At this point, we are a couple of days into social distancing and staying at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Michigan schools, like so many other schools around the country, are closed for the next few weeks. In response, educators are sharing an abundance of digital learning tools and home-schooling suggestions. I must confess, even though I am an educator and consider myself digitally saavy, this is all just a bit too overwhelming. Too many suggestions, too many lesson ideas. It's just too much! I love the passion and collaboration that is growing as a result of needing to quickly address our new learning landscape, but slow down! My own boys, now 4th and 5th graders, have received messages and optional assignments from their classroom teachers, art teachers, music teachers, physical education teachers. And although they are communicating with the best of intentions, it is overwhelming my dudes...and me.
I want to encourage my own kids to pause and reflect on this particular moment in time. Yes, it is scary. We've never lived through something like this before, and so we don't know what to expect. The adults don't have all the answers right now. But, we have the gift of time. We don't need to rush. We don't need to try to replicate a traditional school day at home. We have time to reflect and explore and learn together. So rather than trying to cram in a science lesson and a math handout and history project and a writing activity each day, we're taking it slow.
Each morning, my boys and I get up, chat, make breakfast, and take the dog for a walk. Then, I use the prompts above to guide our morning reflections. We talk about the prompt, write a little, read a little, and make something. Yesterday, after we talked about what we would like to learn in our next four weeks together, my boys and I went outside to build an epic fort. We then came inside to figure out the best tools for learning how to code. Today, we talked about the power of our hands after listening to Sarah Kay's spoken word poem "Hands." My boys and I completed a writing activity that had us writing our own poems about a something special that we've held in our hands. After viewing the photojournalism piece posted by the BBC on Tim Booth's photography of hands, my boys wanted to take a black and white photo of their own to add to their writing piece. So we discuss, we write, we read, we create. And that's enough for now. We don't need to fill every moment. We have time.
Feel free to join us and use the prompts above. I will add new prompts each day. We'd love to hear about what you are learning, reading, and making during this time.
Remember, we're in uncharted territory. It is okay to not have the answers. It is okay to slow down.
Okay, not really. My hair is longer. But those glasses are spot on.
Seriously though, when the sun goes down this evening, it will mark the start of the National Day of Unplugging. And for much as I love technology's ability to connect my students and me with authors, writers, and experts of all varying kinds, an over-reliance on our smartphones, tablets, and all manner of digital devices can have a detrimental effect on our ability to connect in real time.
Dr. Kowal meets with my Public Speaking students in February 2017.
My friend and communications expert Dr. Chris Kowal has done quite a bit of research on this matter. A nonverbal communications scholar, Chris studied people's body positions as they engaged in using their smartphones. The study, conducted at Purdue University, concluded that our curled-up body position when using smartphones leads to stress. In a 2016 article in The Exponent, Chris stated, "...we need to be aware of how we use our smartphones."
And he's not alone in this call for moderation. About this time last year, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a report about American's use of digital technologies and their increasing rates of stress. According to the report, nearly one-fifth of those surveyed reported that digital technologies were the source of "very or somewhat significant" stress in their daily lives. Similar surveys have been conducted by Gallup, the Milken Institute, and the Pew Research Center. And there's a growing body of research on cell phone addiction.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love my technology. To be quite honest, I would not be the educator that I am today without the connections that I have fostered in digital spaces like Twitter and Facebook. Or what about all those fantastic donors who have provided my classroom with books and Chromebooks and cameras through online networks like DonorsChoose and PledgeCents. And Skype and Google Hangouts/Meet have connected my students with editors, authors, biologists, poets, and fellow students from all around the globe. Technology has transformed my classroom in amazing ways. However, that said, we all could use a break from that constant connection.
I'm old enough to remember a world prior to cell phones, prior to people being to get in touch with you whenever or wherever you happened to be. In college, I would hop in my car, windows rolled all the way down, radio blaring, and make the hour drive to the Lake Michigan shore. Alone. If someone needed me, it had to wait until I was back in my dorm room. In a similar sort of way, this is why I have always loved camping, being in the great wide open. No need for televisions or phones or tablets or laptops when there are so many open spaces to explore. In a world where digital connections are ubiquitous, it is refreshing to be reminded of the real-life connections that we might be missing out when we walk through the world with earbuds in and our faces looking down at little glowing blue screens.
So, take the 24-hour challenge with me. Unplug from your devices for one day. Who knows, maybe you'll find more powerful connections in real-life. At the very least, unplugging might help us to find a bit of balance in how we are using technology in our daily lives.
Ordinarily, if there's even a whiff of snow in the forecast, my boys and I have spoons nestled under our pillows, our pajamas on backwards, and ice cubes floating in all the toilets in our house. But this morning, as I was trying to convince myself that I didn't need to get up early, that 10 more minutes snuggled in my flannel sheets was worth the rush I would face later, my phone made the familiar buzzt, buzzt of an incoming text message. My fellow tenth grade honors English teacher shot out a quick text about how we could post a part of our plans on our Google Classroom pages. "This shouldn't put us too far behind schedule," she texted.
Wait! What? We have a snow day!
Sure enough, school was closed today because of dangerously icy road conditions. I didn't see that coming. I certainly could use a day off to catch up on some grading that has been lingering in my book bag untouched for a few days. But, there will always be papers to grade and lessons to plan, snow day or not. So today, I made the decision to simply enjoy this unexpected gift of a snow day.
I spent the morning watching the sun come up over our snow-covered yard, watching fat flakes float from the tree limbs outside my kitchen window as I made pancakes and eggs for my boys and husband. We got ready slowly this morning, chatting, goofing around, connecting. And then after my boys boarded their bus, two hours later than they usually start school, I hit the treadmill. Time to get those steps in. I read a book that has been sitting untouched since January. At the moment, I'm sitting in front of my fireplace crafting this blog. And you know what? I'm relaxed. On a Wednesday afternoon.
I'm not worried about what has been left undone, about how much still needs to be planned, organized, graded, what emails I have yet to return, what paperwork I need to turn in. These things seem to consume my daily life. I rush from class to class, activity to activity. Don't forget to... Be sure to... Make certain you... I have to-do notes on my phone, in my planner, oftentimes even written in ink on the palm of my hand, always so much to accomplish in the span of a day. There never seems to be enough time. And yet, there always is.
Things that must get done usually do. Those that don't quite get done on time tend to work themselves out. And what seemed so important in the moment is forgotten by the close of the month. Will this matter in a year? Things move so quickly in our classrooms, and it is easy to get overwhelmed, both for teachers and for students. We are all so rushed. As educator John Spenser has said, we are wearing busy like a badge of honor. But it's not. It does not make us better teachers, better students, better partners, friends, or parents to take pride in how busy we are. It does no good to repeat that trite claim that there just isn't enough time.
It took me many years as an educator to learn that I needed to let somethings go. So today, I'm letting go of my to-do lists, if just for a little while, to enjoy this unexpected gift of time.
I find comfort in the poetry of Whitman:
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
For the past couple of years, I have taken time at the beginning of the new year to reflect on the past and set some goals for the coming year. It's time to come up with my #oneword for 2018. I'm not one for resolutions. They sound so...well, resolute. So final.
Instead, I focus on finding a touchstone word, a word that serves as an inspiration and call to action for what I want to accomplish and who I hope to be in the coming year. Last year, my word -resonate- kept me focused. My word - resonate - helped me connect with the texts, the ideas, the people, the actions that resonated with my beliefs, values, and priorities. If it didn't resonate, it was time to let them go. This was not always easy. It meant letting go of some negative thinking about myself, about my physical appearance, letting go of projects and idea that I had been working on for years. And while that sounds easy to do, when you've latched onto an idea or thought for so long, it is difficult first to recognize it as a habit, and second to release it.
This coming year, I hope to build on what I have learned from my focus on what resonates. To do this, I have to get better at listening. This includes listening to myself, listening to my loved ones, and listening to the voices of others. Listening does not mean that I need to agree or accept. Instead, listening is the act of acknowledging. And while I hear my voice, the voices of my loved ones, and those of others, I am not always so good at honoring and acknowledging those voices. I hear up until the point that I have thought about how to respond. This is not listening. This is waiting for my turn to talk. Listening, really listening, is an act of compassion and empathy. This is what I hope to cultivate in 2018.
I'm bummed. The last couple of mornings I have rolled out of bed with a headache and sinus pressure, my second big cold of the winter season. But this morning marks the first time that I've had to pass on what has become a Saturday morning ritual - community yoga.
Over the last six months or so I've been practicing yoga two, three, sometimes four times a week. I have my regular teachers at the local YMCA that I love, but I have also enjoyed community yoga, dropping in to take a class with a different studio nearly every Saturday. And here in Grand Rapids, also known as Beer City USA, I have fun attending yoga at different breweries. Last weekend, 104 of us took to our mats at Perrin Brewery. And this morning, I was planning to attend one of my monthly favorites, a yoga session at Founders Brewery with one of my favorite studios. I have the tickets. I was ready to go. But I woke up this morning feeling knocked down by this lingering cold.
I am someone who pushes myself, always looking ahead, planning for the next lesson, next unit, next event. Yoga has taught me to slow down, to be present for the present, attend to how I am feeling in the moment. So although I am bummed about not attending one of my favorite yoga sessions this morning, I also grateful and aware of just how practicing yoga has changed me.
Six months ago, I would have pushed myself and attended this morning's sweaty session, coughing and sputtering my way through, coming home tired, drained, and likely worse for wear. Instead, I recognized this morning that I needed to slow down, take an easy morning at home with my family to nurse my cold. And I am so glad I did.
This morning, my boys decided to dress in their suits for no particular reason. My eldest grabbed his recent library find and curled into a corner to read. My youngest announced proudly that he was dressing up in order to play a special session of Dungeons and Dragons with their dad. My eldest quickly agreed that this was the best idea his younger brother had ever had. The game is still going on. My boys are sprawled on the living room floor in front of the fireplace rolling die and talking about cobalts and hobgobblins. I love listening in on their conversations. They are building a world together, crafting stories. My youngest is drawing a map. My eldest is contemplating strategies. And I am grateful for this moment, for being present.
So often I find that I am rushing. Rushing to get to work, to pick up my children from school, to get to practice, or the store, or the bank, or the... But this rushing around creates so much tension, so much stress both for me and for those around me, my family and my students. I have learned through yoga to slow down, breath, and let the present be a present, a gift. Rushing around, being busy all the time, does so much more harm than good. Being present, having the presence of mind to slow down and be grateful for the moment I am in, takes practice.
I am reminded of a powerful video that John Spencer animated about a year ago asking teachers, really asking all of us, to stop wearing busy like a badge of honor.
This morning I am grateful to have the presence of mind to be present.
I've fallen off the blogging wagon. This month I am participating in the Two Writing TeachersSlice of Life blogging challenge. Each day during the month of March, participating students and teacher bloggers are sharing a slice of their daily life, writing a small moment to share with readers. I have been so impressed reading the daily posts from educators and especially from students. There are multiple classrooms - high school, middle school, even some elementary school students - who have written, posted, and responded to others every single day so far.
I have failed.
But here's the thing. I am okay with that.
There was a time when every misstep, every shortcoming, every time I fell short of my goal, I would spiral into an anxious little mess. Self-deprecating comments easily came to my lips, and I would let the mantra of "good enough is not good enough" loop like an earworm through my brain.
Flickr image by Pierre Metivier
And then I started to see this type of thinking replicated in my high school students. Not all that long ago, I heard my six year old son call himself "stupid" under his breath when I corrected him on a math problem he was working on at home. I watch my young sons and my students fall into the same thinking traps that I do. I watch them let a missed answer, a missed grade, a missed honor snowball into a global sense of failure.
It took time for me to recognize how my own words and actions might be framing the thoughts and actions of the young people I work with. How can I inspire and encourage resilience if I continue to be so critical of myself?
I had this same conversation with my student teacher just the other day. She is an amazingly talented undergraduate who is working hard to take over my multiple preps and get to know my 150+ students. Having just finished our first unit in our honors tenth grade English classes, which she designed, she is in the midst of grading 57 elaborate multi-genre projects. I hear her make fun of herself in front of the class when students ask if they are graded. It is something that many of us do. It is good not to take yourself to seriously. However, I have learned that if you vocalize more self-critical comments than positive ones, it does impact how others interact with you. We have talked about how to frame the instructions she gives in the classroom, how words really do matter. Even in seemingly simply, seemingly benign situations, how we choose to use our words can frame how those around us interact with one another.
I have been accused of being overly enthusiastic, positive to the point of being Pollyanna-ish. But here's the thing: I would rather my students, the world, view me as a positive force of good rather than a pessimistic, self-critical complainer. If I want my students to view themselves as positive forces of change, then I need to view myself as one, too. If I want my students to talk about themselves as strong, empowered, resilient learners, then I need to provide them opportunities to use language to reflect on how they have made changes and learned from mistakes. If I want my students to succeed, I must be an example of how to make mistakes, acknowledge failure, and move on.
In January, I bought myself a gift, a bracelet engraved with a quote from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." I wear it every day as a reminder that I am resilient, that I am enough.
At the start of the new year, even though school was not yet back in session, my student editors and I kicked off our literary magazine. But this is not your ordinary school literary magazine. Instead, we were inspired to start a state-wide online and published magazine to showcase teen poets, writers, essayists, and artists in our great Mitten State. We call ourselves MIteen Writers. And to inspire the many writers in our state, we started an Instagram account to share daily writing prompts.
Our first prompt:
For the first day of the new year, let's start with just one word. Grab your notebook and brainstorm a list of touchstone words. Which will you select to be your #oneword for 2017? Your one word should serve as an inspiration, a reminder, as a call to action for your year.
Share your word below, or better yet, snap a pic of your brainstorm and word selection. We can't wait to see what your #wordfor2017 will be!
When our classes resumed last week, I brought this prompt into my high school classroom. Unlike last year, when I had the students brainstorm in their notebooks and then share their one word on a sticky note tacked to the cabinets in my classroom, this year I had my students add their one word to an index card. Why the change? Because last year their touchstone words lived in my room. And they lived in my room for only a portion of 2016. Come June, our words were stripped from the walls and tossed into the trash in order to ready the room for a new batch of students in the fall. For a word, a resolution, or a mantra to have power, it must be present. It must be ubiquitous.
So this year, we added our words to index cards. We decorated our cards, shared them in a gallery walk around the room, and then we tucked them away. Some students stuffed theirs into the folds of their wallet or the front pouch of their backpack. Others asked for tape to add theirs to the inside door of their locker. Still others planned to tape theirs to the mirror at home, pin it to the wall near their bed.
Mine - "grow" - stayed tucked in my writer's notebook for a few days. I had made my list, just like I asked my students to do, and selected my word. But I knew something wasn't ringing true. It didn't feel like my word quite fit. It was headed in the right direction, but it wasn't a perfect fit.
It wasn't until this past Sunday afternoon, when the yoga instructor at the Y asked us to set our intention for our afternoon practice that I figured out what it was. Sitting cross-legged on my mat, she asked us to let our intention rise as one word inside us. Let it resonate.
And that was it. That's my word.
Resonate.
Grow was on the right track. I wanted a word for 2017 that moved me into new spaces, into innovation. But my hope for 2017 isn't that I grab for a wild variety of ideas and watch them grow, hope they grow. Instead, I needed a touchstone word that called for me to be intentional, to have vision, to ensure that my actions resonated with my priorities and that priorities resonated with how I was spending my time and energy.
Resonate.
It is a word that calls me to reflect on how I am helping my students' voices resonate in our world.
It is a word that asks to me pause, to consider what I am asking of others, what I am asking of myself.
It is a word that inspires me act with empathy, with compassion.
"Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering." - Matthieu Ricard
The thick black cat's eyes have framed my perspective for the last seven years. Sometimes the opposite will happen. If I am not wearing my glasses, students and even friends have walked right by me without a spark of recognition. These frames have become my brand, if you will. It is how people come to recognize and remember me, at least initially. But a conversation at last night's TED Summit dinner has me looking at my lenses through a new perspective.
Amanda Palmer, who happens to be here in Banff for the TED Summit, writes in her book about how her perspective was changed by shaving her eyebrows, a look that has become part of her signature style:
"I found to my delight, that it had the unintended side effect of causing people to look me in the eye. When you have creatively painted eyebrows, people will assume you're approachable and affable, and talk to you."
This has also been true of my black cat's eye frames dotted with silver stars in the corners. I have been stopped on the street and questioned in the checkout line. They are a ready made conversation starter. And as I am not the best at small talk or even introducing myself to strangers, my glasses help me connect immediately. There was the barista who had to know where I got my frames because they reminded her of a picture of her mother, which was a reason I was drawn to them as well. My mother wore a similar pair in her high school graduation photo. The mother who stopped me to share her love of the singer Lisa Loeb (again, me too). My frames are a way to form immediate connections, to share stories, and move beyond simply getting to know someone by asking what they do for a living. These frames introduce me before I even open my mouth to speak.
And last night at dinner, TED fellow Tunji Lardner helped me think through my lenses from a new perspective.
Over our first course, Mr. Lardner asked about the role of the new TED Innovative Educators within the larger TED community. I described the innovation projects that each of us would spend the next year working on. He asked about how we, those of us sitting around him, framed the idea of innovation. What is innovation? The conversation evolved to discusseing how elements of design and innovation are dependent upon a particular cultural lense. Innovation, real innovation, must then both acknowledge that frame and move beyond it. Our culture frames design, frames innovation. What then is innovation at a global level?
So now I'm thinking about how my glasses might also serve as a reminder. The fat black frame is always present in my periphery, serving as a reminder for me to check my perspective. I am always aware of the frame through which I interact with the world. My glasses tangibly remind me that I have a particular perspective and perhaps if I want to think outside that frame, I might need to remove my glasses.
I don't even recall what the student said. It was an off-hand, joking comment about my weekend. And that's when I started to feel the tears well up. "It was a bit difficult, actually."
A few students noticed, crossed the room, and asked gently, "Are you okay?" I answered honestly.
"Not really."
About a year and a half ago, my father was diagnosed with cancer, but after a difficult surgery and six months of chemotherapy, he recovered. Unfortunately, this past weekend, we learned that he again had cancer. A different type of cancer. But cancer.
I shared this with my students. And what followed was heartbreaking. Cancer has touched the lives of nearly every one of my students. I have a number of students who have lost uncles and aunts, grandparents and cousins to cancer. The student who left my first period class in tears this morning revealed that her aunt was in surgery this morning to remove a tumor and that family had texted her during class to update her on the progress. A couple of my students have lost parents to cancer. A father lost to lung cancer five years ago. Another student learned this weekend that her mother's cancer has grown. Doctors discovered a tumor on her lung and two more growing on her brain.
It is a club that none of us want to belong to: the Those-Touched-By-Cancer club.
What I discovered today was just how large our club really is. As students in the room caught snippets of what began as a small group discussion, they drifted into our conversation circle, sharing with us their heartbreak. Before long, many in the room were sharing their stories. At one point, we started to wonder how it was that so many of us, nearly all of us in fact, had so many personal connections to cancer. "When I was younger, I don't think I understood what it was. Maybe it has always been like this, but we're just starting to realize what it means to have cancer," volunteered one of my tenth graders.
"My family just wouldn't talk about it. I don't think they thought I could handle it. They thought they were protecting me. But not knowing just made it worse."
"Maybe it's always been like this, but we've gotten better at identifying cancer. Maybe the tests have gotten better."
That's when a student made a connection to something we are working on in class. "I wish I did something about cancer for my IonPassion project. That's what breaks my heart. Cancer. That's what I want to fix."
And that's when I could respond, "You can."
This is how meaningful, purposeful, heartbreakingly important works comes from the classroom. We have to share what touches us, what breaks our heart. Both teachers and students need spaces to share without fear. This is where innovation comes from. We need classrooms where students have flexibility to share, to find the work that is meaningful both to them personally but also to our local and global communities.
So, now I have students who are rethinking their inquiry projects. I have students who want to do something about cancer. They are not sure what they will research, but you can bet that I'm going to share Jack Andraka's work. Before his 16th birthday, Jack developed a more cost-effective and accurate test for pancreatic cancer. And I know that even before they begin their inquiry work, my students are embarking on learning journey that will certainly bring our community closer. This is learning that touches lives in hopes of changing them. This is what can happen when we share.
It has been an incredible week so far. On Monday, environmental reporter from the Grand Rapids Press and MLive, Garret Ellison, joined my journalism class to discuss his writing and research process. We learned all about how he gathers information, interviews for a story, and about how state agencies and the general public interact with the pieces he has written. Today, Darcy Meade from the Ionia Sentinel Standard shared with us her experiences in both television production as well as working as a newspaper education reporter.
It also happens to be our big poetry week. Students brought in their favorite poems and lyrics which we posted in a hallway display. My public speaking students listened and responded to the American Academy of Poets "Dear Poet" program. Tomorrow we will chalk our favorite verses outside on the sidewalk of the school's main entrance and share our favorite poets for Poem in Your Pocket Day.
But today has also been one of those days.
Because despite how well I planned for these events, and how well some small pieces went, those things that went oh-so-wrong are overwhelming me.
It started small. Some of the students in my first period class didn't come prepared. I had asked students to bring in their favorite poem or lyrics to share. No big deal. This is to be expected. I have Chromebooks in my room and a whole slew of poetry books, so students had the ability to look up their favorite verses if they forgot to bring them in. "Ms. Ward, it can be a song, right?" Of course! Which lead to a short but great conversation about why song lyrics should be considered poetry. Students named off similar traits. I asked students to list the title, author, and favorite stanza on an index card which we then taped to a hallway display for poetry month.
I teach 15 and 16 year old students. I know that they like to push boundaries. But we know each other. We've built a community of trust. I suppose I should have expected, but didn't, the couple of students who made the decision to write inappropriate lyrics. That question about whether they could use song lyrics wasn't about whether lyrics were poetry. The students were looking to push a boundary. And they did. Pulling up crude and profane lyrics, scrawling them quickly onto a note card, grabbing a piece of tape, and jumping to add their card high upon the hallway wall, far out of my reach. I had pull a desk from my classroom and scramble on top of it to snatch the offensive verse from the display.
What irks me most is not that I didn't think students would try to push boundaries, they are tenth graders after all and that is what they do, but what irks me most is that the students didn't take into account our classroom community. I sought special permission from the principal to post this display in the hallway, to showcase our love of well-crafted lines, and a couple of students, students who have been in my class and built our learning community together since September, made the decision to disrespect our learning community.
If that was all that happened, I would be handling today better. I know that tomorrow we will have a class discussion about respect and community. And I know that it will be a good reminder for all of us about what we value and how we build our community. But this initial disruption was followed by a much larger one.
Part of my day is scheduled by the students and teachers. Students have 30 minutes each day to schedule time to work with a particular teacher, or a particular teacher can assign a student to "office hours" for more individualized help. It is a wonderful program. I had scheduled my struggling journalism students to my office hours today, hoping to get those who had fallen behind caught back up. But one young woman wasn't having it. "Why do I have to be here?" she demanded. My room was filled with 30 students, many who needed extra help on specific assignments and others who were still signing into my office hours. The room fell silent. When I explained, she threw her hands on her hips and stated that she didn't need my class to graduate so she was just planning to fail it. This breaks my heart. To see someone so young, so angry, so checked out. I responded something to the effect that I didn't want her to fail. She turned on heel and started to march out of the room.
"Making the choice to leave your assigned time will result in consequences," I called.
"F**k your consequences," she yelled back at me as she walked out the door.
She skipped our journalism class as well.
At the beginning of the year, I start my classes with an exercise. I ask students to fold an origami crane using these awful printed directions in two minutes time. They can't do it. I ask them why, and they tell me what they need to learn. We use this exercise to talk about failure. Failure gives us an opportunity to reassess and reflect, to figure out what went wrong and make adjustments. I tell students, if you aren't failing, then you aren't learning.
But what happens when the teacher fails. I know this is my learning moment. This is the point where I need to reflect, to adjust what I did and how I respond. I know that there are reasons and personal stories that accompany both of these disruptions today. I know that in the scheme of things, they are not insurmountable issues. But I feel defeated today.
I love teaching poetry. It is sacred for me. It feels trampled.
I love working with students, and it is a point of pride that I do not respond to students with sarcasm or disrespect. I was so taken aback to be spoken to in such a way.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
I know all of this. But there is a gap between knowing and feeling. I feel like I have failed. And while I may know that I have dared greatly, I still feel pretty lousy in this moment.
These are the days that are difficult to write about. These ending days. As the school year comes to a close, as seniors don their graduation gowns and teachers begin to pack up their rooms, I am reminded that this year is a closing of a different sort. I am moving on with my graduating seniors.
Monday night was graduation. I gathered with my group of 19 advisory seniors, students who I have seen nearly every school day since their first day as freshman, shared with them congratulations and tears, and watched them walk across the stage, reach out for their diploma. My 19 rowdy and resilient advisory students.
Just a few days before we shared our final homeroom together, celebrating with water ice and gifts. With the help and generosity of some fantastic writers, I was able to give my seniors a personalized and signed copy of a book as a graduation gift. Daniel Pink, Charles Duhigg, Brene Brown, K.M. Walton, and Tiffany Schmidt helped me pull off quite a surprise by signing copies of their books for my students. And I also was able to give them something back. The first day of their freshman year, I had my students write a letter to themselves, telling them that I would give it back to them when they graduated. A few of them had forgotten about the letter. Reading that letter helped bring to a close their high school experience by remembering where it all began.
On Monday night as I sat with them listening to the evening's graduation speakers, I was reminded of where my experiences as a teacher began. It began with them. Their first day of kindergarten, September 3, 2002, was also my first day as a teacher. It seems fitting that I am moving on along with them. This will be my last graduation with this district as I prepare for my summer move back to my home state of Michigan. My last graduation, last speeches, last final exams. These past few days have been quickly bringing my first teaching position to a close. And just like it was for my graduating seniors, it is an emotional time. We are both taking time to look behind us, look at how far we've come, as well as to look ahead, both anxious and excited.
My classroom has become a metaphor for change. Earlier this year, my classroom won an award for the makeover I undertook this past summer in order to make my classroom a more brain-friendly, collaborative learning environment. Now, it is bare. As I pack my classroom library into rubber bins, take down the international flags, student work, and posters, students comment on how it no longer feels like "home." They've walked into our classroom each day this week with exaggerated pouts, "Ms. Ward, this isn't our room." I couldn't agree more. Students no longer see themselves reflected on the four walls of our room. I no longer see myself reflected here. It reminds me how hard these closings can be. But at the same time, these empty walls are also full of possibility. They will welcome a new class and a new teacher next fall, all full of their own hope and potential. And I hope to find a new home, new students and teachers to work with. As the saying goes, when one door closes...
Monday marks the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-8, 2015. I love the initiative started by the Center for Teaching Quality to take back the narrative, take back the public story of education. All too often our news outlets are filled with stories of regret, of ridicule, and of shame in our public education systems. But in this coming week, the Center for Teaching Quality is encouraging teachers to use the hashtag #TeachingIs to open the doors of our classrooms and share what it means to be a teacher today. Rather than the conversation of education being told by those outside the classroom, it is time for teachers to share their joys, their struggles, their fears, and successes. The story of what teaching is must be told by teachers.
My friend, fellow high school English teacher, and PASCD member, Brianna Crowley, put together this video to share the #TeachingIs initiative.
And so here is my #TeachingIs story:
Teaching is
twenty-two voices clamoring
for space, for a taste, for a chance
to be heard, to lead, to learn
in the span of eighty-five minutes,
marked at both ends by bells
that yell at students and teachers
where to be and when,
dictating how long to connect and to what.
Teaching is
skillfully sliding, seamless
into facilitator, coach, counselor,
confidante, cheerleader, learner,
disciplinarian and librarian,
before the period brings learning
to a close.
But as a lover of literature,
of well-crafted lines,
of stories that sing from their bindings,
a teacher hands over the pen,
shows students how to see
the blank, white page as more
empowering than scary
and education as something that
expands and extends
beyond the mark of a period.
Teaching is
teasing out
the nuance,
teaching students to do
the same.
Look for the purpose,
the bias, the audience,
consider the meaning,
the cost and the claim.
Teaching is
the art of
figuring out
how to turn
mandates into moments
of meaningful mastery,
how to advocate for collaboration,
for cross-content connection,
how to share the story of
learning as more than just numbers
shared as data and charts
under headlines which cry for reform.
Teaching is
being present,
bearing witness
to the joy and the tears,
the laughter and fears,
to listen and share
the diversity of stories
that enter our hallways
and slip into our classrooms
each day.
We are more than the
numbers and marks on a page.
Our classrooms, a platform,
where student stories take stage,
helping students find voice,
recognize power in choice,
and encouraging resilience
instead of silence.
I have too many blog posts in me! So right off the bat, know that this post is almost more of a reminder to me of all the things that I want to write more in depth about in the coming weeks. It has been an overwhelming semester, filled with a classroom makeover, presentations, author visits, and so much more. I look forward to sharing these developments with you in the new year.
First, I need to share a bit more about my classroom redesign. I shared some of the early steps in my classroom makeover in September, but I need to post my more recent learning space redesigns. My initial steps to create a more student-focused, student-driven classroom have lead to even more changes. As I spent time reflecting on my educational philosophy, I realized I needed to make a few more changes to my classroom space so that my philosophy was mirrored in my physical classroom space. My classroom is open, with flexible seating in the form of stools, pillows, ottomans (which double as book storage), and a couch. And I'm also happy to share that our classroom is featured as part of the #ClassroomCribs challenge. If you are looking for inspiration for your own classroom makeover, be sure to check out the work of Erin Klein, Ben Gilpin, and A.J. Juliani over at ClassroomCribs.com.
In addition to redesigning my physical classroom, my curriculum got a big makeover this semester too. For the last decade, our tenth grade English class has focused on world literatures, connecting with the writers of the non-western world. However this semester, our department took a more thematic approach to our tenth grade curriculum, focusing on four essential questions to guide our new thematic focus on "Perspectives of the Individual." And although initially a bit apprehensive about this change, it has afforded me an opportunity to reimagine my curriculum. I revisited the work of my language arts gurus to help me rethink what was possible. Kelly Gallagher helped me think through how I provide writing feedback (students should write four times more than you can grade) and how I teach close reading (Articles of the Week). Chris Lehman helped me think through possibilities for teaching analytic reading. And so many more mentors than I could name helped inspire my renewed focus on cultivating a student-driven classroom with students doing, speaking, and sharing more than I do. And in addition to adding new core texts, I figured now was the time to make some other big changes, the most significant of which is the move to a 100% paperless classroom. Now, four months into it, I can't imagine teaching any other way. Going paperless has meant finding better, more collaborative ways of working with students and with working with readers and writers outside of the classroom.
Although I have been pushing my emerging writers to connect with audiences outside the classroom for a number of years now, this semester I have witnessed the pinnacle success of that focus. My students and I used social media to connect with and invite in a number of writers from a variety of genres into our classroom. In the last four months we have:
heard a Holocaust survivor speak of his experiences in three death camps,
So many of these connections have come as a result of my students and I reaching out on social media and asking. This has been a big take-away that I need to explore more in the coming months. In talking with Teen Ink's founder Stephanie Meyers when we first connected my students with her via Skype, she graciously showed us virtually around her office and said, "No one has ever asked me to do this, and I love it!" In putting myself out there and asking anyone and everyone to come into my classroom - fellow teachers, writers, parents, other students - whether it is done in person or virtually, I have opened up opportunities for my students to connect with real audiences. Very little of their written work is seen by only me. We blog using Blogger and respond to classrooms around the country. Students post their work in online portfolios which can easily be shared with fellow teachers, students, and even parents. And in talking with my students about these opportunities, I have also encouraged them to ask. They are reaching out through their blogs and through Twitter in order to build their own personal learning network (PLN). I hope to share more of this particular adventure both here and in some upcoming presentations.
I attended elementary school in the early 80s. My school pictures are filled with a lot of vests and big feathered bangs. At one point or another, every one of my classmates came to school with the "bowl cut," when mom stuck a Tupperware bowl on your head and cut around it. I knew every one of my classmates, and not just because I grew up in a small town in upper Michigan. Our families relied on one another for information, for advice, and for support. We didn't turn to the web to figure out how to sign our children up for a bus to and from kindergarten. We didn't scroll through the school's online portal to to learn about which standardized tests were being given and when. Instead, we asked the parent who had a child older than ours. We talked with our neighbors. We built our community, both students and parents, through face-to-face connections and informal mentorships. And having just spent the morning clicking and filling out online forms so that my soon-to-be kindergartener is signed up for the correct bus and so that I receive text messages and phone calls and email alerts of every change, I'm beginning to question how impersonal school has become.
I find this ironic having just spent the summer attending and presenting at a wide variety of education conferences where many of the presenters, myself included, are sharing strategies and ideas for addressing individual learners needs. Recently, while attending a session at the EdTech Teacher Summit in Chicago, I participated in a two hour session in which we wondered about the impact of individualized learning on the development of learning communities. When I look at how I am connecting with my own child's school, it is increasingly impersonal. Our avenues for learning about the school are typically through a screen of one sort or another. And when information is not emailed or posted to an online portal, it comes in the form of paper...lots and lots of paper.
When I attended kindergarten orientation in early summer with my son, he was led to a room with other soon-to-be school-age children and sent through a series of "stations." At each station, he met briefly with a teacher or school staff member who assessed his "level" in 10 to 15 minutes. Can you read this word? Can you count to 10? Do you know your phone number? I stayed in the auditorium with other parents where we were handed a bag of papers that contained procedural information about getting our student's health and dental records for the school but which also contained packet after packet of homework we were to go over with our child during the summer months. Yup, pre-kindergarten homework. Handwriting exercises and shape sorting games, basic math problems and sight words. And my son's school is not unique. Just a few weeks ago blogger Philip Kovacs posted "An Open Letter to My Son's Kindergarten Teacher," and like Philip and his son, my son and I have not opened that bag of homework.
However, what surprised me most was a little brochure tucked into our parent packets on Virtual K, an online kindergarten program that the school encouraged parents and students to access as a supplement to their half-day kindergarten program. The staff member standing before the parents at kindergarten orientation explained that the school used the virtual program to provide the instructional time that kindergarten students needed to be successful in later grades but which the school couldn't provide in person. Wait! What? So our schools are encouraging our youngest students to disengage with the school community in order to learn from a screen?
Technology has opened up so many avenues and possibilities that were not available to students of the 80s like me. When used well, technology can connect and engage both parents and students to the larger school community. And we see so many examples of teachers and schools doing this well: teachers who email welcome letters during the summer and encourage students to share their pictures and descriptions of summer adventures through blogs and online bulletin boards, schools that use Google Hangouts to virtually meet with students over the summer, and teachers who share video playlists introducing new students to their future classroom and learning adventures. However, each of these examples illustrates how technology is used to supplement the community that is also being built in person. Without that face-to-face connection, technology instead serves as a wall to divide parents and even students from the school. Simply moving all those handouts and information to an online space does nothing to build a sense of connection to a school. Just because information is easily accessible, does not mean that community is. It is worrisome that during kindergarten orientation parents are told with pride about online kindergarten. Remember that poster that hangs in nearly every faculty workroom - "All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten"? Read through it. Most of these lessons cannot be learned online.
But it's early. The school year hasn't officially started, so perhaps I am wrong. I just hope that my son and I have more opportunities to be connected to our school community rather than virtually connected.
A sudden burst of color shoots past my knees. My three year old son, eager to head out for an afternoon walk at a local state park, takes off in a run toward the paved pathway that leads downhill toward the river. There is no stopping him. He has flown past pleas to slow down that both his father and I call out to him. In a split second, as he gains all the speed his little legs can muster, I watch it happen. He throws his arms behind him, and although I don't see it, I imagine that he tried to push off with his right foot. To take to the air. To fly. Wind pushing back his blonde hair, face turned upward, eyes closed, arms held behind him like wings unfurling.
Of course, he didn't. He came crashing down, face first into the pavement. There was a moment before the tears, when my husband and I were rushing toward him that he looked up stunned, almost finding it hard to believe that he didn't lift off. And then the tears. I imagine them to be not only accompanying the bloody cut on his forehead, but also for a bit of heartbreak. The gash on his forehead a reminder that he was to stay firmly planted to the ground.
For now.
See this is not a new story. This is what he does. In fact exactly one week ago while we were getting coffee at a local cafe, my little man took off on a full run around the cobblestone courtyard, arms thrown behind him as if he were flying. He caught himself a bit better last week; the fall only resulting in a familiar big purple goose egg on his forehead, but no blood. He is my dreamer, my idealist. He gets up, tries again. Eyes to the sky, this little one will fly. And I so desperately want him to, to keep that hope, that belief in something impossible. I want him to fly. And more than that, I want him to keep up that persistence and perseverance that drives him to get back up and try again even after so many heartbreaking falls.
But maybe next time he can try again while running on the grass.
I am that mom. Walking out the door with my two little boys in tow on our way to preschool this morning, I realize that I am the quirky mom. The one who wears big black combat boots with a Goodwill vintage crushed velvet coat to drop her boys off at school. The one who hesitates only a minute when her five-year-old asks if he can bring his Zed the Zombie in for "Z" week. He brought zucchini seeds in yesterday, tame enough. I am that quirky mom...and I am proud of that.
I suppose that I have always been quirky. I'm pretty sure that I was the only kid in my grade who was wearing clothing she had sewed herself. And ever since doning my first pair of glasses as a freshman in college, I've been on the hunt for the perfect pair of cat's eye frames long before they were ever considered a hipster trend (I finally found them a few years ago at a flea market in Philly). My parents supported my quirkiness, as did my teachers. I have been fortunate in that I am surrounded by people who have not just tolerated my bit of weirdness, but encourage it.
And I want to be an encouraging force for quirkiness. Being quirky is a conversation starter. The number and diversity of people that I have met as a result of my glasses is proof alone. On a fairly regular basis, someone will tap my shoulder to ask where I found my glasses or tell me a story about a loved one who wore the exact same pair in the 60s. Being quirky has opened up a host of opportunities and connections. Because I'm a bit of an oddball, a vintage-wearing, baby-clothes-sewing, creative-writing, geeky-tech, DIY-type, people don't hesitate to ask me for help on projects. And so I've had opportunities to collaborate and connect with all sorts of people from all walks of life.
So working with high school students, who are in the throes of figuring out who they are, who they want to be, I want to be an encouraging force for quirkiness. I will randomly break out in song. I will dress up for Halloween every year. I will talk like a pirate on September 19th. I will show students how to create web pages and write ovillejos. I will debate the ending of Allegiant and celebrate Holi with students. My quirkiness is a reflection of my diverse interests and passions, my willingness to try new things. To be a risk-taker. As Walt Whitman once wrote, "I am large, I contain multitudes." And so I will be an encouraging force for quirkiness.
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