positions and districts all things technology were mostly buzz words with no real training about how to use it best.  That being said, I am thankful to start learning how to really be involved in digital leadership and am excited about the opportunity to learn with my colleagues. My first task is to read chapter 11 of Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger and blog about it.   This is my first blog, so be kind to me!   The title of the chapter is “Discovering Opportunity” and the first thing I did was flip through to see what the subtitles.   I found things like, “strategic partnerships”, “university partnerships”, “intraschool partnerships”, and “corporate/community partnerships”. Immediately I made a connection to the community relationships I had to buil