There are several things I dislike about school. One of the main things is the constant control of the environment and the feeling of needing to control how students accomplish their learning. Maybe I have too much trust in my students? Maybe I feel like it's better to stop worrying about "covering" material and let kids experience it, but I often feel like my approach is viewed as too hands-off. At times, I have students who are so uncomfortable with the responsibilities that I give them and I am forced to do more traditional stuff. I understand. They haven't had the chance to experience learning the way I want them too and they are just not there yet.

This week, 35 of my students went with me to put on a Literacy Carnival for 1st graders. There were game stations, but my favorite was the reading buddies station. Each of my students would help a 1st grader select a book (which they got to keep) and would read with them. I did some low-key preparation with my students. I prepped them to help kids select from the books, deal with shy kids, and how to decide who would be doing the reading...the big buddy or the little one? I also demonstrated expressive reading. It was brief. (seriously, 15 minutes of guidance)

What I saw from my students was simply amazing. Yes, they were enthusiastic. Yes, some of them are naturally talented. But honestly, when they knew that a 1st grader was counting on them, they rose to the occasion in amazing ways. I saw surprising compassion and amazing good judgement from my kids. When one of my students had a little girl talk to her about abuse in her home, my student knew to tell me, and was willing to talk to the social worker at the elementary school. But more importantly, she expressed caring and concern to the little girl--at that moment. She even wrote a special message in the girl's chosen book.

I want to say that this is learning. I want to say that this is why I trust my students. I want to say that this is why I have problems with school and the control that it wants to force on me to in turn, force upon my students. I don't need to tell my kids exactly what to do. NO ONE DOES. They are thinking, caring, feeling, wonderful human beings. And I think they need to know that I trust them.

The problem is that I don't teach "the good kids." No one trusts and expects this from them. At other schools, they would never be allowed to participate in this service learning project because they wouldn't meet the criteria of being a "good kid." Why? Why to we insist on denying kids the opportunities during which they would shine and we would see real light in them?

Yesterday proved to me that my approach is not wrong. I will continue to express to my students that I see the best in them and know that they are awesome and amazing...even when I doubt it. I believe in learning.

When it's about being a human being...

I had a conversation with a few SIers during UNCCWP SI about adopting the persona of "teacher." I think I was sharing about how sometimes I dislike my "teacher self." By this, I mean the person who reacts calmly to bad situations, who doesn't get offended by weird student comments, and who has an in-charge personality in the classroom. It's not like any of those things are bad, it's just that sometimes being that person tires me.

I started thinking about not being "Teacher Christin" anymore. Than I realized that the kids would go crazy and think no one was in charge. And then I started to think about being present with my students and how I want to do more writing with them in classroom. I started thinking about how my teacher-self and writer-self could coexist in greater harmony.

And then...

One of my former students suffered a horrific tragedy...a great loss. For the sake of privacy that's all I'll say about that. But the magnitude of the student's loss made me think about what mattered to the student when he was in my classroom. I thought about the conversations we've had since he graduated a couple years ago and the things he remembers about our time together. He remembers me being very honest, very straightforward, very strong and in charge. He liked that. He liked that I could challenge him and he liked that I was authentic about what I taught. And I was being "teacher Christin" at some points during his time in my classes. I started thinking about being authentic and human and "teacher" all at the same time. Wow...these were some deep thoughts...

So where I'm at with this right now is that I can be all these things. It's ok, as long as I'm being authentically the teacher/writer/person/student/etc. Because in the end, I'm still in the lives of some of my former students. They still see me as their teacher...but they see me as a human being too, because that's what I was in the classroom.

Long ago and Far Away...

How can SI feel like it was so long ago? There was this moment when I was eating my salad at Amelie's, on the last day, that I realized fully what an incredible experience I had just been a part of. It's really amazing what soft French cheese on lettuce can help to put into perspective.  This week, I miss it. (not just the cheese...)

This week, "normal life" has been crowding my thoughts and I miss the seclusion I felt for 12 days. I was focused and insulated. I know that can't be forever...I know that all writers must also deal with life...bathroom repairs...internet connection issues...algae in pools...lawn mowing...dog care...exercise...the list goes on and on.

I think was has really struck me though, is how happy I felt during SI. I have been working to pin down why I felt so happy as I seek to create more space for that feeling in my life. If one feels so happy while writing and craves that experience so very much, I think one just might be a writer! And it's not that writing isn't hard work or fraught with frustration. It's just that I'm happy while writing despite that.

I really want to make more time for this writing space in my life. Maybe it will come in the form of participating in writing marathons, maybe from working with my new little writing group. Maybe, I need to pay special attention to carving out time in my daily life. Whatever it is, I think I understand what the Olympians describe at the end of the 16 days. There is the bond of shared experience and shared goals that cannot be replicated in other environments. The energy of people who are open to life's possibilities and come together to work on the personal quest is truly life-altering.

Almost without being able to control it, I move toward that first day of school with a sense of dread. I don't want to lose this writing-happy part of myself to the daily grind, the pressing expectations, the interactions with parents and students, and the never-ending documentation. After school starts I always feel that feeling that I call "toasted." I feel like I've been cooked a little too long, or like I've had my insides poured out, mixed up and poured back in--nothing is quite right. I would love to know how to plan for this feeling and how to learn to overcome it. My teacher friends and I agree, there's no tired like school tired. I have a feeling that this will take some good food, new pens, and deliberate planning to watch stupid TV.

Until then, I'm trying to enjoy each remaining day off while staving off the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.

leaving and taking

I'm leaving:

the insecure teacher I was
the lonely teacher
the teacher who thought maybe she shouldn't be teaching
the teacher who always felt like she shouldn't be asking the questions she was asking...

I'm taking:
A writer (who was always there)
Learner (who I never lost)
friends
hope
writing
1.5 full daybooks

My Inquiry (thus far)

My inquiry really began on May 5th. Until that time, I was not familiar with the concept of the "daybook." Journals, yes. Writing prompts, yes. But I was certainly not familiar with the epic gluing and writing and trimming of paper to fit into one's composition book. This process immediately felt very organic to me and I knew that I was going to embrace it in my own writing life.

Then we started talking about using the daybook with students in our classes. I could not envision using it in the way that everyone else would be...prompted by me...group writing time...handouts...etc. I knew this would not work for me in my non-traditional classroom. So how was I going to help my students embrace a practice and a way of thought that I knew would help them? Well, that's were my inquiry began.

One of the first things I did after the SI orientation was to read "Thinking Out Loud On Paper" by some of our fearless leaders. It was a great read. I enjoyed hearing about how the daybook worked in various types of classrooms and for different styles of teaching. I felt a bit freed, but there were still no examples of how I teach or what I would need to have happen in my classroom.

I decided that my best next step was to fully embrace the daybook in my own life as writer and as teacher and see what happened when I didn't separate the two. Generally, I've liked to put different types of writing in different books. I resisted that urge and found a feeling of carefree abandon. The entire time I was writing in my daybook I was always thinking about my students. How can I help them to embrace this? I can't really mandate it unless I want to grade it--which I already know I don't want to do.

Meanwhile, my principal asked me to in some way support and help with Biology instruction. WHAT? I know very little about science! I started thinking about reading and writing across the curriculum. I started thinking about vocabulary and I theorized about the reasons students struggled with the content of the course. Hmmm...root words...hmmm...special vocabularies...hmmm...writing.

Next, I really started thinking about my day to day interactions with my students and how many bits and pieces of our conversations I wanted to capture or come back to...but I would forget them! The daybook became the perfect space to record these notes and refer back to them when conferencing with the student at a later date. Students started to ask me what I was doing and we started having an informal dialogue about daybooks. Was this the key?

Fast forward to SI. My daybook became the key to my brain. Without that innocent composition book, I wouldn't remember what I had done or thought about during the course of each action packed day. As each day progressed and I engaged in deep, exhausting thoughts with other deep, exhausted people, I realized that the best way to use the daybook idea with my students would be to make it indispensable to them. I plan to achieve this not by making them do it for a grade, but by using it as a platform of our conversation. I can ask questions like: "When you were reading that article about homelessness, did you write any thoughts in your daybook?" Or, "I think that is a good line of thought, why don't you map that out in your daybook." And possibly, "Let's brainstorm together in our daybooks for 2 minutes and then meet and discuss where we should go with this idea." I also really like the idea of giving students the opportunity to personalize their books on that epic first or second day of school. I will provide fun materials and encourage it as a group project. Some won't want to do it. Some will think it's "baby stuff." That's ok. I will remain authentically enthusiastic because it's something that I'm excited about for my own life, not just a teacher-thing I'm doing.

I've gone back and forth and down a few rabbit holes during SI. I've questioned my inquiry and whether it was legitimate. (code for too easy) I've come out the other end with slightly more faith in my instincts about my learning environment and a lot more information to back those instincts up. So, to sum up my inquiry, I would deem it a success. I inquired. In fact, I wrestled. In that wrestling I came up with a plan that I'm comfortable with and that I think will enhance my student's learning. I think I will continue this inquiry with blogging as I introduce the daybook to REAL STUDENTS this year. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow with my students.

Yes, I'm still blogging!

I will begin this post with a sarcastic apology: Sorry Mary!

I haven't blogged since last Thursday. This is mostly due to the fact that I felt like my thoughts didn't add up to anything.  Tonight, I've thrown caution to the wind...well actually I had a few more cohesive thoughts while in the shower and that's why I decided to blog.

SI has been a mixed bag for me. Although everything is really fun and good (great descriptors there...) sometimes what we've worked on and talked about has left me in an uncomfortable space with my own identity. There have been moments where I've felt unsure about who I've become during my journey as a teacher and moments where I've felt a bit "wobbly" about whether I've done things the "right" way. This is coming only from me. I know this because everything I've experienced at SI has been affirming and reassuring even within a questioning space. This has left me with a feeling that I can now put into some questions: Is what I have to offer as a teacher valuable? Does my unusual educational background negatively impact my students? What parts of myself have I given up in order to fit in to a public school teaching environment? Why am I doing this?

My life has always been about learning. My parents may have been pioneers in the homeschooling world and may not have done everything "right," but they did help me find my identity as a learner. I grew up without a care about grades or being smart or passing tests. I loved poetry. I listened to French records with my mother for fun. I read more books than I can believe. There were few boundaries between school/life/home/community. I was a person. I felt joy often.

I want these things for my students. However, I am both a dreamer and a realist. My students have grown up in a system where they expect me to play a certain role. I am the great "giver of grades." (epic music playing in background) I am always negotiating between ME and TEACHER ME. How do I reconcile the two?

It is easy for me to criticize myself and my teaching. But if I'm realistic, I notice that I have had good results with individual students and with EOCs etc. My students show growth according to the fancy data generators. I think I can feel proud, or at least successful because of that, but I always hold myself to another standard because I don't teach to the test. Actually, I was asked by a district curriculum person how I achieved the scores and growth I do. I stated that I never think about the test. This is true. I think the person was disappointed that I didn't have a more sophisticated response. Obviously, I'm not good at buzz words and school-lingo, or maybe I would have said something else. Well, probably not.

So if I'm thinking about grades, I could say that my grades have been good. If I measure myself against others, I've had some success. However, this is not what I look at. I look back on the student who I didn't reach and I wonder how I failed. I remember moments where I was too tired to fully address a student's need. I think about miscommunications that hurt someone's feelings. As a person who was never measured by grades as a child, I can't fully accept a grade now. I will always think about personal best. On the surface this may seem like a great idea. I'm sure you recognize it as a double edged sword.

I don't think I have any answers to my questions, but I have one thing that I didn't have before SI. That one thing is the feeling of not being alone in my quest for answers to my questions. I now know I am not the only one asking about grading. And more importantly to me, I'm not asking about it just because of my own non-traditional background. I have felt marginalized by some after I "come out" about my non-traditional educational life. Now I know that my ideas are not generated just from a place of being different. I'm not just weird. I'm thinking deeply about teaching and my practice. I might be weird as well, but as I get older that seems less scary!

I think that one thing I will continue to do in my teaching, but with more confidence, is to bring myself as a learner and a person into my classroom. I will worry less about fitting in with other teachers. Obviously, there are people like me out there...I've met a group of them this summer! I will rest in the fact that it's ok not to have a perfect formula for writing a paper. (I didn't have one anyway...) I will also continue to be part of a conversation that I didn't have access to before.  I will rest with that.

I will never arrive at perfection. My teaching will never arrive at perfection. One thing I can tell you though...daybooks are going to work in my non-traditional setting. Daybooks are the way I will challenge my students to engage with their own thoughts and with me. It will be a beautiful mess of a thing. I can't wait to see the blank stares hear the groans when I pass out those composition books. It will be a beautiful moment.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

My inquiring mind wants to know where I'm going with my inquiry. Ha! But this is so true. I think maybe at the beginning I thought I was going to come up with some great, groundbreaking plan to help students to make daybooks a REAL part of their learning in my class and in their thinking as a whole.

Today, I think I'm looking for an answer that isn't there. What I mean is that maybe it's not as complicated as I think. I know I can't direct student use of daybooks. I will rarely be in a setting where I can say, "Now students, let's take 2.7 minutes to react in our daybooks...blah blah..." It's not going to happen like that. But what do I already do in my classroom that is different and that works for these kids? I work with them one on one. So this is where my daybook practice has to come in. I will have mine, they will have theirs, we will work together. I will share and be authentic and encourage students to feel safe in that space. I will model ways of thinking and ask them to think with me. It doesn't matter that I'm not leading and directing the entire class. It just doesn't matter. I don't have to be at SI to use and grow from using my daybook! Yes, it is nice to work together at times, and my students would benefit from that, but it isn't going to make or break the use of daybooks in my classroom.

YAY! I'm not done with my inquiry, but I'm feeling better.

At one point during today, I was feeling like this:

Yes, this horrible expression (self-portrait) was due to another SIer and her demo during which I would be blindfolded and sent on a mission with an assistant. I was on a mission to find an artifact of sound. Hmmm...that took some thought, but I felt like a great artifact would be a recording of the crosswalk robot voice on campus. (you know, the one that says "Mary Alexander Road")

My partner did a great job of not letting me die. And this is how I felt when I got back:

So this "game" is all fine and good, but what did I learn. I could say a lot about what I learned, but I think if you look back up at the 1st picture and think about me, thinking about how my students might feel when I give them an assignment they don't understand, you'll see where I'm headed with this. I was in a state of discomfort throughout the activity. Yet, there was also this strange sense of freedom--because I couldn't see anyone looking at me.

Deep thoughts for inquiring minds...

The things we don't pay attention to...

So for today's interesting and somewhat stressful event, we had to put together a digital piece that was in some way related to our journey or life as a writer. There was so much I could have said and didn't. Part of that was from not wanting to reveal too much personal stuff about myself. But really, you have to reveal something about yourself when the piece is about you.

Interesting, many of the responses I got to my piece were about a particular phrase that I used to describe the time in my life where I wasn't writing. I used the phrase "seasons of nothing." I'm so interested that so many people responded directly to this phrase since it didn't seem all that significant to me at the time that I wrote it. There were others things that I said which would have been more likely choices (so I thought) to be commented on. This experience makes me wonder about writer and reader as roles. Does this happen a lot? Do writers write things that they didn't really think were terribly significant and then their readers latch on and surprise them? It makes me wonder how many times I have done this while reading. Of course, I'll never know.

This was a positive experience for me. I am hesitant to put myself out there and this was a good step in that direction. I also really liked to learn about what other people were thinking about writing and where they were in that journey now. Not to mention that everyone had used some different piece of technology that I got to experience!

My post-it responses! I love post-its!

 

 

 

Also, have I mentioned the most important part of this entire day? We got to use post-its of all different colors and sizes! <sigh> It was a beautiful thing.

I did do a lot of good thinking about my demo too. I don't really want to write about that now because I'm still basking in the glory of the post-it image above. I have this feeling that if I start to write about the demo I will lose the post-it glow that I imagine I have about me right now.

Later...

Where do I fit into this? Finding my way non-traditionally...

Day 4 of UNCCWP SI leaves me wondering about my non-traditional environment and how to bring certain great ideas and practices to them in a way that both meets the needs of students in the self-paced classroom AND gives them the quality I want for them. It's not that I think that it can't be done. The feeling is that of taking in so much information and putting it through a particular filter with a very small opening. I'm squeezing ideas through this filter and hoping that the refined product that comes out will work for me and for students. For instance, the guest demo this afternoon is not something I could do with my students. They will never be working with me in a large group like that. The most I could hope for would be 2-3 students who are in the same place at the same time and can collaborate in that way. However, I would still do this type of activity. It's just that the adaptation would have to allow for minimal to no group collaboration. Is that what I would prefer? No, not really. This is when I have to hold these opposing feeling in my mind at the same time.

1. I like seeing that the non-traditional format works for my students (many who have not be successful in a traditional environment.

2. I like to do whole class activities and guide them in working with their peers.

It will continue to be a give and take. I will continue to see success with my format and sometimes wish for more time to do other things with them.

A great aspect of working at my school is the time I get to spend with students on an individual basis. I would imagine that many traditional classroom teachers long for more of this! If I focus on this, I do appreciate it.

My thoughts about my non-traditional setting directly relate to my inquiry topic because my question isn't "how to use daybooks" it's "how to have students take ownership of daybooks in a non-traditional classroom." How do I motivate and encourage them to make this idea work for them? Will it work for them? I really think it will, although they may come up with some surprising ways to make that happen. More later...

Day 3. We're in the thick of it...

I began my morning journey into the land of other teacher/writers by being stuck in traffic on 85. Great. I was bringing part of breakfast and now I was going to be late! But it all worked out, and after fueling up with some yogurt with granola as well as a delicious cupcake (omg), I was ready to get going.

So where does inspiration come from anyway? We watched a short video about this and it really gave me an opportunity to evaluate where my inspiration has come from, as well as how I feel about collaboration with others. As usual, I learned a lot about myself. The video also made me think about places where creativity blooms--as in time in history or locations in the world. It does seem like inspiration gravitates toward other inspiration. Perhaps this has to do with the energy involved?

Which leads me to my next thought about inspiring my students. I truly run out of energy during the course of the school year. I need energy to sustain inspiration, and I can't generate it all myself. How do I better manage this area of my teaching? And this leads me back to my inquiry: How will I plan well for inspiring students to take ownership of what *I* know a daybook can do for them, not only as writers, but as human beings. I need to begin the process with energy and have a plan for sustaining enthusiasm.

Here's where my enthusiasm of the day began:

 So now here I am at the end of day 3.  As I review my notes and responses in my daybook, I notice that I have more questions than answers, more rabbit trails than decisions. And I think that's OK right now.

SI Day 2: no less tired

The timeline I made about my journey as a writer.

A map showing the flow of writing in my classroom and school.

Day 2 of SI has been no less challenging than Day 1, although I feel like I'm starting to hit a creative stride. Yesterday, I made a timeline of important events in my writing life. I used pictures and words to illustrate emotions and poignant moments in my writing life. While I knew my writing life has been mostly about me avoiding a writing life, I really didn't synthesize the why until I worked with my writing group on a video interview. What was revealed to me was that my non-writing life wasn't just about avoidance or not wanting to be like someone, it was about fear of exposure. I have always worried that if I exposed how my mind works I would be vulnerable. Yet, I am so unhappy when I'm not living a writing life.



Another activity we did was to draw a map of both our classroom and our school and mark where writing happens and where it is display. Next, we put overlays on top and used markers to show the flow or process of writing. Once writing occurs, where does it go? Does it only go to the teacher? Do students share writing? Does what they've written in my class go into another classroom?  I observed a few key things on my map:

1. I do not display enough student work
2. I do not model writing by posting enough of my own work
3. I need to have more assignments that are meaningful to an outside audience
4. I need to encourage others outside our school to contribute writing in some way
5. I need more time to do all these things!

I do think that it's very important that my students see me as a writer, struggling for the best words, making mistakes, feeling unsure. I did start to do that a bit last year and it was successful.  There are so many thoughts and ideas swirling around in my head...

On to the INQUIRY! If I'm remembering what I was thinking yesterday correctly, I wanted to inquire as to the best ways to make daybooks a part of my non-traditional classroom. Since I do not direct the flow of activity in a self-paced environment, how to I help students to grab on to the habit of using the daybook as a thinking tool? I also think this ties into the idea of the flow of writing in the classroom. Where are their ideas going once written? How do I show students that writing is an extension of the thought process? I think the most basic place to start is by modeling. I need to show them my book and talk about how I use it and what the possibilities are. Then, I need to use it all the time as I work with them...write about our conferences and their questions. I also think it will be important to model the process of going back to notes and writing and culling for information and ideas.  This is a starting point. I know there is more!

 

UNCC WP 1st day...

I am so tired. My brain is just exhausted. The only inquiry I'm doing at this moment is about walking to the car and driving home--safely. Not really! I'm actually thinking a lot about everything we've been doing today and the personal challenge that some activities presented to me. I had to confront my reluctance to think about "place" and my feelings of the lack of place. I also had to confront feelings of deep insecurity about working on an idea for my demo. Although I knew I could do it and muscle through those feelings, it was tiring.

At this moment I'm considering having my inquiry project be about how to authentically use the writer's notebook/daybook in my non-traditional classroom to support inquiry, writing, synthesis and my new challenge: to support the Biology classroom. 

I think that using the daybook in my own process during SI will enlighten me and give me ideas. I have already decided that I do not want to grade daybooks, but I want students to take ownership of them as a tool which will help them to perform better on other assignments. In this way the daybook is not THE assignment, but the TOOL to produce an assignment. 

Tonight I plan to practice this idea by using my daybook to generate ideas for my self-selected piece of writing.

Until later...

UNCCWP Book Review

I chose to read and review a book that I thought was not only challenging to me personally, but would help me to impart ideas and strategies to my students, particularly those taking creative writing. To this end I chose “Breathing In, Breathing Out” by Ralph Fletcher.

A first glance, the book might seem like nothing more than a piece to encourage what all writers promote as the good habit of keeping a journal, daybook, diary, or other pen to paper work somewhat similar. Yet, on further reading, the merits of this author’s approach begin to reveal themselves. Fletcher combines sound advice to acknowledge one’s own voice and experience with example texts from various authors, including himself.

Validation. This is the one word I choose to word to sum up the emotion I felt after reading this book. Writing is a lonely task at times. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person who looks at life the way I do, asks the questions I do, or listens to the snippets of conversations around me. Fletcher’s encouragement to not only pay attention to these things but to also record them in the writer’s notebook made me feel much less stupid! I suddenly found myself recalling several strange bits that I had tossed aside as merely things my brain strangely turns to. After reading Fletcher's work and examples, I chose to write them down, although I felt a little silly. I wrote about standing in line for a Disney World ride and watching a young girl intently studying her grandmother’s arm skin as she made it wobble back and forth. It made me think about how confusing and fascinating this must be to the young girl--her arm skin so right and firm and full of youthful elasticity long since gone from her grandmother’s arm. Yes, I felt validated to write about this.

And this is where Fletcher's advice really starts to get interesting. Not only should we write about these bits or snippets that we observe or hear, we should later go back to them and mine them for use in full length pieces. Again, he practices the idea of the mentor text and demonstrates how he has used items from his notebook in full-length pieces. So maybe this image of a young girl and her grandmother will show up in my writing later. Maybe it won't. Either way, I captured it, I validated it, I wrote it down. This is what keeping a writer's notebook is really about.

Getting Ready!

Well, July 5th is nearly upon me and I'm getting geared up for the UNCC WP Summer Invitational. I feel a mix of nerves and excitement. Nerves because of all the challenges I know I'll face, and excitement over all that I learn and think and do.

I can't wait to be surrounded by other teachers as interested and dedicated to the teaching of writing as I am. I've been missing true collaboration with teachers of writing and I couldn't be more excited to share that with this group.

I should really finish writing my book review and get that posted!