Dictionary Skills

What's an antonym for deficit as in Deficit Thinking?

• abundance
• adequacy
• advantage
• enough

• perfection
• plenty
• satisfaction
• success

• sufficiency
• excess
• superfluousness
• proficiency 

I attended a required work shop for English teachers today. As a result, I got to sleep in by an hour, spend time with some of my favorite teacher friends, laugh a little, eat a free lunch in the sunshine, and get out early enough to go to the gym, walk the dog, and cook dinner.

That was enough.

APS ABCs

Kagan, CRISS,
and SRI,
IA, RICA, oh my my,
SOL, AMO,
writing sample, yes or no?
IB, PIPs, ERO,
catch a SMART goal by the toe.
Synergy is EGP
with less functionality,
and don't forget your UbD:
what's
the
objective?

BS in Literature

I teach a one quarter reading course for the sixth graders on my team. They have four reading teachers over the course of the year, each of us focusing on reading in our content area-- reading in math, reading in science, reading in social studies, and my class, reading in language arts. Because the focus is on non-fiction text, the time the students spend with me is focused on memoir and other forms of creative non-fiction.

Since we only have nine weeks together, we read lots of short memoirs and excerpts, as well as other literature that thematically compliments those selections. For example, so far this year we have read pieces by Jack Gantos, Sandra Cisneros, Billy Collins, and John Scieszka. Another component of the course is having the students write about their own lives, and to tie it together, today the assignment was to read a piece that I wrote.

Oh! I expected it to be well-received, but with this sly group the flattery was so deep I needed a shovel.

"Can you sign mine?" one student started.

"Wait until you read it," I advised.

"Wow!" said someone else a little bit later. "That was the best thing we have read all year!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Realllllllllly?" I replied. "Better than... Jack Gantos?" He nodded vigorously and I continued.

"Sandra Cisneros?

... John Sciesszka?

... BILLY COLLINS???"

He continued nodding and I waved at him a bit dismissively.

"Really!" he said. "I don't know what you're doing here. You should be on a book tour!"

Economy of Energy

Shout out to Sonic dog who figured out there was really no reason to climb all the way out of the pool after fetching the tennis ball-- if you wait on the stairs, someone will toss it again so that you can do what you came for... swimming.

Others may briefly soar, but plugging away offers its own rewards.

School v. Learning

Say what you will about NPR, but whether or not I always agree with them editorially, over the years I have learned a lot from public radio. Today alone is an excellent example. Within 20 minutes this morning, I understood the concept that art is something that puts off more energy than went into making it, and I was also introduced to the narrative structure of Leonard Bernstein's second symphony, Age of Anxiety. Whoa.

As a (okay, sometimes jaded) person of letters, I found these insights into those other arts, visual and music, very instructive, but it was only a few hours later that I was thoroughly schooled in the themes and writing of Ken Kesey in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel I thought I was pretty familiar with.

Educators today are fond of saying that we want our students to become life-long learners, but like so many things in public policy, what we mean by that lofty phrase is not always clear. Earlier this week I wrote about the joy of vicariously experiencing my students' ah-ha moments.

Today I had a few of my own.

That's what we're talking about.

Or You'll Sink Like a Stone

My students waded in for their first dip into our electronic community today. In the years that I have been using this online mix of formal and informal writing opportunities with my sixth graders the response of any given group has been unpredictable.

When my colleague and I created and introduced "Write Here Write Now" to our students on a Friday seven years ago only to log in and find a staggering 1000+ posts the next day we were stunned, but we buckled in for the ride and it was one of the most rewarding years of my career in terms of student engagement and growth.

Of course times and technology have changed a lot since then, and being able to communicate remotely with friends is no longer novel for your average 11-year-old, as a student reminded me today when I mentioned that they could use WHWN to write to classmates anytime, anywhere.

"Why would we do that?" she wondered (quite politely). "Don't we have phones?"

Six Degrees

The other day a young colleague stopped me at the copy machine. "Hey!" she said, and it was clear that she had something she really wanted to tell me.

"Hey!?" I answered expectantly.

She took a breath. "Let me go back. How are you?"

I laughed in appreciation of her manners. I am, after all, her elder. "Fine. And you?"

"I was at a comic convention this weekend," she started.

"Oh yeah, I read about that," I told her. "How was it?"

"Fun!" she continued. "I was a volunteer, and I met another girl who was volunteering, too. We started talking and I told her I teach in Arlington. She asked where, and when I named our school she said that she went here!"

I nodded, following along.

"And then she asked if you were still here," she reported breathlessly. "She didn't even have to think about your name! She knew you right away!"

I gave a little ta da look. "Who was it?" I asked.

When she mentioned the name, I remembered this former student immediately, too. She was one of the kids from my very first year of teaching who used to hang out in my room after school that year. Later, she and some of her friends were volunteer helpers in my summer school classrooms for several years. I had lost track of her, but it was great to reconnect, even once removed.

Today I sent her a message on Facebook:

Hey! KB told me she ran into you at the Comic Convention last weekend, so you know I'm still doing

exactly
the
same
thing

twenty years later.

Fortunately, I still like it. Your class must have broken me in well.

I hope all is well with you! Stay in touch.

I hope she will.