Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Learning

Losing the Stanley Cup: A Lesson for Teachers

by

Last night, the Vancouver Canucks lost the last game of the Stanley Cup finals to the Boston Bruins.  Following this devastating 4-0 loss, disappointed fans took to the streets of Vancouver and began rioting.  Usually I am not too excited by hockey or sports in general, but images of angry, drunken Canadians behaving badly were all over the news this morning, so I couldn’t help but notice.  In a casual conversation with my husband, I mentioned, “Boy, Vancouver took losing the Stanley Cup really hard, huh?”  An avid hockey fan, he told me that Canadians take their hockey very seriously and jokingly added, “There’ll be a public lynching of the coach later this afternoon.” 

At first, I wanted to respond to this statement with a flip, “Why? The coach didn’t lose the game.  The players did.”  But before I spoke these words out loud, I found myself thinking about the coach’s role and his responsibility to his team. In any type of sports match, players act and react to the heat of the moment.  Their decisions and moves reflect an immediate interpretation of the game.  A coach, watching from the sidelines, sees the game from a completely different perspective.  It is his responsibility to read and interpret what’s going on all over the field, or in this case, the ice. That information, coupled with the sum total of mental data he has collected about his team through countless practices and games throughout the season, saddles him with the responsibility of calling the shots. It’s up to him to think about what he knows about these players—their strengths and weaknesses and make the decisions that will affect a more favorable outcome. 
As I thought about the coach’s responsibility to his team, I found myself thinking about teachers in the classroom.  So often we want to blame students for their failings: they don’t pay attention, they don’t do their homework, they’re not trying hard enough, they misbehave. But as teachers, we have to look at our students as if they were these hockey players.  Vancouver has never won a Stanley Cup and to be that close to the top prize in hockey, you know they WANTED to win.  They WANTED to be successful. Perhaps they played badly, but they didn’t lose because they are bad players.
I suspect that Alain Vigneault, head coach of the Vancouver Canucks will spend his summer watching video replays of last night’s game over and over.  He is going to want to know what went wrong.  Why did his team fail?  What could he have done differently to help them capture the coveted prize? As a coach, he basks in the glory of winning but he also shares the pain of defeat. 
And as educators, so too, must we.
Our classrooms are spotted with students who are struggling but we need to remember that they are not failing because they are bad kids.  They WANT to be successful.  As teachers, it is up to us to assess and reassess the big picture and call the shots that lead to more favorable outcomes.   When students fail, we must share the pain of defeat and closely examine its cause. And when they succeed, we can bask in the intoxicating glory of success because after all, when it comes to learning, teachers and students are in the game together.

Boy Friendly Classrooms

by

My family and I recently returned from a memory-filled vacation at Disney. While there, my fifth grade son Matthew had the foresight to think about how he would preserve these memories and asked if I would purchase a photo album so that he could make a scrapbook commemorating the highlights of our trip. Both touched and thrilled at this suggestion, I overpaid for a Mickey themed album, brought it home, developed our photos, and Matthew went to work. I sat beside him as he busied himself with sliding the pictures into the plastic sleeves and wrote catchy captions to describe the events of our vacation. I watched intently as he worked. He misspelled words and scribbled them out and rewrote them. His handwriting was messy. There was none of the meticulousness that I remembered applying to similar projects in my childhood.

As he worked, I thought a lot about what I had read that morning. In Pam Allyn’s Best Books for Boys: How to Engage Boys in Reading in Ways That Will Change Their Lives (amazon affiliate link), she quoted Harvard psychologist William Pollack who says, “More boys than girls are in special education classes. More boys than girls are prescribed mood-managing drugs. This suggests that today’s schools are built for girls, and boys are becoming misfits.” And it was these words that forced me to muster every ounce of self control in me and refrain from chastising his work. I wanted to say, “Can’t you do that a little neater? Don’t you think it would be better if you were more thoughtful?” But I didn’t because I realized that what I wanted was to cloud his vision with what I perceived to be a more correct vision. I wanted him to do it my way. My female way.

This got me thinking about how often we do this in schools. Are children, particularly boys, doing things “wrong” as often as we think they are? When they write, is it really not that good or is it that it doesn’t match a preconceived notion of what they should have written? Are they really misbehaving or is it that they are not behaving in the way that we would have? Is their artwork messy because they didn’t color in the lines or is it that they intended to add action in ways that we could not conceive of?

Most school faculties are comprised of a female majority. School activities and classroom management and expectations of how children comply are driven by the female psyche. Could it really be that the female way of thinking is different enough from males that we create environments that alienate half of the learning population? On this one occasion I stopped short of committing the crime of imposing hearts and borders on my son’s scrapbook but I have to wonder, how many times did I not? I am willing to stand among the convicted when it comes to admitting guilt of making boys feel like misfits. But I am repenting. I am thinking hard about what I will do differently to embrace gender differences and create learning environments that cater to the unique needs of boy learners.

To start, I will no longer insist that children write or read sitting down. If they need to stand and shift from side to side, so be it. I will no longer insist that reading time be uninterrupted by bathroom breaks or short periods of gazing out the window. If they need to let their minds wander or to think more about what they are reading, so be it. But past this, I’m not sure what else I should change and that is why I am appealing to you, my readership, to share your suggestions for modifying common practices to make boys feel more at home in the classroom. What else can we do in schools to close the gender gap?

Forgiveness for Going off the Diet

by

Have you ever noticed how appealing everything looks on a holiday table? The turkey, cooked to a beautiful golden brown, sits as a centerpiece of perfection. The green beans with a hint of garlic and balsamic are served on a silver platter. The breads are placed in lovely woven baskets lined with a festive towel. There is cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and squash and every dish looks more appetizing than the next. Eagerly we fill our plates with a little of everything and when we sit down, we glance at the plate. It seems a bit full, slightly daunting. But we don’t care. It’s the holidays. On the holidays, we feast.

Afterwards, we unbutton our pants and begin to feel a little remorse. It all looked so good on the table, but when the table is cleared, we take Zantac and promise to start the diet again tomorrow.

As I meet and talk with teachers about better reading and writing instruction, I realize that balanced literacy is perceived a lot like the holiday feast. Mini lessons. Guided reading. Shared reading. Choral reading. Reading conferences. Read aloud. Strategy Groups. Word Study. Interactive writing. You name it. It’s all beautifully packaged and presented at conferences, workshops, faculty meetings, and books by renowned and respected experts. As educators, we take bits and pieces of these ideas and put them on our teaching plate and attempt to clean up every morsel. However, at the end of the teaching day, we are often left with something akin to the indigestion we feel at the end of the feast, only now, we don’t have a fasting plan that will restore us to our previous level of comfort in a relatively short amount of time. The dissonance creates feelings of exasperation and worse, inadequacy. We wonder, how is this all do-able?

I have met countless teachers ready to throw in the towel and quit balanced literacy. They are ready to go back to the basal and traditional reading groups and when this happens, I remind them that nobody gets it all right on the first day out. Even Vincent Van Gogh, master painter, said, “I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” And that’s what we have to do, too. Yes, it is true, the people selling balanced literacy present it on silver platters, but that is only because they have had lots of time to practice serving it up on paper plates. Like Van Gogh, they kept at it. They sought out whatever information they could: they read, they planned, they practiced, and they talked to whoever they could about it.

Contrary to how it may feel at times, balanced literacy is not a feast. It is the meant to be a steady diet of solid reading and writing instruction. And like any good diet, it needs to be learned in moderation with the knowledge that from time to time, we’ll mess up. When that happens, we call it a day, and start new tomorrow, knowing that it won’t be long before we, too, will be ready for the fine china.

Better than the Best

by

In the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Amazon Affiliate Link), Chip and Dan Heath share a story about pro golfer Tiger Woods. As they tell it, eight championships into his career, Tiger Woods decided that his swing needed an overhaul. For the typical lay person or spectator, it’s hard to imagine that Tiger had anything to improve, let alone the swing that had earned him countless trophies and prizes. One might ask, if something is working, why change it?

As a teacher, I think about this question a lot. Do we really need to change things that are working? I think the answer is no, we don’t need to change them. What we need to do, however, is think about them. If we aim to duplicate or amplify our successes, we need to ask why. Why does what we are doing work? And then we need to ask what. What can I do to make this better?

When Tiger Woods set out to improve his swing, I don’t believe that what motivated him was a notion that he was swinging the club wrong or badly—he simply believed that he could do it better. At the top of his game, Tiger positioned himself as a learner. Since then, he has gone on to win over thirty-five more championships and titles. Why? Because he wanted to be better than the best.

From time to time, we all need a little push to rethink our best practices. Today I am asking you to think about what you are doing that works. Why does it work? What can you do to make this better?

The Importance of Talk and Collaboration

by

Tired and weak from a sleepless night of coughing and waking to blow my nose to achieve five minute increments of clear breathing, I spent this past Saturday in an unusual way—idle.  I sipped tea, sucked lozenges, and burrowed under the covers…with my computer on my lap.  I spent the day surfing the web and mining little gems here and there. 
One “find” that I came across was a podcast by Jennifer Allen, a literacy coach from Maine and Franki Sibberson, a library media specialist from Ohio.  These are two of my favorite educators and I jumped at the chance to listen to them talk together.  In this brief interview, Franki queried Jenn about her work as a coach, specifically the job of helping veteran teachers outgrow their best ideas.  It was interesting to hear her ideas about working with teachers to perfect their craft after so many years and if you’re interested in hearing what she had to say, you can listen to the podcast or read that transcript at http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1274.cfm.  What stuck with me, however, was the notion that Jenn shared that in order to refine their practice, the thing that veteran teachers crave most is “collaboration and talk.” 
Hours after first listening to this intriguing conversation, I found myself watching an interesting TED video http://networkedblogs.com/8wLHY featuring Dr. Sugata Mitra from India.  As an educational researcher, Dr. Mitra has done some ground-breaking work about how people learn and people’s motivation for learning.  He’s famous for putting computers with internet access in slum walls and rigging up video cameras to watch what poor, undereducated children do with this technology with little to no instruction. Fascinatingly, these children played with it until they figured it out.  Dr. Mitra discovered that once one gets it, he shares with others.  How did these children learn?  Through collaboration and talk. 
For me, a theme was clearly emerging.  People, not just veteran teachers, crave collaboration and talk.  When we talk to others, we merge our thinking in ways that leads us to important “a-has”  that inevitably expand our minds.  As our minds expand, we refine our thinking which leads us to be more productive—no matter our practice or trade.
As a staff developer, I work with a lot of teachers who crave the opportunity to collaborate and talk with others.  It is a common lament that there simply isn’t enough time to sit down to share ideas.  And the bottom line is, they’re right. 
That said, that’s not an excuse not to talk and collaborate.  Technology has given us the tools we need to extend our conversations beyond the walls of our classrooms..  Any teacher wanting to engage thought-provoking conversation can log on to the internet and venture into the world of educational chats and discussion boards to engage in amazing collaboration and talk.    If you don’t know where to go, I suggest starting at the Literacy Builders Discussion Boards.  Our boards are ready and waiting for you to share your thinking.  This week I added an “issues in reading workshop” thread that I hope you will log on and contribute to.  While you’re there, check out the other threads as well and become part of collaborative community that wants to help all of us feed our innate desire to talk in order to “outgrow our best ideas.” 

The Jedi Master Speaks: Try Not, Do or Do Not

by

This past spring, many of my study group colleagues attended a workshop led by the sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. They returned invigorated and validated and inspired. They found themselves thinking about September and what they would do differently to prepare for a year of solid literacy instruction.

At this particular workshop, the sisters shared videos of their classrooms and talked in-depth about their space and how it supports effective literacy learning. My colleagues were intrigued by their ideas, especially the notion of a classroom where not every student has his or her own desk. They wondered out loud about what this would be like, how it would change the dynamic of the learning, and what the ramifications of making changes in their own classroom environments might be.

Eager for change, several of my colleagues returned to their schools to look at their space with fresh eyes. Should they exchange their desks for a few tables strategically placed around the room? They wrestled with the idea of having more students than desks. Would that work during content area instruction? Would there be fallout with parents or the principal? Where would students keep their things?

Were they sure they wanted to do this?

Where once they were jazzed up and excited to go back and make radical changes, now they weren’t sure they wanted to change at all. They faced a common conundrum: I want to do it differently, but I don’t feel comfortable.

Facing change is a theme that surfaces regularly in my life. I have seen change brought about by necessity to yield glorious and grand results. I have witnessed forced changes bring about unexpected consequences. But in each instance, it seems that change is always accompanied by fear. Sometimes that fear is debilitating, slowing innovation to a turtle’s pace or worse, bringing it to a complete halt. And sometimes fear is what invigorates, making the change positive and successful.

As you begin this school year, think carefully about the things you want change. Will you organize your space differently? Will you form a study group with colleagues so that you can become more schooled at the art of teaching? Will you approach your principal about the newest and best idea that you read about this summer?

No matter what change you’d like to make, do not forget that it is normal to feel afraid when embarking on a new journey and when in doubt, we should all return to the words of the great Jedi master, Yoda:

“Try not, do or do not.”

I intend this to be my year of great change and I wish you all the same. Don’t let your fear of change stop you. Just do it.

Poem for the Beginning of the School Year

by

There’s no more avoiding or denying it. It’s back-to-school season. It is my sincere hope that everybody has the most amazing year ever and as you begin, I’d like to share with you a poem that I wrote last year after attending my son’s first grade poetry celebration.

As he plays, I watch.
He writes books with blurbs
And speech bubbles.
He scribbles song lyrics
And journals about his trip to the zoo.
He is a writer.
He asks to go to the library.
He seeks out books on bunnies
And runs to me when he learns
What they eat
And how long they live
And what we need to do to take care of them.
He is a reader.
He holds coins in his hands
And asks, “How much is this?”
And then counts
And adds
And figures it out for himself.
He is a mathematician.
He mixes chocolate
with water
and yogurt
and salt
and sugar
And says,
“I need to watch and see what happens.”
He waits
And observes
And makes notes.
He is a scientist.
He sits at the table and does his homework.
He’s in a hurry.
He wants to be done
But
He stops and asks,
Is this my best work?
He is a student.
He is a writer.
He is a reader.
He is a mathematician.
He is a scientist.
He is a student.
Why?
Because he has a teacher.

I hope you all have a fantastic year molding writers, readers, mathematicians, scientists, students, and most of all LEARNERS!

Taking Notes in Defense Against the Dark Arts

by

My nine year old son has recently discovered the joy of Harry Potter and has immersed himself in the world of Hogwarts, Harry, Hermione, and Ron. It has been fascinating to watch how this reading experience has transcended the pages of his book to his world of play. He has built Diagon Alley out of Lego, he raided my broom closet for everything with a long handle to play quidditch in the backyard, and at this very moment, he is downstairs pretending to be a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher instructing his brother and friend on how to cast spells against all things evil.

However, school is not going well. The Dark Arts students are revolting. They are seven years old and are being forced to copy notes. My younger son complains, “Matthew, I want to play but it’s the writing I hate!”

I listened as things heated up and decided to seize the teachable moment. I called Matthew upstairs and said, “You know, I think it’s important that you listen to your students. Think about what Nathan is saying to you.”

A tad bit annoyed at my interference, Matthew retorted. “Mom, he’s going into second grade. They’re going to be doing a lot more writing.”

This was a funny moment to me. One of Matthew’s pet peeves is teachers who say “you’re going to need this…when you’re in fifth grade, when you get to the middle school, when…”

And here he was defending his teaching using the exact same language.

There are certain things that we do as teachers that make students groan (writing notes on the board for students to copy and memorize, administering an ELA practice test for the seventh time…). When students ask why, the best answer we can give them is “just because.” We sometimes follow it up with inane comments like “it will make you smarter, it’ll help you on the test, it’s good for you, it will help you when you get to middle school, or you’ll need it next year.” But the bottom line is, sometimes, we don’t have a good reason.

And this is a bad practice.

We need to think hard about what we are teaching and why we are teaching it. Time is one of teaching’s greatest demons and I am sure that any good Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would insist that if our justification for teaching is “because,” the antidote is simple: Abracadabra, circular file.