Awake

I lay awake in bed last night and thought to myself, "It's too early to be awake at 2 in the morning thinking about school." But there it was, my mental list. The email I needed to send to my colleague who will be teaching the class for below proficient writers for the first time, the lessons I wanted to share on google with my new student teacher, oh and how am I going to make sure she gets assimilated and confident in our profession...it went on like that for a good two hours before I finally gave up, and listened to my breath and finally fell back to sleep.

I don't know why I'm surprised. This happens every year. I try to keep it at bay as long as I can. Once I let it in it is like the blob, it overtakes my being with a dark sticky feeling to not let up until the following June. But the stress of the job is nothing compared to the joy I feel each day working with young minds just beginning to think deeply about the world. My to do list is never so long that I can't enjoy my life.

The key for me during the school year is to keep the blob a small tiny ball. I can't feed it. I can't let it animate and come to life. Otherwise, that is what becomes most important, whatever f ends the dark blob.

Sunlight, this year, will prevail and keep the blob at bay.

Travelogue

I just listened to a discussion with Suzie Boss who wrote  Bringing Innovation to Schools about just that, how do we make our classrooms places for creative innovative thinking? She discusses how she has done some travel writing and how her book reads much as a travel log might read. It makes sense.

Each year we move through the school year as a new and different journey than the year before. If I begin to log it from the beginning I wonder if I might begin to see and help my students experience more opportunities for engagement. I wonder how that one shift might change my own thinking about innovation and what my students need. 

Boss talked about some practical ways to improve the chances for true innovation to occur. One of these very practical ideas is to have students design their ideal learning space. Think about what designs help them learn, what gets in the way of learning, and then trying out their ideas and revisiting them during the year. I love that because it says to kids that we will think through even the little things in this room, and that what you have to say matters.

It reminds me a lot of writing workshop. If we teachers give up just a tiny bit of control, our students will feel like they can actually engage in authentic tasks on a daily basis, It empowers them to think.

Retreating, but not pulling back

This weekend I had the opportunity to travel to New York, not the city, but a little retreat north of the city, to gather with other teachers for the finale eating of our Literacy in the Common Core initiative with the National Writing Project. I was excited to go because I have been on this sometimes-rocky journey with this group of teachers from all over the nation. I wanted a chance to not only finish the work, but to say good bye to these very special people as well.

I worked with a group of six teachers to jury modules that were made by our team. I felt overwhelmed by this task only because I felt I was in the presence of really wonderful and great teachers and I just didn't see how I would be able to make judgements about their work. As the weekend progressed, though, I discovered the process was not, and is not, about judgement, but about helping one another come to a deeper understanding about how to actually implement and pull off the common core in the best way possible.

 The questions that rose the top for me were: how do I create units that are coherent? How do I make certain I put literacy instruction first? And how do I continue to be this thoughtful in my practice even when the school year feels crazy? I want to hold on to the learning I have made and use it to propel myself and my students forward.

Peppy - not preppy

The American pep assembly is a right of passage, an element of high school that builds community and makes a mockery of staff and students alike. They are fun, they are obnoxious, but ultimately they build a common experience in a school of 2700 kids where there are not many common experiences to be had.

Consistency is King

I had back surgery two weeks ago. I have arthritis between my L-5 and S-1 vertabra that was impinging a nerve. The surgeon went in and scraped the arthritis out, took out a piece of bone, and aspirated a cyst that was sitting on the nerve. Sounds awful, right?

Although I was pretty much down for the count for a week, I have made steady progress towards recovery. This progress is due to walking each an every day not matter how I feel, not matter my pain level, walking has been the key.

Yesterday I woke up and felt discouraged because the day before I couldn't walk as well as the previous day and I ached I awoke. Nevertheless, I ventured on my morning walk and continued to feel better as the day wore on. Last evening I was able to take a one-and-a-half hour walk, the longest since my operation. Throughout the day, I thought about what I was able to do a week ago. We walked to a restaurant down the street from my house, and I was barely able to do it. My balance was off, I couldn't quite get the grounding I needed, my knee felt like it was using new muscles, and riding in the car was painful.

Making this realization, I came to see that I have, in fact, made progress towards recovery in the last week. This helped me not feel demoralized or unmotivated to continue; it did just the opposite. It helped me understand that although each step towards recovery is slow, those steps taken together create progress towards healing.

It is the same with education. When students feel discouraged, it is important for them to realized where they were when they started, when they began the journey with me. It can be difficult from day to day to see and feel progress, but when seen over a span of time it is remarkable.

Consistency is what allows this. Doing what needs to be done each and every day to move in the direction of learning, of healing, is the single most effective way to make progress. Consistency is king!

Reform-ed

Can we reform education and not treat all parties with respect? Can we create change while ignoring communities? What can we actually do to make improvement and give our communities what they deserve?

While I believe that we need reform, must we do it in a dehumanizing way? Can we do it through empowerment rather than humiliation?

I don't know the answers, but I do know that creating change through fear is not the answer.

Watch this in light of what is happening in Atlanta.

Humble Pie

This week I went to a tea to honor those of us who won the teacher of the year awards at our schools. There were 34 of us from my district. Each teacher came to the front of the room in order to be recognized, and while awkward to stand in front of my colleagues, it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

As my principal told the attributes that got me to that point along with a list of the courses I have taught at my school, I looked around the room. And because the podium was in the middle of the audience, I could see everyone. There were teachers there who represented every part of my career other than the earliest while I was in the Peace Corps and while I lived in Arizona. Each of the people in that audience, I feel, were every bit as worthy of the award as I, if not more so. Each of them smiled at me as I stood there, some of them waved, and one even put her hands to her heart as if to tell me she appreciated me.

In education there are few times we get shown deep appreciation for what we do. Yes, we see our students grow. Yes, we sometimes hear a thank you from a parent, but it is rare to feel such deep understanding and appreciation for what we do in that room filled with 30-ish teens on a daily basis.

And then to hear what other principals said about the teachers they nominated created a whole new level of humble pie for me to take in and ingest. To be considered in the same class as some of the teachers acknowledged at this ceremony was astounding, and I am not certain yet whether I really am deserving of such a distinction.

I know I love what I do. I know I try my hardest every day to reach every kid who walks through the threshold of my four (yes, four) classrooms. Beyond that, I am not sure how I stack up.