The beginning of the school year is a time of hunkering down and doing your own thing in your own classroom but it is also a time of running in to people you haven't seen in awhile, at Pro-D, at school, at meetings. Making a big move, moving from the known to the unknown, has led to some very interesting conversations with people I run in to. Generally, they go something like this: Other teacher (with a suspicious, this-can't-possibly-be-true tone) - "So...you're not in LAT anymore, right?" Me - "That's right. Teaching Gr. 2 French Immersion now." Other teacher - "Wow! What a change! How's it going?" At this point, I have a choice to make - I can choose to smile and answer "Oh, great, it's going really, really well", which is the socially expected response or I can answer honestly, which sounds a little more like "It's good. It's hard, really, really hard. There's so much I don't know, so much I didn't realize about teaching little guys." It's a little too naked, a little too honest for most people, but it's the truth. So what do I do? For the most part, I choose to tell the truth. This is hard, it is very new to me (it's still September, after all) and I'm ok with that. I think it's important that people know that this is a huge learning curve for me but that I'm working through it, that I'm ok with not knowing and learning as I go. To hide this process is kind of like trying to hide a cannonball in the deep end - everyone already knows I've made the leap, I might as well own the noise and the mess too. What inevitably transpires after I own the noise and the mess is this - people jump in to save me: "Oh, so and so teaches Gr. 2 I'm sure that they have stuff for you" (love that word, stuff, as if more pieces of paper will help me figure this out); "Isn't ________ (name of very experienced Gr. 2 teacher) helping you out? I'm sure she would, you just have to ask!" (which leads to me backing her up because yes, as a matter of fact, she has been very helpful). Apparently, being in the deep end means I am drowning and everyone feels the need to throw me a life raft (a well-intentioned life raft, but a life raft nonetheless). Honestly, though? I'm ok in the deep end. It might not be pretty and I may go under every now and then but as I struggle I am learning what works for me. Floating on someone else's life raft doesn't teach me to swim; I need to learn to kick, move my arms and breathe all on my own. I'll happily take a coach or two and some tools along the way but this is my process and my learning curve; my deep end. In her book, Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton talks about our society's need to take the pain away when we see it in others. We aren't comfortable being uncomfortable and we really aren't comfortable seeing others in discomfort. The deep end is not comfortable; it is messy and deep, so deep. But it is in discomfort that we grow and so, I must work through this discomfort on my own. I must find my own rhythm and my own stroke in order to be able to feel good about swimming. So to those who have offered to save me, thank you. Thank you for wanting to take the discomfort away, thank you for wanting me to feel more comfortable. I appreciate it. I'm going to be ok, though. It might not be pretty, it might not be smooth, but I will figure it out. I will learn how to swim in the deep end. PS - to those of you who have offered to jump in to the deep end with me, who have jumped in to the deep end with me, I cannot thank you enough. Having someone swimming beside me means a lot.
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I woke early this morning, as I often do, to get a little bit of work done in the quiet hours of the morning before the rush of the day begins. It's one of my favourite times of day and always has been. Whether I am heading off to yoga, squeezing in a quick workout or getting a bit a planning done, the peace and quiet of those early morning hours is soothing to me. Sometimes it is hard to get up but I am always glad that I do.
This morning, my computer was taking an awfully long time to do, well, everything, so I took a moment to check a few blogs that I follow and stumbled across this little gem that spoke to me in so many ways... "I have more questions than boxes and I had a whole lot of boxes. If I were to start a list of what I don't know, I wouldn't know where to begin and no idea where to end. I forget to breathe just thinking about it. Knowing and not knowing is full of confusion. I don't know my students. I don't know this community. I don't know the routines and rhythms of the school. I don't even know the full capacity of what I don't know." Oh. My. Yes. I have felt like a fish out of water since the first day back. I wanted to go back to the classroom, I wanted to remember what is was to be with the same group of kids all day every day, to watch them grow and to form close relationships with them. I wanted to move to this school where I know the community is amazing. I wanted to walk with my daughters to work every day. I'm not sure I wanted to feel like this. For 10 years I walked in to the same job, in the same building. I knew the kids, I knew the parents, I knew most of the teachers (many changed every year). Almost as important, I knew the rhythms and routines - where to find the paper when the photocopier ran out, who walked at lunch and who ate in the staffroom, that treat day was Thursday and if I could just hold off until them, something yummy would surely appear. Start up was a breeze because I had my list of things that I knew needed to get done and how I wanted to do them. Now, I know nothing. I have never taught Gr. 2 before and haven't been in the classroom in 11 years. I have no rhythms and routines for Gr. 2. I have no rhythms and routines for French Immersion. I have a plan but only a vague appreciation for whether it is a good one or not (based primarily on what I know about 7 year olds because I happen to have one at home). There is so much to learn and figure out that sometimes I feel like I am drowning in the sheer vastness of what I do not know. It is terrifying but I know that it is good for me. I know that pushing myself outside of my comfort zone like this was something that I needed to do; I needed to be uncomfortable to grow personally and professionally. I am working on being ok with not knowing (so. hard.) and being ok with making mistakes. I am letting go of being involved in everything and focusing on my little world. I am trying to take the pressure off of myself - to do everything, to know everything, to get it right, right away - but that is so hard. I am used to things coming easily and this is not coming easily. This move, this teaching Gr. 2, is hard. There is so much to learn, so much I don't know, that I must give myself grace or I will sink under the weight of my own expectations. I am grateful for friends and family who put up with my uncertainty and let me know that I am ok. That I've got this. That it doesn't need to be perfect. That no matter what the most important things is that those kiddos know that I care about them and want them to be their best little selves. The rest will come. And if we don't quite learn about the life cycle of the salmon, oh well. For now, I will take my time and figure things out slowly, one step at a time. I will remind myself (daily. hourly.) that it doesn't need to be perfect, that I can go back and declare a do over. And hopefully, eventually, this new world will feel a little less alien and little more like home. Homework and homework policies have been all over social media lately. A Texas teacher sent home a note with what is essentially a no homework policy, a parent posted it and it took off from there (you can read all about it here). I began thinking about homework and how best to administer it long before it reared it's head online, however. I have done my own research (which shows that research overwhelmingly does not support homework in elementary schoil), I have experimented with various different ways of assigning homework and have lived it as a working parent trying to carve out a bit of time with my child between dinner and bedtime; from all of that, I have distilled these 5 thoughts about homework. 1. Fitting it in is hard.Families these days are busy. Kids these days are busy. Very busy. And as much as I have searched for a way around it, I cannot seem to find one (if you've figured it out, please please let me know!). As a parent, I believe that after school activities play an important role in giving my child skills they will need as an adult, so I'm not willing to cut those out. So when do we fit homework in? 2. Family time is precious.As much time as our children spend at school, it is still home life that shapes who they are. Time spent with family - eating dinner, playing outside, curled up on the couch reading books - is so important to growing kind, caring citizens. Too often, these things (or sleep!) are set aside because families feel pressured to complete home reading logs, flash cards or other well-intentioned homework assignments. 3. Practice anything and you will get better at it.Landing firmly on the pro side of the homework debate is the fact that practice really does make perfect...or better, anyway. Research shows that the more time you spend with a skill the more likely you are to master it. Therefore, homework, when designed as practice of previously learned concepts, does help your child improve and solidify their skills. That being said, there are many other things your youngster can and should be practicing - sports, music, social interaction, crafting, building, and more! 4. Learning is about more than just reading, writing and 'rithmetic.While no one can argue that reading, writing and math are hugely important, there are many, many more things to be learned in this wonderful world of ours. Focusing solely on reading and math (which tend to be the two homework items sent home in the primary grades) means that there are many missed learning opportunities in other areas. 5. To reward or not to reward?An extremely common practice in the primary grades is the reading log - kids record the number of books they read each night and then return it for a small prize once they have reached a certain number. Seems like a fairly good system for motivating kids to read and, for many kids, it works really well. However, for some children it moves them from enjoying reading for the simple pleasure of entering another, imagined world through the pages of a book to reading for external rewards. Many students are eventually turned off by the expectation that they will read nightly, often a book that is not of their choosing. In the end, we all want what's best for our kids. Sometimes, we lose sight of the long-term goal - creating healthy, literate, numerate, curious and kind adults - in favour of having the "smartest" student in their grade. We live in a highly competitive society and it feels good as a parent to know that your child is doing well in comparison to their peers. As teachers and parents, however, we need to remember that children are developing along multiple strands - physical, social, emotional and academic - and it's our job to support them in all of these.
Unsure of how to meet your child's needs in a developmentally appropriate way? Having trouble letting go of homework? Check out this amazing post from parent.co for a fantastic list of ideas (click on the picture below to link to it). I have been thinking about writing this post for a long time now but just haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Until now. I think. I still have a lump in my throat as I begin writing. You see, Kristi and I are both moving on. No more Lit Pit (the actual, physical thing), no more daily collaboration with some pretty amazing people (although I'm sure there are lots of amazing people where I'm headed, just not the ones I'm used to), no more sharing an office and all that entails (good and bad). Heck, no more office! Kristi is headed off to an amazing opportunity at a local private school; she will be their Director of Teaching and Learning and will get to do everything she loves doing (teaching, coaching, learning), plus be at her kids' school. Can't beat that, can you? I am moving back to the classroom after 11 years as a Learning Assistance Teacher. I will be teaching Gr. 2 French Immersion, which is exciting and terrifying all at once. So many reasons for the move though; I, too, will be at my daughter's school, my commute will be a two minute walk with said daughter, I get to try all the classroom-y things that as a specialist teacher I always wanted to try but never had the opportunity to (flexible seating, here I come!) and I truly love the community feel of the school that I am joining. Nobody seems to believe that I will be in the classroom for long (I am very passionate about supporting struggling learners) but I think it gives me some great opportunities to put my money where my mouth is and use those strategies that I suggest to teachers all the time. I am leaving myself open to whatever comes my way down the road but I know that for at least this one year I will be a Gr. 2 teacher. I'm pretty sure that the reason I've been struggling to write this is that it makes it final in some weird way. I mean, we knew Kristi was headed off in a different direction in about February/March and my move was finalized by the middle of May, so it's not like I didn't know this was coming. Somehow though, writing it down makes it feel even more final than taking everything off of the shelves and packing up boxes. Strange the way that works. Stay tuned for some changes to the blog as I shift focus a little bit. Lots more about the classroom, I'm sure, and hopefully more regular posts! PS - the title comes from the fact that every time I think about my new classroom I either hear Bob Dylan or A Whole New World from Aladdin in my head...hoping we can move on from that soon!
This mantra came from an epiphany I had about how I feel about curriculum. I was sitting in a staff meeting, mind wandering, as minds do when one is asked to sit and listen after a long day of teaching (to be honest, I could have ended that sentence after sit and listen. I am a terrible, terrible listener. The only saving grace is that knowing this about myself helps me understand the kids better). All around me, teachers were talking about the new curriculum; what the changes mean, what they might look like for teaching, how they might plan their new units and lessons. (For those of you not from BC, let me bring you up to speed: our Ministry of Education has brought in a new curriculum, one that focuses on big ideas, not on (such) a long list of content area outcomes. One that focuses on skills that kids need to succeed, not a laundry list of memorizable facts. It stands to be great for kids and great for education. Our job is to figure out how to make it that way.) As I sat there, listening to the conversations taking place around me, I reflected back on similar conversations that had taken place that morning with a different group of teachers, We had come together to pool our collective knowledge, problem-solving and planning skills to co-create some.......thing. It could be lesson plans, it could be learning tasks or activities, it could simply be deepening our knowledge of a particular area of interest (but, let's be honest here, what teacher willingly walks away from the opportunity to create useful classroom materials?). It is an ongoing process and one for which I am very grateful to be given the time. However, on this particular day, one of the facilitators had backed me into a corner, essentially demanding I use the planning template they had developed (and spent considerable time on, I have no doubt). I have nothing against her planning template, really; I'm sure it's been a fantastic tool for many people. It's just that I don't start planning a lesson without the kids in mind; I need to picture what this lesson, this unit is going to mean to the kids who will be learning from it. What will it look like? What will it sound like? What will it feel like? How will that one kid who hasn't engaged in a single freakin' thing all year respond? The lovely facilitator did not understand my process. At. all. She needed, no, demanded, that I use the template. There wasn't (and to my knowledge, still isn't) anywhere on that template to include what your lesson will feel like, so thanks, but no. Thankfully, a good friend and colleague sitting across the table managed to dispatch this woman gracefully (before I lost it all over her and her damn template) and the morning was salvaged. Anyway, back to my epiphany. As I reflected on both the insistent focus on curriculum in the morning and the conversation about curriculum in the afternoon, I realized that I don't really give a damn about curriculum. I know I should and, most of the time, I do use it to guide my teaching. But the biggest, most important factor in my planning always has been and always will be the kids. What is their current skill level? Where do they need to go? How do I get them there? What do they love? How do they learn best? What are their interests and hobbies and how can I use them to get them to the next step in their learning journey? What is it going to take to get this kid or that kid to learn something new and amazing? What I love is seeing the aha moment; I love creating the conditions that allow a learner to move in to a new space that has opened up for them. I love finding the hook that keeps them coming back for more, that keeps them curious, wondering, questioning, poking, prodding. I cannot impart that moment, that feeling, in a carefully crafted lesson plan that is based solely on what they are supposed to learn and not at all on who they are. One of my best friends and colleagues likes to say "It's not about the life cycle of a fish!" (with, perhaps, a few expletives thrown in there depending on the day) and it's not. It's about creating conditions that make kids interested in exploring the life cycle of a fish, or equivalent fractions, or reading (on that note, if you haven't read Donalyn Miller's books, please do yourself a giant favor and grab either The Book Whisperer or Reading in the Wild. She is an absolute genius when it comes to inspiring kids - and adults - to want to read and read voraciously). As educators we need to be curators of opportunity and wonder; we need to create the desire to learn and then step back and watch (with glee) as it happens. For a very long time, I have had this quote by Socrates as part of my introduction to Socratic Circles. I encourage the kids to discuss it, wonder about it, question it. It is usually, even in Gr. 4 and 5, outside their realm of understanding of what learning is and that makes me sad; at the tender age of 9 and 10, they already see learning as something passive, something that happens to them. Socrates had it right though - I really can't teach anybody anything, but I sure as hell can set the stage for wonder, for excitement, for the sheer joy of learning something new.
How will you inspire wonder and joy in learning today? In our school district we celebrate Harmony Day, an opportunity to highlight the importance of diversity, kindness and understanding. One of our amazing students wrote a great piece about what harmony means to him and I just knew that it needed to be shared. Although I was pretty sure I knew the answer, I asked him if he would present it at the Harmony Day assembly. His answer? "No!" So I tried again - "How about we film you doing it and show that at the assembly?" Once again, "No!" Although no one would call him shy, he just doesn't have the confidence to stand up there in front of everyone and share something so personal So finally I convinced him to use Adobe Voice (definitely an app worth checking out for ease of use and cool final product factor) to share it. I think his final product is amazing and wanted to share it with all of you. Enjoy! This little tub of rocks, lovingly collected from a sunny beach on a snowy day in January, has quite the adventure waiting for it. Oh, these rocks don't know it yet. Right now, they are beautiful in their own right, sitting there in a tub on my classroom floor. They have no idea of the amazing fate that awaits them. You see, each of these rocks is a kindness rock. Come Friday, these rocks will be transformed by creative little hands in to pieces of art that will lift the heart of someone who is hurting, bring a smile to the face of someone who needs it and acknowledge the wonderful kind deeds of another. .These rocks will get passed from hand to hand around our school community, reminding our students that kindness is simple, it is small and it happens all the time. Students will be encouraged to give away every rock they get (why is the hoarder mentality so darn strong in children?!) to a friend, a classmate, a teacher, a stranger who seems to need it. Hopefully this will gently nudge them to recognize the feelings and needs of others and to place those feelings and needs (momentarily anyways) above their own wants. Hopefully it will teach them what it means to be kind. It's the little things that help our kids learn how to do the big things; how to grow up to be amazing, kind, caring, thoughtful human beings who look out for one another. And maybe, just maybe, those amazing, kind, caring, thoughtful human beings will have a kindness rock in their pocket. #kindnessrocks, friends. Feel free to paint a rock or two and join us! Passion. This word has been popping up in my world like an overly enthusiastic jack-in-the-box these days. At first, it was subtle - a tweet here, a headline there - but now the universe is throwing it at me from all sides, intent on brow-beating me with it until I acknowledge that I am supposed to do something about my passions. The problem with the universe is it never really tells you what to do, just that you should do something. The problem with passions is that the world is chockful of things to be passionate about. So this is my dilemma. The universe would like me to acknowledge passion. I, in turn, start to stress about not having a passion. More accurately, I stress over the fact that there are so many things to be passionate about that I have no idea how to crystallize that in to a singular passion. Or even two. Possibly even three. Basically, the world is full of so much cool stuff that I just don't want to leave anything out. But. I admire passionate people. I admire people who can ignore all the shiny objects and stay the course, delving deeply in to one main area until they surface and people go "Ohhhh. That person is passionate about X." I want to be one of those people. But. I can't ignore shiny objects,. I love them. They make me happy. Trying new things makes me happy. Having diverse interests makes me happy. Experimenting makes me happy. Perhaps you can see my dilemma. I want to be someone people regard as passionate but I am not the type to ignore all other cool things so that I can focus on one, and only one, cool thing. Crap. But. It turns out that the universe is not such a difficult mistress after all. Although she threw passion at me with all her might, she also threw a couple of hail mary passes in the hopes that I would catch them. Which I think I did. There were probably more that sailed right over my oblivious little head, but I think that's the way this works; if you throw enough darts, eventually one will hit it's mark. So. I asked around and thankfully the people I asked told me that they did see me as passionate, just not in the way I was anticipating. Then, I listened to some other people talk about their passions, which, again, were not what I was anticipating. And I realized that passion comes in many forms. Some are narrow, excluding other interests, and others are far broader, encompassing many smaller pieces in their big picture. As it turns out, I am a big picture thinker. As it also turns out, I already knew what my passions were; I just needed to be reminded. Everything that I love doing for kids, with kids, about kids, boils down to moving kids forward on their own individual learning path. I am passionate about meeting the needs of all learners, be they the strugglers, the high flyers or the darlings in between. I want every kid to be the best they can be, at school, at home and in the community. I want them to want to learn. To love to learn. To feel like an agent in their own learning.
This is my passion, I am constantly on the lookout for new and innovative ways to move them along their own paths. So yes, a lot of the time it feels like I am scattered, like I am trying one more new thing, like the shiny objects just won't stop calling my name but that's ok. I hold on to the ones that work and leave the others behind, constantly seeking that one tool, that one idea, that will make learning click for any given student. I want every child to see themselves as a learner, a creator, a thinker. I am passionate about that. And that feels good to say. I'm a little late to the party with this one, given that most people chose (and blogged about...and tweeted about...and Facebooked and maybe even Instagrammed) their word on New Year's Day. I, on the other hand, was taking a deliberate break from social media to enjoy some time with my family. We headed out in to the winter wonderland in which we live and my girls tried snowshoeing for the first time. So. Much. Fun. Equilibrium. I hope to carry the sense of peace and calm and joy that I felt that day with me through the rest of this year. The past year has felt hectic, chaotic and a little like living on a roller coaster (or at least what I imagine living on a roller coaster would be like, all the ups and downs, some of them expected, some of them not, sometimes you close your eyes and scream, sometimes you laugh your head off); I could stand some calmer waters this year. Equilibrium. A state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces. Doesn't that sound lovely? A state of rest. Without giving up all of the things that make us us. Making sure that life is a dance of equal and opposing forces. Work and Play. Kale and Chocolate. Water and Wine. I can do this. I can do this. But I'm not going to do it alone. I'm a big believer in the village, that wonderful web that catches us, buoys us up, keeps us going. Without it, I would be a complete and utter basket-case. Certifiable, really. With children who were barely making it to school, only occasionally bathed and living primarily on grilled cheese sandwiches. Like I said, without the village, I'd be done. My #OneWord for 2016 is Equilibrium. I will endeavour to live this year in a state of rest, a product of equal and opposing forces. And I am so looking forward to it!
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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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