Courage Doesn't Always Roar: A Teacher's Quest to Be Better Each Day

Summer is shrugging off the school year stress like a cardigan that is no longer necessary.  Summer is trading in my work bags full of lessons, papers, and memos for beach bags full of superhero towels, sunscreen, and flip flops.  Summer is nights on the screened in porch and books just for fun, quiet except for the hum of the ceiling fan.  Summer is pool passes and camp schedules, library visits and play dates. Summer is our backyard swing and sitting with my two children, talking about nothing...and everything. Summer is blowing bubbles and sidewalk chalk, fireflies and fireworks.  Summer is a late dinner on the water, fancy drinks, no regrets.  Summer is peaches and cherries, watermelon and pineapples. Summer is the smell of barbecues and red, white, and blue dresses, flags waving.  Summer is freedom. Summer is renewal. Summer is here! 

Goodbyes hang in the air when it's the last week of school. The rip of tape being pulled from the wall echoes as pictures and displays come down, revealing bare walls. Notebooks are stuffed in backpacks, unused workbooks are debated- should they be sent home or thrown out? All the places where students' names hung, showing their partnerships, or their writing, or their class jobs- all of these are taken down. No more names now.  Some of the children are like puppies inside a gate, just waiting for the lock to be opened and to run with the freedom of summer. Not all children. Some feel a sadness and worry that school is ending, the structure, the stability, the knowledge that breakfast and lunch appear each day.  We bring to a conclusion a year full of learning. Sometimes with a test and not much else. Sometimes with a celebration, bagels and books and numbers held high showing how much reading happened.  When it's the last week of school, it's your last time to...

On the darkest days, the hardest days, I pick up a book and I read aloud to students.  My third grade students, restless with thoughts of summer, quieted as I began to read aloud. I've been reading Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind , a book that puts you right into the shoes of nonverbal Melody, an 11 year old with cerebral palsy. It is a book you should read, if you haven't already, and I don't want to spoil anything for you. I'll just say this was the part where there was a terrible injustice done to Melody. The air was thick with emotion. My voice wavered as I read the words. They were quiet. Then they were angry and outraged for Melody, right along with me.  These are the moments. When you get a room full of eight and nine year olds to ache with caring about a character who is very different from them.  When they see we are all the same on the inside, despite any outward differences. When they forget that Melody drools and can't talk and kicks her legs out...

Letter to my first kindergarten class, upon their high school graduation Dear Graduates, We first met each other in 2003, when you were 4 and 5 years old and I was 24. Your first official year in school was my third year of teaching and my first year as a kindergarten teacher. You were so little, full of energy, and eager to learn. The letter people were friends in our room, including Mr. B with his "beautiful buttons" and Mr. M with his "munching mouth." We celebrated the wedding of Mr. Q and Ms. U in style and you even brought in quarters as wedding gifts! We had teddy bear tea parties and ate green eggs and ham. We built blocks, painted, and danced. Olivia, the pig, traveled home with you for the weekends. We sang "What a Wonderful World" in June before you moved onto first grade. It's been quite some time since I've seen most of you! I hope your journey through the years as a student has been rewarding and I hope you are just a...

I first noticed I was having trouble hearing when I was pregnant with my daughter, Megan, who is now 3 years old. I remember putting the phone receiver on my left ear and not being able to hear the other person on the line clearly. I would switch to the right ear, thinking, "How strange."  The day I had my 20 week sonogram and learned my second baby was a girl, I had an appointment with an audiologist. I explained I was having difficulty hearing and I underwent a hearing exam. I think the doctor was stunned that at 33 years old, I had pretty significant hearing loss in my left ear and some loss in my right ear. He suggested I get an MRI to rule out any brain issues that might be causing that loss. My father's family has a history of early hearing loss, so I was pretty certain I inherited that. I did the MRI the next day, but then Hurricane Sandy hit Long Island and I had to wait on the results. Thankfully, everything was fine. But I was left with the knowledge that my...

The plan was to put the kids to bed, then come write my blog post. Still not sure exactly what to write, but a nagging sense of inexplicably feeling lost kept floating up.  Instead, I found myself the "peanut butter" in a bedtime sandwich. Megan, my 3 year old, decided she needed a snuggle after 25 minutes of singing in her bed instead of sleeping as I wearily sat in the chair, waiting for her to doze off. Just as she climbed into my lap, Alex, my 5 year old, came in and asked me to sleep in his room that night. Now, I know, rule books say the kids should be sleeping on their own, in their own beds. Many times they do. But sometimes they don't. And tonight was clearly one of those nights. It was decided they would sleep in my bed, which has the most room. Alex insisted I go in the middle so I could be next to both of them. And so there I lay, the peanut butter to Alex and Megan's bread, the cream in the Oreo. Stuck in the middle with them...with blogging pl...

Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs to know that, no matter what, someone will hold you, hug you, help pick up the pieces, stitch it all back together, point out the rainbow when all you see is the storm. Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs that person you can call, at any time, day or night, whenever and wherever, Who always answers and always helps. No matter what you've done or failed to do. Steadfastly in your corner, Always on your side. Everybody needs a person like that. Everybody needs a soft place to land. Everybody needs to believe no matter how far you wander or stray from your beliefs no matter how conceited or vain or downtrodden and despairing someone always knows your heart believes in you despite your failings, your mistakes, knows your goodness  deep down in their soul. Before you can stretch and risk and be brave and daring, Before you can conquer your fe...

Oh, house hunters. Today you will notice a new house on the market, will click on the pictures, consider the location and price, possibly be interested in seeing it, maybe making it your new home. You'll think, "It needs work" and it does. You'll see that it needs some updating, for sure. But there's so much you won't see.  You'll see a porch. It was the porch where I sat on many summer evenings, fireflies dotting the night sky, chatting with my Grandy about life and his memories of growing up in Brooklyn. He used to have a black radio with an antennae on the ground next to him, listening to hear if the Yankees won. The porch overlooked a garden he tended to most lovingly. One of our most-told family stories happened on this very porch when I was about 3 years old. My father was trying to hang a plant and I pushed him, saying, "Excuse me, please." He didn't want to step on my Grandy's prize flowers, so he leapt over the garden, landin...

The important thing about being a teacher is you are doing your part to create a better world. You are teaching students what they say and do matters, and you are showing them the power of literacy to unlock doors, to open possibilities. You are teaching them to think critically, to ask questions, to challenge what has always been in the hopes of what could be. You are the smile that greets them, the ears that listen to them, the eyes that really see who they are. You are the heart that cares for them. You are the library, full of books, magazines, poems and words that will nourish their minds, hearts, and spirits.  When you are a teacher, you can get lost in all the "to-do's" and can almost convince yourself that the curriculum is king and the pacing charts reign supreme. You find your true purpose, once again, by realizing that the student matters more than standards on a page; when recognizing that the conversation about a book is just as valid, and maybe more so...

He hopped down the sidewalk on one foot, his joy and excitement bubbling over with each step. Just across the street we walked, but like another world- kindergarten. The first orientation for parents and students. How strange it was to be on the other side of it now- for ten years, I taught kindergarten and stood at orientations, smiling reassuringly about this milestone. Sitting in the cafeteria and listening to the principal and school specialists talk about kindergarten, I tried to hear what wasn't being said as much as what was. Tears fell as the psychologist read this poem . Letting go is not as easy as I made it sound when I gave the pep talk to parents.  There was a packet and many, many papers. There was a book (I f You Give a Dog a Donut ) which was lovely, I thought. There was a list of sight words and a conversation about early literacy profiles and being picked up for reading if you  score low. Worry filled my heart, because my sensitive, bright boy is so very ...