Created by Monette Ross of West Des Moines, Iowa - meant to inspire teachers, myself included, to be better than we used to be with each passing day.

1. Ms. Ross’ Playground
quot;The purpose of life is to matter, to
count, to stand for something, to
have it make some difference that
we lived at all.quot; ~Leo Rosten

2. A leader is not one who says,
“Follow me.”
A leader is one who says,
“I’ll go first.”

3. “If you want to build a ship, don't herd people
together to collect wood and don't assign them
tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for
the endless immensity of the sea.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

4. You don’t stand behind your students, nudging them
forward in an unclear direction…you go precisely to
where you want them to be and say “Hey, you guys!
Look what I found!” with great enthusiasm.
You don’t tell kids to read a story and answer the
questions…you give them a story to read and ask what
new understanding they have as a result of doing so.
~Monette Ross

5. Think Different
Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.
(Apple Computer Ad Campaign)

6. quot;How does one become a butterfly?quot; a little girl asked.
With a twinkle in her eye and a slight smile, the wise old woman
replied, quot;You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up
being a caterpillar.quot;

7. The Lego Lesson
As my son scattered his Legos upon the floor, I
settled into my recliner, cup of tea at my side,
bravely prepared to assess my students’ work
collected earlier that day. Quietly going about
our own business as the stereo sang softly in the
background, I became increasing aware that Ari
was having much more fun at his endeavor than
I was at mine.
I was recently struggling to get my students to have some original thoughts and responses to what they were
reading in social studies.
As I watched Ari build a rather intricate skate park out of the small colored blocks, my frustration with my
students' progress and my lack of knowing how to help began to dissipate as an idea began to form.
Reading is very much like playing Legos. One doesn’t “play Legos” by moving the blocks individually around the floor,
or lining them up and properly identifying the color of each.
But that’s precisely how my students have been going about their reading. Each word they see on the page
represents a Lego, a building block, if you will. They line them up in their mind, identify the words in order, but
never build any of their own meaning with them!
If Ari’s skate park came out looking like a giraffe, I’d certainly know what questions to ask to help him think about
relocating a few of the blocks, or possibly even suggest he call it a “giraffe” instead.
But without building anything during their reading, without connecting any of the “blocks” into some structure or
Understanding, what COULD my students honestly have to share as a result? And how could I possibly know where
to start asking questions, or clarifying the material to aid in their understanding?
The next day I was most excited for the kids to arrive, eager to share my findings with them. “Eureka! I have
discovered a cure!” I cried out enthusiastically when the students had taken their seats. And my remedy? ...well, a
~Monette Ross
pocketful of Legos, of course.

8. “Go about everything as if it were impossible
to fail. When you're fishing for Moby Dick,
bring along the tartar sauce!”

9. “Don't say you don't have enough time.
You have exactly the same number of
hours per day that were given to Helen
Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother
Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas
Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.