A Little Goes a Long Way

Some kind soul at our school used the day before Thanksgiving break to have students fill out little cards telling who they were thankful for. I was touched to receive four, but one in particular stood out. It came from a student who struggles in my class. He does not complete homework or classwork, and his writing and quiz grades are low. It's frustrating to work with him sometimes because it's hard to tell if he is unwilling or unable.

The hectic day was over when I checked my box one last time before heading off for vacation. One last little red card was waiting there.

"I'm thankful for Ms. S," that student had written, "because she's so calm and nice."

And just like that? All my aggravation was gone.

Vacation Creep

Arghh!
Two day work week before Thanksgiving?
What's the point?
I'm ready for my break now!

[This comment scheduled to be re-posted with minor revisions in 4 weeks.]

Proof that God Loves Us

For weeks now I've been on the hunt for a rare commodity: Gingerbread Stout. A limited release with terrific reviews, this beer sells out within thirty minutes around here. Twice I've busted out of work to try and snag a bottle or two, and twice I've been the recipient of a less than sympathetic snort when I asked if perhaps there was any left. Oh, I'm not sure I'll even like it, but by golly, I want to try it!

In the meantime, I have spent some extra time in beer stores, and I've found a few other interesting offerings, some of them equally appropriate for the season-- yes, I'm talking to you, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme Saison!

Thanksgiving by the Letter

My sister group-texted us all this morning:

Annabelle is getting excited to see everyone!

And I replied: Me too!

Off the Clock

Courtesy of back-to-back field trip days and the upcoming short week, I was able to actually leave school at my contract time today. My plan was to run a few Thanksgiving errands, and as I pushed open the glass doors and stepped into the crisp 3 PM November sunshine there was a purposeful bounce in my step. "Have a good weekend!" I waved to the small group of students outside.

"Wait! What?" answered one. "Where are you going? Don't you have to work until, like, at least 5?"

Nope!

Get Out

Just yesterday I was talking to two colleagues about the prospects of administering yet one more universal test for yet one more data point. "Fortunately the pendulum seems to be swinging away from this insanity," I said.

"You know how education is," another teacher said. "This has been going on for, what, about ten years? It's going to be something new, soon."

"What do you think that will be?" asked the third of us.

There were shrugs all around, but at some point in the conversation we came up with what we thought was the exact opposite of the now in schools across our country. "Experiential education?" someone suggested. "Where the kids actually get to do things?"

We laughed, but it was definitely rueful. Back when this testing trend started, I never believed I'd be at a school or in a system where field trips were considered, at best, unnecessary, and at worst, detrimental, but that's definitely the climate I'm teaching in now. While every sixth grader is soon to have an iPad, our bus budget has been slashed so that if we want to take more than one trip a year, we will have to charge the students for transportation.

Today happened to be the day of our only field trip this year. We took the students to a local nature center where they participated in a program about energy. The visit involved walking through a community garden that had been winterized, and seeing the rescued raptors (a red-tailed hawk, great horned owl, and two barred owls). As we ate our lunch, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and titmice flocked to the feeders just outside the window, and two deer grazed at the edge of the woods below us.

All the students showed some interest in what they were seeing and hearing about, but one girl in particular sought me out and sat next to me at lunch. She is a very nice kid, but often distracted and silly in my class. Her grades are mediocre and below, mostly because she doesn't get her work done. When you talk to her about it, she agrees good-naturedly to try to do better, but academic success seems like a low priority.

Today she was animated and engaged. She loved the raptors, was fascinated by the deer and the other birds, and had something relevant to say about every exhibit. As she chattered excitedly at lunch about everything we'd seen so far, I hardly recognized her as the child who usually sits so passively in my room.

Her test scores are low compared to those of her peers, and it's a cliche to point out that they don't tell the whole story. But that part of the story that data leaves untold may be best discovered away from the traditional classroom, and we'll never know what it is if we don't get out there.

In Reply to a Former Student

Dear Ethan,

Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you-- your letter has been sitting by my laptop for several weeks, but I have been waiting for a time when I had the time to compose (and revise!) a thoughtful reply.

First, I’m really pleased to hear that you are writing in your spare time, and it’s even better news that you feel passionate about it. You were reluctant to write much last year, but when you did, it was always interesting and creative. I’m curious about what made you start writing more in your spare time. What kind of things are you writing? I hope you’ll elaborate more on that in future letters.

You asked me about my thoughts on improvement, and so I decided to apply the question to something we have in common-- school. Our roles here are different, but to me, teaching and learning can never be mutually exclusive. No matter what I may be doing in my classroom, if my students are not learning, can I call my actions "teaching"? Even if I'm trying really, really, really hard to teach, without that learning thing, I'm not quite hitting the target, am I?

There’s an old joke that kind of explains what I mean:

Two guys are walking their dogs down the street and one guy says to the other, “Hey, did I tell you I taught my dog to whistle?”

“That’s amazing!” says his friend. “Let’s hear him do it!”

“I said I taught him,” the first man replied. “I didn’t say he learned.”

So what is teaching then? Where's the metaphor that best describes it? A proverb that is often mentioned is Teaching is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. I kind of like the image of igniting that passion for learning in the hope that it will continue burning after you’re gone. It seems to put all the responsibility on the teacher, though. What’s the student’s role?

After some serious thought, the adage that I currently favor to explain my philosophy of teaching is this one: When the student is ready, the master will appear.

Public school teachers, though, can’t choose our students, and we can’t change them, either, so what do we do if they are not ready? With apologies to Batman, how can we be both the master they need and the master they deserve?

One way is to recognize that a master takes many forms. It may be a book or a poem, another student, a project, or an after-school activity. Even if we are not personally the masters they are ready for, we can help our students to find the masters they need by giving them lots of opportunities to think.

So, what about you, Ethan? Where do you fit in? You asked me how I thought you could improve, and here’s what I think: Start by being aware of all those opportunities; don’t dismiss anything as boring or irrelevant before you’ve given it a chance.

My advice to you is to be ready for the master in as many situations as you can.
                                                                                   
Take Care,

Ms. S.