Grateful for Creativity, Life, and Hope

I remember fondly listening to Elizabeth Alexander read her poem "Praise Song for the Day" at President Obama's first inauguration. Newly out of the classroom, I watched with a colleague from a television at Capital Plaza Tower in Frankfort. After the hearing the poem, my colleague, also a former teacher, turned to me and said "can't you just imagine several days worth of lessons from that poem"? Yes. I said. I could imagine students engaging in conversations about the poem and the historic day. You see, when we study poetry and art we connect our experiences to universal ideas. Art offers us a way to express ourselves freely. Art offers hope and life.

The same year Elizabeth Alexander read her poem for the inauguration, I met her here in Lexington, Kentucky at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. She participated in a conversation with other women writers and then read her poems for us at a keynote session. All these memories came back to me when I recently read her memoir The Light of the World. My review posted on the Cake and Whiskey blog today.

In addition to appreciating Alexander's beautiful language, free-expression, and artistry, regular readers of my blog will understand I also appreciated Alexander's mention of her late husband's dream of opening a school..."a school about self-expression...it will be great seeds for healing and peace." I, too, dream of opening a school, a school where we explore creativity and students' interests, a school that offers hope for inequitable situations in life. I also dream of public schools reimagining their approach and offering all students equal learning opportunities.

Since I learned recently that the Ford Foundation named Elizabeth Alexander as director of their Creativity and Free Expression program, I decided to check out other work happening at the Ford Foundation and was pleasantly surprised to see that they also seek creative ways to target drivers of inequality and improve the world. It's refreshing to see a large organization with a focus on improving humanity. In addition to their program for creativity and expression, they also have programs for youth opportunity and learning.

Equity. Social Justice. Creativity. Self-Expression. Learning.

If large foundations can embrace these ideas, shouldn't we embrace them in our schools, too?

Snow Day Reads

A snowy whirlwind two weeks since my last Sunday Salon post and it's been full of both online reading as well as two more books in my book a week journey. Since we've had a Kentucky snow storm (the most snow the state has seen in over 15 years), there's been plenty of time to curl up with books and my iPad to read. Naturally, keeping up with friends on social media has also been a fun way to know what's happening around the state and nation. My friend, Robin, captured this beautiful photo earlier in the week on her way to work. Fortunately for me, I work from home, so there was no need to venture out onto the treacherous roads. A foot of snow may not be much for places like Boston where they are also experiencing record amounts of snow, but for Kentucky, 12-18 inches of snow almost completely shuts things down. Both the public school system and the University of Kentucky cancelled classes this week.

Photo by Robin Hebert. Christianburg, Kentucky Winter 2015

Kentucky
As I've blogged about previously, we ended up in Kentucky because my husband wanted to study at the University of Kentucky where so many literary greats were and continue to be. This article by Lexington's Eric Sutherland highlights some of the literary expertise in our area.

Karen Schubert from Meet the Press offers a brilliant conversation with poet and editor of Accents Publishing, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. I first met Katerina when she and I served on the Advisory Board for the Kentucky Women Writers Conference together. She's an amazing writer and woman.

Horse jockey Isaac Murphy was celebrated this week on a Lexington blog. If you don't know about Murphy, check out the poetry of Frank X. Walker to learn more.

Leadership & Work
Leadership continues to be on my mind. In 10 Negative Results of Believing People are Incapable I learned some valuable advice for working with people. When people appear to possess a lack of passion or a desire to push beyond the status quo, I'm frustrated with them and begin believing they are incapable of doing their jobs. This article reminded me that some of my behaviors fall into the category where I'll end up with negative results--things like acting with impatience and avoiding conversations. Yep. I'm guilty of those things with individuals who I want to change. Fortunately, the article offers me valuable reminders.

I'm interested not only in leadership, but women in leadership. A friend sent me this piece from Harvard Business Review about how Women Directors Change Boards. Fascinating.

I owe my parents the credit for teaching me about possessing a strong work ethic. They modeled this for me, and I've always been a hard worker. This article Worst Advice Ever? "Work Smarter, Not Harder" caught my attention because I've been hearing people offer this advice for the past few years, and I wondered what it was all about since a strong work ethic was drilled into me from birth. The author of the article, also smart and working on a PhD learned the hard way during his graduate work that to succeed he needed to work both smart and hard. Watching my husband, a very intelligent man, endure years of graduate work, I often thought he took the "work smarter" pathway.

One of my favorite print magazines, Cake & Whiskey, arrived in the mail today, so naturally I read it and also enjoyed their new launch of online content as well on their Sip & Slice blog.


Non-Traditional Schooling
Several school districts in Kentucky are experimenting with non-traditional school days when it snows. I start to cringe when I hear they are "doing packets," and I hope the packets are thoughtful and meaningful assignments requiring students to think, do, and learn, not merely complete busy work. A post by Kentucky teacher, Joe Harris, was encouraging since he highlights using Google Apps to connect with students and to encourage them to write creatively.

A school in Sierra Leone also uses non-traditional schooling since students have been unable to attend school in person due to the Ebola outbreak that ravaged the nation. Students tune into the radio to hear their lessons.

For a healthier approach to the school day, some schools are experimenting with standing classrooms. I know my son would enjoy anything that keeps him from sitting all day. Indeed, many schools fail boys by insisting that they sit so still. A Washington Post article earlier this week brought conversation via Twitter amongst a few of us who feel strongly about this topic.

My place of employment is hosting a huge innovation summit this week, and in preparation for that one of my colleagues blogged about the topics featured at the summit, including alternative school models. Read more here.

This post titled Innovation and Improvement Takes a Sustained Push by Tom Vander Ark explores the importance of school superintendents lengthening their stay in districts if progress around innovation is to be made.

Teacher Features
A teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children, Heidi Givens, shared her thoughts about education in this reflective blog post.

National Board Certified Teacher, Sherri McPherson reflected on why she became a NBCT.

It made my day to read this op-ed by Bob Rothamn on the Hechinger Report because I know and work with two of the teachers quoted. Fantastic teachers doing excellent work.

When a Philadelphia columnist wrote a scathing op-ed about why teachers shouldn't get snow days, a passionate teacher offered this rebuttal.

A short Youtube clip titled How the School to Prison Pipleline Ruins Lives Before they Start is worth your time if you care about inequities in our education system.

Literacy expert, Dr. Timothy Shannahan wrote this terrific piece about the importance of teaching content, not just reading. Again, here's another topic I've blogged about because it upsets me to see children offered such a limited curriculum, and it further upsets me that high level district officials demand this approach.

One of my favorite teacher bloggers is Lillie Marshall. She always includes terrific photos, witty commentary, and insightful travel tips. Check out her photos of the record 6 feet of snow in Boston.

Miscellaneous

The tenth of February brought the fourteenth birthday of my oldest son, so I revisited my blog post from last year where I shared how Ethan taught me to appreciate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Teachers leading schools continues to be a personal topic of interest to me. Read about how districts are beginning to turn to teachers to lead.

Teaching with digital tools explains the importance of re-thinking the way we teach writing in our schools. In fact, I used this article from 2011 in my own recent blog post on the same topic.

With writing (and writing instruction) on my mind, I also enjoyed this post about creative writing in the time of Common Core.

Being cooped up in the house had us experimenting with recipes. We enjoyed this delicious guacamole recipe and chuckled at the accompanying story.

Always a fan of poetry, I and others around the USA were sad to learn of the death of poet Phillip Levine. He wrote about the working class and his poetry, the hardships and worthiness of manual labor.

Something I've never understood in schools are those walls filled with test scores and rankings of students; it's always infuriated me. Kathleen Jasper articulates this same frustration well in her post titled Shaming Students One Wall at a Time.

When my son brought home his first little tokens printed on a 3-D printer, we thought it was cool, but when I read about 3-D printers being used to make prosthetic hands, the innovative possibilities became more clear and important. Imagine the possibilities in our schools if kids can help do something real with their 3-D prints!

My Favorite Books from 2014 Book A Week

A few of the books I read in 2014

This morning I finished reading my 52nd book in 2014. What a terrific feeling to have accomplished my personal goal of reading a book a week consistently for the entire year.  I began this journey on January 1st of 2014 feeling confident yet slightly cautious. However, knowing I'm someone with determination once I set my mind to do something, I never really thought I wouldn't achieve what I set out to accomplish.  I believed I would do it all year long, and I did. As is typical with my favorite genre of books, many of the books I read were about individuals on journeys of some sort.

As predicted, I read more nonfiction than fiction, and somewhat surprisingly, I read only a handful of professional books. 37 works of nonfiction. 9 works of fiction. 1 collection of poems. 5 professional books for a total of 52 books read for pleasure, knowledge, inspiration and sheer enjoyment.

Here are my 14 favorite books from 2014 (in no particular order). Keep reading below for short descriptions on why each of these books made my top 14 list.

1. Wave: Life and Memories After the Tsunami by Sonali Deraniyagala
2. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
3. A Sliver of Light:  Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran by Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, & Sarah Shourd
4. Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of a Creative Mind by Biz Stone
5. A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout
6. 46 Days: Keeping Up With Jennifer Pharr Davis on the Appalachian Trail by Brew Davis
7.  Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary Confinement with the Bard by Laura Bates
8.  A Long Way From Nowhere: A Couple's Journey on the Continental Divide Trail by Julie Urbanski and Matt Urbanski
9.  In My Father's Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate by Saima Wahab
10. Become Your Own Great and Powerful: A Woman's Guide to Living Your Real, Big Life by Barbara Bellissimo
11.  Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
12.  Thinking in Numbers:  On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet
13.  Hatching Twitter:  A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
14.  Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs


General reasons these books made my top 14 list
**They made me laugh, cry, feel outrage, want to speak out, want to take action, and want to make changes in my life**

Two of my January 2014 reads made my top 14 list. Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala was heart wrenching while also offering hope. The author was the only one in her family to survive the 2004 Tsunami. I read this book while traveling for work and could hardly wait to get home to be with my family because I know without a doubt how fortunate I am for their presence and love.  46 Days made my list because I enjoyed reading the daily journal of logistics and support as Brew Davis helped his wife set the record for the fastest AT thru-hike. Both hikers amaze and inspire me to get outdoors & get moving more.

Only one of my February reads made my top 14 list of books this year. Hatching Twitter was interesting and fascinating as well as it transported me to another world of high technology and business start-ups.  You can read more of my thoughts on the book here.

March proved another fantastic month for reading, and once again two of the books made my top 14 list. Recommended to me by a friend who knows how much I enjoy nonfiction, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, left me wordless and unable to articulate just how much I learned and experienced while reading about the lives of people half a world away from me in Mumbai. Also of note in March was Daniel Tammet's Thinking in Numbers which took me into a world of thoughts about how numbers connect to every aspect of our lives, including language and poetry.

When National Poetry Month rolled around in April, my list had to include at least one collection of poems. Though I love poetry, I don't take nearly enough time to read it daily (other than the poem a day which comes in my inbox). Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs provided the perfect segue into a field trip to Mammoth Cave I took with my son. With great anticipation, I also read A Sliver of Light in April. This story of three American hikers imprisoned in Iran kept me curious for years so reading their book provided more details of their experience and awakened me to other issues of solitary confinement and false imprisonment, issues that continue to keep me curious and wanting to take action.

Four of my five reads in May made my top 14 list, all nonfiction, of course. Because I've been thinking a great deal this year about my career, my life, my family, Barbara Bellissimo's book Become Your Own Great and Powerful:  A Woman's Guide to Living Your Real, Big Life was inspirational. I have found when you start your career as a teacher, it's not easy to think about asking for what you want and need for yourself. You are taught to believe--you do it because it matters--so money, comfort, and stability shouldn't matter. This year is one when I've been denying that expectation as truth, and I've been thinking more than ever before about what I really want and need from my career and personal life.

Five Days at Memorial, Things a Little Bird Told Me and A House in the Sky also made my list. Each of these books left me thinking throughout the year for different reasons. When I visited New Orleans for a conference in October, I was taken back in memory to the fantastic journalistic piece by Sherri Fink. When the beheadings of other journalists in Syria this year were reported, I remembered with vivid detail Lindhout's story of her captivity.

Half way through the reading year June-September, I continued reading with a list of both nonfiction and fiction, though none of the books from those months made my top 14 list here.

By October, I was beginning to realize I really would make my goal of a book a week as long as I continued to stay consistent through the busy work conference and holiday seasons of October-December. Included in my top 14 list was In My Father's Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate by Saima Wahab. In this memoir a young woman was sent to America to live with relatives at the age of 14 so she would be spared a childhood marriage. If you care about women's issues around the world, I would encourage you to read her story.

I ended my year by reading memoirs for all of December. Each story was interesting and inspirational as the authors shared their personal stories and journeys. However, the story of Julie and Matt Urbanski hiking the Continental Divide Trail was the only one of the five to make my top 14 list because I enjoyed the book as each spouse took turns writing chapters from their individual point of view. Since the book was about their hike and their relationship, it was inspiring to see how the couple worked individually and cooperatively to meet personal goals and solve problems.

Cheers to a great year of reading!

A World Enough and Time

...and so begins...a written conversation series between husband (PhD and first year high school English teacher) and wife (NBCT English teacher w/11 years in HS classroom and currently trying to impact the profession from outside the classroom)

Renee

Since I’ve blogged previously about leaving the classroom and listed lack of time to plan, grade, etc. as one of my reasons for leaving, I’d be curious to know what you remember about the stress I faced was when I was in the classroom, especially with regard to having time and balancing life while trying to be an effective teacher and also being a mom & wife.

Christopher

Yes. I remember your stress very well. And I remember how I thought, “Good grief, it’s not worth it. 70 hours a week for that salary?” And I can’t believe you were able to do it when our boys were toddlers. Wow!  You really are amazing. I also remember wondering if you weren’t giving yourself more work than was necessary. Now, I realize what you were doing as I am doing it myself. To be effective, particularly with the content we teach, it requires daily feedback. And that takes a lot of time (for sure) but also mental strain--and I don’t think anyone has ever really taken that into consideration when they make our schedules and dole out our requirements. To write comments to 100+ individual students requires extreme mental effort. That doesn’t enter into the equation of contracts, and that’s a bona fide problem in education, especially for English teachers.

Renee

Since you are coming from the college setting where instructors typically don't teach all day every day, how are you adjusting to your new schedule of 5 classes back to back in a 7 hour school day five days a week?

Christopher

Teaching is exhausting!  One thing I’ve observed about teaching high school is the amount of concentrated effort it requires. Teaching college classes, I always had a break of at least one day between meeting with those students. That break allowed me time to reflect and rest and get prepared. Teaching high school classes that meet every day means there is no break, so to speak. Further, teaching high school requires one to be “on” pretty much non-stop during the day. From bell to bell, I have to be engaged, obviously. But, what’s different is that there’s virtually no time between classes to gather one’s self and get ready for the next task. I mean to say, from period to period there is five minutes time. But, students start arriving at any moment and I have to engage them and be ready to go as soon as the bell rings. During that five minutes, there are always various questions to answer (like, students who missed the previous day need to know what they missed or a teacher comes to you and asks a favor, etc.). It rarely happened teaching college that I had two classes back to back. And even when I did, there was at least 15 minutes and really, and most importantly, there wasn’t the need to be “on” in the same way. In high school, I’m finding that I have to be “on” in ways that maintain classroom order.  In college, classroom management was basically not an issue.

Time to prepare is really an issue for me teaching high school.  I don’t have it. Because I teach writing and reading, I have to spend physical time and exert considerable mental effort to respond to student work on a daily basis so that the next class can proceed. That has to happen after school, during the time that I also need to be tending to my family, eating dinner, exercising, going to whatever extra curricular activities my children have, and, oh, sleeping. So, it’s really hard to do the job I need to do with the schedule I have. I do have a planning period, but, honestly, that’s 50 minutes spend responding to emails, “sweeping” the halls, managing a student aid, and just catching my breath.

So, I really think that the high school schedule needs to be revised. I think that teachers should be required to teach three classes and expected to use the remainder of the day grading, planning, and doing the necessary research in order to provide quality instruction. The current schedule of teaching 5 classes in a 6 period school day isn’t sustainable. No wonder teachers get burned out and are ineffective. They aren’t given the time to do the job that they need do. Now, what do we do about the teachers who wouldn’t use that time as needed.  Well, I hope you’ll ask me about that because I have tons to say about the profession and what constitutes being a member of the teaching profession. 

“Had we but world enough and time.”  Ah, one day!

 

March & April Reads 2014

 Since I wrote blog posts about the majority of the books I read the past two months, I decided to combine my March and April 2014 reads into a single post. In March I read all nonfiction because nonfiction continues to be my favorite, and it worked out well for two of four books to be in e-book format for ease with work travel.  The only book I didn't blog about was probably my favorite from March.  Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo had been on my want to read list for well over a year.  I knew it would be powerful, but I didn't expect it to be so powerful that it would leave me without words.  April brought several volunteer experiences and events with my children, and two of the texts I read connected in some way to those events.  Again, I wrote about all but one of my April reads, but I didn't write about We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen because the content was too familiar to the way I was raised, and it brought flashbacks to a childhood filled with financial struggle and fundamentalist Christianity.

This #bookaweek goal is taking me to the library more frequently and also stretching my experiences of e-reading more than ever.

I selected to read Thinking in Numbers:  On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet after seeing it on the shelf at a local bookstore while I was browsing one afternoon.  Since it was available only in hardback and I didn't want to spend money on it, I borrowed it from the library. The connection between math and poetry, language, and art attracted me to this book and opened my mind to the bigger picture of math.

 As an introvert, I enjoyed Cain's book and used it to help me think about my indivdual growth plan for work.  Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Won't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (read e-book).

How to Blog for Profit (Without Selling Your Soul) by Ruth Soukup. Always trying to improve my blog, I attended a blogging training in March and also read this e-book about blogging.  Though I have no intention of trying to make a profit from my blog, the tips offered in Soukup's book were relevant to improving the way I write and promote my work.

Katherine Boo won a Pulitzer Prize for Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.  This nonfiction book about residents of a present day slum neighborhood in India takes us into the culture of the people of Annawadi and tells their individual stories with compassion and honesty.  The juxtaposition of the slum against the luxury hotels is Mumbai is a startling reminder of the disparity and inequity in our world.

As a mom, I'm always looking for ways to continue teaching my sons about art, literature, poetry, history, global issues, music, science and technology, and I prefer to teach them through experiences.  Since April brought two big school projects for my youngest son, we explored through books and events.  We dug in deep to learn about the Battle of Perryville for his history day project.  This historical event happened not too far from where we live, so we were excited to find books specifically about the battle. We borrowed  Perryville Under Fire:  The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle by Stuart Sanders from the Lexington Public Library.  We borrowed other books as well, but this was the only one I read from cover to cover as I sought to understand Kentucky's history in the Civil War.  I needed to understand the battle and significance of Kentucky in the war if I was going to help my ten-year old son with his project.

Shortly after the history day event, I accompanied my son on his fifth grade field trip to Mammoth Cave, and since we had been there previously and learned about a book of Mammoth Cave poetry  I decided to find the book and read it.  Sharing poetry with my child was a highlight of national poetry month for me. We found Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs at the public library and spent the week before our trip reading poems each night. With the events, reading, and blogging I started to fall behind my book a week goal toward the end of the April, but it didn't take me long to catch up again because I downloaded the e-book version of A Sliver of Light:  Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran by Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd and read the book in just a couple of days.

On Easter Sunday, I was reading The New York Times and came across an archived excerpt of the book We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen.  Since I enjoyed the excerpt, I decided to download the complete e-book version for my final book of the month.  This was also my opportunity to try reading fiction in e-book format again since previously I've only been able to read nonfiction electronically. As I mentioned above, I haven't managed to write a full post about the book because the content was too familiar.

I think what I'm enjoying most about my book a week goal is the chance to read and become part of different worlds with each text.  This is probably the same reason I read so often as a child--it was a chance to experience to a new place, meet new people (characters) and explore new ideas. 

#teachingis the chance to never stop learning

In my senior year of college, I began my psychology internship at a home for adults with special needs.  The experience confirmed my desire to help others and to make a difference in the world, but it did not confirm a future career.  For my second semester internship I was placed in a learning center for high school students who were taking psychology electives. It was in this small rural learning center that I learned my true calling as a teacher. Together, my students and I explored topics of behavior, attitudes, and career possibilities. A large part of the curriculum included working with the teens on their outlook in life.  Vividly I recall conversations about making the most of less than desirable situations, and in these conversations, I realized I was learning, too. You see, as a college student I struggled with keeping a positive outlook on life, and often fell prey to circumstances in which I would play the victim, often blaming my life circumstances on being a first generation college graduate or coming from a family who struggled financially. A former college roommate even told me once (after tiring of my whining) that I was the one who could determine my life outlook and I could make a decision about whether I wanted to be happy or not (maybe I had been reading too much Sylvia Plath).

This card was sent to me by someone who knows me now.

The teens at that rural learning center taught me about my future career, so I finished my psychology degree and promptly enrolled in a Masters program to become a teacher.  Here's where all my reading of poetry paid off because I was offered a chance to choose whether I wanted to become a teacher of social studies or a teacher of English. What I knew was that I wanted to teach teenagers, and because a poetry class as an undergraduate was where I learned to read critically, I determined that I would teach English, so I could teach teenagers how to read critically. The experience with the teenagers at the learning center also taught me that I wanted to teach teenagers so that I could have the chance to...

• never stop learning
• encourage curiosity & creativity
• listen
• refine questioning techniques
• discuss ideas
• explore concepts
• be flexible & open-minded
• connect with other people
• make a difference in the world 

This academic year, I've thought about teaching as I've taught future teachers at a local university, and I recognize that teaching is dynamic and ever changing.  I'm blogging today in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and the Center for Teaching Quality's #teachingis campaign.  Five and a half years ago I left the high school classroom in search of leadership opportunities and a change, but I did not stop learning, nor did I really stop teaching.  Teaching is in my blood, a part of who I am and who I always will be.

Sharing Poems and Exploring Mammoth Cave

The Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave

Descending into the dark and cold Mammoth Cave with 80 fifth-grade students, I couldn't help but think about all the writers and explorers before us who also entered at the cave at the Historic Entrance. In the weeks leading up to our visit, I read  Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs for my book of the week, and then I re-read the poems aloud to my ten-year-old son, a few poems each evening the week before our trip. Isaac and I have been to Mammoth Cave previously on a family trip, and I accompanied his older brother two years ago on his school trip, but this was the first time we read literature specifically associated with the cave prior to visiting.

With Poem in Your Pocket Day occurring the day before our trip, Isaac chose McCombs' poem Brush Fire to carry and share with his classmates at school. When we entered the cave the next day, we made our first stop in the cave dome that sits directly below the Mammoth Cave Hotel.  This stop reminded us of Brush Fire where we read of forty acres burning and the Hotel surviving while a group below is explores, oblivious of the fire raging above them.

Isaac carries Brush Fire for his #PocketPoem

The persona poems in Ultima Thule fed our shared interest in history, especially since the first few poems are persona poems told from the voice of former slave guide Stephen Bishop. Bishop was a slave owned by Dr. John Croghan, the owner of Mammoth Cave between 1839 and 1849. When not leading guided tours, Bishop explored the depths of the cave and found hundreds of miles of passageways including what he called The Bottomless Pit.
                    Before I crossed it on a cedar pole, legs
                    dangling into blackness, here the tours....



"Now, when I turn off the lights you have to promise not to scream." Our park ranger and tour guide calmly prepared us for the portion of our tour that would lead us over a steel grate looking down into The Bottomless Pit. However, before leading us into Dante's Pass and over the pit, we stopped in front of the Giant's Coffin (a large rock formation) and he turned off all the lights, so we could experience a pitch black darkness possible only this deep within the earth. Isaac says the Giant's Coffin stop was one of his favorite on the tour because he enjoyed the park ranger's stories and the momentary experience of complete darkness and silence.

Inside Mammoth Cave

The next sections of our hike required more stooping and crawling through narrow passageways as we descended into the fourth of five levels of the cave before again ascending some of the 500 steps we climbed on this moderate intensity historic tour. We saw names and letters on rocks and considered the people who came before us and recorded their visit with candles.

Candlewriting at Mammoth Cave

After two hours of exploring cave passages and learning about the rich human history of Mammoth Cave, we exited the cave feeling full of new knowledge gained through experience and enhanced because of our study of poetry.

Exiting Mammoth Cave

Spring 2014 at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

Talking with my 13 year old about Algebra & Daniel Tammet's recitation of Pi

Picking up my thirteen year old son from school is always a joy because it's the few minutes in our day when he's most talkative.  On a recent afternoon, he spent ten minutes on our drive home telling me all about his algebra class, how much he loves it, how much he's learning, and basically how curious he is about numbers.  Knowing how much he loves numbers, I was excited to tell him about a book I checked out from the library.  When I told him about it, he eagerly replied "What's the man's name?" When I told him Daniel Tammet was the author of the book, he started nodding his head with excitement because he watched a documentary about Tammet when he curled up on his bed one afternoon during one of our snow days this past winter.

 I read Daniel Tammet's Thinking in Numbers:  On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math for one of my books of the week in March, but decided to write about it in April since math and poetry connect rather nicely, and April is National Poetry Month.  For me there were many beautiful aspects to Tammet's ideas, but one of the parts that resonated with me most was about mathematics being flexible and not a rigid set of problems and procedures to memorize step-by-step.  That's the way I was taught math as a child and teenager, and I hated it because it allowed little room for thinking or exploring.  It was all about following the directions and procedures to get to an answer one way (and make sure you show your work using the procedure you were taught!).

Beautifully, Tammet references Charles Dickens writing about the dreaded multiplication tables.  Tammet then proceeds to describe different ways to reach the number 56.  A sampling of Tammet's explanation here from page 38-39 of his book.

56 = 28 X 2
56 = 14 X 4
56 = 7 X 8
56 = 3.5 X 16
56 = 1.75 X 32
56 = 0.875 X 64

Tammet goes on to write three or four pages about familiar forms being "simple and succinct but finely wrought."

Another favorite chapter titled The Admirable Number Pi struck a chord with me because of my son's interest in Pi.  Ethan watched parts of Tammet reciting Pi in the documentary.  Seeing my 13 year-old excited about a man reciting Pi was reason enough to like this particular chapter in Tammet's book.  But there's more reason as well.  When Tammet talks about seeing the infinite number Pi in phrases and images, I'm intrigued by the ideas, the art, the humanness of numbers.  Really, I've never thought about this before now--exciting for me as I continue learning to muse.

Finally, I must mention Tammet's numerous allusions to novels, language, rhetoric, and poetry.  Clearly he's read a wide range of authors and texts as he writes about ideas and topics presented in the works of many authors in the Western Canon, including Dante.  Specifically, he writes about one of Dante's sestinas and he dwells on the numbers associated with a sestina.

"Which is to say, the final word in line six of the first standa (1 2 3 4 5 6) reappears  as the last word of the next stanza's opening line (6 1 2 3 4 3), and at the close of the second line of stanza three (3 6 4 1 2 5), and so on.... (page 184)."

His explanations are too remarkable for me to tell you about in a simple paragraph, so all I can do now is recommend that you read the book for yourself and maybe then share your reading with a child who is interested in numbers.

Only a Day and Two Nights in San Francisco

When we were informed our Common Assignment Research Study would be having a meeting for all the partners in San Francisco, I was immediately excited at the possibility of finally seeing City Lights Bookellers in person. I, like many other twenty-one year old students, was inspired by the Beat Generation while I was in college.  Specifically, I remember writing a paper on the San Francisco Renaissance poets (and I had never been to San Francisco).  Jack Kerouac's traveling experiences were alive in my head as I made my travel reservations.

It was a relatively short work meeting, with just one evening dinner meeting (II Fornaio) and then a full day meeting on Friday. I purposefully scheduled the earliest flight I could get out of snowy Lexington on Thursday, even though our dinner wasn't until 6pm PST.  With the time change heading west, I landed in SFO by 10:30 am, and after a short stop at a popular food truck Bacon Bacon on the San Francisco State campus, my colleague (who just moved to Kentucky  from San Francisco) drove me to City Lights and left me to explore while she lunched with friends.  Two glorious hours in this historical bookstore were an English teacher's dream.  I sat upstairs in the poetry room and read for about 30 minutes, and I browsed the vast assortment of poetry collections from every generation, and naturally with a special section dedicated to the Beat Generation.

I also browsed fiction and nonfiction on the other floors of the bookstore, and each time I moved from section to section, I thought about the great authors of an earlier generation who shook up the city and the country with their counterculture movement.  The history of this generation was well represented, not only with their great works of literature, but also with the posters, pictures, and postcards that adorned the walls.

Leaving the bookstore, I walked again by Jack Kerouac Alley before making my way across the Broadway/Columbia inersection to The Beat Museum.  Here I found artifacts and memorabilia like a shirt Kerouac wore, Ginsberg's typewriter and organ and loads of photographs and books from the era.

Since I live on the eastern side of the USA, traveling home Friday night would have required me to take the red eye, and I just wasn't up for that experience.  With only a few free hours on this work trip, my only big goal personally was so see City Lights,  so when I also was able to hear live jazz on Friday night, I felt my San Francisco trip was complete. It was serendipitous because I was stuck at the hotel on my own since others in the group had planned better than I did for a Friday evening out and about  (or they lived locally--our Stanford partners) and went home to their families.  

Determined to make the best of the situation, I went to the hotel restaurant for dinner (Brussels sprouts with bacon crumbles & an Ahi burger). While I was dining, several musicians came in to setup equipment.  I didn't have high hopes for what I would hear, given that I was at a hotel restaurant near the airport.  However, when I asked my waiter what he knew about the music to come, I wasn't disappointed when he told me old school jazz.  Indeed it was old school jazz with three local musicians and all improvisation since they did even know one another before they played together. Three hours of lively jazz music and conversations with locals.  On their break, the musicians talked to me and asked if I had any requests, but they laughed when I asked for Coltrane's Giant Steps or Gillespie's Salt Peanuts. Bebop was clearly not high on their list of usual requests.  Not long later, though, they looked at me and said..."you asked for bebop, so we're going to play some for you," and they played KoKo.

A woman from the San Francisco Bay Area came over to talk to me and to share that she was there at the airport hotel to hear jazz and celebrate her 89th (!) birthday. What a joy she was! The band even played a jazzed up happy birthday in her honor, and she stood up to dance in her sparkly pants and leopard print top.  She was there with her daughters who looked to be my mom's age, and I loved that they brought their mom to hear jazz on her birthday.

All told my day and two nights in San Francisco was the perfect work trip with a splash of personal fun thrown into the mix.  We accomplished our work goals, and I saw City Lights and heard live jazz. Can't get much better than that.

Musing on Classroom Discussion Methods

In my third high school in as many years, I was not a vocal participant in class discussions.  However, when my English teacher said our grade for the Lord of The Flies unit would depend upon how much we participated in class discussion, I decided not to let my reticence hinder my grade.  Each night I would read the required chapters before the next day’s discussion and then I would read the Cliffs Notes for ideas about what I would say when the teacher started asking us questions.  Since we sat in rows and I sat in the back, the teacher had no idea my insightful remarks were actually not my words or my insights. 

Flash forward six years to my senior year of college and a poetry seminar where my reticence once again threatened to take hold.  This time, however, I did not turn to cheat sheets or someone else’s ideas because our professor took a different approach to our class discussions—an approach that required us to dig deep and to think critically and carefully about what we were reading.  We typically sat in a square facing one another, so hiding behind rows of students was also not an option. Fortunately, this professor did not just expect us to read carefully, he taught us how by modeling it, and by asking careful, prodding questions about each line of the poems we read.  This is the same professor who introduced us to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature by way of asking us to take a quiz on the characteristics of a good reader, emphasizing the importance of re-reading texts for deeper understanding.

It’s this quest for deeper understanding I aimed for when leading my own students through complex texts during class discussions.  Without experience or strategies, facilitating classroom discussions with teenagers was challenging.  I gave it my best shot, modeling what my professor did when he led discussion rather than what my former high school teacher did.  Still, I struggled for the structure some classes of teenagers need, and I also struggled with strategies for ensuring students like me were participating.  The same few students typically had the most to say while others sat quietly.

Enter Shared Inquiry and the Great Books Foundation—my school received a grant to participate in trainings using the Shared Inquiry discussion method.  We learned how to facilitate discussions that were student centered and focused on deeper understandings of text.  We also learned how to establish procedures for ensuring all students participated.  From the beginning of our grant, I was a huge fan and later an advocate of Shared Inquiry because I saw the difference it made in my teaching and in my students’ understanding of the texts we discussed.   

Years later I had an additional opportunity to participate in a Paideia Seminar training.  Paideia and Shared Inquiry share several of the same goals and operate very similarly, except with Paideia you are not focused on a set curriculum like you are with Great Books/Shared Inquiry  (Honestly though, I used the Shared Inquiry method even when I wasn’t using the Great Books curriculum).

Here’s what I like about both discussion methods.

o   You focus on deep understanding of a text (print or non-print)

o   You let the students do the talking

o   You encourage everyone to participate by facing one another with name placards posted, and you (the teacher) join the circle, sometimes drawing out students

o   You have students set personal goals and have the group agree on a group discussion goal as well (e.g. refer to the text when talking, everyone speaks, build on the ideas of others, ask clarifying questions, use names of classmates etc.)

o   You map the discussion for use during reflection (see picture below)

o   You complete the bulk of your work pre-discussion when you create open-ended opening questions and possible questions to use if/when the conversation is dragging

o   You end the discussion on a high note—leaving students to want more

o   You encourage participation without requiring hands to be raised to speak

o   You allow silence and don’t try to fill it—you wait for students to speak (can be really tough and uncomfortable for everyone at first—but it’s great!)

Discussion of Autobiography of Malcolm X w/pre-service teachers

The best part of both discussion methods is that you never grow weary or bored, and you always look for opportunities to participate or facilitate discussions because the more you participate, the better you become at facilitating the discussions too.   Just last week I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion when I visited a history class at a local high school—a highlight of my week, for sure.

What about you—What are your favorite discussion methods?