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!

Growth

I read a post the other day that said the time between Winter Break and Spring Break is the best time of year in the classroom.  I wasn't so sure, given where I live it's the worst part of the year weather wise.  As I reflected on this idea over the past week, I started noticing how it is a great time for learning; Routines are established, I know my students really well, students know what is expected and are working together.  It's a time of year to see growth, academic and otherwise.

This week I am proud to say that every one of my students read a book that was a level higher than they had previously read.  I was also thrilled  with the growth of one student who rarely speaks, when he absolutely came alive after making a dragon puppet in preparation for Chinese New Year! He felt more at ease speaking through the help of a prop! The greatest growth I witnessed this week was not academic, yet it's what made me beam from ear to ear.  I saw tremendous social growth in my most challenging student!  This student has a laundry list of challenges/struggles/problems/issues/disadvantages, whatever word you'd like to choose.  I usually choose challenges, because that puts the responsibility of making change back on me as a teacher not onto the student.

This student started the year as the most violent, angry, out of control child I have ever work with.  I will even admit that I was pretty scared of him and in October wondered how I would make it through each day, let alone to the end of the year.  In the beginning of the year I had to keep all scissors and pencils away from him because these items would become a weapon.  This student would run around the classroom yelling, kicking, and destroying any items in his path.  He would not participate in any aspect of the day, and would not play with any other children.  Luckily our school his family and I have all been working together to get him the help he needs to be successful.  It has been hard and there are daily successes and setbacks.  Here is the growth that happened this week,  he started joining in!  When he walked into school one day this week he looked around, noticed a student was absent and said, "Awww, where is my friend?  I miss him."  He sat with me while his other friends were resting to make a project that he had missed out on and used his scissors safely and correctly and said, "I am so strong."  I told him, "you really know how to be safe with scissors now!"  He responded that he was as good as scissors as I am and that he is "going to be a man teacher" when he grows up.  SO MUCH GROWTH!

Chinese New Year is right around the corner and it has been the focus of our learning.  One emphasis of preparing for the new lunar year is to clean out your home to get all the bad luck out and to make room for all the luck and happiness the new year has to offer.  I use this as an excuse to have my students take ownership of their space and they help clean our room and reorganize a bit.  As we were cleaning up I realized I was glad for the growth my most challenging student provided to ME as a teacher.  His behavior makes me reexamine how I interact with him, and have to fight my instincts of how to respond to him daily.  What a gift of growth he has given me!  I would have never made these changes if not for him.  It is hard work to be sure, but worthy of my time and energy.  So as the new year approaches, I am happy to sweep our old challenges out to make room for all the happiness and luck the new year brings!

Required Reading 1/31/14

My favorite kindergarten blogger Miss Night  sends out a list of links every week and I am straight up stealing this idea.  Every week I will post my favorite articles I have read during the week.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!

This article talks why there should be NO standardized testing.

This piece spoke right to my heart, about the inequities of teaching students in poverty.

This one about pushing literacy to hard in pre-k and kindergarten is something I think about every day.

Finally this post by Teacher Tom outlines why we should all be up in arms about Common Core.

For more links like these check out my Pinterest board full of education articles.  

On a lighter note, in March my class will be learning about Holi, a hindu festival, and I am absolutely obsessed with finding great resources.  So if you know of any let me know!

Not That Kind of Charter

Here is the dirty truth.  I work for a charter school.  I always assumed I would work for an urban public school.  Yet when the offer came to work at this charter school (after student teaching and then subbing for two teachers on maternity leave) I was happy to accept the job!  Frankly being a newly minted teacher I wasn't aware of the political minefield associated with charters.  

My school was started by an organization that had a WIC clinic (Women, Infants, and Children) in a neighborhood that is poor and mostly Latino.  After many successful years as a WIC clinic they decided to expand. They started by teaching one class of Kindergartners and committed to growing slowly.  Over the past 15+ years we have grown to include an elementary, middle, and multiple high schools.  We are our state's first and only K-12 charter system. Our charter is through a local university.

I am caught between two feelings, I love and believe in public education (being a product of it myself and being lucky enough to be able to choose it for my own child)  I also know that charter schools can be just as good as public schools.

My school is not perfect, but we do a lot of things right.  We have a smaller class size than the public schools in our neighborhood, 20 students compared to 35.  We offer music, gym and library.  The one criticism that bothers me the most about charter schools is that we can hand pick students and weed out students with special needs.  Surely there are many charters that do so but we are not one of them.  The mission of our school is to serve the population that lives in our neighborhood.  We serve all sorts of kids with all sorts of needs.  I have never heard about a family being turned away, unless we didn't have a seat for them.  Our school is driven by relationships and we bend over backwards and provide a lot of support to families to make sure they can get their children to school (bus passes, gas cards, etc.).  One of our major goals is community partnerships, we are constantly making connections to provide our families with services that will help them rise out of poverty (Health care, arts programs, community fairs, etc).  Since we are a small district we are able to have a bit more freedom in how and what we teach, so we can best meet the needs of the population we serve.  Having less rules provides teachers with autonomy to do what is best for their students.

Here are some things that are not so great about my charter school, no union, lower pay than public schools, less resources than other schools, and yes it distresses me to think that money that could be going to public schools is going to mine.  It also distresses me that many charters are for profit.

Are there some (or even many) charters that give charter schools a bad name?  Absolutely!  Are there public schools that are equally awful?  Of course.  Do I favor a dismantling of the public school system in favor of charters? Absolutely NOT!  I favor honest and open discussions about what works in all schools (noting that it may be different for different populations), and trying to increase the things that work in schools so that all students can be successful!

What do you think?  Do you have strong feelings about charters or public school? What about private?  Is there room for everyone? What can we do to make sure more students are getting the opportunities they need to be successful?

A Year Of Wonder

For the past few years I have picked a focus word to meditate on for the year in my classroom, this idea was inspired by the incredible  Sally Haughey .  This year I decided on the word wonder.  My hope is to spark more questioning with my students.  One of my unwritten goals of the year is to be more explicit in modeling my thinking by using specific language. So I have started using the word wonder more explicitly.

Although my school is pretty traditional in most ways I am given a bit of freedom about how and what I teach.  I am always looking for ways to give my students more ownership over what they are learning in K5, so the other day I had the idea of what if they chose what we learn in March.  I thought I would just ask them what they want to learn about, what could go wrong?

Here is where theory and reality collided.  I laid it out and told my students, they will get to choose what they learn in March, pulled up a blank page on the SMART Board ready to write down their answers.   Here is what they said, nothing.  Then someone offered, "I want to learn how to read." (Great, we are already working on that.) I rephrased my question and asked things like, "If you could learn about anything in the whole world, what would it be?" and "What are you curious about?"  This produced the answers, "how to do hair," "train a dog to catch a ball," and "math."  I asked a clarifying question, "great, what do you want to learn in math." "Just math" said my student.  These answers did not satisfy me, so now I am thinking on why this is.  Is it because they have never been given such freedom?  Is it because of their limited language being English Language Learners?  How can I find a way to give them more ownership over their learning?  I generally keep an keen eye on their play and use that to help me plan lessons and scaffold learning, but I really want to find an area that they are curious about and dive deep into that.

What are your experiences with promoting wonder in your classroom?  How do you get your students more control and ownership over what they learn?