"Why Is That Child So Rude"

Recently I read the article, "Why is that Child so Rude" by Beth Lindsay Templeton. The basis of the article centers around teachers assumptions about the fund of knowledge students have. It is easy to assume that all students should be operating with similar experiences because they are similar age and live in a similar area. But really every student and their experiences are so vast and varied that you cannot assume that any child has the same fund of knowledge as any other student.

This article reminded me a lot of the principals of Culturally Responsive Teaching. Basically CRT challenges teachers to teach students how and why to code switch while at school because everyone's home life and social expectations are different.

Trust

"You have to earn my trust". How many times have you heard or said that phrase? I don't think it's possible for me to count the number of times I have heard that phrase before. I used to say that to my students, but upon reflection, I think that doesn't work well in the classroom. If you tell a kid you have to earn my trust you are basically saying "listen, I don't trust you".  Do you ever actually allow students to earn your trust? But how? How do I know if they will work productively in the hallway if I never give them the opportunity to try? What if it doesn't go well one time? They are just never allowed to work in the hallway again because one time they were a shady cat?

The hard thing about trust is that students have to trust you or they aren't going to learn from you. The burden of trust is really on our shoulders as educators, not the other way around. I need to earn their trust... they already have mine.

"Teacher Shortage"

Peter Green, a contributing author at Forbes Magazine published an article earlier this year titled "We Need To Stop Talking About The Teacher Shortage".  The article talks about the fact that there isn't actually a teacher shortage. My favorite line from the article is "We need to stop calling it a teacher shortage. You can't solve a problem starting with the wrong diagnosis. If I can't buy a Porsche for $1.98, that doesn't mean there's an automobile shortage. If I can't get a fine dining meal for a buck, that doesn't mean there's a food shortage".

I remember this article circling around the internet being shared by my teacher friends and non-teacher friends alike. People outside of education often ask the question "If you aren't satisfied with your job and its pay... why don't you just get a new job?" In terms of being an ethical educator, I just don't think it's that simple. I worry all the time if I don't do this job and take care of these kids... who will?

Rock in My Shoe

I think if you ask any teacher why they became a teacher the answers you would get would all be similar. When I reflect on the reasons I myself went into teaching I think about how much I love to help people. The largest rock in my shoe is the entire education system and how difficult it is to get students help. I, a professional educator, should be able to say I have a student that needs more support than I can provide them in my classroom, how can we support this student in other ways? Instead, I am asked how I have differentiated for the student, have I called home, have I tried an intervention?

The red tape and established processes that make it difficult to identify students with special needs that aren't currently diagnosed is so disheartening that it makes me question if this job is really for me.

Holiday Fun

The day before Christmas Break this year I played Scrabble with all of my students. Last trimester I needed a buffer day between two units and I ended up teaching them how to play Scrabble. What I thought would be a super easy and fun day in my classroom turned into a day where I literally worked up a sweat trying to help all of them play. Having 6 different games happening at once was a little crazier than I planned. 

What I learned was that my students have very little experience playing board games. This shocked me because I grew up loving (and still do) board games. Every holiday I would force my family to play everything from cribbage to mouse trap. 

My hopes and dreams for this activity was for it to get better than the first time we played. We talk a lot about growth mindset and I told them prior to starting to play that we are just trying to be better Scrabble players, not expert Scrabble players. In order to assist my students, I shared a scrabble dictionary on their iPads that they could use to check if a word was a word while they were waiting for their turns. This led to some really awesome conversations about words and what they meant (it made my nerd heart very happy). 

I hope to someday be able to play Scrabble with my students without everyone googling words on their iPads. But I think that will take more practice. 

Active Encouragement

I have previously written about my newly found faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian religion and when I read the prompt for this assignment about something that has served as active encouragement for personal and/or professional growth, I couldn't help but to think about that as my catalyst. I have been impacted personally and professionally because of my faith. Personally, I spend a lot less time worrying and more time thanking God for what I have. I struggle with anxiety and since I have started attending church regularly the negative thoughts and feelings have really subsided. Professionally I have seen a change in myself in how I handle meetings and conflicts. I used to get really upset over little things and now I think I have a better understanding of what is in my control and what is not.

Everything really comes down to balance which is why I suspect we are reading this book. If the spiritual side of your life isn't in check it throws everything else off. When things are aligned EVERY part of your life is better.

Gratitude

To say I am full of gratitude to my 7th grade Language Arts Team is an understatement. These ladies teach me so much every single day. They also keep me grounded and help me process through everything from my feelings to dealing with tough students. Together we make up a powerful team that is 100% FTK. I think one of the reasons I am most grateful for them is that we are always pushing each other to be better.

Teachers work with our heads, heart, hands, and souls.

It’s interesting to think about the notion of working with my hands, head, heart, and soul. I think the most obvious one is working with my heart. It would be impossible to do what we do without using so much of our heart. For this year they are our children, we care for them as we would care for our own children. I think working with our soul relates really closely to working with our heart. We glow with pride when they do awesome things and our heart hurts when they are struggling. We carry them, and their successes and failures around with us.

The easiest way to explain how I work with my head is to explain that when I am teaching I am constantly evaluating how thing are going and making decisions based on the evaluations. I always have a plan, but that plan is constantly changing in my head as the lesson is going on.

Working with my hands is harder to explain. In middle school teachers don’t touch kids. But there are times when a kids needs a hug and you give a kid a hug and you can feel them just releasing all of their pent up tension and frustration.

Change as Collaborative Inquiry

1.     What information from the article did you connect with the most and why?

·       “Most approaches to systemic education reform are rooted in obsolete, top-down, or expert-driven management beliefs and practices that reflect either what we know about how people learn nor what we have to understand about how organizations change”. I read this and was just like wow… yes that is exactly how it is. I think a lot of time the people in education don’t have power to change things in education, rather it is people outside of the organization, with no prior teaching experience that are making the decisions that impact all of us.  

2.     Thinking of your own school community, what are the issues and concerns regarding school improvement? How are these addressed with the administration and staff? What can you and other staff members do to work towards a more collaborative constructivist approach towards improvement?

·       One of the biggest issues that we are working on for school improvement is to adjust our school schedule in a way that allows students to have both band/choir and a study hall. Currently, students who choose to take band and choir are taken out of study hall. We have many students leave band/choir because they want that homework time and it kind of undervalues how important we think music is. This issue was brought up by our SIT team (School Improvement Team). The SIT team is a volunteer committee made up of teachers and administrators that works to improve the school.

3.     How do you see the action research you do in your classroom supporting adaptation and process of change?

·       The action research project is all about adaptation and the process of change. It is looking at a problem, adapting your curriculum, and changing how my students are learning.

My motto - FTK

My motto in teaching is FTK (for the kids). I first heard Erin Thompson use this phrase in a meeting when she was trying to convince our very stubborn 7th grade staff to plan something special for the last day of school instead of going on our usual field trip to como zoo. She said "come on you guys I know the last day olympics would be more work... but it's for the kids". Since then, it is really something that has stuck for many of the young teachers in the building. The reason I use it so frequently is because kids are at the center of why I teach. I didn't become a middle school english teacher because I am super passionate about reading and writing. I am super passionate about kids! And giving them the skills to read and write well in our literate world.

We use this phrase as a way to call each other out when we are getting burned out or thinking about making decisions. Everything we do should be FTK and if it's not... whats the point?

Radical LEAP

When I was thinking about the qualities of LEAP the one that I personally think is the most important is to cultivate love. When I was reflecting on a leader that radiates love the person that kept popping into my head was Rita. Several times a year our school admin team plays us the same video of Rita Pierson talking about how kids need a champion. If you haven't seen it - here's a link! She really embraces this idea that all you have to do is love kids.