Thing 22

Okay, so now I have to admit it, I am a Facebook addict. I actually resisted the idea of joining for a long time. I knew about my space and Facebook because my youngest son was a member of face book while he was in college (my oldest son still resists the idea) and of course many of my students have talked about their accounts and what was said or done for the past several years. To be honest, I was a little afraid to join, but my wife joined and began to reconnect with people that we had known from the past, many that had been my students. Therefore at her and their urging, I joined. I now realize what a wonderful tool this is. Since I joined a few weeks ago, I have reconnected with many of my ex students and have caught up with where they are, what they are doing, and that is a great benefit to both of us. Because band is such a family thing and because we do grow close to our students as we literally see them grow up, it is wonderful to see what they are doing with their lives, see pictures of their families, or just see where they are. I literally have ex students across the United States, many with all kinds of occupations and we all have the common background of having experienced band together. In fact, not only did I reconnect with my ex students, I reconnected with MY ex band director, who is now on Face book! Even though it is a social network, it does serve an educational purpose, because I can tell my current students that there is a future, that their current experiences in band will serve them well in it, and that they will have those connections for the rest of their lives. This helps be be a better teacher and helps them to be better students and helps all of us realize we are lifetime learners. In fact, many of my ex students that are now teachers tell me that many of the things they use in their classroom now, they learned from me. I am really glad I joined and I encourage anyone especially teachers to join and connect with students and ex students.