World meet Me.

My name is Sarah Ballard and I am a teacher.

I am a teacher, a literacy specialist and a school support coordinator.  I am inspired to support our students and our teachers in the most meaningful way.  I believe in meeting eachother where we are at and guiding eachother towards what inspires us and leads us to our goals.

Teaching is hard.  It’s a rough gig.  A lot of people take teachers for granted and think that because we ‘get summers off’ that we are overpaid and underworked.  The truth is, teachers could use all of the support that they can get.  Teachers are the unsung heros of tomorrow.  They not only teach reading and writing, they teach the students integrity, compassion, empathy, honesty and kindness.  Then they fall in love.  They fall in love with the students, year after year, and then send them off to the next teacher all the while hoping that they made a positive difference in their lives and that the students remember their multiplication facts next year in math class.

Teaching is hard, but teaching during a pandemic is harder.  Teachers are exhausted, anxious, scared and just burnt-out.  It is our job as fellow teachers, leaders and friends to lift eachother up.  Share the great things that are working for us and making our lives a little easier.  Talk about the what excites us and drives us to be better than we were yesterday.  Offer support and guidance when we see our co-workers stumble.

This is my why.  I want to share some insight into what other great educators are doing.  I want to talk about the things that make us feel excited when we wake up in the morning.  I want to be a leader who lifts people up and helps them reignite their passion.

As a part of my own growth this year, I have started walking the path towards my graduate degree; Teaching, Learning, and Leadership.  My very first course on this journey is EC&I Designing for Online and Blended Learning.  I am excited about this course because it has already helped my check a few things off of my bucket list, which are to start a blog and join twitter.  Through this course I hope to learn new ways to support the fellow teachers that I work with every day as they tranisition back and forth from online to in-person learning. They are the true rockstars.  I am also looking forward to discovering new and interactive ways to engage students while maximizing their learning.  Last but not least, I am excited to begin building modules through moodle, as this is something that my coworkers currently do and it is something that we could use to streamline some of the professional development work that we create.