Tonight, my son’s friend stayed for dinner because we were having homemade pizza. Afterwards, the boys played on their devices for longer than I meant to allow. As I shooed him out the door – homework! bedtime! – I filled his arms with his iPad, the book he wanted to borrow, and a dozen fresh eggs for his mother. I asked if he had gloves. No. I reminded him to be careful. Ok. Could he manage all these things? Yes. Say hello to your parents. Goodbye!
He left.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzed. His father:
I’m blaming the enticing snow banks, not the 10-year-old. After all, winter will end before the kids grow up.
I am grateful that my English department colleagues are some of the smartest and most well-read people I have ever worked with and that they offer students a wide range of ways to approach texts.
I am grateful for raucous, hilarious lunchtime conversations about everything from Hamlet to hell-raising.
I am grateful that we have a kitchen in the English office, and I’m grateful to the custodian for giving us a cast-off round table a few years ago so that everyone can sit around talking at lunch and to a department that welcomes all comers – especially supply teachers (Canadian for “substitute teachers) and those new to the school.
I’m grateful for the freedom to teach my class in ways that are supported by research but which are new to me. I’m grateful that my administration and my department trust me enough to let me try new ways to encourage growth in our students.
I am grateful that our librarian is incredibly enthusiastic about books and reading, that she shares the library with me all the time, lets my class have first dibs on new arrivals, will work with my struggles one-on-one and generally supports my crazy literacy ideas
I’m grateful for a principal who loves to talk pedagogy, who believes that relationships are what make education, and who always – even when he drives me crazy – starts with the question, “will it help the students learn?”.
I’m grateful for vice principals who demonstrate respect for the students they encounter – and who are effective and supportive.
I’m grateful for a partner teacher in Spec Ed (Canadian for Special Education) who is committed, dynamic and visionary.
I’m grateful that the EAs (educational assistants) are some of the best I’ve ever worked with: smart, funny, and deeply focused on our students.
Good heavens, I am realizing that I’m grateful to work with so many amazing people -and I can’t possibly enumerate them all here (but I’ll start): our head custodian who provides laughter and counsel, our office staff who are ridiculously competent and have the best Halloween costumes, our Guidance Dept who are tirelessly supportive of students, our IT support who is constantly on the go & saving our bacon, my colleagues who share complaints & compliments freely. I feel like I could write whole posts about person after person.
I’m grateful for the dynamism that is generated by the Arts programs. Our school is full of kids dancing down the hallway, singing in the stairwells, painting on the walls (sanctioned!). I’m grateful for the student performances that inspire: music, dance, words and images permeate our every day. And I”m grateful to the teachers for providing the structure and the time to make that happen.
I’m grateful that our school actively works to make spaces for all sorts of students – physically disabled, talented in the arts, behavior challenged, gay, trans, LD, newcomers to Canada, kids from down the street. We take our commitment to welcoming all very seriously.
I’m realizing as I write that what it comes down to is that I am grateful for a team of people who believe deeply in the potential of all of our students and who hold each other up as we strive to offer our students the best that we can.
Where did this start? Do I blame the very enthusiastic gym teacher who came in and jokingly shamed the English Department into participating in Buskerfest? “It’s for a good cause,” he said. “Your department didn’t do anything last year.” But what should the English teachers do? Declaim poetry? Offer our services to write love letters? We are a bookish crowd, not well suited to busking.
Maybe I should lay the blame more firmly at the feet of my 75-year-old colleague, who has never met a crazy idea he didn’t want to try, and his partner-in-crime, a former drama teacher with a penchant for performance? Either way, when the Phys Ed teacher told us that the French department was singing French folk songs in the lobby, one of those two said that we would do karaoke. WE.
I had never actually done karaoke, though I’ve watched in awe as others sing with great enthusiasm in front of complete strangers. And, while I have been known to dance to the songs that play over the PA system before classes begin, I had certainly never done karaoke in front of my students and colleagues.
But here I stood, next to a jerry-rigged home karaoke machine in the middle of the main foyer, belting out “I Will Survive” in front of the principal, my laughing colleagues and an alarming number of students. I’ll admit, I was having fun, but I was also mortified.
Maybe my obvious combination of enthusiasm and embarrassment was just what the crowd needed: soon, one of my former students stood and joined me and my colleagues – a little vocal support or just wanting to be part of the fun? I’ll never know. As we finished, two more students, both new to our school and struggling to fit in, were at the mic, and the student who had joined me, joined them. Next, a quiet grade 9 student offered up an Ariana Grande song (“It’s the clean version, Miss,” she whispered, just before she took the mic and sang to the crowd). More and more people came – another teacher, some dance students – and my personal favourite: one of our students with a physical disability sang Shawn Mendes’s “It’s In My Blood” from his wheelchair as an EA held the mic. His delivery of the lines “Sometimes I feel like giving up/ But I just can’t/ It isn’t in my blood” sent shivers down my spine.
Shawn Mendes had better look out!
In the end, the English Department karaoke busking raised $123.65 during that lunch – but what it really did, somehow, was give everyone a place to sing. It’s the first time I’ve ever really understood karaoke, and I’m already thinking about a song for next year.
This summer my sister and I stayed at my dad and stepmom’s lake house for a week while they went camping with our children. It was delightful. I have been a city girl for a long time now, so I relished my time in the “country.”
Since the grandparents had all the kids, my sister and I generously did a few chores during our week off. We watered the plants, tidied the house, fed the cat, did all the laundry we could find, even went through old canned goods and got rid of the ones that were seriously expired.
But no one had said anything about the chickens. And clearly living creatures needed to be looked after. So… how much do you feed chickens? How often? We didn’t want to bother our stepmother, the main chicken keeper, and we really didn’t want them to come home early with all the kids, so the internet was our friend. At no point did we pause to realize that our extremely competent stepmother probably did not leave her beloved chickens to starve while she was gone.
Chickens are fun to watch.
Once we’d finished our basic research about chicken feeding, I let myself into the coop, confident that I could handle this chore. As I entered, I noticed that the top of the wire mesh roof was covered in rotting leaves, and I decided to clear the leaves as an extra bonus to my super-daughter work. I started poking and pushing at the decaying debris and, of course, it rained down all over my head, into my eyes, onto my shoulders, and right down into my bra because, of course, I was wearing sundress. As I stood there, covered in itchy, smelly leaf rot, the thought “I am not stupid. Why did I do this?” ran through my head.
I probably should have just left the coop then, but I was worried about those chickens, so I brushed off what leaf pieces I could and continued with my mission. It turned out that the chickens had a feeder, so I assumed they had enough food, but what about water? I looked around the coop – my stepmother is no slouch: these chickens have multiple rooms – and eventually found a small water bottle. It honestly looked like something I’d put on a hamster cage, not nearly big enough for four chickens, but I filled it anyway. Still, I continued to worry: there was no way that was enough water. I noticed the chickens milling around a white bucket precariously perched on some cement blocks. A water bucket! When I looked in to check the water level, I noticed lots of green mold growing inside, so… I decided to continue my super-daughter act and clean it. I was still wearing my cute sundress.
How hard can it be to clean a water bucket for chickens? I looked up at the mess of hoses attached to the garage spigot. There were at least five along with some sort of crazy thing that you move around to make water flow out of one hose or another according to your needs. But, they were just hoses, how hard could it be? About five minutes later, after some curses and some water spraying in unexpected directions, I finally managed to get water into the bucket. The mold did not come off. I made the hose spray harder. The water rebounded out of the bucket and all over me, but the mold held on.
At this point my city thinking clicked in, and I went inside, got a kitchen sponge to clean the bucket, noticed the dish soap, and grabbed that, too. And, voila!, my city solution worked: the bucket was clean. Hooray! I stood back to look proudly at my handiwork and had a terrible thought: Are chickens sensitive to dish soap? I had no idea. I did a very thorough rinse of the bucket.
This process took at least 15 minutes, and the chickens glared accusingly from their coop the entire time. They knew that I had no idea what I was doing. I had taken their water and was clearly incompetent. They clustered around the door, watching, waiting, judging.
Triumphantly returning the chickens’ glares, I returned to the cage and placed the now-clean, thoroughly rinsed, and completely refilled water bucket on the uneven cement blocks. And it leaked. A lot. Water went everywhere. The chickens were visibly delighted, clucking and pecking at the wet ground, at the stream of water, at my toes. I repositioned the bucket. No dice. I fiddled with the spouty-bit that was supposed to let the water out only when they pecked at it. More water flowed, and the coop turned into a muddy mess.
Finally, soaked, rotten leaf debris still in my hair and bra, sweat running down my back and cleavage, and flip-flops covered in mud from the mess I’d made in the coop, I gave up. My stepmother was returning tomorrow. I would just have to ask how to take care of chickens.
P.S. She had left the coop completely prepared for her absence, and I had broken the water bucket beyond repair. She made a new one and I haven’t been in that coop since.
“Da-an’s in trouble!” A young girl’s voice echoed through the phone on my end; I could only imagine how it echoed through the house on the other end. There was a brief rustle as someone else picked up the receiver, and I overheard a muffled curse.
“Hello?” His mother’s voice was wary.
I launched into my spiel. I was so nervous that I talked without pausing until I finished with “…so that’s why I called.”
Silence. Then she muttered, “Well, thanks.” I hung up.
I was doing my student teaching. In our Classroom Management class – a label, by the way, which I dismissed as euphemistic. “Just call it ‘discipline,’” I groused. – one suggestion was the “positive phone call home.” I can’t remember if the professor suggested calling about the hard kids or if I dreamed that up, but that’s what I decided to do: I decided to find something good about the toughest kids in the class and call home. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Dan was in my French class and he had approximately zero interest in learning French. In fact, given that we were in a poor neighborhood in Portland, OR, I would guess that most of the students were in that class because Spanish didn’t fit in their timetables and the teacher was relatively new. Dan was a big, athletic kid who came to class most days sweating and heaving from his lunchtime basketball games. He could not sit still, talked constantly and was mostly a royal pain in the tuchus. On any given day, Dan could easily send the whole class sideways.
I was ridiculously young and enthusiastic, so I had made a few changes since I took over – thank you, Classroom Management class – and Dan was responding well. We’d redirected his unending comments into French and he was leading the class in actually speaking French. So, I called home.
After his mom hung up, I was stunned. That had not gone as I had planned. Chagrined, I turfed my plans to call a few more kids and reflected that not all good theories work well in practice. Boy, was I wrong.
The next day, Dan came bounding into class and gave me a big sweaty hug. “I GOT ICE CREAM!” As it turned out, no one had EVER called home to say something good about Dan. His mom had called his Dad, a trucker, on the road and had taken him and his siblings out for ice cream. He was one of my best students and a class leader right up until my student teaching ended.
And I was hooked. Since that day the “positive phone call home” has been one of my secret weapons. I use it all the time. Knowing that I want to call home and say something nice about each of my students means that I watch them differently. I actively and regularly look for what they do well. When I see it, I call. I can always find something good. Always.
Parents are regularly stunned by this call. Even parents of the best students rarely get positive feedback outside of report cards. Almost never do they get a call to tell them something kind, proactive or thoughtful that their child has done. I am regularly greeted by stunned silence, though by now I have learned to slow down while I speak. One father cried because his son – who, to be fair, was *really* struggling with all things related to school – had never heard a teacher say something nice about his child. One mother whooped and laughed, “You made my day! Heck, you’ve made my week! This is the best.” Most just say thank you.
And the kids? Well, like Dan, a few mention the call. Monday comes (because I love calling home on Fridays and making the whole weekend start well) and a quiet voice will say, “I can’t believe you called my mom. That was great.” But many – often the least engaged – never say a thing. Still, they keep coming back to class. They keep learning. And someone somewhere in their life knows that I am trying to really see their child.
We all want to be seen.
When should you call home to say something nice? Here are a few suggestions… Call in the first few weeks. Call when you’re upset with your class. You will remember what they do well. Call when you see something good happen. Call that day: at lunch, right before you head out the door to go home, whenever. The calls are rarely long. Call on a Friday. Or a Monday. Or whenever. It does not matter: just call. It might just change YOUR life.
They are building a car powered by a rubber band. Although, to be clear, I’m not sure I should be using the word “they” in that sentence. A loose agglomeration of human beings of roughly age 10 are working on an assignment in the vicinity of one another. That about sums it up.
My son says that “the girls” took over and would not listen to him. His solution? Stop helping. At least one of the girls reported to her mother that “the boys” were just fooling around and didn’t do any of the work. The result? One girl and one boy are in my kitchen the night before the project is due, hot-gluing household items onto two entirely different cars neither of which reliably covers the required three metres. They plan to let the “group” vote on which one to use tomorrow. Both sides agree that the vote will likely divide along gender lines.
Every adult I’ve spoken to about this (because this group project has lasted for at least 10 painful days and other parents of other groups are equally put-upon) either rolls their eyes or laughs and says, “well, they might as well learn early what group work is really like.” And, though I wish it were otherwise, I more or less agree. I don’t have fond memories of group work from my school days. Heck, I even hate the group work I’ve had to do as an adult in my online courses. It’s hard for me to remember the synergy of a group of people, focused and contributing, creating something together that they simply couldn’t do on their own. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it’s transformative. Nevertheless, that’s not what I think of when I hear “group work.”
In the case of the rubber band car(s), I’m embarrassed to say that my first instinct was to blame the teacher: clearly the group work wasn’t well-structured, I thought. Teachers need to assign roles, break the task into parts, provide both independent and collaborative outcomes. But that’s kind of blather, isn’t it? I mean, it sort of works, but sort of doesn’t because group work is messy and complicated and often doesn’t lead to where we hoped it would go. Frankly, I assign group work only rarely, usually using the excuse that I need to “assess individual outcomes.” (Sometimes the words that come out of my mouth astonish me.) So I doubt that the group problems here really stem from the way the teacher assigned things.
But here I am. The kids are asleep, the cars are as done as they are going to be, and I’m wondering why the heck their project is bothering me. As I write, I keep trying to take the easy route, to switch gears to talking about my own classroom and jump right into “I’m going to assign more group work! I’ll research it, and I’ll do it better!” but I’m pretty sure that’s not the reflection I need.
How well do I work in groups? Do I “accept various roles”? Do I take over, listen to others or simply give up? What is a “good” group? What is the responsibility of the individual? How important is group work anyway?
I’m surprised by my ambivalence about the whole thing, but my thoughts keep returning to those two different cars limping towards the three-metre-mark, and I can’t help but wonder what that group needed to change to make one excellent car.
“Miss, how long have you been teaching?” In one motion, he picks up a stool, arcs it under his body, and plunks himself down across from me. I stop eating my lunch and look up.
“More than 20 years. I’ve kind of lost count. Why?”
“Ok. So. You know how to make kids stop talking, right?” He’s taking up a lot of space – legs spread, elbows on my desk, newly-bearded chin balanced in his hands as he glares at me intently.
“Well…”
I’m not sure where he’s going with this line of questioning and it makes me a little nervous. He’s not an easy kid to read. He arrived at our school early last year, and his life before that was not easy. Heck, his life after that was not easy. He’s intense and funny and thoughtful, but he can be impulsive and independent well beyond what is good for him. When I taught him during that rocky first semester, I learned quickly that his questions are almost always multi-layered and that he wants real answers.
“It’s never that easy,” I tell him, and I think of some of our stand-offs in the classroom.
Some of those memories must occur to him, too, because we look hard at each other until I finally break. “Spill,” I say. “Who do you want to stop talking?”
Three ninth grade girls in the math class he’s peer tutoring are driving him crazy. “They talk all the time! They’re so rude! They don’t know what a great opportunity they have! Mr. W’s an excellent teacher.”
He’s already tried to divide and conquer. He’s figured out who’s the leader. He’s tried being nice…
-Pause here for a second-
He is a peer tutor.
He is working with 14-year-olds in a math class.
He’s seeking advice from teachers he respects because he wants to go to the classroom teacher with ideas.
He is a peer tutor.
He is helping out in a math class. He is seeking advice from teachers.
We had a good talk, and I made a few suggestions. And I told him that the suggestions probably won’t work – who can stop three determined 9th graders from talking? – but I doubt he’ll give up.
When he left, I might have been a little teary. He’s a peer tutor. A peer tutor. I might be a little teary again right now. Sometimes teaching is the best job ever.
Come write your own slice of life and share on Tuesday at twowritingteachers.org
You must eat real food! If you’re not off that computer in 5 minutes… No. More. Handstands. Wheat Thins alone do not constitute a healthy lunch.
It’s late, and I’m tired. I lost my temper with my children earlier this evening over the myriad phrases I’ve said a thousand times. Too often, these shrill phrases feel like the soundtrack of my evenings. By the time bedtime arrives, I am so frazzled that I’m not sure I can outlast the children. Of course, I have no choice, so I continue.
Upstairs we settle into my bed, and the younger one reads out loud in French. A year ago he could barely do this; now even when he stumbles, he corrects himself and goes on. He is concentrated and sure. Next, I read aloud. The boys ask questions, move around, clip their toenails, draw, get water, but mostly they listen. Sometimes, like tonight, the book leads us to unexpected discussions about things like what is a sijo and what makes one poem better than another. (Thank you, Jason Reynolds, for putting poetry in Miles Morales: Spider Man.) No matter how frustrating the evening has been, as we read aloud, the complaints fade away and we find ourselves together in a new place. I read and I read. The boys almost always ask for one more page…
And then, I snuggle the 8-year-old into and sing to him. Three lullabies. Every night. We say goodnight and he smothers me with kisses, triumphantly exclaiming, “I win!” I have to respond, “You always win!” and am rewarded with his giggle as I turn off the light and move into his brother’s room. There, my newly-serious 10-year-old says, “Would you like to have a conversation? What would you like to talk about?” and we snuggle in for five more minutes of murmured chitchat.
Lights out and I the stairs creak as I head back to the kitchen. Brief silence followed by sudden gratitude that my evening soundtrack is richer and more varied than I originally thought.
The last teaching days of this semester were snow days. Two of them in a row. What a way to go out.
Shocking precisely no one, I like to teach right up to the last minute. I had planned one more guided academic discussion (for a mark!), an exit survey/ teacher evaluation (which I keep and use to improve my teaching every year – and also to check that I’m teaching what I think I’m teaching), and a celebration/ reflection on our learning. No, not a party (imagine my students’ disappointment), rather a moment to take stock and find ways to represent our learning and then celebrate (and yes, I sometimes bring food). I was even going to read them one more poem. (Hey, who knows when they’re going to hear another one?)
So none of that happened. On the plus side, despite the lack of busses and the general emptiness of the school, six of my students showed up for the last day, which was kind of miraculous. (Because snow days here are really “no school transportation days” so schools are open and the teachers are required to be present, but the school buses don’t run. Since I teach at a magnet school, no buses = very very few students; “snow day” more accurately captures our truth.)
I was really sad about the way the semester petered out. I don’t think I realized how much I value the final moments with my students. I love helping them take the time to pause and see what they’ve accomplished. They are often astonished. I think this class would have loved this moment; I know I would have.
Instead, they came into their exam yesterday more nervous than they needed to be and without the sense of forward progress that can propel them to even greater achievement on their final exam. We made do: I added a group discussion to start; I circulated and reminded them of their strengths; I had donuts to entice them to take a stretch break if they wanted. They did fine, but I’m still thinking about the sense of an ending and how important it is. Finally, I couldn’t stand it and positioned myself to catch them on their way out the door. I asked each student what they thought they had learned. I knew that there was a possibility that they would say “nothing”, but most were thoughtful. In turn, I shared with them something I learned or was reminded of because I taught them.
Unusually, I got three hugs as the exam finished up. I’m going to miss this group – and next week, I’ll start to fall in love with the next.
Persistence and Pedagogy 