Theory in Practice: To Lead and to Follow

The biggest takeaway from this month is that maybe I do have what it takes to be a captain, and maybe I'm even a good one. This month I was summoned to show up with everything I have when I got the news my co-teacher was resigning. At first I was in shock, then I was hurt and angry, and finally I was just worn out and ready to move on to the next phase in getting my kids and classroom community ready to make a transition. Many of my highs AND lows this month have been rooted in this transition from one co-teacher to another, and my own role as a guiding post leading my students and parents through this transition with confidence and grace. A poem my teaching community reflected on at the staff meeting just following the news of my co-teacher's resignation spoke directly to me in that moment.

Blessing the Threshold

This blessing
has been waiting for you
for a long time.
While you have been
making your way here
this blessing has been
gathering itself
making ready
biding its time
praying.
This blessing has been
polishing the door
oiling the hinges
sweeping the steps
lighting candles
in the windows.
This blessing has been
setting the table
as it hums a tune
from an old song
it knows,
something about
a spiraling road
and bread
and grace.
All this time
it has kept an eye
on the horizon,
watching,
keeping vigil,
hardly aware of how
it was leaning itself
in your direction.
And now that
you are here
this blessing
can hardly believe
its good fortune
that you have finally arrived,
that it can drop everything
at last
to fling its arms wide
to you, crying
welcome
welcome
welcome.

-Jan L. Richardson

It made me realize that the most important thing I could do in my position is make a choice about how I would respond to the coming "threshold." Would I embrace it with open arms, or meet it with fear and resistance?

Amazingly, my new co-teacher is more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed or hoped. She seems to be just what we all needed and were ready for to take us to the next level as learners and for me as an educator. I have learned so much from her already and am simply amazed with what she has already managed to do with the students. It's taught me to have more faith in what the kids are willing to and able to process and how resilient and smart they really are. On top of all of this, we have a new student this semester. The way my classroom community has risen to the challenge of embracing a new student and a new teacher has left me with tears in my eyes. They really do listen and take in the messages I have been giving them all year long! It's moments like these that make me proud to take a step back and follow their lead. I think am really beginning to master the balance Freire speaks of when he says “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).

In this same vein, I have to share how exciting it is to see all of the moving parts that seemed to be ricocheting off of walls and going wild, actually coming together into something cohesive and beginning to gel. Things that failed miserably the first time I tried them find themselves reincarnated into our classroom conversations, but the second time around with a new life. I am actually hearing the kids use words I supplied months ago, and figured fell on deaf ears. It was so clear how wrong I was when the students marched in from recess one afternoon and immediately situated themselves into a round-table community meeting. My wonderfully with-it co-teacher and I hurried to get out of their way as they independently initiated the democratic process I thought no one was paying attention to before. My sweet intelligent kiddos were saying things like "We haven't heard Josh's voice yet," and "guys, don't drown out Marie's words."

Other things are gelling in my teaching practice, too. I have long been wanting to get kids exploring primary sources, and it seems like this moth the systems and experiences I have put in place have proven themselves successful. I particularly enjoyed exploring a ballad from the French and Indian War called "Why, Soldiers, Why." They did some critical reading of the song and practiced comprehension skills like inferencing unknown words and creating mind pictures. I was also able to throw in a lot of great vocabulary! I still can't get the song out of my head, and neither can the kids. Listen here.  I was really impressed with how much they were able to get out of it!

Also, the multiple grad school threads seem to be connecting. I am now seeing where all of the things we have studied intersect, and how to make these last months and projects and questions meet together in one overarching theme. I am beyond extatic to find the themes I focused on in my curriculum design finally emerging. Another song I had the kids explore was School House Rock's "No More Kings" which is a poppy happy little telling of American history from Pilgrims to Revolution, and as you can imagine, has its limitations in representing multiple perspectives. I asked the kids to think about and look for those silenced voices, and some of them took to this like fish to water. Freire explains that critical literacy is "not a teaching method but a way of thinking and a way of being that challenges texts and life as we know it. Critical literacy focuses on issues of power and promotes reflection, transformation, and action. It encourages readers to be active participants in the reading process: to question, to dispute, and to examine power relations" (Freire via Allen and Alexander, 2013, p.7). Later, when we went to the School House Rock live show, Olive emerged from the theatre and said "Katie, there were some missing perspectives in those songs." My heart could explode with pride! I see how to connect our Morning Meeting conversations with brain maps we have made and social studies topics we have discussed with my Action Research and my critical change inquiry questions. My questions are merging with their learning. The authors of The Activist Learner say “We maintain that inquiry-based teaching allows teachers to explicitly encourage and assist students to always search for personal connections and implications of their learning” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.31). I hope that while pursuing the questions that interest me, I will model for them the way lifelong learners think critically, ask questions, and take action in seeking their answers.

It seems that whether I lead or follow, we end up somewhere new yet not altogether unfamiliar, and I can't wait to see where our journey takes us next.