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

When I was a new college student, I got a job at a retail department store near my house. I quit the other retail store I was working at because I was starting to feel pressure from managers about not opening enough store credit card accounts each month. I was 18 years old and just not comfortable schmoozing people into opening up a store account when they didn't want one. So, I left one sales position for another. I hated it almost instantly. At my other job, I worked in the costume jewelry department. I was allowed to go to the ladies room when I needed to without asking permission. I was trained to handle transactions with the register. At my new job, I was stationed in the sock and handbag department for hours on end. I was not on the register. I was not allowed to go to the ladies room if I needed to without a complicated permissions procedure. There are only so many socks one can fold for hours on end without going crazy. I knew right away that this job was a mistake. M...

I used to give homework packets to my five year old students and not let them play centers on Friday if it wasn't completed.  Now I don't assign traditional homework to my 3rd graders and want my students to look for learning opportunities all around them. And read- always, I want them to read. (Write, too). But I'm not checking a log or counting sentences written in a notebook.  I used to have elaborate clip charts that announced to the world who was "on green" for being a good listener and who fell, yet again, to red because he couldn't behave.   I used to give points and Dojo dollars to students who could focus and attend and take points away from the kids who couldn't get it together. Now I work to build relationships and community and try my hardest never to shame a child, never to publicly put a clothes pin on a sign that announces a difficult day or a poor choice. I speak of our classroom community and not behavior management.  I...

How lucky I am to be a teacher. How lucky to have a job where each year, I get a clean slate and a fresh start. How lucky to have a job where I can restore my energy each summer, enjoying precious moments of time with my own children. How lucky to have a job where I walk into an empty classroom and then make it come alive with the special touches I bring. How lucky to have a job where I get to know children from all cultures and backgrounds and ability levels. How much there is to learn from all of them. How lucky to have a job where I can dance and laugh, be silly and wacky. How lucky I am to read aloud stories that captivate the hearts and minds of young people each day. How lucky I am to share my passion for writing and help young students believe there is a writer in them, too. Their words are worth sharing. How lucky I am to share my own struggles and mistakes and let students know that there is no learning without taking risks, falling down, and getting back up ...

Our legs dangled over the park-goers below, the flashing lights on the rides illuminating the summer night sky. We sat in a cable car, with just a bar securing us, nothing underneath our feet. Alex, my almost 7 year old son, said, "I'm just going to sit perfectly still." I could barely respond, willing myself to breathe deeply and avoid the panic I felt washing over me. I used to be so adventurous. My dad always tells the story of how I went on Lightning Loops with him at Great Adventure. I was my son's age- six- when I went on the rollercoaster that went upside down and backwards, super fast. I wore braids at the time and my mom remembers seeing my braids up in the air as we zoomed through the ride. My memory of the ride was it was very fast and frightening, but I was with my dad and so I was safe.  Hershey Park was our last hurrah of the summer. Back to work for me this Friday and school starting for all of us. The lazy days of hanging out and being with ea...

I recently volunteered to co-chair a committee for my son's elementary school's PTA. He's going into first grade, so I'm still a "new-ish" parent in the school and looking to get more involved where I can. One of the pieces of information I received was a list of "musts" for committee chairs. "Must" was typed in boldface and there was a page of them. It filled me with anxiety to see all those bold MUSTS on the page for a volunteer position.  But it made me think of an anchor chart I saw for writing workshop. It was entitled "Non-Negotiables" and included things like spelling high-frequency words correctly, using punctuation, and capitalizing the first letter in a sentence. As if a child would ever not be capitalizing because he didn't realize it was a non-negotiable. Where is the understanding and respect for how students are entering into writing- perhaps as an ENL student bravely attempting to write in English? The speci...

August 10th is one of my favorite days of the year- #pb10for10! These lists are always incredible and introduce me to new books for my third graders and my own two children (almost first grader, preschooler). My theme this year is books that would spark conversations for our Family Dialogue Journal. I used Buncee to create a presentation, which you can access here .  I am hoping that having 10 books selected, with a couple of questions generated, will help me use the Family Dialogue Journal with more regularity this year. I found it very valuable and some of the conversations between students and family members were powerful. A goal for this year is to build it into the routine earlier and even talk with parents about the journal at Back to School Night.  I can't wait to see everyone else's lists! 

"You love your daughter more than your work, right, Mommy?" she asks me out of the blue, peering at me through the open bathroom door as I get ready one morning.  Knife to the gut. "Of course I do, honey," I say, reassuringly, but wonder where that came from and why she would even question my love. Her question has been on my mind since she asked it. There are a lot of articles about the struggle of being a teacher and a mom simultaneously. There's "I cannot be a good mother and a good teacher" by Marissa Cooper. Dominicca Washington writes, " As a teacher-mother, I often feel a sense of guilt and question my effectiveness in both roles.  If I give too much to one, it often feels like the other will inevitably suffer" ( "I'm a Teacher and a Mom and Sometimes I Can't Be Both" ). One post that especially touched my heart was "A Letter to M y Children: What It Means To Be a Teacher" by Sarah Brown Wesslin...

This summer, I am reading Vicki Vinton's brilliant book, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading with my #cyberPD friends. This is one of the best books I have ever read regarding the teaching of reading.  Chapter 7: Creating Opportunities for Readers to Interpret One thing I have really appreciated in this book is the examples of literature. In this chapter, Vicki mentions several books I know well: Julius, Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes, One Green Apple by Eve Buntings, and The Old Woman Who Names Things by Cynthia Rylant. I never thought about these books from the perspective of patterns that change but Vicki's explanation makes so much sense and I can see myself teaching students to think along those lines.  I love the idea of a "first draft understanding."  Other thoughts that stood out in this chapter: -Readers must be tentative before they are certain. -Asking students to analyze before interpreting is like putting the cart before the ho...

This is the summer he lost a tooth. This is the summer she (mostly) learned how to dress herself. This is the summer he jumped off the diving board, treading water 11 feet deep. This is the summer she stopped holding onto me in the pool and dipped her head under water, coming up spitting out water, blinking, but proud. This is the summer he started holding doors open for people. This is the summer she wanted to paint rocks. This is the summer he flings his camp bag over his shoulder and walks in by himself. This is the summer I still need to bring her stroller when she's tired. This is the summer he is tall enough for the water slide at the pool. This is the summer she wants me to braid all her dollies hair.  This is the summer he pours his own bowl of Cheerios. This is the summer she plays school and is the teacher.  This is the summer I've caught a glimpse of how fast it all goes,  how they need me less each day, yet still need me after all. ...

I am so happy to be participating in #cyberPD for my third summer! This community always pushes my thinking and encourages me to dream and plan for the new school year. This year's selection, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading by Vicki Vinton has led to so many thoughts and ideas about how to teach children to think deeply and be problem solvers when it comes to reading.  Last week, I pulled together my thoughts on Chapters 1-4 in a padlet you can view here.  This week, I created a Top Ten List of Quotes for both Chapters 5 and Chapters 6. There were so many important lines that spoke to me, so this was easy to do! Chapter 5: Creating Opportunities for Readers to Figure Out the Basics Top Ten Quotes 1. page 60: "In addition to reading books they had chosen themselves at their assessed level, all of these students had received instruction- sometimes over years- on comprehension strategies such as monitoring comprehension and envisioning. Yet none of them could c...