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.

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.