In a Facebook group whose mission is to discuss anti-racism and equity issues (one of about a thousand of these groups) a member asked if it’s “okay to compliment an accent.”
My short answer was “no.” She was not satisfied with this. I told her I would research it further, but my first response comes from being an ELA/ELL teacher, and complimenting someone’s accent or dialect may make them feel singled out, “other” ness. It may discourage students who speak one or more languages other than English, and while they’re working on English will feel self-conscious.
And I am wondering why I am still so irked. Why wasn’t it enough for me to say “no?” The reason is because when a white person doesn’t get the answer they want, it takes a trajectory of time (confirmation bias strength) and friction (cognitive dissonance). She wanted to continue her behavior. I get it. I still like to tell students they’re amazing, beautiful, smart, loyal friends, courageous, and creative. When we’ve done pop-up toasts as a class and they need to speak to/about other students, it’s my honor to help them find ways to compliment one another that’s healthy, loving and profound.
Further Reading:
Note: even the word “microaggression” sounds like “small racism.” They’re aggressions.
“And maybe, just maybe I don’t want to tell you where I’m from because I might look at this country as being my home. I’ve worked hard to become part of your world. And I love it here.”
We’re not a football family in our house. And like many areas of fandom, it’s okay–no judgment on those who love football, and as far as we know we aren’t judged by others. Wouldn’t matter. So forgive me for not knowing who Emmanuel Acho is. Turns out, he’s pretty amazing! And I am so grateful for other media formats who bring people such as him into my life and help me learn.
And I am an ELA/ELL teacher; however, full disclosure, I was not an English major in college. Most of what I learned about mechanics, style guides, and conventions I relearned and created lessons while teaching. My next question is what are the current grammarians and style guide writers determining about the capitalization of Black and White. Here’s what I’ve found:
The National Association of Black Journalists does not capitalize Black in its publications, including the NABJ Style Guide. Many of the terms related to Black and White people in The Diversity Style Guide come from 100 Questions & Answers About African Americans. The team that put together that guide decided to capitalize Black and White, according to editor Joe Grimm. After much research and consideration, the editor of The Diversity Style Guide elected to capitalize Black and White when used in a racial context, but most would say it’s not incorrect to lowercase those words.
However, when words labeling an entire people are at the root of a language dispute, that’s reason enough to seek direction outside of our usual resources, especially if the resources are outdated. If your editorial directive is to call people what they want to be called—including names, pronouns, and labels—then look to Black media outlets like Ebony and Essence for accepted usage and avoid overriding their terminology. By capitalizing black and white, we also make necessary distinctions between color and race—black hair and Black hair—similar to distinguishing between native and Native. Don’t wait for your style guide to catch up, because it’s waiting for you to demonstrate sufficient usage.
We believe that it is important to call attention to White as a race as a way to understand and give voice to how Whiteness functions in our social and political institutions and our communities. Moreover, the detachment of “White” as a proper noun allows White people to sit out of conversations about race and removes accountability from White people’s and White institutions’ involvement in racism. We are also reckoning with the threatening implications of capitalizing “W” in “White,” often used by White supremacists, to establish White racial dominance. The violence of capitalizing White in this context makes us grapple with the history of how Whiteness has functioned and thrived in the United States; acknowledging that, yes, White people have had power and still hold power in this country. While we condemn those who capitalize “W” for the sake of evoking violence, we intentionally capitalize “White” in part to invite people, and ourselves, to think deeply about the ways Whiteness survives—and is supported both explicitly and implicitly.
Language is powerful, and oftentimes I think ELA teachers don’t teach the true power of capitalization, punctuation and syntax. Because it “wasn’t on the test” we spent the past 14 years teaching to a test that uses excerpts like out-of-context entrails on an autopsy slab. I am going to call on my other experts on history and language to ask their thoughts. I will and do capitalize Black when referring to race, and have been using lower case “w” for white people. My instinctual response was because capitalizing the “w” felt like a nod for white supremacy. However, CSSP makes a strong case. (No pun intended.) Language is ever-evolving and shifting, sometimes for honest, descriptive and precise communication and sometimes for nefarious and subtextual racist communication. This article was written in 2015 by the Columbia Journalism Review: I think we can all agree that we need to be mindful of language and do our best to stay current and mind the impact.
And also, ELA teachers, be especially mindful of your use of Martin Luther King’s, Jr. works.
Every “y’all lost us with the word ‘defund,’” go read A Letter from A Birmingham Jail.
Every “y’all lost us with the word ‘abolition,’ go read some Sojourner Truth & Frederick Douglass.
It is possible-and necessary- to evolve on these things.
Literally. Go read.
— brittany packnett cunningham does not do remixes. (@MsPackyetti) June 14, 2020
AP has changed its writing style guide to capitalize the “b” in the term Black when referring to people in a racial, ethnic or cultural context, weighing in on a hotly debated issue. https://t.co/yeigYh9GWU
Be centered on what matters to you.
Just wanted to capture a wonderful chat I stumbled onto–good ideas and inspiring to focus on what matters. And: I want to share with students that teachers walk the walk–we want our students to love their reading and writing lives as much as we do.
Starting the countdown for our 2nd twitter chat! Join us on July 18 to chat about independent reading. Can’t wait to see you there! #VATEchatpic.twitter.com/2oORhyXakw
A few ways students respond to 📚: artwork, poetry, letters to characters, letters to authors, alternate endings, rewriting scenes from different POV, etc. Goal: demonstrate thinking without killing ❤️ of the book! #vatechat
A4 #vatechat all of us need to be centered in what matters to us, what choices we make with our texts/media: respecting students’ rights to choice is the most successful approach for me
Sometimes we teachers may grow cynical about the ‘career and college’ ready mission statement. It’s not hard to see why: when our nation voted gave corporations the same voting rights as human beings we knew we were in deep trouble. To avoid that rabbit hole, I’ll just say this: we still work, and one of our jobs as teachers is to show students the opportunities and pathways so they can make the work-life decisions for themselves with the best and rigorous information.
And a secret to all this is — not all work is bad. Far from it. Modeling passion and personal engagement in our work lives is part of the mix of building relationships with students: when we point to the purpose of learning, the foundational piece comes from us. Establish our own engagement, purpose and love of our time in the workplace.
We were the nation of innovators and dream makers. We were envied the world over for our ability to create, for ingenuity and puppy-like enthusiasm. I am not sure we are that now, with a few exceptions (looking at you, Elon Musk). And I pin my hopes on the next generation of thinkers, inventors, writers, artists, and designers on helping students communicate and build the skills necessary to work together in order to solve problems.
The work I’m doing in the WABS/STEM Fellowship program and the PLU ELL Endorsement is guiding my thinking: I wanted to share some ideas from STEM group in terms of project/collaboration/employability rubrics:
Developed by industry leaders
Some ‘soft skills’ to look for when students are engaged in collaboration
Teaching critical thinking skills is not an option. It never was, but seemed to be kept for the elite or college-bound.
One cannot teach a skill in isolation. It cannot be a stand-alone, one-off concept. Skills must always ALWAYS be connected to a bigger understanding and knowledge building. Silo teaching “may help teachers, but does nothing to help students.” It’s imperative to make the distinction between the skill, its assessment, mastery and its application.
One question you might have is: “How do you apply these new ways of teaching to the standards?” There are many topics that can be taught by showing the interrelation and complexity of issues while still teaching the fundamentals and linking to the standards. A key topic in the 21st century is water. This is a challenge that our children will certainly have to face. The topic of water does not fall under just history, science, math, political science or economics — it falls under all of them. As recently as 2012, The Economist2 wrote a special report entirely on water. Why not prepare students now for problems with complexity?
But I cannot explain my abstract pedagogy to others sometimes. That I have the expertise, the volume of work — units, lessons, ideas, texts, etc. I don’t speak the same language, and it gets lost in translation.
But allow me to strive for clarity: skills are critical to teach. The direct instruction of teaching even the deceptively simple task of finding a central idea cannot be separated from content. But it is our job as ELA teachers to teach and assess the skill, and then by grace, goodwill, or sheer determination the other content area teachers will understand it’s not optional.
Someone asked me a fantastic question today, and asked specifically what and how I teach ‘central idea.’ I have many lessons for this, but I couldn’t answer, because my instruction evolves with new information and learning all the time. It’s like trying to pinpoint the moment where a snake decided to become a skink.
oh hai der
After careful study and reading, my interpretation:
My apologies: the gravitas that this post demands slipped past me. It’s still summer, after all. I have one more week, kind of, sort of, but not really.
Here’s where I landed:
The work of a PLC is to focus, with laser intensity, a few things and teach them exceptionally well. Preferences and bias for instruction matter only in the instance of what do they do when they ‘get it’ and when they don’t. And it all matters. My life as a reader and writer serves my students well. It provides authenticity. Someone else’s choice of text is just that: their choice.
I cannot teach without the support and collaboration from other content areas. I cannot teach in isolation. The compelling urgency to make connections and allow for talk lightens the shadows and the burden.
A mentor said to me years ago that their grades can’t be more important to me than they are to them. I finally really understand that now. It’s not about ‘accountability’ or ‘responsibility’ –two words that are used as code for ‘lazy’ and ‘poverty problems.’
It is my job to make the learning important to one and all because it is their life.
In addition to short films, commercials can be another valuable asset. Many commercials live on multiple places on Bloom’s Taxonomy, and certainly any argumentative reading and writing unit worth its salt contains at least one or two commercials to support a conversation about pathos, ethos, and logos.
I just found this site this morning. This first ad can bring up so many relatable conversation points. To quote John Spencer,
“What’s so odd is that people have been creating art, writing letters, and talking about their food for years. Museums are filled with foodies and selfie shots. We just call them “still lifes” and “self-portraits.” The whole, “don’t miss the moment” mindset fails to recognize that it’s a deeply human need to capture and create precisely because we don’t want to forget it.”
So perhaps a contrast discussion — show a selfie and a self portrait, and ask students to discuss the possible purposes of the artist, or artistic intent. A conversation about pace, too — the speed of creation and its perceived value (in the moment and over time). I can honestly say that my photo albums are my life. One project this summer is to scan everything and save it to multiple places. (But I still have time…right?!)
A word of caution: advertisements intended for European markets do not have the same ratings codes as in the States. Seriously — watch everything first if you think it looks like something you want to use in the classroom.
The intent of “Talk Tuesdays” was twofold: to use the readings/texts in a purposeful way, and invite students to think about discussion, and practice.
Well, that is the intent, and we all know about roads paved, etc. But I think I became too distracted or mired in the concept of ‘accountable talk.’ I’m not sure if you know my connotative negative bias toward the word ‘accountable’ when it comes to students. Accountable talk is a buzzkill idea. There. I said it. However, sometimes students think it’s going to be a free-for-all talk fest, and, well, sometimes it is. And that’s okay. I would rather have things turn more raucous than censored.
But somehow, and I’m speaking purely for myself, putting the descriptor ‘accountable’ on anything makes it taste like educational cardboard. If we start thinking about what are real purpose is, what we want students to be engaged, and even enchanted by, is sharing ideas in a passionate, “oh oh oh!!” way–and it’s okay if not everyone is excited about every topic. I know I’m not, and that honesty with students helps them know that sometimes they are not as emotionally invested in a topic as others.
Key ingredients exist in any interesting conversation:
An emotional stake (personal connection and empathy)
Ambiguous, essential questions that have kaleidoscope viewpoints
Allowances to shift or pivot with new information (see my substantive form)
Metacognition: understanding one self in order to monitor and assess how important the topic or theme is to one personally; extrapolate to a larger scale
There are multiple pathways for discussion, too:
Socratic Seminars
Town Hall meetings
Turn and Talk
Writing Workshop (next post)
Think, Pair, Share
About a thousand others (dang my hyperbole!)
The trick is to make sure students are listening, and having a chance with their say. It can come in the form of real talk, or on a class discussion board, etc. Two strategies I use are what I call the “ambassador of the table” idea. Whether or not I choose or they choose, there is an ambassador from each group who shares out what the group has said. Also, if it’s a small partner group of 2 to 3, each person has to share what the other said, and it’s always paraphrased. The person who is not speaking can then agree or repudiate what their partner interpreted.
This morning I promised myself not to touch either hand-held device, my cell phone or i-Pad, for at least five hours today. So far, so good. Lately I’ve acquired the odd habit of setting up arbitrary goals for myself, little mind games where only I know the rules. For example, in June, I told myself ‘no beer for a year.’ I really like beer, and though not trying to punish myself, just wanted to see if I could do it. Last night it got a little tricky because all I wanted to do was go out for a beer and nachos with my hubby, and instead we went through Dairy Queen drive-through and I traded a beer for a Peanut Buster Parfait. I have about one to two of those a year, so I guess I met my quota. Dang, it’s only July, too.
The other goal I set for myself was to try to do Camp NaNoWrMo. It’s July 7, and that means 6 days of only blog writing, which “doesn’t count.” All that’s happened is I am acutely aware that I haven’t written any drafts of fictional substance for months, and I’m overthinking everything. Too distracted, too grumpy, too much caffeine and not enough water. Focus, woman! Focus!
This post is born of the fantastic Facebook pages/groups I’m honored to be in, specifically Notice & Note. Subscribers/members tend to post two types of questions: ‘What are some good text suggestions for X age group/Y skill or literary device,’ and ‘Does anyone have any suggestions on how to track student growth?’ I’ve already explored my plans for The Book Whisperer’s ideas, and am very excited about the how/why.
Now for the ‘what.’
I can’t read anymore. If a real, paper and bone book is in my hands, I have misplaced my reading glasses, or the light’s too far away, or I can’t get comfortable. If the text is on my Kindle, no problem, except something is kind of broken right now in my reader brain. Perhaps the paradox of choice is hitting me. I have too many unread books. Or perhaps it’s related to the ideas in this article, Why Can’t We Read Anymore by Hugh McGuire . And now I realize when I was gaming too much or flitting between devices, my brain seduced my actions with dopamine:
So, every new email you get gives you a little flood of dopamine. Every little flood of dopamine reinforces your brain’s memory that checking email gives a flood of dopamine. And our brains are programmed to seek out things that will give us little floods of dopamine. Further, these patterns of behaviour start creating neural pathways, so that they become unconscious habits: Work on something important, brain itch, check email, dopamine, refresh,dopamine, check Twitter, dopamine, back to work. Over and over, and each time the habit becomes more ingrained in the actual structures of our brains.
How can books compete?
Well, this blunt and honest conversation will take place at the beginning of my school year with students, that is what digitalization has done to their brains. All of our brains. Last year, my students who were readers were the ones who tended not to have a lot of television or screen time (remember those hippie parents, back in the day? Who didn’t have TVs? I gasped in bewildered horror anytime I came across a situation like that.)
Is the same thing happening to (other) teachers? Are teachers just not reading as much as they used to, grabbing a few YA novels or short stories, and curating them for themselves? Or it is just a means to share tried and true texts with one another? Probably the latter. But there may be some instances where it’s the former, or perhaps I’m projecting my own failings.
I have my list of books/stories to share. I have an extensive classroom library, both hard copy and digital. There are apps and sites galore to help teachers find texts. There are news outlets, story sites, like This American Life, Storycorp,The Moth, Radiolab, etc. to explore, to name a few. It would take a lifetime to read or listen to all the infinite stories. Sites like Artifact App and CommonLit help educators ask the essential questions to guide reading, too. And there are still libraries, with real librarians, who love nothing more than to talk and share ideas about texts. But that involves getting out of my bathrobe and the house. Hmmm. Tough call. (Oh, like you’ve never hung out in your robe until 1PM on summer break!)
So what are we teachers looking for when we ask others about text suggestions? We’re looking the same things as when we recommend books to other adults. We want something relevant, that may speak to us, that we can find some universal truth, or help us connect. And this is where the digital dopamine can’t help us: texts, be they on the screen or paper, give us a much more powerful sensation than digital ones. Helping students understand these important brain functions will help them understand when a person hurts them on line, it feels real because our brains don’t know the difference. We want to share stories, and that drive gives me hope, for my students, and for myself.
I am reading books now more than I have in years. I have more energy, and more focus than I’ve had for ages. I have not fully conquered my digital dopamine addiction, though, but it’s getting there. I think reading books is helping me retrain my mind for focus.
While on the hunt for great texts, I plan on using my powers of digital organization and keep track, make a list, and add notes. But for the moment, I’m just going to make a sandwich.
From the outset, I’ll say that though I don’t feel any grand accomplishment in compiling emails by name and then hitting the delete key en masse, I do sometimes need this mindless activity. Every minute of our waking hours shouldn’t be constructed as ‘productive.’ To me that is such a Puritan-Western-worker-bee mindset. However, these studies offer important ideas around the time thievery of email, and caution us all in terms of what is productive and counter-productive. Communication and its value is subjective, however: what we send in those emails is just as important as how much time they take. Would banning emails in a school for a time period help with both teacher and student productivity, and more importantly: would it help with creativity and communication? Is it even feasible to consider this?
From the article, ‘Some Companies Are Banning Email and Getting More Done’ by David Burkus
They continued the “no-email” condition for five days, continued to observe the participants, track their computer usage, and measure their heart rates. Participants began to communicate face-to-face and over the telephone more frequently. Most participants also spent significantly more time in each computer program that they used, suggesting that they were much less distracted. Judging by heart rates, participants also experienced significantly less stress when blocked from email. The participants even noticed this effect themselves. They consistently reported feeling more relaxed and focused, as well as more productive, with their email shut off than under normal working conditions.
I’ve been using Moodle, and now Canvas, for years. Canvas is superior to Moodle, and it is my wish we continue to use this platform. One of its advantages (and there is another side to this sword) is students can upload just about any assignment during a time frame, allowing teachers to monitor progress in real time. When it’s done, it’s done. It provides a message to them and there are no papers to lose or blame to be thrown. However, the disadvantage is if I close an assignment and give it a hard deadline, inevitably there will be students who can’t or didn’t turn it in, see the grade in the grading system, panic, and then email it to me. So now I have another digital record. I try to be patient about this. If I need to ‘open’ the assignment again, I will, but then I have stragglers who turn things in and have to explain I’ll do another grade sweep when it’s convenient for me. I try my best to keep within a two-week turn around. So, I am managed by the online management systems.
Next year I am considering a ban from students in emails, and banning or limiting myself in how often I check emails. But this cultural professional shift can’t reside from me, it must come from administration. We need our emails to be accessible at all times in a school environment for safety reasons. But there are some personal rules I can create to help my own definition of success or productivity.
*The emails I generate are short. If it’s longer than a paragraph, then I will just email the stakeholders when they’re available to talk in person.
*Make sure subject lines are informative and direct
*Check before school, after school, during planning. Period.
The tasks where I want to be more productive include student feedback. If emails and other ‘low-value tasks’ are taking away energy then I’m doing it wrong. Student feedback is key, and that’s the first order of business.
Any thoughts on this process or information? I’d love to hear them!
All over social media my colleagues post ‘hang in there!’ Or, ‘is it a full moon?’ kinds of posts. Spring break for our district (and my son’s) occurred the first week of April, and we have quite a ways to go. In the Love shack, we have our own things going on: three years ago we managed to get our older son through his senior year, and now it’s time for our younger son, and it’s a{…………….} time and experience.
Daniel and his friend Nate at my school, job shadowing teachers. My son would be an amazing teacher, and I hope he considers this path. (Daniel is the one in the Seahawks sweatshirt.)
In addition to our personal lives, which always seem to go off the crazy train rails this time of year, we’re so focused on student learning, testing, classroom management, data collection, etc. we may be overlooking a key element to unnecessary stress, and that is stress from other colleagues. So this morning, I poured myself a large cup of magical coffee (see Exhibit A) and decided to collect my thoughts on stress, colleagues, and collegial relationships. My first order of business: don’t be a jerk.
Exhibit A: magical beans
So how do we cause each other stress? Well, it all depends. We may have long-standing philosophical differences that start to rub raw this time of year, or projects and collaborations that fall apart (group work doesn’t always work for adults, either). There may be personal grudges, or simply someone flat-out doesn’t like us. (And young padawan, that’s completely cool.) Dealing with one’s own or others’ overt or hidden mental illnesses shadow and taint our own reflective and critical thinking capacities: if we’re worried how something we say or do may be misconstrued, work and flow become mired down and muddy. These ideas are intended to keep me on track, try to be the best teacher and colleague I can until the year’s over. (And then I can be a jerk again?)
Disclaimer: I write for myself. If anything I say resonates with others, so be it. Writing is my therapy and helps my process and reflection. Think of it as advice columns for oneself.
How to Get to Summer In One Piece:
Embrace the monster: if you see your inner demons taking up residence, acknowledge them, and ask them to hold tight until the end of June. Monsters and inner demons are notoriously impatient and guaranteed they will disappear by then.//giphy.com/embed/11GmblfBjrA3gAvia GIPHY
2. Use your defense mechanisms wisely, or let them go entirely. You don’t need to shoot blood out of your eye or slime someone, as Sir Texas Horned Toad, or Lady Hagfish, you just need to make sure you’re not being a doormat or conceding or capitulating too quickly. Process and breathe. (Although that blood-eye thing would come in handy. What a cool writing prompt: what animal defensive mechanism super-power would you choose?)
One of my dear friends told me years ago my life lesson would be ‘patience.’ Thinking back and realizing I most likely had ADD then, (and learned coping strategies on my own), this may have been well-intended advice but not exactly doable for me. Patience sometimes feels like unnecessary waiting, but there’s a difference between considering points of view waiting and waiting passively to be trampled on. If instincts create a flight/fight response, something might be up, spidey senses tingling and all that:t tap into that patience thing now.
4. Or…Don’t be mindful: escape. Last night after a weird week with Bizarro-World events, I and my husband watched a movie or two, and I played with our puppy. Lovely.
This was taken a few weeks ago, and I love the joy–
4. Play your way. Clearly if others are doing their best to drag you into their mind games, change the rules. Take your ball and go home. If this happens, you’re not being petulant or punitive, it’s really okay to go. Ever watch kids play a board game, and there’s that one kid who bosses everyone, changes the rules to suit the game-play, and flips the board if things aren’t going their way? It happens with adults, too, only much more subtly.
5. Be around people who love you, no matter what.
My boys and my mom from a past trip: trying to plan for a summer road trip as I type…
6. Look at something beautiful, create something beautiful.
If stress from colleagues is like a pebble in your shoe, stop and take out the pebble. If you’re working in a toxic environment, you may need other allies or support. It might not be your destiny to clean it but get out of the way so others can. And be honest: are you the one causing the stress? Or you contributing to the drama? Dang: are you the pebble?! Well, if you can honestly say you’re operating with integrity and attempting with every best effort to act with empathy and maintain dignity for yourself and others, then no. You’re the rock. (Get it?)
Personally, I love my job. I’m having a fantastic year: my students are doing amazing work, it’s a blast teaching Humanities, and we’re all thriving. My own confidence is bolstered from last year, where I, and others, were on the precipice of jumping from panic and not from pride. Reminding myself I am good at many things, still have a lot to learn, and some colleagues find my friendship and professional collaborations useful is valuable. It’s okay to own the good things about ourselves, even if others are actively trying to tear us down. We are on our own adventures, and everyone’s got stuff on their minds and weighing on their hearts.
I need to remind myself to be kind, be patient, and do good work, and see it through. My younger son is my focus now, and my students. Honoring their hard work and growth are my core beliefs, not a game.
