Today was the first day of our school start up. Our district has been involved in job action for the past five weeks so we all hit the ground running (or should I say it hit us??). After three months out of the classroom I felt reflective at the end of today. I work with some of the most compassionate hard-working people on the planet. I have always said that no one can understand what it's like to be a teacher until you are one. What still surprises me (although it shouldn't) is the number of times in a day I have a teacher say to me .... "so I was just thinking about this child", or "last night I came up with a plan for..". This always makes me smile. So many teachers live and breathe this job. They take their students home with them (figuratively not literally) and so often are constantly thinking of ways to make their lives better. This is just one of the many reasons I love my job. This morning I was surrounded by all of our school's returning students and I was struck by the enormity of my job. We, as teachers, help shape these little peoples' lives and we get to help create their sense of themselves as a learner. Like almost all school startups there was chaos as we determined who was here and who wasn't. I was tackled by parents in the halls who just wanted to quickly tell me about their special child, listened to a million students tell me about their summers and dried tears for those that were anxious to start. I even attempted to communicate with a new little fellow who speaks zero English but whose smile spoke volumes as we danced to "Happy" in the assembly. Today, although I truly feel like there is not enough coffee in the world to help me stay awake to do all that needs to be done, I will go to bed happy and grateful for a job that is so rewarding. I look so forward to the year ahead and can't wait to see all that it holds.
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By virtue of the fact that I am a learning assistance teacher, I am in constant contact with parents and frequently other members of the community. While all of this contact is meaningful and necessary, it is focused on individual students, their caregivers and other individuals who are invested in that particular child. It is not looking at fostering links between the school or classroom as a whole and the community in which we are found but rather at enabling individual students to reach their full potential in school. Important, yes, but not exactly what I think was meant by "meaningful involvement of the community in the learning in my classroom".
However, Kristi and I have big plans in this department. We really want to engage our school community (and hopefully others too!) in fostering a love of literacy. To this end, we plan to start a Twitter, Facebook and Instagram campaign which will involve parents, grandparents, students, teachers and anyone else who cares to participate. Because we haven't launched it at our school, I am hesitant to post too many details here quite yet. Suffice it to say that it will involve photography, student writing and journalism and a few prizes thrown in here and there to keep the kids involved. Knowing how we operate, once we get rolling it will be difficult to stop us! We also plan to host a couple of literacy nights to help parents help their students at home and regular tips and tricks in the newsletter to help them out as well. Keep your eye on this blog and my Twitter feed for more information about our love of literacy project - we would love to have as many people involved as possible! Shouldn't be long before we've got it up and running... There is a lot of talk in education these days about building your PLN (personal learning network) but, to be honest, I'm not sure that I've ever actually seen that term defined. I did a little digging tonight and here's what I came up with (gotta love Wikipedia!):
"A personal learning network is an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment. In a PLN, a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection...Learners create connections and develop a network that contributes to their professional development and knowledge. The learner does not have to know these people personally or ever meet them in person." By that definition my PLN is a multi-headed beast consisting of both virtual contacts and real-life contacts, scattered both near and far. In the virtual world, there are many educators that I follow on Twitter and Facebook (as well as a number of blogs, but they generally have either a Twitter or Facebook presence with which I connect more readily). While I wouldn't say that I'm yet at the point where I would consider myself an integral part of a network, I am slowly working my way in from the periphery - thanks in large part to this blog challenge! I envy those who have clearly made lasting contacts (dare I say friends? Colleagues?) via Twitter but am still working on the time management piece - where do you people find the time for all of this?! The balancing act is certainly a difficult one for me... In the real world, my PLN consists of a number of educators whose teaching and opinions I respect and value. I have met them through a variety of avenues and each one of them challenges me on a regular basis to stretch myself and grow both in the classroom and out. Our communication may consist of e-mail a large part of the time but we are often gifted long stretches during which we can have deep, thoughtful and important conversations over a cup of tea. The more I think about it the more I realize that there probably isn't that much of a difference between my virtual PLN and my face-to-face PLN. Both challenge me to think about things in ways I might not have otherwise thought about them and push me to be a better educator. While I'm sure that, with time, I will get more and more out of my on-line PLN I'm not sure that it will ever be quite the same as a long meandering conversation over a nice hot cup of tea. Looking forward to checking out how others in my growing PLN view their own PLNs! Well, we're finally back to school! To celebrate, I want to share some books that are just great for back to school. I know that this may be a little late for some of you but they are still great books that can be shared at any time of the year. One Green Apple (Eve Bunting) is a beautifully written and illustrated exploration of the experiences of immigrant children in their new schools and countries. Told through the eyes of Farah, a young girl who speaks little English, it explores the thoughts and emotions that run through her head as she tries to understand a new language and a new culture. Not only wonderful for all of the connections some of your ELL students may make, it is also brilliant for transforming the thinking of your non-ELL students. Discussions stemming from this book will range from how to treat newcomers all the way up to a deeper understanding of the underlying similarities amongst all human experience. Truly a book for all ages. I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Patricia McCormick). I ordered enough copies of this book for Lit Circles and I am so excited about it! By now, Malala's story is well known - a young woman standing up for her right to an education is shot at point blank range and lives to tell about it. I firmly believe that we need to help our students develop an understanding of the world around them and provide them with the tools to think critically about the issues. Books like this one are an excellent vehicle to begin those discussions. I am really looking forward to those discussions! A personal connection - our school has been actively involved in fundraising for Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan since it was started by a young woman in a nearby school. A natural fit, don't you think? Priscilla and the Perfect Storm (Stephie McCumbee). Switching gears entirely here, this book (and it's associated activity guide) is a great one for teaching emotional intelligence. In this book, young Priscilla is a perfectionist who has a tendency to lose it if things don't go as planned, catching every one around her in one of her "perfect storms". Through some coaching from her mom, Priscilla learns to control her emotions and prevent the storms before they happen. Lots of learning to be had here, particularly for those little ones who have difficulty controlling their emotions. Would work really well with The Way I Feel and The Way I Act (Janan Cain; see Kristi's previous post here) to create series of lessons about managing your emotions. I can just imagine some of the fun role-playing that could be done! The Garden In My Mind: Growing Through Positive Choices (Stephie McCumbee). From the same author as Priscilla comes this book about making positive choices. I like the flower garden on your head analogy - "grass withers and flowers fade every time a bad choice is made - and the fact that it gives some concrete steps for making positive choices. The final message is also a great one as it encourages students to help one another build healthy, beautiful gardens in their minds. It is a bit long, so might have to be broken up for younger students but there are lots of activities (either ones you come up with yourself or in an accompanying activity guide) that can be done to help students work on their garden. I would pair this one with one of Julia Cook's amazing books (to be featured at a later date!) - It's Hard to Be A Verb, My Mouth is a Volcano and more (also published by Boys Town Press) - to create another series of lessons, this time focused more on controlling your behaviour, rather than your emotions. For everyone going back to school this week, we wish you the very best. It will feel so wonderful to be back working with the kids again!
The best teachers I know all share a part of themselves with their students. Whether it is a favourite sports team, a sport they love or a hobby they just can't get enough of, the parts of their lives that they share with their students make them more approachable and more authentic to their students.
It has taken me awhile to learn how to open up to my students. I'm not sure what I was afraid of - loss of privacy perhaps - but I have learned that sharing really is caring. If I am asking students to invest in a classroom community I must be willing to open up to them. For me, this has been easier since having kids; I love having pictures of my kids around at school and my students often ask about them, opening the door to all sorts of conversations about home life, family and various activities that we do at home. While I don't really have hobbies that I bring in to the classroom, I do try and share my passions for reading and active living with my students, both to inspire them and to share a little bit of myself with them. The more connected we can be, the better the learning environment will be. Disclaimer: I have been wine touring all day. It is my anniversary. This post will be as simple & to the point as possible. I love blogging. I love you guys. I love my husband more. No apologies. Today's question is an awkward one for me because I do not have students in the traditional sense of the word. Sure, I have tons of students that I work with but none of them are "mine". They all have a classroom teacher who is not me, whom they spend the majority of their time with. Sure, they get pretty stoked when they see me but I'm not there all the time. At best, I am there 45 mins, 3 times a week. I don't have bulletin boards (although I'm working on that) or spaces to display student work. I am intinerant. I am non-enrolling. I am not the one who collects the work. But I can be the one who displays it. Kristi and I have been thinking about some fun ways to increase student involvement in the Lit Pit. To motivate them (see our series about motivating boys to write here), to encourage them, to allow them to share. While this won't necessarily involve them sharing their classroom work, it will allow them to share some of their learning and some of their passion for reading and writing. Because we haven't started yet, I hate to give too much away (more to be revealed on the blog soon, I promise!) but suffice it to say that we will be using Twitter, Instagram, the school newsletter and bulletin boards to curate student writing and reading accomplishments. I am really excited about where we are going with this and really looking forward to what the kids come up with. Who says that classroom teachers get all the fun?! I recently read an interesting article by Sal Khan (founder of The Khan Academy) that talked about growth mindset. I loved this article not only for the whole idea of the growth mindset but also for the level of awareness that Sal's son demonstrates about his own learning. Far too often, I think we shy away from having kids be honest with themselves about their learning, because we are scared that they will be disheartened or because we don't think they are old enough or because we don't think it's all that important. But it is important and, given the right tools and language, kids of any age can learn a lot by reflecting on their learning. By being more self-aware, kids are better prepared to guide their own learning, developing a growth mindset that will serve them throughout their lives. So, how do we instill this growth mindset? How do we encourage kids to think about the hows, the whats and the whys of learning? Below are my top 3 choices for reflecting on learning. Talk about itMost kids love to talk, especially in small groups or partnerships. One of the easiest ways to have them reflect on their learning is to put in them in small groups, provide a prompt and let them go. A popular version of this is Think-Pair-Share, where partners think about the prompt (let's say, "how did you grow your mind today?") individually, then get together to talk about it, then one partner shares out what they discussed. You can also meet with small groups and guide the conversation to help them dig deeper in to the how, what and why of their learning (the why is often the trickiest for them to figure out, as any Gr. 8 math teacher can tell you). Write about itOr draw. Or blog. There are a myriad of possibilities for reflecting on your learning by putting pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Keeping a journal of daily reflections is one way to do it. These reflections can then be detailed drawings, written responses, quick sketches, word clouds, whatever comes to mind. Exit Tickets have also become a popular way to take the pulse of the room quickly and have students reflect on their learning immediately after it happens. There are low-tech sticky note versions of exit tickets and tech-based apps and tweets; the choice is yours. Blogs and wikis are excellent spaces for personal reflection and collaboration, allowing students the opportunity for feedback on their reflections (I'm excited to try out Quadblogging this year). Do something with itOf course, the goal of developing reflective learners is that they a) understand themselves and their learning styles better, b) internalize their learning and c) that they see learning not as a discrete activity but as an on-going part of life in which they sit in the driver's seat. To this end, it's important to allow kids to reflect on their learning by doing something with that learning. This is what Project-Based Learning is all about (although, I should add it is learning through doing as much as it is doing something with learning but I think the process is cyclical - learn-do-learn). Giving your students the tools to do something and then letting them try and solve a problem forces them to reflect on the hows, the whats and the whys in order to be able to successfully use the tools to solve the problem.
Which one of these do I use the most? I would definitely have to say the first two. While I would love to really get in to the third piece, the nature of my job makes it challenging to do so. Last year I had a teacher who was on board to try some PBL and we did one really neat debate (about gas pipelines - with Gr. 4s! Even changed some parents minds on the whole thing. Very cool.) and started in to a Rube Goldberg machine project (threw some flipped learning in there too...fun!) but unfortunately we were interrupted by the strike and the kids never got the chance to finish the project.Boo. The fact that I can convince teachers to build more reflective learners in any way is pretty cool and I really enjoy doing it. One of my goals for this year is to try and ensure that what I bring to a classroom gets left behind to be used again and again; too often I find that what we do is really neat but doesn't continue or isn't used again after I go. I want teachers to see the value in what I bring to their classroom (and I think they do) but I also want them to adopt it (or parts of it) as their own. I think that discussion and written reflections are something that seem doable to teachers, something that they can do even without two teachers in the room, so that will be one focus area for me this year. Any other learning coaches out there have any tips for me on getting things to stick? "A teacher is like a...river, always changing, adapting to change smoothly, continually shaping objects that it meets along its path, steadily moving towards its destination, sometimes on a straight course, sometimes on a winding one, sometimes calm, sometimes wild but always moving, always shaping, always changing.
Back on track. Still sitting in Starbucks, day 16 done, on to day 17. If I'm feeling really keen I may pre-emptively write Day 18. It dawned on me that, due to my illustrious position on the west coast, it is theoretically possible for people to be posting the next day's post while I am posting today's and both of us would still be posting on the appropriate day (confession: this dawned on me because I had a moment of confusion while on Twitter and people were posting "tomorrow's" post. Took me a minute to figure that one out. Sheesh.). It also dawned on me that it really doesn't matter if you're a day ahead, and that I could also write these out ahead of time and just post them on the appropriate day. Basically, my simple little brain did this math: 30 day challenge = write something every day + post it on that day, no straying from the formula, ok? But life doesn't work that way and every now and then we may need to stray from the formula. Especially now that we have a deal and look to be headed back to work next week. Things are about to get busy. Very busy. Which leads me to today's post - the most challenging issue in education today. Although on the surface my babbling little intro seems to be just that, a bunch of space-filling babble, it actually contains the keys of what I consider to be the most challenging issue in education - differences + formula + busyness.
The world is changing rapidly, as are our classrooms. Time and again, this issue arose during the most recent contract negotiations here in BC. Our classrooms contain more students from various ethnicities, home lives, abilities and walks of life than they ever have before. Which is awesome, because it means that kids learn to be more open, more accepting, more compassionate than they have ever been before. It also means that we as teachers are being pushed to be more open, more accepting, more compassionate, more creative than we ever have been before. The problem is that I'm not sure that our teacher-training and our professional development are keeping up with the changes. Too often we are searching for the magic bullet, the formula, that will just smooth over all the differences and allow us to take the easy way out, allow us to be less creative, less invested in our students' success. The magic bullet, the formula, that's what governments and education departments are searching for when they implement things like scripted lesson plans, textbook "systems" and one-size-fits-all standardized tests. It's what teachers are looking for when they want to put a quota on the number of students with disabilities in their classrooms. It's what teacher training programs are reinforcing when they gloss over things like Universal Design for Learning in favour of writing detailed lesson plans and researching outdated teaching methodologies. We need to look beyond formulas and scripts. We need to prepare teachers with philosophies of learning that allow them to be flexible, knowledge of the tools that allow them to meet the needs of a whole variety of learners and an acceptance of the range of human experience that guarantees that they will not try to fit students in to boxes. Kudos to all the educators out there who recognize that kids don't need to fit the mold to be successful and that all educators don't need to teach in the "time-honoured tradition". The final piece of the puzzle is busyness. Again, over and over throughout the teachers' strike/lockout we heard about teacher workload, about how many hours teachers spend outside out school prepping and marking. Factor this in with classrooms full of kids who don't fit the mold and teachers who haven't been trained to meet their needs and you get teachers who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work. The truth is, we don't need to be this busy. There are so many creative ways to meet the needs of students without overwhelming yourself, so many new ways of managing and sharing the workload that there is no reason for teachers to feel so busy all the time. I'm not suggesting you'll never be busy, just that you don't need to feel constantly overwhelmed. So what does this all boil down to? What is the greatest challenge facing education today? Change. We are not prepared to keep up with the rate of change that the world is throwing at us. We need to be developing methods of teaching that are flexible and fluid, teachers that are adaptable and creative and systems that recognize and grow those talents. We cannot wish away the changes in diversity, technology and world-view that are coming in to our classrooms; we must learn to embrace them, to honour them and to learn from them. As Bob Dylan said "As the present now will later be past, the order is rapidly changin, the first one now will later be last,The times they are a-changin' ". Ok so technically Day 16 was yesterday. But after a visit with a good friend and her adorably chubby 5 month old my girls and I got in to the car to drive home, a 4 hour journey from Vancouver to Kelowna, BC (Canada, for those reading from abroad). Except that it wasn't 4 hrs. It was more like 6. First, we sat in seemingly interminable traffic getting out of Vancouver. Then we had to stop to get dinner. Then we had to stop to pee. Then my oldest started complaining that her ears hurt (she has a wicked cold, so this didn't exactly surprise me. We gain a lot of altitude on the drive home) so we stopped to pick up some Tylenol. And a tea for mom, because it was 9 o'clock by this point. Then the last leg of the journey home with two sleeping angels in the back. I am grateful that my girls are great travellers who can keep themselves entertained on long car rides (without killing each other and without the use of technology. Yep, I'm a regular Steve Jobs when it comes to my kids and technology). Long story short, I was way too tired to write this post when I got home last night. Even though I hate missing a deadline (even a self-imposed one), I just couldn't muster the energy. So, now, a day late and a dollar short, I sit in Starbucks writing yesterday's post. If you could have one superpower to use in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help? If I had one superpower in the classroom it would be the power to freeze a moment but still move freely myself. You know how they do that in the movies? Everyone else is frozen but the main character is able to move around, monologuing and rearranging things to suit their purpose? Yep, that would be my choice. Why? So many reasons. I could buy myself a moment to think when I can see a lesson going south quickly. I could rearrange something a student was working on to give them that "aha" moment without them knowing I was doing it. I could shut off the noise and take a moment to breathe in the peace and quiet that happens rather infrequently in my classroom. I could set up some pretty awesome practical jokes. I could survey the classroom to see who was getting it and who wasn't, who was feeling off today, who needed to stay for extra help, who needed to just stay and chat (although, this teacher has that nailed without freezing time). The possibilities are endless. Any other ideas for what I could do with this superpower? |
Welcome!I'm Bryn, teacher, mom, book lover, athlete. I am passionate about living life with my family, teaching and learning something new all the time. I hope you find something that speaks to you here on my blog and would love to hear from you too! Categories
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