Why I Changed My Blog Name

Teacher With No Class

In 2014 I created a blog called Teacher With No Class, with every intention of keeping it up and recording my adventures with looking for a teaching position and all the helpful things I learned along the way. I had plenty of ideas and hopes for the blog but it just didn't really go where I wanted. I liked having a space to save and share things I loved and used in education. It has been five years since I began the original blog and since there has been way too many things to share about my journey. The biggest of these is that I am no longer a teacher with No Class. I began teaching 2nd Grade in 2016 in a lovely, little, rural school. I am about to start my fourth year and I feel like I am ready to begin again with a new name (Both for me and my blog since I was married this summer) and some new ambition with what I plan to accomplish with this blog. I am a girl with a lot of creativity, a lot of plans and a little bit of time to keep up with a commitment like a blog so lets give it a try!

Acorns

So what is with the acorns? Well acorns are not something I had a particularly found interesting or exciting less than a week ago. I mean, they are just acorns right? In my area they are everywhere. But that was one of the things that endeared them to me recently. 

A few days ago we had our Teacher Orientation Day to get ready for a sparkly new year. We sat through hours of PowerPoints full of cute memes and tear provoking ted talks. Around the time I would normally wake up on a day off, but halfway through the PD Day*, we had an elementary faculty meeting.

Our principal started the meeting off in a normal fashion, explaining why our new math materials wouldn't be arriving until after the school year began and the several new procedures we needed to add our large to do lists. Everything we had seen many times before, but then he put up a slide that was covered in acorns. He proceeded to tell us a story of his brother and himself as children going on a walk and finding acorns. They were so excited and interested in these magical little nuts wearing fancy little hats that they filled their pockets with them and ran home to show their parents. He used this story as an example of the magic children see in the world. How they explore and how they are passionate in all their actions. He explained that this is what he wanted us to remember when working with our students and use it to enhance their abilities and understand their interests. While the story was a silly anecdote that showed how children can see even the most basic of things as magical, I started to think about how magical they really are and how similar my students are to them. Acorns are small and susceptible but have mighty oaks inside of them. They also are heavy seeds and do not blow easily in the wind so they often need help with seed dispersal so they can get the resources they need. This is true with my students as well. They each have the ability and potential to touch the sky but may need a little help to get where they need to be. 

That evening I went for a walk in the park with my (new) husband. We hiked down a long trail into a large gorge, then we hiked back up. The hike up was a lot more difficult for me. I struggled a few times and took a couple breaks. When I reached the top I found that I was much more focused on my feet and where I was placing them and all around me there were acorns. I filled my own pockets with several of the adorable seeds, enough to share with each of my students because their joy, creativity, interest and passion is what I love most about being a teacher.

Let's Get Educated

After my sparked appreciation for acorns and my trunk full I did what I do best-played on the internet. But honestly I did a little research and found that acorns were even cooler than I thought. So here are some interesting things I learned about acorns.

• One tall mature oak tree can produce almost one-thousand pounds of acorns in one growing season during normal weather conditions. 
• Acorns are  a symbol of patience and long hard labor.
• An old British tradition says that if a woman carries an acorn on her person it will delay the aging process and keep her forever young.
• In Norse mythology it is said that the god Thor was once sheltered from a storm by staying under an oak tree. This lead to the belief that putting a acorn on your windowsill would keep your house from being struck by lightning.
• The Roman goddess of the Hunt, Nature and Birth in Roman tradition is Diana who is frequently depicted wearing a necklace of acorns.
• Dotorimuk is a jelly made in Korea using acorn starch.
• Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, Pima and Apache used acorns as a primary staple food.