Saying Goodbye to My Guides; A Reader's Response to Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies

In these final chapters of Ladybugs, I felt like I was slowly saying goodbye to a dear friend or mentor. Much like Dumbledore must go away so that Harry can rise up and face challenges with his own power, I must close the book (or the iPad), and carry the wisdom of these master teachers within me, and manifest them through my own practice.

I appreciated many of the practical examples and tips for how to get a classroom of inquiry moving. One thing I find myself continuing to return to in my reflections, is how to get a system of publishing work in place that excites the students and gives them ownership. As of right now, my students have produced many wonderful works, particularly in creative writing, but very few of those works have gone through any kind of publishing process where their thinking can be made visible to an audience beyond their classmates or their teacher. Buhrow and Upczak Garcia give many good reasons why publishing is important, reminding me of things like, “by displaying work, students can take pride in what they have written. It also gives the other children access to environmental print” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1974). 

Beyond just theoretical reasons why publishing is important, the authors also offer pragmatic tips and examples of how they encourage meaningful publishing in their own classrooms. They talk about how some kids like to create posters, whereas “some kids like to present their information in a different way from most people, and making a comic strip to show what you know is one of them” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 2219). I have a small group of students who are very interested in graphic novels and comics, and I think letting them publish their learning in this format that speaks so strongly to them is a wonderful idea.  I also really like how the authors describe how “putting their work out there helps the students build confidence and pride in their writing. Often we take an easel with the kids’ work taped to it and put it in the school’s front lobby. The first thing people see is our kids’ thinking. Next to the work we place a pile of yellow sticky notes and some pens for people to write comments” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1974). I am so inspired by how Buhrow and Upczak Garcia make publishing an interactive experience. Students in their classes are motivated to publish because they know they will be receiving feedback from peers and community members, which also reflects how research is treated in the adult world as well. In blogs, forums, and even newspaper articles, there is always a space reserved for feedback to the authors or for readers to publish their own thoughts that were stirred by the piece. Why shouldn't our students experience that same satisfactory feeling of knowing our work has reached someone? I think this plays right into Brad and Anne's questioning of what a final product even is. They say, “the idea that there even exists a final product is something we go round and round about. If we are promoting a transformational style of learning, is anything really ever finished? Don’t we just keep questioning and learning in the cycle of life and knowledge?” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2281). In today's world, is a writing piece ever "finished" and closed off forever? Or does the piece continue in the dialogue between author and reader, for as long as the conversation holds interest?

I really respect how the authors scaffold "the publishing process so that regardless of where [students] are with their writing or English-language acquisition, they are able to do it. Consistency in this area has helped our ELL students. Seeing their own stories in published format is inspiring, and the more work that makes it to a completed, published format, the  better. Doing this shows the children that their worlds and words matter. If they are publishing for others to see, it inspires them to do great work” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1959). Buhrow and Upczak Garcia do more than emphasize the benefits of publishing, but they also offer novice teachers like myself tips for how its practically done. In one example they describe how,“Using strips of paper, we scribe what is said by the child with whom we’re working exactly as they talk, while putting their words into conventional syntax. With another strip of paper we draw lines to represent each word. The kids then copy what was scribed, which are their words, onto the other sheet. This is a way to scaffold this process, and the more the kids experience what it takes to explore a topic and publish it, the  more quickly they are able to do it more independently” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 2123). They also bring in peer collaboration, something that has been a stated goal of mine to incorporate more often in my instruction. The authors explain that “when [students] are making their big posters, kids use pencils to put their words down and then self-edit. The piece is peer-edited, and we look at the writing and give it a final edit. That way we can write the words that are not conventionally written on a sticky note and let them fix them” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 2085). This technique makes the writing process as independent as possible, while also utilizing peer collaboration, and finally the teacher as the last step. 

Another helpful thing the authors do is offer further explanation for how to use anchor charts to scaffold for writers, something I have been wanting to get more comfortable with in my own practice. Often I make a chart with the students, only to have it fade away into the background and from our memories. Students don't get into the habit of referencing the charts and eventually the poor dusty neglected things get put away to make room for something new. Brad and Anne “build an anchor chart for the kids to refer to while checking what to add to their posters" saying "Anchor charts enable the kids to be more strategic in their thinking” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2576), but Buhrow and Upczak Garcia also make these charts fluid and interactive all year long. This might be the secret to their success, because students don't forget about a living document that belongs to them and can be modified and edited as new information and needs arise. What a wonderful way to increase metacognition and to give kids that proper feeling of ownership over their classrooms and their learning. In my own practice, I would have to get into the habit myself of referencing the charts and reminding students that we can add or edit, in order to model the proper way to use these handy tools. 

The authors also make sure to honor their kids choices in the publishing process by keeping an open ear and mind to student input, something I have been getting better and better at across the year. I related strongly with the statement that “the ideas for how to publish pieces come from the children and what they know or are interested in. We can provide models for ideas, but frequently the kids modify them and come up with better ones. We not only let them, but encourage them” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 2001). Particularly the last sentence resonates with me and sounds like something I would say or write. As I said in my Mosaic video for Language and Literacy, "I love being able to say 'yes' to my students" and I do it as much as possible. For me, this is one of the simplest and most authentic ways to give them the power to drive their own learning. 

I also like the idea of using self-assessments to increase metacognition and encourage students to track and monitor their own growth, another key indication of ownership.  The authors insist that “Self-assessment is an important part of the inquiry process because it lets us know whether or not the kids are internalizing the process and the meaning of what they have been doing. It Is also a path to independence” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2534). I would be curious to see how the students in my class would enjoy and utilize this tool. I believe encouraging metacognition in any form is beneficial, or as the authors say, it helps us because “We think about our thinking, which internalizes learning at extraordinarily deep levels” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2326).

My ears really perked up when I read their description of what their room looks like when students are given time to independently work on their own inquiry projects, because this is exactly what I am thirsting to create in my own classroom. It's much like my "Classroom of Wonders" I described in my previous Ladybugs reflection post. I am still trying to figure out a way I can justify taking up an hour of instruction time per day to let my students pursue their inquiries, when I know my administration and parents have certain expectations for what type of learning should take place during the day and what it should look like. I would love to do what Buhrow and Upzcak Garcia do and “keep blocks of time open for inquiries. Some students will be using fewer sources, others more, but they are all learning in an authentic way. The students have the desire or the spark of wonder, and the teacher is guiding them by explicit and implicit modeling. Some kids will be working more independently and taking notes, whereas others will be with the teacher, who will be scribing their words” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 2465). I know to some people, this would look disorganized and they would question how the common core is being reinforced when students seem to be doing "whatever they want." I am going to do some serious thinking about how to demonstrate that this block of time is accomplishing important work that honors both the students' desires and reinforces the common core concepts they need to be reviewing. 

Finally, I wouldn't be me if I didn't spend a moment reflecting on the balance between a teacher's need to promote social justice and her duty to respect the stance of the school or the individual families. The authors of Ladybugs have some interesting comments on this conundrum, and inspire me with their bravery and candor and assertion that good teaching must confront political issues and social inequality. They say that “acknowledging political inequalities and racial bias in our world has helped us to speak out against them. To be able to teach and do the necessary assessments we have had to take a step back and examine what we thought we knew about these inequities” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2594). I found this very relatable in light of my own recent experience in fumbling between my desire to promote inclusive thinking and attitudes and challenge a civil rights issue I feel storngly about, and stating an opinion to my students that upset and offended parents and administration. As I look back upon this event, I realize that my statement of an opinion did not in fact open up inquiry, but came off as teacher-centered beholding of all information and me having the right answer. Buhrow and Upczak Garcia point me towards reconciling my mission to encourage social justice and critical thinking, by using the art of inquiry. They state “we have learned that inquiry is a valid literacy pathway for ELLs and all learners. We believe that it promotes democracy through questioning and engagement by allowing students to follow their curiosities" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.2609). In a true "Classroom of Wonders" I would invite the students to wonder further about the social issue they brought up, rather than instantly providing my version of the truth.  

Brad and Anne were wonderful guides to me in helping me appreciate the power of a student-centered, inquiry-based classroom, as well as offering me pragmatic how-to steps in making it a reality in my own practice. I'm going to miss sitting down with these teaching heroes every day, but in order to become the hero myself, I must integrate their wisdom into my own beliefs and practices, and make them my own. 

Theory in Practice; The Dance

"In November, the air grows cold and the earth and all of its creatures prepare for winter. Animals seek food and shelter. And people gather together to celebrate their blessings with family and friends." -Cynthia Rylant, In November.

November is a busy time for all of us creatures, and a time marked by change. Highs and lows become more pronounced as we brace ourselves for the winter, prepare for the painful process of shucking off old coats and growing new ones, and celebrate the possibilities of newness and rebirth when the ice finally melts. November is a precarious point between one season and the next. It's neither summer nor winter, but rather flits between the two with t-shirt weather one day and ice flurries the next. I can really relate to November in this way, as I also find myself in an awkward, fluid place, unsettled yet in exactly who or what I am as a teacher and socially responsible advocate for justice.

Dr. Lynch, my coach, often speaks of this teaching thing we do as a dance, and mine has been a clumsy one this November, with plenty of troddings on toes. My lows stem from the justified complaints of my dance partners, and my highs from the small moments of grace I achieve thanks to the practice and hard work I put into memorizing the steps. I still have a long way to go, and sometimes looking far into the future can be discouraging when I stop and realize just how long the waltz really lasts and how much my feet already hurt. There are so many styles of dance, and my different dance parters expect me to dance like them. I am still figuring out which dance is my own.

Common highs this month are rooted in my growing competence in seeing my theories play out in practice. My abilities in fostering peer collaboration and student-centered engagements have grown noticeably and in turn the students have grown as well. My favorite example is from our bucket note returning ceremony. The last two ceremonies I led, calling the student forward, giving them the notes from their peers, and calling on students to share specific anecdotes about moments their friend filled their buckets. On this particular ceremony day, when I announced the first student, she immediately came to the front of the room and started calling on the raised hands herself. I backed off instantly and let the kids run the rest of the ceremony, which they did seamlessly. This showed me a few things: That the successful modeling of the first two months of bucket-notes taught them the procedures they needed, that they are eager to take ownership of the procedures and rituals that should rightfully be theirs, and that they are seeing themselves as competent and capable of running the show themselves. I have also seen my kids thrive as helpers to each other in their learning journeys. Supporting kids in developing these peer collaboration skills is so important to my practice because “cooperative learning produces better learning and more motivated learners than competitive learning and individualistic learning” (Pressley and McCormick, 2007, p.276). Many of my highs come from stepping back and watching this capable young people help themselves and help each other. Our community bonds strengthen day by day as do the individuals within it.

In this dance between highs and lows, I often find that the highs and lows stem from the same source. Successful peer collaboration and student ownership has had me soaring in my practice, while botched attempts have left me in brooding lows. I see a pattern in these failures, and their source originates with me. While the kids are eager and willing to work with each other and to take charge of their own learning, often they are left high and dry because they don't know how to collaborate or how to be in charge of their learning. I have been very influenced by Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies and have tried to lift engagements straight from this text. I have observed that my biggest failures come from turning the kids loose and expecting Ladybug-esque buzz and activity and collaboration and instead finding kids continuing to work independently or seeming aimless or perplexed by the wide open possibilities of pursuing their own topic of interest. I've reflected upon the difference between my engagements and theirs, and have pinpointed the many GROUP and SHARED inquiry and writing experiences the authors do before ever setting kids free to do it themselves. The teachers from the book model, provide experiences of group engagements, and then spend time consulting with each kid on his or her work. They say that “this kind of consultation creates a community of learners who participate in the learning process together” (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 379), which is exactly what I am going for. Moving forward, I will definitely take more time for teaching procedures before overloading kids with incomprehensible and overwhelming tasks.

Can I now take some time to talk about another kind of dance that popped up on several occasions during my reflections this month? This one has been circling in my mind continually, and was marked by some large events that left me with big questions about my role as an educator and in the larger scope of American society as a whole. I speak of the delicate dance, perhaps even done on a tightrope, that a teacher does between working for social change and maintaining professional neutrality on controversial issues. Let me give you some background:

In my old school, I taught a transgender child named Sunshine* for 2 years. (By transgender, I mean a person who is biologically one gender but identifies as the other gender). When I met Sunshine, we used ambiguous pronouns and avoided them when possible. Slowly, as she became more comfortable and confident in her feminine identity, and after discussing it with Sunshine and her mother, we transitioned to exclusive use of the female pronoun in reference to Sunshine and encouraged and reminded her classmates and other teaches to do the same. The students embraced their friend as a girl and barely batted an eye, as if to them this transition was an obvious one. Sunshine was a respected and beloved member of our community, celebrated for being exactly who she is. My heart overflows whenever I think about it. Sadly, Sunshine did not come over to our new school with myself and many of her old classmates, and is at another school where the administration has recommended she "go stealth", or in other words, pass herself off as female without revealing the true nature of her situation to her new friends and teachers. This in and of itself is problematic in my eyes, but I digress.

Not long ago, I heard some of my current students in conversation about Sunshine. They were debating whether she is a boy or a girl, saying "He's a boy, no, she's a girl," and going back and forth. Then I made a choice that I am still experiencing the consequences of. I weighed in. I sat down and listened for a minute and then I dove in. I said, “In my opinion, Sunshine gets to make that decision for herself. If she tells me she is a girl, then as someone who is a friend to her and respects her, I will treat her as a girl.” My coteacher very quickly jumped in and cut the conversation short, telling the kids to talk about this at home with their parents if they still had questions. I am very torn by how this played out. There is a dance here going on in my mind, where on one hand I want to hold high the torch of justice and what I believe in, but on the other I want to be responsible and refrain from doing the thinking FOR the kids, even if I strongly believe my way of thinking is ethical and right. Something I consider over and over again when it comes to transgender issues in American society is what Stevenson says about being proximate. In my mind, making talking about people like Sunshine taboo at school is pushing the topic away and making it far away from us, when what we really need to elicit the necessary and just social change is to make it CLOSER to us. And how lucky are we to have a remarkable child like Sunshine to be proximate with? I don’t appreciate the message that Sunshine’s gender predicament is something “taboo” to talk about and is forbidden to wonder about in school. These kids are very fairly trying to make sense of their world and the people in it, and adults can like it or not, but Sunshine and people like her are some of the people in our world. It harkens me back to other interesting gender conversations that have come up, such as what is for boys and what is for girls that kind of thing. I want to encourage them to think critically about this, but maybe when I expressed my opinion, I closed off the critical thinking and gave too strong of an answer. Did I say too much by giving my opinion? My coteacher was obviously uncomfortable enough to silence me. But is that in and of itself a sign that I went too far, or is that evidence that I am touching on important transformative ground? I still don’t know. I sometimes hesitate in this dance, taking a step forward, taking a step back.

I think I need to acknowledge that I am strongly influenced by some of the critical thinkers we’ve encountered this year like Joyce King and Bryan Stevenson. Hearing them speak left me with a fire coursing through me. I wanted to put on my biggest ass-kicking boots and kick down the school doors and shout my social justice message through every hall. Maybe I let myself get too militant, maybe it's not a good idea to put my job at risk by spreading a message the powers that be don't want to hear. But then again, both King and Stevenson assert that change needs to come from changing the narrative, and that sometimes we need to be deliberately uncomfortable to do this. How should I interpret the discomfort of the administration and parents and other teachers? Is it a healthy discomfort that comes from talking about the necessary topics, or is it a sign to me that I overstepped my bounds? I am still trying to figure out where I stand in this. Was I wrong or right? Or somewhere in between? Part of me thinks “I don’t want to step on toes” and part of me thinks “wait, yes I do, these are toes that NEED to be stepped on because it’s the right thing to do.” But then the message I got from the administration was that it's not my place to engage in these controversial issues. I haven't decided if I agree with this or not. My principal made lots of salient points as to why what I said was inappropriate. Part of me thinks that this is exactly a teacher's place, positioned as we are to be the barometer for right and wrong for the next generation. But then part of me thinks maybe it's not my place to encourage topics that the paying customers, the parents, are uncomfortable with. These questions are exactly what makes this teacher dance such a complex one.

I do believe I was somewhere between right and wrong. I think I said too much, I "named" and I told the kids (what I believe to be) the answer rather than encouraging them to get there themselves. One of my role models is Jane Elliot who did the famous engagement with her students in the 60s, where she got them thinking about race in terms they could understand. (Watch the documentary below if you've never heard of it, it will blow your mind). She really epitomizes a child-centered, inquiry based, discovery model to encourage her students to come to their own conclusions about America's racial inequality and the Civil Rights movement. Keeping her style in mind, next time this topic comes up that is so important to me (and in my eyes the next frontier of the civil rights movement), I won't get so fired up but remain calm and trust my students to get there on their own with some skillful guidance from yours truly.

Found Poem

In Language and Literacy class today we made "found poems," an exercise where you take snippets of another author's words to create your own work of art. My classmate Kimela (see her blog here) and I created the following borrowing the words of Paolo Friere and Bryan Stevenson. 

Knowledge re-invention
In this Restless world
Can only be changed if the narrative changes
Rich and guilty
Poor and innocent
reconcile the poles of contradiction
Education must begin with the solution
obviate thinking?
That’s ivory tower isolation,
the narrative changes
but only in communication.
Relationships,
no docile listeners,
just critical co-investigators in dialogue together.

My Fridays: twos to twelves, highs and lows

Teaching 2 year olds in the morning and 12 year olds in the afternoon is an interesting leap in the space of a day. Each come equipped with their own unique sets of joys and perils, especially as a roaming Language and Technology teacher.

2 year old highs: Putting French Caillou on the laptop for kids to roam past as they play, while sitting with students one on one and engaging them in a social French moment, playing a guessing game about colors. I am discovering that one on one face time with these youngsters makes a huge difference in the quality of their engagement.

2 year old lows: Showing a student my iPad and watching him unplug it an and announce, "I unplugged it." To which I say "Great! Can you plug it back in?" Naturally he responds by moving to put the plug in his mouth. I am recording this whole thing, and the video ends as I fumble for the cord and say in a much different tone "No, don't put it in your mouth!" The learning experience about 2 year olds here is pretty obvious.

12 year old highs: So many sweet wise souls that I get to spend 10 minutes with one on one. I am constantly amazed and challenged by how much they know and how much they can do. How can I keep ahead of them? How can I keep their momentum going when I only see them once a week? I want more time with them to accomplish even greater things. This high is really a combination of all sorts of bittersweet highs when it comes to teaching 12s.

12 year old lows: This is my favorite, and has become a high in retrospect because it's just too dern awkward and funny. A particular 12 year old emailed the following to his mother from my email account: "all the babies all across the world were decapitated and slottered

love headless horceman aka joe*" along with this picture:

What's cool is that he edited this photo and wrote the email, addressed it, gave it a subject ("headless babies"), attached the image, and wrote something in the body of the message with minimal involvement from me. He followed all the parameters of my instructions and accomplished all my goals for the engagement perfectly! It's only too bad his silly Language and Technology teacher didn't think to specify that all content "shared" had to be appropriate. Of course Joe's mom was NOT THRILLED about the creepy email from her son... the worst part is probably that I did read what he wrote, but I didn't really THINK about how inappropriate the content actually was. After all, I am the one who had doll heads decorating my house for halloween in the first place. I watch violent movies and laugh at gross jokes and count South Park among my favorite shows. I'm probably not a very appropriate person in general. Which is why I am grateful for this incident, simply because it taught me that I'm going to have to sharpen that appropriate-dar if I'm going balance working with 12 year olds and parents and my own depraved twisted home-life. I'm sure a few more embarrassing lapses of judgment like this and I will have it down. NOTE TO SELF: 12 is not old enough for headless baby humor, particularly when said humor is sent to Mom without further explanation. Supervision still a must, or metaphorical plugs will be placed in metaphorical mouths and result in metaphorical electrocution.

2s and 12s! SO different and SO the same.

Dreaming of a Classroom of Wonders: A Reader's Response to Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies

If Ladybugs and Tornadoes are doing anything to me, they are making me start to DREAM BIG.

I have a new fantasy.

My own Language and Technology classroom.

In my utopian teaching position, I see each class for an hour or longer every. single. day. They spend an hour in this Classroom of Wonders, perfecting the art of inquiry and letting their critical thinking skills explode. The walls will be filled with their questions, their thinking, and their learning on big proud poster board and chart paper, complete with their colorful drawings. There will be tubs and tubs of books, art supplies, and comfortable inviting spaces to delve into work. There will be computers, good ones, that work and have interesting and useful programs to expand their thinking and their creativity. May I dream slightly bigger still? There will be no less than 3 Macbook laptops (or dare I say, iPads?) complete with GarageBand, iMovie, and iPhoto. Depending on their age, students will use these programs to express their thinking process or create works of art. They will be immersed in technology, with iPads brimming with apps, and scaffolds to their learning, and other experiences to enchant and unlock their minds. They will talk with and exchange ideas with friends across the globe and learn techniques for pursuing the questions that interest them.

Obviously, when I call this dream-space a Classroom of Wonders, I do mean wonders in the Ladybugs, Tornadoes and Swirling Galaxiean manner of "I wonder?". As the authors of the book put it, "The purpose of using 'I wonder' is that it gives the student ownership of the question and therefore a reason for seeking the answer" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1408). In my perfect world, Language and Technology will be a daily exercise in critical thought, open exchange of ideas, student-driven learning, and meaningful engagement with the tools of knowledge seeking. Similarly to the way the authors of Ladybugs see it, "This is all natural. The kids are everywhere, spread out with their work, engaged in their thinking, working at their own pace. We move around the room conferring with kids, helping them move from one step to the next" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1567). THAT is what I want learning to look like in my dream classroom. There's just something about this description that gives me a visceral reaction; it feels right.

So many things squared with my thinking in these latest chapters of Ladybugs, if the inspiration for my dream classroom didn't make that clear enough. One thing in particular has been a huge area of focus and growth for me, and that is honoring student choice and promoting critical thinking in my lesson plans. I could not underscore the importance of such choice better than Buhrow and Upczak Garcia when they say "We let them choose topics, whether it is with their personal narratives or with inquiries, because choice energizes them. Choice generates curiosity and adventurous thinking. Choice creates momentum. Choice allows for more in-depth inquiry. Choice encourages independence and builds self-esteem. Choice makes learning matter to the kids. Choice encourages metacognition and reflection" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1708). The role of choice and ownership has been made abundantly clear to me, and now I am simply fine tuning the best ways to go about guiding and supporting students in these choices. After all, "rarely do we find that kids are distracted or bored when they are working on something that they've chosen" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1708).

Another aspect of Anne and Brad's classroom that I love is how interactive the kids' work is. This squares with my thinking because I also value the social role of learning, and how responding to others or being responded to can enrich your own thinking. I felt like patting myself on the back to read: "Recently we have been experimenting with simply writing our comments on sticky notes and putting them directly onto the work" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1936), because sticky notes are already a major part of our classroom flow. The idea of expanding their many uses to include responding to the work of other researchers is simply genius and a must-try.

At the same time my thoughts are squaring with the ideas in the book, the same ideas are also challenging me and pushing me to think in new directions. For instance, I completely acknowledge the wisdom behind the idea that: "the kids are deciding for themselves what to explore. We might provide ideas and background knowledge, but they choose. It is also their questions and learning that drive their inquiries. Our goal is for them to follow their wonderings and learning, not ours" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.1740). In my first inquiry-based project attempt, I am guiding students to create presentations about any topic involved in a UN country they chose to study a few weeks ago. I want to drive home the fact that this project should be something THEY want to learn about and share, but for some students it still feels like pulling teeth, and I get the sense they are trying to read from me some cue of what they should be doing. It's almost as if the students don't know how to run free with their own inquiry; for instance, one student knows he is interested in soccer players. But when I try to get him asking questions about this topic, I get blankness in response. Part of it I think is the (in his mind) loathsome task of so much writing that is making him balk. As I continue reading Ladybugs, I learn more ways to reach students like this and to get them as fired up about their inquiries as the students in Ladybugs. My reading has led me to understand that students like the one in question need to be taught the procedures of inquiry and can't be expected to walk in the door the first day knowing how to inquire. Extremely helpful have been the "Scaffolding Strategies for Inquiry Projects" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1583), which I should have used more liberally while I was sitting with this particular "stuck" student. I am pointed now in the direction of valuing the actual critical thinking taking place over the method of getting there; why not be his scribe if getting writing out of the way will help him get to the meat of his thinking and push him to new edges? He can practice the tedium of handwriting in other areas of his school day, but not when the momentum of his thinking is at stake! Scribes can be great for emergent writers as well as ELLs.

Another new idea that came to me was the importance of modeling to help students develop their budding inquiry skills. As the authors of Ladybugs remind us, "Through good modeling the students gain greater access to meaningful language" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1894). For instance, "We start out with very simple structures and routines for sharing that include oral responses that occur after someone shares...As time goes on, responses can be more complicated and can incorporate comprehension strategies such as making connections, questioning, or inferring" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1894). Providing those structures and routines are what my initial plunge into this inquiry project was lacking, and is something I will be sure to put thought into in the future. One technique I can try to do is more out loud thinking. Buhrow and Upczak Garcia sometimes like to "stop as we are reading and think aloud, although quite often the kids are making their inner conversations audible. They just start wondering and thinking aloud. We encourage this, because one child's question often leads to other kids thinking more about the topic" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1531). From now on I will find excuses to think aloud in front of students, and do what Brad and Anne do by turning it back onto the students with the question "what did you notice me doing there?"

With so much wonderful food for thought, I naturally have a lot of thoughts that continue to circle in my mind. I thought it was interesting the way Buhrow and Upczak Garcia pose the question: "Why constrict them? Why not help them share their thinking and make it big? For us, the thought of being neat translates into stifling creativity and inhibits our ELL's ability to communicate with us in various forms" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1621). My thought: How would parents react if I told them we would not be writing on lined paper or practicing the basics of letter formation this year? The bottom line is that ESPECIALLY in private school, there are just certain things parents expect to see. I'd like to find a compromise here because I value the perspective Buhrow and Upczak Garcia present here. I'm thinking that perhaps neatness and handwriting can be focused on during other parts of the day, but during LT in the Classroom of Wonders, students can be uninhibited by these concerns that come second to quality thinking. 

Being in a mixed age setting, I am constantly rolling over ideas of ways to get meaningful interactions across the grade levels. I love the idea that "Getting the kids to share their thinking in a big and bold way also inspires other writers in other grades" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1879), because that is exactly what I am trying to achieve. I would hope that through modeling, scaffolding, and practice, "The community becomes deeply involved in each other's work through presentations of research projects, making connections, asking questions, and writing comments..." (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1916). Still circling in my mind is the question of "How?" How do these teachers keep track of all of this free-form learning and exploring, balancing this qualitative learning with the demands for quantitative results? I'd like to march in to my principal on Monday morning and declare my need for my own Classroom of Wonders, but how do I fit in the kind of data a principal or parent would expect to see from all this freedom and extra time with the students into this model of student-driven learning? I'm still grappling with this question as I fantasize about ways to make my dream a reality, or at least a closer approximation to my ideal teaching format. I want so badly to create what Ladybugs has created, "an environment and sets of routines that allow the kids to be in a comfortable place to share and respond" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.1916). I want to encourage the hum and the buzz of active, authentic learning, to be able to share in the feeling of success described when the authors say their classroom environment" is truly charged, and the pride in their eyes when they share their work is something we see frequently" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1936).

My next order of business is to take what I can from my dream classroom, the Classroom of Wonders, and make what I can of simply a class of wonders. Perhaps if I can prove my merit in this small space, a grander space for us to stretch out in will be on the horizons.

Theory in Practice; It's Not JUST About Me

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The world, and indeed the classroom, does not evolve around me.

Pretty simple concept to grasp, right? Yes in theory, but in practice, it's a topic that comes up often in my highs and lows.

I have been known to tout the wisdom "your worst qualities are your best qualities and vice versa," but never has it been so clear in my own reflections as this past round of TIP recording. My highs and my lows both tend to originate with my accepting the old adage, "it's not about me."

When I make it not about me in the classroom, the level of engagement and authentic learning increases tremendously. This is something my coach brought to my attention when she visited my class and observed me teaching French through repetition, then through a book project where the words they could include in the book had already been chosen for them... by me. She challenged me to think about the questions we hear in our Language and Literacy class on a regular basis: Whose voice is being heard? Whose words/questions are being honored?

This has become my mantra as I seek to revolutionize my approach to instruction. In my mind I am constantly asking myself "are their questions honored? Are their words honored?" as I design curriculum and engagement activities to promote student-centered and critical learning practices.

My first step in the right direction came from a frightening event where me, our science teacher, and a group of 6 kids got attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets while measuring the trees in the audobon next to the school. (Read my attempt to turn horror to humor in my blog post about the experience here). Understandably, kids had a lot of thoughts and questions about this traumatizing event, which I took as a message from them that this was a topic they were thirsty to know more about. In my growing flexibility and ability to toss out teacher-centered plans in favor of student-driven new directions, I encouraged these questions and left them open ended, because as Strieb taught me, “Naming often closes off discussion because, for some people, once you name something, there may be nothing more to say about it” (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1993, p.126). In my goal to have a classroom that puts more energy into honoring student inquiry rather than teacher directives, I let their questions be, and instead invited the class to create a KWHL chart (Know, Want to know, How to learn, Learned). I laid out the chart on a large piece of chart paper and invited students to write what they "know" about yellow jackets and what they want to know about yellow jackets on sticky notes to stick into the appropriate column. We then came together and discussed what we knew, what we wanted to know, and how we would go about finding our answers. Sure, a perfectly fine lesson planned around The Paper Bag Princess got tossed out the window, but as I am constantly reminding myself: It's not about me or my beautifully planned lesson. In this moment in time, they didn't care about the Paper Bag princess, they cared about their healing stings and their newfound phobia of the outdoors, and getting to the bottom of why this experience occurred. For the next few weeks, it informed both their engagement in informational text, as well as the topics of their creative writing, like in this delightful poem by one of my 2nd graders:

Riding on the high of this successful student-centered inquiry moment, I dove head first back into my Language and Technology class, taking with me my expanding edges in facilitating a student-driven learning experience. I abandoned the "j'aime" books that only showcased MY words, and instead invited students to choose a country to study in honor of UN Day. For half of the students, the engagement I designed was perfect, and they were able to pick out facts from a kid-friendly article about the UN and collaboratively record and report them with their partner. For the other half of the class (the younger half), I quickly realized I should have differentiated a lot more for their developing literacy needs. The younger students were somewhat overwhelmed by the open-ended nature of the task with minimal teacher directives, causing interest to wane, which is where scaffolding would have come into play. A quick revisit to Flint reminded me that “when teachers provide appropriate scaffolding to struggling readers and writers, they create a learning environment that presents challenges in a supportive context; provides security through successful risk taking on a daily basis; and includes opportunities for students to begin assuming responsibility for their learning” (Flint, 2008, p.364). Of course in my development as a teacher-guide, I want my students to be successful risk takers, take on challenges, and assume more responsibility as critical thinkers and knowledge seekers, but some of them needed more support in reaching these goals. Undaunted, I went back to the drawing board and created a graphic organizer with some starting off points and some spaces for student inquiries to be inserted. The project is open-ended, in that if one aspect of their research captures their imagination, they are free to pursue that topic as the focal point of their project.

For example, this student who chose to study China quickly got through the initial questions and even her own question about Chinese holidays, which led her towards something that truly piqued her interest, the Dragon Boat Festival.

We followed this up with a trip to the library, where as much as possible students used the library resources independently to locate books on their topic of choice. Chloe quickly found a whole section on Dragon Boat festival and immediately began devouring the books right there on the floor between the stacks. Would this have been the case if I had told her "Chloe, you are assigned Canada and you need to find out the population, their currency, and name one historical Canadian figure"? Just like Buhrow and Upczak Garcia state in Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies, my goal "is to make an academic environment where all inquiries are valued and kids have the dispositions or the attitudes and inclination to work independently" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 540). I believe my growth in becoming a guide who facilitates rather than "the one who has the knowledge" is allowing my class to evolve in this direction.

Again and again I am reminded by these student-driven engagements full of energy and enthusiasm that it's not about me. And the more I make it not about me the more authentic and alive the learning in the classroom becomes, despite my growing pains in scaffolding as I push these edges of mine.

The same mantra can be applied to my reoccurring lows, which often focus on the challenging behavior of particular students. As I examined my highs and lows across the month, a pattern began to emerge in the way I deal (unfruitfully) with these challenging behavioral moments. On more than one occasion I recorded a feeling of guilt and remorse after using a sarcastic tone with students. In Conscious Discipline, Bailey discusses the role trigger thoughts play in a teacher's response to a challenging situation. In the self assessment found on page 31, I learned that my most engaged in form of trigger thoughts is “magnification” (Bailey, 2000, p.31); indeed, I checked every single box in that category. I've been reflecting on this, and I think my tendency to magnify a situation into something "I can't stand" or is "intolerable" leads me to try to lighten the stress by turning to humor, or rather to my preferred brand of humor, sarcasm. While indulging in magnification, I sometimes feel like I will burst if I don’t release my mounting tension, but the truth is, sarcasm relieves my tension by taking it out on the kids. I am working to remind myself that I have choices and I am in control of my reactions to stress. I don’t HAVE to use sarcasm and furthermore, I CAN stand the situation. In fact, I'd argue that it's my job to stand the situation, and to exercise self control. As Bailey reminds me, “Self control is an act of love and a moment-by-moment choice” (Bailey, 2000, p.34). There are better ways to cope with frustration than sarcasm. This becomes even more vital in consideration of Wood's assertion that “teasing, joking, and especially sarcasm are painful to the seven-year-old” (Wood, 2007, p.88). Of course the last thing I want to do is inflict emotional pain with my words or demeanor, and doing so completely undermines the work I do to model friendship skills and kindness. What's more, sarcasm makes it about me and making me feel better, and causes me to lose grasp of the opportunity to turn the moment into a teachable one.

It's not about me, but it's not NOT about me either. It's about that balance between myself and my students, where we share in the responsibility of their learning. I think I am getting closer to becoming that problem-posing educator who advocates with students and supports them in owning their own learning. He describes such a teacher quite eloquently when he says, "the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the reflection of the students. The students—no longer docile listeners—are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher” (Freire, 1970, p.81). My job now is to become an expert on scaffolding, so that co-investigation is possible for ALL students, and they are given just the right amount of autonomy balanced with a guiding structure. This plays into my longstanding goal of becoming a better more efficient planner, as scaffoldng well requires knowing several steps into the future and having well assembled plans. I have a feeling this balance will be a lifelong study.

 Lastly, I absolutely must share my all time favorite Freire quote (okay so we've only read two chapters, but my favorite SO FAR): “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (Freire, 1970, p.80). This quote holds special significance for me as a literal student of teaching. I am so grateful to my students, some of whom have been with me for 3 years now, and the patience and grace in which they tolerate my learning curve as I learn to become a better teacher. Perhaps then, my mantra should not be "it's not about me" but rather, "it's not just about me." Because in many ways, this teaching journey IS about me: it's my career and my life's calling after all; but it's about me in collaboration with them, and that collaboration is what I am discovering teaching to really be about the more I read, study, and experience with my little teachers.

It's not just about me. We're all in this boat together.

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Albert and Olive and Friendships That I Miss

I miss some of  my old students.

One of the most magical thing about my personal teaching journey, has been teaching the same students for 2, sometimes 3 years. You can probably imagine the amount of growth we've experienced together, on both sides, as they develop their learning craft and I develop my teaching craft.

I miss Albert, but more particularly, his best friendship of many years with Olive, a very gifted girl in my class whom I have taught all 3 years of my teaching career. Albert was also a stellar student of great intellectual curiosity with a thirst to be the best. They were wonderful friends, innocent playmates on the playground who could share in elaborate pretend. They would brandish stick wands and travel across continents in the time it takes to cross to the other side of the play-structure. The classroom, in their minds, was a race to the top. "It's lonely at the top" might be a common saying, but not for these two. They were in good company up there, and always pushing each other to the next great height.

It makes me think more than ever than I HAVE to do my next DRC* on Olive. She is the only student for whom I have a real burning question: How can I take up Albert's mantle and push her big brain to the limits? Once upon a time she was a 2nd grader among 3rd graders. Now she is a 4th grader among 2nd graders. She's finally at the top of the chain, but I'm not sure she feels that way. For once in her entire school life, she has no Albert by her side to help navigate the path to 4th grade glory. She inspires me and she breaks my heart. How do I give her that torch to light the way so she can navigate her own path to excellence?

 

*DRC= Descriptive Review of a Child

Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies; a reader's response

One of the main things that stood out to me during my reading of this book was the fact that many of these strategies geared towards English Language Learners would also benefit native speakers in their own emerging literacy and language skills. For example, reading and re-reading the same read-alouds is useful for native English speaking classes as well as ELLs. As Buhrow and Upczak Garcia state, "this repetition once again gives ELLs access to their new language and text through pictures and modeling of conventional English. It allows them to develop their listening and speaking skills with texts that become more familiar with each read. With kids who have more experience, reading and rereading allows a deeper look at the story" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 1214). I feel that in this quote, you can replace the word ELL with Emergent Readers and the meaning and value remain the same.

Many things squared with my thinking and experiences, having been fortunate enough to work in loosely structured environments like the one described in the book and having seen some of the techniques in action. In our classroom, we have some of the same features described in the book, such as comfortable beanbags for kids to read and write on, and plenty of clipboards to use as "moving" desks. If we had more space, I'd love to have more comfy armchairs and low tables, and really internalize the notion of "feng shui, the art of designing space that maximizes the flow of energy so that it doesn't become trapped or stagnant, to create a low-stress, comfortable environment where learning and thinking is not only conducive but comes naturally to the children" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 339). The authors also make cogent points about adult readers and writers preferring comfortable environments with ambiance to do their work. It makes perfect sense to let kids experience this as well, and lets them model what adult readers and writers do.

Modeling is a big part of what squared with my thinking in this book. While I have not implemented many of the strategies mentioned, my understanding of the value of modeling has been growing since I began this program. I can so relate to the authors when they say "too often kids think 'success' means pleasing the teacher, so they try to copy us" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.555). Just today, I asked a student who had gotten in conflict what he thought he should do to resolve the situation. He said "apologize?" With this chapter fresh in my mind, I asked him if he wanted to apologize because that's what he wants to do or because that's what he thinks I want him to do. He answered the latter. It just goes to show me how careful I need to be as a teacher in guiding students to make their own decisions and not base everything off of what they think the adult in the room wants. This all goes in to taking ownership of one's own learning and even one's own life.

I am being pointed in new and delightful directions by many of the practices in this seemingly utopian classroom. I love love LOVE the idea of letting kids go free with chart paper. Where did I get this idea that big chart paper is just for teachers to control the use of? What better way to show them that their work is important and valuable than to let them publish it in big bold writing on a beautiful large sheet of paper? Also, the idea of raising thumbs rather than hands. It sound much more pleasant and models more closely how adult conversations should go. I really like how the teachers "label the work with placards that say things such as 'Works in progress,' or 'Thinking in progress,' or even 'Thinking is happening here,' which allows other children, teachers, and parents to watch the entire thought process from start to finish" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L. 369). I had never before considered the value of the thought process the way Buhrow and Upczak Garcia do, and indeed they use many unconditional methods such as having kids write in pen rather than pencil so that the records of their evolving writing skills are not erased in the editing process. I also think this celebration of the process rather than the finished product must lift some of the pressures of perfection some kids feel. I know in my classroom, I have students who hate the editing process because to them it means their work is "wrong" or that they weren't smart enough to get it perfect the first time. As a teacher (and a longtime student) of writing, it breaks my heart to see these limiting, rigid attitudes towards their own worth as writers based on a first draft effort. By displaying works in all phases of the publishing process and celebrating the merits of all the stages, I can imagine a shift in attitude ocurring that would teach children those values I so want them to absorb. I also think that my goals in having a less teacher-centered classroom culture would be aided by these displays of works-in-progress because as the authors say, "when kids are able to see other writers' thinking, writing, editing, and rewriting, they notice and learn from each other through the writing process" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.382). Of course once again, being able to display work and leave work out to this degree requires the privilege of space, something that is hard to come by in our little classroom.

I am drooling over the beautiful organization and user-friendliness of the class library described, where they practice "putting the books in small tubs based on a theme, then labeling the tub with a sentence, underlining the important word or words, and including a picture" because it "increases a child's access to different kinds of books based on interest and reading development. Of course it would naturally follow that "kids spend less time searching for books that interest them and more time reading" (Buhrow and Upczak Garcia, 2006, L.445). This is the way my class library is organized in my dreams, however at the moment, we are very limited by space. I wonder how Buhrow and Upczak Garcia would tackle organizing my library in my given space? Or even my whole classroom?

Still circling in my mind are a few of the moments in the book I took issue with, at least for my personal teaching situation. in Location 728, Buhrow and Upczak Garcia talk about using eye contact rather than calling names during large group discussions. Instantly, I thought of some of students on the spectrum of Autism, for whom eye contact is often uncomfortable and unnatural, and is something a teacher must ask for or remind him or her of. Those students may be uneasy maintaining eye contact with the speakers, and their lack of eye contact does not equate with lack of attention in many cases. While eye contact is a social norm and expectation in our culture and should be something teachers continue working with reticent students on, I don't think it would work in every classroom in the place of identifiable social gestures such as hand-raising. There is something too subtle and socially dependent about the eye-contact method that could confuse and muddle the whole model of exchanging ideas and conversation we are trying to convey. Some kids need more concrete representations to scaffold them through social situations that require taking turns when speaking, etc.

All in all, the possibilities explored in Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies so far leave me feeling thirsty and eager. I want to become a leader in my own classroom and put some of these ideas to the test, and see for myself the kinds of changes it creates in the lives of students and teachers, all learners in their own right.

Tuesday. AKA the day I murdered 2 yellow jackets in a display of awesome bravery and protectiveness

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Attacked by yellow jackets today during science. It's funny, because something has been in the air; one teacher came in this morning and warned my colleague to beware her "saturn rising" or something ominous along those lines. Then my principal came back from lunch with a random small birthday cake because "it's that kind of day." Of course this was not a day to expect to take 6 kids into the woods for some peaceful tree trunk diameter measuring and come out unscathed.

I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I am protecting kids but I also feel scared myself. After I realized what was happening when two girls got stung, I yelled "everyone run!" and we all high tailed it to the building. It was chaos. I was swatting them out of my own hair while kids scattered. We banged on the door to be let in, kids panicked, stung, weeping. I ushered them inside all the way into the classroom (I had lost 3, I hoped they were with the science teacher and not cowering under a swarm of angry yellow jackets in the woods somewhere). The room was dark, quiet and empty when we entered it, a weird contrast to the little girls with contorted faces who didn't know if they should sit down or drink water or sit down and drink water.  To make matters worse, we quickly realized the attack was not over. J screamed "It's on my sleeve" and I calmly pulled her away from the other kids and whacked the thing to  H E double hockey sticks with my Field Journal. My Field Journal is my new favorite possession.

It's so completely weird to hear yourself saying "you're safe, take some breaths, relax" while you can hear your own heart thumping in your ears. A teacher with first aid came to treat the wounded and a few more survivors staggered in. Meanwhile, the science teacher was in the hall, running around with a fly swatter and taking care of the infiltrating insects. To help paint a picture for you, he is a british martial arts instructor who usually wears a kind of pilot jump suit and his long gray hair in a ponytail. He was very gracefully and fearlessly leaping around in the hall and shouting battle cries as he swatted at the yellow jacket. At least that is how I am remembering it. I said I was looking for L and he said "She's in the preK classroom! Quick, close the door, there's one loose in the corridor!" I shut the door behind me and I saw the little bugger bouncing against the ceiling and meandering down the hall. Not to brag, but I must tell you how I trained my eye on that creature with the sangfroid of a stone cold assassin. All trace of fear vanished. Very calmly, I stalked that yellow jacket into a corner and dealt it a fatal blow with the trusty old Field Journal. I got a high five from the science teacher. And some pit stains on my blouse. 

(Full disclosure: I may have actually swatted and missed a few times and maybe even shrieked and cowered and ran away from the centimeter-long opponent before I ultimately defeated it... but the point is I defeated it).

I kept the two yellow jacket carcasses to show them to the kids. I put them on a yellow post-it and topped it with an overturned little glass. One of them had some twitching legs and antennas. I don't really know why I kept them. Maybe I am hoping I can salvage this experience for the kids somehow, find a way to channel their fear into curiosity. It's just so ironic that you go into the woods to help children form bonds with nature, and you may end up traumatizing them and leading them to develop nature-phobias. Trying to stay cool in front of the class was a challenge, but I think I pulled it off. I got lots of curious kiddos peeking at those insect bodies, and asking good questions about these attackers. A few of them even started to appear proud of their battle wounds as they shared it with the other half of the class who hadn't been present. 

If I accomplished anything, I hope I was able to convey to the students that there's a difference between healthy caution and straight-up fear. I let them know that I NEVER kill living things unless I feel it is absolutely necessary, like to protect my students, and that I have only respect in my heart for the yellow jackets (though between you and me, there was some satisfaction in crushing the culprits who hurt my babies). Knowledge is the power that can keep us safe. How about we learn how to avoid yellow jackets in the future! Fun, right? I'm sure I didn't say it as gracefully as that, but you get it. After all, isn't that the approach we want to help kids develop as they interact with all facets of life? Informed, critical, but also inquisitive and bold?

Theory in Practice: Becoming a Guide and Learning to Map

School children holding alphabet cards, Hartlepool, GB c. 1900
Image source: Hartlepool Cultural Services via Flickr

As I look back on my highs and lows, it's interesting to note the themes and topics that reoccur, which I was not aware of during the actual unfolding of events. One of the major themes I notice is my preoccupation with relationships. I spend a lot of time thinking about relationships in my school life, from my relationship with individual students to their relationships with each other. I seem to not be able to pull apart my relationship with a child and teaching that child. For me, the two rely on each other, and one cannot exist without the other. Many of my reflections involve thinking of ways to connect with different students, gain their trust, and build an understanding between us as student and teacher.

I also put a lot of mental and emotional energy into supporting these young people in relating to each other in positive ways, and equipping them with tools to handle the conflict and misunderstanding that life invariably throws at them. One of the struggles in our class this year has been building empathy and tolerance in young people when dealing with the challenging behavior of a few of their peers. As adults, of course we can step back and look critically at a child's behavior and say "okay, he/she may be acting this way because of XYZ outside factors" but such removal from interactions is much more difficult for younger students. They are very much "in" the social interactions, and it's hard for them to think critically about a friend's behavior and tease out the difference between "being mean" and genuinely being unable to help their impulses or understand and respond appropriately to social cues. We have employed the Bucket Filler books, a metaphor for kids about the way our words and actions impact each other by envisioning our emotions as a bucket of good feelings that can either be filled or dipped from. Metaphors can be challenging for even adults to absorb and apply to their own concrete actions, so naturally the children are still working on relating their actions and words to the bucket filling and bucket dipping they talk about occurring. In our class we have a physical plastic bucket with cards they can fill out when they feel a classmate has done or said something that has filled their buckets. I hope that reviewing these bucket filling moments with the students next week will be a community building moment that celebrates the growth they have made in becoming conscientious bucket-fillers, as well as underscore the concrete things we can do or say to get along and be friendly towards others.

I think this reflects that my theory towards teaching is very much a social one. It relies on a healthy and supportive community for authentic learning to take place, and I work hard to help the children build such a place. THis is why many of my lows center on dealing with behavior that either disrupts the calm of such an environment, or disrupts the harmony through negative social interactions. We're confronting these challenges with solutions such as an increase in small group work over whole group, which has proven very successful thus far.

Another HUGE theme that I see in my reflections has to do with my own organization abilities (or lack thereof). This is an area in which I have struggled since childhood. As an adult with ADD, I continue to search for ways to cope with my constant "scatter-brained" feeling that also impacts my self-esteem and brings with it great waves of self-doubt. Sometimes I wonder what kind of a role model I can be to kids as I support them in developing their own organizational and self-regulation skills, when mine seem so deficient. I berate myself with abusive thoughts and language. This has been increasingly difficult now that I myself am a student again. While children have the opportunity to have their learning differentiated to their needs, as an adult student, you have to conform to the learning structure presented to you, whether it fits your learning style or not. You have to "deal" if you want to succeed. Sometimes I feel inadequate, even sad, when I encounter students who remind me of myself. I think, how can I meet your needs as a learner in the here and now while also equipping you for a much harsher future? How can I protect you from feelings of not fitting in or inferiority when comparing yourself to the learners around you, when I myself have not been able to conquer these feelings and personal flaws? I feel like a fraud, and my greatest fear is that my learning shortcomings will result in massive failure as a grad student and as a teacher, and I will be "found out" as a phony and be laughed out of town. I want to protect my students from developing these negative feelings about themselves, I want them to feel as capable and full of potential as I see them. But I know that first I have to come to terms with my own self-actualizing in this department. And self-actualizing can be painful, especially when you've been making do for so many years of adulthood. I truly believe the major link that is missing that will make me feel in control and capable is organization. I have to find a way to put myself through a kind of organizer's boot camp, perhaps using resources like pinterest for tools that will assist me in my goal to improve in this area.

Obviously, planning and being goal oriented is necessary, even required for this profession. But there is also something to be said for throwing the plan out of the window and pursuing more interesting avenues that pop up organically when students take charge of their own learning. I recorded many highs that involved meaningful moments that came from just going with a student's suggestion. Acting and thinking on my feet in this manner, when the classroom is abuzz with excitement and activity as a brand new idea is set in motion, is an area of strength for me and it fills me with a kind of exhilaration as it unfolds before my very eyes. Perhaps it's the opposite side of the organization coin, the half where I am not deficient but in fact naturally well equipped to excel. That place where spontaneity and openness to change on the fly can lead to deeper student involvement and ownership of their learning is a kind of sweet spot, and I want more control of getting to that place while still holding on to the goals of our learning. I want so badly to learn planning, real planning, goal-oriented planning that sees weeks into the future the way my scatter-brain nature does not. Following the lead of the kids is magical and powerful, but if I am going to be an effective guide, I obviously need a real map and one I know how to navigate. I need to know where our destination is so that we can all get there, together, even if we don't take the route originally mapped. Here my theory is beginning to emerge from the mist of all-over-the-place thoughts. Learning should be child-driven, but the teacher needs the skills to know where the destination is, and how to shepherd the kids in the right direction.

My mission is to harness my natural ability in kid-centered projects by balancing my spontaneous abilities with clean, clear, organized plans. I want to learn to create goal based, systematic, plans. I want to build routines and habits for my own self-management. But to do these things without forcing myself to be something I am not, which I would never in a million years wish upon a child.

Mirror Neurons

Image source: flickr commons Smoking chimpanzee in Artis zoo. The Netherlands, Amsterdam, 1958. 

 Remember the Mirror Neurons from that youtube clip in class?

If you're not in my class, Mirror Neurons are this new discovery that seem to reveal the location of "empathy" nerves in the brain. These Italian ape researchers discovered the mirror neurons on accident. They had been studying which part of the brain fires when a monkey reaches for a peanut, and one day realized the exact same synapses fire when the monkey watches someone else grab a peanut. That is, in this part of the brain, the reaction to seeing is equivalent to the act of doing it oneself. Further studies with humans reveal the same goes for witnessing other people's emotions. Seeing them is the same as feeling them. Capiche?

Well a quick search turned up the original 14 minute video on the PBS website, and it was really fascinating and worth watching! They get into what this means for autism research, which some of us were wondering about in class after having watched Part 1. Watch the whole thing on the NOVA website here, or just watch them on youtube below and pick up at Part 2 for autism discussion :)

Part 1:
 

Part 2:

Once Upon a Time: Emergent Literacy Caught on Film

The brilliant Pre-K teachers at my school had a literacy routine that involved children dictating their own stories, then later acting them out with their classmates. I was lucky enough to get the job of editing all of this cute footage and helping their stories reach the next level. You can really see their emergent literacy at work here as they structure their tales in familiar ways using familiar story-telling language.

Critical Lenses

Image source: Wildflower Preservation Society, Illinois Chapter circa 1920 

Confession: I've been watching a certain Japanese Anime (Girls Bravo, 2004, Mario Kandeda), in my spare time. It's a vapid show, mostly about these alien chicks from a planet with no men who keep finding themselves in unintentionally titillating and sexy situations. I recognize how sexist, objectifying to women, ridiculous, inappropriate, etc, it all is. In one episode, an innocent alien girl (probably high school age), winds up through various shenanigans on Earth in a sexy panda outfit, with a very cartoony stampede of men groping and photographing her against her will saying "will you wear a maid suit for me?" I mean, we're talking serious presque-rape, but slapsticky, as if these situations are hilarious. It's horrible. But I still love it. I guess because it's entertaining and goofy, and just a good story.

I could say the same for books like Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox, where it's all too easy to deconstruct it into a "what do you know, another woman as an object which a man has to go and retrieve because she has no will of her own" sort of thing. I could tell some of my classmates were pretty bummed after we had enjoyed the cute cleverness of it together one moment, then were picking apart its message about gender the next. I would like to cheer my classmates up and tell them how I feel about such layered pieces of literature: that just because it can be looked at critically in this way, doesn't mean I can't also think it's adorable, love the rhyme scheme, and find it to be SMACK on the interest level of some of my kiddos. Books come from a time and a place, which is why antiquated ideas like in Mark Twain novels can make us blush, yet we still read them in schools today. I think we continue to enjoy these stories because they are fascinating slivers of life from a time past, and often because they are just good stories. Our own literature that we produce now can be viewed in the same way, but they're slivers of OUR lives, which is probably even MORE important to understand than Huckleberry Finn's life. Falling for Rapunzel might be said to propel gender stereotypes that I disagree with, but so do lots of Shakespeare plays, and I would still value their artistic value. Being able to recognize the secret, unofficial messages lurking in stories by putting on my critical lenses, I can choose books with full intention. Maybe we'll talk about what this book assumes about women this time, and maybe we'll stick to funny words that rhyme with "my dear". Knowledge is power, right? Having different lenses to put on when looking at literature or picking out classroom books is totally a form of power.

Sometimes I worry that every little thing I say or do is somehow warping girls of the future. Better not compliment their looks, put down my own looks in front of them, or encourage too much Disney Princess fever. But then I remind myself that I used to love all that stuff, too. Which means, eventually, if their teachers have done their jobs, these girls should have their own pair of critical lenses just like mine! And they can put them on when they need to be smart about messages they're being fed, and take them off when they just want to relax with a good story, just like I do.

Globes

Image Source: Flickr Commons. Rural school children, San Augustine County, Texas. April, 1943. (Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer)

This photograph from 1943 reminded me of a globe-related moment I shared with the K-1 kiddos today. We were having a quiet spell after a lesson full of flying around the room as papillons and avions, drawing pictures to add to our French dictionary. M was drawing le monde, the world. He commented that the edge of the Earth was probably far away, and other children agreed, prompting me to grab the globe I had noticed by the teacher's chair earlier. "Check this out. See any edges?" Illustrating that the Earth was round, I had intended to do. Causing a swarm of children to hover around me and this simple round object, I had not. But soon, sticky fingers were pointing out colorful continents, wanting to know what they were all called and what language was spoken there. "What's this one called? Nambia? I want to go there." They found the USA and they found France. They returned to their drawings of stylos and la Guerre des Etoiles just a little more thoughtful.

I loved this moment, and was continuing to think about it this afternoon when I found this old photograph of school children in Texas, engaged in a similar globe exploration, in a distant time and place. I like to picture these little imaginations whirring with a spin of this globe, traveling to worlds far beyond their rural lives through this magical rotating ball. Amazing how such a simple device has the power to blow open minds and travel through time, all the way to my classroom in 2013.