Author Archives: Claire Murray

I Didn’t Know How Special Sunday Afternoon Could Be…

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Sunday, May 7, at 4 o’clock, the Ann Arbor Symphony played its final concert of the season at Hill Auditorium. It was one of their finest concerts! The music was magical. It just carried me away.

 

Arie Lipsky is a wonderful conductor. He knows how to bring the best out of every musician. It doesn’t matter what instrument he or she plays. He seems to know how to reach into each one’s soul and ignite that magic spark.

 

The program opened with the Overture to William Tell and the Overture to Semiramide by Gioacchino Rossini. This was followed by the Opera Choruses by Giuseppe Verdi. The choruses were sung by the Carillon Women’s Chorale, the Livingston County Chorale, the Livingston County Chorale Women’s Chorus and Measure for Measure, the men’s choir of Ann Arbor.

 

The acoustics at Hill Auditorium are perfect. You can hear every note that is played or sung no matter where you are sitting. It was an excellent choice for the performance.

 

The stage is very wide and goes completely across the front of the auditorium. It is a thrilling sight to see the entire orchestra sitting there and then to watch the four choruses file in and stand on the risers behind them. The womens’ choruses filed in from the left while the men’s filed in from the right. It was a splendid sight once everyone was in place.

 

The choruses sang while the orchestra played. The selections were: The Anvil Chorus from Il trovatore, the Gypsy Chorus and the Matador Chorus from La traviata, Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco and the Triumphal March from Aida.

 

After the intermission, the orchestra played Capriccio Italien, Op. 45 from Tchaikovsky and The Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi. The music was enchanting and the moment seemed to go on forever and then it stopped. The applause was exuberant, heartfelt and passionate. Everyone felt they had experienced something extraordinarily wonderful!

Our New Meeting Place

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Wednesday, April 5th, was our meeting in Ann Arbor. We met at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore on the corner of Washtenaw and Huron Parkway (3235 Washtenaw). It was so-o-o nice to be back in a bookstore again, especially one that was so welcoming!

 

The minute I walked in the first set of doors, there were various books vying for my attention. Once through the next door, the magazines and the café were to my right, the Information Desk in front, and stationary, cards, etc. to the left.

 

This bookstore also has a second floor filled to overflowing with books in many different genres. Fiction, history, psychology and more are all on the second floor. There are also chairs throughout so you can sit and peruse the books you’re interested in.

 

Everything was ready for us when we arrived for the pre-meeting. Once we took the escalator to the second floor and turned right twice, there was a long brown table waiting with chairs on both sides and a “Reserved” sign on top. We all felt so welcome!

The pre-meeting went very well. Barbara led us in a writing activity about “Our Crazy Family”. And, we had new member, Michelle, join us for the evening.

 

John led the main meeting. We had three pieces and there was plenty of time for feedback on each. In fact, the discussions were so lively and extensive that we barely finished by 9:00 p.m.

 

Our next meeting here at the Barnes & Noble in Ann Arbor will be Wednesday, May 3. The weather should be better by then and all of us hope that more people will be able to make it!

 

If you want driving advice, coming from Livonia on M-14, make a left onto #23 South. After the Geddes Exit, the traffic slows down that time of night. So, take the Geddes Exit on right and continue on Geddes to Huron Parkway. Turn left onto Huron Parkway. In a few minutes you’ll see a shopping center with a Walgreens Store on your right. Turn in and go past a few stores. You’re here! Barnes & Noble is on your right.

 

If you come to the light on Washtenaw, turn right and then right again into the shopping center. Barnes & Noble will be straight ahead.

 

Looking forward to seeing you on May 3!

Our Lucky Day!!!

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I don’t often think about luck, good or bad. I feel life mostly turns out for the best. And, if I have a few lucky breaks along the way, so much the better. You are probably wondering, why am I writing about luck? This is my story.

 

Last year I booked an ocean cruise for myself and my husband with Viking, two weeks sailing around the Mediterranean from Barcelona to Venice. It sounded wonderful!

 

When I make reservations, I usually go with a room somewhere in the middle price range. In this case I picked one with a balcony, so we could go outside, and on the port side, so we’d see the coastline along the way on most of the voyage.

 

Over the intervening months, various papers arrived from Viking telling me to do this or that. They all began with our names and our room number. Last week the final packet arrived and the first thing I did was check that everything was correct: our names, room number, flights, hotels, etc.

 

I was shocked! The room number was different! What had happened?

 

At first I felt upset. What had Viking done? Then I decided to see where this room was and what it looked like. I clicked on the ship’s deck plan and then on the room and the screen opened up with this picture:

 

Wow! The Explorer Suite which has 757 or more square feet, depending on where it’s located. It includes a private wrap around deck as well as a living room, bedroom and bathroom the size of the one we have at home. It also comes with a number of perks such as three complimentary guaranteed priority reservations in the specialty restaurants and a welcome bottle of champagne as well as a number of other complimentary items! Frankly, I was gone when I saw 757 square feet! Our original room, which I’d been very happy with, came with 270 square feet, one priority reservation and no champagne.

 

Now I was both excited and worried! How did this happen? Would we be charged the difference in fare? This room was two-thirds to twice as expensive as what I’d originally booked.

 

I decided to phone Viking. I told the man who answered that I had noticed a room number change on our final papers. What had happened? Would we be billed the price difference? I held my breath. There was a long pause. He said he had to check our account. He was gone for what seemed like FOREVER. Finally he came back. Viking found some maintenance issues in our original room so they decided to move us. There would be no charge.

 

Wow! I let my breath out slowly. This was certainly very, very good luck!!! The Explorer’s Suite! Our trip of a lifetime! What a lucky break!

So All Can Learn

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So All Can Learn: A Practical Guide to Differentiation by John McCarthy

 

This exciting new book is just what is needed today! It will help new teachers, as well as those with many years’ experience, reach students in a time-efficient manner. New ideas are fine. But if one doesn’t have the time to implement them, they are not going to happen.

 

What makes So All Can Learn, https://www.amazon.com/All-Can-Learn-Practical-Differentiation/dp/1475825714/, so relevant is that it gives the information, as well as the encouragement and resources, to create differentiated lessons today! It also shows why student ownership is essential as well as giving ideas on how to gain it. When students are involved in lesson planning and assessment, they’re self-motivated to do a good job.

 

I remember one fourth grade reading class. My students were of average intelligence or better but you’d never know it looking at their scores. I could see them struggling every day. This book would have been a big help! Its resources, strategies, and guidance would have given me so many great ideas and saved me so much time! Instead I had to invent the wheel by myself.

 

I also remember one of my favorite third grade math classes. The students came in every day smiling, happy and enthusiastic—until we got to word problems. Then I watched their moods sink. Why? Many of them were reading below grade level. They could do the math, but they couldn’t read the problems. So they didn’t know what they were being asked to do.

 

When I read about Assessment Fog in Chapter 3, it really resonated with me. That was the problem I had faced. Yes, I solved it, but again, it took a lot of time. If I had had So All Can Learn, with all its resources, I could have created fog free assessments much faster.

 

This is why So All Can Learn is so valuable. It has, all in one place, the ideas, suggestions and resources that teachers need to help create successful differentiated lessons quickly.

 

If you’ve enjoyed reading this piece, and would like to support the author, please click on this link: https://www.amazon.com/John-McCarthy/e/B01MZ9EX0A/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Once the page opens up, on the left, is a link that says, “Follow the Author”. Click on it. This shows Amazon that people value John and it helps sell the book. Thanks!!!

 

Claire Murray, M.A., L.P.C., N.C.C.

Have You Read…?

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I belong to a book club that usually reads fiction, and I’ve read a lot of good stories that I would never have otherwise: Circling the Sun by Paula McLain, Empire Rising by Rick Campbell and Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon, to name a few. But most of the time I prefer nonfiction, books like Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui and My Promised Land by Ari Shavit.

So, when I came across the book, Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant*, I wasn’t confident that this was the right book club to bring it to. I suggested it anyway because I was so impressed with its ideas. The group agreed, and we discussed it last week at our monthly luncheon at Paesano’s in Ann Arbor.

Everyone was very taken with the fact that there is a scientific basis for believing that “our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers.”**

One of the things that impressed all of us was the idea that if you take a pill that’s a placebo, even knowing it’s a placebo, you may improve. This just seems counter-intuitive. But, it’s true.

Another idea was the importance of distraction. When burn patients have their dressings changed, it’s extremely painful. And their dressings have to be changed every day. This is a nightmare scenario.

But, if that same patient puts on virtual reality goggles and plays a computer game called “Snow World” in an ice cold environment, the patient’s pain score goes DOWN by 35%. That, plus the 40% pain reduction the patient gets from medication, makes changing the dressings each day manageable.

Cure also talks about the importance of social connections. Studies show that besides feeling good after spending an afternoon with friends, people who frequently socialize also live longer.

Now, the mind, even in the best of circumstances, can’t heal everything or make you well if you have cancer or a broken arm and refuse to get treatment. What it can do is improve your mood, make your medical care more effective and help you to enjoy what you do have.

There are many other helpful ideas in Cure. So if I’ve excited your curiosity, I hope you check out the book. I think you’ll be glad you did.

*Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant, Crown Publishers, New York, 2016.

**From the inside cover of Cure.