I'm alive, and I'm not thinking about school.

In case you were wondering.

Our last day was June 8, and since then, I've filled my time with alternating bouts of relaxation and wedding planning. The Big Day is June 27. After that, you'll be getting a full slideshow of wedding and honeymoon pics, followed by a return to our regular educational programming. (Which I'm actually looking forward to, because I have a few fun topics and themes I plan to write about this summer.)

In the meanwhile, you can still catch me on Facebook and occasionally Twitter because if I totally withdraw from my online presence, I might shrivel up and die from a lack of internet interaction. Not blogging feels weird enough, but abandoning Facebook? Nuh-uh.

Hope each of you are enjoying your summer so far, and to those poor unfortunate souls who are STILL teaching--hang in there!! The best part of being a teacher is ahead. Well, besides making a difference in the life of a child, blah, blah, blah. Don't tell anyone who's not an educator that I reinforced that stereotype about summer, k?

The Fabled Drawer of Confiscation

I was cleaning out my desk drawers today and had to laugh at the variety of kid stuff that got tossed in this year. My rule is: If I catch you with a toy, it must immediately go in your backpack. If I see the toy again, it's mine until a parent writes a note giving permission for you to have it again. What's left in my drawer are those items that kids don't want to tell their parents they had in school. Good grief, I could open a pawn shop in here. Can you tell that three-quarters of my students were boys?

And yes, that's the quality of post I'm producing this week. If you want something deeper, check out What Does It Mean to Finish Well? over on my devotions site. I thought about calling it "Why I Always Feel Like an Inadequate Failure at the End of the Year and Can't Decide If That Perspective Is Warranted or Not Oh God I'm a Total Wreck and Should Have My Teaching License Revoked". The first title was more succinct, so I went with that.

The Cornerstone Accolades: May 2009

Every month, the Accolades take on a slightly different format. This month, I'd like to acknowledge three outstanding post series:

Total Teacher Transformation: Hope for All Teachers from Joel at So You Want to Teach?
Joel is known for having great series on his blog, but I really like this one because it speaks to the hopeless teacher. What do you do when you feel so far from your goals? Joel provides practical and totally do-able steps to transformation.

Year-End Reflections at Confessions From the Couch (Miss Teacha)
For the latter half of May, Miss Teacha has been posting her students' reflections on learning, as well as her own. I appreciate her transparency and willingness to post not-so-flattering things about herself. She's also had a great series of posts on classroom management tips. If you haven't been keeping up, be sure to check out her blog.

Passionization from Angela Maiers
This might be the most original content I've seen in the edublogosphere. What an amazing four-part series on inspiring students' passions and conveying our own. I'm linking here to the second post in the series, in which Angela argues that students' home lives often drain them of their passions, and we as teachers might be the only ones who exhibit a zeal for life and empower the children in our care to do the same. This is deep, meaningful stuff, and an absolute must-read for educators.