During the CEL Convention in Boston this past November, Steve Peha presented a session titled "Uncommon Core." During the session he asked educators to consider what is at the core of who they are as educators, posing several questions to guide their thinking. He encouraged his participants to return to their schools and share their "uncommon core" beliefs with their colleagues.
A participant and the session chair of Steve's presentation, Oona Abrams returned home from Boston and posed a challenge to us on her blog. She invited her readers to dedicate a blog post (or two or five) to exploring some of Steve's "uncommon core" question. Tonight's blog takes a stab at the first one.
With regard to education, what are your deepest beliefs?
I believe I need to meet every student where he or she is. It is my role to get to know that child's strengths and weakness, interests and dislikes, mood swings and personality so I can provide that child the education he or she needs and deserves.
I believe my role is to teach students first and the subject second. I am not covering curriculum or checking boxes off a standards completion worksheet. I am making connections with learners to provide them the skills they need to tackle any task with confidence and competence.
I believe in failure. I also believe in do-overs, try agains, and tomorrows.
I believe in choice. Whenever possible (which is a lot), students feel empowered when teachers give them options for reading, writing and participating.
I believe that how empowered students feel in the classroom directly correlates to how successful they feel in and out of school.
I believe in reading and writing workshop.
I believe my role as a content area supervisor is to educate, coach, guide, and support teachers. It is also my role to set high standards for all teachers - new, veteran, mid-career, satisfied, disgruntled, enthusiastic, or catatonic (thank goodness I do not have any of those).
I believe in connections. When students know I care about who they are, they are willing to explore ideas with more depth, more vigor and more vulnerability. In turn, I can push them to think about more complex, sophisticated ideas.
I believe in bad days...because kids are kids, and I am human. Students will disappoint me, frustrate me, or really make me angry. I will make hasty decisions, choose the wrong text, or misread my students.
But I believe in redemption too. I know I must learn from the bad days and return to my classroom ready to go tomorrow.
I believe teachers must advocate for our profession to re-imagine educational structures, requirements and facilities to design learning centers in which the humanities, the arts and the sciences intersect and inspire students to be innovators in the fields of their choosing.
I believe in education. But I also believe we can do it better. I have accepted that challenge and will continue to improve my work and expand my learning to ensure we do.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Let Them Be
We all give assignments like this...
"Pretend you are a reporter..."
"Pretend you are a director..."
"Pretend you are a speech writer..."
Our intentions are good. We want students to imagine themselves to be someone real. We want them to feel a sense of purpose and to tackle an assignment the way a professional might. Most of our students dutifully play along and fulfill the requirements to get the grade.
But...we can do better. With the world at their fingertips (because they have a keyboard underneath them), we should ask students to be reporters, directors and speech writers. If we want them to take work seriously, we must give them serious work. In Meenoo Rami's talk to the CEL Convention in Boston this past November, she encouraged us to give students a real purpose and a wide audience. She shared an example from her own classroom from last winter. Her students wanted to make a magazine. So Ms. Rami taught them how. Her students didn't pretend to create a magazine; they created an online magazine in which students were writers, editors, photographers and more. They had an audience (their entire school and anyone else who clicked the link...including an entire audience of CEL attendees). She gave them voice. She showed them that language is a powerful tool.
Last year I taught course called "Literature and the Law" during which we did a short Hitchcock film unit to study how suspense and foreshadowing is portrayed on screen (contrasting with texts). At the end of the unit, I invited students to adapt a favorite film or story into a Hitchcock style film of their own. Interestingly, the students who chose this option tended to be my "disenchanted" students. I worried they would come apart at the seams, not realizing all it took to make a five minute film. I was absolutely wrong. They were doing something, producing something real. At the end of the process in which they had to write, plan, collaborate, communicate, edit and more, they had a product in which they took great pride. They uploaded them onto YouTube. Here is just one example made by two of my twelfth grade students who adapted a scene from Law Abiding Citizen. They directed, produced and starred in their film, and the results were rather astounding. If you are familiar with Hitchcock's style, take a look at their version and see what you think. Fair warning - they curse.
Do you think they understand how to build suspense on film? Did they understand how Hitchcock used these tools? Did I need them to pretend they were directors, producers, or actors to complete the assignment? No. I invited them to be directors, producers and actors. They were empowered to produce something authentic and for an audience as wide as they wished it to be. Each student who chose this assignment did an outstanding job, earning some of their highest marks of the year. And yet it was the assignment in which I had the fewest "How much is this part worth?" and "How many points off if I don't do this on time?" and "What is the point of this?" They were all in. They were making a film. The points were an afterthought.
We need to give students more opportunities in ELA classes to be. Our role as educators is to help them with the skills and the research they need to be successful as they work in these roles. We need to help them find their audience and their voice so they no longer need to pretend to be someone. We can show them they already are. We need to let them be.
"Pretend you are a reporter..."
"Pretend you are a director..."
"Pretend you are a speech writer..."
Our intentions are good. We want students to imagine themselves to be someone real. We want them to feel a sense of purpose and to tackle an assignment the way a professional might. Most of our students dutifully play along and fulfill the requirements to get the grade.
 |
| [SLA]ng's Winter 2013 Edition |
Last year I taught course called "Literature and the Law" during which we did a short Hitchcock film unit to study how suspense and foreshadowing is portrayed on screen (contrasting with texts). At the end of the unit, I invited students to adapt a favorite film or story into a Hitchcock style film of their own. Interestingly, the students who chose this option tended to be my "disenchanted" students. I worried they would come apart at the seams, not realizing all it took to make a five minute film. I was absolutely wrong. They were doing something, producing something real. At the end of the process in which they had to write, plan, collaborate, communicate, edit and more, they had a product in which they took great pride. They uploaded them onto YouTube. Here is just one example made by two of my twelfth grade students who adapted a scene from Law Abiding Citizen. They directed, produced and starred in their film, and the results were rather astounding. If you are familiar with Hitchcock's style, take a look at their version and see what you think. Fair warning - they curse.
 |
| Screen shot from students' version of Law Abiding Citizen |
We need to give students more opportunities in ELA classes to be. Our role as educators is to help them with the skills and the research they need to be successful as they work in these roles. We need to help them find their audience and their voice so they no longer need to pretend to be someone. We can show them they already are. We need to let them be.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Saying Yes to #CEL13
There were so many reasons to say no.
When asked to serve as the Conference on English Leadership's Program Chair for Boston, I had excellent reasons to decline.
1. I am the mom to two small children who were only five and two years old when I was approached about the opportunity.
2. I had only just begun working in a new school district.
3. After two professionally unsettling years, I was only starting to regain confidence (thanks to my great new district) in who I was as a leader.
4. I embraced my introversion like a security blanket and struggled mightily when pushed outside this comfort zone.
5. Did I mention the two young children?
Despite all those reasons (and many others), I said yes. I said yes because I believe in CEL and its mission. When I became the World's Most Woefully Unprepared ELA Supervisor in 2003 at the age of 28, one of my mentors, Helen Poole, told me about CEL. I attended my first CEL Convention that fall and learned so much in those three short days. I have only missed one convention since then.
When I was asked to be Program Chair for Boston, I felt indebted to the organization. I wanted to (hopefully) provide a professional experience for new and veteran literacy educators that reflected all I had learned during my ten years of CEL involvement. I had to say yes. I had to say thank you.
Saying yes opened my professional world in tremendous ways. It forced me to stop and think about every conference I had ever attended and what worked (or didn't) about each of them. It challenged me to consider how to bring the right people together to inspire and educate. It allowed me to invite those educators who teach me - Eric Sheninger, Troy Hicks, Donalyn Miller, Meenoo Rami - to address our entire CEL audience. It connected me with dozens of talented educators such as Chris Lehman, Kate Roberts, Maggie Roberts, Kate Baker, Colette Bennett and many, many more.
But saying yes opened me in many unexpected ways. As a card bearing member of the Fiercely Independent Introvert Society, I preferred to do it all and to do it alone. Guess what? That is absolutely impossible when planning an annual convention for a national organization in a location 400 miles from home. I had to ask for help. I had to recognize the gifts of the many brilliant, generous CEL colleagues and utilize them to create a dynamic professional experience for everyone. I needed them to delegate tasks, to gather input, to vent frustrations, to celebrate milestones, to make decisions and to remain calm. I needed trusted friends to tell me when an idea was terrible, and I needed those same friends to help me decide what to do instead.
Saying yes gave me my greatest lessons in leadership. Turns out, I don't know it all nor do I need to. As a department supervisor, I have plenty of talented educators surrounding me who can teach me, set me straight and cheer me on when days get tough. I can honor my introversion by giving myself the quiet time I need to think and process. However, I can also step outside that comfortable space and make connections with really smart, generous people. I can take a risk. I can handle rejection. I can celebrate my successes. I can say what I want...what I need...and live to tell about it. I will be a better literacy educator because of all of these lessons I learned while planning #CEL13.
There were so, so many reasons to say no. But I said yes.
I am deeply grateful I did.
When asked to serve as the Conference on English Leadership's Program Chair for Boston, I had excellent reasons to decline.
1. I am the mom to two small children who were only five and two years old when I was approached about the opportunity.
2. I had only just begun working in a new school district.
3. After two professionally unsettling years, I was only starting to regain confidence (thanks to my great new district) in who I was as a leader.
4. I embraced my introversion like a security blanket and struggled mightily when pushed outside this comfort zone.
5. Did I mention the two young children?
Despite all those reasons (and many others), I said yes. I said yes because I believe in CEL and its mission. When I became the World's Most Woefully Unprepared ELA Supervisor in 2003 at the age of 28, one of my mentors, Helen Poole, told me about CEL. I attended my first CEL Convention that fall and learned so much in those three short days. I have only missed one convention since then.
When I was asked to be Program Chair for Boston, I felt indebted to the organization. I wanted to (hopefully) provide a professional experience for new and veteran literacy educators that reflected all I had learned during my ten years of CEL involvement. I had to say yes. I had to say thank you.
Saying yes opened my professional world in tremendous ways. It forced me to stop and think about every conference I had ever attended and what worked (or didn't) about each of them. It challenged me to consider how to bring the right people together to inspire and educate. It allowed me to invite those educators who teach me - Eric Sheninger, Troy Hicks, Donalyn Miller, Meenoo Rami - to address our entire CEL audience. It connected me with dozens of talented educators such as Chris Lehman, Kate Roberts, Maggie Roberts, Kate Baker, Colette Bennett and many, many more.
But saying yes opened me in many unexpected ways. As a card bearing member of the Fiercely Independent Introvert Society, I preferred to do it all and to do it alone. Guess what? That is absolutely impossible when planning an annual convention for a national organization in a location 400 miles from home. I had to ask for help. I had to recognize the gifts of the many brilliant, generous CEL colleagues and utilize them to create a dynamic professional experience for everyone. I needed them to delegate tasks, to gather input, to vent frustrations, to celebrate milestones, to make decisions and to remain calm. I needed trusted friends to tell me when an idea was terrible, and I needed those same friends to help me decide what to do instead.
Saying yes gave me my greatest lessons in leadership. Turns out, I don't know it all nor do I need to. As a department supervisor, I have plenty of talented educators surrounding me who can teach me, set me straight and cheer me on when days get tough. I can honor my introversion by giving myself the quiet time I need to think and process. However, I can also step outside that comfortable space and make connections with really smart, generous people. I can take a risk. I can handle rejection. I can celebrate my successes. I can say what I want...what I need...and live to tell about it. I will be a better literacy educator because of all of these lessons I learned while planning #CEL13.
There were so, so many reasons to say no. But I said yes.
I am deeply grateful I did.
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