“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”  Chinese Proverb

In 2004, Barack Obama introduced us to the phrase “The Audacity of Hope.” Audacity can be defined as the willingness to take bold risks. His implication is that in this society where it is so easy to feel lost in the machine, those who hope make a courageous decision.

The audacity of hope is what makes a great teacher, especially a new teacher. She tackles the problems of the world on the playing field of the classroom.

I propose another category of hope, a way of thinking about hope which might resonate with more experienced teachers exhausted at the end of each successive school year. Or maybe it’s just my kind of hope. 

Please bear with me as I offer to you one of the most overplayed poems in all of American literature. Bear with me, because I am betting there is more to this poem than you may have taken the time to think about before:

254 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops – at all -- 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -- 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

                                                    by Emily Dickinson

Most students (and many teachers) interpret this poem in a syrupy-sweet kind of way: Hope as a birdie with a beautiful, eternal song. Which is why 9 out of 10 students with black nail polish hate this poem.

Hope is the thing with feathers.  I don’t know about you, but here in Southern Arizona, “THE THING” is a roadside attraction along I-10, so potentially terrifying that the billboard lettering evokes the title sequence of a dozen B horror flicks and looks as though it reeks with the stench of swamp-monster effluvia.

Dickinson could have chosen to call hope a songbird.  But she doesn’t call it a “Bird” until the middle of the poem. Not only does she put “Hope” in quotation marks (as though apologizing for writing about such a sappy topic) but she calls it a THING (with feathers). 

When I imagine a bird as a thing, I think about the creepiness of seeing a bird close up: the scaly skin around its small eyes, the unforgiving bone of its beak, its dry tongue and dinosaur feet. With talons.

We used to have a parrot. Rudy was friendly until I tried to put him away in his cage, and then he would clamp my shoulder with his sharp feet, rip out my ponytail holder and start nipping my ear. Not nice. He was determined to stay out of that cage. Obstinate fellow.

 

"Hope" artwork I made on a trip to the University of Arizona Poetry Center with students

 

My hope this time of year is the same. The exhaustion, the disillusionment of the batteries of standardized tests, the pressure to document every effort I’ve made to intervene with every struggling child, the referrals I have to write because students couldn’t keep it together for just two more weeks, the deadlines for paperwork, signing off on evaluations that do not fully represent me, documentation to potentially fail seniors, the grading. We’ve all got a similar to do list that we might finish by the end of the summer if we actually accomplished all of it.

The celebrations at the end of the year are necessary. The people being celebrated deserve it.  Great accomplishments have been achieved, and many people will be missed. But (am I allowed to admit it?) there are times when even these rituals feel like props to keep us going until the end.  Really, there is no time to properly honor everyone. There is no time for anything but intensively trying to get students the last of their feedback for the year in time to clean up my room and making sure I’ve given everyone enough opportunity for success.

Dickinson’s “Hope” reminds me of Annie Dillard’s weasel.  In an essay in which she asks us to live like weasels, she illustrates the weasel’s wild determination by citing the image of one latching its jaws onto an eagle and not letting go, and the image of the eagle soaring through its days with the skeleton of the weasel still attached. I believe Dickinson’s view of hope is similar.  And I as a veteran teacher am left wondering what to do with this dogged companion who will not let go of my neck.

However, unlike weasels or the freakshow in Dragoon, through the storm this feathered thing sings. The speaker in Dickinson’s poem does nothing to encourage this thing.  It perches in the soul and hops out along our arm. It asks for nothing and sings sweetest in the Gale. It keeps us warm, this thing, and never asks for even one little crumb. We need not feed it or nurture it. It exists because we are alive. It is a thankless job for a feathered thing, and the speaker of Dickinson’s poem can only acknowledge its unfailing song.

Even the least syrupy sweet among those of us who work with teenagers must acknowledge it. Somewhere in there, amongst the muscles and bones, the stray bolts and metal pins, around the worn edges of our battered teacher souls, even this time of year, is a thing. It’s a thing that keeps us going.  I look forward to next year, and even to tomorrow, when I can laugh with my students about how we are all ready for summer. Laughter which comes because even though we are ready for a break, we know the struggle to become ourselves continues. We and our things will return to teach and learn another day. And we will hope for more.

After 17 years, I am not pollyannish about education; however, I am not cynical either. I can’t see my thing with feathers ever going anywhere.  It perches in my soul, and sings the tune without the words (See? It doesn’t even know what it is trying to say!) and never stops at all. I didn’t ask for it. But if it ever, in Extremity, abandons me I will know it is time to leave the classroom.  I can’t claim that my kind of hope is audacious, or even eternal.  But I am grateful that it is obstinate.

Staring at this blank screen, I am overwhelmed with emotion as I nostalgically search for a topic to focus on during my last blog article of the 2012-2013 school year.  It was not a school year I especially want to remember, filled with insurmountable teaching obstacles and personal heartbreak.  It was a school year which kept me alive personally and almost killed me professionally at the same time.  But it’s all about the children, and I don’t want to forget those special little people who were placed in my life for a reason.

As I was reading to my first graders in our class meeting the other day, I stared out at those little faces and thought back when I first started teaching fifteen years ago.  Those students are graduating from college this year!  How time truly does fly by.  Yet, this challenging school year will be forgotten as soon as I sharpen pencils in August for my new students.  One question I always ask myself, do the students remember me and our experiences?  What memory is already embedded in their ever-expanding minds? 

Here are some of their answers as I conducted an informal survey:

·         fun adventures with the classroom turtle

·         going to the zoo on a field trip

·         having a hen visit the classroom for the day

·         playing with Legos and blocks

·         reading fun picture and chapter books together

·         skyping with a real park ranger

·         Pirate Day……. arrr!!!

Funny, there was no mention of studying for our district-wide benchmark assessments (which took several weeks throughout the school year).  This reminded me of how we should prepare our students for success. 

Let me teach you the song of my people- our children, our future, victims of the Great American War in Education.  Let it guide your vision for the next school year:

Live each day to the fullest with hands-on experiences and materials.

Laugh with creative attempts to solve real-world problems.

Love each other for our differences, enduring heartache with empathy.

Peace out, 2012-2013.

The public perceives that during summer vacation teachers take vacation.  The teacher-leader community perceives that we work - planning for the new year, attending and presenting at conferences, and the like.

I think the public perception is closer to the truth.

From May 24 until July 29, my time off, I have sixty-five days that I own. I'm committed to ten days of compensated work (and I hope to find some more).  I'll likely sprinkle in another ten days or so of uncompensated time planning for next year and maintaining my lab.  So as it stands, I'm looking at forty-five free days this summer - more than six weeks.

When I hear teacher-leaders colleagues declare - usually in conferences or on Facebook - that we work in the summer it bothers me that the tone is universally negative and defensive.  The terms Teacher Martyr and Teach Whiner jump to mind. 

In a conference a presenter may speak in lofty terms, something like, "The public right now thinks we're all out enjoying ourselves on vacation, but here we are showing our dedication to our profession on this June afternoon."  Lots of heads will nod in agreement or shake in despair. 

On Facebook, there will be lots of cartoons. They usually feature a frazzled character telling us something like, "The next time someone tells you it must be nice to have summers off, tell them, "Oh really? If you think planning curriculum and going to in-services is vacation, than it's just great!" Those cartoons always get a lot of likes, and "Too true" comments.

But in between the conference, which lasted six hours in an air-conditioned room and included lunch, and logging into Facebook at night, I'll drive by the bridge they're building near my house.  The workers were on the job two hours before I left and will go on another hour after I get home.  Their air is conditioned by the Tucson sun.  They ate their lunch out of a metal box while sitting on a rock. 

My conference was likely inspiring and transformational.  I'm motivated and energized.  I'm a better teacher.  The construction workers are tired, sweaty, and sunburned.  I'd be embarassed to say I'd been at work. 

So where does the defensiveness of teachers come from? I have just as many people tell me that I deserve a break after nine months teaching.  When someone is more sarcastic, I embrace that challenge, "You have no idea how good it is to have two months all my own.  I'll spend some time planning and learning, and still have tons left for personal projects, reading, and travel. It's a great part of being a teacher."

If someone claims  I demean the profession by stating that summer vacation is a great part of teaching, I'd counter that it's no more demeaning than stating that because I'm professionally active for twenty out of sixty-five days, I'm really not on vacation.

So, having made war, let me try to make peace.  My twenty busy days this summer are less than average for me and less than many colleauges.  And some colleagues do seem to be professionally engaged all summer long. 

Most importantly, the work, oops, our summer professional activity moves the profession forward, and I don't trivialize it at all. 

And I'm happy to engage contrary opinions - preferably at poolside poolside this summer while enjoying an adult beverage after our conference breaks for the day.

 

 

“With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.”  Doris Lessing

When Margaret Thatcher passed away a few weeks back, just about every retrospective of her contributions included her strengthening of the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain. That got me thinking about the special relationships in a school system, those relationships that, while quantifiably hard to define, create a web of connections that build a true learning community. I hope that your school includes many of these.

Today, I honor the special relationship between our librarians and our English department.

To be fair, our librarians create special relationships throughout our school.  Throughout National Poetry Month, one of our librarians, Amy Rusk, sends out an e-mail each day that includes a timely poem.  Spontaneously, teachers and staff members from all disciplines and positions in the school send her poems in return, or appreciative responses to her choices.  Christie Friske-Daniels, our other librarian, teaches the library practice students important skills in managing the collection, regulating entry to the library, providing customer service, and problem-solving as well as a host of other skills, most of which transfer to the academic work they will do across the curriculum (not to mention boosting their resumes for after-school jobs). She gets to know these students and nurtures them.  

We are lucky to have two full-time librarians, even though our school is over 3000 students, and they have built our very special library into a vital organ of the school, and have rendered themselves indispensable.

However, I like to think that the English department has a very special relationship with our library. Here is an example: Last year, when Kore Press brought The Big Read to Tucson, Amy helped weave together collaborations with Kore representatives, Stories that Soar, and other local groups to create a showcase of student work and performances inspired by Emily Dickinson.  Most of the student work from Tucson High was completed in English classrooms during lessons that we developed and co-taught with Amy and submitted for the showcase.  Amy also worked with the student gallery specialist at our school to create a display honoring Emily Dickinson and even more student work inspired by her.  She partners with English teacher Kurt Garbe to head up the Poetry Out Loud effort at our school, resulting in two state champions out of the last six years. If it hadn’t been for our librarian, those community connections never would have synthesized within our school. Those showcases and displays inspired my students to read and write more poetry.  

Our librarians attend our English department PLC meetings and participate in our PLC.  Christie, an ex English teacher herself, has spent time creating proposals for vertical curriculum maps for research skills, helping our department to envision how the library could help us provide students instruction on the inquiry process and the evaluation and ethical use of sources.  She has worked with my classes (and others) multiple times teaching lessons that we developed together to meet students where they are and move them forward in their use of library resources to expand their understanding of research topics.  She even volunteers to score the worksheets they complete sometimes as they learn basic search strategies and library skills.  Christie also helps me create book lists based on units and research projects my students are working on, and prepare carts thoroughly loaded with the exact right resources for what I am teaching.

Our two librarians help to create a culture of voracious readers at our school. They generously stock the fiction, manga and comics sections and create policies that allow those resources to be widely utilized.  For manga, students can only take five at a time and can only have them for five days.  The students who read manga visit the library often, and use it well.  In addition, Amy heads up our school’s poetry club, who also creates the literary magazine.  Our librarians' curation of our collection, enthusiasm for good reads and welcoming smiles in the library make it a nurturing place for readers, and as an English teacher I greatly appreciate that.  

I could go on and on.  Each year, the library hosts the museum-style display developed by the Women and Writing senior class.  They make computers available to students as often as possible.  Amy teaches the Intellectual Freedom classes for parents and teachers. These classes qualify them to participate on committees to evaluate complaints against books which are on the shelves in libraries across the district.  In other words, she ensures that every book will get a fair consideration, and that the days of a few angry voices getting a book removed from the shelves will not happen.  This underscores most of our values as English teachers that students have as wide a range of reading made available to them as possible.

Who am I kidding?  The English department has no special claim to these remarkable human resources.  They host the science fair, provide support for research in the social studies courses as well as English, bring in community speakers such as Holocaust survivors and authors, arrange screenings of films such as a recent one we watched about the history and relevance of Wonder Woman as a superheroine, provide space and set-up for a plethora of meetings and trainings.... There is too much to list.   

The librarians at our school remind me what it means to have a vital library, one that becomes a beating heart of the school, a heart in counterpoint to the stadium, the cafeteria, the attendance office, the little theater.  Good librarians are irreplaceable, and yet so often they are replaced during budget cuts.  When they are replaced (or taken and not replaced), books disappear off the shelves, computers and furniture are not maintained, the collection and its use go into decline, a place of warmth and light on campus becomes a place of emptiness and sterility, poems go unwritten, and voices go unheard. Let’s do all we can to preserve funding for our school libraries, and to place them in the loving hands of highly qualified and passionate librarians.

 

Recently a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a political radio program in which the reporter was revealing the “danger” of Common Core.  Having implemented the Common Cores standards in my classroom this past year, I was intrigued by the comments below her video link.  Moms were asking how to monitor their children’s exposure to Common Core standards in the classroom.  I was curious, whatever do they mean?  My curriculum was explicitly aligned to Common Core standards, and I felt no moral qualms over my pedagogical decisions.  So I watched the link.  Here are the key quotes I listed from this radio program:

1. “Common Core is dumbing down America’s students.”
2. “Common Core encourages Communism.”
3. “Common Core’s New Math lessons are awful.”
4. “Elementary Literacy Curriculum is 70% Classics and 30% Manuals.” 
5. “Common Core is making our kids into slaves.”

Upon hearing this, I was definitely torn between 3 responses: throw up, laugh hysterically, or have a heart attack.  I replied to this post, providing my feedback as a seasoned teacher.  But what would I know?  The media must be the expert in education.

While visiting with friends at a dinner party a few weeks ago, the Sandy Hook school massacre was brought up.  People were passionately debating the issue of arming teachers in the classroom. They discussed how legislation  was introduced in about two dozen states, allowing school personnel to carry guns.  South Dakota has become the first state in the nation to ratify a law allowing school employees to carry guns on the job.  A few people asked my opinion about having a gun in my classroom.  I answered with, “As a first grade teacher who sits on the floor a lot, I would be concerned with accidentally shooting myself.”  That was debated with the idea of having the gun in a safe.  I answered back, "When would I have time to pull out a gun from a safe when someone is ready to shoot me?"  But what would I know?  The legislators must be the experts in education.

Arizona finally completed our week of statewide standardized assessments, otherwise known as the AIMS.  Teachers and administrators were nervous wrecks.  I helped administer the AIMS in several different classrooms this year, and there were 3 kinds of looks on the students’ faces: frustration, indifference, or excitement.  (Unfortunately I only saw one really excited student.)  Our school will receive its “grade” by the summer, and teachers will be contacted with a “grade,” based on the performance of their students on the AIMS.  The Department of Education and our school districts apply our students’ performance on standardized assessments to determine the teachers’ proficiency as educators.  This impacts our evaluations, which in turn affects our salaries.  Yet teachers have consistently communicated for over a decade the pitfalls of standardized assessments.  Teachers have provided administrators with alternative methods of assessment.  Have they been implemented??  Obviously the Department of Educations must be the expert in education.

What’s my point?  Is it to defend Common Core standards, propose school safety measures, or rebel against standardized assessment?  Not today.  I usually do.  But I am tired.  I’ve taught for 15 years in two different states.  I received my National Board Teaching Certification and attended countless professional development sessions, curriculum seminars, and teacher conferences.  I actively read the latest pedagogical articles and books to further myself as a lifelong teacher/ learner.  But am I viewed as an expert?  Unfortunately no.  The nation seems to want to appoint the media, legislators, and state administrators as the experts in education.  The next time you want to believe the “experts in education,” ask yourself, how often are they in the classroom? What makes them the experts?  Who is tuned in to the needs and wants of children?  Maybe it’s time to listen to the teachers.  We do have the answers.

I was proctoring my students during the standardized tests last week and thinking of how we try to train them to try to eliminate a couple of obvious wrong answers before guessing. Then I remembered the Monty Hall Problem. You remember, maybe, the show Let's Make a Deal.  People would dress up in crazy costumes and act crazy in hopes of wheeling and dealing with host Monty Hall.  At some point a lucky contestant had the chance to win what was behind Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3.  After making a choice, the contestant would be shown what was behind one of the remaining doors and given the chance to change the choice or stay with the original pick. (Go Here and here and here for a lot more on the MHP.) 

It turns out, theoretically and empirically, that you have a better chance of winning if you take the offer and change your pick, than if you stick with your first choice. 

In the afternoon, in our 17 minute class, I posed this problem to my 8th grade Algebra for High School Credit class: "Would it be a good guessing strategy, if at the end of the test you went back and changed all of your guesses to another choice?"  The arguments on both sides flew back and forth.  At the end of class I told them to go do some research.  Several came back the next day to continue the argument, others to point out that my question was different. I felt like I was in a college seminar.

In what remained of our 17 minute period, I taught them a trick. Take any 3-digit number in which the first and last digits have a difference of at least two.  So 368 is ok, but 364 is not.  I'll use 368.  Please choose a number and play along. Write your number backwards to get a second number.  Now I have 368 and 863.  Subtract the smaller number from the larger.  For me 863 -368 = 495.  Now take that number and get a new number by writing it backwards.  So I have 495 and 594.  Add the two together: 459 + 594 = 1089.  You got 1089, too, didn't you? Everyone does if they do it right.  

"How does that work?" thirty students replied at once.

It took two 17 minute periods to prove that I could read their minds just like the Flash Mind Reader and for them to figure out how. Follow the link and see if you can.  My kids made two assumptions - that it was math and that I wasn't really reading their minds.  They came up with a list of things they could observe and looked for patterns and made predictions and found which predictions worked and which didn't.  Finally, Jesus blurted out, "I've got it, all you do is...." (I don't want to spoil it.)

My students did more deep thinking and inquiry in those four 17 mintue periods than in all the hours spent to prepare for the tests.

(Note: the picture on top is from www.thegameshoetemple.com/tribute/hall.htm)

 

Blogger Julie Torres coordinates support for National Board candidates in our district.  In that capacity she observes many teachers at their practice.  In her recent post, 10 Degrees of Teaching, Julie takes the temperature of the current teaching environment and lists ten observations.  After reading her post I wondered how students, our most expert observers, read the temperature in the teaching environment.

So I gave a prompt, modeled directly on Julie's post, to my 8th grade Algebra for High School Credit class.  I said their responses shouldn't be about me, but about how they read teachers as a whole, given Julie's 10 stems.   The first response to each stem, in italics,  came from the same student.   Thoughtful responses from other students are separated by semicolons. 

Here is the prompt:  "As students you constantly assess the learning environment of a classroom, in essence taking the temperature of any given situation.  I wonder how you view teachers and the teaching climate.  I bet some things you see are pretty obvious, but I am curious about what you think is happening under the surface of teaching.  Please quickly respond with short phrases to the prompts.  The most important thing is that you go beneath the surface and avoid obvious answers.  I'll use your responses for a post at the Stories from School blog. (www.storiesfromschool.org)"

1. Teachers currently:  Are still learning to be a better teacher;  Teach interesting stuff; Don't look at the viewpoint of students; Talk too much

2.  Teachers wish for:  More help; Students who pay more attention (about the only other answer kids wrote)

3.  Teachers are wondering:  Why the kids are not ready to focus; What will improve grades and test scores; What students think of them; Why it's hard to focus

4.  Teachers are feeling:  They might be failing as a teacher to teach the kids what they need to learn; AIMS pressure; Courage; Accomplished; That kids don't care

5.  Teachers are thankful for:  All the hard work they put in; Students who try

6.  Teachers are planning for:  The future, to be a better teacher; New students, a new year, and how to teach better; AIMS; Student success

7.  Teachers need:  To have a little more learning impact; New methods; To ask students opinions more; Patience; Avoid talking too much; Confusing students and "misunderstanding" them

8.  Teachers are avoiding:  The super needed questions for kids. For example, how fast each student can think and give them more time; Kids who don't care; Kids that don't put in effort, concentrating on the kids who want to accomplish something

9.  Teachers are craving:   More time to teach what they want in a year; School grades to go up; Summertime!; Retirement;  An "A" school not a "D" school; Attention from kids

10.  Teachers are missing: Some of the tools they need to succeed; Fundamentals; That sometimes they might have to go over things clearer; Patience; Listening to students opinions

I get three messages from these students' responses: 1) They wish for their voice to be heard by teachers, who talk too much.  That makes them a lot like teachers who long to be heard but are lead by policy makers who don't listen.  2) They acknowledge that some classmates don't care, don't listen, and don't focus.  What would it take for more teachers to admit that about some of  their colleagues? and 3)  They recognize that teaching is a skill that must be developed and that most teachers long to perfect their craft, but lack opportunities to do so. 

Teacher leaders talk a lot about the crucial conversations that need to happen to reform education.  We could do worse than to begin those conversations with the people right in front of us.

(Note: I gave the prompt at the end of class, told them it was optional and must be completed on their own time, after al l their homework, and that they would get no class credit.   I edited some responses for length, grammar, and spelling.)

In order to "flow" my foray into hip hop artistry, you'll have to internalize the following rhythm:

 

Hip Hop Blog 3

 

Color, Please?

I waved to the security guard on my way into the lot.
Writing and lit was in my thoughts.
I pulled into my spot, with my mini-van bumpin.
my mind was on my lessons, had to get the legs pumpin.’
I stopped for my copies on the way in,
and I saw a familiar sight that made my teacher brain spin.
On the little cubby shelves where we ‘spect our stacks
were dozens of reams of potential learning, white and black,
‘cause tho we still got a few problems of a racial nature
those two colors love each other when it comes to teacher’s paper.

I use the word “color” loose, like a looseleaf notebook
‘cause any color I got comes outa my own pocketbook
'cause I ain’t CTE, I ain’t STEM, I ain’t magnet
I teach a poor core course, and black and white is what we get.
The order forms are color coded for the clerk
But I pay for astrobrights with my after-school work.

You know the eighties are back, neon’s hot, sister
Every screen’s in 3-D & these kids got a pocket full of color
How can 3-hole punched T-charts compete with interactive apps
Even double-sided skeleton outlines got kids catchin naps
or peeks at their smart phone, why not technicolor learning?
Yo, yo our “color problem” has the English teachers burning.

It’s 2013! We seeking authenticity.
And it ain’t all black and white, what these kids are s’posed to read
And it ain’t just Common Core that’s mandating these
kids can read and create multimedia texts with ease
The streets that they swagger down are filled with color, shapes and claims
And it ain’t much of a life kickin’ butt and taking names
Alldayeveryday, citizens gotta analyze the power,
and the truth, and the lies every minute of the hour.

Yeah, I’m a ROYGBIV teacher in a B&W room.
I usedta have posters, but they faded soon,
And these greyscale handouts got these students taking Zzzzzzz’s
Can a girl get a little bit of color? Please?

I don’t know one Arizona educator who actually enjoys April.  Why?  It’s that time of the year…… the dreaded AIMS has arrived to determine how much information our students absorbed throughout the school year and how effective we are as teachers. 

You are probably thinking that you can stop reading this article now because you’re a primary teacher, administrator, parent, or curious random blog-reader.  Wrong!  We ALL have something to invest in the children whom are being assessed in the next two weeks.  It’s down to the wire, and we are the village who must work together to make these children feel affiliated and affirmed within the greater body of intelligent human beings.

After teaching for over a decade, I can confidently conclude that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a valid tool to utilize when determining the knowledge of our students.  Besides the two important foundational needs, Physiological and Safety, the third need is crucial to successful completion of standardized assessments: Love and Belongingness.  I think this need is skipped as teachers assume parents provide this need and vice versa.  But do you see the level of importance of this need?  It surpasses the Cognitive Need by two levels!!  As members of our society, not just educators, administrators, and/or parents, we should be providing Love and Belonging to all children! 

So here are a few tips I have brainstormed to provide Love and Belonging to our students:

1. Smile.  Try it now.  Practice it.  Sounds corny, but when’s the last time you just sat down and laughed and smiled with your students??  I know as an educator I don’t think I smile too much during April.  I am done with a lot of educational junk in my trunk, and usually am researching new careers and daydreaming about where to go during the summer.  So make a POINT to smile.  When you’re hammering in the last-minute AIMS practice questions, just stop.  Turn.  Take a deep breath.  Smile.  You can do it!
2. Be positive!!   Don’t despair when the children are not appearing to remember one single fact you taught them in the 100+ days you have been their teacher.  Most likely they’re tired and burned out on assessing.  Praise them for what they remember, increasing their confidence, morale, and self-esteem.  They will shine when you remind them of their brilliance!
3. Build up the children, don’t tear them down.  They already feel the pressure about standardized assessments!  They know what’s on the line for them, the teachers, and the school.  A physical or verbal pat on the back goes a long way for many children.  Take 5 minutes from your lunch every day to write 1 positive message on a sticky note for a few random students.  Edification is the key to fruitful relationships within the classroom, uplifting our students to feel confident and successful.
4. Celebrate all growth this Friday!!  Find a way to celebrate how your children have grown as individual learners……. there is always some kind of growth to rejoice over.   Don’t have your party after the AIMS, celebrate before!!

Remember that our students are children who need encouragement and emotional support as the building blocks of their psychological well-being.  Be their rock this week! 

What if school systems were responsive enough to keep up with the pace of technology?

When it comes to my ability to integrate an online learning experience for my students into my courses, I don’t think my saga of frustrations and dead-ends is unique.  I have some good ideas (toward the end), but please indulge me in a bit of the saga first.

I have many goals for my teacher website(s):

• Ongoing communication with students and families.
• Making class handouts and notes available online.
• Building a learning community among my students:  online discussions, responses to each others’ work, using each others’ work as models, helping students to create digital products (podcasts, videos, blogs, etc.)
• Developing a sense of audience for students; showcasing their finished work for each other or publicly.
• Curating a resource for assessment and reflection. A whole collection of student work is  easily available for me to peruse.       

As you can see, at least for me, it is not enough to simply have my name and contact information posted on a school site. Nor is it enough to have a static, Web 1.0 web presence with my students.  We need a site that is responsive, collaborative, and interactive, and that allows students to consume, create and reflect on digital media.

Some districts may provide a platform for this kind of online classroom in every class; mine doesn’t.  We have technology, but it is not nimble enough to meet the demands I’ve listed above, goals which are perfectly reasonable and authentic given the digital environments in which many of our students work and play by choice, and given the world of academic and professional work they will be entering.  

I need to tell my story here, but I’m desperately afraid it will be long, rambling, full of frustrations you won’t want to re-live along with me.  Perhaps I can tell that story with a flowchart.  

 

Click here to view a flowchart of my experience developing an online learning environment.  I actually left out several steps.

Or click this link. 

Of course, now that I have learned Wikispaces and fully integrated it into my class, I am learning about others on campus who use Edmodo and other sites that have a much prettier interface, integrate Google Drive better, etc.  Unfortunately, I’ve already invested so much time in my clunky little wiki world that it’s too late.  I simply can’t shift my classroom community partway through the year.

So, finally, my proposal, my “What If?”

What if districts innovated ways to be responsive to teachers’ needs to use up-to-date web tools as part of their classroom communities?  We are not in a world in which districts can afford to have technology plans take multiple years to be implemented; teachers need the ability to use new tools judiciously as they see fit.  By the time those plans are implemented and teachers are trained, the tech has evolved beyond the original conception.

Here are some components of what I think such a nimble technology plan might include:

• Mini-grants to teachers of $200-$1000 for web-based technology needs.  Short form grant applications similar to the proces for applying for a field trip. Teachers could use these grants as needed to subscribe to podcasting sites or other web tools useful for their instructional goals.
• Tech support that includes teacher-leaders whose job is to assist classroom teachers in discovering, learning and implementing new technology tools to meet learning goals for students.
• Limited administrator access to our own laptops to load software such as printer drivers, updates to browsers, e-book software from the public library, etc.
• Ongoing training for teachers to make them aware of issues of privacy, security, ownership of digital products, copyright issues and other issues inherent in having students work online.
• Flexibility in blocking and unblocking sites for various levels of students or even specific groups of students for particular purposes.
• Development of student leadership and mentorship for tech tools.

Up-to-date hardware and software is only part of the issue, a sort of a minimal entry-level requirement for working with students in digital environments.  Teachers in classrooms have a unique vision of what we and our students need to create the digital environments that will efficiently enhance the learning in the classroom.  Empower us to make key decisions regarding how new online tools can help our students.  Students will learn these things quickly; except for those with very little exposure, they already do.  It is often schools and districts that slow them down.