Theory in Practice: Walking Through the Fields

One of my most notable highs this month is being liberated from the dichotomy of "high" versus "low" in terms of the way I view my daily reflections. I have been saying for a while that simplifying the day into these two poles feels artificial and often does not give me space to reflect on some of the most puzzling of events that are neither high nor low but somewhere in between. I also spoke about the mounting pressure of yielding a product at each monthly marker when more often than not, the month ends with no sign of a dazzling synthesizing revelation to demonstrate my growth.

It means a LOT to know the people in your corner really hear you, and I felt abundantly heard when my coach took up my farming metaphor from last month's TIP, and used it to further illuminate the purpose of these monthly reflections. As she explains it, "the monthly due date offers us the equivalent of a farmer walking through the fields every so often. He doesn't walk the field to harvest, but simply to see how the crop is growing, if there are pests to respond to, whether the soil is to wet/dry, and provide additional compost as needed. (Yes, in this analogy, my feedback is compost. Fitting? Lol!)" (Dr. Lynch, Livetext, 2014). For me, having my teacher speak to me with empathy and using my own language was a valuable demonstration and reminder of how I want to work with my own students when they encounter challenges.

This surveying of the fields is something I wish to help my students' cultivate for their own lifelong learning practices. Working towards greater levels of metacognition and reflection from my students shows up throughout the month of March as I ponder reoccurring conflicts and ways to both empower and increase accountability of these quickly growing sprouts. This interest is consistent with my allegiance to Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies. Those authors assert 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 have experienced the veracity of this from both a student and an educator's perspective. I'm also fairly certain that anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time is tired of hearing the word "collaboration," but this is yet another example of how potent it can be for a learner's development, whether that learner is 7 or 27. As Frank Smith says, “students, like teachers, exhibit more responsibility when more is given to them; they take the tasks they are engaged in more seriously and experience far greater satisfaction” (Smith, 1998, p.95). Getting to take ownership of my daily reflection method is my own small experience of this, but a meaningful one for me to pass on to my students so that they, too, can experience a heightened level of engagement and satisfaction from their work.

This is all a very long and drawn out way for me to say, would you like to take a stroll through my fields with me?

To our left, we will see That One Crop that has been the source of many 'low' reflections these past few months. While not ready to harvest, you will see that some true growth has occurred here! On St. Patrick's Day, I was very apprehensive about how the excitement and irregularity of the day would impact the behavior of this student, but was thrilled with the way he managed to work through small conflicts peacefully and without getting locked into Rock Brain mode. I made sure to point these successes out to him, as Bailey recommends that we “Proactively notice all helpful, kind acts children perform. Notice these acts privately to the child and publicly to the class” (Bailey, 2000, p.71). We have worked hard to be consistent about this and I think this child's mounting successful days could be indication that our consistency is paying off. But then again, playing Devil's Advocate as I can never resist doing, I must wonder if it's really the student who has grown or have I gotten better at anticipating his needs? Could I be subconsciously taking more preventative measures resulting in this decrease in outbursts and meltdowns? If so, that's marvelous for me, but I don't want to deny any students formative experiences that can help them build their autonomy and important interpersonal skills. I will definitely be keeping a closer eye on myself to monitor whether I am circumventing behavior triggers with intention or out of fear.

To our right, we'll see a little patch of land that has been ploughed but only half planted. This is the garden of my good intentions, or perhaps my grand ambitions. In reviewing this month's reflections, I found there were many places where I expressed a feeling of impotence in impacting my class the way I envision. I believe this comes from my role as an assistant teacher, where I'm expected to play a supporting role in helping bring about the lead teacher's vision. Having worked with the same partner for 3 years, the growing pains here are acute and awkward, as I am beginning to observe a growing gap between our values and instructional styles where before we had the feeling of being one brain and even used to joke about how the same we were in our thinking. It's not that I think her ways of doing things are wrong... Quite the opposite, as I know from experience that her ways work. Rather, I think I'm beginning to feel more confident in my own abilities, and am craving the space to try out and demonstrate my worth. I absolutely can NOT complain that I have not been given opportunities to apply my ideas and learning, but it's not the same as running the show. I know this is part of being the assistant in the room, but when time is crunched, it’s usually my things that get pushed aside. It's only natural that it would be that way, but it's frustrating nonetheless. I'm really looking forward to a time (maybe next year??) when I am the lead teacher of my own class and I can be the one making choices about what gets tabled and what gets done in a day.

This is why I so look forward to Thursday's Language and Technology with my class, which is a precious, unadulterated 1.5 hours that I don't have to share with anyone. It's in this space that I can really pursue new ideas and methods I'm wanting to try on. It's my little instructional playground, a microcosm of what my own class would be like, where I make the decisions on what and how to teach: some good decisions, some bad, but all valuable practice for my future ambitions. This month, riding on the high of Chinese New Year, I embarked on another large unit differentiated for the varied age groups from Pre-K to Middle. Stemming from their interest in a certain Chinese folktale called The Rooster's Horns, we launched a study of origin folktales and shadow puppetry. The latter portion was student-originated, as the Rooster's Horns book has directions on how to put on a shadow puppet show, and a keen-eyed student noticed and pointed this out to her peers. The enthusiasm meeting the question "Is that something you guys might like to try?" was enough to tell me this was our next unit. In my class' folktale study, we only had so much time to spend on this fascinating genre, but within the freedom of my LT block, I was able to let the students dive in through multiple modalities of learning and really extend and apply their learning. Strickland talks about the many ways to approach texts to deepen reader comprehension and engagement, saying “Along the way teachers can use techniques like mapping, retelling, and graphic organizers, not as exercises, but as ways to help readers think about the text” (Strickland, 2005, p.2). These puppet shows proved to be a student-driven interaction with a text that helped them think about it and really apply the features of folktales in ways that matter to them. Students had plenty of choice, either creating their own origin myths or re-telling a familiar one, working alone or with partners, and turning our classroom into a buzzing workshop of purposeful writers and puppeteers during our time together. It's exactly how I envision a reader's/writer's workshop in my classroom to look someday. As my idols describe 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). Observe the fruits of our labors in the short clip below where one of my 4th graders performs her show for an audience of older and younger students.

And just like that, we are back at the ranch.

I suppose the problem with a farm located only within my mind is that the boundaries of the property are limitless, and we'll never have time to visit everything that grows there. I hope next time we can stroll through the orchard of math instruction, which has just begun to bare fruit for the first time in my teaching life, thanks to my fantastic mathematics instructor and the instructional case studies I conducted for her class. While that last metaphor might be a stretch, it's nothing compared to the stretch required for me to think of myself as a mathematician, and yet here I am! Surprising things can sprout when the soil is right and the gardeners care.

Morning Meeting; an essential part of the day

So inspiring! It's hard to decide what I most want to talk about after reading Roxann Kriete's The Morning Meeting Book, a simple title that perfectly describes this text. It is the book for morning meeting and tells you everything you need to know about this daily ritual, including how to introduce it, why it’s important, and tons of sample activities to pull from. Kriete takes the reader by the hand and walks them through the steps of a successful Morning Meeting and how this routine has positively impacted students’ developments through anecdotal examples. I feel like I could write a blog on just each part of the morning meeting routine, but I will do my best to synthesize my circling ideas!

First let me say that in terms of the reality of Morning Meeting in my classroom, this part of the day needs some love. I have so much guilt for the way Morning Meeting has slacked as of late. It's on the schedule every day, but it's meaning has morphed and now describes a kind of academic whole-group lesson. No sign of the fun greetings, the structured share time, or the community building activities, or even the news and announcements morning message chart. When we have time, we like to do some similar types of community building activities, but never in the rigorous, dedicated style outlined in this book. The idea of making Morning Meeting, and greeting our community members, an essential part of the day excites me with its possibilities. The book offers up some fun and quick suggestions for accomplishing simple greetings in the Appendix E (p.156) that I think my kids would love.

The idea of starting something like this at this point in the year also fills me with trepidation. I like that Kriete suggests some ways to introduce greetings and get the possible negative reactions out of the way. I think my kids would like to model the "how nots" but I wouldn't want them to get fixated on the laughs they get when doing it "wrong." I have some real entertainers in my class ;) I think Kriete's suggestion to tell the students why practicing greetings is so important is key here, as student involvement is always a plus. I think my students will be receptive to the idea that "Welcoming each other to our classroom every day is an act of hospitality. The offering of that welcome, one to another, affirms that we are caretakers of each other in that community. Being a host also implies, builds, and strengthens a person's ownership and investment in that place" (Kreite, 2002, p.38). Maybe this small-seeming gesture could help address some of the community issues my co-teacher and I have been seeing, like students not taking responsibility for helping around the classroom or using disrespectful words or tones with each other. Greetings could even be super helpful for kids on the spectrum needing extra practice in common social gestures, or to ELLs for practicing various language structures for meeting friends.

In light of all we're learning in Dr. K's Responsive Student Centered Pedagogy, I'm not so sure about all of the boy/girl suggestions like making students sit boy/girl/boy/girl at the carpet or directing them to give a "cross-circle boy/girl greeting" (Kreite, 2002, p.162). I understand the desire to mix things up and have children greeting different types of friends, but I wouldn't want to do so at the risk of excluding a child of a non-conforming gender identity or reinforcing the assumption that male and female are the only two acceptable identities to choose from and you must be one or the other.

Sharing is also clearly a powerful tool, and one I know my students would love. They already like to bring in things for any reason they can think of, so why not channel this enthusiasm into a format that will help them develop “good oral communication skills—both presentation skills and listening skills” (Kriete, 2002, p.57). I appreciate how Kriete anticipates some of the common issues that could come up, like what I like to call “the endless share.” She addresses this by giving two jobs to the sharer which “include using a voice that is strong and clear and sharing news that is brief and focused” (Kriete, 2002, p.58). I think my students could really benefit from practicing “good questions” as well, which “show a genuine interest in the sharer and her news” and “are often open-ended, requiring more than just a yes-or-no response from the sharer” (Kriete, 2002, p.59). Practicing these types of questions is sure to help my students develop their empathy skills, and is another exercise excellent for students on the spectrum.

Group Activity scares me a little bit. SO much potential for energy levels to get out of hand, but I suppose the idea is to develop skills in managing that energy in a productive way; to be “playful or enthusiastic without being silly” (Kriete, 2002, p.83). For my group of learners, taking care in the introduction phase will be crucial. As mentioned earlier, I have a few students who are accomplished entertainers, but can sometimes put entertaining peers above the learning goals of an engagement or activity. Kriete makes says it best when she explains “while play can enhance learning, silliness is distracting and gets in the way of group engagement” (Kriete, 2002, p.84). I’m glad Kriete offers some suggestions on what to do if the silliness seems out of hand, such as taking particular students aside “to speak to them individually to say what you notice and ask them to think of ways they can help Group Activity work better” (Kriete, 2002, p.84). I like the phrasing of this, which puts the responsibility back on to the student, and lets him or her know that Group Activity belongs to the students and requires their meaningful participation to work.

News and Announcements were something we used to do every day at the beginning of the year. The example chart on page 90 looks exactly like the morning messages we used to share with our class, but somewhere along the way the tradition fell off and we stopped engaging in this part of our morning ritual. I think it was partly to do with running out of chart paper, snow days disrupting our routines and rituals, and that end-of-year feeling of needing to play catch up with every available moment. In this pressure-filled time of year, it’s almost painful to see any of your valuable instruction time run off into seemingly “unessential” moments.

I love the sample messages on page 211 that leave a space for students to respond to a question. In my classroom we’ve done something very similar where they respond on sticky notes and stick it on the message chart. Sometimes the sticky notes fall off, particularly over time and rustling of pages, and also it uses a lot of sticky notes! If they write it directly on the chart, it’s there to stay, and it really makes the chart and the message on it a more truly collaborative engagement. I also have several students in my class who worry a lot about what is coming in the course of the day. They ask us often about what is next, or if ___ is happening today. While we have a schedule for them to refer to, it’s not very detailed. I thought of these students in particular when I read one of the highlights of news announcements is how they contribute “to students’ sense of safety and being cared for by letting them know that the teacher has prepared for the day and is ready for them” (Kriete, 2002, p.96). If we put aside this time to give the students some details about what’s coming in their day, perhaps they can relax and be confident that we have thought the day out and will not let them miss anything. Reading this chapter makes me want to bring back the messages with fresh gusto. I need to be reminded that this part of the day is far from “unessential” as it “develops and reinforces language, math, and other skills in a meaningful and interactive way” (Kriete, 2002, p.92).

Although it is late in the year, I think my class has a lot to gain from a rebirth in our morning meeting routines. There are just so many benefits in doing Morning Meeting RIGHT: from reinforcing academic concepts, to providing a much needed safe space to work on budding social skills. It’s also a great place for the teacher to practice assuming positive intent a la Becky Bailey, like when Kriete asserts “we must give our students real responsibility in Morning Meeting; we must believe that they can be trusted and will be successful in meeting the expectations we hold” (Kriete, 2002, p.23). While in my current situation and at this point in the year, I can’t swear I will take on the full Morning Meeting program as outlined in the book, but I can do much better, and aim to sharpen my facilitation skills for a fresh Morning Meeting filled start to next year!

Ready, Set, Reflect: A response to GLSEN's Elementary School Toolkit

I had a lot to think about and jive with in the GLSEN toolkit, and couldn't help but constantly remember my own awkward line-step trying to champion these values earlier in the year. I think it's relevant to bring up again my sweet love and transgender student, Sunshine*, that I taught for two years before coming to my new school. I should add that the majority of my current student population are her former classmates as well. Anyway, long story short, one day earlier this year I overheard several of those kids in discussion at the carpet, debating whether Sunshine is really a girl or really a boy. That's one reason I found it absurd that "educators have said that these topics simply 'don’t come up'" (GLSEN 2), as that has been the opposite of my experience in 3 years of working with kids. I tend to see it as the authors of the article do, saying "we know that young children often have their own way of communicating what in fact is coming up, or identifying that which they are ready to explore or learn about. These kinds of issues reveal themselves in dramatic play, student to student dialogue, the informal rules of the playground and in a myriad of other ways" (GLSEN 2). What I did next in the specific 'student to student dialogue' in question, is I sat down with them and told them that I was going to weigh in right now. I wish I could remember my exact words (partially because I got in trouble for them later), but I know I said something along the lines of "In my opinion, Sunshine is a girl. That's something she gets to decide, not me. As her friend and someone who respects her, if Sunshine says she is a girl and wants to be treated as one, I am going to respect that." I'm sure I wasn't half as eloquent, and upon reflection I do believe I said too much by giving them my opinion, which in a way told them what to think. I wish I had used the teachable moment to facilitate a conversation that would lead them to make the most respectful and inclusive conclusions... but I guess that is what this GLSEN packet is for!

I think one major mistake I made in my eagerness to jump up and defend Sunshine is I skipped the "Question" phase suggested as the first step by the authors. They remind teachers to "Ask as many questions as possible of your students as you proceed through the lessons and, encourage their dialogue with each other, not just with you. Questioning and dialogue will help them make meaning and develop a deeper understanding of the material presented" (GLSEN 5). In my exuberance to share my feelings and "make a difference" in how my kids think about gender and acceptance of those who don't conform the way they expect, I skipped the questioning and went right in to answering... unsolicited, I might add. If I could re-do this reaction, I would start off by letting them know how important their questions are and listening to all of their thoughts on the matter before launching a discussion on how we show acceptance and respect of people's choices no matter what our opinions are.

With all of this in mind, I chose to read Lesson Set 3 for its focus on "appreciation around individual identity as it relates to societal expectations of gender roles and behaviors", "awareness of assumptions and stereotypes around gender roles and behaviors", and "skills to be allies to others in the face of bias or name-calling related to gender identity or expression (GLSEN 39). I feel like this set is very relevant to the questions my students grapple with, not just in the non-conforming identity of their former peer, but also in the types of assumptions and comments they make about each other. Just today at lunch I overheard a few boys saying "Did you know that James plays with barbies?" "Oh my god!" etc etc etc. I said "I don't get it, what's wrong with playing with barbies?" One of my students said "They're for girls!" I said "Why?" and got an answer like "because!" with eyerolls like "Katie is so dense sometimes." I probed deeper and said "who gets to make that choice for all the kids? Who enforces it?" and my student said "The Kid President!" And who do you think that Kid President might be? "Um... Baby Barack Obama." Oh, of course.

I say this only to scoff once more at the teacher who claimed "these topics simply 'don’t come up'" (GLSEN 2), and to reflect on how much even the students of a gender diversity studies nerd can benefit from the lessons in the GLSEN program. I think the "That's just for __" lesson could work for my mixed setting of 2nd through 4th graders, even though the suggested target is K-2. I have never tried a mind-game lesson like the one in Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes, but I see what an interesting tool it can be for expanding understanding of a topic or building empathy to another point of view. I think my students would be able to viscerally feel the exclusion that can come from gender norm grouping when I "choose one piece of the plan to identify unacceptable for that team using phrases like, 'Only the _____ team can wear orange shirts' 'Only the _____ team is allowed to play that game, your kind of team can’t'" (GLSEN 41). The only downside I see to this lesson is how to wiggle out of a Class Fun Day once these plans have been put in motion! That may cause a riot in my room!

I VERY strongly identified with the lesson on Tomboy (GLSEN 42) from my own childhood. The authors describe my experience to a T when they say "For many young students the first time this [teasing] may emerge is in response to others’ perceiving that they are not behaving “enough” like a boy or “enough” like a girl" (GLSEN 3). I have distinct memories of going into a new situation and fearing the consequences if I "outed" myself as a girl; instead, I would often relish the freedom of letting my new playmates assume I was a boy! If my secret did get out, I could expect the treatment I was receiving from my new friends to change instantly. I've had other experiences as an adult where a group of men (and sometimes women) assume I couldn't possess certain knowledge or skills because of my gender, particularly my outdoor living skills. I've been excluded from important decision making and even from building a fire one time when I know my expertise could have helped get the job done a lot better. This just goes to show how important lessons like these are to teach early on, so people aren't denied or deny themselves the chance to hear the value in lots of different voices.

I also really want to do the "Let's go shopping" activity on page 44! Why are there so few weeks left in school?? This lesson would be perfect for my guys as they are just now in the midst of studying supply and demand and preparing for their own "market day" for which they conducted surveys and research. Even during this process I heard students saying "I'll offer princesses for girls, and race cars for boys... I just need another girl one and another boy one..." I should have done this lesson TODAY! I think this would be okay for the whole class, but perhaps the homework should be reserved for the older students. I'm not sure my younger guys are "ready" (as the authors would say) to analyze gender and marketing to such a degree, but then again I could be wrong!

Not to be ridiculous, but I also love the "What Are Little Girls and Boys Made Of" lesson on page 48! I think I shared this rhyme with a student in passing just the other day, and we talked about how silly it was and how I think there might be some puppy dog tails in some girls I know, too. I never thought to use the rhyme as a formal teaching point. I love the idea of creating the chart together to help organize and track our thinking.

I would love to launch a unit and do all of these activities; the main issue that gives me pause is the reaction my little "Sunshine" comments received from parents and my administration, and I do not wish to step on any toes... but then again, as I've said in the past, stepping on toes is sometimes the most important work a critically thinking activist teacher can do. Here I find myself yet again navigating that murky place between what I say my convictions are and enacting them. I'm glad these lesson plans are here to help light the way, and thinking about them for the future is at least a place to start.

*Sunshine is a pseudonym. I strive to always use pronouns that adhere to subject's preferred gender expression.

Colorin Colorado : Not just for ELLs

Even though I don't currently have an ELLs in my classroom, I do have one student bilingual in Dutch and English, and becoming literate in both. I thought it was interesting to consider some of my learning in terms of her development, and also for the potential future ELLs I may one day teach.

In the article called Bilingual Education by Fred Genesee, Genesee seems to speak directly of my bilingual student and her experience. I heard a bell ring when Genesee states "Bilingual children may have somewhat different patterns of development in certain aspects of language in the short term. Vocabulary is one of those areas. Sometimes, young bilingual children know fewer words in one or both of their languages in comparison with monolingual children of the same age. This is probably because all young children have limited memory capacities, and bilingual children must store words from two languages, not just one. As well, because bilingual children learn words in each language from different people, they sometimes know certain words in one language but not in the other" (Genesee, 2006, Colorin Colorado). I have definitely noticed this slight delay with my bilingual student, but am happy that Genesee backs up what I already assumed, which is that this student is right on schedule with her vocabulary development if you consider her entire word bank in both languages.

All in all, I thought this was a useful article for teachers and parents of bilingual children to understand what is going on in a bilingual child's development. I am happy for this expert opinion that my student in question is progressing just fine, despite some outward appearances of delay.

Another article I thought might be useful for me in my classroom context is Learning About Your Students' Backgrounds by Colorin Colorado. I felt like I could apply this article to ALL of my learners, like when Colorado says "The more you learn about where your students come from, the easier your job will become. This includes learning more about their language, culture, values, family, and home environment. This knowledge will help you to better support your students in the classroom and to receive more support from home" (Colorado, 2007, Colorin Colorado). I believe this wisdom holds true for all students, not just ELLs. When she speaks about culture and the importance of the educator informing his or herself, I couldn't agree more, however my understanding of culture spans beyond just those with differing languages and countries. As we have been learning about from our fellow cohorts in this class, we each carry around different pieces that make up our cultures, and a teacher will benefit from knowing as much as he or she can about these cultures. When she advises teachers to "Invite students and/or family members for show-and-tell, story-telling, food tasting, dancing, etc. Doing this will likely raise the self-esteem of ELL students and generate greater respect from their peers" (Colorado, 2007), I believe this invitation could be extended to all students and maintain the same benefits.

I suppose my major takeaway from exploring these articles is that strategies used to reach ELLs are not exclusively useful for that purpose. All students can benefit from a teacher who works to understand the cultural context from which students come, and who works to welcome that culture into the class for learning.

Theory in Practice: Off Roading

My reflections are late this month because I have not been in the reflecting mood. I barely have the emotional or mental energy to start my car and drive to work each morning, let alone synthesize a weird choppy month of reflections. As I spoke about in my Retrospective Self Reflection, quality reflections require time to stew before they are ready to be served. I cannot reflect in a hurry. Strieb truly speaks to my beliefs on the purpose of reflective teaching when she says “As I teach, I wonder how my thinking and my students’ thinking evolve over time. I wonder what I have valued and what the children are interested in and value. Lesson plans don’t tell me this, but the journal does. My journal is a place for planning, for raising questions, for figuring things out, and for thinking” (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1993, p.122). This is exactly how I like to approach my reflective practice and find it valuable for the same reasons she lists. Of course reflecting on the recorded events is the most essential part of the process, however I am learning that in my case, this is most successfully done organically, when the time is right and when the reflections are calling out "synthesize me! Think about me! Write about me!" This call might not occur on an arbitrarily set date such as the end of a calendar month. In my experience, many of the events I regularly reflect on have not necessarily run their full cycle from the beginning and end of a month. Would a good farmer harvest her crop before it has ripened just because someone puts "harvest day" on a calendar? How valuable is a harvest of partially ripened produce? A farmer with integrity who sees her product as an extension of herself would be grieved to let such a harvest hit the stalls and represent her. I feel similarly about my own carefully crafted reflections.

I don't think I am writing all of this to complain, but to get my pencil moving (so to speak). In terms of my practice, articulating these feelings helps me think about whether or not I am offering my students the same respect and space that I require as a learner. Sometimes, yes, but other times, not so much. I think it was just today that a student was agonizing over her participation in a group discussion about a folktale. The "questioner" in the group was doing her job of asking this student what she would like to add to the conversation, and her repeated and tortured response was "I don't knowwww!" We tried reasoning with her; they are your thoughts, there is no right or wrong here, we just want to know what you are thinking. "I don't KNOWWWWW what I'm thinking." We tried being more specific; are you forming any text to text connections here? [with tears] "I don't knoooooowwwww!" Would you be surprised to learn that at the end of this activity, this student refused to fill out her self-assessment on how she thought the engagement went? On the paper where she should circle one of three smiley faces in various stages of smiling and frowning, a group member had circled all of the faces and added the note, "she doesn't know." Thinking can be that way sometimes, as I know only too well.

In terms of highs, I saw a lot of success in the various strategies I have implemented from Strategies That Work. I've learned that my students, particularly the ones more towards the emerging stages in their literacy development, are hungry for these strategies. Starving, even. Three girls in particular I have been working with to get onto grade level with their reading have been soaking up these mini-lessons in ernest. It is absolutely amazing to me when I think aloud and model a strategy ONE TIME, even in passing as I help a student sound out an unknown word, and then see that student independently using the strategy not long after. For instance, Harvey and Goudvis talk about "making tracks" of our thinking as we read. They say, “these written tracks help the reader monitor comprehension and enhance understanding. They also provide clues to the teacher about a reader’s thinking, evidence that is difficult to ascertain without some form of oral or written response” (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007, p.28). Ever since this mini-lesson, I have been finding "tracks" wherever I open books from our class library.

As far as "lows" go, I am really moving away from thinking of them as lows. In fact, I don't find splitting the day into a high and a low to be that meaningful because oftentimes the event that gives you the most pause to reflect is between high and low. Remember That One Student from my last TIP? I think things might be getting better with him. At least I think I am learning how to communicate with him a little bit more effectively, and hopefully reducing this gulf between us that has been building. Many of Becky Bailey's words have aided me to getting to this point, such as "if you choose to attribute a positive intent, you will feel peaceful inside. If you choose to attribute a negative intent, you will feel inadequate yourself and bring less patience to your handling of the conflict" (Bailey, 2000, p.162). I think I had this at heart when I helped 4 students work through a conflict during a math game. It's actually a math game I learned from our Teaching Mathematics class, where students use playing cards, placing them on their foreheads and having a third student tell them the total value, then racing to see who can guess their own card first. Conflict broke out amongst a group of 4 involving some Usual Suspects including the aforementioned student. A girl was in tears because she felt her turn had been skipped. What I was able to have them break down and explain was that she had let someone new who arrived have her turn, but had expected to then be looped back in. However, her voice was drowned out by That Student, who didn't fully understand what she had been offering and thought she was trying to get an extra turn. Rather than assume that he was trying to be a jerk and skip her turn on purpose, I assumed positive intent: that he wanted to keep the game moving along fairly and had misunderstood the situation. Turns out, this approach eased the conflict resolution process. At the end, the student in tears even said “I’m sorry I was not clear, next time I will explain myself better”. Another student who gets very reactionary in conflict, managed to get his engine down after his side was heard, and offered a very sincere apology. The Student I'm Thinking A Lot About didn't exactly own up 100% or offer a sincere apology, but he did hear out his peers and let his side go for the sake of continuing the game, which is growth.

My continuing efforts in fostering a collaborative learning environment is fraught with its own share of highs and lows, successes and fails. One huge success from early in the month is the Chinese New Year culminating celebration. This is NOT Dr. K's "celebrations and fun" look at cultures she criticizes, but actually a 5 week unit that spanned grade levels, content areas, and incorporated communication and collaboration with Chinese students in Suzhou. I taught all the grade levels about Chinese language and culture and guided them in creating their own research topics about Chinese New Year and Chinese Culture. They approached it from angles of Social Studies, Language Arts, Music, Art, Corresponding with experts, asking questions, research, fiction, non fiction, mathematics... I could go on and on. While I almost had a mental breakdown and walked in front of a bus, I put together and executed a Chinese New Year luncheon and invited the community to see and share in the students' learning. There was even a Learning Museum, with comment cards such as the ones talked about in Ladybugs. They LOVED the comment cards, and my guys enjoyed being mentors to the younger students and writing encouraging words on their work.

My unit even got featured on the main display of our school to illustrate our integrated curriculum. It's still there as I type this! It feels pretty good to walk past that bad boy every day, and pushes me to ask "what next?"

This has been a hard stretch of road, and is still looking bumpy up ahead, but I do have to keep in mind that I have things to celebrate. I'm becoming the kind of teacher I want to be relationally, and firming up a real capacity for long-term experiential unit design. I'm pretty confident that when I can unleash all my energy on a single goal, amazing things are going to happen.

Kindred Spirit in a book: A Response to Mary Cowhey's Black Ants and Buddhists

I REALLY jive with Mary Cowhey. I was nodding my head and writing "YES!" in the margin for a lot of her anecdotes and ideas. When she says "I began to take an activist approach to curriculum, always looking for opportunities to make connections, to broaden and deepen, to increase authenticity, build a bridge, and bring it to life with a visitor, a field trip, or correspondence" (Cowhey, 2006, p.61). I absolutely agree and have been doing many of these for some time (not to pat myself on the back or anything.) For instance, my kids are in active correspondence with Chinese pen pals, as well as versed in writing letters to ask questions to community members. After seeing the play version of our class read-aloud, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, the kids chose to write to the theatre company about their impressions and questions. My next step lies in building a deeper community resource network and putting community members to work. Maybe I am self conscious and imaging this for no reason, but part of me feels guilty asking more of the parent body. They already pay a tuition for their kid to go to our school, I feel sheepish asking them to contribute more of their money/time/resources. I also really like when she says "Every time I admitted I couldn't answer a question, a new learning opportunity arose. I saw that when I modeled critical thinking and intellectually curious behavior, children imitated these habits of mind" (Cohey, 2006, p.61). This definitely resonates with other readings about inquiry based learning and is a quote to remember for the Position Statements of the future!

Another place where I felt like Cowhey was speaking my mind was when she says "When I first started teaching, things were often this rough around the edges. The curriculum framework connection wasn't always crystal clear in my mind. It is often a more instinctual feeling -- that 'some good could come of this' -- rather than a sophisticated rationale" (Cowhey, 2006, p.65). I feel that early in my career and even now, some of my best teaching moments come from the unplanned riffing off of the instant experiences. All in all, I really love her ideas and want to do more community outreach, but some of these things just aren't practical for all groups of kids. Like taking the city bus to a destination (76), which could easily turn into a management fiasco and cause unnecessary stress for some kids. Maybe there would be a way to "scaffold" this experience by letting some students meet us at our destination and take a car? Another aspect I still have questions about is some of the almost too-perfect exchanges she reports her students having. The story about Fatima almost made me misty eyed (64). It's almost saccharine with Carmen patting her hand at the end saying "You're safe now"... Do real kids really talk like that? Did these picture perfect teaching moments really happen???

I'm very excited about getting more energized with our community resources. I think I made a good step in that direction by having home visits with over half of my students and their families. It was wonderful getting to see the flavor of all of these different homes, and helped me see these people on a new level.

I really liked Cowhey's discussion of the ways she's facilitated conversation about today's issues of equity and fairness, including gay rights. She says "When it comes to discussing gay marriage in second grade, these are the questions that matter most: Is it fair to exclude some families from the right to marry? Who made that rule (and how is it changing)?" (Cowhey, 2006, p.175). These are conversations that I yearn to have with my students and find so relevant to our discussions on civil rights and power and critical questioning. It feels almost absurd to not talk about the obvious comparative issue in today's society. One thing I lack in my classroom community is direct access to kids with these alternative family makeups, so the conversation does not begin in this natural way. That's one reason chapter 11 was so useful. I really related to "sometimes those risks can cause controversy. Sometimes I make mistakes" (Cowhey, 2006, p.194), from a personal experience where my passion to talk about important issues caused me to inadvertently stray into controversy.

I wish I had read this chapter on home visits before I made my home visits last week, but I could still relate with a lot of what Cowhey said, such as not going in with an agenda, something I also made a point to do. Everything she writes about the possibilities of hooking in volunteers from the community is very exciting to me. She describes the type of community I would love to build!