Chasing Dreams!

 We can always be better. It doesn’t matter how good you are at teaching, how good your classroom management style is, how well you engage your students, there’s always more to discover and achieve. There are always better goals, there are always loftier heights to reach. And there are always dreams.

A couple of years ago, my principal shared an idea with me – what she thought would be the perfect job for me. A mix of literacy coach and media specialist, allowing me to extend my love of learning to many more students, to help coach teachers to bring literacy into different content areas, and to give me more freedom that the ELA curriculum does not allow.  I loved the idea, and it seems that many other people agreed that this would be the perfect fit. The problem was finding the principal who would be willing to create the position. Someone who would give up that allotment, to allow a vision to occur.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

We almost thought it was going to happen. It was so close. But then, it ended up that the job didn’t happen. And the little fledging dream was crushed, as they so often are.

But the beautiful thing about dreams is that you are never stuck with just one. Dreams are yours, no one can stop you from having them, and they can be as elaborate — and detailed — as you would like them to be.

I like making up dreams. I like to think of possibilities. I like to imagine just what could be achieved in the right climate💡 

Of course, this is one reason sleep is often overtaken by ideas 🛌 

The old cliché is always true when one door closes, another one opens. But I also think you have to look for that door. Maybe you have to push that door a little, give it an extra nudge, make things happen.

So right now, I’m at that stage where I’m creating dreams again. Thinking of how I could find a way to move out of the strictures of the fixed curriculum and into a world of digital citizenship, real-life research, and authentic project-based learning. How can I bring that to students?     There’s limited scope as the traditional ELA teacher, but maybe there are ways. Would I be able to find that job in a not-so-traditional environment 🤔 Can I integrate more into ELA without competing with common assessments🤨

It’s ‘crazy season’ in our world right now

🤪 🤪 🤪 🤪 

COVID or not, we are hiring and planning for next year.  Teachers are shifting roles and competing for positions. There’s a fine line between 'speaking up’ and ‘being pushy.’ But then there’s that feeling of, “I was professional before and that got me nowhere...”

So I’ve had a suggestion made to me, one that I really like. I countered with one that I like even better, and that’s as far as it can go right now.

I really want to believe that my dream was taken away because there’s a better one around the corner. And maybe the corner isn’t going to be this summer, maybe it’s going to be next year, but at least I have begun to sow some seeds, and people who have the power are listening.

In the meantime, I have a simple job, to be the best teacher I can possibly be to the students that I am lucky enough to have🤷🏼‍♀️

But no one can stop me from dreaming 💭💭💭

ELA - Enough of the Essays!

I wonder how many more ELA teachers we would have if we didn’t have to grade essays. 

No really. 

I’m serious. 

I myself am looking for ways to continue my love of literacy and teaching children the joy of reading and writing, without having to be an ELA teacher. 

Because I love it. 

Yesterday, we literally geeked out about syntax and diction as we looked at Langston Hughes‘s poem, Mother to Son, and talked about the word choices, and painted pictures. 

The prompt was simple, “What’s the story?”

The kids loved it, I loved it. 

They wrote such amazing things. They found passion, made connections, related. And I did nothing but give them the moment.

It was one of those, what I call, Robin Williams moments. 

But then I came home and spent two hours immersed in essays. Essays that have created pressure in my life to get graded and back. 

We’re on a timeline, have expectations. The kids need to hear feedback about their work. Parents want a grade. 

It's not fun. 

And yet, I love to work with writing. That’s fun. The building, the improving, the idea-sharing. 

It’s time-consuming but satisfying. Hard work but pleasing.

But then there are the 140+5 paragraph essays to give a final grade to.  

Yes, the hard graft is done, and these are much quicker to check than when I had to get feedback on the introductions, the body paragraphs, the conclusions.....and therein lies the rub. 

It isn’t so much the grading of the essays, it’s the fact that I’m grading these essays the week after I’ve been up late every night giving feedback on the rest of the writing.  

And of course, with the virtual students, the issue that they keep working according to the plan, ignoring your feedback.

It’s why people don’t choose to teach ELA. How many great teachers opt out because of this?

Because there is little I like more in life than sharing great writing with kids, giving feedback, diving in, and analyzing. That’s fantastic. The kids love it, I believe it makes them better students of everything. 

Imagine a world where the focus was on that. Imagine a world where we created better readers and writers by studying and enjoying great writing.  

But they have to write, right?

The only way to become a great writer is by writing. And that writing needs to be shared and the craft grown through advice and suggestions. And that’s my job.  But there has to be a better way to do this. 

I talk to people all the time who say they would’ve taught ELA if it wasn’t for the grading. I talk to people all the time who now teach different content areas but miss ELA. They just had to switch over because of all the grading. These are good teachers who would’ve made a difference.  They are still good teachers. They are still making a difference. 

But the world of ELA needs them.

Oh I know, there are plenty of tricks and strategies - plenty of ways to just focus on part of the essay, to divide up the feedback, to use peer feedback....and if we could build our units with more writing time, perhaps that would be doable. It’s time to sit and redesign.  To be honest though, whenever I do that, the load seems greater. And even more to the point, in our current virtual reality, the amount of feedback needed to support our young writers’ growth is immense.

The grass is always greener, right?  I look with envy at other content areas. What was I thinking not transferring my social studies and science qualifications to Georgia?  

But then I have lessons like that one this week.  

Well, enough musings...I have essays to grade.