For Tamara

(The best teachers scrounge up snowpants for all their students and spend the day outside when there is a blizzard and school isn’t canceled.)

My teaching partner is taking a break from teaching to raise her kiddos, this is for her.

For Tamara

Five years ago when my school posted an opening for a new kindergarten teacher my first thought was “Please God, send me someone I can be friends with.” A moment later after reflecting on my selfishness, I offered up this addendum, “Please God, send me someone who will help me become a better teacher.” I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get both.

Becoming friends was fast and easy. When Tamara and I first started working together we were very polite with each other for about three days. Then one of us cursed as we were setting up our rooms, we bonded at that exact moment. Our first two years were spent teaching in tiny (12X20) former storage closet classrooms that adjoined in the basement. We survived a flood when a pipe burst and her room was completely destroyed. We fought a constant battle with drain flies that would buzz in from the bathroom. In recent years we have moved upstairs to full sized classrooms. During our years together in addition to all the day to day teaching we have managed to have endless dance parties, fallen in love with Koo Koo Kanga Roo, raised funds for our students to have Christmas presents every year, hosted family movie nights, had Thanksgiving dinners, created a pumpkin patch outside, and celebrated the end of the year with a glow party.

Teaching can be lonely and is frequently done in solitude, but with Tamara I never feel alone. Our methods and ideas are different but we have developed respect for the each other's process and preferences.  

Working with Tamara is like being in a successful improv scene we are constantly supporting each other, pushing the scene forward, and there are a lot of times when we say “yes, and.” We are opposites in many ways, but our differences make us a great team. She prefers to clean up blood while I prefer to clean up vomit, she is “let’s make this magical” while I am “let’s make this orderly” She is the Amy Poehler to my Tina Fey. She can stay calm when I am freaking out and I hope I do the same for her.  

We have bonded over our being extroverts with introverted tendencies, being the oldest child in our families, reflecting on society's expectations of teachers/women/mothers, and our love of language. We have solved the world's problems over lunch. I will miss working with her, but more selfishly I will miss talking about life and big issues in motherhood, faith, and our relationships with our families and students. I will miss laughing so hard I cry. I will miss catching her eye while our students sing at our holiday and spring concerts and exchanging a tearful look of pride. I will expecially miss exchanging that special look of “IS THIS REAL LIFE?” as we pass each other in the hallway or sit in facility meetings. I am the luckiest because I got to work with her, I got to create miracles with her. I’ve never had a sister, and I don’t want to minimize the relationship of family, but with Tamara I feel I have one.

She is generous, she is real, and she loves surprising people with the perfect gift. The thing I admire about Tamara is she is the most welcoming and inclusive person I’ve ever known, she has never met a stranger. I have witnessed her speaking with parents, students, administrators, superstore employees, etc. She speaks to everyone as if she has known them for years. Her openness and willingness to give of herself is admirable. She has the skill to make you feel like you are the most important person in the world, she does this daily for her students. It is her legacy and I will strive to uphold it.   

(Dressed up as Koo Koo Kanga Roo for Fall Harvest)

I love you Tamara and I will miss you! Although, I will NOT miss watching you dip your banana in  yogurt, because that is foul and no one should ever eat a banana dipped in yogurt.

See My Owie, See Me

Each morning I greet my students and listen to an onslaught of information like “I have a new shirt.” “It’s my birds birthday!.” “I love you, I missed you Ms. Savage.” “I went to the dentist.” “See my Ninja Turtle watch!” etc. Since it’s spring, my students have been spending more time outside. This means after I hear their news each morning I get the owie report.

“Look at my owie.”

“I got a new owie.”

“Look, bloods.”

“I got this from...I no know in English, its hot for cook outside.” “The grill?” I offer, “for cooking hotdogs and hamburgers?” “Yes, grill.”

Most the time time the interaction goes like this:

Student: See my owie! See it!

Me: I see that owie.

Usually that’s all that needs to be said.

Sometimes it goes something like this:

Student: I have an owie.

Me: I see it.

Student: Blood comes out.

Me: Oh, I see. Blood came out when you got it, now it looks like the blood has stopped. Is it getting better?

Student:Yep

Me: I’m glad to know it’s getting better

Here is the thing, most kids just want their owies seen and acknowledged. They want me to know that something is wrong, they don't feel like themselves. Something is out of balance and that something needs attention, its a form of self-reflection. Sharing an owie builds empathy too, the mention of one owie always leads to almost everyone in class saying "Me too!" Everyone gets an owie from time to time, its part of the human experience. A student almost always chimes in with, "I used to have an owie but now its better." Healing is part of the process too.

Sometimes a child bumps into a peer and they say all the right things:

“Are you ok?”

“Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

“Sorry.”

Then they are upset that their friend doesn’t immediately stop crying or feeling upset. In these situations students come to me, giving me reports of “X is hurt. I said sorry and asked if they are ok but they are still crying.” So I go and check on the child and tell the reporter, “sometimes it still hurts, even after you say sorry, sometimes it takes a few minutes to feel better.” Sometimes you need to just sit with the pain and the sadness and wait for it to pass.

Is this not the way for adults too?

See my owie, see me.

The Teacher They Need

It is the night before my students start school.  This year I have the privilege of welcoming 25 souls into our classroom. Tomorrow morning 25 students with only 4 years of life experience will walk in. This is a fact I have to remind myself of constantly.

I have a tradition, when I receive my class list for the first time, I carefully read each name with reverence imagining each student’s name is being read at their college graduation/military commencement/NBA Draft (wherever their path takes them). Next, I say the most earnest prayer I will every pray, “Please God, thank you for these students, help me become the teacher they need me to be.”

I guarantee I will not sleep well tonight, I never do the night before school. I am all nerves and excitement. I will lay in bed tonight with questions swirling through my brain, many of which my students may have as well.  Will they like me? What will they be like? What will happen? What new things will I learn?  Then I will reflect on my practice. How can I build relationships? Where do I want to grow as a teacher, and how will I get there? Do I really want to try that new idea, will it work, what's my back up plan? How can I be the teacher they need me to be?

Today we had orientation, it’s an exciting (and exhausting) time to meet with families.  It is an all day performance that is a whirlwind of sharing information, creating a welcoming environment and most importantly listening to families.  Families bring up challenges some of which can be solved now, “Where is the paperwork to make sure my child continues to get speech?” and some are challenges that will take more time, “My child isn’t really potty trained and I don’t know what to do.”  I found some resources about potty training in that I can pass on tomorrow. Most of the day is spent reassuring families that the issues they bring up are manageable and even common, I found myself saying things like, “It’s normal for 4 year olds to be so engrossed in their play that they forget to go to the bathroom, we will remind them often.” “Of course you can request we only display your child’s image in our classroom, your child’s safety is the most important thing.” “Yes your child will be successful here, we can work with their health issues.” “You’re right, our school has not done a good job of asking parents for help in our classrooms, I’m so glad you are able to help in ours!”

The best part of orientation is seeing former students. Knowing that one day my current set of students will come back to offer hugs or bashfully smile from the doorway.  They will peek their head in my room and exclaim, “HEY! The room is not the same” or whisper to a friend “remember when we used to play in here.”  This is one of the most satisfying and affirming moments, to know I was the teacher these students needed, and I built the relationships to help these students succeed.  

Some of the challenges my students face were made clear when I listened to families today.  Every time I think I have heard the most devastating story I am proven wrong by something new and shockingly horrific.  All of my students still live in poverty, most will start learning English tomorrow, and I am still faced with the challenge of becoming the teacher they need me to be.  These factors coupled with the fact that I have 25 students enrolled and only 24 seats in my room will certainly keep me up tonight, and many nights in the future.  

To face the challenges awaiting me, I am meditating on the words of  Leslie Knope. (Watching all of Parks and Recreation was one of my goals this summer.) The final scene spoke right to my teacher heart, because it articulated why I teach. Ms. Knope wisely says “... we fought, scratched and clawed to make people’s lives a tiny bit better. That’s what public service is about: small, incremental change every day. Teddy Roosevelt once said, ‘Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is a chance to work hard at work worth doing.’ And I would add that what makes work worth doing is getting to do it with people that you love.”

The hard work worth doing starts tomorrow.  Right now I just hope I can fall asleep and please God, let me become the teacher they need me to be!

Back To School Reading

Next Monday I will start setting up my classroom for a new group of K4's. The physical space in important, but for me setting up some mental space is essential. This is the time of year I break out a few favorite books to help me reflect on who I am and who I want to be as a teacher. I always re-read  Journey Toward the Caring Classroom, and The Courage to Teach.  This year I am reading a book I won during teacher appreciation week from Responsive Classroom, The Power Of Our Words.

I look forward to this time of year and the chance to get to do the inner work necessary to be the teacher I am constantly striving to be.  Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach offers so much comfort and guidance, I find myself underlining, highlighting and circling passages every time I pick it up. Here are some passages that were particularly meaningful as I read today:

 "Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the inside out."

"...we an not see the fear in our students until we see the fear in ourselves."

"Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest."

"Teaching always takes place at the crossroads of the personal and the public, and if I want to teach well I must learn to stand where these opposites intersect."

"We separate head from heart.  Result: minds that do not know how to feel and hearts that do not know how to think."

"...the same person who teaches brilliantly one day can be an utter flop the next!"

"...only as we are in communion with ourself can we find community with others. "

Maybe these words will resonate with you.  What do you do/read to get ready to go back to school?

May

May is the most challenging time of year for me as a teacher.  All the little behaviors that were once just mildly annoying seem to be magnified to nearly intolerable especially after teaching the same kiddos for K-4 and K-5.  This combined with the stress of end of the year assessment, report cards and the pile of end of the year paperwork nearly sends me over the edge. I always wonder if it's me, am I easing up too much unconsciously because I know the year is almost over?  Maybe it's a little bit of everything.  Me, my students getting sick of each other (and me, lets get real), and the weather getting warmer the idea of summer planting itself in all of our brains.

I make sure to put my favorite unit in May, just as a little incentive for me to stay focused. Insects, we are learning about those industrious little bugs that are beautiful, odd, and fascinating. Not unlike my students themselves.

May is also the time when I see the biggest jump in writing with my students, we have been working hard all year at putting the stories we tell down on paper, in May suddenly things start to click. More abstract thoughts are appearing in my students, since most of them have turned 6.  They are able to articulate ideas and are proud to share their ideas with their peers.

So here we are with one month, 20 days of school left. I am exhausted. I am frustrated. I am nostalgic. I am proud. When I am exhausted I think, how can I make our last few days better, richer, memorable and engaging?  In my deepest moments of frustration I remind myself that THIS IS ALL WE HAVE, one more month.  We will never all be together in K-5 again, how do we want to remember each other? (I certainly don't want to be remembered for yelling at them in my crazy teacher voice for the entire last month of school). Today I was nostalgic, so I  looked back through my pictures on my computer and found the picture I took of each one of them on their first day of K-4 and all I could think was "WHAT BABIES!"  They were babies.  Now they are sophisticated, self sufficient, problems solvers who know how to do school. I was proud today after talking to an aide today about one of my students comforting another that was hurt and she said, "Your kids are always like that, they really know how to take care of each other."  This is my biggest goal with every class, to instill the idea that we should and can take care of each other.

May is hard, but soon it will be June and they will all move on to first grade.  Next year I will get a new set of students who I will likely have for two years.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be feeling all of these things again in two years.

Here are some of the lovely things I have heard over the past week that make May a little easier.

"Be like an ant and work together."

"An insect has three parts, a head, a LORAX, and an abdomen."

"Ants and bees both have queens who lay eggs but no kings!?"  (knowing smiles and nods from all the girls)

"Hey Ms. Savage, what's a knuckle sandwich?"

One of my insect loving students designing his own bee costume.  

Listening plus Required Reading 2/14

This week as I was listening to my kindergartners and the adults who came into my room I was struck by the things that I get to hear every week as a teacher.  My best teaching is a result of focused listening and reflecting on what students need.  

As you can imagine some of what I hear is absolutely hilarious:

On cupid: "The baby shoots the person with the arrow, and then they die, then they fall in love?"  
"Why does the baby have an arrow, that's not for babies!"

In response to Goldilocks and the Three Bears: "How did the bears get people stuff?" 
"Maybe the bears ate the people who lived in the house and then they moved into the house."
"No Bears eat fish, not people."
"Maybe the bears built the house."
"How would they get the nails to build the house?"
"Bears can't go to store, them would eat the people at the hardware store."
"Maybe the bears ate the people and took the nails at the hardware store"
"No that would be stealing"

"Ms. Savage how old will you be on your birthday?"
"34."
"34?! Dun, Dun DUNNNNN."

Others things I hear are heartbreaking,

"He said 'mother fucker' outside."  

"I don't like people with black skin."

"My dad killed the kitten, the black one with white by the eyes and the mama stood by the door and was sad."

"She heard the upstairs neighbor shoot himself so she has been up most of the night."

My favorite things to hear are beautiful and inspiring, they are the sounds of everyone working together and taking care of each other. This is the best stuff, and how I know rich learning is happening.  

"Look, LOOK Ms. Savage"

"Can you help me?  No I can do it by my own self. "

"Let's get tape to fix the cup, (so) we (don't) cut ourselves.  I do it!" 

"I going to make a present for his birthday, I make a kite." 

"Me love you." 

"She did her best, look she is learning!"

"I couldn't do it so he helped and then I could do it." 

The amount of what I hear everyday can be overwhelming at times since I must quickly diagnose what is being said and then triage what I say (if anything) as a response.  As my students tell me stories and their reflections I think about; what are they telling me, why are they telling me and what do they need?  My favorite times are when I can respond by asking a question and put ownership back on the student for their response.  

How does listening inform your practice?  How do you move from listening to meeting the needs of your students?  

Required Reading 2/14

This weeks required reading is this piece that speaks about play, blocks and screen time. It shows yet again that interacting with children is the number one way for them to learn and grow, and that technology is not a suitable substitute in the early years. This is a subject that speaks deeply to my teacher heart.  My action research for my Masters was about block/construction play and math.  

Also in case you missed it this blog post has been making the rounds.  It speaks about how to get kids to be readers. 

Lastly, here is a photo from our 100th day of school celebration this week.  This was played with, knocked over and rebuilt every day.  The best part was seeing everyone problem solve, negotiate, work together and make design changes.  

Required Reading 2/8/15

Only one link for required reading this week.  A great piece by Alfie Kohn about they way we talk about education and what the words we use really mean.  Check it out here.

Have you read anything this week that has made you think about education?  I'd love to hear about it!