Access Denied

On Tuesday, President Obama is speaking at a high school right down the road from us. That happens to be the first day of school around here, and so today was the last day of our pre-service week. At our school, we kicked it off with, what else? A lengthy meeting. Although gathering as a staff is necessary, two-and-a-half hours seems like it may be overdoing it. I slipped into a seat at 8:33, just in time to hear the principal say that she was starting with an item that was not on the agenda.

Before I could roll my eyes, she told us that she'd been struggling with the issue of the president's speech. Some around me were confused because they had been unaware of the plans for his visit, but even though I was ahead of them on that particular 4-1-1, my brow was furrowed just the same. I listened as she continued, telling us that she had decided that no students at our school will be permitted to view the speech live on that day. At first, it was my assumption that such an activity might be too disruptive on the first day of school, but that was not her reasoning at all. She went on to say that there was a lot of controversy surrounding the address; in fact several parents had already called the school to say that they did not want their children to view it, and since we could not arrange for information letters with opt-out pieces, we weren't exposing any students to the telecast.

Go back in time with me twenty-four hours, or so... pretend that you haven't read or heard of the furor that is being raised over the president's plan to address the school children of our nation. All you know is that the President of the United States is coming to a high school in your district to make a televised speech for kids. Can you imagine how irrational the principal's decision seemed? What an over-reaction it appeared to be? That's where I was this morning, unaware that partisan politics have become so divisive in our time that there are citizens of this country who will not allow their children to hear the remarks of a democratically-elected president carried by a free press. And tonight, I'm wondering where our trust in democracy is.

Where Are You From?

I never know how to answer that question. I was born in the District of Columbia, moved to south Jersey at four, Saudi Arabia at 13, went to boarding school in Switzerland, college in New York, grad school in Norfolk, and now here I am, back in the DC metro area again. The truth is, I was born here and have lived here since 1989, but I wouldn't say I'm from here. Even so, twenty years is time enough to put down some roots, and that was evident to me tonight.

Teaching in the community where I live and have family has been exceptionally rewarding to me. Over the years, I've taught the children of my friends and neighbors and three of my nephews. Tonight, we had our annual open house for rising sixth graders, and I was moved at the pre-existing connections I felt to so many kids and families. There were parents I hadn't seen in six and eight years bringing their youngest child at last to middle school. Lots of other siblings and cousins and friends of former students went out of their way to tell me that they knew me and they were excited about the coming year. One of my colleagues realized that she and the parent of one of the kids went to our very school together nearly thirty years ago.

The two new teachers on the team both stopped me afterward to say what a remarkable event it had been. We open our doors on this night before school starts in order to allay the anxiety of parents and children who are making a big educational transition with new expectations and requirements, but tonight, for me, it was a testament to the power of simple human connection, even if I'm not from here.

Dead White Guys

Ten or twelve years ago, maybe longer, back when I was a pretty new teacher, I was invited to serve on a committee for the county-wide language arts department. Someone had decided that there should be a middle school author study, and it was our job to choose a "classic American author" and write some grade-level curriculum. After the first hour or so, this group of 8 white women decided that the works of Jack London would best lend themselves to interdisciplinary connection with our social studies curriculum, which was American history in 6th and 7th grade and world geography in 8th. The initiative had come from someone on the school board, and so our recommendation and outline of possible activities and materials were sent forward for review. It turned out that this particular official had hated Jack London when she was in high school, and so the project was refocused to create an author study of Mark Twain. The consensus was that his work more closely aligned with the social studies material anyway, and we worked hard to design units of study for all the middle school kids in the county.

Somewhere out there is still the vaguest of expectations that all of us teach the Twain, but, to be honest, there is no accountability, and very few teaches still do it. In my own experience, I found that it is usually pretty excruciating, and I wrote the lesson plans. Maybe I'm not a good teacher, or maybe Mark Twain is irrelevant to many of our students. Maybe both. When I think about it today, though, I think the key to the whole thing lies in the beginning of this story: We arbitrarily selected Jack London, who was just as arbitrarily vetoed, because a successful and well-educated person found his work unengaging, and so another long-dead author was chosen to replace him, also somewhat at random, and then we were surprised when students found it challenging to relate to his life and work. We even worried about the kids and the future of our culture if they couldn't appreciate Mark Twain, but it was okay for the school board member to give the thumbs down on Jack London-- obviously, the future of society was not at stake there.

I think we want to believe in a canon of literature the way children believe in Santa. But as David Sedaris pointed out, in Holland, St. Nicholas arrives at your house with 6-8 black men and a switch to beat you if you've been naughty. And if you've been really bad, they throw you in a sack and take you to Spain. Hmm... at least they don't force you to read London or Twain.

Reflection on Practice

My session went pretty well today. One of the challenges of this particular group is time. We met for two hours today, and we have just 5 more one-hour sessions scattered throughout the year. That makes it tough to build a community around writing, but it seems unthinkable to leave that piece out of a Writing Project continuation group. How can 12 teachers share our writing, talk about our practice, and read and respond to professional literature in an hour?

The only solution I could see to this dilemma was if we wrote about our practice and shared that. Even so, these could not be full-length drafts-- an hour wouldn't be enough time for three people to workshop their writing, and, let's be realistic, if you know you won't have to share, how likely is it that you will write? One of the things most people appreciate about being in a writing group is the accountability; it makes you write. So, I proposed that we all commit to keeping a teaching journal, recording and reflecting on our practice 2-3 times a week, and then choose an entry to share with a group of three each time we meet. Each teacher will give and receive feedback on three points: the craft of their writing, its content-- i.e. their practice, and their process.

"Where does the professional literature piece fit in?" you wonder. Why, I'm so glad you asked! Ultimately, in addition to the very worthwhile tasks of using writing to be more reflective practitioners and soliciting peer input on our practice, the objective of the teacher writers in this group might be to identify and develop an idea that could become a published piece. (Who knows? We might do this again next year.) So the other thing we're doing in the time we have together is to define what "publication" means to us. In the 21st century, publishing is undeniably an evolving concept, and we're going to share examples of teacher-written publications that may be outside the traditional. Who knows? Eleven new edu-bloggers may be born.

PDTR-OCP

Tomorrow I'm facilitating the first session of the Professional Learning Community that I mentioned earlier in the summer (twice, actually, here and then here). I'm a little anxious, I confess, but the ELA Department ordered a book I recommended, I've been reading a lot of articles in search of the best material for our group, and I think I've found an angle worth pursuing. The book calls it "professional development through reflection-oriented communities of practice." Kind of a mouthful, no? Basically it involves writing about what goes on in our classroom, sharing it with others to get their input, all the while reflecting upon it ourselves. It's kind of like "write to learn" for teachers, but the best thing about it to me is that it includes key elements of the Writing Project, of which this PLC is supposed to be a continuation: teachers as writers, sharing practice, writing groups, and self-directed professional development.

We're going to hammer out the details when we meet, but I wanted to get the idea in written form, because that is the idea. (And, I'll let you how it goes tomorrow, because that is also part of the concept.)

What They're Reading in Edgecomb

Who could miss the big article on the front page of the NY Times this morning about reading workshop? The piece profiles a teacher from Georgia who spends a week with Nancie Atwell at her school in Maine. (Full disclosure: I did that too!) Afterwards, she goes back home and reorganizes her reading program, basing it on student-selected texts. The reporter, Motoko Rich, summarizes the rationale behind the reading workshop, and she gives a round-up of several schools and systems that are using it, either in whole or in part, in order to motivate their students to read more and more thoughtfully.

I use a reading workshop in my sixth grade English class, and I have since I started teaching in 1993. Atwell's In the Middle was a required text in my graduate program, and her argument for engaging student agency resonated with me from the first. I wanted my class to be like hers: a place where kids really cared about what they were reading and writing and actively worked to improve their literacy skills and knowledge because it was important to them. Choice and accountability within a predictable structure are the keys to creating such a dynamic climate. Sixteen years later, I find it's still an ongoing process, which only makes sense, right?

Anyway. Like the Memphis article I posted about a few days ago, the comments on this one are fascinating to read, especially those written by non-educators. Many people are against such an approach on the grounds that we can't trust kids to choose quality literature. In their minds, it is the teacher's job to coerce and motivate kids to read texts of value. I must say I appreciate Ms. Rich's thoughtful and well-reasoned responses to several of these comments. She does an excellent job clarifying and extending the discussion while addressing the questions and concerns raised.

AND it's kind of cool that this conversation is happening in such a high profile place.

Heroes v. Humans

"What are these two coming over tonight- are they Republicans or Democrats?" So asked my friend's 86-year-old dad before we arrived for dinner this evening.

"They're Independents, Dad," my friend replied, and that seemed to mollify him. Seems they had been watching Edward Kennedy's funeral all day, and he was in a bit of a lather about it. He suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and so day to day, even minute to minute, working memory is a challenge for him, but, believe me, he knows he despises Ted Kennedy. A retired USAF general, he told us several times tonight about an altercation he had with Senator Kennedy in a washroom in the capitol over thirty-five years ago. Harsh words echoed off tiled walls as the two men disagreed.

I am nowhere close to an Independent, but the older I get, the more interested I am in the opinions of people who disagree with me, especially in a safe situation like this evening. There was no chance of a confrontation; we were content to listen to an old man rant. "What really gets me," he told us more than once, "is that I've known a lot of people who have given as much or more to this country as he has." He tilted his chin toward the television where the funeral procession was crossing Memorial Bridge on its way into Arlington Cemetery. "I was there at the end for them, and they got nothing near all this." He waved at the TV in exasperation. "I'm sorry he's dead, but the guy was a son of a bi..." Here he lowered his voice and looked at us meaningfully. "Pardon my language, but he was. I knew him, you know." We nodded politely.

I thought about it, and I wondered if maybe it wasn't the memorial events themselves that he objected to, but rather their broadcast on TV. People die, funerals happen, but sometimes the press coverage makes it seem that some deaths are more important than others. The corollary, of course, is that some lives are more valuable than others, which seems counter to democracy. How glaring that discrepancy must be to one who lost respect for the fallen in, of all places, a restroom.