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Snooping Leads to Endearment

So I'm new to my school this year and one of the strategies that I found worked like a charm at my previous school when I just began was snooping. I use my mad ninja skills to quietly sneak into classrooms, labs and the library to see what kids are up and learning. I've had a lot of fun! I learned that in the Medieval period, artists used egg yolks as a binding element in tempera paint. I came upon a research session in our library where students were trying to convince me that Deet is NOT the root of all evil. I've walking in on students learning how to make French pastry and in sneaking into one of our hospitality classes, students gave me amazing pointers on how to make salmon. Seeing flipped classroom in actions and witnessing Holocaust memorial lessons makes me excited and serves to remind me that there are ALWAYS fantastic things happening in our schools across all curricular areas.

My snooping usually results in catching the teacher totally off guard when he or she finds me in the middle of a group of students engaged in debate or mixing paint or tweeting the model being built. There isn't much time for annoyance to set in because I, along with the kids are having a good time and who can honestly argue with that? It's been a hoot grabbing hold of these moments since I've started here. I think people are beginning to see that in spite of my role, there is nothing pretentious about how I approach my work. I hope people see that I am hands on and haven't forgotten why I came into education in the first place.

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