Category: Being a better teacher

little ray of sunshine

We’ve been in the building full time since May of last year, and now this year. School began on September 8th for students, so today is Day 12.

And each day I think, “Whew, one more day I don’t have COVID, or at least a breakthrough case that I know of.”

And that is our educational/teaching lives now. If we don’t have the means to take a sabbatical, retire, or tap into our heiress funds, we go back to work. I do need to take some time and journalistically chronicle the events of the past few weeks, but today I’m going to share a little bit of good news.

This is the third year I’ve been in my building, hired as a full-time EL/ML teacher, and concurrently, I started at the district with a newly minted EL endorsement, but thirteen years of other ELA, etc. experience. First year, great. Worked with teachers, was told the building was lucky I was there, all good things. Second year, during the quarantine: not so much. But undeterred, I kept contacting students through weekly letters, I did home visits, and my colleague who’s the family liaison and I kept working closely together. She is an incredible young woman. Had many students walk on graduation.

Yesterday, we had a staff meeting and the superintendent was there, and our on-time graduation rates have skyrocketed, and mostly with Pacific Islander/Hispanic populations. We have mostly Hispanic/Latinx and Marshallese students. And I looked at my colleague and said, this is because of the hard work we did last year– yes, it takes a team, yes, many teachers worked their asses off, but for once, she and I took a victory lap because it was her and my work, and the support of admin. I thanked the superintendent for hiring me so we could put these resources towards these groups of students, and he completely acknowledged and validated our work.

And now I’m motivated because I know that what I do matters for my students. I see the data. The entire school saw the data. If folks want to collaborate with me and our other colleague I mentioned, great. The door is open.

Big trouble.

Well, dangit.

Long story short: I posted this TikTok on a large English teacher group, with the point being the teacher doesn’t have to leave out her “non-honors” kids in asking about books. We’ve all seen the fragility and defensiveness, and my only point or request to other teachers was not to do this. It was a fun activity, and could be a great activity if the teacher just made one adjustment. I came across the TikTok from another teacher I follow and greatly respect on Twitter.

Oh, dear.

That set off a firestorm in the comments. Many teachers, most white, were admonishing me for posting her TikTok, which is public by the way, and a lot of ‘how dare I’s?’ and not to blast new teachers — we can’t keep teachers in the profession, according to some comments, because of people like me who are so mean to new teachers.

Well, okay. This isn’t a job for the faint of heart. And I realized the post turned into a dump-on-Kelly instead of focusing on the pedagogy. Many teachers want to strive for equity and inclusion, and when an example popped into my social media, I should have seen the potential fall out. Only a few good souls saw it for what it was.

And here’s the thing: the teacher responded to me. She’s not new. She posted this TikTok and rebutted all the critiques. It is so hard not to be defensive in this profession. Ask me how I know. And it hurts. All I am asking is that, please, when you come across something that could possibly harm students, speak up. And if you don’t want to speak up, send me a message.

Do I make my own TikToks? Maybe. And I do agree that critiquing something is destructive and not constructive. Stick around, though, while I build things back up. I do not offer insight w/o trying to offer solutions.

And as Selena Carrion said:

Newsworthy

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It’s weird how what I consider to be innocuous tweets get attention, positive and not-so-much. So, as a place for more information, here are some sources I have grown to trust. This is not an exhaustive list by any means:

Of course, follow many of the folks I’m following on Twitter, including @JennBinish: she writes about history, educational history, and is a fact-checker extraordinaire. Moreover, she listens.

  1. Valerie Strauss who writes about educational issues in the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/21/critical-race-theory-ban-florida/
  2. NPR Education news https://www.npr.org/sections/education/
  3. Follow what educational experts say on Twitter
  4. Make your own connections:
    1. News about taxes, deductions, living wages, etc., affects all of us. Challenge yourself to learn more about economics and our capitalistic system of money.
    2. Learn more about how public school segregation still exists and how it affects your students
    3. Understand how schools are funded–who is writing your checks?
    4. Even if you don’t teach #EL/ML (English/Multiple Language Learners) how is your school/district affected by immigration policies? Who is being harmed by them? What propaganda and conspiracy theories are being used to harm students?
    5. How do gun laws affect school shootings?
    6. How does white supremacy and historical facts continue to harm students today?
    7. What tools and strategies can you find from experts who help you navigate these big issues?

Here is a media bias chart. I can support the claim that the R side is also full of propaganda outlets.

https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

And I would never, ever expect anyone to expend energy in places that do not serve them or their students. But I will ask this: if another teacher does know something, please do not make him or her feel like a know-it-all, breathe through your defensiveness, and just listen. Recognize when your cognitive dissonance may be at work: sometimes when we hear something that’s traumatizing and tears at our world views, our brains must push back. That’s part of our survival.

And think for a moment: when I have a student who comes to her junior year of high school and had no idea there were elections besides the presidential one, or students who are told by teachers that the world is only 6,000 years old, or me when I learned from a student that there were indigenous enslaved peoples: the willfully ignorant teacher is defensive and downright rude to students who might have more knowledge than they do, and this will break down any so-called relationship one has built. Now the same student who taught me more about history also refuses to get vaccinated because of TikTok videos. I hope she changes her mind: I try to modal critical thinking skills and the flexibility of mind, another reason to be informed.

But I can’t help but think about Philando Castille and what might have happened if every teacher, in every school, across our nation had just walked out for one day to say that the state may not kill one of our own. A man who loved children, our children. In schools. That’s a place to start.

Last Writes.

This past week I circled back to something we tried in the fall: some students remembered, some didn’t, but dang –once again I have to give Kim Norton and Holly Stein a huge YOU ARE GODDESSES thank you! No fancy gimmicks, no assembly required: just spontaneous and authentic writing. As mentioned, the kids are growing anxious and snarly, and this really helped.

Here is the walk-through of the lesson, and the adjustments I made on the fly:

[embeddoc url=”https://blog0rama.edublogs.org/files/2017/06/Photopoem-book-1q814vc.docx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

Writing Prompts

https://www.edutopia.org/article/50-writing-prompts-all-grade-levels-todd-finley

The middle of nowhere…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHDV_0dBe9j/?taken-by=jameelaillustration

https://www.instagram.com/jameelaillustration/

but I consistently recognize three trends: developing readers, dormant readers, and underground readers.

Miller, Donalyn (2010-01-12). The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child (Kindle Location 449). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

 

 

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/253/the-middle-of-nowhere

Got a bad case of Altschmerz and the Monachopsis blues..

From Tumblr: 23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain
  1. Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
  2. Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
  3. Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
  4. Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
  5. Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
  6. Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
  7. Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
  8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
  9. Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
  10. Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
  11. Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
  12. Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
  13. Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
  14. Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
  15. Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
  16. Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
  17. Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
  18. Rückkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
  19. Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
  20. Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
  21. Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
  22. Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
  23. Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.