Category: Being a better teacher

Little birds.

Whereby I make the Internet angry.

Again.

Well, that was a hefty miscalculation on my part. For many reasons, others on Twitter took my tweet to mean I think journaling is bad. But Twitter is the telephone game x1000, and between my hyperbolic phrasing, and perhaps the exhaustion on my and others’ behalves, we’re just all on edge. And as Joe pointed out, my “all caps” is classless. His response may be “man code” for “watch yourself, young missy,” questioning my teaching credentials and all. I was reminded of David Spade’s recurring receptionist character on SNL, “and YOU are?” And my response to this educator, and others whom I upset, is Emily Dickinson’s poem:

I’m nobody. A frog croaking. A bird singing. Just thinking about stuff and worried about my students.

And my colleagues: you are more than welcome to tell me you don’t agree with me. I just asked us to think and reflect, but I didn’t say it ‘nicely.’ My mother’s philosophy is “never apologize, never explain,” so I’m going to try that now. I tend to be a people pleaser to ease my anxiety, so while I try to buck up and find some courage, not sure how successful I’ll be.

We all come from a wide variety of teaching experiences. We all have something to offer. And who we are for our students may not translate or scale to what we need to be for each other. If I am not the colleague who want to converse or exchange ideas with, that’s completely cool. Often, I don’t have a lot of patience or time for you, either–and that’s okay.

Many teaching practices we did before our buildings closed down were brilliant, creative, rich, meaningful and nuanced. And many of our teaching practices will continue to sparkle and connect.

But many weren’t. There were, and are, inequities, bigotry, racism, poverty, classism, political domestic threats toward some immigrant students and families, lax oversight and accountability, bad faith ed reformers, poor practices and shaky scripted curriculum. Oh, and that state standardized testing, which as it turn out, was an educational albatross.

And I had this random thought, that maybe, just maybe, in our exuberance of trying to stay enthusiastic, engaged, and hopeful, that assigning journaling about the pandemic wasn’t a good idea. To quote, the “WORST.” And I did apologize for my hyperbole. As a choice, ungraded, an idea, no, it’s not a bad idea at all. Helping student writers frame their daily journaling is a great boost. What we may be grieving for, however, is much broader and painful than we care to admit.

We are not physically “there” to catch the body language, emotion, or stress our students are feeling right now. We’re not. And as much as we can duplicate some learning experiences or catch them before they fall, we are just not there. That is a big part to why teaching is emotional and psychologically exhausting — we are aware and watchful for our students’ responses. So now we are bereft of that role, and have a new exhausting role. And he’s right — we are all just trying to do the best we can. That does not excuse us from bad practices or lack of reflection, before the pandemic and now. Nor after.

If we assign something to be graded that may cause additional stress or trauma we are doing harm. And no justification, teacher ego, or defensiveness will change that.

Many people in the thread came to the conversation with breathtaking ideas, kindness, gentle pushback, questions, thoughts, and those are the next focus. Like this wonderful teacher:

Keep journaling, keep thinking. And allow writers to have their thoughts. I’ll have a talk with my inner editor next time.

Creating Curriculum

I love curating content and creating curriculum. Here are some units I’ve put together while in #quarantine:

https://sites.google.com/auburn.wednet.edu/mrslovespopculture/home
https://sites.google.com/view/mrslovesmonsters/home
https://sites.google.com/view/mrslovespoetrypage/home

My next projects include Greek Mythology with my Box of Destiny materials, and perhaps other units of study, such as Thesis Writing 101 and Thematic Discussions, and curated content about one or two big questions. Stay tuned!

PS Here’s another one https://sites.google.com/view/mrs-loves-logical-fallacies/home

The luxury of whimsy, part 2

Is anyone else wavering between love and loathing during this moment in history? Love for what people are doing, sharing, and taking others into consideration? Simultaneously loathing how others are just “business as usual’ – the business of trolling, mean-spiritedness, and sniping? Time to separate the treasures from the trash, and understand I don’t have to put up with the second.

A reminder to myself that all I can do is support myself, my family, and my students. That’s all I’ve ever been able to do, and some things don’t change. I’ve been providing LMS classes for years for students (Learning Management Systems) first through Moodle, then Canvas, and now Google Classroom. (Canvas is far and away superior, but oh well. Not my current district’s platform, so I’ll make do.)Best Practices:

Best practices:

  • Make sure grading is equitable as possible: develop assignments that foster growth, allows for mistakes, and mastery of learning
  • Update my grade book as soon as possible. Yes, it is annoying when students turn things in late. (And never mark down for late.) But you do not know what is happening at home. You do not know what some parents do if their child’s grades slip. Save your judgment for something else. Even if the child is acting rude or entitled, so what? You can respectfully let them know what your schedule is for updating grades. Remember, their brains are developing.
  • Support them with other content areas: no matter your content area, you can help make connections to all the other content areas. This is so true for ELA/SS teachers. Find out what students are learning in math, science, their electives, and even PE! There are abundant cross-content connections and curation opportunities

best practices for online teaching and learning:

  • See all of the above
  • Use the Digital Tools as best you can, and take this opportunity to learn something new! My new learning includes Zoom, Google Meets, etc.
  • Things I will bring to the forefront: Actively Learn, ThingLink, and my YouTube Channel.
  • We are inundated with resources now, and I use this blog as a means of keeping track. However, I think Wakelet may be a great resource for this time. Here is a Wakelet I put together for Art History: https://wke.lt/w/s/GyP0bN

I’ll end this post with a promise to myself to share a schedule next. There is nothing like a binder and color-coded tabs to make me feel some semblance of control.

Smithsonian Educational Resources

Finding a Book When You’ve Forgotten Its Title from the New York Public Library

The luxury of whimsy (part 1)

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Routines of comfort

How do I describe the (odd and inappropriate) envy I feel right now when I read colleagues who teach in other schools/districts about the connections they’ve made with students during the COVID19 crisis? Please don’t misunderstand me: I am joyous that students are reaching out to their teachers at this time, that students want to continue learning and keep connecting with their teachers. At least five of my friends have posted ways their students have connected with them. They instilled a love of learning before the pandemic.

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My students this year know I love them, and want the best for them. But they were already on the academic fringes of school, and my concern is that they will be forced to levels of stress that will send them to places, emotionally and physically, where I won’t be able to reach them. I teach in an alternative high school, whose mission is to provide credit recovery as its first priority, and other experiences or creative endeavors may have been a luxury. I love my teaching assignment and district this year –and my colleagues. I am new to the building in many ways, including being the first ELL teacher. They’ve never had a full-time ELL teacher, and it’s difficult to assess how many of my colleagues have delved into SIOP work, but the wonderful part is it doesn’t matter: they are loving, caring, open-minded and seek collaboration. My heart is full. But that is during “normalcy.”

And things are far from normal.*

Time for some magic. And emails. And magical emails.

But now: what to do for my students who many not reach out and connect?

Resources: what my students are currently doing now…

ELA

I have a Google Classroom set up, along with other ELA teachers in my building. I sent them all home with books of their choices, notebooks, a letter, pens, pencils, etc. And yes, a consumable workbook. It nearly broke my heart when one girl asked if she had to do the work on paper and not in the workbook. Think about that for a second: we expect our students to learn but as practice don’t give them the resources?

https://foreshadowya.com/issues/12

My Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf8jj_d1xZNNagCZ6psPemg?view_as=subscriber

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Science

https://twitter.com/weatherchannel/status/1239914344625954816?s=20

Math

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry/hs-geo-foundations

History

The US History teacher has a comprehensive Google Classroom set up, with weekly notes and Power Points. I wish we had more time during my ELL Study Skills class to dive into topics more deeply, but alas, we don’t. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

Family and Consumer Sciences

https://www.familyconsumersciences.com/

https://www.internet4classrooms.com/ct-fcs.htm

Art & Jewelry

https://www.skillshare.com/browse/Jewelry-Making

There are many artists such as Mo Willems who are providing interactive doodle time and art lessons. I may need to do a separate post about this.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/03/16/social-distancing-free-virtual-tours/5060244002/

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/all-the-museum-exhibits-symphonies-and-operas-you-can-enjoy-from-home

*Except for President Trump’s continued and overt racism.

Dismantling Essays: essays in the wild

Resources and ideas about redefining the five paragraph essay.

I have broken every single one of these rules.

In my continuing effort to change how and why teachers approach essay writing, I’ve come across some amazing resources. One of the most discussed posts was one I shared, via Sarah Donovan, via Three Teachers Talk: Three Reasons to Stop Teaching The Five Paragraph Essay .

I am a huge fan of John Warren’s writing, Why They Can’t Write: I believe it should be required reading and professional development by every high school English and History teacher (and Science, Math, PE, Orchestra, Art, etc.) for one important reason: he provides a road map to where our students are headed. If the five-paragraph essay is the only path and scaffold to instruct students on organization, we have lost our why. So, this is not a hit on the five-paragraph essay structure as much as it is a call to look closely at the why of explaining organization. Continuing the curation of mentor texts and redefining what an essay looks like is of utmost important to me. I am constantly striving to reconsider, rethink, and reflect on the practice of teaching and learning about writing.

Some of my previous posts on this topic:

https://atomic-temporary-127056043.wpcomstaging.com/2018/11/15/life-and-history-history-is-life/
https://atomic-temporary-127056043.wpcomstaging.com/2018/07/10/disrupt-the-essay-continued/
https://atomic-temporary-127056043.wpcomstaging.com/2018/07/05/summer-series-of-saves-dismantling-the-essay-iii/
https://atomic-temporary-127056043.wpcomstaging.com/2017/07/19/saving-summer-rethinking-themes-essays-and-media/

Essays Revisited:

And Shawna Coppola wrote Writing Redefined (and I’m kicking my lazy, procrastinating self for not getting to my own writing book) and provided this take on multimodal learning: https://threeteacherstalk.com/2020/03/04/the-power-of-multimodal-composition/ Multimodal is my thing. Here are some more mentor text examples of essays in the wild and using multimodal pathways to redefine what an essay is:

Interactive Projects:

https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/femicide-juarez-mexico-border/

http://projects.seattletimes.com/

https://catalyst.blackburn.ac.uk/about/
https://catalyst.blackburn.ac.uk/about/

Book Tastebuds.

What happens when we as reading teachers don’t want to read a book?

Deeply interesting and engaging thread in Betsy Potash’s Creative English high School Teachers page on Facebook today concerning American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. And while I’ll post links and resources, the big question I’m left with comes from the pushback I received from another teacher, to the point I should not be allowed to voice criticism unless I’ve read the book.

Is that accurate? Do we always have to read the book before we decide something, or what media to consume?

Have you ever tried to make a toddler eat? I know a few wonderful toddlers who don’t like macaroni and cheese, preferring broccoli and other vegetables. My own sons as toddlers has some quirky eating habits. The older one hated spaghetti and most pasta, including macaroni and cheese. He loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The younger one wasn’t picky, and his preference for junk food became a battle. But they did know their own minds, even if they didn’t have the words or vocabulary to articulate their discerning tastes. And over time, they did try new things and expand their palettes.

Our students don’t like to read. They don’t. Why? Many reasons. They struggle, it’s not entertaining for them, book culture seems odd and foreign to some, and oftentimes they don’t see themselves reflected in the novels many districts push. The texts are not ‘window, mirrors, or sliding glass doors’ (Rudine Sims Bishop).

But if you ask them about certain movies, stories, or their own interpersonal relationships and what keeps and breaks friendships, what keeps them faithful or what does betrayal look like and do, they will have plenty to say. And then we can work together on what they might like to read, on what burning questions they have that books and texts can help to inform and enlighten, and challenge, then you can have them try something they might not have before. And they might find that it’s like food they don’t like. (How many teachers have done ‘book tastings’ — did you get offended when a student chose one book over another? Of course not.)

Then why was it that the thought that a grown adult woman, (me), who listened to literary criticism of a novel and found it deeply resonating and informative, and chose not to spend my money on this book or read it, why was that so offending to some in that thread? (They hadn’t read it either.)

So many conclusions jumped to…

If you’re like me, your #TBR pile is miles deep. I’ve probably read over 700 books in my lifetime. Heck, even the scant posts on Goodreads tells me I’m at 396, and that hasn’t tracked my reading life. At what point do we allow students to make these choices for themselves? Rather, at what point as an adult am I allowed to read a critic or review and make up my own mind? Full disclosure: I hate to read movie reviews, and despise trailers that give away too much. But I still love movies, and get most of my recommendations from my sons. I guess I didn’t realize there was a number to being allowed to state clearly “I am not going to read this book.”

And when Esmeralda Bermudez said it reminded her of a novella I bust out laughing in the car. We (me and my students) put on novellas in class during Study Skills the other day, and of course I got my ‘teacher all over it’ because I am compelled to make connections to body language, facial expressions, etc., and themes of love, betrayal, despair, romance, etc. (We had just finished Romeo and Juliet.) And I don’t disparage the girls in my class and watching novellas. I spent countless hours with my mom and then into college watching All My Children and Guiding Light.

But what I am not going to do is read this book. Too many other things to read and watch. If that means I have a fixed mindset, okay. I’m good. In the meantime, I’m going to look for other, better books with authentic voices and perspectives about immigration.

We should allow our students to have their own tastes, too. All we need to do is tell them their tastebuds might change over time, and be flexible. After a few hundred books, I’m still flexible. But I want quality, not quantity, now. And Oprah’s recommendations don’t mean what they used to, either.

Links to the controversy:

Latinx Critics Speak Out Against ‘American Dirt’; Jeanine Cummins Responds

‘American Dirt’ was supposed to be a publishing triumph. What went wrong?

Jeanine Cummins American Dirt

PENDEJA, YOU AIN’T STEINBECK: MY BRONCA WITH FAKE-ASS SOCIAL JUSTICE LITERATURE

That’s funny

Teachers are not necessarily known for their stand-up comedy routines, especially if they’re women. Wait, let me rephrase that: often women aren’t “allowed” to be funny but we all know that’s silly sexist nonsense. Teachers can be hilarious. I, myself, on occasion, crack myself up, and if no one else thinks I’m funny, meh,

My first year of teaching I was lucky to have Kim as my mentor. She is, objectively and in all ways, so damn funny. She’s an admin now, and her posts about her life, crazy family and dogs keep me in stitches. One of the greatest, pure, straight-up teacher mojo she gave me once was to tell me I was a “pretty crier.” Even if I haven’t retained my ability to be a pretty crier (I cried a lot my first year) she gave me the magic spell to BELIEVE IN MYSELF.

When I first got into teaching I discovered the blog “It’s Not All Flowers and Sausages.” She wrote a book of her exploits, too. Which I did not buy. Because. I’m cheap.

Along the way other educators provided me with as much comic relief as needed (and I need a lot).

Love, Teach gave us #DEVOLSON (dark, evil vortex of late September, October and November). If you haven’t heard of Love, Teach get thee to her writing IMMEDIATELY! http://loveteachblog.blogspot.com/

Gerry Brooks is a principal from Kentucky and yes, he’s amazing. This was one of the first videos I saw of his:

Tom Rademacher’s book It Won’t Be Easy is one of my favorite teacher-books, and I wish I had written it. But they don’t let women teachers use cuss words, so no one would have found it as funny.

Eddie B:

And:

I know there have to be others.

And there should be more women.

But–in loving fun, my students have always made me laugh the most. This is what they added to the “what else should Bilbo Baggins pack” list:

Who's funny in the education business?
The restraining order…

Dodgeball.

My thoughts on coaching and leadership. Image from https://www.sookenewsmirror.com/sports/emcs-hosts-community-wide-dodgeball-tournament-in-sooke/

via GIPHY

https://twitter.com/mrskellylove/status/1210982093729124352?s=20

Let me translate my tweet according, as read/heard through some men’s ears:

“You are all sexist pigs and your coaching pedigree isn’t worth a damn.”

During this Twitter exchange, many great ideas bounced back and forth, and some garbage takes, too. I think most of us ended up shaking virtual hands and walking away, except for one man who blocked me after he posted a gif of a comedian with a “stupid” look on his face. Not sure what his point was, but he’s a administrator of a Christian school, so perhaps he’s working on his faith but trolling teachers on Twitter. I am being snarky, but this illustrates how fragile and serious many of the men on this thread took my requests. Many educators spoke up, too, and I want to highlight their views.

All I was saying is coaching is not the only thing that makes a great administrator/leader. In fact, I would like us to put it as a far tenth on the list.

Let me be clear: a sports coach, dance coach, cheer, or anything to do with athleticism has my respect, with this caveat: some coaches are the worst bullies, pedophiles, creeps, abusers, and predators out there. And so are teachers. And principals and vice principals.

Leading me to my point: how often are sports/coaches held to idolatry and adulation? Can we Northern Americans name a day when some kind of sport isn’t in the forefront of many people’s minds? We go from season to season, marking the calendar off with football to basketball to baseball back to football. It’s so pervasive in our American culture, it is the ‘fish don’t know they’re wet’ analogy. They can’t know. For some, their time coaching defines their ability to make others move in one direction, and according to Dr. Johnson, it seemed a great place to start if one wants to move into administration.

And I say hogwash.

Whether or not coaching experience makes one a better leader or potential administrator is such a tired, cliche question. It’s unoriginal and unimaginative.

https://twitter.com/EnglishTeach07/status/1212068078139461632?s=20

And Jess summed it up. The message in the thread repeatedly told me that given the choice between someone with coaching experience and someone without, they’d pick the one with every time.

This gentleman tweeted the same reply in different ways about three times.

And this gentleman tweeted reams of responses:

https://twitter.com/KirkMango/status/1211738134096035840?s=20

When I let him know he missed the point, he dodged and ducked.

Perhaps some examples are in order? We all have these stories and backgrounds. I am not unique.

  • Had a 12 lb. baby on Christmas day 25 years ago and went back to work after 4 weeks because I couldn’t save up anymore vacation time. He was 16 days overdue, and was in the hospital for a week after I gave birth. I had to go back and forth to the hospital experiencing a lot of physical pain, and still had to go back to work without getting a chance to heal. My husband was doing freelance at the time and not making much money, and I was the sole steady earner. Can that go on my resume as someone with grit and stamina?
  • When I was getting my teaching certificate I had two small children and an underemployed husband, and I worked at Starbucks part time over 20 hours a week, and took on a 35-credit load per semester. Does that count as ‘leadership?’
  • I volunteered as an art docent for my son’s first grade class and without any coaching or teaching experience help twenty-five little 7-year-olds make things.
  • The teachers running the GSA Clubs, Anime, Minecraft, Robotics, Board Games, etc. all get points, too.
  • The teachers who have 125-150 students, every year, five to six classes per day in secondary, make sure each and every one is noticed, stacks of feedback and preparation to ensure each one is getting the best education available.

One of the worst and most heartbreaking tweets was from a teacher who was passed over for a job because she wasn’t a coach, too. They hired inexperienced (male) teachers over her. Think about that: sports/coaching are so heavily entrenched in our society blatant evidence of athletics over academics cannot be overstated.

I repeat: coaching is not the issue. Of course being a good athlete, working on a team, etc. has value. But saying it has value is said constantly, in media, conversations, at schools, etc. To the victor go the spoils, and if you’re involved in any kind of athletic pursuit, that level of power becomes heady stuff.

https://twitter.com/mrskellylove/status/1211029680842629120?s=20
https://twitter.com/MikeCline8/status/1211472585415782400?s=20
Thank heavens for friends.

We are a long way from putting academics, activities, dance and art over sports.

Sports are embedded in American schools in a way they are not almost anywhere else. Yet this difference hardly ever comes up in domestic debates about America’s international mediocrity in education. (The U.S. ranks 31st on the same international math test.) The challenges we do talk about are real ones, from undertrained teachers to entrenched poverty. But what to make of this other glaring reality, and the signal it sends to children, parents, and teachers about the very purpose of school?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/

And don’t get me started on the equity issues. Okay, too late. I’m started. Athletics are expensive. Parents of privilege have the means to travel with their sons and daughters, but it still puts a strain on most families’ finances. I have zero opinion or judgement about how parents spend their time with their children. That is not my thing. My only wish is that kids who want to play, can, without the stress of finances or time being taken away from their families. Years ago, at my previous school we didn’t have a soccer team and one of the fears was because many of the (suburban/White) kids had been playing since they were three and would create a disadvantage. Literally an unleveled playing field. (We didn’t have a good field for them to play on, either.)

Open Goal Project focuses on competitive soccer — a niche that executive director Amir Lowery said needed to be filled immediately in the D.C. area when the nonprofit formed in 2015.

Some groups are doing good work: kids need to play, have respectful coaches, and trying to mitigate the high cost of sports. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27356477/kids-playing-enough-sports-culprit-cost

One of the talking points that irked me the most was “no one is saying other contributions aren’t important” and then saying “but given all things, being a coach and having coaching experience makes one better suited for the job.”

via GIPHY

That is the point. Being imaginative requires a certain amount of foolishness and courage. The men and women colleagues I’ve known who’ve gone into administration have not been coaches. They’ve been superlative colleagues: collaborative, informed, focused and intelligent. They seek answers and ideas. The makings of a true leader.

Featured image from: https://www.sookenewsmirror.com/sports/emcs-hosts-community-wide-dodgeball-tournament-in-sooke/

The English Teacher Companion

Prevention for late-work.

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English teachers: the stereotype is fussy, middle-aged woman whose sole job is to sneer at students’ misplaced commas and deny acceptance of late work. There are posts and tweets about how a student turns in late work, and the sheer amount of gleeful, snotty remarks dishearten me to no end. And after I remember to breathe after my raging, fist-shaking, and look deeper into what may be at the heart of this, I am asking all of us who love to read, to write, and to speak and listen to get back to the heart of what we love about being English teachers.

via GIPHY

It is well known that English teachers carry the unfair, unbalanced burden of too much grading. Our standards are vast: we shoulder the weight of teaching all students how to communicate clearly and well in the English language, a language fraught with peculiarities and nonsensical rules, more broken than adhered to. Our scores (along with math teachers and sometimes science) are “counted.” During staff meetings and data carousels, the reading and math scores are displayed on metaphorical pikes for all to see, judge often under the pretense of “growth.” Administration are pressed to raise scores, and if they are truly instructional leaders they promote a school-wide approach. If not, they turn the data walks into fuel for petty discourse and grudges.

While we can’t excuse all of the grading, because we are the expert in the classroom, and our feedback and insight is ultimately what our students desire, I am offering some alternatives to lessen the burden. However, if you are one of those for whom control is more important than your students’ learning, I don’t have a lot of hope. Please –with love-ask yourself if it’s about control versus guidelines.

Consider:

Writing Workshop.
Please: Do not let students read each other’s work. This is not about finding spelling mistakes or misused comma. The reading of the piece is a critical part of this, as is the listening, undistracted, by the feedback giver. The writer reads the work. Follow this protocol for some truly inspired writing experiences. https://mrskellylove.com/2019/07/31/writers-workshop/

Studio: my personal teaching philosophy is that teaching of humanities should be more like teaching art: help the talent grow and guide, but remember art is subjective > objective. If the creator can defend his or her work, allow them to make a case for it. Display students’ work as often as you can, and provide chances for open gallery feedback and discussion.

Single-Point Rubrics
Jennifer Gonzalez has a great post that my own master mentor and friend, Holly, suggested to me years ago. Great ideas do that: they spread, sharpen, and improve. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/

Don’t grade everything.
Pick one or two larger pieces of work. Give small check-in grades for progress along the way:
1. Pre-write
2. Draft
3. One revision pass
4. One editing pass
5. Final published work

Do not assign reading logs. Alternative: assign curated content. (Are your students checking up on your and your reading logs? It’s not much fun when we think about it that way.)

Speaking: give students a chance to talk, and you can provide an accountability piece if they share something that’s on their minds.

Listening: Read aloud. Play author’s interviews and speeches. Listen in workshop.

Calendars and Conversations: do not work in isolation, if you can help it, and reach out to colleagues to see if they’re giving assignments that can be cross-purposed. Make sure to help students with time management (Pomodoro method, etc.)

but…mah deadlines!

Deadlines do matter, but I offer that we take a version of ‘love and logic’ about deadlines. English teachers: make a promise to yourself and your students: if they miss a deadline do not offer sarcastic responses. We had a saying in the Puget Sound Writing Project: “Writing is never finished, it’s only due.” Tell students ahead of time that deadlines matter for everyone’s peace of mind and self-care, theirs and the teacher’s. Getting it done and something turned in gives everyone a place to start the feedback and discussion. I would tell students, if you turn in nothing, I am like the fire department: I don’t know if you’re drowning or if you’re on fire. I need to know how to help. There was always the last week of grading where I gave a small window to turn in missing/late work, or redo-work. Some kids took me up on it, some didn’t. Some…couldn’t. I think as we learn more about depression and other trauma we will have new means of helping students with deadlines. And, since we’ve been testing our students since kindergarten, not allowing free play time, we are facing a generation of students who do not know how to self-manage. We’re seeing more anger, violence and disruptions, and the solution seems to be keep kids in the classroom, and we’ll solve the root causes later. But that’s a post for another time.

via GIPHY

We have our jobs to do, and putting in grades and accounting for production is deeply embedded in our educational systems. Until that changes, or we make adjustments where we can, we are going to become increasingly burnt-out. We can be creative and thoughtful about this process, and above all: respectful. Modeling both self-respect and respect for our students will create a safer, gentler community of readers and writers. And who knows? They just might meet their deadlines.

Two additional resources:

Georgia’s Math Teachers Need to Know the Pacing Guide is Ableist

https://www.middleweb.com/31398/rick-wormeli-the-right-way-to-do-redos/

“Your relationship with language is your freedom.” Jason Reynolds

“It took me a long time to understand how much literacy affected my life.”

Jason Reynolds

Please forgive the sound and editing quality of this video. I tried to add titles on some of the key moments of Jason Reynold’s ideas. He showed the students and staff pure love that day, pure truth, and I am forever grateful to Kristin Sierra for working for over two years to bring him to our area.

My only regret is that I assumed I could use part of the $1500 budget awarded to me and my students this year and use $350 of it to take my students. Still a little bitter about that, and I pray there will be a ‘next time.’ Hopefully my students will watch this shaky video, and know I love them, too, and hear his words and message.

When I was getting two of my personal copies of Long Way Down signed, he mentioned he wants to go to more alternative high schools. I said, well…sure enough…that’s where I am now…so maybe…just maybe…