All grades will be final as of third quarter. Next week, students and parents can expect to be contacted by their child's teacher(s) regarding the platform (i.e. FB page, Google Classroom, Canvas, class website, email, etc.) they will use to communicate and share learning activities. Beginning the week of April 6th, students can expect to find weekly videos and daily learning activities through the teachers' preferred platform. These learning opportunities will continue weekly during this closure period or until the regular school calendar concludes. Teachers have worked collaboratively this week to determine a few essential learning standards so we can best focus our lessons for your child. We want to provide a healthy balance for learning opportunities and family needs, understanding priorities in each home will vary during this unprecedented time.

We're ahead of the curve in this, but everything we're doing on the HOGGATTEERS@HOME site can be considered enrichment.  Teachers meeting in the district have identified a couple of essential learning standards to focus on.  Those may look a little different from the items I'm continuing to put together, so be patient.  It will just be one more thing to keep us moving forward and getting ready for the fifth grade.

Here is one response for the Monticello Teacher Institute that I did not revise in my application submission.  The question asks for what I can contribute to the group of attendees at the institute if selected myself. The question asks, MTI has a collaborative, hands-on environment where participants work closely with their peers.  How do you hope to contribute to the group's experience? I happily got to focus on my personal strengths in this response which follows:

​I cringe when people say that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  We can still move forward on our old rubber wheels, but I like to imagine that there is something better – more durable and more efficient – waiting for our discovery and invention.  The same must be true of education.  If we want our education system to remain stagnant, then we should just accept the status quo.  We can continue to read the chapter and answer the questions at the end.  We can watch students fill in the same tired worksheets, but I like to imagine there is something better.
 
I challenge my peers to think outside of their teacher edition.  I urge them to deviate from the easy script.  I am never satisfied with leaving lessons as the status quo.  My natural position in a group of collaborating teachers is to find applications and connections that no one else has considered and then make the best of them.  I want educators to bring events to life for their students, surrounding them with the learning, and motivate them to seek more and more on their own.
 
That is where, when called upon to do so, I encourage teachers to think differently – to declare their independence!  There are too many educators who are running on flat tires, still assigning the same old word searches and not challenging their students to think for themselves.  In American history, they read biographies, but they fail to break our founders out of the two-dimensional textbook.  I would rather find ways to invite Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries into my classroom.  I want my students to meet them and share conversations with them.
 
We can bring art and drama into a history classroom.  We can allow students the leeway to blaze their own trails and harvest gems of wisdom along the way.  We measure, we experiment, and we analyze.  We find humor, we cry, and we genuinely wonder at the tremendous sacrifices that laid a foundation for the freedoms we still enjoy.  It is difficult to get that level of connectivity and authenticity by looking at the illustrations in a text.
 
It is really hard for many educators to drive in the ruts.  We have too often accepted the shackles of the status quo.  Without leadership from administrators and set-in-stone pacing guides, some do not feel comfortable with finding their own pathways to success, creating their own materials, and making uncommon connections.  That is where Thomas Jefferson and I are similar:  both of us step a little outside of the lines to encourage and inspire others to be bold.  If the teachers the Monticello Teachers Institute are willing to reinvent things, they can bring Monticello into their schools in new and exciting ways.

In applying to participate in the Monticello Teacher Institute for next summer, I had to answer some leading questions.  These took much thought on my part as I considered the seriousness of the goals for the institute.  As a conscientious person, I must realize that if I apply for a scholarship, including travel expenses, meals, and lodging, and if someone is willing to award me with such, then I must be respect that generosity by taking the award seriously.  In other words, I expect myself to put forth great effort to do the best I can if given the opportunity to visit Monticello on somebody else's dime.  That also means, in the second year of applying, I must consider revising or rewriting my answers.  This response was one that needed a complete overhaul.  I tried to make it apply in a more personal manner.

​When Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” just what sort of tomorrow did he expect?  When he penned, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” and claimed, “It is its natural manure,” what was he predicting for the future? 
 
There are so many aspects of Thomas Jefferson’s life that intrigue me, but at the moment, I wonder what kinds of events would warrant rebellion.  For example, did Mr. Jefferson ever wonder if his writing would inspire a terrorist?
 
I taught five miles from the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City when Timothy McVeigh, wearing a t-shirt displaying the latter quote above, detonated a chemical bomb that killed 168 people.  I doubt Jefferson would have considered McVeigh’s actions an acceptable interpretation of his thought, but at what point would Jefferson lend his support to rebellion?
 
The answer may lie in Mr. Jefferson’s bolstering of the United States Navy to combat Barbary Pirates.  It may take time to trace writings and track changes in the third president’s tone and opinion concerning a larger naval presence on the seas.  I am confident that primary sources exist to support fundamental changes in Jefferson as he changed roles from ambassador to secretary of state to president to citizen.  At what point did he justify violent action?  At what point did he substantiate using offensive force?  At what point did he warrant putting American lives in harm’s way?  Returning to Continental Congress, at what pivotal point did Jefferson take sides against King George III?
 
His transformation in combatting piracy may reveal Jefferson’s Growth Mindset – something I would love to highlight to students.  Understanding that grit and open-mindedness carry us forward – even through ugly moments, historic failures, and tragic missteps – is an essential part of what I instill in my fourth graders every day.  To see our third president experiencing those struggles between diplomacy and combat, and to note any changes in his character, is to understand that the path forward, for any of us, will not always be smooth.  Not only that, but we must also recognize that understandings and opinions evolve as we encounter new information and events.
 
Every year, I present my personal account of the Oklahoma City Bombing to all of the fourth graders in our school in Joplin, Missouri.  Evidence tells me that McVeigh believed his actions fulfilled Thomas Jefferson’s prophecy of drawing the blood of tyrants, but I do not believe that Jefferson’s warning of rebellion was properly applied in the bombing.  Perhaps my curiosity will never be fulfilled, but studying the actions he took against the crown and against piracy may get me a little closer to what he really meant when he penned those particular thoughts.