Damaged Goods

I have returned from my much needed break from blogging and all things education. While I was still reading postings in my google reader, I stopped writing and reading anything else. Like my wife, I professed to take a break until August 1st... and I'm back!

Since I don't have a grade level or school yet (but do have a contract), I've started by reading more background stuff. I'm finishing To Understand by Keene (co-author of Mosaic of Thought), which has been a good start. My wife is finishing Results Now, which is next on my list, and then there is a chapter from the Morning Meeting book that I am going to read. In my starred blog posts is one about classroom blogging, which I am excited to read a bit more thoroughly (as well as doing more classroom blog research- Learning is Messy etc).

Psyched to get rolling, and psyched to be back. I'll leave you with this comment from Pat Conroy (another google reader nugget):

I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why.

Dishonored and "unpraised" (sic)... hmmm.

Don't Quote Me

I have gotten myself back in the groove of reading for pleasure. Well, pleasure tends to be education books so I suppose I am reading for professional development as well. Alas... I am still in the midst of To Understand. I found myself nodding my head along today and writing a few great passages down...

• "When we assume that kids aren't doing high-level thinking we may need to consider whether the conditions we create are conducive to high-level thinking." -p 77
• "I want to change our emphasis from the number of kids participating to the quality..."- p 78
• "What we have in many schools is a whole lot of disengaged kids slogging through the essential skills in the right order, but who are starving intellectually."-p 79

Granted those are just some from a small section, but they are indicative of the remainder of the book. I find myself reflecting on my own practice, and the types of questions I have asked and who I asked. Was I being equitable? Was I trying to go for a myriad of ideas instead of simply going deep with one? Vice versa? What type of classroom environment did I create or establish, and how did it impact the learning my kids were doing?

In many ways I wish it were fall and I had a position already so that I could get moving. The creative juices, and the intellectual energy is starting to spin. Onward to applying and working through the process. One word descriptor? Arduous.

Happy Accidents

I have enjoyed reading To Understand thus far. Since I started student teaching, back in March, I have been going through some of the books my wife and I have.... Growing Readers by Kathy Collins, Reading (and Writing) Essentials by Regie Routman, Study Driven by ??? The past 3+ weeks I haven't really tried to read much of the school related ilk, so this has been a wonderful change (if only for the past day or so).

Keene writes about the "happy accidents" that occur during the school year. That is, we have students who get totally immersed in a topic or book. When this happens we become elated, as the student has just realized the potential that we have seen since Day 1. The problem with the happy accident is this: why can't it happen everyday? The same child may have been pushing us to wits end the day before (and the day after), so what caused this change in their learning?

As someone who wants to create lifelong learners, how do I make those happy accidents less accidental and more regular? That question is something I'll be pondering for a while.

The Way You Ask Questions

Last week took a huge toll on my body. I came through the weekend with clogged sinuses, and some sort of cold. It is the same thing my wife had last week, so I am hopeful that it will be gone by tomorrow. I felt pretty awful on Saturday and then raced Beat the Bridge with a fever and all that jazz yesterday. Today I went in to school to get some things ready, then asked my Master Teacher to let me head home and sleep (to which she kindly said yes!).

Between sleeping, coughing, and fixing the bathtub drain (the chain broke on the plunger), I started to read To Understand by Ellin Oliver Keene. Keene was one of the co-authors of Mosaic of Thought, which has been recommended to me by quite a few folks. To Understand has been on our bookshelf for a few months now, as my wife bought it when I was purchasing school books in January. I figured that I didn't have much to read right now, why not take a look?

I'm not far along, but one thing is stunning: Helping kids to understand is a difficult job. She starts the book with the story of Jamika, and asking her (in an informal reading conference) if she understands the book she is reading. The reply was one that makes total sense- everyone asks me if it makes sense or if I get it, but no one ever told me what "making sense" means. That stopped me in my tracks, as I had to think about what it truly meant to understand something... and why that is important to the students we teach.

Additionally, Keene writes about holding high expectations for our students. That, I thought to myself, I am on board with, and is something I feel like I do a good job of. That was until I read how she posed a question/issue, and talked about expectations often be embedded in our language. For example:

1. See if you can think of a question about the story...
2. Think about all the questions you have as we read the story, and then pick one or two that you think will help us understand more about the story.

Seems silly no? But I did something like this last week, also on questioning. The first one poses the question as though they might not all get it, whereas the second one expects that all have questions. Don't we expect that all of us will have questions? As Keene writes, "showing high expectations for literacy learning is a far more subtle and precise process and requires far more consistent attention to the ways in which that we interact with children (15)."