Monique Niederer

I love my God, my family, and my students!

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

Watch Lindsay! Please Subscribe! See Paisley's new outfit and hairdo! https://t.co/x5eBTcq1VB via @YouTube

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Swiss farmers planted flowers between their crops and watched pest damage drop by over half. The UK is now running the same trial across 15 farms. The reason this works is embarrassingly simple.

A Swiss study on winter wheat found that fields with wildflower strips had 40 to 53% fewer leaf beetle pests than fields without. Crop damage dropped 61%.

The mechanism is simple. Wildflowers feed hoverflies, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, and ground beetles. Those insects eat the aphids, beetle larvae, and caterpillars that farmers would otherwise spray for. A few meters of wildflowers hosts an unpaid pest control crew that would jump at the chance to whoop some aphid ass.

In apple orchards where no insecticides had been used for five years, plots with wildflower alleyways had 9.2% damaged fruit. Control plots without flowers had 32.5%.

The UK is now running a five-year trial across 15 farms placing 6-meter flower strips through the middle of fields, not just at the edges, because the beneficial insects can't reach the center of a large field otherwise.

This works the same way in a backyard vegetable garden as it does on a commercial farm. Plant native flowering species near your tomatoes, beans, and squash. The pests still show up, but the predators show up too.

Study doi: 20151369

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

"Mary had a little lamb" wasn't just a nursery rhyme—it was a real 9-year-old girl who saved a dying lamb, and that lamb's wool eventually helped save a piece of American history.

You probably learned the rhyme as a child.

Maybe you've even sung it to someone else.

But Mary was real.

Her name was Mary Sawyer, and the famous poem began with a true act of kindness.

March 1815.

Sterling, Massachusetts.

Nine-year-old Mary was helping with morning chores when she discovered that one of the family's sheep had given birth to twins.

One lamb was healthy.

The other lay weak, abandoned by its mother, and barely alive.

Without warmth and milk, it wouldn't survive.

Mary begged her father to let her save it.

At first, he refused, believing the tiny animal had no chance.

But Mary wouldn't give up.

Finally, he agreed.

She carried the freezing lamb inside, wrapped it in warm clothes, and stayed beside the fireplace through the night.

She fed it by hand and cared for it every day.

Against all expectations, the lamb recovered.

Soon it followed Mary everywhere she went.

Its loyalty became impossible to miss.

One morning, Mary secretly took the lamb to her one-room schoolhouse.

She hid it beneath her desk inside a basket.

Everything stayed quiet until Mary stood to recite her lesson.

Suddenly, the lamb jumped out, bleated loudly, and followed her across the classroom.

The children burst into laughter.

Even the teacher smiled before asking Mary to take the lamb outside.

Mary thought it would simply become a funny memory.

She was wrong.

A visitor named John Roulstone Jr. had witnessed the scene.

The following day, he handed Mary a piece of paper containing a poem inspired by what he had seen.

It began with four unforgettable words.

"Mary had a little lamb..."

Mary treasured that poem for years.

The lamb lived several more years before dying accidentally.

Its wool was carefully saved, and Mary's mother knitted stockings from it.

Years later, writer Sarah Josepha Hale expanded the original verses and published them in *Poems for Our Children*.

The poem spread across America, becoming one of the best-known nursery rhymes ever written.

Then came an extraordinary moment.

In 1877, inventor Thomas Edison tested his new phonograph—the first machine capable of recording sound.

To demonstrate it, he recited one simple poem.

"Mary Had a Little Lamb."

Those words became the first audio recording in human history.

More than sixty years after Mary rescued one tiny lamb, her story helped mark the beginning of recorded sound.

In 1876, Mary publicly confirmed she was the girl from the famous poem.

She even donated stockings made from her lamb's wool to help preserve Boston's historic Old South Meeting House.

Mary Sawyer passed away in 1889, leaving behind a legacy few children could ever imagine.

The rhyme wasn't just about a lamb following its owner.

It began with compassion.

One little girl refused to abandon a helpless animal when everyone else had already lost hope.

That single act of kindness became a poem.

The poem became history.

And history turned a little lamb into a legend remembered around the world.

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

I didn't really know anything about Charlie Kirk

Until this week Kirk was a name and face I would occasionally see someone retweet on here and I would scroll past. I'd seen 2 or 3 short videos taken from Tiktok of him debating some low IQ college student but that was it.

I'm generally not interested in MAGA. I broadly believe in many of their goals, but find much of the rhetoric and policy implementation to be self defeating. To me Kirk was another Ben Shapiro or Tim Pool. All MAGA, all the time.

Immediately following his shooting my shock was political and societal. Another step down in what seems to be the never ending descent of American, and thus Western, society. Another sad day for free speech, no matter what you thought of the man's politics.

Then in the following hours my timeline was filled with videos of Kirk as a father, and my heart broke. I saw a man that was clearly devoted to his family and who loved them, and was loved in return, a great deal. I felt that love forever torn apart. I saw a daughter that would never run to her father and wrap her arms around him again.

The following day I saw more videos on here, and out of respect and curiosity I watched them all. Maybe they would make some sense of why someone felt the need to end this man's life and rob his children of a father. They did not.

Contrary to the tweets spreading through X as some kind of justification, what I found was a man who was deeply religious. I man that had a true belief system, and not one that he bent or shaped to fit to modern society. For example. he absolutely believed that homosexuality was a sin because that was what the bible told him, but he did not hate or think less of those people. Many of his close friends such as Peter Thiel and David Rubin were gay.

What I see when I watch the videos of Kirk is a fan of deep faith who put that faith above everything else. I see a man who treated everyone with compassion and civility. I see a man that was friendly and open and honest.

Honestly, I see a man that is braver and better than I. Not because he put himself in danger by wanted to talk to people, but by handing himself completely over to a belief system that I've never been able to get my head around. Like many of us, the idea is alien to me.

I can't say I don't watch his videos with a tinge of jealousy. What I see is a man who was completely happy. A man confident in his faith and who led his life accordingly. A man who not just believed, but acted on his belief.

At a time when so many people seem empty and depressed, it's hard not to be a little jealous of a person that seemed so fulfilled.

With this in mind, it's been incensing to see him slandered on here by people without any of the faith and none of the commitment. To see people take the man's faith and turn it into something twisted and hateful.

I knew nothing of the man in life, but I will try to listen to him more in death.

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

@80s_Kidz The fluffy cheescake squares with graham cracker crumbs!

[Tom Rogers @RogersHistory]

Find it really sad the sheer number of teachers you see and speak to who either want to get out or are.

[Fixing Education @FixingEducation]

One of the biggest issues in education…

The people that make decisions for what is best for students are NOT teachers.
Nor are teachers even asked.

[𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 @DrBradJohnson]

Effective teachers don't focus so much on rules, but more on relationships, routines, & expectations. If you focus mainly on rules, you will spend most of the year enforcing them. But if you focus on relationships, routines, & expectations, you rarely have to defer back to rules.

[Ernst @uncle_ernst]

Testing the kid’s patience! #fruitsnackchallenge

[𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 @DrBradJohnson]

Teachers aren’t just grateful to have their job because it’s goes so much deeper than that. Teachers are grateful to continue making a difference in the lives of their students even in the midst of a crisis. And that is what makes them Teachers and difference makers!

[𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 @DrBradJohnson]

Teacher Appreciation is really about being valued as an expert and professional. It’s when admin realize that their school is full of competent & dedicated staff who don't need constant monitoring. They simply need encouragement, support & the autonomy/flexibility to be amazing.

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

@DrBradJohnson Yes! I’d love to eventually see a study comparing the experiences of families that rec’d lists of websites (or packets) for remote learning vs. those who had teachers involved daily, differentiating and individualizing like we (are supposed to) do in the classroom.

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

@DrBradJohnson Love my school, @SHS_HCS, where we could wear jeans every Friday with a school shirt...without paying a dime!

[Henry County Schools @HenryCountyBOE]

When all you have worked for over the past 13yrs seemingly becomes a footnote to this terrible pandemic, a leader like @LearnInHenry writes to remind the Class of 2020 that we're there for them & they will be an inspiration for future generations! A letter to the Class of 2020...

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

I snuck up behind them ;)....and I just really love this picture of our amazing speech-language pathologist walking some of my little students back to the classroom after their session. <3… https://t.co/EsrjCjGAo1

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

@terib3294 @JennMGreenberg @JHWalz32 Can you please send me that list as well? My concerns about a bully in my daughter’s 7th grade class in a Christian school seem to be going unheard..:.

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

@JennMGreenberg Aw, I’ve been praying for the return of your laptop. But did you know Bob Goff lost his whole second book when his laptop was stolen, and he hadn’t backed it up? He can joke about it now...So you’re in good company! Best wishes to you as you reconstruct your work.

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

Lindsay's recreation of #gordonramsay 's sea bass (plus salmon) with… https://t.co/exUi8vtUFx

[Monique Niederer @Niederer9807]

Yes, even Google knows about my two daughters. 😊💕 https://t.co/bDh6PEprf5