"Begin with the end in mind."

To start off our new year, the 8th grade AVID students were asked to share their thoughts on this quote: "Begin with the end in mind." Some of the thoughts are shared below:

• Begin with the future in mind; think about how you want the end to be.
• When you start your education, you should always have college in mind.
• Begin with a plan that goes from start to finish.
• Think about your future now because that is going to be where you spend the rest of your life.
• Think about who you want to be and where you want to stand and do what you need to do in order to achieve those things.
• To begin with the end is to already have your plan for the future so you can work towards it.
• Start with the ending and then go from there; always think of the future.

To me "beginning with the end in mind," means to know what you end goal is and begin doing the things now that will help you reach that goal. It is never too early to begin preparing yourself for college. These 8th graders are just beginning an incredible path that will lead them straight to their dreams. In the words of our principal, Mr. Daniel, "Press On!"

End of Summer

Today marks the official last day of summer before heading back to school for the 2010-2011 school year. I hope that everyone has had some chances to relax and have some fun this summer. While my plan for my summer included a lot of this, it turns out that summer was much different than I expected. The third week of summer I got to participate in one of the national AVID Summer Institutes with several other teachers from our school. Just like always this was a great week for getting excited about what we do in AVID.

On the final Friday of the conference my summer took a dramatic change. My father called to tell me that my mother was being rushed to the hospital in Houston where we would eventually find out she had a brain tumor and would have to undergo brain surgery. I ended up having to spend almost a month down in Houston away from my wife and kids. While it was good to be able to be with my mom, it was tough being gone from my Dallas home so long.

The highlight of summer came at the beginning of August when my wife and I were able to spend a week in Ecuador in South America working in an orphanage on the edge of the Amazon rain forest. Both the beauty and poverty of Ecuador was amazing and it really made both of us think about how good we have it here in the U.S.

Now, being back only two weeks, school is beginning once again. I am looking forward to meeting new students in both AVID and Art and to hearing of the successes of former students who are off to high school.

Mr. Temple's Facebook Page

As more and more students begin using the social networking site Facebook, I figured it was a good place to directly communicate with my AVID students. MISD policy states that when teachers use a site such as Facebook, all communication must be done using a separate "professional page" so I have set up one for me to use. If you ever have any questions or need help with anything, please let me know and I will always do what I can to help out. I hope everyone has a great year ahead for them!