Happy Thing of the Day: homemade sausage- which is what my man and his best friend are currently doing. meat grinder + game meat + seasonings = day full of snack time and taste testing. Best job ever!
Achievement, Respect, Fun, Freedom
I have had a few teachers in my life who have introduced me to ARFF. I was a way to evaluate yourself, a GREAT way to run a classroom, and from one teacher I learned it was the perfect way to balance your life. I was introduced to ARFF by my 8th grade English teacher. Her teaching philosophy was that in order to have a successful classroom and successful students, you needed to have Achievement, Respect, Fun, and Freedom in the classroom. Our achievement was of course our work, and she would always call attention to sports wins, solos in choir or band, anything we did outside of the classroom that was noteworthy, she made sure we all knew about it. Our respect came from her treating us as equals most of the time, she treated us as young adults rather than the lowly new teenagers we were. Our freedom came every day at the end of class. We free time to read, catch up on homework, doodle, whatever we wanted. Every Friday it was 15 minutes, and the couch and bean bags were the highlight, and everyone wanted to sit there. This was also part of our fun, that couch was the coolest place on the planet!
When I got to high school, I met my Life 101 leader and she gave the analogy that ARFF was the way you needed to balance your life. If your life was a car, A.R.F.F. was the wheels of the car, keeping you steady. If one wasn't full you couldn't drive correctly, or safely. All of your wheels needed to be full, or things just weren't right. So when we were all feeling low on ARFF we would have ARFF note day in Life 101. This is something I miss pretty much every time my ARFF feels low. Instead of having a lesson or discussion, she would put on some music, hand out sharpies, and we would write each other encouraging little notes. We had ARFF bags or boxes or whatever we had to put them in and she kept them in her classroom. Anytime we needed them we could come in and read them, and of course we could take them home. By the time I graduated, my ARFF notes were exploding out of my Life 101 kit.
I got these little notes out the other day and I just missed those people from Life 101 like crazy, wishing I could send them all a little ARFF. So here is your ARFF 101ers- Thank you for the support you gave me and still give me today, your love and encouragement still follows me today with all of my 101 reminders everywhere (like frog and flower shaped "erasers" on my mirror). I know that none of us would be the same without this group, no matter if we were in it all 4 years of high school, or if it was just a pit stop on the way. Thank you for these precious notes, I will treasure them FOREVER! I love you all (even if you never read this)Go fill your ARFF people, you will feel AMAZING!!!!
(pictures are all of Life 101 members from while I was in the group, top picture is our leaders!)
I was searching ARFF online, and found your post. Dennis McLoughlin is the first speaker I ever heard of ARFF from. He is a unique presenter, who refuses to put in print his philosophies because he feels they then get misinterpreted! I was a teacher, and he came as a keynote to our local reading conference. He was so unbelievably positive, had so many great ideas in his presentation, etc. that I sought his classes afterwards. He comes to our area to give a class every year, and I go every other year or so to get a refresh! It sounds like you had some pretty amazing teachers! ARFF! Denny's website: https://www.hightrust.net/
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