On the Possibility of a Perfect Learning Environment

The way I know I am still growing is this: I learn every day that I have no idea what I am doing.

And that's okay. The cycle of my learning life goes a little something like this:

I wonder how this works > I am so awesome at this! > I have absolutely no idea how this works > I wonder how to make this better > I am so awesome at this! > How did I ever think I understood this? > Okay, so how does this really work?

Ad infinitum.

Take for instance, my stance on learning environments. More specifically, departmentalized instruction versus self-contained classrooms. For years I attempted to convince my first principal to let me try departmentalized instruction. After four years of teaching 4th grade, I was convinced I knew a better way. And that, my friends, was to allow teachers to specialize in one content area so that students learned the material from teachers that knew and loved the content. My principal always refused the request, however, warning me that departmentalized classrooms suffer from a lack of teacher-student relationships. I assured her this wasn't the case -- I had research to prove my belief! Smart people with multiple degrees and eons more experience than me agreed that this was the way to go. She was not convinced, but I clung to my belief that departmentalizing instruction was best for students and teachers.

This belief eventually played a small part in my departure from that school and entry into a new campus where I taught reading, writing, and social studies to two classes of students. They would receive math and science instruction from my co-teacher across the hall. I went into this experience filled with optimism and eager to spend a year immersed in the subject I was most knowledgable and passionate about. And I was right, to a certain extent. Focusing on reading and writing helped me to spend more time honing my craft as a teacher in that area. My relationship with my students was solid -- stronger, perhaps, than it had been before. In part this was because of the need of the particular learners I worked with; struggling students in a low income area that craved learning and worked hard to grow. What I did not expect, but probably should have, was the immense time crunch that happens when you jump from having an entire day with students to only spending two hours a day with them. There is no time to shift subjects around, squeeze in extra learning, or spend an extra hour on something your learners are struggling with -- you have 600 minutes a week with students, the end. Every minute becomes crucial.

Just a couple years after that initial exposure to the departmentalized classroom, I've landed at a charter school with a focus on classical instruction. At this school, I still teach 4th grade, but instead of two sections of students, there are four. That's a little under 90 students I work with each day, teaching writing and social studies. I have sixty minutes with each class. We work on our writing craft, learn to be more efficient revisers and editors of our own work, and of course, tackle the history curriculum of the 4th grade Texas student. I love this new school, my students, and the teaching family I work with each day. I feel like I've found my new teaching home.

And in the first semester of my experience here, I've learned so much about why I was wrong all those times I tried to convince my old principal that departmentalized instruction was better for students.

I still believe my relationship with my students is solid. I know them as people. I can tell you all about their interests and their personalities. I know how to talk to each one to help them grow. And they know me; I share my life with them, both the successes and the struggles. It's not the relationship with them as people that suffers.

It's the relationship with the student as a complete learner that flounders. If I were only teaching math, I might not understand where the student is as a reader. Missing this detail could mean not seeing why a student is struggling in math. Sure, the reading teacher can share this information with me. I might have the background knowledge, but until I sit and read with this child, and walk side by side with him or her through the particular struggles, I won't truly experience the problem and work on the solution. I won't be a part of the process. And with only an hour to focus on my content area, the chances of ever having time to make this type of connection is slim, to say the least. Not for lack of want. There is only so much one human can do in 60 minutes in a room filled with different needs and learning styles.

So what now? Now that I accept that my original ideas were only half-formed, now that I know there is so much more to the story than focusing on the ability for a teacher to specialize? Well, I keep doing what I'm doing. Keep learning, keep trying to find a better way to reach all my learners. Some days the overwhelming amount of information I'm expected to share with students seems impossible. Other days it seems we're figuring it out, stumbling gracefully forward. I still believe relationship is everything, and will never stop focusing on building trust and community with each of my students. It all starts there.

Is there one best way to teach a group of students everything they need to learn within a year? Maybe. Maybe not. But what I am learning, what I see so much more clearly every year, is that there are infinite ways to reach our students. We won't always be in the best situation. We will rarely have all the resources we feel we need. But the most important factor in the classroom is not the curriculum or the technology available or even the physical space. The greatest asset a classroom has is the attitude of the teacher. There will be good and bad days, amazing lessons and total flops, days when every moment is like pulling a freight train along with you, and times when the entire room is alive as if filled with some otherworldly magic. The classroom is a living, breathing space. It is what we make it.

And as for me, I intend to keep on building my skill, honing in on my craft, and articulating my love for each of my students every day, regardless of whether we are self-contained or in the fast paced whirl of a departmentalized classroom. While no learning environment may ever be perfect for all learners, my attitude and compassion fill the gap. So I will continue learning and growing right alongside my students, and together we will create the space that is perfect for us. Every day a different classroom, week by week, until I send them off to their future and greet my new learners at the door and begin to build again.

After all, what is learning if not constantly building, tearing down, and rebuilding the things you thought you knew?

SOL: Hike Your Own Hike, an #NCTE14 reflection

Everyone has to hike their own hike.

I first heard this phrase when reading Jennifer Pharr Davis' Becoming Odyssa, a memoir of her first through-hike on the Appalachian Trail. If you've not heard it before, the context is simple: go at your own pace, don't compare yourself to others, and do what works for you so that you can make it to the end.

It's become a bit of a private mantra of mine in the nearly five years since first reading her book.

Hike your own hike.


It's permission to live my life according to my own beliefs and guidelines, without feeling less than or guilty because I am not in the same place as those around me.

Gae and some poor mismatched homeless chick...

Combined with my other heartsong, First Do No Harm, I'm often able to ride out storm-tossed waves while people around me are capsizing in miniature anxiety-boats. Not always. Not even with a whole lot of grace. But I'm learning, and that makes me happy.

My Teacher Twin and Co-Ninja!

It's empowering, knowing you're right where you're supposed to be -- that your place on the mountain is equally as important and meaningful as those both above and beneath you, and every traveler that has walked a thousand footsteps more than you or is only just now stepping foot onto their path has no more and no less worth. We're all just hiking along, doing our best as we go.

Best roommates ever! Had so much fun with these two!

These words swirled around my mind repeatedly in the last five days while walking the labyrinthian corridors of the NCTE Conference. It's packed with so many sessions, events, author signings, and get-togethers that attempting to try to do them all could make a person go a little loopy -- especially when factoring in a bunch of roomies all interested in different things. That's why the hiker's mantra is so powerful; do what you need to best sustain your own experience, and give others the space to do so as well.

Alan Sitomer literally changed the way I think about my writing.

I took it easy at this conference. Slept in a couple mornings. Hung out talking to old friends and made some new ones. Went to sessions by authors and gleaned meaningful and sometimes life-changing insights that I may not have experienced had I simply gone to the sessions everyone else was attending. I spent my evenings sightseeing and writing and relaxing. Perhaps for the first time at one of these huge mega-conferences, I felt like I was really experiencing each moment, not rushing and worrying over inconsequential things.

One of my favorite nights at #NCTE14!

When it comes to teaching (and learning), the same outlook holds true. Teaching is an art. Educators need room to find their own style and deserve the opportunity to spend time on professional development that matters to them. After all, how can we empower students to be their best personal self if we aren't given the opportunity to grow into the most enlightened version of our teaching selves? I think that's one reason I love the NCTE conference so much -- while my colleagues are at a session learning about using Shakespeare in the classroom, I am listening to authors discuss the importance of revision, and still others are sitting in round table discussions about how to change the way grammar is taught.

Light is my One Little Word for 2014. I love how it weaves through all I do...

We're all hiking our own hike, every day, and somehow we're doing it together. And I think that makes us all stronger. I'm so thankful to be a part of this vast network of brilliantly different and passionate educators.

See you on the trail, friends.

Conferring with Inquiry in Mind - #NCTE13

I love the way my peers in The North Star of Texas Writing Project challenge me to think deeply about the decisions I make when working with young writers. Here is the thinking I've been sifting through about conferencing with students:

Writing Teachers (Re)Inventing Literacy Instruction by Following the North Star

What? 

I believe student conferences are the heart of writing workshop, but how do I guide conversations to encourage student growth without doing the work for them or squashing the young writer’s voice or desire to write? There is a Don Murray quote in Write Beside Them that embodies my goals when conferencing with a writer: “you should always leave a conference excited to get back to the writing.” I want to create contagious enthusiasm in an environment that encourages writers to take joy in the risk of playing boldly with their craft.

So what? 

Lucy Calkins said, “Helping [students] take themselves seriously is crucial for them as writers and as maturing human beings.” I believe daily modeling through mentor texts helps students identify what works in a piece of writing, which is essential to scaffolding their ability to discover both what works and does not work in their own writing. Mentor texts and conferencing work hand in hand. I also know a student’s decision to share their writing heart with me is dependent on how I treat them -- as a person and as a writer. Don Murray said, “I must create a climate in the writing conference in which students can hear what they have to say so they can learn to listen to their own writing.” I must be purposeful in my planning and my words each time I work with a writer.

Now what?   

I invite writers to share their work with me, and sometimes offer to read back their writing to them. This seems to help them hear their writing as their audience will receive it, and gives them the opportunity to write down what they notice about their own work. I’m learning to wait on writers when they are contemplating what their writing needs. My silence gives them space to think, and my “I notice” and “I wonder” statements help them look for their own answers, building their writing confidence. Research shows that writers grow best from receiving feedback, not evaluation. In fact, in The Essential Don Murray, he states it so eloquently :

"How do you motivate your student to pass through this process, perhaps even pass through it again and again on the same piece of writing?

First, by shutting up. When you are talking, he isn't writing." 

So my job during a writing conference is not to correct or change their work, but to listen and guide through gentle feedback and the silence that allows self reflection. I praise what has worked, and invite them to experiment with these techniques in other ways.

Takeaway: 

As a writing partner, it’s my job to be prepared when we sit down together. In this way, I show respect for the writer and their work. This means knowing where my learners are in their writing journey. I need strong organization and notes on each writer. I have found Evernote to be indispensable tool helping me efficiently organize my conference notes. By creating folders for each student, I can tag their work and include photos, my own conference notes, and audio files on the work we do together. This also allows me to keep a digital writing portfolio on each writer to share with parents, in data meetings, and for the student to reflect on their work throughout the year.

The Differences That Matter

Magic is happening in the Ninja Writer's classroom this year.

It's week 10, and we're about halfway through our read aloud of The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. I fell in love with this book over the summer, so I was thrilled when I found out it was the Global Read Aloud choice for 2012. Both my classes are simply eating it up -- daily as I read, my students are scribbling notes and drawing sketches while they think about what is happening in the text.

This morning as I read, a hand shot up and before I could even respond, a small voice piped up from a boy sitting in the back of the group gathered around me, "I just noticed that word has more than one meaning!"

He was talking about the word "trunk." The story had just referenced Ruby, the baby elephant, using her trunk. We paused for a minute to discuss the many variations of the word, and everyone seemed excited -- both because of what happened in the story (I won't ruin it for you!) and because someone had noticed something significant. We've been talking a lot about multiple word meanings, and the importance of understanding which meaning is right in the context of the reading.

After we finished our reading for today, I showed my students how to use the "Someone...Wanted...But...So...Then" method for summarizing a piece of text. More hands shot up.

"I noticed a preposition!"
"I noticed you used a FANBOY (conjunction) to join those two ideas together!"
"I just used a metaphor from the story to explain the problem in this chapter!"

And on and on it went.

Needless to say, this teacher was beaming from ear to ear.

This year has been difficult for me. Most of the ideas and teaching methods I've brought along with me to my new school aren't generally accepted here. I spent the first several weeks hiding in my room behind a closed door hoping nobody would notice my rebel teaching style. When it was noticed, it was questioned, and even scoffed at as "too much work." Eventually, I realized I was causing more stress by holding to my vow of silence.

So I spoke up. First, in a timid, shaky voice. But each time I spoke up, I grew a little less timid and lot more bold. Eventually, I put my foot down. I will not follow nonsense instruction (thank you, Nancy Atwell). More recently, questions are being asked, but in a different way. Teachers are curious about the blogging, the brain research, the books I've been reading. It made me realize that there is a lot more than stress-reduction that happens when you stand up for what you believe.

I keep following my heart, listening to my wise friend and unknowing mentor, Jenny, and plowing hopefully forward. Surely, I tell myself, surely... this is the right way.

Last week my students took their first 9 week unit exams. Three stories, one selection of paired poems to compare, and one stand alone poem. 32 questions.

My students are (in my opinion) oddly grouped. My morning class consists of students that struggle to read anywhere near grade level. Reading is hard for them. But oh my goodness, they work hard; they are so eager to learn, to improve. Of the 19 students in that class, well over half receive some sort of modification or special services. Half of those need almost constant one on one attention to complete their work. Because of this, most of them haven't had much of an opportunity for peer work or small group collaboration before this year. We've spent much of our first weeks together just learning how to have conversations, how to make eye contact, and how to use what we know about how our brains work to help us learn. Due to cutbacks in the budget, none of them receive as much help as they really need. I stand in the gap as best I can.

My afternoon class has several students in the gifted and talented program. Those that aren't in that program are still typically high-achieving students. This is my squirrely class. High-kinesthetic need, low ability to attend to their behavior. We're working on metacognition and having an intrinsic locus of control. But they are also hard workers, and want to learn -- they soak up everything I throw at them, and surprise me daily with their insight.

The fact that these students are separated makes things more difficult for them. The students that really struggle don't have peers to learn from. The students that are excelling don't often have the opportunity to teach what they know. I feel we're missing out on some huge learning opportunities.

Today we received the data from last week's exam. Our guys have the highest reading scores in the district. When I arrived here, I was told to be prepared to "work my butt off" because of the high number of special needs students in our grade level this year. I was told to stick to the district  directives for instruction. I was told many things.

I did what many of us do. I chose what worked for me, for my students, and for our unique needs. I tossed out the rest. I gave (and will continue to give) my students ample time to read and write each day. I try to stay out of their way as they learn, and I guide them in the direction we need to go.

So far, I think we're doing just fine. And I'm glad to have some data to keep the naysayers at bay. I know that reading makes a difference. Choice makes a difference. A positive, happy influence makes a difference. Children that know how their brain works, how they learn best, and how to use that information -- that makes a difference. These are the differences that matter. As my friends with Human Systems Dynamics would say -- these are the differences that make a difference.