Turning the Tables

Today was spring conference day. At our school, we do student-led conferences, which makes a lot of sense for middle school kids. What good does it do them to have a bunch of adults sitting around behind closed doors conspiring-- even if our goal is their academic success?

Personally, I like the format, although it does take some work to prepare the students to do the heavy lifting on the day of the meeting. They review their current grades, do a self-assessment of their school work and study habits, compare that to one their teachers have completed, choose a piece of exemplary work to reflect on and present to their parents, and based on all of those things, they identify their strengths and areas where improvement is needed, and then set goals for the last three months of school. Then, student, parents, and teacher work together to make a plan for each child to reach those objectives.

Rather than the leader of the conference, the teacher is there as a support and a resource on that team. That's the theory, anyway. On my students' slice of life posting today, the topic of conferences was number one. Here are a few of their perspectives on the experience:

So today I had my conference. at first I was nervous and I thought everything was going to turn out awesome and okay until.... 

Today I went to my conference. And it was pretty fun, but it’s kind of freaky how the teachers just stare at you.

Annoying Conference. Two words. Grr.......

First of, I think it is a pain to go to the conference just because you have to explain to your parents. Especially if your conference time is at 8 a.m. 

I looked at them and thought these have got to be fake grades.

The nervousness washed right out my body and dissipated down a drainage pipe. The whole thing was super easy... I guess conferences are kinda like shots in the end. After you get over all the fretting and thinking about what to say, you just get the job done and part ways.

So now the conferences passed, I went and survived.

The vacation starts for students. My conference is finally over. 

(Click here for a further sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

What News?

Years ago I took a meditation class. I remember the instructor telling us to turn off the news and set aside the paper for a few days. "You won't really miss anything," he said, "and you'll eliminate a ton of stress and negativity from your life."

At twenty something, I could not even imagine following his advice.  The world to me was fascinating and full of possibilities; if anything, it was the people and things around me that made me a little anxious. In the end, I dropped out of the class because as soon as the lights were dimmed and that soothing music came on,  I fell asleep.

These days my view has flipped. It's hard to stay positive in a time when Democrats and Republicans alike agree that the only way to avoid a government shut down is to cut education. The National Writing Project, Reading is Fundamental, Arts in Education, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, were all de-funded yesterday at the stroke of the president's pen.

In such uncertain times for educators, I turn to some of the people I spend the most time with-- my students. We have worked hard together to create a community of learning and literacy; it's all that outside stuff that is unsettling. Oh, I still read the news and wake up to an alarm tuned to NPR, but I sure don't sleep quite as well as I used to.

(Click here for a sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Preparing for the Harvest

Last summer we canned 40 quarts of tomatoes; after dinner tonight there were only 4 left. I have a stack of seed catalogs and gardening guides next to my chair in the living room. Lately, I like to throw a log or two on the fire and then take my time paging through them, visualizing our community garden plot in its July glory. We live in a townhouse-style condo with no basement, garage, or even shed, but we do have a mostly unused guest bathroom with some killer fluorescent light, and it's there that I've gathered my organic potting materials, ready to start the seeds for this year's crop.

As a teacher, I appreciate cycles of growth, but as a non-gardener until recently, I'm learning to treasure this connection between life and land, and the extra seasonal rhythm that it offers to my busy year.


(Here's the link for today's post on my 6th grade students' Slice of Life blog:)

http://thewhwnblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/aquarium.html

Sharing the Slice

This morning, as I stood before one of my classes exclaiming about the power of daily writing and telling them all about how I started posting to my blog two years ago as part of a challenge and how I haven't missed a single day in the last 730, I looked up and there was the principal in the door. "That's where you say 'Wow'," she told the class and gave me a little applause. It's nice to know she gets it.

I finally figured out a way to give my students the chance to participate in the March madness that we so fondly call the TWT SOLSC. I'll spare you the technical details, other than to say that it is mostly voluntary (with a little incentive for those who make it all the way or most of the way to the end), and that I was impressed by the overall enthusiasm of the group when I explained what it was and how it would work.

As of 7 PM this evening, I was delighted to find that 50% of my sixth graders have chosen to start the challenge, and it's entirely possible that that number will go higher. Their slices are super cute, and I've set up a blog to showcase one entry a day.

13 out of 24

There was a lot of strategy talk last night at our annual family Oscar party, mostly centered on whether we should choose what we personally liked or rather select what conventional wisdom predicted as the winners. It was my sense that most of us adopted a hybrid approach; I know I did.

After seeing more of the nominated movies and performances than ever before, I found myself a little hog-tied at the decision making-- it was almost too much information. If that sounds like an excuse, I guess it probably is; I certainly don't intend to see any fewer movies next year. I finished right in the middle of the pack, way behind the winner who scored 18 right. In fact the money went to a colleague who entered our pool on a whim late Friday afternoon before we both left school. "I know I'm throwing my money away," she protested as she blithely filled out the scorecard.

"How could you fall for that obvious ploy?" my nephew berated me last night as his former guidance counselor took us all to the cleaners.

Next year? Well, we bandied about the idea of a hi-low split, or a hi or low winner take all decided by the flip of a coin, or maybe even two ballots per person, one to vote your preference, and the other to win, baby, win. Any of those would be fun, but who cares, though, really? Last night, as every year, the company and conversation and food were way better than the show (my oldest nephew was even on skype from college the whole time), so as long as we get together, it'll be awesome.

My Oscar Picks

Leading Actor - Colin Firth
Sup. Actor - Christian Bale
Leading Actress - Natalie Portman
Sup Actress - Hailee Steinfeld
Animated Feature - Toy Story
Art Direction - Inception
Cinematography - True Grit
Costume Design - King's Speech
Directing - Social Network
Documentary Feature - Exit through the Gift Shop
Documentary Short - Strangers No More
Film Editing - 127 Hours
Foreign Language - Biutiful
Make up - The Wolfman
Original Score - How to Train Your Dragon
Original Song - If I Rise
Animated Short - Let's Pollute
Live Action Short - The Confession
Sound Editing - Inception
Sound Mixing - Inception
Visual Effects - Inception
Adapted Screenplay - Social Network
Original Screenplay - Kings Speech
Best Picture -  King's Speech

Woe is Us

We went to see the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts this afternoon. This collection of five films between 35 and 40 minutes at first seemed to be a catalog of the world's woes: a Jordanian Muslim man who lost 27 friends and family members when the Amman hotel where he was holding his wedding reception was bombed by terrorists launches a crusade to put "jihad" into its proper Islamic perspective; because their atoll is being consumed by the rising sea, 1000+ people living in the Carteret Islands must find a new home elsewhere, despite the fact that their ancestors have lived on those there with a cash-less economy for 1000 years; the residents of a small village in China must take on local officials to resolve the damages that the local chemical factory has inflicted on their air, soil, and water since the early 1970s; and a former cheerleader struggles with PTSD after her tour of duty in Iraq. Even the last documentary, which was easily the most uplifting of the five, was not without serious adversity-- a public school in Tel Aviv works hard to offer its students everything they need to learn, despite the high proportion of immigrant and refugee kids-- not surprisingly, there were some heartbreaking stories in that one, too.

What is one to do when confronted with such information? There was a part of the last film that really resonated with me-- it was the last day of school, and the audience was invited to celebrate the great gains that the students we had followed had made. It was very moving, and in a voice-over, one of the teachers said something like, each of these kids has experienced the support of at least one adult and has been successful because of it. We hope that they will carry that notion into the world with them and become people who reach out and help others.

When we talk about education and learning, let's not lose sight of that.  It's not enough to fill kids' heads with facts and figures; the feeling that the people in charge care about them will engender the compassion that they will need to face the uncertain future of our planet.