Origins: Blog Title

This blog title came from a blurb I wrote about my teaching philosophy for my district.  

My students helped me come up with the title :-)

“My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams.”—The Big Orange Splot. 

When you walk into my classroom, it is easy to see that it’s a little different: Harry Potter Legos line the book cases, stuffed tigers lounge about, there’s a book case of my favorite books, and daily themed music playing from my iPod.

In my classroom, I start the year off telling my students that I’m a “different” kind of teacher. They won’t necessarily “get” me at first, but I will grow on them. I feel it’s an important lesson—don’t write someone off just because you don’t understand them right away. Although students are wary at first, eventually my students embrace my quirks. They embrace my odd sense of humor, and even come to find me funny in a way that only people who know me can. 

More importantly though, my students then embrace the memory tricks, raps, and analogies to my favorite fandoms (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Hunger Games). Any time I bring up Harry Potter my kids start laughing at/with me.

I find my students start to embrace their own quirks. They wear them proudly. Our classroom becomes a place where it is okay to be different. In fact it’s always okay to be a little weird because there is no way you will be weirder than Ms. Puckett. One of my students who is generally wary of people who are different told me this year that I was “weird in a cool way.” Students recognize being different and owning it is a good thing. 

Middle school is a tough place to be different, but in our classroom we wear our differences proudly.

Happy Teaching!