No, I Wouldn't Hate You

It is so funny when people ask what I do for a living.  It usually goes the same way:

Person: "So what do you do for a living?"

Me: "I am a teacher."

Person: "Oh. Well what grade do you teach?"

Me: "I teach big kids, high school kids."

Person: "Ohhh. What subject?"

Me: "English."​

Person: "Ohhhhhhhh. You're one of those teachers.  You would have hated me as a student. I could never sit still and I talked all of the time.  I was never a good reader or writer."

And then two thoughts enter my mind. #1. I am so sorry that you felt so unappreciated as a student that you would think that any teacher whether they knew you or not would hate you. #2. I like you as an adult, so I am quite sure I would have loved to have you as a student. Students like this are our puzzles - we teachers have to find ways to tap into how their brain works so that we can teach them what they need to know to be successful for the next 2-8 years of high school and college.​ We are not always successful, but we always try.

​And, ​truth be told, I have only taught 3 students who I prefer not to run into at Walmart.  Yes, I will walk the other way if I see them.  THREE students out of TWELVE HUNDRED. And in all three of these cases, our administration put the safety and learning of both myself and my students​ first.  I did not like the chaos those students​ brought to my classroom, but if those students would have shown back up at my classroom door and asked me to help them learn, I would have done it - no questions asked. I'll say it again: three students - only three - out of 1,200.  That is a .25% chance that I would prefer not to have a student in class or walk the other way when I saw him/her in the store.  Those are some pretty good odds. Teachers have too much to do, and we have too many students walk through our doors each year to hold grudges or to hate students. The emotion of hating someone is exhausting, and we teachers are pretty good at being exhausted without feeling hatred toward a student.  

What makes me the most sad is that I had a young man say to me the other day, "You're not going to like it when you have me in class.  I talk and wiggle, and I distract others."  He was shocked when I said, "No, I think you'd fit in just fine in my class - we talk and wiggle a lot." At ten-twelve years of age (sorry, I do not know his exact age), this young man has already established an identity for himself at school. He feels he distracts and causes problems. He has most likely earned himself a permanent spot in the hallway or an island desk in the room with no one around him. I have no doubt that he has had amazing teachers who are kind and loving towards him, but somehow he has felt like he doesn't belong.  I think we just need to figure out how to tap into his genius and let him lead. The more I teach, the more I realize that the "norm" for most students is to not fit the norm. If students fit the norm, we wouldn't need teachers to manage, facilitate and inspire; they could all learn from computers or robots.

As teachers, our words and actions are powerful. They have the power to build up or tear down.  They have the ability to make world-changers or to suck the curiosity out of students' minds. We must tell students they are important to us. We must praise them for learning gains, even if they are small - any improvement is praiseworthy; I try to remind myself that a mole-hill to some is a mountain to others. We must make our classrooms the places students want to take chances.  We need to create lessons that engage them so that they end the hour saying, "Wow, that went by quickly."

Sometimes I think the education battle we face today is because of words that were said to people decades ago.  I hear adults talk about the punishments that they used to receive. I hear of them being ridiculed in front of their classes.  I hear so many stories that I hope and pray are stories of the past.  This is why we must tell our stories - to control the narrative.  Most adults know of mimeograph copies and film strip projectors.  They don't now about the world connections we make, the amazing discussion and projects that are happening in our classes each day - maker spaces, blogging, coding.  When we turn on the news, it is not unlikely to hear about a school scandal - one bad egg can ruin it for the other dozen (or thousands and millions of good eggs).  Again, that is why we must tell our stories.  And how do we do that? Through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  Through blogging.  Through dinner-time conversations with friends and neighbors. It's actually so easy to do, but it just requires time and the confidence that what we are doing is worthy of being shared with others. Each time someone tells me, I think you would have hated me as a student, I think to myself, "You have no idea what really happens in my classroom or you would never say that." So, I smile and say, "No, I wouldn't hate you." What kills me is that they will never believe it.    

I Choose Laughter

It has become habit, as a teacher, to take time over the summer to reflect.  What were the struggles during the year?  How would I have handed situations with certain students differently? Do I know that my students are better readers and writers after being in my class? Did I prepare them enough for their next year in high school?  But recently, one question has been added to my list: did we laugh enough?

Laughter has become one of the most important aspects in my classroom and my hallway. Years ago, my fellow colleague John Knapp started doing "Friday Funny" videos. And, like any good teacher does, I (and a majority of our department) stole this idea. Friday is one of the most popular days in our hallway because the students know we are going to start every hour with laughter. Of course, there are times that my idea of funny and their idea of funny are not exactly the same, and they remind me that I am 20+ years older than they are, but we still laugh. They dislike when we have a 3-day weekend that starts on Friday, and they beg like crazy to watch our funny on Thursday.

I think about the time a few years ago that my students followed me down the hallway as I had to go talk to a math teacher about a student's grade. I had no idea they were behind me - they were so stealth-like. The math teacher saw them coming, read and understood their signals for him to be quiet, and then continued to have a conversation with me while they hid behind me. Imagine my surprise to turn around and be scared half to death by my entire class. It was hilarious. We laughed about that the rest of the year.

We laughed our tails off during my 5th hour this year, nearly every. single. class. period.  It was unlike any class I had every taught before.  It was class of 13 boys, and 2 very, very quiet girls.  I'll be honest, at the beginning of the year I was quite nervous as to how this class would develop and engage with each other in our learning journey.  It was not always easy.  Some expectations had to be established, but once they were - WE LAUGHED.  These kids knew when and how to crack jokes that were appropriate, well-timed, and fall-out-of-your-chair funny.  Whether it was giving each other a hard time about Chevy trucks (or was it Fords) or making funny sounds as my paras and I walked into class, they were always laughing.  Now that the year is over, I wished that I had written down the shenanigans of this class, but to me, they will always be the class that made me laugh more than any other, yet they had the amazing ability to turn it off and get to work. 

They had no idea what was written on these boards.

This is what they wanted to do after they realized what I wrote.

My department laughs. In the hallway, it is not uncommon to see 2-3 of us dancing between class periods. It is not uncommon to have a rap battle as Greg Froese and I spit the lyrics to Rob Bass's "It Takes Two". It is not uncommon for one of us to start class by entering doing the running man. Okay, so maybe I am the only one doing the running man, but another one of my colleagues often breaks into the cabbage patch (I won't share his name, but his initials are Jason Kohls, I mean J.K.). 

Sometimes as a teacher, things get tough. The weight of planning, grading, emailing, politics can be pretty heavy. So what do we do? We laugh. We may rearrange each other's classrooms from time to time. (His students loved it - they wanted to keep it that way and have class on the floor.)

Proof.

We may steal the chairs of teachers who were gone for professional learning, and we may make them find said chairs by completing a scavenger hunt written in limerick form. We may take selfies and hide them in other teachers' classrooms - behind their coffee makers, in their teachers manuals, framed on the wall, or tucked away in books that won't be used until next year. We may move a colleague's clock from the east wall in his room to the west; any educator can tell you about the chaos something as simples as changing the location of a clock or picture can bring. We may have many more jokes and pranks to play on each other, but one thing is for sure -- WE WILL LAUGH. Why? Because it is fun. Because these kids are fun. Because teaching them each day is a true blessing, so why not fill it with laughter.

Our students need to see us happy.  They need to see that we like each other and that we love our jobs.  They need to see us being loud, excited, and positive.  Laughter is a cheap and easy way to do just that. I love my job. I love my colleagues. I love my students. I love how much they make me laugh. I choose laughter. When we laugh, we build relationships; when we build relationships, learning happens.

This is OUR Classroom

Over the past few months, I have had this poster shared on my Facebook wall several times:  

I love it that people know how much I love my students and want to share ideas with me, but this is a poster that would never be allowed in my classroom.  Can you guess which phrase bothers me? It's the phrase, "This is my classroom."  

Several years ago, I read a book by Todd Whitaker called "What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most". (In case you are interested, there is an updated version of the book.  You can buy it here if you'd like to read it.)  A quote in this book shook me to my core.  It has changed everything that I thought I knew about classroom management.  I thought being a teacher commanded respect from my students.  I thought having two degrees and years of experience could get me through any class.  I was wrong.

This.  This quote has changed how I approach classroom management.  I respect my students and they respect me.  I treat them like adults because many of my students are the adults in their households.  Many of my students struggle each day just to get to school.  They do not need me to belittle them.  They do not need to me to point out that I am their teacher. They do not need me to threaten them with consequences.  They know all of these things. There is nothing about the above poster that says, "Welcome, let's learn!"  

What most of them need is love.  They need to feel respected.  They need to feel like their ideas matter.  It is possible to do all of these things and to maintain a classroom environment that requires critical thinking and risk taking; however, in order to do that teachers must make themselves vulnerable.  We must be willing to learn our students stories.  We must try to love them, even when we don't like them.  We must know that our hearts will be broken a million times over.  We must know that for some kids, we are all they've got.  So no, this is not MY classroom.  This is OUR classroom.  This is OUR journey.  We are in this together.  That is how we learn best.  I am so thankful that I had teachers who took me on their journey years ago.  Their classrooms were MY classrooms, too, because I knew I was important to them.

I Refuse To Be a Victim of Learning

This year, I have taken a quote by May Angelou as my motto: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then once you know better, do better."  I love this quote because it reflects so many areas of my life.  Being a wife, a mother, a teacher - I try to do the best I can, and sometimes realizing that I don't know something hits me like a ton of bricks.  This happened to me this year with my view on professional learning.  Do better has become my phrase.  I can always do better.

As a student in the 90's, my teachers were the sole source of knowledge at school.  They knew the dates, background information, and important names associated with the content we were learning.  It was almost like they were part of a secret club of knowledge (ok, so really they were probably the only people in the building to have a copy of Cliff Notes with analysis and a teacher's textbook with possible test questions to add to their vast knowledge of a particular topic).  Even during my first few years of teaching, this was the case.  Students looked to me for answers and insight to the famous stories and poems that we were reading in class.  My notes and handouts were the sole source of information for them.

As a new teacher in 2003, my learning was quite similar.  I waited for my district to provide me with inservice training to fill the contracted time each year.  I was warned about dreaded inservice.  I completed the tasks that were asked of me.  I sometimes presented ideas  that were recommended by my administrators to help improve topics like reading and writing across the curriculum.  I am sure that sometimes I sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher.  In a sense, the notes and handouts from the district office were my sole source of learning.  It was a one-type-fits-all type of learning which allowed many of us to check out, fill the time, complain about how what we were learning had nothing to do with our content, and leave 15 minutes early.  It is no wonder why the uphill battle to change professional learning faces such a steep climb.  Many teachers were subjected to the kind of teaching that we abhor - there's no way we would ever teach like that, but we were learning like that. Ironically, we also know that the biggest factor to improving student learning is the effectiveness of a classroom teacher.  Those two facts just don't seem to correlate.

Whether students and their teachers know it or not, America is in the middle of an education revolution.  In my classroom, I am no longer the sole source of knowledge.  However, I am the only person who has teaching experience.  I am the only person who knows how to create a learning environment that is respectful and student-centered.  I am the only person who has completed high school and college.  I am the only person who is a mom and a wife. I am all of these things, but I am not the only person responsible for learning in my classroom.  Because of 1:1 laptops, my students have access to nearly every site I could possible use to create my lessons.  If they don't know how to use a colon correctly to introduce a list, they can look it up.  If they aren't sure how to spell a word, they can look that up, too.  Heck, they can even Youtube how to create something on Google Docs if I don't have the answer how to do it.  You see, in my classroom, we learn together.  It is okay for me to say, "I don't know the answer to that" because I have allowed myself to be part of the learning.  In class last week, I played Merle Haggard (a type of audio literacy, right?) after he passed away.  I went out to the hallway during passing period, and when I returned, a student had written his full name, his birthplace, his birthdate, and his final day on earth.  I didn't ask him to do that, but it sure helped in the discussion of who Merle Haggard was, the impact he had on music, and the fact that he has passed away the day before.  It was so cool that a student took the initiative to look that information up on his phone before class began because we all learned from it.

As a teacher, Websites like Twitter and apps like Voxer are connecting educators from across the country.  Now that I know I can connect with other educators (we call them Ts in the Twitter world), I have an endless amount of resources.  For example, the other day, I had a question about a website that allows a group of people to collaboratively create word clouds.  I tweeted out my question, and within 5 minutes I had the answer I was looking for tweeted back to me. IT WAS FANTASTIC (and the answer was a website called govote.at) A few years ago, I would not have felt comfortable doing that.  I probably would have asked my department, but there is no way I would have posted it on the internet for people to see because even then I felt like I should have those answers somewhere in my playbook.  Now that I know better, I no longer have to wait for my district to tell me what I should learn and from whom I should learn it.  I have made a choice to continue to better myself and my teaching strategies because that betters the learning that takes place for my students. 

This battle between "old learning" vs. "new learning" exists because many students and teachers alike easily approach learning as victim learners.  While no definition exists, victim learning sounds like this: "I have to be here.  I have to learn this.  I have to..." as though there is not a choice.  Being a victim of a crime or abuse is a very real and true thing, and victims deserve all the help and support that we can offer. I have no doubt that many students and teachers (myself included) have suffered through mind-numbing classes and presentations; they have been the victims of the clock, filling time until the hour or day is over. 

However, the choice now lies within us.  Each day we have a choice to try to better ourselves whether we are 15 or 55 years old.  It is no one else's choice but our own.  Many teachers are working to change this mindset in our classrooms and in our schools.  When "have to" becomes "get to" or "might", then we start taking chances and changing those thoughts.  Educators are trying to get students to take ownership of their learning and the opportunities that are presented to them by well-educated, compassionate, and driven teachers. We are trying to engage them, inspire them, and introduce them to ideas they never knew existed.  We are trying to uncross their arms and open their eyes to the fact that learning is something that no one can ever take from them. We are trying to show them their potential, but more importantly get them to realize themselves that their potential is opening up endless doors for future success.

Many teachers are also trying to change this mindset within their schools and districts.  It is okay to be positive.  It is okay to love teaching, or as I like to say, "geek out over it"!  Teaching, for me, is like being a coach.  My classroom is the field or court that I can use to make a difference in my students' reading and writing.  So, yeah, I am pretty "geeked out" about what I do each day.  It is no different than the passion I see from our band teacher, art teacher, or our head football coach - that kind of passion results in excellence.  I have a choice, and I choose not to be a victim of bad learning; it's MY choice. Not every teacher is comfortable sharing what they do online, but the choice to be positive and innovative starts in our classrooms and in our hallways.  If you want to know more about Twitter, Voxer, or the other ways that educators are networking, just ask someone who uses it.  I guarantee that they will be excited to show you a world that you never knew existed.  It is positive.  It is learning driven.  It is a choice you will never regret.

When Ta Da Becomes "Ah Ha!"

So this week we had a #313teach Twitter slow chat challenge in our district:  

Well, we were working with possessives in my sophomore English classes, and there isn't much "Ta Da" about possessives, or so I thought.  Possessives basically follow three rules, so we worked on a technique that forced students to show me their thinking process, not just how to make a word possessive.  I wanted them to tell me three things: is the word singular or plural, how would you fix it, and how do you know you are right?

What I found was that words like this (girls') were causing issues with my students.  I had four students tell me that they have never seen a word end in an apostrophe because they thought it wass always supposed to be ('s).  What a conversation we had.  I spent about 5 minutes convincing kids they weren't dumb if they had never really noticed this before AND thanking them for letting me know they didn't know this existed. 

I spent the next few minutes of class talking about my husband's old 1985 Dodge Ram Charger.  It had a 7-inch lift kid, 35 inch tires, a KC light strip, a rusted out floor board, a hot-wired ignition, and a dual exhaust.  Prior to knowing my husband, I thought Ram Chargers were like Ford Broncos.  I am here to tell you that they are not.  I can spot a Ram Charger from a block away.  I just never knew what I was looking at, but any Ford or Dodge fan will tell you that there is a difference.  When those "ah ha" moments happen, be it with possessive in English or the body type of old trucks, you never forget them.

My students who had never seen a plural possessive end in only an apostrophe probably learned more about a Ram Charger than they ever hoped to know, but they will also probably start seeing those types of words in their reading more often because they know what it is they are seeing.  Ta da!

Gimme Five Challenge: Accepted!

Gimme 5 Challenge

Last week a former student, turned colleague (how cool is that?) of mine tagged me in the Gimme Five Challenge.  I needed to finish grading my Honors Freshman English research papers before I could even begin to think about writing a blog post. This challenge originated from Dr. Todd Schmidt from Harbor View Elementary in California.

If you are an educator, I challenge you to reflect on your year, for it is only through reflection that we move forward and change our practices and beliefs.

What has been your ONE biggest struggle during this school year?

1. My biggest struggle this year has been finding a balance between school and home.  I tell my students that there is only one thing that comes before school, and that is my family.  I have two young boys, and some days those boys need their momma.  It is so different being a teacher with children.  I used to come home from school, eat dinner, and then dive right back into work.  These two boys of mine don't allow me to be "teacher" between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30.  So, what's that mean?  It means that sometimes my grades don't get put in as often as I'd like.  It means that sometimes I stay up late altering the next day's lesson plans to fit this specific class's needs.    It means that I have changed my beliefs on assignments; not everything needs a grade, but I can tell you that I know for a fact that the activities that we do in class each day are making my students better readers and writers. Just because I can't put in the kind of time that I used to does not mean that I am not doing my best, it means my best has to change the way it looks to work for myself, my husband, my kids, and my students.

Share TWO accomplishments that you are proud of from this school year.

1. I'm very proud of the S.E.E.D writing program my department and school has implemented in the past few years.  I am seeing some of the strongest writing from my student that I have ever seen.  I also enjoyed being able to share this writing strategy with another school this year with Jason Kohls.  

2. I am still coming down from cloud nine after attending ECET2 (Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teachers and Teaching) in San Diego.  This conference is the brain child of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  It brought over 400 educators together from all over the country to spend the weekend collaborating on how to improve education and celebrate learning.  It was life changing to see the passion that exists across the country to reform education. Too bad we don't see that on the 6 o'clock news.

What are THREE things you wish to accomplish before the end of the school year?

1. I have two former students who run a non-profit organization to help improve education for school children in Nepal; somehow I want to partner with them this year.  They do fantastic work - check it out! https://openworldcause.org

2. I want to collaborate with our libraries to make sure that students have the opportunities to get library cards, or at least the information they need to do so, before the end of the year.  Very few of them actually have a library card that is not connected to school. I am working with another former student to make this happen.

3. I want to finish grading research papers for my sophomores and revisions for my freshman.  I know this doesn't sound exciting, but it takes about 30 hours to grade 45 research papers and another 10 to grade revisions (multiply that by two for both of my preps).  It is a huge chunk of time, but this type of writing is important to prepare students for college writing/ academic research.

Give FOUR reasons why you remain in education in today's rough culture.

1. I love my school, my colleagues, and my kiddos - this is how I give back a community that gives so much to me.

2. Education is my family business - it's what I was born to do.

3. My children's futures.

4. My students' futures.

Which FIVE people do you hope will take the challenge of answering these questions?

1. Greg Froese, one of my outstanding colleagues who also blogs. (beat ya, Jason Kohls)

2. Cindy Couchman, our Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Learning at Buhler - she has been an amazing colleague, resource, and friend to me.

3. Ben Honeycutt, a future teacher who is already a world-changer.

4. Heather Fuller - a former student teacher of mine who is a fantastic teacher and coach!

5. Larissa Carter, our new debate teacher who has contemplated starting a blog - would be a great first post!

Juxtaposition: Dude, That's Messed Up

I am an English teacher, and I have always believe it is my job to make English usable - not to scare kids away from trying to improve their reading and writing skills.  I don't think that any English teacher sets out to do that; however, because we are really the experts in these areas, it is easy to forget what it is like to be a struggling reader or writer. I personally know what it feels like to not understand English. There was a time when I could not tell a subject from a verb, so it has become my mission to make my content understandable.

One of the terms/concepts that I love to teach is "juxtaposition".  I have tried for years to find an easy way to get students to be able to identify this term in their reading, but until this year it seemed that they can only find it if I give them a few to choose from - then they can pick it out of a lineup.  For those who may not know, not only is juxtaposition fun to say, but it also means "to place two concepts, characters, ideas, or places near or next to each other so that the reader will compare or contrast them" (courtesy of www.literarydevices.com). So, my job as an English teacher is to make this usable so that students don't read the definition in the tone of Charlie Brown's teachers...waa wa waa wa waa. If they are not engaged in what we are doing, it is highly likely they won't apply it.

A few weeks ago, my students read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.  I LOVE THIS STORY!  If you've never read it, it's never to late = click here! It wasn't until I was reading it again (for probably the 50th time in my life) that I found myself saying, "Dude, that's so messed up" over and over again. I was reading about a beautiful summer day only to realize that a few hours later, a brutal tradition was to be carried out by the citizens of this town.  That's when it hit me - DUDE THAT'S MESSED UP was the answer to my juxtaposition problems! 

So much about what we teach is about teaching students HOW to think.  For the first time ever, "dude that's messed up" helped my students find juxtaposition on their own.  It isn't rocket science, but it is usable - and that is what matters.  If we can't make our content usable to our students, there is NO WAY they are going to take that information outside of our classrooms and apply it to real life.  That's why I like to use a little rap history to teach sentence structure, the stereotypical horror plot to teach the types of irony, and now the phrase "dude, that's messed up" to teach juxtaposition.  


Update:  And this is an example of some of the amazing writing and thinking my kiddos produce!  I am definitely blessed to be able to read their thoughts and work with them as they become more comfortable with their academic writing voices!

Sample in-class essay:

By definition, juxtaposition is using comparisons or contrasting ideas within literature, often in ways that seem to not fit quite right. Juxtaposition is a literary technique not often found in Edgar Allen Poe’s writings, including “The Cask Of Amontillado”. Poe’s style is much more outright dark and twisted; there isn’t a lot of darkness hidden in the ordinary, as we see in “The Lottery”.  In “The Lottery”, there is a good amount of juxtaposition. For example, the children are piling up stones before the event starts. This seems like an innocent game, but in hindsight we can see that they are piling up stones for use during the killing. As a result, we see how naive the children are, despite being raised with such dark traditions. Another example of juxtaposition in “The Lottery” is how quickly the dynamic between the villagers changes. They are bantering and chatting amiably beforehand, but when it is time to get to the point, they find it easy to turn on the victim without a second thought. Therefore, we understand how quick the villagers are to abandon old friendships and relationships; and how the attitude turns from jovial to serious.