Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Due to our missing two snow days, the current debate amongst our teachers is whether to make up one of those days on a scheduled student-release, teacher-work-on-pacing-guides day or to add a day at the end of the year.

When I asked this question of several of our teachers…to be exact four coaches, I was surprised…pleasantly so…to hear one state that making up this day at the end of the year would be better so “we can work on pacing guides for the fourth nine weeks.”

This coach’s thoughts resonate this article “Moving Beyond Talk” in Educational Leadership (2009, March) as its author discusses learning in collaborative communities:

Teachers in these schools craved planning time (which was scarce) and opportunities for shared planning (which were nonexistent)….But the bottom line, according to CLC members, is that extended blocks of time during the school day are the most productive structure for learning communities worthy of the name.

Then when I unsuspectingly entered the teachers’ lounge as just a teacher in our building, I quickly had to put on my Personnel Policy Committee member hat as several rounds of complaint broke out…almost in perfect unison….”we want our pacing guide day,” also, thereby stipulating that these same teachers are for our last day of school being on a Monday…in June.  Interesting.  (Well, it was after I finally switched hats!)

Maybe we are seeing the beginning of a new trend at Batesville High?  One where 21st Community Learning Centers (CLC), such as those being pioneered within our district by peer Lisa Huff (she is starting two more teams next year!), and departmental meetings with teachers working collaboratively on pacing guides are the norm?

Pacing guide meetings held periodically and timely…or shall we say designed backwards?…ensures Grant Wiggins’ and Jay McTighe’s fears, as expressed in Schooling by Design, from happening…

As presently written, most curricula encourage and enable teachers to do the worst possible thing:  go off and work entirely on their own, with little regard for the long-term overarching goals that define a school’s purpose (p 38).

The votes are in…the majority of our teachers, though, do want to give up the pacing guide day. 

Me?  Before casting my vote, I changed from how I had initially planned to vote.  I just could not argue with these teachers’ logic (plus, the district had promised this day to these teachers since August as part of their required-by-state sixty hours of professional development…while I had 100+ hours before school ever started, again I could see their logical reasoning)…thus, I voted for the pacing guide day.  I voted for collaborative learning communities.  I voted for community learning centers.  No matter what the current jargon, I voted for teachers who want to work together to help our students.

Unfortunately, there are not enough of us on this “team” yet.

The Arkansas Department of Education now has a blog.  Now, how cool is that?

ADE Briefs, online just since January, makes me wonder if a school district should consider posting updates via a blog as a means of communicating with parents.  Coincidentally, this thought falls just, literally, minutes since I sent an email to all our faculty requesting news from them to insert into a parent e-newsletter that I hope to send out tomorrow.

On such a blog, teachers could brag, counselors could inform, administrators could share building and district news.  Students could even be invited to post exemplary class work.

Do you know of any schools hosting a blog as another avenue of keeping parents informed and involved within their districts?

Uhmmm…I am going to ponder on this more. 

According to Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in Schooling by Design…

Formulating statements of purpose and identifying evidence of goal-related accomplishments are especially critical at the departmental and team levels, because realistically this is where “the rubber meets the road” (p 32).

How often does your department meet?

Invite Dr. Suess into your classroom for the National Read Across America Day on March 2.

Better known to most readers as Dr. Seuss, Dr. Theodor Geisel was born over 100 years ago today. Mark his birthday with NEA’s Read Across America, the largest reading event in the United States, by celebrating with read-aloud, read-along, and reading marathon activities. (ReadWriteThink website)

To review several sound devices for our state-mandated end-of-level exam, I have chosen “I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!”  What a fun way to sneak in a review!

If interested, please check out these websites:

• ReadWriteThink
• NCTE Inbox  (Scroll down for embedded resources)

Enjoy!

From Schooling by Design:  Mission, Action, and Achievement by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe:

The idea of a school has no meaning if each teacher, even a hardworking and highly qualified one, is free to teach and assess as he wishes.  The whole point of an institution with a mission is that, regardless of our differences, we are all obligated to work to cause some agreed-upon effects, in a coherent and coordinated manner.  By being a teacher in a school or college, we agree to agree about some fundamental ends and means.  And working collaboratively (and selflessly) to achieve those common goals characterizes true professionalism (p 27).

How true.

What do you think is required of such an institutions’ administrators to obtain this true professionalism?

…but I am so glad you did!

I may be the most practical-minded person you have ever met.  Yes, I was the one, and I quote, “You shouldn’t buy me flowers.  If you really want to buy flowers, how about something for my flower beds?”

But I must say…I did light up like a firework on the Forth of July…or yes, much more appropriately, like a girl receiving flowers on Valentine’s Day, when these flowers arrived…just for me…yesterday at school! 

Yes, I am blessed…and today, I am not thinking very practical!  Just appreciating the man that is my husband and my best friend.

I hope today is time that you, too, appreciate those you love…maybe in a not-so-practical manner!

Happy Valentine’s Day 2009!

While wearing my yearbook hat this week, I discovered that out of the nine class officers (three per grade level), that all are filled by males.

While wearing my Beta Club sponsor hat a couple of weekends ago, there I witnessed two of the three class officer positions filled with males.

Interesting.

When I pointed this out to some of my State Convention attendees, they responded with they “wondered why.”  My response?  “There are more girls in attendance at this conventin than guys.” (In our group of twenty-seven students, three males attended.)

Then the light bulb went off for those in this conversation.  You see…the Women’s Liberation Movement is of no consequence.  “May the best ‘man’ (no pun intended, of course!) win” is of really no importance either.

That’s right…voting is often based on hormones, popularity, and the weight of the female vote.

Interesting.

What methods do you use to encourage students to analyze an author’s sentence/writing style?

Here’s one way I am using our class blog to study Jack London’s style.

How might I utilize this method even more?

Yes, I am one of those people who say they dread the “dark” months of January and February.  Dark?  Not sure I remember seeing much of January! Out of the five Saturdays in this month, I spent three attending meetings.

1. Meeting 1:  PRAXIS III Recalibration.  While the presentors provided updates for assessing new teachers in Arkansas this spring, I sat gathering ideas and reminders to assist my mentee who will be assessed also later this spring. Dana Huff at huffenglish.com blogged today about assisting and working with with new teachers.  Please check out that link also.
2. Meeting 2:  Arkansas Association for Professional Teachering (AAPT) Annual Conference.  This group works to assist those seeking National Board Certification, a strenuous, but, oh, so rewarding process.  This year a peer friend and I are hosting a share group for our part of the state and are assisting ten candidates through this process.  This conference provided some great reminders, and we wish now that we had encoaraged more of our candidates to attend.  Since we did not receive a snail mail agenda nor did I think to preview their website ahead of time, I went to this meeting with what I thought would be presented and came away knowing the truth! (Yes, therein lies a lesson!)
3. Meeting 3:  Arkansas State Beta Club Convention. Two days in Hot Springs, AR, with twenty-seven extremely bright and respectful young adults resulted in one of our students winning first place in English and receiving an invitation to compete at nationals this summer in Orlando, FL.  Oh, the rewards of working with the bright minds of our future!

Now to the month of February…may it be as professionally rewarding as January has been!