Ants appear to roam anywhere and everywhere outside but when they come inside your home, their purpose becomes more evident.
Ants are strong and tenacious. Educators can learn by studying them and being more like them. They know their WHY. Do you? If you haven’t thought about your WHY in a while, it’s time to revisit and rediscover. It will guide your practice and remind you of your purpose and mission.
We need to be more like ants—RELENTLESS! We need to do what we can to support students wherever they are because that’s what they deserve.
Educate like ants with intense collaboration and teamwork. Reflect and work on being better so that you and your community can work harmoniously together just like ants.
After sharing about the word “welcome” in my first post, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss how we continue to make our students and parents feel welcome at a time when we cannot see them face to face like we used to. How do we continue to build community with purpose and intention?
Community of Learners
We are using OneNote in Office 365 as our platform for receiving and recording daily tasks but regardless of the platform you are using, there are ways to adapt these ideas. Here are some things I started doing with my students since remote learning began (some ideas evolved over time):
Warmest welcome to you! I started with “welcome” as my very first word for a few reasons. First, it’s a friendly greeting to openly invite you to my blog. I’m thrilled you are here!
Second, it is one of the words I stand by as I live my life as a daughter, sister, relative, friend, teacher, colleague, wife, mother, teammate, volunteer, and ringette coach, which are all roles I gained one by one over my lifetime. Each role has given me opportunities to learn more about myself and my place in relation to others. It is through these relationships that I have discovered one of my greatest passions and that is people. I love making people feel like they are “welcome” in my life by giving welcoming hello greetings, which often include big hugs (where appropriate) or at minimum a genuine heartfelt smile because I am happy to see them. Each time you see someone for the first time that day, it is an opportunity to make them feel like they matter and you are happy to see them so why not express it that way? It might be just the very thing they needed at that moment. There’s more to being welcoming besides the greeting. It’s the practice of being welcoming, which I will elaborate on in a future post. Both bring me great joy.
The third reason is the phrase “You’re welcome”. It’s one of my favourite things to say because it means I have done something to warrant a “thank you.” Maybe it was a compliment, a gesture, a helping hand, or a gift but something I did offered an opportunity to make a difference, big or small. Regardless, a positive interaction or exchange of something happened, and as I’ve said to many, “It makes me happy to help.” And it truly does.
So, “welcome” as a word has multiple significance to me. Thank you for reading my thoughts. I am looking forward to working together to better ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Please leave a comment to connect!
