Sometimes You Just Need to Put It in Perspective

Back in the 1990s, a wonderful student of mine named Danielle Norris asked me to write her a letter of recommendation for college. She included money for postage. She was one of those extraordinary students (and yearbook staffers) for whom I would have done almost anything. Here are those pieces of ephemera:

 I later received an invitation to her graduation party. I don't know why I wasn't able to go . . . because this was over twenty years ago! I had received a bunch of address books from my aunt and one of them said "Danielle" so I set it aside with the invitation, intending to get these items to her. (Along with a cash gift, I hope, but again - this was a long time ago!)

At one point in time, I tried locating Danielle and / or her parents. It had been long enough that they no longer were in the Jordan area. I have no idea if the East Coast address I found was accurate or not. 

Once again, these items got buried in my numerous piles of stuff to do / deal with / follow up on. (I have sooooooo much stuff and am trying to let it all gooooooo!)

Blogging helps me to let go. Slowly but surely, my house is getting less cluttered. I'm trying to be careful about not buying things I don't need. I'm trying to donate, recycle, and toss. I don't want to leave a legacy of clutter for my children at the end of my life. Here's one more "thing" done and gone. 

 

If Danielle ever reads this, thanks for being an amazing student and wonderful young woman. I hope you're experiencing the best that life has!

The money went into my "Buddy Barrel" - for kids ministries. The address book went into the Goodwill bag. The papers are in the recycling bin.

Student Teaching in 1989

Louie asked me what I was working on the other day. I was typing info into a GoogleDoc. It was student feedback from my student teaching experience in the spring of 1989 at Nicollet Junior High in Burnsville, MN. He thought it was crazy, naturally. I had contemplated just chucking them in the recycle bin . . . but since I have touched them a number of times and haven't been able to get rid of them, I decided to digitize. My husband's next observation was that it would be quicker to take photos of them rather than typing student input. My response is that I would do it however it worked best for me.

Now that I've finished, I scanned two to add to this blog. Some observations:

• I used a mimeograph machine in 1989! I remember the smell, the feel, the purple, but it's so weird to see that again! We didn't use Powerpoints back then. (Just Googled it. Powerpoint was released on my son Morgan's birthday!) Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
• Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoint for $14 million three months after it appeared.

•  I should have spent more time and energy teaching those students about to and too, alot is not a word, etc.
• I sometimes question why I became a teacher, my abilities, etc. I believe I have more positive qualities as an educator than weaknesses. I care enough to try to improve on my weaknesses.
• I'm not positive, but I think these responses were from my "gifted" class . . . I had 3 or 4 sections of regular ninth grade English and one gifted group.
• I'm so grateful to my cooperating teacher, Steve Ketcham, for all he did to support and encourage me. What a blessing! I should send him a letter of thanks.

Here are two that I scanned of the 30-ish I typed:

If anyone actually wants to read all the responses, they're here.