A Rope of Sand

I had the fortune to spend the day with one of my teaching idols today. Nancie Atwell was giving a workshop a few miles from my home. When I first received the flyer back in January, I asked and received permission from our principal to offer the opportunity to any teacher in our department who was interested. We hoped that it might be a unifying experience for a group of well-intentioned educators with rather disparate approaches to teaching writing.

What makes Atwell so impressive is that she is clear-minded about her underlying principles and yet pragmatic in the application of them. Her writing lessons evolve year by year, as do the details of their delivery and execution, but her framework remains true to the student-centered approach she introduced in 1987 in her seminal work In the Middle. She remains steadfast in the face of education trends that ultimately undermine our objective to foster literate, thoughtful, independent-minded citizens.

This is the third time that I've heard her in person, and each time I feel that my teaching has grown a little closer to the standard she holds up, but each time I am also struck by how some of my core convictions have been eroded by outside pressures. I guess that I was hoping if I could get my colleagues on board, we could work together and support each other to stay as true to our ideals as Atwell does.

I wish I could say that the day was a magical panacea which cured us of all of our departmental dysfunction, but I'm afraid that's not true. I do believe that many minds were opened to the possibilities of the workshop approach, though, and so we'll move [forward?] from there.

Our English Holiday

Today was National Poem in Your Pocket Day, and as in years past, all of my students chose poems to carry with them. A part of our lesson was set aside for them to share if they wanted to.

It was a sweet day. Hearing young voices reciting verses that they have chosen is always uplifting. Every year, some kids select song lyrics, but today was the first time that anybody has ever asked to sing. Her version of You Don't Know You're Beautiful was met with applause and even demands for an encore.

Chipping Away

"I saw you carrying a bag into school yesterday," one of my homeroom students said this morning.

He's autistic, and he doesn't usually initiate conversations with me, so I was glad that he did, but like many teachers, I carry several bags every day, so it took me a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about."You mean that bag of chips?" I asked.

"Yeah. What were those for?"

"They were snacks for the Tolerance Club meeting," I told him.

"What's the Tolerance Club?" he asked.

"It's a club for kids that meets after school," I started. "We watch movies and talk about how to make our school a friendlier place. Do you think you would ever want to come to it?"

"No!" he said.

"Why not?" I asked him.

"Because it's for normal people," he answered.

That took me aback a bit. "It's for people who like people who are different," I told him. "Everybody is different in some way, right?"

"Yes," he said.

"So, would you like to come to a meeting sometime?" I asked again.

"Will I get chips?"

"Yep," I assured him.

"Then yes."

Job Description

I have a colleague whose ex-husband used to wonder why she was so tired at night. "All you have to do is sit behind your desk all day and say, You may begin," he told her. I wonder why that marriage didn't work out.

Recently the NY Times published a piece about the software developed by the Educational Testing Service, e-Rater, that can read and score 16,000 essays in 20 seconds. Wow! Never mind the current flaws in the system, like disregarding facts and nonsense in favor of big vocabulary words and long sentences. Seriously! Any English teacher working her customary 50-60 hour week might be justified in indulging in a little wishful thinking.

Who wouldn't want to throw all your grading into a machine? Who cares if we start to teach students to write to a convenient algorithm rather than a human audience? While they're at it, maybe they can write some code so that e-Rater interfaces with the grade book, too!

Yeah, then I can get back to sitting on my butt, collecting my colossal paycheck, and biding my time until I can retire at the expense of the hardworking, private-sector citizens of my state.

Hey, ETS! You may begin.

Bully Pulpit

Today I took the opportunity to promote a couple of up-coming Tolerance Club activities in all of my English classes. In addition to the showing of Bully that we arranged, we were sharing the Academy Award Winning short subject documentary, Strangers No More, today after school.

I don't often take class time to do so, because there are always posters and morning announcements about every event, so I assume that if they are interested, students will attend.

Wrong. We had 15 new people show up this afternoon, and yes, they were all my students.

Where Do We Start?

We saw the movie Bully today. It has been on our list since we first heard of it, but in order to encourage as many members of our school community to see it, the Tolerance Club is sponsoring a showing next Sunday afternoon, and I have agreed to help facilitate a brief discussion afterward for whoever is interested in staying. Obviously, I wanted to see the movie in advance.

There are tons of materials about bullying available both in general, and on the official website of the movie. So much stuff is out there in fact, that it can be overwhelming. Watching the movie today, which spans the school year 2009-10 and follows the experiences of five families of kids who have been bullied, my heart of course broke for the victims of such cruelty. As a person who works in a school, I know first hand how widespread bullying is, and also how difficult it is to address effectively, much less eradicate.

In fact, that is why we started the Tolerance Club, as an acknowledgement that we adults have to help the kids change the climate in their school. We, like most schools in the nation, have a zero tolerance for bullying, but most aggression takes place out of sight of authority. Must we be more vigilant? Absolutely, but the key is in changing the culture of the kids.

As I watched, I also considered what I might say next week and how best to focus the conversation in the little time we would have. The statistics say that 13 million kids get bullied each year, which is a staggering number, but common sense says that there are more bullies than victims. Therefore, parents are more likely to have children who are bullies, or at least bystanders, than they are to have kids who have been bullied.

That seems like a good place to start a discussion.

The Monster We've Created

Oh how cute it seemed when our cat started playing Game for Cats on the iPad. It was soooo hilarious to watch her track the moving images on the screen. She was pretty good at the game, too, so much so that we threatened to limit her screen time.

Well... now she thinks any screen time is her screen time, especially if something moves on the screen. Seriously, folks, I can not pick up the iPad without my feline friend dashing over to see what we're going to do with her toy.

In fact, she had a lovely conversation with my sister on FaceTime this afternoon.