My run in with the famous

I'm willing to bet you've never seen this man before. He is none other than Lee Jenkins.

He is an education guru. His whole philosophy is that kids have always had "permission to forget". We're not holding students accountable for what they've learned. You teachers know what I mean. We spend the first month or so reviewing concepts that had previously been taught...and we wonder why we can never get through our curriculum in a year?!

My school district has hired him for 4 different workshops this school year. I am on a special committee at my school that gets to attend these workshops.

They have been wonderful! Although the content of the workshops have been great, it's also been fun to talk with other teachers and get ideas from them.

I began implementing Dr. Jenkin's strategies at the beginning of the school year and the kids have just loved it! Every Friday, we take a quiz (it doesn't count towards their average). The quiz is 10 questions on topics they've had in 4th & 5th grade as well as topics we've covered so far this year and have yet to cover. Kids then chart how many questions they get right each week and I keep a total of the whole class. The goal is for the class to beat their score in an attempt to get an "All Time Best". If kids get an ATB, they get a celebration. I've got different sets of 6 celebrations. They roll a die to see which celebration they earn. These are little treats like a piece of candy, run around the room 3 times, take a funny class picture to hang on Ms. Brown's door...you get the idea. Nothing real big, just little things.

Well, today all my classes got their all time best. 3 out of my 5 classes rolled #4 which today said: "Ms. Brown has to talk in an accent the rest of class". I couldn't believe it! So for the majority of my day, I spoke with a british accent. They thought it was hilarious at first, but can I tell you that they have never paid more attention than when I was talking in that silly accent! They were hanging on my every word. I even had some kids ask: "Say my name, Ms. Brown" [giggle, giggle]. It was so fun!

Anyways, the reason for the picture was because I knew my kids would get a kick out of me having my picture with "Mr. Lee Jenkins" himself!! I've talked him up so much they think he's famous!!