Mrs. Stitham

I wish I could be as creative as everyone else with their sonnet writing abilities......no I don't. I won't lie. I enjoyed listening to Mrs. Stitham. I couldn't stop myself from agreeing with her at so many levels that I did interject that and probably interrupted her flow in speaking. Thank you for getting her information to me. I am contacting her this weekend to speak to my district office and the other teachers on the curriculum rewrite committee in hopes that it doesn't just inspire the other young teachers who are in on the process, but I hope she revitalizes some of the veteran teachers who seem to be on board just to check a block in hopes of getting a position in the district office after the process concludes.

I followed her 3 levels like everyone else did and it seems to fit all the other graphic organizers out there that justify the statistics for education. But I think I was paying more attention to them because they are based on her real world teaching observations and not some book that molds the statistics to every kid in the country.

My hopes are that I will report back next week to the class that I had a successful outcome from drawing on her insight. But, if it's not, I will not call it a loss or a defeat because she at least has validated to me that I am following a line of thought or a philosophy of Language Arts education that not only means something but is correct despite the current trends to teach tests.

Thanks for including her in our class and our foundation in this learning process.

Susan Stitham & Shakespeare

I had the pleasure of first being introduced to Susan when I first entered the SOE program. She was the guest of honor/keynote speaker and boy did she speak. She spoke, for whatever length of time, without a breath of air.

I wasn't peeved by the lack of brevity but she had my full attention because she was talking about Shakespeare and OSHA. She had a lot of good points and I was particularly impressed because she was above or at least on par with my Shakespeare professor at the University. Anyway, she is a fantastic speaker who has the ability to embark on many topics and, for the most part, find her way back full circle. Usually.

I'm slightly jealous of Susan's speaking capabilities because she remains so close to the topic without going off on rampant tangents. I really would like to see her in a teaching setting because I bet the students would love her.

On a side note, I had recently found out that she sat in on a class (I don't remember when) that my old Shakespeare prof taught and she scoffed at a lot of his theories and ideas. I love insight like that because I, as a teacher, know we are not infallible.