A footnote about the "Crazy" teacher:

     I teach fourth grade at Gardens Elementary in Pasadena, Texas (the best school, the best and smartest kids, and the most fantastic colleagues!) and serve as the Webspinner, tacking things up on the Gardens' website. Even though I started out as a liberal arts major from the University of Indiana, Bloomington, fell into the Teacher Corps program out of Texas Southern University in Houston, and wound up with a Masters in Education and a good chunk of a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction,  I ended up with a focus in life: I am a bilingual teacher. I tried to become other things, but, like Jonah in the whale, I couldn't shake teaching loose.

    I also became a Science Fair Coordinator -- by accident. I went to a workshop and immediately was thought to be an expert. Since then, trying to keep up the image, I collect science books of all kinds, although my favorite are the AIMS ones and the Janis VanCleave experiment series. Children excited about finding out how magnets work, how styrofoam can dance with a balloon, how worms can race, how soil looks through a microscope, how to make a polymer  -- all of these are exhilarating, messy bits of being a teacher.

    Teaching is the biggest rush!

    Along the way, I had another accident: because I have an 'insatiable curiosity' about computers, I attended another workshop, made some friends, and voila! I am now a certifiable technology mentor, soon to be a Master Technology Teacher! The kids are continually but kindly showing me what I don't know. 

     Did I mention how lucky we are as teachers to be surrounded by children who forgive us our mistakes and help us fix them? 

     I do have another life, though.  I have been married about as long as I have been teaching, and God bless teachers' husbands! They have to be very special people!

     More special people: Since August 13, 2003,we have formed a new group within my family, 4Gen, consisting of my mother, myself, my daughter, and my precious new granddaughter. Our families rejoice with us!

Wishing the best for all of y'all,

L. Cantu

WebMaestra and Spinner

aka that teacher with the strange earrings