Tag: teaching

How Shakespeare Helped Me Get My Groove Back

How Shakespeare helped me get my groove back.
He totally is…

This school year brought a lot of new responsibilities and a lot of changes to my position. I was sharing a room. I was doing more math intervention, which is an interesting challenge, but definitely isn’t my strength. I was teaching a pull-out intervention class to 5th graders. Fifth graders are cute, but definitely not my favorite grade. I felt like I wasn’t making progress with any of my students. I could feel myself slipping into a pattern with my math interventions where I would learn about new strategies for math intervention, try them once or twice, and then slip back into what I was used to (yes, I am absolutely a Conscious Stage teacher when it comes to math intervention). I knew it was happening, but felt powerless to stop the cycle. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out the best way to manage the behaviors of my 5th graders–all of whom had different needs, both academically and social-emotionally–and it was definitely making it difficult to deliver appropriate interventions. They weren’t making progress and I was worried I wasn’t supporting them.

I just felt frustrated and stuck.

I was also coteaching for the first time. I liked my time in the classroom and I love my coteacher Drew. But the unit we were working on at the beginning of the year wasn’t something either of us was really excited about and neither of us felt like we had a voice in the planning process. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what we wanted out students to know, understand, and do, and was just doing my best to infuse appropriate writing skills instruction into the unit.

And then, Shakespeare showed up. Specifically, Romeo and Juliet. Drew had done a Folger Ed workshop (taught by another amazing colleague, Gina) over the summer and was really excited to teach Shakespeare through performance. I was nervous. Because, you guys, R&J is really dirty. And we’re teaching 8th grade English. I also had to unexpectedly fly solo for the intro lesson. I was terrified.

But it turned out great:

And all of a sudden, I was feeling that high that comes from a great lesson with a room full of engaged students.

I stood in class trying to keep a straight face as kids began asking questions like “Mr. Murphy, what’s a maidenhead?”

Or:

“When he says ‘thrust maids to the wall’ he means…”

“Exactly what you think he means.”

“Ohhhhhhh…”

And then started having amazing, deep conversations about the role of women during Shakespeare’s time and how awful it was that Samson and Gregory weren’t really worried about raping Montague women, but were terrified of getting into an argument with Montague men. Because the second one is the thing that will get them hung.

They were interested and excited. And so was I.

They were engaging in close reading of Shakespeare without eye rolling.

They were on their feet and acting and directing.

 

Up on our feet performing and directing Shakespeare

And I was walking into school with a much more positive outlook. I was looking forward to English class, to planning with Drew. I was even looking forward to grading paragraphs about Romeo and his take on love in Act 1.

Now I’m even ready to dive into researching math interventions and trying out new strategies for my 5th graders. It’s amazing what one unit can do.

Have you had a time when you felt burned out and like you weren’t accomplishing what you wanted to in the classroom? How did you get your teaching groove back?

Self-Care: Crying In Your Car Is Not Enough

Cat assisting with self-care
My cat is a champion of my engaging in self-care, sitting on my grading when she feels I’ve spent too much time doing that and not enough time letting her sit on my lap.

Working with teachers who are in their first year of the NYC Teaching Fellows program this year has really highlighted for me the importance of self-care for teachers–especially new teachers. A couple of them brought up the NPR Ed piece called “Hey New Teachers, It’s OK to Cry in Your Car,” which is a terrible title. It did, however, have a lot of good advice for first year teachers regarding self-care.

That made me think: If I could travel back in time ten years and give advice to myself as a first year teacher, there are a few things I would make sure I did during my first year of teaching instead of spending the time up until February break skipping the self-care strategies and throwing myself into work. I dealt with my stress through a combination of long showers, Two-Buck Chuck, crying on the A Train, and ice cream. That obviously wasn’t sustainable.

Only take home as much work as you can feasibly do in 2 hours or less

It takes time to calibrate this, but it’s really important. Carting more work than you can do back and forth from school each day makes you feel unsuccessful and frustrated. It might actually take the first two or three months of school to figure that out, but once you do, set that boundary and stick to it. Even before you figure out where that boundary is, set a timer and don’t work past that.

Get enough exercise

Seriously. Start an exercise routine: biking, running, yoga, Pilates, swimming, CrossFit, mall walking, martial arts. It doesn’t matter what. Just do it. For me it works especially well if I exercise between then end of the school day and starting my grading or planning.

Sleep

Set yourself a bedtime and stick to it. Really. It doesn’t matter how much grading you have. Unless you’ve decided to…

Make time to spend with friends

My first year of teaching, I sometimes got so wrapped up in work (or feeling stressed about work) that I forgot to see my friends. That made me feel disconnected and lonely, and it caused me to get even more wrapped up in all of the negative things about my first year. Make a monthly date with a close friend and stick to it. I still do this with my friend Kate.

Just because you can be in the building until 7 PM…

Some schools kick you out, others don’t, but set yourself a curfew and don’t stay past a certain hour. I had a key my first year. It was bad. Some of us work best if we take a break between school and doing more work, some of us don’t. Either way, set a time when you’re going to stop doing work and go out or change gears.

Read

Yes, of course, read articles in professional journals and the books you’re teaching to your class, but also make sure to read books that are for you. Books that remind you of what you love about reading, and what you’re interested in outside of school. Develop a readers’ life apart from the books that you’ll recommend to your kids.

Eat good food

Learn a couple of simple recipes, or get a crockpot and make yourself good, healthy food for your lunches and dinner. Don’t live off of takeout just because you’re busy.

Find your flow

Resurrect a hobby you let go of or learn a new skill: knitting, gaming, bread making, canning, sewing, painting, dancing, making music, photography, martial arts, running. Whatever it is that helps you to really be in a state of flow, do it. Schedule time for it. Make it a priority. Share it with your students.

Let go of your mistakes

The most important piece of advice from that NPR segment that I would reiterate to new teachers (and have tried to reinforce to my first year Teaching Fellows–I’m forcing them to read this for their last class. I’m hoping they’ll tell me if I did it enough): I’m still in touch with kids I had my first year of teaching, and they’re not  scarred for life by the myriad of mistakes I made during that first year. Just to be clear: I made A LOT of mistakes during my first year I run into them around the city in all sorts of unexpected places. I’m friends with a few of them who are in their 20s on Facebook. I get emails from some who are in college. They’re all OK. Even the ones I worried wouldn’t be OK.

But I don’t have time for self-care…

Make the time. I’ve been telling my 8th graders all week that winter break is a great time for a reset. It can be a great time for a reset for teachers too.

How do you engage in self-care? If you don’t think you are yet, how will you make it a priority in the new year?

Adventures in Teacher Education

Teacher education: Student feelings about assessment
My students share their experiences with assessment during one of our initial classes.

I spend most of my time teaching middle schoolers, but I’ve moonlighted in teacher education for nearly 6 years. I started out teaching one course in the program where I got my Master’s degree. Then I was presented with a new opportunity to participate in teacher education. A professor at another local university reached out to me and asked if I was interested in teaching a 5 week summer course in assessment for Special Education over the summer. The course was for students in an alternative certificate program here in NYC. I was thrilled to try something new, but there were challenges that I hadn’t anticipated. Working in a different kind of teacher education this summer really challenged a lot of beliefs and assumptions that I had about education. Particularly the idea that learning is scalable.

Learning is scalable is one of the CGC principles that really resonated with me. What it means is that our beliefs about teaching and learning for children in a classroom should be able to scale up to a whole school level, to professional development (and, by extension, teacher education), and even to how we run our schools. In theory, if I truly believe that learning is scalable, the same beliefs about education should apply whether I’m working in a middle school or in teacher eduction.

I know that with my middle schoolers I believe that work should be able to be revised as many times as possible until a student demonstrates the knowledge, skill, or understanding that I’m expecting. Basically, I believe in mastery grading and not punishing students for taking longer to understand things than their peers. I don’t really believe in penalizing students for late work, but I found myself more frustrated with graduate students who turned work in late without an email or a request for an extension. I found myself feeling that I shouldn’t be offering students the opportunity to rewrite things because they should “know how to do this by now.” I found it really hard to reconcile my belief that graduate students should possess a particular skill set with my belief in everything above. Was it my responsibility to teach them those things? Or, did they need to ask questions, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and figure it out. Did I really believe, as my Ed Psych professor in college said, that in “grade school you have teachers who teach, and in college you have professors who profess–get used to taking in information and figuring things out.” When I really examine my beliefs, I don’t believe that at all. But I also am not sure I have the time to teach them all of that.

A summer course means less time. It means less time to revise work, so that means less time for students to “get” everything before the end of the term. There is also less time for questions and discussions about assignments, and fewer assignments. There’s less time for me to write substantial feedback on the assignments I do get, so there are fewer assignments. There’s also less time for student-professor contact outside of class. I hope I did a good job of building relationships with these adult students, but I’m not sure.

If I teach this course again, I want to make sure I spend more time getting to know my students. I also want to spend more time practicing what I preach: using formative assessments to figure out what skills I need to teach before a major assignment is due. And now that I’ve taught the course once, I’ll be better able to adjust assignments and content to make time.

What are your experiences with teacher education, either as a student or as an instructor?

On “Reportese”, Teacher Comments & Saying What We Mean

Teacher Comments
Image by AJ Cann via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/6Cn9ne

So, this popped up in my Twitter feed last week:

I often see things pop up via non-teacher friends on Facebook who have school age kids that are in the vein of “what your child’s teacher says, and what she really means”. I know these things exist, but every time I see teachers engaging in them, I’m a bit shocked. As both a middle school teacher and as a teacher educator, I am fairly invested in the language we use when we talk about students and in helping others to use that language. That said, I do see how, as Kevin Bartlett calls it, “reportese” can end up feeling like a the punchline of a joke. And we really should be able to laugh at ourselves. But I still have some problems with these lists, partially because the “what the teacher really means” generally makes us sound like insensitive jerks, rather than people who care about kids and their progress.

There are reasons why in teacher comments, we try to phrase things positively:

  • We’re trying to focus on observable behaviors or what a student has reported and withhold judgment. It’s impossible to know what’s going on in someone else. Educators do have the training to look at a number of different sources of data and make inferences about motivation, ability, and skill in our students. But those observable behaviors are just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t want to make an inference about what’s causing a student’s behavior until I’m absolutely sure.
  • We know that if we talk about things in a positive manner, rather than using terms like “lazy” we’re more likely to keep a positive mindset about the student and to look for ways to help her improve.  It’s my job to figure out how to teach all of the students in my class, and my job to collaborate with parents to help students improve. It’s also my job to help leverage and develop student strengths (such as being social and enjoying collaboration), as well as to help students improve in areas of weakness (knowing when it’s time to work independently).

But, in spite of our best efforts, the comments often seem jargony and designed to be unclear or vague and hide what’s really going on with the student.  For example, saying that “Kate struggles to apply herself”, doesn’t give much insight into Kate’s behavior, her strengths, or her weaknesses. The reason comments like this are seen as duplicitous or or disingenuous–like, well, we really mean that Kate is lazy and are afraid we’ll get in trouble for calling it like we see it–is that they’re so vague. Is Kate completing classwork, but having difficulty following up with homework? Does she participate fully in class discussions, but doesn’t do very well when she’s asked to write about a topic independently? How can we still maintain a non-judgmental voice that talks about students in a positive way, but still be specific and realistic about a student’s accomplishments?

  • Write your comment to the student–not to next year’s teacher and not to the parent. One of my colleagues gave me this idea, and I’m trying to use it more in my practice. Parent communication is a big part of report writing, but it shouldn’t be our only avenue. When we write to the student (even if someone else needs to read it to them), we (or at least I) seem to shift into more understandable, honest-sounding language. This is, of course, totally different than what I ask my grad students to do (sorry, everyone–clinical language is the program standard).
  • Be genuine with your compliments. Find something good–improvement, positive attitude, enthusiasm, and start with it. Don’t qualify it. Just say it.
  • Start with observations, and then infer or question. Don’t just jump right in with the inferences about student needs or motivation. Talk about what you’re seeing in a clear and non-judgmental way, and then talk about why you think it’s happening.
  • Set goals and offer solutions. How will the whole team (teacher, student, and parent) work together to get the student on track? Or to help the student extend her thinking or expand his creativity?

How do you make sure you’re clearly communicating in your written reports? Do you like the idea of writing directly to the student? Or do you think reports should be directed toward parents?

Why I Teach Middle School

I took Spring Break off from writing here while I was traveling and dealing with midterm crunch-time with my grad students. I got to spend 5 great days in San Francisco with friends, and met some of their new Silcon Valley tech friends while I was out there. Everyone either had a PhD in some sort of science, or worked at a tech start-up, or both. So when I said what I do, I got a lot of:

“You teach middle school? That must be…interesting.”

“You teach middle school? God bless you.”

“You teach middle school? Why?”

It’s been nearly 10 years, I should have come up with an elevator speech by now, but I don’t have one. I generally just shrug and say something along the lines of “Middle schoolers are an odd bunch, but I like them.” There are, however, so many reasons why I teach middle school.

Why I teach midde school: They’re sophisticated enough to have serious conversations, but they aren’t jaded yet

Yes, I know, you can have sophisticated conversations with kids of any age, but middle schoolers are at a really amazing spot in their development. In that 10-14 range, their ability to think about abstract concepts is starting to expand (at widely varying rates), while at the same time they have this level of optimism that’s absolutely infectious. They still believe they can change the world. They still believe that, deep down, people are really good.

Why I teach middle school: They are the sweetest, kindest people I know

My middle schoolers know when my birthday is. They know that when I feel stressed, I like to take a time out to knit. They know my cat’s name. Of course, I, in turn know similar things about all of them. They’re just very open and caring. They also leave all sorts of interesting notes and gifts:

Why I teach middle school: Student drawings

These are just a few. Let’s not forget all of the selfies that students have taken when I’ve left my phone on my desk, or when they bring in snacks to eat in class, but tell me not to worry because they brought “teacher food” as well–dark chocolate covered dried blueberries.

When you teach middle school you also see amazing moments of kindness between students. I’m continually amazed by the empathy and caring they show for each other. We often hear about negative interactions between students this age (and they do happen), but more often than not, I see the good.

Why I teach middle school: They are also the most ridiculous people I know

Being a middle schooler is hard. Your body and your brain are changing. Interpersonal communication gets trickier. Adults think you should act like a grownup, but your prefrontal cortex is still developing, so you do things without fully understanding the consequences or really thinking them through. Sometimes you say mean things to others. Sometimes you do what your friends are doing, even though you know it’s wrong. Often, whatever your first impulse is (for example to say “I didn’t do it” when your teacher clearly saw you do whatever it was you “didn’t do”), usually is what happens. I find talking kids through these moments and helping them build their abilities to think through problems to be one of the most interesting parts of my job. Watching them develop, grow and change throughout their time in middle school is what I love the most.

I went over 600 words, so it’s definitely not an elevator speech. I could summarize–Why I teach middle school? They continue to grow, change, and surprise me every day. And I love it. Or, more concretely, it’s just because sometimes they do something simple, like make a video explaining how to balance chemical equations, and you’re so happy about their progress, that you cry a little…

Tiny Successes

Channel R at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL, GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
Channel R at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL, GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
My first teaching job was in a Catholic school for low-income girls on the Lower East Side. My boss, Connie, who was one of the co-founders the school in the early 90s (back when she was still a nun), was an amazing woman. She taught me a lot about teaching and about building relationships with students. But one of the most important things I learned from her was about success. “We’re growing olive trees, not marigolds,” she would frequently say. She said it a faculty meetings, to members of the board, to parents, to the principal as she agonized over our test scores. She said it with the same fervor and faith with which she read 1 Corinthians chapter 12 on the first day of school every year. She said it with the voice of a true believer. And she made me believe it too: That success isn’t only measured in huge leaps, in fast growth and quick, dramatic changes; it is also measured in tiny, incremental steps forward. Growth you don’t even notice or successes that are so small, you could miss them if you weren’t on the lookout. Growth that takes time, but makes something amazing, sturdy, and enduring.

I’ve had several of these moments in the past two weeks and it reminded me how important it is to celebrate the small successes, not just the large ones, and that tiny steps toward growth are just as important as big ones.

When a student stops in to ask for help on an assignment that is a perfect match for a strategy we’ve been working on for weeks and then asks for help with it–even if he’s not employing the strategy independently or hasn’t really tried to use it–that’s a success.

When a teacher who has been resistant to working with me on differentiation invites me into her classroom “just to see a bit”, that’s a success.

When a student chooses to showcase a tiny change she’s noticed in her writing in her portfolio, that’s a success.

When a student writes down his homework in his planner (even if he doesn’t get it done), that’s a success.

When a grad student who seems to have been ignoring feedback on lessons makes one small change that shows she’s starting to get it, that’s a success.

Sometimes teaching can be really overwhelming, especially when you’re teaching students who struggle. Growing olive trees is hard work. You care for them, and you try to provide the right climate and the right food, but it could be a long time before they bear fruit. When we notice the tiny successes in our students, those small, but important, steps forward, we notice our students and their efforts. When we notice those tiny steps, we’re reminded that when we acknowledge tiny successes, they can feel like huge leaps forward.

What tiny successes have you seen recently?

The Power of Our Words

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we, as teachers, talk about students amongst ourselves. Quick conversations in the hall, longer ones in the staff room or in a classroom. In full-fledged meetings with our colleagues. The more I think about it, the stronger my feeling that not only does what we say matter, but how we say it matters even more.

The words we use have power. They can color the perception that we, or others we are talking to, have about the student.

And, in the moment we’re having a conversation, we have a choice. And it’s a choice we need to make every time we have a conversation about a student.

We can refer to a student who just plagiarized an assignment as “slick” and ask for him to have 1:1 supervision during the next assessment.

Or we can say we’re worried that a 6th grader felt the need to cheat and ask what’s going on with him. We can ask our colleagues. And we can ask the student.

We can label a student as lazy.

Or we can ask why she’s choosing to do the minimum work required. Are her skills low? Does the assignment not interest her? Is she afraid of failing or putting herself out there?

We can call a student emotional.

Or we can remember that the student is 12, and the mess of hormones that flow through a 12 year old’s body and all the changes those hormones cause makes it hard to regulate emotions. Then we can look for ways to embed social-emotional learning into our curriculum.

We can call a student a know-it-all.

Or we can talk to colleagues about ways to channel that student’s enthusiasm into something that will give them more positive responses from teachers and peers and help make the student a part of the classroom community.

All of that said, I’m by no means innocent of this. We all get frustrated and we’ve probably all at one point or another labeled a student in a way we wish we hadn’t. We’ve complained about a student’s behaviors and attitudes, rather than looking for the best way to help him or her. As teachers, we need to make an effort to shift our mindsets from deficit-focused to solutions-focused. And for those of us who are actively working on that, we need the courage and the grace to offer other perspectives when our colleagues talk about students in ways that may make if difficult to find a way for that student to be successful.

How do you talk to teachers who may be discussing students in ways that you’re uncomfortable with?