Eager to learn.
Voracious.
We read Joyful Learning in Kindergarten, Transitions, Invitations, The Whole Story to name a few as we learned from Bobbi Fisher, Regie Routman, and Brian Cambourne. Our professional learning as we grew our understanding.
My first introduction to book studies before anyone called them book studies. My first introduction to a student-centered classroom.
It began with a first grade teacher. A teacher who read, reflected, and then made decisions about student learning and her own teaching. A teacher who was a literacy workshop teacher. A teacher who trusted students to learn and grow.
We read. We collected data. We discussed the data. We made changes. We tried again. Action research before we heard that label.
We celebrated ALL students as readers and writers. We celebrated high expectations. We celebrated student growth. We celebrated choice. We celebrated community,
Thank you, Diane Ruyle, for all the lives you touched including mine! You encouraged me to read, write, and think deeply about learning, students, and choice!
Who has helped you grow professionally?
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Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this daily forum during the month of March.
Check out the writers and readers here.
Resource - Full 
A tribute to a beloved mentor is a lovely way to begin this month of blogging, and your post has me reflecting on my own learning experiences as student centered long before we knew the popular terms.
Glenda,
The label “student-centered” almost seems overused but was so prevalent in this classroom decades ago!
What a joyful note to start this month of writing…celebrations, dedications and gratitude. Thank you!
You are welcome!
Always so much to celebrate!
Fran, Happy March!!! So glad we are both here. We both wrote on the same theme today – gratitutde. I love what you are thanking this teacher for…your engagement with action research! As I’m closer to the end of my career than my beginning, my time with such teachers as the one you are thanking is what I value the most! You describe all the steps so well. If I ever write a book at action research, I’m contacting you to add this thank you to my book!
Sally,
I’m so glad to see that I’ll get to share in your learning this month. I don’t remember if I met you first through “slicing” or through TCRWP, but I’m so grateful to learn with and from you across the miles!
A nice tribute. Especially love “celebrating high expectations” – so important! Thanks for sharing.
High expectations are a key to reaching for the best in anyone and everyone. Thank you for reading and commenting!
And you are still eager to learn and voracious – even vivacious at times! Love you my friend — thank you for always giving me space, always being there, and always making me laugh. Looking forward to the next 31 days.
Clare,
You are such a gracious encourager! I know I was over 15 years into teaching before I ever found anyone who was interested in professional reading and it was like a beacon for my soul. I love March for the learning from others as well as the learning about myself as a writer. For now I’m the kind of writer who is grateful for the many great teachers I have worked with!
Eager to learn and voracious- words anyone would feel proud to be! You notice the best and reflect it back.
Erika,
I love your feedback and send it right back to you as well, my friend.
We all have that special person who fans the flame of learning inside us, Great tribute to a special mentor.
So true. And so important to acknowledge and share those tributes
You are the source of so much learning. Not just the resource, but the engine that keeps passion for the work we do going. So good to see your words.
Thank you, Julieanne. Some days the engine does NOT seem to be firing on all cylinders but it’s still running! So glad to see you blogging!
What a wonderful way to begin, Fran! I love that you chose to honor an educator with this first post. Always a source of inspiration – so I will visit often. Thanks, Fran!
You are welcome, Lynne. So many educators that deserve thanks!