Never Forget...So You Can Teach Them.

On the ninth anniversary of September 11th, I was teaching an AP Language course.  Just a few days into the school year, we were exploring why people write - to persuade, to entertain, to explain.  On the 9-11 anniversary,  I chose to focus on writing to remember.  We read excerpts from speeches given after other tragedies, the Challenger explosion, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Columbine massacre, to see how people used language to delicately balance the feeling of loss with that of hope.  We also read pieces from September 11th.  

During our discussion I shared with my students that the language that moved me most deeply during the weeks following the event were the messages left on the missing persons posters that lined New York City blocks.  I told them about standing in front of a large Penn Station wall covered with these posters that October.  I saw two familiar faces there.  The handsome football player who was the bartender at a local bar when I was in college and a photo of my sorority sister who had graduated  a few years before me.  By the time I saw their posters and the hundreds of others, we knew they were gone.  But the desperate words on these posters haunted me for months.  

"Please help me find my son!"  

"Looking for my husband.  We are expecting our first child any day.  We need him home!'  

"Missing my gorgeous daughter.  Worked in Tower 1.  Brown, curly hair.  Brown eyes.  Bright smile."

"Have you seen my Daddy?"

My students stared at me, unable to comprehend the idea of hundreds of missing persons posters taped all over New York City.  They were only 8 years old when the towers fell.  They had seen images of the exploding planes, the crumbling towers, the charging fireman, and the billowing flags.  But they had never seen a picture of the image that moved me the most. Paper after paper lining the walls of Manhattan, each one representing one life lost and an entire family's suffering.  

So the next day, I shared pictures of these walls with them.  They viewed each one quietly, carefully.  Then they wrote about what they saw and what they remembered.  

I will never forget.  I hope my students won't either.  

Just Jump In

As the parent of two small children, I have attended my share of "Bounce House" birthday parties.  You know the ones, right?  A company inflates four or five giant plastic slides, mazes and castles in a tiny industrial park unit and allows the party hosts to bring in cupcakes and invite 20 of their four-year old's best (screaming) friends.  Ahhh...I love these gatherings.

Having attended many of them, I have noticed an interesting parallel between these parties and the first day of school.  When I load my bubbly child into the car to drive to the party, he is bursting with joy.  He can't wait to see who else will be there, to check out what bouncy castles this place has and to run around like a lunatic.

And then we arrive.

I am quickly asked to sign a form releasing the company from all liability in case of injury (buzz kill).

He is crammed into a small room with a 19" television and 19 of his closest friends. A slightly condescending 20-something announces, "OK kids.  You have to be quiet and watch this video or else you can't play."  Her smirk shows she basks in the glory of this power. So these happy-go-lucky tots watch a dreadful tutorial on the rules for bouncing and all the things they cannot do while playing (or else they might suffer grave injuries).  I have never seen such eager faces deflate so quickly.

Well, actually, yes I have.  I see them in the hallways on the first day of school.

Our students arrive ready.  Most want to be back.  They have composed their own set of new (school) year resolutions where they promise themselves that this is the year they stay organized and earn their best marks ever.

Then the school bell rings.  They shuffle through doorways to find uncomfortable seats and wobbly desks, which they will happily endure as long as the class is a good one and the teacher is nice/cool/funny.

And then teachers do what we think is the right thing to do.  We distribute our syllabus.  We review the rules.  We review our expectations.  We tell them what materials they need to buy.  We tell them the consequences for misbehavior.  We ask them to fill out forms, to listen closely to our directions, to stay quiet.  They hear this speech six or seven times throughout the day, so by the last period they look just like those four year-olds stuck in that stuffy room watching television.

Now, I do believe in sharing all of this information with students.  But we don't have to do it on the first day, and we don't have to do it all at once.  Instead, show them the best thing about your class.  What do you include as part of your classroom routine that makes your class unique?  Show them that.

For many years, students walking into my classroom on the first day found me sitting at a student's desk writing in my writer's notebook.  Many entered the room without even noticing me sitting there.  On the board, I had written, "I am writing.  Please join me."  Slowly, students caught on to what I was doing and what I wanted them to do.  I did not speak.  I kept writing.  I would look up, smile, point to the board, and return to my notebook.  Within a few moments, silence settled throughout the room, and I found myself surrounded by 27 adolescents all writing in their pristine notebooks or on scraps of paper borrowed from their friends.  It was always one of my favorite moments of the year.  And it was usually one of theirs.

Nearly every day for many years, my classes began with a few minutes of sustained silent writing.  So on the first day, I had a choice.  I could tell them they needed to buy a writer's notebook and explain what they would do with it and how it would be assessed and when I would collect them.

Or I could show them.

So I hope whatever you have planned for your first day, you allow your students to show up to the party and just jump into their learning.  Show them why your course will amaze them, challenge them and inspire them to keep that first day enthusiasm all year long.

Have a great first day and a wonderful school year!

  

Happy New (School) Year!

Tomorrow, I have the honor to walk back down bustling hallways filled with eager, nervous faces who can't wait to see who is in their classes and what the year holds.  And only teachers report tomorrow!  We have to wait a whole other week for our students!  However I have always thought of the day after Labor Day as my New Year's Day.  It is a time to start over, do something  differently, explore what might be possible.

If you know me, you know I am struggling with not returning to the classroom.  Full-time administration called, and I had to answer.  I have decided, though, this assignment will not prevent me from being a teacher.  My classroom and my students may look different and perhaps reach wider than I can anticipate while sitting in my makeshift at-home office on a Monday evening.  But I will still teach.  Because when I teach, I learn.  

So with all this in mind, I share my New (School) Year's Resolutions with you.

1.  Get out of my office.  My office can be a black hole.  There is always another e-mail to read, observation to write, or phone call to answer. Unless meeting with teachers, my office can be a lonely, boring place.  I want to spend more time in classrooms, stopping by to see teachers and students in action as much as possible.

2.  Co-teach lessons with department members.  If I am not in the classroom every day, I still want the chance to try new ideas or tweak old ones.  I know many who either co-teach or do demo lessons in their department members' classrooms, and I would like to give this a try too.

3.  Keep reading widely.  When I was a classroom educator, I read outside my genre comfort zones so that I could always make independent reader recommendations.  This practice has introduced me to unexpected surprises (I loved 11/22/63 by King).  I won't let myself get complacent now that I don't have to read what my kids like.

4.  Keep writing.  Blogging...it is going to happen this year.  As my writing teacher hero, Peter Elbow, says, "Writing is thinking."  I believe that.  So now I am going to live it.

5.  Stay positive.  This one might be the most difficult to keep, and it isn't because I don't love my subject, my schools or my teachers.  I adore them.  I am a New Jersey public school educator who is being suffocated by bureaucracy.  If I can't breathe, it can be hard to muster a smile.  But I am going to try, really hard.  And when I don't feel so happy, I am going to send e-mails to legislators so they bear the brunt of my frustrations, not my colleagues.  
   
No matter when your first day of school is (or was), I encourage you to take the time to write your New (School) Year's Resolutions.  It will keep you focused on what is important and on your goals.

Have an amazing school year!