What Should 'Grace' Really Mean?

I have been doing a lot of mulling over the catch 22 that they call ‘grace'. Allowing teachers room and understanding that the environment is tough is good - but it’s not quite the same as lowering expectations...is it?

Differentiation for ME!

We are all taught that differentiation is key. We teach to the child, correct? With personalized needs and responses, and remember that the playing level isn’t always flat. That’s what we do.

So having said all of that, I should explain ME and my nature. After all, it's my reflection, and I am the one feeling that something is missing.

My thoughts and dilemma are that I am coming from a place where I need goals and expectations. I believe strongly that I am a professional, and should always strive to be better than I am today. Maybe sometimes ‘better than today’ is just a little bit better, because of the time, climate, and situation. Perhaps better is a complete change in my pedagogy. It depends.  Regardless, for me personally, for my nature, I need to know that I am considered as a professional and that it’s understood that I will work best in an environment with a clear mission and strong support along the way.

It’s how I roll.

Last year wasn’t just exhausting because of the sheer workload. It was also tiring because I often felt on my own. Gone were the days of professional learning goals and team-think.  As much as I might’ve moaned at the time, had they been enforced - with 2020 hindsight, I really missed them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do think that society doesn’t recognize what we do. And I know we are tired.  But I also believe if we want to be perceived as professionals, we need to act as professionals. Almost everyone in the world has been burdened by this Covid thing, and now we’re at a stage where sadly, it really is more of a new normal than a shock response.  We need to take stock, set goals among the new parameters and strive to be better at our craft…even if it’s only a little bit better.

I create the eye roll

I'm THAT teacher. The one who suggests that it would be good to dig deeper into the standards and think about how we can always be better.  I see the eyes rolling at meetings.  But I'm on Twitter, I talk to people, I see the world around me. I know that I am not the only teacher who believes that learning and growth are a part of his/her very being.

So what's the answer?

I make my goals and I try to keep to them. I seek out help and stay deep into the Twittersphere. I search locally for my people and strive to be better.  But I am not giving up on my peers - if there is one person who wants more, I will be there for and with them.  We grow better together.

My word for the school year was Joyful.  Learning and improving makes me joyful - and makes life a lot more joyful for my students too. So, here we go. Supported or not, pushed or self-motivated, it's time to up the ante and aim high.

Joyful Anticipation

My mind is whirling with goals, plans, intentions, and all the things that happened at the beginning of a new school year.  There are so many ideals and ideas, there are so many things I would like to achieve.  

Just an average August in a teacher’s life!  

I do always say that one of the joys about teaching is that you get to reinvent yourself every year, you get to have new goals and thoughts, you are able to create the very best you can be and make it better every single year.

This year is different for me, I have a new role. One I’ve been striving for a couple of years, one that while I know I can do - one I also worry that I’m not ready for.  There is a complete mix of emotions rummaging around inside me right now. 

One, I’m still a teacher, and I need (as always) to strive to be the best I can be to support my kids. My first goal of doing everything I can to make learning joyful for both students and teachers, holds true for whichever role I am focusing on. 

Joy. There needs to be more joy.

Two, I’m there to support our newer teachers.  Lead, guide, coach. I’ve trained for this, I’ve practiced, I’ve read the books. Now it’s real. I’m excited to share my passion and ideas. I’m ready to research and do the work.  I’m also nervous because this could be a massive first step towards my future - but a lack of perceived success will mean that the opportunity will no longer be there next year.  Reality is though, I can’t think that way. If things don’t work out, it’s because it’s not meant to be. If positive results don’t abound then our collective thoughts about what role is best for Bridget, and how I can best help the team, are not correct. I know that I’m a good teacher - now I need to work on being a good teacher of teachers…

I must believe

I must focus on what they need and remember that I can only change myself

I must remember to be joyful 

Let the journey - and joy - begin

#joyful #teachersupport #leadingandlearning

Spring Fever!

 Spring Break.

Always a defining moment.

The week before break:

Student - "What do I need to study for Milestones?"

Teacher - "You don't need to study for Milestones, you are being tested on the Georgia Standards of Excellence, which is what we have been working towards all year."

Student - "Instead of this project, can I study for the Milestones?"

Teacher - "Working on your project IS studying for the Milestones..."

I think that this year it was stronger than ever - especially from our virtual students.  For a while there we didn't believe that there would be state testing, so now it has crept upon us all.  Students who haven't been as focused as they might be in their virtual world are suddenly realizing that their parents didn't 'waive' them from testing - and they can't hide anymore.  But I always wonder why they still think that the state test is more important than their sixth-grade results.  How do we communicate this so badly?

On the other hand...

Some students decided to stop working the week before break. It made their life a bit tough.  The week before break I gave them a week to research for an explorer project, time to Flipgrid their ideas for me to give them feedback. Time to design the future website, think about the theme, images, and audience engagement.  Time to give feedback to each other.  Then the week after break, they have had the entire week to put the website together.

Balance your time and the process was smooth.

Balance your time, and you have the space to create a wonderful website.

Do very little, don't respond/read the feedback, site creation becomes a lot of work.  Oh dear!

We keep on keeping on...

But of course, the majority of students fell somewhere in between.  Most of them followed the plan, many jumped on to all of the extra time that I gave for website check-ins.  It might have felt the most repetitive 4-6 hours ahead of my time, but so worthwhile for teaching, supporting, and continuing to build relationships!  And boy!  There are some awesome sites being created!

See the project HERE, to include photographs from the room transformation for the face-to-face students.

But what about the teacher?

I always find this an incredibly hard time - not because I am ready for the year to end (I still don't relate to that), but because I am excited for the new year ahead!  It's time to reflect on what worked...what didn't...what I wish I had started earlier...what I plan to change....

All made far more interesting this year because I have no idea what my job will be next year.  Will I be teaching 6th grade at DeSana?  Will I be teaching 7th grade? Will I be teaching on-level or advanced?  What's the plan. 

I have no idea.  

Will I find a way to follow my dream of finding somewhere filled with professional collaboration and the opportunity to be a literacy leader?  Will I be able to make use of my new coaching endorsements and online learning skills?

One of my favorite things about being a teacher is the possibility to reinvent yourself every year.  You can always be better.  You can always make change.  You can always make it a better learning experience for your future students. 

Hey kids!  The future is golden for all of us. Your testing is just a snapshot of a year, and we can keep working together towards greatness.  I have the last opportunity to cement relationships and grow an intrinsic desire to learn in my current students.  And next year will be what it is - and will always give me an opportunity to find a new and greater version of myself as I strive, always, to be the very best version of an educator that I can be.

Let's keep on keeping on!

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. 

These Digital Natives are Struggling

 So, in the world of digital devices....I am apparently the immigrant, and they are the natives. All the experts say that those younger generations are digital natives.  

Wait, my students?  the ones I teach?  The ones who don’t know that they should probably name a new document, don’t know how to copy a document, can’t find the document, can’t make a document… OK, that sounds a little bitter. I guess I should back up to where this all comes from!

Our current unit is about argument. We are arguing whether technology is helpful or harmful in the world today. That’s the ending question, the essential one, that they will answer in the form of an argument essay. So, they are collecting evidence, they are building a personal website to reflect their thoughts, log personal use of technology, find evidence, etc., etc. They love building a website, they adore the topic, but there is still the school side of things to work on.  But it seems that instead of spending time on the writing, an inordinate amount of time is spent working on technology 'how-tos'.

This week, in a special help session I do for struggling kids, we read an article about technology together. The article was all about digital natives. As I read it, I had to keep my thoughts at bay. Why? Well, on Martin Luther King day (just one small example), I spent 90 minutes helping one of these so-called digital natives find his files in his drive, name documents, move files, share work, and so on and so forth. 

90 minutes.  

Well spent because he's caught up now, but WOW, 90 minutes!  

Now, let's put this in perspective. This is our second semester of digital learning. Finding out a student didn’t know how to do these things was a little scary. Now granted, from the commentary in the background, clearly, his mother has been taking care of assignments beforehand, so this was 90 minutes showing him how he COULD work independently, how he was able to do the work! Regardless, clearly no signs of a 'native' here.  But that’s just one kid, so how about the others?

Here's the bottom line,  My students know how to play with technology, and when are motivated, they can figure things out adeptly.  But if the interest, engagement, purpose is not there, then the lack of basic skills shows through.

So, what's the lesson here?  First, don't expect that the students know how to use technology in the academic arean.  Second, if you want them to figure out the ways to make their digital work shine, they need to be interested - engaged - and have a reason to want to figure out the skills, have the desire to put the time and effort in to learn a new digital skill.  And I have to say, our technology unit is making waves with them - they are loving building the website, motivated to share properly because they want me to see it, focused on creating professional hyperlinks so that their work, "Looks cool!" and on it goes.

It's not a huge goal, but one thing that I am determined to achieve this year is for all my virtual students to really take full advantage of the situation and know how to use simple Google skills WELL by the end of this strange and interesting year!

Making Connections

One of my goals for this year is to increase personal communication. It's all part of my #oneword - CONNECTIONS.  Too often I think, “They know I care, ” or, “I texts them, ” or, “I commented on Facebook.”

Really?  So, from colleagues to students to family, it’s time to reconnect in a more authentic way.  I want to show that I care through effort. I'd like to let others to know how much they mean to me, how much their support has helped me, how their presence makes a difference. It's good for me to feel that glow of giving thanks or growing a relationship, but even greater is the joy this can bring to the recipient. 

I am writing letters to my mother instead of emailing (insert vision of her re-reading multiple times as she tries to remember, "What Bridget said!"), sending a gratitude card each day to someone who truly makes a difference in my life, and sticking to my postcard/day to a student - which I have always done, but not always stuck to religiously!  

It's been so fulfilling for me to focus on what other people have done for me - and to share my gratitude with them.  Hearing/seeing a reaction when received is the icing on the cake.  Last week, I wrote a very heartfelt note to a neighbor friend, who just happens to be a teacher, who has started walking with me every weekend.  We share our highs and lows and brainstorm teaching.  Just telling her how grateful I was filled ME and knowing that she will be getting a surprise note through inter-office mail added to that high.  

From a student perspective, having them get a postcard in the mail (that their parent sees), thanking him or her for something done for their teacher, or a moment of support to the class, or a massive (or small) success...its massive. It fills my cup to overflowing when the surprise and joy is shared with me. It's a relationship builder, and considerable ‘Brownie points’ too!  Most important though, it recognizes the kids and builds their pride. I've had special cards, printed by Vistaprint, for years. This year though, my focus is on consistency, truly penning that note at the moment it's most deserved - and making sure that I catch that moment for every student.

I know how much it means to me when someone takes the time to write me a note - it brings such joy. It's my turn to go and give that gift to others.

Let's connect 💙