Theory in Practice - Looking Ahead

Interesting how my last TIP seems to circle back to the things I was reflecting on when I wrote my first TIP (all the way back in September 2013, sigh). On my mind and in the success department I have reflections about effective planning. I've also got a lot of the same angst weighing on my heart as I did when assessing myself on my first curve around this grad school track. With each success I experience, my mind assaults me with reminders of shortcomings and doubts about the future. It's saying, "yeah you did that, but it's not enough." "Sure you're excelling in that but look at all these things you are not excelling at." "Yes, you planned, but there are still plans you let fizzle out." "That project was a success but you need to do more of them, faster, and better. Also you need to spend less time on them and more time on EdTPA!"

HUSH, I try to say to these voices when I have the presence of mind to do so. Yet I can't help but remember the "Year Two's" I looked up to last year and how accomplished and professional and empowered and successful they seemed. I compare myself now and find myself wanting. Those women last year seemed clear headed and driven and full of conviction and confidence. I feel murky-headed, confused, without energy and without confidence. I have felt so spread thin in a million directions; I told my friend today that I feel like a spider web with everything in my head being stretched so wide and so delicately thin. In this state, thoughts begin to lose their substance and become fragile and difficult to hold on to. I feel like I'm in a tunneling mineshaft along with everything I am reading, have read, am working on, am responsible for, should be thinking about, etc, and my voice is getting lost and drowned out amongst it all. I suppose this is all a fancy way to say I've been feeling lost in my theory and practice and the elusive praxis I should be honing in on. I feel like I'm in another adolescence, extremely awkward, angsty, and wanting to be like the "grown ups" I perceive to be around me.

At moments like this in my personal life, a reflective practice I sometimes do is to read back over my oldest journal entries and leave comments on sticky notes or in margins. When I did this virtually by re-reading my original TIP, I found some of my thoughts jarring and poignant and so unmistakably familiar to my current state of mind as I search for the words to synthesize my experiences over the past month. One passage that hits home: "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." Wow, self-fulfilling prophecy much? It's almost as if fresh-faced little me from 2 years ago wrote these words in full knowledge of where future me would be reading them, so close to the finish line yet so out of gas. 

The next part is practically absurd to me now in its earnestness: "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." and with pure conviction I add, "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." There's a bully in me who scoffs at reading those last words and says "HA! You?? Get better at organization??? From PINTEREST?! You're dreamin." Again, I know I need to say "Shut up weird Punky Bruester bully of my imagination! I really am doing better!" I'm at a pivotal moment where it's time to seriously figure out how to look at myself from a strength-based model, as I wrote about 2 years ago but didn't have a name for at the time. 

So here are some things I have been completely rocking:

Democratic classroom, class meetings, and taking and using data to support students in these areas. Going back to one of our earlier readings that most resonated with me, I remember Mary Cowhey's thoughts on noticing voices in class meetings:  “It is one thing to have your most privileged, articulate, and entitled children speak up in a dialog… For me, the real test is to have the least-empowered children, the least articulate, take a leading role in that dialog while the more articulate children thoughtfully listen and consider things from their classmates’ perspectives before they comment or question” (Cowhey, 2006, p.91). Okay, so perhaps we still have a lot of growth we can do in the latter part (listening carefully and reflecting before responding and commenting), but my meetings have been seriously intentional about that first part with my language modeling and co-constructed meeting agreements and community problem solving philosophy. Now students themselves will say "Hold on, let _____ speak, his voice hasn't been heard much this meeting." You don't know how my heart explodes when they join together to solve a problem like moving the big platform out of the corner so we can clean under it and hopefully get rid of some ants (can it get more Cowhey than that??). In these instances, I give them whatever tools they request or need and get out of their way with pride. 

In many ways, my democratic work alongside children across subjects (like working on our TICC project) has made me a better science teacher. I apply the idea “literary themes must be understood as turns in an ongoing cultural conversation” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.32) to science by teaching my students that part of their work as scientists is engaging in an ongoing scientific conversation asking and offering thoughts about questions that human beings have been wandering about for centuries. I also had a significant science curriculum success in my planning and executing of an elaborate lab on physical and chemical changes. I look back at my first lab of the year, which was completely stressful and chaotic with me scrambling for materials at the last second, and see how I've used my reflection process to grow. I've taken what I learned from that terrible lab to make my subsequent labs better and better, and isn't that the same thinking scientists and engineers and problem solvers need to be able to demonstrate? 

Beautiful child scientists engaged in a carefully planned and executed lab. Did they grow more mature, did I plan the activity better, or is it something in between?

My heart and imagination have been truly captured this month by my planning and integrating of the graphic novel March and Cesar Chavez with my social studies curriculum. What started as a mere curiosity on my part, turned into an Action Research question, and from there snowballed into an integrated unit combining TICC questions, reading and discussing skills, and critical thinking and questioning. I've been extremely energized by interacting with people via Social Media who are interested in my work with the graphic novel March, and through discussing with me, help me come to deeper and better understandings of my own work with these themes. I'm combining the values from my curriculum design with the students' voices and interests and intentionally planning a meaningful culminating project that honors multiple learning styles. I'm talking about our "Civil Rights Meet and Greet" on April 16th, where students will be playing the parts of civil rights figures they have researched, reporters interviewing the civil rights leaders, or behind the scenes helpers. This project engages students to think critically and apply high level thinking skills as they all must research and respond to prompts the way their particular person would have. 

Over Spring Break I have also been pondering how we will bring our other discussions about the Rights of Children into the Meet and Greet. It's very exciting and all consuming and I find the work I am doing for these projects is sustaining me creatively and intellectually. I came up with the three options for the actual Meet and Greet because I listened to their opinions and considered their individual strengths and interests. Reader's Theater is a big hit around here, and we have plenty of personalities with a dramatic flair who also crave a challenge. Others are most comfortable and perform best with more structure, hence the "reporter" who can still perform but be more prepared with questions thought of in advance. Then there are our quiet planners, who can help out in meaningful and essential ways on the sidelines without having to 'perform' if that is not his or her thing. Knowing how to put this idea into action and provide the appropriate amount of support to engage and empower each student only comes from past flops that made me wiser, and better application of specific teaching strategies. That's why I know how to use appropriate graphic organizers, provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding and interact with concepts, and provide a balance of structure and freedom for learners at different stages of mastery. 

Super smart critical thinker expressing herself on a paper message board. I used student-generated word clouds based on the themes they found in the books to spark an ongoing conversation between readers (and a great assessment tool for me!)

Katie the 2013 teacher marveled in the depth and importance of the student teacher relationship, and 2015 Katie feels the same way, but now with the theory to back it up. Most recently a praxis has emerged between my philosophies of democracy, agency, and student voice and I noted the following quote in our reading from The Activist Learner; “Relationship building is the heart of democracy, as people strive to be empathetic, listen and dialogue across difference, ethically solve problems, and act with the greatest good in mind” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.78). Keeping a strengths-based attitude in mind when I look at my own trajectory from then to now, my next step is to remember these growing pains and that writing and reflecting has the power to clear cobwebs and even heal. I need to think of ways to carry my responsive practices learned in Grad School into my career moving forward (like to ISRAEL THIS SUMMER for some serious multi-cultural professional development!!). Latest idea: Start a series of 2 minute Vlogs and invite other super smart teachers I know to do the same, perhaps responding to prompts and thought questions. Anything to keep the power of the dialogue going.