The best rules for teaching aren't found in a textbook, a teacher training class, or even the advice of older colleagues. It's found inside of you, in your gut, your instinct, your intuition. Here are ten rules no one will teach you, but will get you through the darkest times in your teaching career:

1. I HODL which is nothing like Yodel. It’s an acronym for Hold On for Dear Life. If I hang a sign around my neck saying, I’m HODLing. Leave me alone, everyone knows to avoid me.
2. When coloring between the lines doesn’t work, I try a bigger paintbrush. What I mean is, when those multitudinous rules about genre writing bog my story down, it’s time to try breaking the rules.
3. If something that used to work no longer does, change it. My husband used to kill flies by snapping them with his fingers. Then he got old(er), tired of his miss rate, and switched to a dishrag.
4. Every once in a while, I sit in a hard chair and reflect. I don’t do this one often.
5. I pick carefully who I trust about my teaching. That’s also my attitude toward boneless fish.
6. For difficult days, I don my I Am a Teacher t-shirt, take half a baby aspirin, and howl at the detractors.
7. Don't get tricked into measuring what you can't define. Know the problem. Investigate solutions. Ask for help if necessary.
8. Take advantage of the most important of human freedoms: You have the ability to choose your attitude in a given set of circumstances. If others are frustrated, you can be positive, others angry, you can smile.
9. Figure out your North star and stick with it. It doesn't move. Don't pretend it does.
10. Help students see around corners.

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Here are the basic skills fifth graders can learn in Photoshop if you've prepared them with basic computer skills. I've provided links but they aren't live until publication:

• Photoshop artwork--live
• Photoshop actions--live
• Photoshop basics #5 (this lesson)
• Photoshop filter and rendering tools
• Photoshop starters--quick fixes that make a photo cleaner #6
• Photoshop crop tool--with the lasso and the magic wand #7
• Photoshop clone tool-- within a picture; to another picture #8
• Photoshop--change the background--live
• Photoshop tools--add custom shapes--live
• Photoshop--start with Word (a little dated but still useful)

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