A Day Destined to Create Nurturers of Children and Lovers of Literature

I happen to share my birthday with two other English teacher friends--only one of whom is still in the classroom.  Jana is a former student of mine and now a young and fabulous teacher at a local high school.  The title of today’s blog post comes from Jana in her comment to me on Facebook this morning. Cherry was a colleague and has been a mentor, of sorts, to me as I made a transition, even if it's temporary, out of the classroom.

This birthday morning, I awoke to greetings from family and friends and to read a new blog post at Edweek; this post links to Learning to Muse and has caused a flurry of online dialogue this morning among my colleagues and friends.  The post has also caused me to ask—am I lying to myself to think what I do now in public education matters because I am so passionate about teaching and learning? Is it a lie to tell myself if I still loved teaching I’d stay in the classroom “for the kids?”

A friend from graduate school, now an administrator in Georgia, asked: “I struggle, too…does it get any easier?”  My reply:  “I don’t know if it gets any easier.  In a way I hope not because I don’t ever want to stop loving the classroom, even if I’m not there and especially if I ever return.  My love of teaching inspires what I do daily and the input I provide to the field of public education. Tough, for sure.”

I had a telephone conversation and subsequent online conversation this week with another amazing English teacher who has been teaching for 20 years.  He said to me: “I will simply look at this as a delay…Someday soon!”

 

Another friend, who spent 5 years in the classroom before pursuing other interests, encouraged me by stating “while you may have stepped away from the classroom for a time, you have not left education.  Your work is vital, and its effects are far reaching—across many classrooms.”

Delicate balance.  After reading the Edweek post, another friend and colleague, who spent 27 years in the classroom, commented:  “We absolutely need the best teachers to remain in classrooms teaching our precious children.  But, don’t we also want the best teachers helping negotiate and mediate all of the mandates and dictates that are being imposed on districts/schools/classrooms/teachers/students?

An anonymous educator who retired in May at the top of her game commented on my blog: “The worst thing is for teachers to leave when everyone else knows s/he's ready. What next for me? God knows. But, at least I carry with me the joys and successes no one can take away from me. Leave before everyone wants you to go. Hard to find that kind of high" in the real world. Finding something half as satisfying will be a challenge. What a wonderful journey!”

Life’s great balancing act.  Indeed life is a journey and as I sign off to spend my birthday with my husband and sons, who just made me a delicious brunch, I’m grateful for family, friends, colleagues and others who are working daily to nurture children and create lovers of literature as I continue to do per my 8 year old son who gave me a Dr. Seuss inspired birthday card. 

  

What a Liberal Arts Education Did For Me

 With all the talk about College and Career Readiness in our nation, I have been thinking  intentionally about my own college experience at a small liberal arts college in northeast Georgia.   My liberal arts education was not intended to train me for a specific job, nor did I even dream I would become a teacher until after I graduated.   A liberal arts education prepared me for life beyond the world of work because it taught me the benefits of lifelong learning and much more.

My values of tolerance, sympathy, and respect for others were enhanced in courses, internships and service learning projects where we studied cultures, people, humanity, literature, sciences, music, art, and philosophy.  At Piedmont College I learned to think critically and analytically, to communicate effectively, to solve problems, to collaborate, and to create--all integrated (not isolated) skills which are never obsolete; these skills allow me to thrive in an evolving global society.  These skills and the desire to continue learning enabled me to become a teacher who--

• Established rapport with students
• Engaged students in authentic learning opportunities
• Employed effective instructional strategies
• Empathized with students, parents, and colleagues

 Since I'm not currently in the classroom, these same skills--Critical thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, Problem Solving, Communication and a desire for lifelong learning allow me to provide leadership and oversight of projects in education.

Sometimes I question myself and my choice for leaving the classroom, as I've blogged about previously, but colleagues and former students remind me of the possibility for impacting change in public education.  And, thanks to numerous esteemed colleagues, I am reminded that we need more lifelong learners making decisions.

Thanks to my dad I enjoy learning through travel.

This Father’s Day I am contemplating my love of travel because my dad instilled this love within me.

Always on a tight budget growing up, our family still did not lack for travel.  Dad always found a way for us to explore various regions in the United States.  In fact, we not only traveled, we also resided in four different states in the first sixteen years of my life--Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida  (When I left for college, the family moved to North Carolina, where they still reside).  The whole family (6 of us) traveled to multiple other states, always by car, but we were continually looking for adventures to as far-away places as Mexico while traversing Arizona and the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Canada while driving through New York, Washington D.C., the White House, all the memorials, and the Iwo Jima motel (infamous story in our family), St. Louis and Houston to visit relatives,  see the sites and Disney World, Sea World and various beaches in Florida, in my birth state, the Great Lakes, and Mackinac Island.  Through all these adventures, my dad instilled in me an intense love of travel and, to this day, he loves to go, to see, and to experience learning through travel, and so do I.

What did I learn from my childhood traveling experiences?

To dream.  Dad is a dreamer, and his dreams are often realized because he works hard to achieve them.   I am a dreamer because dad is a dreamer and working to achieve dreams brings me satisfaction and enjoyment.   Many of my travel dreams have been realized, and I continue to dream of adventures and journeys I will have in my lifetime, adventures I will provide my children, and adventures my husband and I will have as we live our life-long journey together.

To keep a positive attitude.  Dad taught me to always look on the bright side of life when we traveled and when we were at home.   Even when life was sometimes tough financially growing up, dad always modeled a positive attitude by being grateful for our close family and by (forgive the cliché) turning sour situations into lemonade.  We still joke about the trip to Washington, D.C. when we ate fast food three times a day in an effort to keep travel inexpensive.  Boy, were we sick of McDonald’s!  But we had a positive attitude about the very fact that we were exploring new places and learning about our country.

My reflections and pondering in education frequently include musings on various in and out of state travel experiences because I enjoy traveling as much as I enjoy learning, and I believe you can learn through travel.  

Ruminating on Aki Kurose and Seattle

Generally when I travel out of state for work, I fly in to the destination, spend time working and meeting with colleagues and fly out with little time for exploration.  Last week, however, my friend/colleague and I traveled to Seattle, Washington for work.  Since it was my first visit to Seattle, my friend decided to utilize her hotel points so we could arrive a day early and do some exploring. 

We visited many of the Seattle tourist spots including Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.  Still trying to keep our spending low, we skipped the ride to the top of the Space Needle and instead walked around the perimeter of the attraction, taking in many of the gardens and sculptures surrounding the Space Needle.

One of my favorite observations of the day was in a garden where we saw a stone with a quote by the late Seattle educator and peace activist, Aki Kurose.  “If you don’t have peace within yourself, learning cannot take place.”   Aki Kurose lived from 1925-1998.  Her rich life included time as a teenager in a Japanese internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but she learned not to harvest hatred toward the guards at the camp.  According to Jennifer Ott, writing for HistoryLink.org, Kurose spent much of her adult life teaching children and learning from children, and she became excited about what she learned from them.  This sounds to me like a woman whose work to embrace differences, create peace and promote justice is work from which we could all learn.

Reflections from a trip to Washington D.C

A recent trip to Washington D.C. left me feeling thankful for the country in which I live.  The United States of America is a diverse place with a rich history of both acceptance and non-acceptance of people for who they are.  Though I am not proud of the parts of American society that produce hate or un-acceptance, I am thankful that I live in a place where diverse opportunities are available to average citizens like me.

During my K-12 schooling, I moved many times and never had a consistent schooling experience.  In fact, my high school counselor told me it was unlikely I would even graduate from college because I was on the “general education” track due to losing credits and having to re-earn credits over and over from state to state.  I never failed a course and never even earned a lower than average grade.  That counselor’s statement has been with me for over 20 years and actually became the impetus for me to not only graduate from college but to also obtain a Master’s degree.

I didn’t go to college with plans of being a teacher, but I did believe I would work with people because I like people.  I like learning from people.  I like that everyone has something different to bring to the table.  I especially like conversations. Conversations with teenagers were a driving force for me to pursue the field of education after earning my Bachelor’s degree in psychology.   Plus, I was adamant about being a resource for teens that needed support—I didn’t want any other teens to be told they had no hope of going to college, if they desired to go. 

No matter the school where I taught, there was always a common factor—teens who were waiting for adults to believe in them.  For the past 14 years, I have devoted my professional life to education.  With four diverse experiences under my belt, I continue to seek opportunities and challenges as an educator and learner.   If you are interested in learning more about how I’ve spent the past 14 years, feel free to check out my updated bio page (tab at top).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

(Note:  I have citizenry and government on my mind because I was in D.C. for a meeting of states to discuss the common social studies standards being developed)

What Being a Classroom Teacher Taught Me about Being a Leader

In January 2009 I left the classroom and have been working in various leadership positions since then.  Even though I long often for the classroom, I have found if I remember these ten things I did in my classroom, I am more successful as a leader.  I only wish being a leader hadn't meant having to leave the classroom because it shouldn't have to be that way.  Teachers are leaders too!

1.  Value each individual.  No matter how busy my schedule became or how many students there were, I found it important to treat each unique individual with respect because respect goes a long way in building student/teacher working relationships. 
2. Provide choice.  Student choice in learning was by far one of my favorite tricks in my teacher goody bag.  When people feel they have a choice about what they need to do, they generally enjoy the task and learn in the process.
3. Provide frequent feedback.  Frequent, descriptive feedback has been shown to be one of the greatest factors for improving student achievement. 
4. Use passions positively.  I entered the teaching profession because I am passionate about teaching and learning.  Sometimes these passions cause me to react emotionally to imprudent decisions made in public education. 
5. Be creative with resources.  I spent my entire teaching career in Title 1 eligible schools, so we always had to be creative when looking for books, supplies, and equipment.  It’s amazing what you can get when you ask for help from the community.
6. Encourage collaboration and creativity.  These skills are supremely important for living a productive life, so I always liked to provide students opportunities to collaborate with one another and with opportunities to express their understanding of text in creative ways (e.g. through creating a painting, a poem, a song, a movie, a skit, etc.).
7. Listen more than talk. This goes back a long way for me.  As an undergraduate, I practiced Rogerian Therapy (Person Centered Therapy) for part of my graduation requirements for a B.A. in psychology.  This was all about listening to the client.  I employed similar listening skills in my classroom.
8. Provide experiences. As a believer in John Dewey’s philosophy of education, I believe students should experience positive interactions and learning opportunities which will prepare them to be confident and capable citizens in society. 
9. Don’t try to do everything because I can’t and shouldn’t.  This theory applies in the classroom and in the work place.  For a smooth running classroom where learning was happening, I needed the students to work harder than me.  This took a ton of up-front preparation, but my classroom always ran itself when I was a facilitator of learning rather than a deliverer of knowledge.
10. Set specific and measurable goals, but don’t forget the stuff that can’t be measured. While achieving success and reaching goals often meant I needed  to have numbers or measurable data for my students, I believe we must remember that being human centered doesn't always equate with measuring in numbers.  

High-Stakes Testing and Video Games

2011-2012 is a big year in our state because it’s the year students are assessed on the Common Core State Standards, standards which are intended to up the ante and prepare students for college and careers.  Our state worked with testing vendor, Pearson, to develop new reading, writing, and mathematics standardized assessments.  Last week’s blog post referenced my youngest son’s feelings of anxiety and desire to “chicken out” of the test.   The testing issue weighed heavily on me all week as conversations regarding the stresses of high-stakes testing continued.

With a large grin and sparking eyes, my eleven year old asked if he could have time to talk with me about the test when I finished talking with his younger brother.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could take another conversation that might rip out my heart with sadness if we had to discuss the way the test made him feel defeated. 

But this conversation was different, instead of being distraught over the test; Ethan wanted to use it to his advantage.  “Mom, you know how you are always telling us research says… well, guess what happened on today’s state test—I actually knew vocabulary because of that video game I’ve been playing.”  Since the video game is set in Medieval times, Ethan accessed his prior knowledge while reading the passage and responding to a question about the meaning of the word outskirts.  His argument then—he should be permitted extra time to play video games since it helped him on the test. 

My husband and I make parenting decisions based on facts, discussions, and a little bit of parent intuition.   We know well what research says about spending too much time playing video games and watching television.  However, I am also a parent and an educator who understands new literacies. So while the state test may be traditional and lacking in an effort to assess new literacies, my son found a way to leverage new literacies in response to the traditional state reading assessment. 

May I Chicken Out of Testing?

Thursday afternoon I was on my way home from working with educators when my sons's 3rd grade teacher called me. You may know the momentary panic a mom feels when seeing the school number appear on the phone. I answered calmly, mentioning that I was in the mountains with a weak cell signal and then waited to hear the voice on the other end of the line. The reply "well that explains some of it" was not immediately reassuring. I was thinking oh no--hope he's okay. What I learned was troubling. My eight year old had a melt down during state testing because he ran out of time to read the long passages and answer the accompanying questions. He had placed a tremendous amount of stress on himself because he wanted to perform well after benignly being told by his teacher that the scores would not affect him;they would only affect his school and his teachers. She regretted telling him that, telling me he had likely taken the statement to heart. He is a sensitive child who cares about others and his community, and he really likes his teacher.

 My position in education has benefits and challenges. One of the challenges is that I provide content consultation to the office of assessment at the state department. This is challenging because of my conflicting feelings of angst about the amount of standardized testing forced on children in public education. Now, I must say here that I do see the benefits of SOME standardized tests, but as a nation we have gone overboard with the amount of time spent testing our children.

As a parent advocate for my child, I am in a difficult situation because my professional life demands I be sensitive to the requirements set forth by our state and school system.  At the same time, it's difficult hearing my child tell me he wants to "chicken out" and skip the test because it's just too stressful. What do I say when he asks me if it's okay for him to chicken out, knowing America's public education system will continue to demand he take these tests throughout his entire schooling and even to gain college entry?

I don't know the answers, but I will continue to seek them and will continue to join forces with other educators and parents trying to make a difference in public education. For the sake of children in our country, we must not chicken out of looking for answers to change our test driven culture!

Literary vs. Informational Text: it's not either/or

An eruption of face to face and online conversations over the past year have centered on the demand for more informational texts to be taught in classrooms across the United States as part of the Common Core State Standards initiative.   As I’ve blogged about previously, I don’t believe this directive requires us to stop teaching literature.  A carefully balanced approach to instruction provides students with opportunities to read a variety of complex and appropriately challenging texts.  We do not have an either (literature) /or (non-fiction) scenario. 

 

Yesterday I was with educators from elementary backgrounds who claimed English teachers need to learn from them because they have been “pairing texts forever since that’s the way basal readers are designed.” (Pretty sure the Dick and Jane series wasn’t designed like this, but surely these educators are referencing the more contemporary design of American textbooks today) No doubt, we all have something to learn from one another, regardless of our teaching level. Nevertheless, creating text parings is not a novel idea; it is something teachers at any grade level have been doing or can start doing with ease.  Text pairings have been part of my teaching approach since I entered the teaching profession in 1998; it just makes sense to design lessons drawing on multiple perspectives, genres, or disciplines. 

Following my day with the educators referenced above, I returned home to find my husband, unexpectedly, cleaning out our garage (where my 8 tubs of teaching materials are stored), so I decided to peruse a few of those tubs and to ponder (again) text pairings I used in my classroom. 

Unifying focus:  Freedom from convention

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Greyed Rainbow by Jackson Pollock

Scholastic Art borrowed class set from art teacher to for class to read article about Pollock.

Colors by Ken Nordine

Unifying focus:  Complexity in life and nature

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

The Starry Night by Anne Sexton

Starry Night by Tupac Shakur

Van Gogh in Auvers from Smithsonian magazine January 2008

Unifying focus:  Identity

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Mommaday

Identity card by Mahmoud Darwish

Poems written by students

Various non-fiction writings by students

The skill of pairing texts rests in selecting texts to meet the needs of learners in an individual classroom, so let the text pairings referenced here serve as inspiration for selecting texts that will suit the needs of your students’ demographics and learning needs. 

As you look for more inspiration, consider following the work of Sarah Brown Wessling.  Last spring I participated in NCTE’s virtual conference Supporting Teachers in a Time of Core Standards.  It was here where I met (virtually) 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling, who talks about fulcrum texts, context, texts, and texture texts.  What an inspiring way to think about text selection!    

Anecdotes from Poem in Your Pocket Day 2012

Top favorite anecdote:  My 11 year old son carried Falling Up by Shel Silverstein in the front pocket of his jeans and then proudly read the poem to his 5^th grade class at the end of the day. 

Sentimental anecdote:  My sister shared a poem about mothers in honor of our mother who recently suffered a heart attack. 

Marriage anecdote:  Robin gave a poem to Kevin on their wedding day; he has carried the poem in his wallet every day for the past nearly 20 years.

Mary Oliver anecdote:  Two friends separately mentioned poems in the days preceding Poem in Your Pocket Day 2012 —Jackie shared a youtube clip of The Summer Day or The Grasshopper  and Mary shared Wild Geese.

No Title anecdote:  Cindy shared Emily Dickinson’s  I taste a liquor never brewed.

Epic anecdote:  The never ending joke of the day regarding what one is carrying in his pocket included Milton’s Paradise Lost

War anecdote:  My cousin shared a poem written by my uncle while he was in Vietnam

Facebook friend anecdote:  Carie shared my request for poems with others  on her facebook page and listed  Wordsworth’s  I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud as the poem she would carry.

College Roommate anecdote: Amy carried a Sara Teasdale poem in honor of her 1992 college crush and husband.

Colleague anecdote:  Mikkaka listened intently as I shared my poem of the day  and then she shared with me Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath.

Twitter anecdote:  New York Times Learning Network retweeted #pocketpoems all day

Kentucky Women Writers Conference anecdote:  Julie and Vaughn shared their pocket poems through the conference listserv, a great way to promote the September conference.  Julie shared  [As for me, I used to be a bird] by — Alda Merini, translated by Susan Stewart.  Vaughn carried Pocket by Julia Johnson, a presenter for the upcoming 2012 conference.

Poem in Your Pocket Day: Ode to a Book II

For the past several weeks I have been asking friends, family, and colleagues what poem they plan to carry for Poem in Your Pocket Day.  While poetry is desirable to me all year long, it’s lovely to have one month a year where we see an extra emphasis on poetry.  Adding to the pleasure is a day of carrying and sharing poems for Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Today I am carrying Ode to the Book II by Pablo Neruda.  I selected this poem because I really love Neruda’s poems, and I’m ruminating on a summer when my husband and I enjoyed reading Neruda’s poems together and drinking fine beverages from Chile.  Since neither of us read Spanish, we were careful to select translations we thought would be reliable and settled on The Essential Neruda:  Selected Poems edited by Mark Eisner.  A City Lights Books publication, the selection includes the poems written in Spanish on one side of the page and in English on the other side.

Our Neruda reading summer bled into the fall when we returned to school, and I found myself sharing Neruda’s poems with my students.  Because a large number of my students were bilingual, I enjoyed listening to them read Neruda’s poems in Spanish and then in English prior to our vibrant text-based class discussions.  This classroom memory obviously stayed with one student because she spent last semester (her senior year of college) in Chile studying through an exchange program at the University of Kentucky.  She posted a picture of Neruda’s home on facebook and considerately tagged me in the post; she actually thought of her former high school English teacher while she was in Chile!

Tomorrow I plan to share poem titles and thoughts on Poem in Your Pocket Day 2012, so if you are reading and carrying a poem today, please tell me, so I can add you to my list of people who shared their pocket poems with me.

Why I Left Teaching

Yesterday I had an opportunity to interview students while on a visit to a high school in the eastern region of Kentucky. My colleague and I asked a number of questions to capture a snapshot of life for students at this high school. The students were very impressive, and they praised their teachers for providing challenging course work. They mentioned the research papers being written for English class; they emphasized the literature they are reading (Heart of Darkness); they conveyed the importance of studying literature to “better understand people.” They talked about the pig they were dissecting in science class and the challenging work required in pre-calculus.

 Following the interview with students and the subsequent conversation with our team, another colleague asked me: “Why did you leave the classroom— It’s clear you are passionate about teaching?” Coincidentally, I have been asking myself the same question and was even preparing a blog post on the topic a couple of days before her question. So, why did I leave the classroom?   Difficult to answer but important to ponder (and I ponder it often).

What I love about teaching

 Interacting with students
 Helping students make connections in learning
 Advising students about life after high school
 Designing and delivering engaging and effective instruction
 Collaborating with colleagues in other disciplines
 Establishing a positive and safe classroom with high expectations for all
 Coaching, mentoring, and learning with new teachers
 Reflecting and refining the art of teaching and learning

 What I don't love about teaching

 Lack of respect for profession
 Pressure to practice for “the test”
 Hoards of papers to grade
 Lack of time to plan, grade, meet with parents
 Rigid daily schedule (no time to sit, eat, use the toilet, attend events for sons)
 Constant interruptions of instruction from outside sources (walk-throughs, intercom requests for   students, etc.)
 Lack of funding for attending professional conferences and other events that invigorate
 Lack of time to spend with my own children because I spent so much time with my “other kids”

 No one item had any more impact on my decision to leave than another item, but after eleven years, I grew weary and needed a change. I certainly never thought leaving the classroom was a permanent choice, just an opportunity to try something new in the field of education for a few years.  I’m often asked if I will ever return to the public school classroom. It’s hard to say, but with many of the impending changes in public education I don’t imagine my list of what’s tough in teaching will become any shorter. That’s why I persist with a commitment made to myself when I left—I aim to raise the voice of teachers and students in public education.

Connecting Poetry and Experience

An exciting day of exploring and hiking at Mammoth Cave with 100 curious fifth graders leaves me thinking about the poem which awaited me in my inbox last Monday morning. Robert Frost by George Bilgere was listed in the The Writer’s Almanac on Sunday, April 8th. My friend sent it to a bunch of teacher friends, and he included me in the group of people to receive the poem, fitting given that I spent spring break musing on my teaching days. I related well to the essays stacked on the table waiting to be assessed and evaluated and the Sunday evening blues that sometimes crowd the thoughts of an overworked teacher. 

Now, you might be asking—what does a poem about teaching and Robert Frost have to do with a cave in Kentucky? Perhaps it’s the notorious ambiguity of Frost’s poems and the stories we heard today on the historical tour. Perhaps it’s the differences between the learning experiences referenced in the poem and those of the 100 fifth graders today. Which student would you rather be—the one writing an essay about ambiguity in Frost’s poems or the one exploring a 4000 year old cave?

Thought to be the largest cave in the world, with over 350 miles of interconnected passages, Mammoth Cave’s rich history includes uncertainty about the real reasons Stephen Bishop led adventurous expeditions in the cave. To learn more about this uncertainty, next on my poetry reading list is Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs.

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O Captain! My Captain!

I was never one of those wildly popular teachers who stood on desks, ripped pages out of textbooks, or spoke with a bellowing voice (think Dead Poets Society).  My approach was less showy but equally compassionate and filled with high expectations and a love for poetry.    In fact, I used to say poetry was part of the reason I chose to teach English over social studies.

There are two times each year when I become especially nostalgic for the classroom—in the fall when it’s time to welcome back former students and greet new students, and in the spring when it’s close to graduation and students are all a buzz with their minds focused on life beyond high school.

Inspired by a college graduation invitation received in the mail yesterday, I dug out old notes of appreciation from former students.  I still have some notes and pictures from my early days of teaching on the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, and of course, there are notes from my students right here in Lexington, Kentucky.

One of those notes was from a student who addressed me--O Captain! My Captain! Now, if that isn’t one of the most honorable ways to address a teacher, I don’t know what is.  

Today’s Favorite Text Friday is the poem by Walt Whitman O Captain!  My Captain! 

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,

      the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

      While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!

      O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

      O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for

      you the bugle trills… keep reading  

Walt Whitman may be one of the dead white authors, who garner much criticism for being part of the Cannon, but it’s still important to read authors like Whitman, and it’s essential to me that I share this poem with my young sons, who enjoy poetry along with me.  They like to hear me recite it, read it, and they like to read it to me as well.  Last night we read Whitman’s poem as a tribute to the interest my 8 year old has in Abraham Lincoln.  But, we also read it so I could relive a nostalgic memory of my days as a high school teacher.  

Spring break adventure to Lincoln Homestead in Springfield, Kentucky.

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Memorizing Poetry & Preparing Students to be College and Career Ready

With all the work around preparing students to be college and career ready, one today might say a student like my grandpa, who never finished high school but went on to fight in World War II and then to own and run a successful excavating business in Michigan, had no reason to memorize poetry.   I disagree.

One of my favorite memories is of my grandfather reciting for me The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes.  I last heard Grandpa, at the age of 86, recite this poem, a couple of months before he died.  I asked him what inspired him to learn and remember that poem; he said it was his tenth-grade  English teacher.   Because he had committed The Chambered Nautilus (and other poems) to memory,   he gained an opportunity to share that memory with me, his granddaughter; I gained an experience of a special time with a great man.  Since I was a high school English teacher who, for many reasons, asked students to memorize poetry, I liked to share with my students this story of my grandpa reciting poetry at the age of 86.  This story was also inspiring to some of my speech and debate students who competed in  poetry interpretation.

True our world today is different from the days when my grandpa was in high school in the 1930s.  Workers need to be better educated to fill new jobs that don’t even yet exist, and they need to be flexible and adaptable to be literate members of a 21^st century society.  However, let’s not forget the soft skills associated with being successful in the 21^st century and beyond.  As conversations continue about the economy and the bottom line, we cannot lose sight of the important benefits one can reap from memorizing poetry.  The practice of memorizing poetry can even help us prepare students to be college and career ready. 

Memorizing poetry can…

• provide you an in-depth understanding of a poem (if memorized thoughtfully and with repeated readings)
• help you through a hard time (important if you don’t especially want to wake up and go to school—or stay in school)
• provide an occasion to celebrate (important in life to celebrate one another, achievements, life itself)
• help you survive heat (literally and figuratively—and another post on that coming soon…)
• help you remember history (We need to learn from history, right?)
• move you beyond your comfort zone—a learning place
• help you build memories
• improve analytic abilities (Obviously, one must be taught how it can do this—not just told to memorize)
• improve comprehension and learn vocabulary (Again—one must be taught)
• help you learn about culture
• keep you in touch with ideas and experiences
• allow you to enjoy the beauty of words aloud (Think of all the poetry aloud and speech team competitions that continue.)
• help you think about the world in which you live
• provide you interesting party conversations
• help you learn about language, grammar, syntax
• help you make sense of life
• help you tell a story (Stories are still important, right?)
• provide you opportunities to connect with others

Maybe we could even consider connection the 5^th C in 21^st century learning because it is an integral part of being a globally aware and responsible citizen.  

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Kentucky Fan Reflects on Sports/Test Prep Analogy

True sports fans Beware!  A Kentucky fan who doesn't know much about basketball is about to explain why she doesn't buy the practice for tests/practice a game sports analogy.

Sports have never really been my passion, but when I moved to Kentucky almost nine years ago, the contagious Kentucky Wildcat fever was difficult to shake.  In the high school where I taught, sports were as important as they are in most high schools.  Our administrators commonly used sports analogies to explain why they thought we should practice for the state assessment.  It never really made sense to me—was that because I wasn’t a true fan? Or because I wanted to do more than practice for tests?

Me:  “Why do we have to force so many practice tests on our students?”

Administrator:  “We wouldn’t ask the players to go on the basketball court after practicing football all year, would we?  Test practice is the same thing…we have to practice the tests so the students will score well and our school test scores will improve.”

I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t.  Students will not have a passion for learning if all we ever do is practice for tests and if we measure the success of students and teachers based solely on summative test scores. 

As I watched the big Kentucky Wildcats versus Louisville Cardinals basketball game last night, I listened to the sports commenters and the coaches talk about skill associated with effective play.  I didn’t hear—they should have practiced more.  I did hear— “A summer in the weight room and that player will have what he needs.”  What if we equate the conditioning and muscle building a player does in the weight room to the critical thinking and creativity that sharpens the brain when we engage students in meaningful learning in the classroom. 

Let’s celebrate the wins of students who can make plays that can’t be coached just as Kansas Coach, Billy Self, suggested when asked about the Kentucky players his team will face Monday night for the National Championship.  As quoted in the Lexington Herald Leader “…They're terrific. They're great. They have guys who can make plays you can't coach."

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10 Thoughts on Sentences

Beautifully crafted sentences lift my spirits, and sometimes that’s what one needs on a cloudy spring day.  It’s been a slow week at Learning to Muse, but it certainly has not been a week without reflection and conversation.  I found myself coming precariously close to skipping a post this week as I longed to craft a beautiful sentence and wasn’t quite satisfied with my efforts.

So…here are my musings on sentences…

For the past year I have

•   been especially interested in sentences
•  followed stories on NPR about sentences
• attended writing workshops where writers talk about the craft of sentence construction
• deconstructed Common Core State Standards to understand what students in K-12 are supposed to learn about sentences
•  watched an amazing teacher in the United Kingdom discuss sentences with his students and with his colleagues
•  summed up my current  professional life in a single sentence
•  taught my sons about crafting sentences
• shared mad libs for academics with my husband
• asked teachers in workshops to write one sentence summaries
•  participated in a Facebook posting chain where I grabbed the nearest book, turned to a specific page, and recorded a sentence. 

This week I read a superb New York Times article by one of my favorite fiction writers—Jhumpa Lahiri and then I read a favorite bedtime story with my 8 year old.  

My spirits are lifted.

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Informational Texts and the Common Core

& the importance of literature to humanity

As you may have read in previous Learning to Muse posts, I enjoy nonfiction texts, both the reading and writing of such texts.  Reading other blogs, online community boards, and articles, I continue to find a mix of emotions about the teaching of informational texts as required in the Common Core State Standards.   Some people are freaking out because they feel it’s a new mandate that will keep them away from the literature they love; others are making learning what’s best for students and are working with the mandates rather than being used by them.

Four years ago when my then eight-year-old was struggling to read well, I had a heart wrenching conversation with his classroom teacher.  Love her heart—she was in her final year before retirement, and she pounded her small hand on her chest saying “I want him to feel literature here in his heart.”    I shared with her my background as a high school English teacher, lover of literature, and my husband’s work on a PhD in American literature.     A love of literature is not lacking in our home, that’s for sure.  In fact, I concur with a quote read in the March 17, 2012 online issue of The New York Times.

“Reading great literature, it has long been averred, enlarges and improves us as human beings.”

Does this mean we give up nonfiction completely because literature makes us better people?  Not necessarily.  Though I agree with the opinion that literature makes us better people, I believe a balance of nonfiction and literature is what’s best for our students.  You can read more about a few of my suggestions for pairing texts here.

Long before the Common Core I was teaching informational texts, and usually that involved pairing not only non-print text with literature but also informational texts with literature.  We paired poems by Joy Harjo, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder and haiku by Issa (translated by Robert Hass) with current event articles about the earth found in the local newspaper or various magazines.  One time we even explored Earth Day editions of magazine covers to learn more about audience, purpose, argument, and information. We looked at covers of TIME, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Elle, Outside, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic Monthly, Business Week,  Sports Illustrated , and Backpacker.  

A few of the questions examined in our study of informational text paired with poetry included:

• Who would read each magazine and for what purpose?
• How is the earth portrayed in each of these different magazines to meet the needs of the varying audiences?
• What type of information would we find in each magazine? What information can we learn?
• How is argument conveyed in the cover images?
• How is argument presented in poems? 
• How is the earth presented in poems?

Through Shared Inquiry discussions and student led presentations we enjoyed informational texts and literature together.  Since student interest was an important part of my classroom approach, I invited students to bring articles for us to read in class.  This invitation served dual purposes—it allowed students to take ownership of texts they wanted to read, and it also required them to be aware of happenings within our community, our nation, and our world.

We want students to be productive citizens in a changing world. By allowing them to read the types of texts demanded in the Common Core, we are preparing them for the increasingly complex texts demanded of them in life after high school.

P.S.  Fortunately both of my sons made it past second grade and into the hands of a fantastic third grade literacy teacher who believes in the power of matching texts to readers, and they are both enjoying life as the sons of English teachers (even if they do prefer math).

Favorite Text Friday

A friend of mine who blogs about homemaking established a new series titled Favorite Things Friday; she encouraged other bloggers to run the same series.  Megan’s favorite things are beautiful and meaningful items of importance or interest to her and are presented as a way to get to know her a little better.  I decided to adapt this series to fit the topics in my blog, so readers can know me a little better.  Therefore, on Fridays at Learning to Muse, you will read about a favorite text.  How often have you been asked--“What’s your favorite book?”  Narrow it to one for all time?  No way.   One per week?  Maybe.

This week’s favorite text:  21^st Century Skills:  Learning for Life in Our Times by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel was published in 2009.  Though I read it for the first time last year, I decided to feature it as a favorite this week.  Why, you may ask? 

If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts, you can probably tell that I am passionate about education reform.   We are undoubtedly in need of change to a system that is broken and in dire need of repair.  I attended an implementation science workshop recently where the presenter provided research suggesting 17 years as the typical time to see change from the implementation of a program not implemented well; 17 years in education would be more than the life time of schooling for a single child.  Clearly, we haven’t figured out  how to implement education reforms well.  The authors of 21st Century Skills offer practical suggestions, tips and resources for schools seeking to prepare students for the life awaiting them after high school graduation in a future still unknown in our rapidly changing world.

Trilling and Fadel remind us to consider global perspectives and understand “every country can play a part in building a global learning network (p153).” By understanding the role learning plays in our lives, we can innovate, create, problem solve and communicate across boundaries. 

Would it be cheating to offer a website as text to accompany the print text I’ve chosen for this week?  Check out:  www.p21.org

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5 Terrific Pairings of Print and Non-print Texts to Increase Engagement

Having always had an interest in photography, film, and non-fiction, I never had much trouble incorporating the reading of non-print texts into the classes I taught. When reading fiction, I generally paired it with non-fiction or non-print text based on a general topic or theme. Text pairing is not only an effective way to engage students; it also provides opportunity to teach students many of the important skills they need to be successful in life.

Fortunately when I entered the teaching profession well over a decade ago, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA) jointly published The Standards for English Language Arts two years prior. I utilized these standards throughout my teaching career, and I still refer to them when working with teachers or when writing and researching programs and policies in my job.

Standard number one calls for students to read a variety of print and non-print texts…

Some of my favorite pairings occurred in the classroom and others outside of the classroom because my young boys and I have enjoyed reading and exploring texts together.

Five of my favorite pairings over the years include…

Pairing #1 Slowly Slowly Slowly Said the Sloth by Eric Carle. Paired with YouTube clips of sloths moving slowly. It was one thing to see the pictures in the book, but curious boys were always interested in seeing video. Here’s one we watched together after reading the book. This was one of the videos we accessed online; there are many more YouTube clips on sloths now, but this one happened to capture our interest several years ago.

Pairing #2 Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk. Paired with images of various libraries and new short award winning film. The boys and I have read and re-read Library Mouse together innumerable times over the past five years. Usually we use it to launch my youngest son into his favorite journal writing activities because he enjoys writing non-fiction. Even now that they are both beyond picture books for their own reading, we still enjoy some of our favorite picture books again and again. In fact, we like Library Mouse so well, I’ve taken to using it in writing workshops with teachers as we explore critical literacies and paired texts. Most recently, I’ve paired the following print and non-print texts for workshops with teachers. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore short film (link not permitted) and Most Interesting Libraries of the World.

Since my teaching years were spent primarily in high schools, my experience with texts for middle grades is only just beginning as my fifth grader and I discuss the books he now reads. As we transition into those important middle grades years, let me share one of our favorite picture books about Henry David Thoreau.

Pairing #3 Henry Climbs a Mountain by D. B. Johnson paired with images of Walden pond and replicas of Thoreau’s cabin found online. There are actually several books by D.B. Johnson depicting various stages of Thoreau’s life, and we like them all, but our most interesting conversations between mom and sons tend to come from this particular text. Some of these similar conversations were shared with my high school students as we read Walden.

Pairing #4 Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Mexican War Lithograph. This pairing worked nicely because it brought conversations about another aspect of Thoreau’s life, and it also brought history into the classroom. Many of the students I taught in this particular English class were also students who were viewing this same lithograph in their U.S. history class, so students made connections and saw school as more than isolated courses in a school day.

Pairing #5 Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall, Newspaper clipping, and various images from the bombing. Conversations around these texts center not only around the historical event but also around the rights of people in today's society. Are we all treating others appropriately? Are we discriminating against others for any reason or using violence in an attempt to solve our problems, or are we following the lead of Thoreau who practiced civil disobedience?

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Preparing students for college doesn't mean turning them into snobs.

Our world keeps changing and the demands required of youth are changing as well, so it’s only right that more students need to earn postsecondary degrees of some sort to be prepared for life.   Conversations on this topic were plentiful last week at a national forum  for higher education on strategies for implementing the Common Core State Standards. 

What do we need to do?
We need to design programs that provide students opportunities, and we need to agree that students need more than cut scores on standardized tests to be ready for college degrees or certifications after high school. 

Students need to know

1)      how to manage their time, money, and resources

2)      how to take notes, study for tests, and read strategically

4)      how to learn collaboratively

5)      how to communicate with a variety of audiences

6)      how to use technology to enhance learning

We are not trying to change a culture, but we are trying to change opportunities provided to youth in a world shifting around them.  

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