When You Think of Kindness, Please Think of Me

Well, the election is over.  I don't know how I feel about.  I didn't know how I truly felt about each candidate prior to the election, but I did do my research and tried to vote the best way I could.  I also didn't like talking about the upcoming election with others, and I wasn't sure why.  But now I know.

Hate. The answer is hate. The hatred I see coming from so many Americans truly scares me.  No side, Democratic or Republican, is immune.  I am scared that the "gray area" of understanding is shrinking.  I am scared that people are no longer listening to understand; they are listening to respond and argue (I am guilty of this at times myself).  And even if I disagree with someone, by listening to that person and trying to understand his or her side, I gain support for my own beliefs. By listening to them I might even gain new insight and understanding about his or her life experience. This understanding leads to empathy and compassion. No doubt we, as a country, need more of this.

Today as I started class first hour, students were arguing about late-term abortion.  I am not going to sway their opinions, nor is it my place to do so.  But it is my place to make them think.  I asked them, "What traits do you want to be associated with when others think of you? Kindness, empathy, compassion, understanding? Are your actions reflecting those traits?" As adults, parents, spouses, teachers, friends, we all have choices today, as do my freshmen students.  We have the choice to listen to others.  We have the choice to respect our differences.  We have the choice to walk away to avoid acting out of anger or malice. We have the choice. No one but me can choose what I do with my actions.  No one but you can choose what you do with your actions. So, choose wisely.

When you think of kindness, please think of me. I pray my actions reflect it. I pray my students see it each day. I pray it is the "tomorrow" I am working each day to create.

Control the Narrative

Last year I had the opportunity to attend a conference in San Diego called ECET2 (Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teachers and Teaching).  It was a life changer.  It helped me to realize that titles do not make a leader, actions do. For the first time in my teaching career, I have the confidence to know that I on the same playing field as some of those award-winning teachers even though I do not hold those awards. That playing field is "what is best" for students, and we are all on the same team.  Personally, however, I felt as though the most important change I needed to make was to help control the narrative coming out of my classroom and school.

A few of the amazing KS educators I met in San Diego!

Teaching is not what it used to be, and I think that is where the biggest disconnect between the public and those in education can be found. It is not building up a binder of daily resources to re-use for ten years. It is not days upon days of worksheets.  It is not desks in a row, one-size-fits-all types of classrooms. It IS working to unlock each student's learning potential using whatever means we have at hand - be it through 1:1 laptops, flexible seating, independent reading, maker spaces, and coding. The 6-o'clock news doesn't show this; they run stories about inappropriate teacher relationships, failing budgets, and state assessments. No one knows what happens better in my classroom than I do, so why in the world would I let someone else tell my classroom story?

My kiddos are loving the flexible seating and low tables!

People often ask me about how I teach and how the kids are these days. I struggle to verbally tell them what happens in my classroom because I strive to make my classroom an experience, not a lesson.  So I show them; I tweet, I blog, I post to Facebook. Oftentimes, I second guess myself.  Should I share this? How will others view this? Will they think I am bragging or patting myself on the back? These are all genuine concerns, but it all comes down to sharing little glimpses of what happens in my classroom and my school each day. It is promoting the awesome things that my students and colleagues are doing each day; I often find myself saying, "You should Tweet that out!" It is making myself a little vulnerable by trying new things and sharing if they worked or not. It is showing how much fun we have each day in class and how much I look forward to seeing my students each day. (Have I told you how awesome and inspiring they are and how much I love them!?)

Imagine what would happen if more educators worked to control the narrative of public education? How might that start to slowly change the view that so many hold about teachers and teaching? But there's a catch. Doing this puts an emphasis on innovation and takes teachers out of their comfort zone. It changes the role of the teacher from sage-on-the-stage to facilitator of learning. It widens my audience. And let's be honest, change is scary. However, it also makes my classroom transparent, and if we expect to see any changes in the public view of education, those cinder-block walls have to be opened up for others to see. It costs nothing to create a district hashtag (#313teach), building hashtag (#BHSlearn), or classroom hashtag (#BHSNeill). It is such an easy start to promoting the awesomeness that happens in classrooms each day. Sometimes it just take a little encouragement to share. Tweet it out, control the narrative, welcome others to the awesomeness that is your classroom!

Someday is Today!

For the past several years, I have had a vision of what I want my classroom and my curriculum to look like (within the bounds of what our department has collectively decided to teach).  I keep telling myself that someday, I will do the things that I know I want to do, that I know are best for kids.  Someday, I will take the time to read professional books until I find one that aligns with my teaching beliefs.  Someday, I will take several hundred dollars to buy new seating for my students.  Someday, I WILL do all of these things.

This summer, I had a colleague and mentor tweet a quote that stood out to me: "Would you want to be a student in your own classroom?  Would you look forward to coming to your class each day?"  Wow.  Talk about powerful ways to think about decisions in my classroom.

This got me thinking about a former student of mine named Audra Reed who is now an excellent, outstanding, inspiring librarian in our district.  I had the opportunity to teach her my very first year of teaching, and I taught her ornery, silly, jokester brother named Eli three years later.  It is one of my very favorite memories because she was my senior aide in the same hour that I had her brother in class. Across the classroom, she would "mother" him for not studying for a quiz, or they would hug each other by the windows as Eli messed up her hair. I was blessed to be witness to this, and this has forever changed me because Eli died unexpectedly a few years ago.  It was at this time that Audra posted that her role as a teacher was so important because of the fact that so much of Eli's life was spent in a classroom.  She was thankful for the love he was shown from his teachers and coaches, and she vowed to make sure that her classroom was a safe, fun, loving environment to her students because you never know how short life can be. You never know why that certain student was placed in your class or how they will change you or the world. This rocked me to my core. I reflected and prayed that my class had been a good experience for Eli and for his sister a few years earlier.  This has never left me.

So this year, I decided that SOMEDAY is TODAY. This will be my 14th year of teaching. What the heck am I waiting for? If someday is not today, then when is it going to be? My students deserve someday to be NOW! Not next year. Not when I can truly afford it. Not when I get a raise. Not when my own kids are older. Not when my husband's job slows down a bit. My students deserve NOW because I only get one year with them. I get one year to make a difference in the lives of my students - be it academically or personally. I only get one chance. Do I know what my curriculum will look like? Not exactly. Do I know how flexible seating will work in my classroom - nope, sure don't. I do know, however, that my students are worth the chance, and that if it doesn't work, we will figure it out together because that's what families do.

It's All About Opportunity

Tonight I sat and watched my two sons playing with their trucks in the water.  I am so thankful that they are only three and six, and that we don't have easy access to the news.  I am thankful that for now I can shield them from the events that are flooding the news and my Facebook/Twitter feeds.

Two boys playing - not a care in the world.

But you see, then I think of this sweet kid in the picture below.  Isn't he just the cutest?!? He is my nephew, and sadly, he will most likely know a world that is different than my boys know. He has the most beautiful eyes, and the silliest laugh, and a skin tone that is different from my sons. But do you want to know what is awesome? Not once have my sons ever commented on that difference in skin color, not about my nephew or his dad. Why? Because love doesn't see color -- love flourishes with kindness. When they look at him, they see their cousin. They see a person.

My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades!

With the events unfolding in the news this week, the mother in me is fearful for my children, nieces, and nephews and the world they are growing up in - filled with hate, violence, and a desire to be understood and accepted. I don't know how to respond to posts on social media. I can't seem to find the right words to respond in a tweet. It all seems so surreal, and I know I am a bit naive because it is a world that I do not know, but it is a world that I work to change every year the only way I know how.

The teacher in me is ready to get back into the classroom in a few short weeks. As a teacher my heart breaks when events like this happen, when lives are taken, and when there is no end in sight. But that is when the job of a teacher becomes that much more important. I do not care if you are white, black, Hispanic, or Asian. I do not care if you are straight, lesbian, bisexual, gay, or transgender. I do not care if you are male or female. I do not care if your parents are rich or poor. All I care about is that you are alive, and that I have the opportunity to teach you. I have the opportunity to show you kindness and expect the same from you in return when it comes to your classmates and me. I have the opportunity to share literature with you that allows us to talk about the ugliness we see in the world and how it makes us feel and how we might change it. It's all about opportunity. That is what we must keep fighting for - OPPORTUNITY. Everyone deserves an opportunity, the same opportunity.

It's So Easy to Kill Good Books

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing." This is one of my favorite quotes of all time from my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Now let me give you some context. Scout, the main character, had just been reprimanded by her teacher Miss Caroline for knowing how to read -- on her first day of school -- in front of her peers.  She had been punished because her father spent time reading to her; it is the one thing that they do together. She later refers to reading as a "crime" she committed.  This, my friends, cuts me to the core every time I read it.  Have I been a Miss Caroline to a student before?  Have I reacted out of fear and not embraced the differences in my class? Have I unknowingly killed reading for my students? Ouch. It hurts to think about this. I love this book; to me this book is like going home to visit my grandparents.  It is familiar. It is safe. It makes me laugh. It makes me angry. It makes me proud. This same feeling is what I hope my students will get out of this book, too; however, many view it as a ton of work or a book they would never pick out to read by themselves.

Two events this year have caused to me really dive into this idea of life-long reading. First, this fall, a mother shared with me that her son quit reading long books because he missed the due date for his book report because his book was over 300 pages.  From that point on he checked out books in the 120-150 page range. These lowered expectations in hopes of meeting a due date do not build up reading stamina - not when he will be going to college in a few short years and will most likely be assigned HUNDREDS of pages of reading PER WEEK. Second, this spring I had a younger student say to me, "I have to go home and finish my book report.  I haven't read the book yet, but to do what I need I think I know enough about the story to finish this assignment.  But don't worry, I'll read the book later." The odds of that happening once the assignment is over are slim.  These scenarios are exactly what we need to address - lowered reading expecations and fake reading.  How do we foster life-long reading? How do we get students to fall in love with books?  I have no doubt that assignments like this, or 10-questions per chapter, or lists upon lists of vocabulary words, and crossword puzzles kill good books. I also know that I am guilty of doing just that. I was doing the best I knew how to do, and I was teaching reading the way I had been taught because it was all I knew to do - but that isn't good enough. My students deserve more.  They deserve better.

This summer I have been reading a book called Book Love by Penny Kittle. I really think that she is in my brain, listening to all the questions that I have and then simultaneously putting the answers there on the pages of this extraordinary resource to guide me in my classroom.  (Ok, ok, so maybe she is just a dang good teacher who isn't afraid to share her knowledge with others in the hopes of creating readers.) Regardless, a quote from that book has stood out to me.  Kittle states: "I tried to listen to my department chair, but she told me students were lazy and I should give them a reading quiz each day to make them read. Quizzes don't make people read, and besides, teaching isn't police work.  I knew this. I wanted to become a master sorcerer and entice all students into deep reading; she wanted to set traps to catch criminals."

This is when my jaw hit the floor.  She captured my exact thoughts in a book.  This spring I assigned book reports to my students, and because they are good students, they did what I asked with really very little complaining. But we DIDN'T talk about their books. And we DIDN'T  share their themes. And we DIDN'T talk about how characters change and develop. And we DIDN'T  discuss writing styles and what we did or didn't like about them.  It was a one-way, written conversation and I hated it.  Yes, I HATED IT.  Mark my words, I will never assign another book report like that in my classroom. Why you ask?  For three reasons: One, because book reports have never made a student say, "Hey, I love all of this extra work that goes along with any independent reading I do in school, I think I'll check out another book!" Two, because book reports require me to try to catch cheaters - I see a word like "mundane" in a response, and I automatically have to copy and paste the sentence into Google to see if it pulls up an online summary; freshmen and sophomores don't typically use the word mundane.  Three, because I was able to "fake read" through most of my book reports and make an A on them in school, and it was a very hard habit to break in college. I was them; they are me.

There has to be a balance between creating this love of reading and holding students accountable for what and how much they are actually reading. However, I know one thing, we have to work to get to the root of the fake reading problem, and then work to fix it.  Each student's reading story is as unique as they are.  Many can't hear internal voices and picture what they see when they are reading.  Many get so lost in decoding words that they lose meaning.  Many are so over-booked with other activities that they give up reading. Many are paralyzed when we ask them to popcorn read in front of a class. There is always a root to the problem, and it is something that requires time, trust, conversations, and the willingness to try.

There are better ways to teach reading, and it will make many veteran teachers, myself included, uncomfortable.  It will, however, get those students' cute little noses in a book, or two, or twenty five. I want to try new things, even if I fail, because they old way of doing things is not creating new readers. I think this feeling of being uncomfortable has got to be better than the feeling of knowing that the majority of my students won't or can't read what I am assigning at a level they can understand.  As an adult, I do not create posters or write essays over the books I read for fun - I want to talk about them with others who are just as excited about the books they are reading as I am.  But how do you grade that?  In a world driven by GPAs. Could this be why so many teachers are clinging to the book reports and plot summaries? I know I always struggle with how to grade work like this, but does reading for fun really need a grade?  Shouldn't it be, I don't know, FUN? And fun doesn't have to mean fluff.  Fun means engaged.  Fun means diving into stories we can comprehend and lessons that change us as humans. Who knows, if I step out of my comfort zone a little, students might just fall in love with a character or a book.  It only takes one good book to break a fake reader, and it only takes one teacher who will allow it to happen on his/her watch.  I have no idea what reading will look like in my classroom this year, but I know it will look different. It's too easy to kill a good book; we must give students the time to fall in love with reading -- to snuggle up with a book and let the story take hold of their minds.  And then, we must listen.

Now back to reading about reading...

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.