Selina+Gilbert

Selina Gilbert Ed.S. Elementary Education

This is my fourth year teaching 3rd grade in Madison County. I began my teaching career in Special Education, and made the transition to the general education setting a few years ago. I hope to graduate in May 2012 with my Specialist degree, which is very exciting! My husband, Zeb, and I moved to Madison County about six months ago, but up until then Athens was where we called home. We'll celebrate our fifth anniversary this October, but we've been actually been together for about ten! Oscar, our black and white parti cocker spaniel, also lives with us! From this course, I hope to gain knowledge of the characteristics and needs of gifted learners. I'm not getting my gifted endorsement, but have been wanting to take a gifted course for quite some time.

**Teaching is Like a Road Trip** Teaching for me is like a neverending road trip. I love taking these trips with my husband and family, so this is something I connect my teaching to. Getting ready for a trip requires planning and preparation. We make lists of necessary items, arrange boarding for our cocker spaniel, plan our stops which include entertainment and food, and map out our course; yes, all of this planning always means that we arrive at our destination problem-free, right? Wrong! There will be times when you get a flat, and then realize upon opening the trunk that you forgot to replace the spare. You have years when the kids will plead constantly for the entire trip, " I have to go to the bathroom...again!"...every hour. Someone will be carsick, people will argue and disagree during the vacation, and sometimes the car will overheat, breakdown, and you'll all be stuck waiting for a rescue tow. Yep. It's what road trip and vacations are all about. It's about the journey, really, and much less about the destination. It's what happens along the way, all those unexpected things that do not follow your master plan, that you learn from, grow from, remember years later and still laugh hysterically about. My teaching has been like this...a journey that never seems to end. All my years of college really could've never prepared me for what really would happen along the way. Some years I wondered why I was having such a difficult time with the parents. Others, I had a student throwing chairs across the room, punching walls and electrical boxes, and screaming all the way to the office that it was me doing the mistreating. Some years the dynamics of your class will seem a little off, and you struggle for 10 months to find the balance that your previous year's class seemed to have. You have years that start with great excitement because you have prepared all summer for new, innovating, instructional changes....and then everything goes miserably wrong. You are left standing there...okay, sometimes laying there crying....searching for answers, asking yourself how in the world you might have prevented disaster. After ten years, I have finally learned that it is truly more about the journey. We're not meant to be perfect from the get-go. No teaching program, no matter how highly esteemed, can prepare you for everything. So, you take everything in stride, go back to school for more professional development here and there, and learn from your mistakes. You eventually learn which mistakes never to make again and figure out ways to ward off future disaster...but, it's never perfect, just like our road trips. I remember telling my husband when he attended my family's vacation (our first as a married couple)...."Honey, it's okay. This really is normal. This is what really happens on family vacations." Poor thing. He'd never taken family road trips growing up and was shocked by some of the things that happened over the course of just a short week. I didn't know if he'd ever go again! But that's really what it's all about...road trips...teaching. Learning about each other as you go, learning about yourself as you go. It's what makes you stronger and brings you closer in the end. And it sure is fun! So, when I finally arrive at my destination, be it Florida or retirement, I hope I'll remember the journey and not just wonder how in the world I arrived there. What follows is a list I created after taking a week long reading course at the end of May. I wanted to add to my "working-class" literature collection. I bought these books over the summer, and now they are a permanent part of our classroom library collection.

__ Selina's Top 10 Books to Buy Over the Summer __ 1. December by Eve Bunting  2. Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting  3. Tight Times by B.S. Haven  4. Somebody's New Pajamas by L. Jackson  5. Brave Irene by W. Steig  6. The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor  7. A Chance to Shine by Seskin and Shamblin  8. How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Conner  9. Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart by Vera Williams  10. Moonpie and Ivy by Barbara O'Conner

We're pregnant! This is our 18 week picture of our sweet baby girl, which was taken a month ago. We'll be starting the 3rd trimester in December!