Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Remember that classroom set of laptops (and other tech goodies) that I have been hoping that I might receive?  It’s definite!

I keep hearing that this process will involve a lot of work.  Every day I come to work, and I enjoy my work, for I am blessed to have a career of my choosing, the career in which I was destined to be.

Have I mentioned yet how excited I am?

What a week!  Let me think…can I even remember back to last Monday?

Monday:

Chest did that weird fluttering one too many times, so I called the doctor.  They thought I should be seen…on Tuesday. 

Tuesday:  This day gets a little busier…

Went to the doctor (had an EKG …results “pretty good”; didn’t think to ask what that exactly meant, for then the doc wanted me to have some blood work and to wear a heart monitor).  Decided heart monitors will never become the latest fashion; something about those sticky stickers that really itch!).

Went back to school and finished the day; met for our final meeting with our NBCT Support Group to answer questions about the online testing part of this process; then as I was finally going home about 8 PM, I received a phone call that my stepson had broken his ankle; remained in the hospital until 1 AM with Nathan; then went home for some sleep while dad stayed…wait, it’s Wednesday…

Wednesday:

Back to the hospital, where we learned no surgery today because the ankle was too swollen; taught my afternoon classes.  Decided if anything is wrong with my heart that surely the previous 24 hours would show it on the monitor that I returned after school…right?  Thump…thump…flutter…

Here’s where God intervened in the form of my two friends Glenda and Glenda (really!).  Glenda R calls me and asks if we had considered moving Nathan to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Well…..no. 

Then, I immediately felt like a horrible step-mother!  Is it true…we really are wicked?!  You see…my daughter has had three open-heart surgeries (due to a congenital heart/lung defect), so this broken ankle had seemed just a little minor to me.  Then as she talked, I realized the more seriousness of this break…in the growth plate.  So there began God’s intervening through caring friends (maybe angels in disguise?) and myself as I then called my husband who talked to Nathan’s mother….

It’s still Wednesday…we all met with Nathan’s doctor at @8:30 who agreed to Nathan’s moving (ever seen fracture blisters…not pleasant!).  Thus, Nathan’ adventure continues as he now gets to ride in an ambulance to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.  Oh, the tales that boy will one day get to tell…and no thanks to my helping him embellish his ride on that horse that he jumped off…just before breaking that ankle!

Thursday:

I think…not real clear about this…think it is @1:30 AM…ACH doctors in ER tell us that they cannot do anything to his leg….too swollen and those fracture blisters I mentioned cause him to be at risk for infection.   They “loosely” cast his leg, and we return home (two hour ride for us) at 4:00 AM…I take a few moments to email some lesson plans…then sleep.

At @9:30 Jay receives a phone call from surgeon; due to the break being in the growth plate, Nathan needs surgery on Friday…not that next Monday.

With about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, I completed my application for a class set of laptop computers.  Shhhh…I am hoping the committee never learns that about my submission! I also spend some time working on a Praxis III assessment and send more lesson plans.

Friday:

Surgery day…they take Nathan in early, surgery takes less time than they had thought it would, and he comes out of recovery sooner than planned. We returned home that evening…back to normalcy…and family waiting to see Nathan.  Good to have these kind of people as neighbors also! 

And Holly, our daughter…remember that intervening God?  Over the years, He has placed people in mine and Holly’s lives to take the place of those who could not  (or would not) always be present….a caring Gran-Gran and Papa, best friends, aunts, a dad, and a brother.

Holly, who had spent several nights with some of these people during this week, of course, wanted to come home.  I picked her up from Gran-Gran where they had spent the evening at our Mini-Relay for Life helping raise $10,000+ for the American Cancer Society.

Holly came home and promptly became the nurse…or the maid as she called herself.  Another realization that came out of this week?  Brothers and sisters do not have to be related by blood either to truly care about each other.

Saturday:

A day at home.  We all waited and pampered Nathan.  I completed that Praxis III assessment and sent it off.  Lights were out by 9:30.  This was one tired bunch!

Sunday:

Today dad went to work; Nathan spent time with his mom;  Holly and I went to church.

Then…Holly played on an extra pair of crutches, propped her leg on pillows because she has a hurt ankle, and is attempting to convince me to let her take them to school. Oh, to be an innocent nine-year-old and be blessed with all the above people in her life.

Yes, we are all blessed.  Shhhh…are you listening?  Angels may be speaking…in the form of your friends…

An opportunity…a sad opportunity…but one I could not let pass.

This past week, as we read “Mirror” for our Utopia vs. Dystopia unit, I further introduced my students to Sylvia Plath, who ended her own life, and then I introduced them to a former student of mine who committed suicide this past Wednesday.

During this discussion, I paused and remembered this student and friend…and expressed with them my anger at his selfishness.  (Still cannot get past that emotion.  Oh, if I could just talk to him…just one more time…)

While I had their attention, I reminded them that suicide is just never the answer.  Never.  Not ever.  Then I reminded them that we can never stop listening.  In this super-busy world we live in, listening is the often the last thing we have time for, and that within itself is sad.

As teachers, we cannot afford to not listen.  Consider this:

“Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), surpassed only by accidents and homicide.” (Click here for more information at Kids Health.)

This evening I attended Randy’s visitation and remembered being his English teacher during my first four years as a English teacher…a very bright young man who became quite the successful business man and family man.  While I do not agree with his decision, I cannot help but take a moment to appreciate the memories I had of him, of the man he became.  The man who bought a car for a lady who had no car.  The man who sent a Christmas card every year to a 74 year-old-woman just because he remembered who she was.  The man who recently purchased my sister’s business in a very fair deal.  The man who thought of others…I just wish he had thought more of himself.

Tonight, while standing in the very long, tightly-packed visitation line, my sister commented, “Randy would have really appreciated this.”

My reply?  “I would have rather thrown him a party to show my appreciation!”

With this, I return to my main point, please remind your students to listen, to care enough for each other that when they see someone slipping to the total depth of depression that only one contemplating suicide must be dwelling to tell someone.  Tell a teacher.  Tell a friend.  Just tell someone. 

Are you listening?

In our state, we are “required” to obtain sixty hours of professional development per year.  I know why.  Do you?  Just think about it…

If not required, some teachers would choose to not grow professionally.  Some are quite happy to continue to do what they have always done, for they are quite happy with the “way things are.”

Tell me…is my theory wrong?

Then, there are those teachers who are high achievers, earning 100+ hours of professional development per year, and that is not counting all the, as I refer to it, personal professional growth they achieve, such as, the hours they spend reading materials from their professional memberships, the professional books  they purchase and devour, and their involvement with online professional networks, including blogs and nings.

How can we help those who fight, if not literally, then verbally, to only get “what professional development they have to”?

According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,

Effective professional development is…

• Directly focused on helping to achieve student learning goals and supporting student learning needs.
• A collaborative endeavor – teachers and administrators work together in planning and implementation.
• School-based and job-embedded.
• A long-term commitment.
• Differentiated.
• Tied to the district goals.

 

The content of professional development programs is based on organizational needs. Research and best practice show that for continuous improvement, schools should focus on the following categories and the connections among them:

This I agree with, especially the second bullet…a collaborative endeavor.  Many teachers feel they have …no, they know they do not have any ownership in their professional development.  They are told what to attend; they attend (with a negative attitude) and return to continue doing what they have always done.  Unfortunately, those in the first bullet are those that suffer…the students.

Tell me…is my theory wrong?

This is on my mind right now because I just perused our summer professional development calendar topics that I just happened (yes, by accident!) to find online when checking our educational cooperative’s calendar.  I wonder how many within our district have any ownership in that calendar? 

I was in a discussion yesterday with an elementary teacher in our district who was bemoaning the fact that few, if any, of their teachers have bought into Guided Reading.  She commented, “They {the teachers} do not want to get on the Internet and find the materials they need to make this work.”

She started the conversation…so I then chimed in….”Until they are provided the materials needed to make this program a success, Guided Reading will not ever be as effective as it can be.  When you take away the textbooks, you must be willing to provide the teachers with other supplemental materials, for not many are willing to sacrifice all their free time creating units.  It’s just not going to happen with very many teachers.  Ever.”

Now, I wish I could go back and add to that conversation:  “Those teachers would spend more time self-creating units, even if the district will not provide the needed materials, if they simply had had ownership in that program from its initial conception. “  People, more specifically teachers, will work for what is theirs, for what they have a passion.  Yes, ownership.  The cost?  Just a little collaboration.

Tell me…is my theory wrong?

(Just a thought:  are textbooks not a teaching tool?  Yes, I know…another time, another blog post!  And, oh, the wear and tear on the copy machines…)

Think I will get my calendar out and continue filling in my summer with the workshops required by my district…and all the others I want to either teach or attend.  Growing professionally is a natural high for me, one I enjoy very much, so I will attend the workshops for which my district will pay and will pay for those they decline payment.

In the meantime, I will also continue collaborating with some teachers to create our first Conference for English Teachers…a dream I blogged about earlier…a dream that is coming true!  A reality based on collaborative ownership.  Now, that is a good thing!

Yesterday (during day two of Spring Break), I spent some time with a former neighbor canning a recipe passed down from some of her family, a recipe symbolic of the survival of the fittest during the Great Depression.

While creating great aromas, she shared with me her concerns for our future and her fears that her grandchildren and great-children will not know how to care for themselves for so much of the “old” ways are nearly non-existent.

She shared also how during the Great Depression they were given stamps for one pair of shoes per year, stamps for gas, for sugar, for meat.  I hardly knew how to respond, for my mind was a tumble with the abundance with which I am now blessed…as I mentally viewed my shelves holding just the basics.  Imagining only one pair of shoes.  Someone, writing this post, is totally spoiled!

Then she proudly told me about the education she obtained despite these obstacles.  “I walked to school three and a half miles one way…seven miles a day…to obtain a tenth grade education.”  I just wish you could have heard her say those words, for they were definitely filled with pride, and I was even more proud to know her.

Then she spent thirty years working in a shoe factory, raising a family, and caring for those around her…like myself when I became her neighbor about fifteen years ago.

I just could not help but think of myself, of my peers, and of my students today and wonder what percentage of them would even be capable of such resiliency.

I just finished writing a book review of Night on my book review blog and wondered with author Elie Weisel “…I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes…”  How did such atrocities occur…and are still occurring (for instance, the horrific abuse of women in Africa).

Did we not learn from the Great Depression?  I fear we did not.

While I have the opportunity, I am going to wrack this survivor-of-the-Depression’s brain! She is going to teach me how to use a pressure-cooker this summer and can all these vegetables my husband and I are growing (shhhh…I have a secret fear of pressure-cookers…of the pressure part, you know?)

In her words, “I need to share this with someone, need to pass it along.”  Glad I am the chosen one!  Glad I am also the one who now also gets to enjoy that canned tomatoe ketchup…made 12 pints during that conversation with my friend and mentor.  Yum yum!

March 12…the first day of school.  The first day since I entered near panic-mode about our End-of-Level Literacy Exam scheduled for March 10-11.

Yes, I know that this exam really tests what they have learned since grade 9, but about a month ago, the entire weight of this test felt as if it had fallen upon my shoulders, and we went into review-overdrive!  The kids and I are so ready for this test to be over!

Then I became a cheerleader…my nine-year-old cheerleading daughter would be so proud.  I have cheered and praised and encouraged and bribed rewarded, for I do believe that if my students will just try…and try again…that they can only score proficient.

To encourage our students to just try, our school offers those who score proficient one-half extra personal day during their senior year…and no remediation class!

To encourage my students to just try, I offer my students food (today, they planned their menu!) and two test grades (one for each day) if I am convinced they “just tried.”  (This second part was the deal I made with my students after reading them Mr. Teacher’s “The Million Dollar Test” from Learn Me Good.)

To encourage his students to just try, our principal has created the “Lucky 7″ checklist, and for just trying, each student who receives the seven checkmarks obtains two passes to leave campus for lunch in town on two Fridays.

Are we doing the right thing by offering so much?  Maybe?  I just know that the food, grades, and passes for an off-campus lunch has now made this test “real” to them.  It’s not about the scores printed in the newspaper or placed on their transcripts nor the numbers reported to the Department of Education; it’s the ownership, their commitment to “just try” because I became what I should have been all year:  a cheerleader.

So on Thursday, March 12, I will work to maintain this energy.  On March 12, I will be a cheerful teacher as we can now go back to have real school…and the weight of that test is gone!

Tony Wagner in The Global Achievement Gap reports that schools are doing what I have been doing the last few weeks…”teaching to the test”…and while I completely agree with his sentiments…

They’re a lot more worried about their school or district making what’s called “adequate yearly progress” so they’re not stigmatized as “failing” (p 13).

I am a little concerned that Mr. Wagner may not truly understand the teacher’s perspective, for the weight of the test is mighty, bigger than what I can possibly control; therefore, I succumb to its weight for a short while and teach to the test, not for survival but for comfort.  You see…I have to be able to lay down at night and know that I have at least attempted to “adequately” prepare my students for all this testing that we force upon our students. 

Life is about tests.  I have experienced, lived my fair share of them, and now I so look forward to March 12 when I can go back to better preparing my students for the real world, for how to deal with life’s real tests, which is what Tony Wagner then discusses in his newest release.

Now, maybe, I will have more time to read his book!

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.

…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.

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!