Unity

This week one of my classes participated in an event to commemorate September 11th. We joined a thousand other students and staff in our quad and formed the word UNITY. Our principal went up in a helicopter and took a picture of us from the sky. Of course, the unity came from a common desire to honor those lives lost and remember a significant event in our country's history. But it made me think about the concept of unity and whether our school community or even the small community within my classroom can be seen as united.

What does it take for unity to occur?

First, we must share a common purpose. As I watch students walk through the door into the classroom each day, I wonder what purpose they have for being there. Is it to learn? Is it to develop themselves into more thoughtful, reflective human beings capable of understanding how others experience life and communicating effectively about how they experience theirs? Somehow I doubt that this is why they enter the room. Mostly the enter because it is what they are supposed to do. The sense of obligation compels them. Part of my job, then, becomes creating an environment which encourages them toward the purpose I want them to have. I have to make being such a person as the one described above appear so interesting and fulfilling that my students want that for themselves. On five hours of good sleep a night, that's a challenge, but it's one I accept.

Second in developing this sense of unity is a common respect. We need to recognize that each of us in the room is unique, but valuable. Not tolerable, but valuable. In the world of the teenager, self seems to be the thing of greatest value, but if we are going to be a community of readers, writers and thinkers, we need to have respect for the reading, writing and thinking of others. I see my students walking a very thin line -- hoping to project themselves to their teachers and peers as "not stupid" and "not lame," but not wanting to appear to eager or engaged. To appear bored by the class or unmoved or even "above" the class is preferable to being seen as a kiss-up or a nerd.

The novelty of gathering on the quad with a thousand other students, of being part of a word so large we couldn't even tell where within it we stood, of being photographed from a helicopter circling overhead like paparazzi at a celebrity wedding would be almost impossible to recreate in the classroom on a daily basis. However, with the right voice behind the megaphone guiding each child into a place where he fits and contributes to the endeavor at hand, my students can move toward common purpose and respect. I know it will take longer than the twenty minutes, but the memory will last much longer.

Getting Smart

I don't remember the first time someone called me smart. For a long time, I assumed smart was something I simply was through no action of my own. To a degree, that is true. We each are born with certain aptitudes, gifts, talents and mine happened to be learning things easily. But I am beginning to realize as I watch my own sons grow and welcome another group of 136 students into my life, that being smart is only something we are if we choose to be and if we work at it. The smart I was in 2nd grade certainly would not qualify me as smart today at 36.

So, how then do I encourage my students and my children to get smart, to be smart? Even in my Honors and AP classes, students label others as "the smart ones." All of them are in a class designed for advanced students and yet many do not view themselves as smart. And then others assume they are smart and do not work very hard at getting smart.

Smart is working hard to learn and loving the constant evolution of one's self as the learning occurs. Smart is taking school seriously enough to enjoy it. That is what I want to encourage in my children and what I want to inspire in my students.

Summer Musings #1

So, last year I only blogged for the first couple of months and then life took over and I didn't return. But, now that the school year has closed and I re-read the posts from early in the year, I am re-inspired. I tried so many new things with my classes last year, that perhaps sustaining them all was too much to ask of myself. Now, I am reflecting on what I appreciated and enjoyed last year and I begin to imagine this coming school year and I am rejuvenated! Plus, how can I hope for my students to see the beauty and purpose of a writing life if I do not engage in a writing life of my own?

This needs to be a priority -- not only optimism, but also necessity for an authentic experience with my students compels me to pursue it.

Week 8: What is Easy

Doing what is easy keeps us from doing what is worthwhile. Doing what is easy takes little thought and little effort, but the result is the same, very little. Why do we shy away from the tasks that truly challenge us? Why do we recoil from rigor and thoughtful reflection? Are we afraid of failing? Afraid of succeeding and having a new standard to which we must now adhere? Are we too busy? Too tired? Too scheduled? Too undisciplined?

I want to be a model for my students of what I expect of them as readers, writers, thinkers, and learners. I want them to see me engaged in analysis and evaluation. I want them to see me welcoming challenges and pursuing new ideas. I want them to see that a life of ease is not necessarily a life of joy. True joy comes from a confidence in one's self and a hope for the world around us. How can we have those things if we do not seek growth, seek failure, seek problems, seek solutions?

How do I get my students to stop choosing to do what is easy and begin loving what is difficult?

Weeks Three and Four: Cattle Rustler

So, now, we're comfortable. They know me. I know them. Now the task at hand is to move beyond what is easy.

I am really excited about the prospects that the electronic portfolios students are designing will make available to us. The freedom, the engagement, the creativity -- these aspects make me excited to continue to work on this idea.

What is difficult though is getting students to really "dig in." I want them to delve so deeply into what we are doing that it has meaning for them beyond the classroom. I want to break them out of the "this is my assignment and I choose to accept it" mode. When we write responses to poetry, I want the room to be silent and for them to groan when I tell them to wrap up their writing. I want them to come into class and walk out of class heatedly discussing the day's reading and their work. Instead, I am constantly prodding them to get focused, think deeper, ask more questions, put away work from other classes and ultimately I feel like I am just begging: care, care, care. Excuse the vulgar simile, but sometimes it is like I am the cattle rustler, moving the sluggish beasts along :) What will it take to make the cows dance??

Maybe I need to model this more -- maybe they need to see me immersed in thinking, see me engaged with the ideas. I think I do this, but I don't feel like I am getting through as effectively as I hope.

How can I inspire my students to do thinking and reading and writing that feels good only because it hurts?

Week Two: Routine and Relationship

It is only the second week of school and already it feels like we have been here for months. In some ways that is depressing -- if we are already a bit tired and a bit overwhelmed, how will we feel in March? But mostly, it is a reassuring feeling for me. The first week is filled with unknowns and the second week is filled with establishing routine and relationships. The wildness of week one has settled down and now I can start getting to know the young people in my classroom, getting to know who they are, how they dream, what motivates them and what is too much for them. I will spend the rest of the year doing this -- routine and relationships.

By routine, I am not implying that each minute of the class period is perfectly scheduled and offers no variance from day to day. I believe students should walk into class each day eager for what awaits, not dreading what they expect. However, as a former department chair of mine used to always say, I want them to know that in this classroom "this is what we do." Our methods for achieving our learning goals may look different each day, but I hope my students have a common understanding of the expectations we have of each other and the standard to which we are holding ourselves. I believe there is comfort in this, for myself and for my students. This is how we establish routine.

We aren't completely there yet -- I am discovering so much about my students and they are discovering who I am as their teacher. And I am sure that there is still a question about "what we do" in this class, but as we spend time each day engaged in reading, writing, thinking and sharing together, we move toward this common understanding and will be inspired to take risks and do our best in the safe and nurturing space of our classroom.

Week One: Anxiety Dreams

My first few years of teaching always began with a series of anxiety dreams before the first day of school. These dreams would involve a wide array of horrible mishaps -- no roll sheet, no classroom, students throwing desks, etc. I have completed the first week of my 12th school year and while the anxiety dreams have subsided -- due more to my exhaustion after caring for three young boys all summer than confidence -- I still wonder if this will be the year that one of those mini-nightmares will come true. I love the first days of school -- sharpened pencils, eager smiles, fresh folders and neat backpacks, but I worry that trouble may be lurking.

So far though, this has not happened. Partly that comes from working in a fabulous school where our weak air conditioning and a great demand for advanced classes are among our only problems. But I think the positive first days also come from my sincere love of being a teacher. When students walk into my classroom, I am so eager to find out more about who they are, what their passions are, what dreams they have for themselves and I believe it is a privilege to be a part of those dreams becoming reality. Students put a little piece if their spirit into the hands of their teachers. I could take that and lay it on a table, never to acknowledge it again. I could squeeze it until it burst. I could dangle it over a trash can to humiliate it. Or -- and what I hope I do -- I could hold it tenderly and nurture it until it was ready to take flight on its own. What a gift we have been given in these young minds and spirits! I hope to appraoch each day with this attitude so that my students and I can reveal the best of who we are.