Tag: CEEQER

Categories
Education Art Class

Brainly Educator of the Year

One evening in April, Landyn called out to me from the other room “MOM check your email!!” So I did, and I found a nomination for Brainly Educator of the Year award!

The educator is my mom who is an art teacher at Ridgely Middle school. She teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and is nice to them all. She has helped me to stay on task a lot and get out of rough patches in my virtual learning and in this crazy time. She is the most supportive person I know and helps her students a lot too. My mom has been an exceptional educator in my learning journey this year because of many reasons. One of them is she is always prepared and cares for others a lot. She is always concerned if someone gets hurt and makes sure that they are okay. This crazy time is affecting all of our jobs, whether it’s getting fired or everything being harder to manage, my mom doesn’t care! She pushes through each struggling day of driving an hour to her school and back dealing with kids for the whole day, then drive all the way back home just to get on meetings and teach more kids and never gets tired of it! My mom is practically a real life superhero! I don’t care if she wins or not, I just wanted to nominate her to show her how much I love and appreciate her!

-Landyn Oates

I am so proud of Landyn and all he has accomplished as a 7th grader during quarantine. He had a tough time for a little bit when he got behind on work. As a mom and educator I find it interesting to manage my parent mindset and educator mindset, though most times they are the same. When it comes to being a parent, things like making sure my children take responsibility for their things… helping with family matters such as keeping their rooms clean, doing chores, and making sure they complete their schoolwork. Then as an educator, I find it important to make sure they have enough time to complete their school work. Especially during this virtual learning time… there is so much students do not know about using computers that they are learning so quickly.

So I decided to help Landyn out by taking over his chores, and instead of punishing him for his misuse of time, he used his time to complete his work and saw what happens when we do not do our part. When we slack off and decide to do other things then our responsibilities, it affects the whole community. Our actions affect the community as a whole, either in a positive or a negative way. This was such a good experience for him. He learned his lesson through love and modeling rather than anger and punishment.

Brainly: SMARTER TOGETHER.

No one knows everything, but everyone knows something. With Brainly, students combine their strengths and talents to tackle problems together.

Core Values

  • STAY CURIOUS: Always question. Always wonder. Always explore. There are no limits to what we can discover and learn. We believe in embracing our curiosity and seeing where it can take us.
  • LEND A HAND: We’re all in this together. And there will come a time when each and every one of us will need a little support. So when you see someone who needs an extra hand, don’t think twice. Step in and help them out.
  • STRIVE FOR BETTER: Reach further. Go longer. Work harder. There’s no knowing what we can accomplish when we commit to always trying to do better, and be better, in everything that we do.

These core values really resonate with me! The CEEQER model is one of questioning, exploring, expressing, reflecting, and experimenting. Then taking what we know and sharing it to help others on their journey! Its about having a growth mindset, and know that we learn most from our challenges.

So after finding out I was nominated I shared it with my students, and boy did they take it and run! I was voted for 164 times!! I am so grateful for my community, family and friends. Thank you all for believing in me and voting for me.

I did not have the most votes for my category, humanities, first place was taken by Angela Dierschke an educator from Lewisville ISD, Killough Texas! I love Texas educators!! Way to go!

I did however receive the BRAINLY SPECIAL AWARD!

Brainly Educator of the Year

This is such a wonderful opportunity and I am so grateful for be given this award! Thank you Brainly for your vision to share and celebrate educators!

Categories
Art Divine I Am Existence Southern York

Retreat

Are you interested in getting away for a few days to tap back into your being?

Looking for a new experience to help you reconnect with your soul?

Excited about Art, Yoga, and Meditation in nature?

Our Art and Soul CEEQER Retreat would be perfect for you!

For a limited time we are offering a 33% discount using the code:
CEEQER

Spaces are limited so act fast to reserve your spot!

Click here to register!

Categories
Art Art Class Divine I Am Education Existence

Budget Cuts

There is an updated federal budget and it shows something that immediately triggered the CEEQER in me… a cut in funding to all the art and education programs.

budget_v2

This is a MAJOR shift and as an Art educator in the public school system, I will be affected by this change. So when I read this, I had to turn on my ceeqer senses.

Question the situation: What DOES this mean? How could this affect my reality? Brainstorm the possible outcomes from this situation, and all the possible meanings and reasons.  Not just reason from my mind, as those are but expectations, but also my intuition… from the divine.

Everything in reality relates to our energetic being… everything happens as it should on multiple planes in what we call existence. Its our perception of what is happening that makes us feel as though it should or shouldn’t be, or is or isn’t good.

So I asked myself… What was the world like before the arts were federally funded? What was education like before the arts? What would the world have been like without ever having art federally funded?

I know that Art Integration is the most holistic manner of learning… it is through experience and expression that we can relate to our reality and integrate new knowledge into our being.

Then I asked myself what would the world look like after the funds are taken away from these programs?  What exactly do these programs do? How do they assist in lifting up the divine being within us all?

As I reflect on these questions I realize this is the time for the divine light to shine bright in the darkness. When there is darkness, the light pierces through with such power and beauty that it is almost blinding.  Now is the time for all of us who are called to teach and serve to stand up and take a hold of our power and lead the way.

We are divine light… we are all unique and have beautiful gifts to share, to help each other grow and to make the most of this existence. When we know ourselves… when we are centered in our own light, we can shine bright for those around us to see themselves more clearly.

We are all creators… we do not need federal funding to see that.

This is that time.
The budget cuts are like a dimming of the city lights
which allows us to see the the moon brighter
Everything happens as it should,
it is time to take back our power and lead.

<3 Migwetch
Gizaagi’in
Raine Dawn

Categories
Divine I Am Existence

Wake up

Some days I wake up feeling not so beautiful…no matter what I try on, nothing fits right, nothing looks right, nothing feels right.

My mind questions and reflects, spending a lot of time figuring out where things I think come from, why I am thinking them, what is keeping me in this thought pattern?! I mean… if it makes me unhappy… then why am I choosing to dwell on it.  I say DWELL because its OK to feel what we feel, but to sit there and continue to feel a feeling that is not going to uplift me on my path is not beneficial!

So after reflecting on the question, why do I feel “not beautiful”?, I realized that it was a lot about how I felt about what I looked like… if i wore this shirt or those jeans… if the jeans were too tight, or the shirt didn’t match.  If my hair doesn’t look right or my clothes don’t fit… I do not feel beautiful…. you know what I have to say about that… THAT’S BULLSHIT!

I am beautiful, my clothes do not make me beautiful. My hair and makeup doesn’t make me beautiful! I had to ask myself, what does!? When do I feel beautiful? So I complied a list…

I feel beautiful when:
I am hiking in nature
I am digging in the dirt
I am smiling
I focus on seeing the beauty around me
I wear clothes that I like
I am well rested
I have gratitude
I am engaged in listening and seeing other people as they are
I create

Now its time for ACTION… because whats the use in questioning and reflecting if there is no action taken on what’s found out?

Its time to create, explore and experiment on what I’ve questioned, reflected up and expressed.

This is truly a Ceeqer’s life.

Every day I will do at least one thing that makes me feel beautiful, even if it’s just to smile at a stranger.

<3 Migwetch
(means thank you)

Raine Dawn

Categories
Divine I Am Existence Oracle Cards

Growing in Grace

We all struggle with our thoughts, emotions, and feelings at one point or another. Sometimes we experience struggles back to back. Sometimes these struggles only come once in a while, but when they present themselves they are heavy and feel overwhelming.

As a person who is constantly questioning and reflecting on my experiences, so that I may see my relationship to this existence more clearly… I often find I do not allow myself to fully feel my emotions when faced with these struggles.

Often when I start to feel overwhelmed with emotions from stressful situations, I tend to reason them away. I tend to reflect so much on the situation that I don’t allow myself to fully feel and process my emotions. I starting realizing this pattern as I was presented with trying situations the past two weeks.

In the moments of emotional struggle that hardest part for me to reconcile is that I feel like I shouldn’t be feeling bad because I feel like I know better. I know that all of our experiences are here to teach us something about ourselves. I know that the way we perceive our emotions is just a thought that we’ve been programmed with. For example… Crying over spilled milk. Why would we cry over spilling our milk if there wasn’t some expectation attached to it. And what is an expectation but a thought we’ve intended for a specific experience.

I realize that our emotions are REAL. We do really feel them. They really affect us physically. We feel a pain in our chest when our heart hurts, we feel flutters in our stomach when we’re nervous. These are all real experiences. Our emotions effect us in our physical body, but first we react through thought about experiences and that is what determines the emotions we feel.

How do we determine how we react to a situation… through an assumption or expectation of how the situation will turn out.

Honestly, I was struggling the past two weeks.  I was feeling dark, selfish and self centered. Feeling bad that I only focus on what I desire, what I wish for, what I want…. on what makes me happy in the immediate moment. Feeling like nothing special, like I am not a great being. I am only me, living this existence each moment based off how I want. I felt selfish, horribly selfish…and the hardest part for me to reconcile is that I feel like I shouldn’t be feeling bad because I am light.

Even if we are aware of the light within us, we are still human. We still have thoughts and experiences that involve a full range of emotions. That’s what we are here to do…. experience.

We are here, meant to experience…. if we can become the best person possible through these experiences then why wouldn’t we want to experience everything we can. So when faced with struggles I say… “why not me?” This changes my perspective from… victim of circumstance to ceeqer of self; a C.E.E.Q.E.R. is one who creates, explores, experiments, questions, expresses and reflects on oneself and ones experiences.

My best friend Amber has been pulling cards for us from the I Am Power Deck by Devin at Mystic Moons Tarot  for the past few weeks.

This week’s cards were …

What we need to know: I am Light.
What we need to show: I am Human
What we need to grow: I am Thankful

This reading is perfect… we need to remember and know that we are Light… living a human experience. We need to share with one another and show that we are human. It is important to show our human side, because without it we would not be… and so we shall be thankful.

Knowing we are light, and showing we are human through grace.
<3

Raine Dawn

Categories
Art Class

Be a CEEQER … Resources

A few resources for teaching and learning with the C.E.E.Q.E.R. model

MAEA CEEQER resources

ARTFUL THINKING routine

CEEQER presentation on PowToon