Farewell to Summer OR The Dogs Ate My Sock

Summer comes to the household of two teachers with a different timetable and a new set of rules. Every day is a vacation day for us, and everyone we know knows it. This summer has been the summer of dog-sitting. It seems like every other week there's been a visiting canine in addition to our own dog and two cats.

Our place is not that big; in fact for many years we resisted getting a dog at all because of our concern about lack of space. One day we realized that we probably weren't going to move anytime soon, and so we've found a way to make one dog work, and it really does work-- she's a treasure to us. Sometimes, we think she's so great that it seems like it would be a good idea to get another one.

As willing and able as we are to help out our friends and family, it's back to work for us tomorrow, and the dog-sitting gig just won't be as convenient. Plus, vacation time is over for most other people, too, so our opportunities diminish. I'd like to think that the inevitable nuisances of caring for a dog who is not your own has cured us of the notion that we should be a double-dog duo, like this morning when our dog and her guest pulled out the sock I had carefully tucked into my shoe last night and used it for an energetic game of tug-of-war. I really liked that sock.

Conference is a Noun

I read a fair number of teacher blogs, some for inspiration, some for validation, some for shared experience, and some just for the are-you-kidding-me? factor. I think that almost all teachers want what's best for their students and work in good faith and to the best of their ability to provide that. I know that teaching can be frustrating, though, and working day after day in what you feel is a lose-lose situation will erode your dedication. The other side of that coin is arrogance-- the certainty that you know without question what your students, their parents, and the administration should do. If only they would keep their side of the bargain, all those children would be successful.

Knock on wood that I'll never be that first case, but I have to admit that the second category of teacher reminds me of my earlier self. I can almost pick out their blogs by the stridency in their voices and that certain incredulous tone to the tales of the mishaps and malapropisms that they are burdened with. When posting assignments for their students, they use the words "all" and "must" a lot, as well as bold font and all caps to emphasize the importance of certain directions, such as these I read just tonight: Reminder: ALL students must conference with me AND a peer before September 18.

Such assertive confidence can propel an inexperienced teacher through the first few years, perhaps with great success, but it usually lacks empathy, which is what my experience has taught me to be the most productive approach to students, parents and colleagues. Empathy doesn't remove all the frustrating episodes of teaching, but it helps to alleviate the frustration. Not to mention that if we stand in judgment of others, we must be prepared for others to judge us just as harshly.

An Independent Thinker

A retired teacher friend and her husband came over for dinner last night. Twenty three years separate us in age, but our friendship has already spanned fifteen years. I confess that sometimes I wonder what she sees in me: author, activist, and scholar, my friend sets the bar high for those who admire her and might wish to follow her example.

One of the most important lessons that I learned from working with her is that it's possible to disagree with someone without losing respect or affection for them. Professional disagreements can become rather heated, especially in a school, probably because the stakes seem to be so high... we're talking about the future of children here!

I don't even remember what it was that we disagreed about, but when you work on a team, it's impossible to see eye to eye on everything. It's my impression that many people confuse our opinions with ourselves. If someone doesn't like what I'm thinking, how can they value me? And if that's my frame of mind, then all of a sudden, a simple disagreement becomes much more personal and difficult to resolve amicably without losing self-respect.

My friend showed by example what it means to be open-minded. In even the most contentious of discussions, she listened without interrupting, never lost her temper, and never even raised her voice. On those rare occasions that she and I were on opposites sides of the debate, she'd go out of her way to find me after the meeting. "I don't see it your way, Toots," she would tell me, "but good people can disagree."

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.