Waste not, Want not

          Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have the counsel of my grandparents in addition to my parents.  My grandpa was full of idiomatic expressions and really insightful advice. However, when I was young most of these expressions went way over my head. This "waste not, want not" idea was no exception.  It was not until I grew up that I appreciated the consequences of wasting and what affect it had on how much I wanted and needed.  I chose to write to an edublogger who discussed this topic and how it could be used in schools.

 Sans Problemes! (Marie-France Perkins—French) http://mmeperkins.typepad.com/

           Her name is Mme Perkins.  In the summer, I wrote about the creativity and unique technology use she incorporated into her teaching.  While her posts have become few and far between since her retirement from teaching, each post is well developed and thought out.  The post to which I gave a response she titled her lesson (translated) "Stop Wasting!" She had a short article that described some statistics about the amount of waste being done in France and some proposed ways to help prevent waste and help the environment.  All I could think of when reading this was the guest speaker that came into our class and talked about sustainability being a central focus of schooling.  She followed the short article with a short list of questions that assessed students' comprehension of the reading and gave them an opportunity to provide some insight of their own.  It was a pretty simple activity, but the content was relevant and could be applied to their lives after school.  I shared my thoughts (below), but I have not yet heard back.  Honestly, I might steal this idea verbatim for my lessons in January. Is that illegal? 

Bonjour Madame! I have followed your blog for a few months now and I really like the ideas you have posted. I am studying to become a French teacher and I am constantly looking for ideas for ways to deliver content in interesting and fun ways. I really like the slideshare feature that you have on your site. Perhaps I should look more into that, but what I really wanted to know was where you drew the inspiration for the creation of your assignments and lessons when you were teaching. As a student, we are told to make the material we teach sustainable, relevant information. This topic of waste certainly meets these requirements. Additionally, it is something I am conscious of and could see myself teaching one day. Thank you for your creative ideas and your effort to share them with francophiles around the world. Merci!

I wanted to let her know that I appreciated her ideas and that I intended to utilize the information in my future teaching.  I was hoping to get some of her ideas on where she gets her material and where she draws her inspiration.  I am always curious as to how teachers come up with ideas and the process they go through in reaching that conclusion. I believe collaboration to be a huge component of successful teaching.  Edubloggers such as Marie make this possible.