New Year TeachersPayTeachers Giveaway

THANK YOU ALL FOR ENTERING!

Our four winners (via Random.org) are: J'Marie Jones, Meg Peitzmeier, Renea Canales, and Lindsey Knight

I will be contacting you shortly with your gift cards. :)

Happy New Year! I'd like to take a moment to express my appreciation to the folks at TeachersPayTeachers, as well as to you, my fellow teachers. Without all of you, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog, I definitely wouldn't be sharing my resources with teachers around the world, or donating to so many charities, to our school and students, and to my fellow teachers via DonorsChoose.org and various giveaways. For this ability to give back to so many, especially, I am extremely grateful.

In addition, I am thankful for my family, friends, and colleagues. After losing both of my parents within the past two years, I have a new outlook on what is truly important in life and these people mean more to me than anything else. 💕

SHARING OUR GRATITUDE
TeachersPayTeachers was generous enough to send me two $25 gift cards to give away to my followers. In the spirit of giving, I purchased two additional $25 gift cards so FOUR teachers could each win one. We want you to know that we truly appreciate each and every one of you.

TO ENTER, FOLLOW THIS ONE STEP: Comment below with what you are thankful for. (Click on the "Add Comment" box.) I do use Google+ comments; however, if you do not have a Google+ account, you can comment using a number of alternative accounts. If you are posting anonymously, please leave an email address in case you are chosen as the winner. Otherwise, I will have no way to contact you.

This giveaway will run until 9 p.m. (Central) on Wednesday, Jan. 4th. The four winners of the $25 TpT Gift Cards will be chosen at random using a third-party generator. Please, please make sure I will be able to contact you Wednesday night. If I am unable to message you, I will have to choose another winner.

Thanks, again, for all your support and patronage over the past seven years. I realize that I have not written as much in the past couple of years because of demands on my time in my personal life, so the fact that you still visit my blog truly amazes and heartens me.

I can't wait to read your comments. Thanks, in advance, for sharing what you are thankful for.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Friends!

New Year Resolutions & Goals Activities

If you are looking for some activities to use with your students when you return to school, you're in the right place. My 2017 New Year Activities are appropriate for middle and high school students, though I've had some upper-elementary teachers tell me they love using them with their students, as well.

The bundle comes with eight activities, paper-saver options, and four interactive-notebook activities. The activities vary, but practice critical-thinking and writing skills. There's also an outlet for your creative students.

SET GOALS
Have your students set goals for the remainder of the school year (or the year in general) with these visual-appealing 2017 prompts. Students love to decorate them and they make great bulletin-board displays.

Examples of classroom displays from previous years:

Tag me on social media (@MrsOrman on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest; Mrs. Orman's Classroom on Facebook) if you display your class goals!

MAKE LISTS
My Top 20/Bottom 17 Activity forces students to dig deep and analyze their actions that can be helpful or harmful in achieving their goals and resolutions.

SCAVENGER HUNT
Have some fun with a classroom scavenger hunt. Students have to find items that fit the 2017 clues. Then, they get to create their own scavenger hunt. This is a great activity to get your students up and moving around the room. It's perfect for a bell-ringer or exit slip activity, too.

WRITING POETRY
Use the numbers in 2017 to write an acrostic poem. This can be challenging for younger students, though it seems simple. Some students like to choose just one word per line, but others will be more creative and use more than one word per line. However they wish to complete their poem is always fine with me. I never like to place limits on their creativity.

CLOSE READING POETRY ANALYSIS

Students read the song lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne" and analyze it for meaning, figurative language, and vocabulary in context. This is an activity that can be used year after year (is not specific to 2017 or any other year). The answer key is included.

AND MORE...

The pack also includes additional writing prompts and a back-to-school activity (great for my Aussie friends or anyone wanting to use it for the 2017-2018 school year). 

FOLDABLE ACTIVITIES

Four of the activities are included for interactive notebooks.

DOODLE IT!

Do you have students who love to doodle or create zentangle designs and patterns? I included blank 2017 images just for that purpose. 

Yes, ALL of these activities are included in my one 2017 New Year bundle:

I hope you and your students have a wonderful New Year! I'd love to see examples of your students' work, so don't forget to tag me if you post them. :) Thanks for sharing.

Teaching #BlackLivesMatter in an all-white school

I teach in a small, rural, almost all-white community. So maybe you're wondering why I would be teaching #BlackLivesMatter.  The answer? This is where it's needed the most.

Whenever I teach Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, I make sure to cover stereotyping, racism, and use of the N-word before we even open the book. But in the past few years, I've found it harder and harder. Honestly, I thought after President Obama was elected things would change for the better.

Spongebob Squarepants is a TM of Viacom International Inc.

Yes, I believed life very well could be rainbows and sunshine. Anti-Obama supporters would see the light and embrace the historic moment. Instead, I saw people who I thought were upstanding citizens posting the most hateful, racist comments and memes on social media. And it only got worse. It didn't take long for students to pick up on what they heard at home and for the hateful language to slip into usage at school. Which made my job even more important.

If you think a white teacher shouldn't be teaching #BlackLivesMatter to white students, think again. This is the audience that needs to hear the message the most.

The biggest problem is the lack of understanding of WHY a movement like #BlackLivesMatter is necessary and important. I hear many people say, "Well, don't ALL lives matter?" Yes, they do. But, in reality, it is a mythical notion unsupported by facts. 

History tells us that our country was founded on the principle that white men matter. It would take many, many years for the populace to agree that perhaps black men, and perhaps white women, and then maybe black women matter, too. But...not as much as white men. 

Members of our judicial branch, law enforcement, and lawmakers make decisions every single day that impact each and every one of us. Their actions speak clearly: white men matter more. 

Don't believe me? Then explain this:

• Eighty-eight percent of law enforcement officers are white. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• Black drivers are pulled over by law enforcement three times more than white drivers, DESPITE the fact that police are less likely to find contraband in a black driver's vehicle. (Source: NYTimes)

• Even though whites use and sell drugs at the same (or even higher) rate as blacks and Latinos, minorities are more likely to be arrested for it. (Source: NYDailyNews)

• Despite the fact that numerous people and businesses are to blame, only one Wall Street executive was convicted for the 2007 mortgage/housing crisis that launched our country/world into the Great Recession (estimated losses globally=$4 trillion). That executive is a minority. (Source: NYTimes)

• Blacks and Latinos have suffered the most as a result of the mortgage/housing crisis. (Source: CBSNews)

• Prosecutors are 95% white. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be incarcerated for a crime than a white person. (Source: ACLU)

• One in three black men will be incarcerated in his lifetime. (Source: ACLU)

• Though only making up 6% of the population, black men comprise 35% of the prison population. (Source: ACLU)

• Corey Batey and Brock Turner were both found guilty of raping an unconscious victim. Both were 19-years-old, both were college students, and in both cases, there was ample evidence for thier convictions. One man was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 15 to 25 years for rape. One was sentenced to six months in the local jail, with early release in three months for good behavior. The only difference between the men? One is black, the other is white. Can you guess who received the harsher punishment? (Source: NYDailyNews)

• The sentence for a crime committed by a black male is 20% longer than the sentence given to a white male. (Source: ACLU) In Batey's case, it was 3000% longer.

• Sixty-five percent of prisoners serving life sentences without parole for nonviolent crimes are black. It jumps to over 70% in federal prisons. (Source: ACLU)

• Across the nation, prosecutors are more likely to strike a potential juror if he/she is black in death penalty cases. (Source: NYTimes)

• In the South, black jurors are stricken at a much higher rate (80%) than whites. (Source: NPR) 

• Eighty-seven percent of members in Congress are white. (Source: Scholastic)

• Seventy-six percent of all millionaires are white. (Source: Statista & CBSNews)

• In 2012, many states tried to pass voter-ID laws that required voters to show a driver's license or personal ID issued by the government. A majority of the voters these laws would affect were minorities. (Source: TheAtlantic)

• The amount of new voting laws passed by states in 2012 was the most since the Jim-Crow era. (Source: NYTimes)

• Thirty-four of the 50 states take away voting rights of citizens who have been incarcerated. (Source: BrennanCenterForJustice)

• In 2014, elected officials blocked a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10/hr.; 60% of minimum-wage workers are minorities. (Source: AmericanProgress) 

• Elected officials also blocked the Paycheck Fairness Bill in 2014; it would have issued harsher penalties for discrimination pay gaps between men and women. (Source: DailySignal)

• Twenty million black workers would have benefitted with higher paychecks if the American Jobs Act had been passed in 2011. (Source: WhiteHouse)

• Congress has only allowed 42% of President Obama's judicial nominations to pass, compared to 86% of Bush II's and 84% of Clinton's. (Source: WashingtonPost)

• Most toxic waste sites are created in minority-populated neighborhoods. (Source: Newsweek)

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)--a branch of the government--denied 95% of all civil rights claims against polluters in minority communities. (Source: Newsweek)

• The principle cause of the Flint, MI water crisis was "...the state government’s blatant disregard for the lives and health of poor and black residents of a distressed city." (Source: NYTimes)

• Even though white men make up 31% of the population, they hold 65% of ALL elected positions in the U.S. (Source: WashingtonPost)

Do you happen to see a trend? Do these actions represent a society that believes ALL lives matter? 

Time and time again, the people who are supposed to be representing ALL Americans seem to act as though only the white upper class matters. Our society of mass-incarcerations of our minorities causes a ripple effect that disenfranchises minority voters, thus producing a majority of white leadership, thus continuing the endless cycle of racism, discrimination, and the need for movements such as #BlackLivesMatter. 

As long as white men hold the majority of power in our nation, it is up to them to do the right thing and make decisions that are NOT based on race or income or social status. They need to make selfless decisions: sacrificing their elite statuses for the benefit of society as a whole. And while I believe there are many white men who are more than willing to make these sacrifices (I live with two of them), I am sure there are still many who are frightened by the prospect of giving up such power. (Which is probably why so many are against the idea of a female president.)

Therefore, educating our young white students on these matters is essential. They are the ones that can effect change and help make a difference. They can ensure a future where #AllLivesMatter is, in fact, a reality.