Malcolm X and Questlove Memes

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Life in my Writing Classrom: A Visual

Stop yelling...will you?

It always ends the same. "Mom, it's hard for me to listen to you when you're squawking and yelling at me." Every argument I have with my daughter is the same: I ask her to do something, sometimes there's an eyeroll, I get annoyed because I don't feel like she's taking whatever I ask her to do seriously, then I begin with the lecture. It usually starts something like, "I'm feeling frustrated..." and then we progress from there. I end the argument with, "I'm not yelling; I am talking to you with hopes that something will change."

"But, mom, you ARE yelling."

And...this is the point where we agree to disagree.

But the truth is that I never see myself as yelling. I see myself as lecturing, yes, but yelling? Not so much.

I teach students who struggle with writing and every Friday I go to another teacher's room to do team building. We play games and then we talk about what happened during the game. Man, was I schooled last week.

One of the students pointed out that his team was successful because no one was yelling, people were giving directions, but not yelling. So I asked him the difference. This began a discussion about the way kids view yelling.

Apparently, and I did not know this, yelling is not necessarily just a raising of the voice any more. You see, when I was growing up, yelling was simply raising one's voice. This is no longer the case. Yelling now seems to be telling a person to do something where the person being told does not play a part in the decision-making process. They are simply told to do whatever it is.

Whereas, giving directions implies all of the stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process...or, at least, they feel like they are involved in the process.

This realization I made with this group of students last week has opened my eyes. It has helped me understand my daughter. It has helped me think of her words very differently. All because I took the time to listen.

Students' Mathematical Interpretation of Shakespeare Sonnet 18

Girlfriends Guide to...Blogging?

In the months before my daughter was born I read books about infancy until I got freaked out. I read What to Expect When You're Expecting from beginning to end. The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy was recommended by one of my close girlfriends. I appreciated this book because it told the truth about the process in a humorous way. It made me laugh. But the other books...they just made me freak out. I'm talking about full-blown panic attacks.

This week I went through the same experience...only different. No friends, I didn't have a baby. So before you jump in the car to travel down to your local Babies R'Us hold your keys, put them down, and listen.

My students began their own blogs this week. And it's about time.

Before I started, I began reading advice from other teachers who have their students blog. It completely freaked me out. I almost backed out of the process. So instead of quitting, instead of simply walking away from the project, I went to my girlfriend, my mentor, the computer whiz at our school, Christine, who assured me all would be okay. She agreed to be with me in the birthing room...uh...I mean the computer lab...as the students started.

I have to say, much like giving birth, the reward of having my students blog is worth the heartache and fear I felt before. To hear my students walk into class after their first post, to log in to their blogs, and hear them shout out how many readers they've had is worth it's weight in gold. After all, why do we ask kids to write? Is it for a test? No, of course not. It is so they can participate in the conversations of our day. For this, I am excited to see what the birth of new writers will bring.

Not Forgotten

 Today is the one-year  anniversary of the day I found out about the death of one of my favorite students who graduated four years ago. Kenna Egbune was a light in my life. He was a shining beacon of justice and was an advocate for people to treat others more kindly.

In my AP Lang class today we talked about the paradox of cartography: the idea that when maps are created, they are merely a representation of the place; they are not the place itself. In order to create a perfect depiction of a place, one must include each blade of grass, each brick, etc.

The students asked, "What about memories? Aren't memories kind of like that?" I had to think before I answered. I thought of Kenna. The last time we met was for dinner in August 2012  with some other students from his class. He challenged one of the black girls at the table who said she would only date white men. Kenna pointed out to her how she was not comfortable in her own skin, in her own black skin. His directness caught everyone off guard, most of all the friend sitting across from him.

It is this directness, his fearlessness in the face of social justice that I most remember about Kenna. But this memory is not the man. I can remember his essence, his ability to fight for  GLBTQ rights, for people of color, his passion for justice, but this is not the man he was. This is merely the essence of this person who touched me so deeply.

The paradox though, sitting at the table that evening is that this memory, this point in time, will live forever through the people who were sitting with him that night. Kenna made all of us think. Kenna made all of us stop our lives in that moment and  wonder what it might be like if we were all happy in our own skin, what the world might be like.

This was the essence of who Kenna Egbune was. He changed me, and for that I am grateful.

The Flood

Flood Damage

Last week in Colorado there was a huge storm that washed away roads and houses and the artifacts of peoples' lives in the course of just a few days. It was monumental and truly a force of nature to be reckoned with. It was shocking to watch. While I have lived in Colorado most of my life, I have never seen anything quite like this disaster that unfolded while I sat helplessly in the comfort of my high-rise condo.

There was one time the Big Thompson up north of Denver flooded all the way from the Continental Divide to Interstate 25 just outside of Longmont. But this flood was mostly due to a dam that broke in Rocky Mountain National Park. Those of us who remember this flood mostly remember it as a piece of Colorado legend, part of the mythology of our state. But this flood was different. This flood hit the entire Front Range north of Denver. While the damage was the worst in the canyons west of Boulder, it was widespread and continued to ooze and grow through the course of last weekend. The water created an oozing rushing brown wave of devastation and destruction in its path.

It washed everything away.

While I definitely don't want to minimize the sense of destruction the victims of this torrent face, the rebuilding effort and the years of memories lost, I would like us to take some time to think about floods in different forms.

Boulder's Four-Mile Canyon

The flood I am thinking about is the one billed as education reform. The flood of information, things to do, and testing in the name of making our education system stronger. Floods wash away everything, the good and the bad. This reform is beginning to do just that: wash away the good teaching along with the bad. Those of us who are committed to creating classrooms of inquiry and exploration are lumped in with those teachers who "drill and kill"- in the eyes of the media we are all the same: we teach for the summer vacation.

Yes. Let's wash this notion away. Let's begin to rebuild in the face of the disaster that has been the reform movement thus far. Let's rebuild a system that works for all kids. Let's rebuild a system for all people who come to the teaching profession wanting to help foster passion towards learning in kids.

Like the Colorado Floods, it will take time. And if we want it done right, we will work together.