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Everybody Wants to Make Waves Until It's Time to Ride One...

I've spent more time thinking far beyond the surface this summer than I probably have in years. For the first time in a long time, I chose to work all summer. Somewhere in the middle of summer assessments, spreadsheets, IEPs, conversations with co-workers,  research, and questioning everything, I also realized something else.  For the past year I've found myself saying the same thing over and over. "So many people know what to do. They know how to do it. But they don't know WHY." That statement has followed me everywhere. It started in education. Teachers are working harder than ever. They are juggling impossible expectations, testing windows, paperwork, behavior, intervention groups, parent communication, compliance, and somehow they're still expected to create magic every single day. Most are giving everything they have. But somewhere along the way, education became a race. Faster. More data. More checklists. More boxes. Education should never become a busin...
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Scattered, Smothered, Covered… and Apparently Running an Executive Function Intervention

Recently someone said something that made me stop mid-bite at Waffle House. This was during a discussion related to working memory.  “The people who work at Waffle House have their own language.” Now before you laugh and dismiss it, sit with that for a second. Because as I’m sitting here, coffee cup half empty, listening to “Cheesesteak plate! Over medium! Scattered, smothered, covered! Waffle PB! Eggs scrambled, scattered light!” being hurled across the room at lightning speed, I start thinking… Wait a minute. Are we overlooking a whole set of skills? As a special education teacher, my brain never shuts off. Ever. I could probably be stranded on an island and somehow connect coconuts and survival skills back to executive functioning and intervention strategies. So there I sit. Dishes clanking against tubs in the back. The sprayer hissing as plates get rinsed off. The steady sizzle of hashbrowns and bacon on the grill. Coffee mugs clink as servers slide them onto tables wit...
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Stop Telling Me What They Can’t Do

Today’s word vomit… We are back to education. Back to the basics of being a growth-oriented human. Not a perfect human. Not an all-knowing human. Not a human who has all the answers. A human willing to grow. Here we go. It’s the end of the school year, and as I make my way in and out of buildings, I can feel it everywhere. The exhaustion. The pressure. The emotional whiplash that comes with trying to close out a year while simultaneously analyzing every piece of growth from beginning to end. Benchmarks. USC data. Progress monitoring. Behavior data. Classroom performance. Intervention data. State assessments. All the numbers. All the conversations. All the spreadsheets. Honestly? These days are some of my favorites because I am absolutely a data nerd. I love looking for patterns, growth, gaps, strengths, opportunities. I love figuring out how all the moving pieces connect. But I’m tired too. And one thing I’ve had to remind myself lately is this: When you walk into spaces unintentionall...
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