A few days ago Tory, a student teacher in Arizona, wrote about helping out other teachers on her blog The Education of Miss Waggoner. She wrote about the "extra" work teachers have to do during the day and because she isn't teaching the entire day yet, she had the opportunity to help out her colleagues. She even mentioned how glad she was to be there to give these teachers an extra hand because from her perspective "it would have taken a lot longer for those teachers to get their work done had I not been there."
I'm really proud of Tory. I'm proud that she 1. recognizes there's much work to get done, 2. understands we can hardly fit in all the work that needs to be done with the given hands and time, 3. that she recognizes help is necessary, and 4. that she offers help to her colleagues.
Yesterday I realized I had to be gone from work today. When I realized my student teacher was coming with me, we both stayed to write lesson plans for the day. I knew I had to summon Amy's help not only to save myself some time, but also to help her understand the process of what elements need to be present for the substitute to be somewhat successful.
While I created handouts for the students, wrote out the lesson plan, and wrote a personal letter to my substitute, Amy made copies, stapled and hole-punched the papers, wrote the agenda on the board, straightened the room and organized the desk for the substitute. It took the two of us over two full hours--or 140 minutes--to prepare for a substitute to teach 240 minutes.
And this is why I go to school when I'm sick. :)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Girl on Subway
(Author's Note: I wrote "Girl on Subway" in Februrary 2009. I remember this happening, but I don't remember where I was. I've been looking through unposted blog writings and posting them...b/c basically I'm too lazy to write new posts, but since my colleagues are committed to posting to their blogs, then I will too!
We don't have a subway in Springfield, but like I said earlier, I can't remember where I was when this happened. The truth about today is this: I wasn't in the mood to bless the rain even though we so desperately needed it. I was, however, cursing it under my breath every time I loaded and unloaded my school bags, walked thru puddles, and dug around in my wet purse for my lipstick. Then I drove my car by the uncovered bus stop on National, across from St. John's Hospital, and I forgot how wet I was.)
Girl on Subway
I sat across from her.
She looked haggard and tired, like this one day alone had been longer than every day of the month in a hot August. She jumped on the subway at the last minute, barely squeezing between the doors closing shut, her shirt, recently untucked from her skirt suit. She carried her suit jacket in the crook of her left arm, an umbrella and newspaper in her hand. Her oversized bag, black and patton leather, on her left shoulder, a silver thermos in her right hand.
It's 5:43 p.m.
She was simply dressed, but wore both elegance and modernity. A grey skirt and white, collared button up. Panty hose. Gray heels. Making her way through the crowd from the door, she found the seat across from me...open. Empty.
She sat down with without pretending to be a lady. I went home and wrote her in haiku:
Digging in abyss
Rooting, scrounging, foraging
"Where the hell is it!"
Digging and sifting
Searching, Probing, Uncovering...
Chapstick from her purse.
We don't have a subway in Springfield, but like I said earlier, I can't remember where I was when this happened. The truth about today is this: I wasn't in the mood to bless the rain even though we so desperately needed it. I was, however, cursing it under my breath every time I loaded and unloaded my school bags, walked thru puddles, and dug around in my wet purse for my lipstick. Then I drove my car by the uncovered bus stop on National, across from St. John's Hospital, and I forgot how wet I was.)
Girl on Subway
I sat across from her.
She looked haggard and tired, like this one day alone had been longer than every day of the month in a hot August. She jumped on the subway at the last minute, barely squeezing between the doors closing shut, her shirt, recently untucked from her skirt suit. She carried her suit jacket in the crook of her left arm, an umbrella and newspaper in her hand. Her oversized bag, black and patton leather, on her left shoulder, a silver thermos in her right hand.
It's 5:43 p.m.
She was simply dressed, but wore both elegance and modernity. A grey skirt and white, collared button up. Panty hose. Gray heels. Making her way through the crowd from the door, she found the seat across from me...open. Empty.
She sat down with without pretending to be a lady. I went home and wrote her in haiku:
Digging in abyss
Rooting, scrounging, foraging
"Where the hell is it!"
Digging and sifting
Searching, Probing, Uncovering...
Chapstick from her purse.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Life Makes Sense...Finally
(Author's Note: This post was originally written in the fall of 2008, but since tomorrow my kids are taking the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, I thought I'd look around my unpublished blog posts and see if I had written anything about personality in the past. Of course...there were several. A few modifications, plus a title change and here we are at a blog post. For now, I'm not linking to anything in this post yet...I will eventually. I'm simply too tired.)
Who I am? Last night I was reading my personality traits book. I'm not sure what this obsession is with my personality. It makes me think I'm trying to figure out who I am, finally, after all these years. Am I going through a mid-life crisis? I don't know. But all of a sudden I am once again intrigued with what my personality says about me.
It's not all of a sudden. For 20 years I've been infatuated. Consumed by traits and charactersistics of myself, my students, my friends, my family. In college, I took the Myers-Briggs as often as possible. I even stooped to the lowest levels of personality testing (and I'm not including the ones on Facebook.) I took color personality tests, animal personality tests, food personality tests, even biblical personality tests. Sounds narcistic, I know. Embarrassing to admit.
When I started teaching, I began to look at ways I could use personality testing in my classroom as a means to get to know my students and to experiment with collaborative learning groups based on the traits. When I first started learning about and teaching Shakespeare, I was in awe of his ability to put personality into the very being of all of his characters with precision and purpose. The Four Humours during Elizabethan times seems to snag the interest of my students...maybe talking about yellow and black bile does that. But moving ahead and transitioning to the modern era of the four personality types and reading Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey, hooked me into to using personality testing in my classroom. Since then, I've asked students take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter in my classroom, calculate their results, read through their personality characteristics, and respond in writing workshop to what plays out in front of them. Most are overwhelmingly shocked by the accuracy. I ask the kids to provide stories and details about their traits. "If your personality indicates you have a tendency to be late, can you write about time when this was an issue for you? Or possibly you already know this about yourself, have you reversed the tendency? If so, how?"
Using the personality test also helps kids think about the actions and personality of characters in the books they read. In their 3-week Letter Essay about what they've been reading, many students pull out distinct traits, and are able to write about decisions they think characters will make throughout the book once they get to know them. It's almost as if the book, in some way, becomes relevant to their own learning because they connect the real world of growing, living, decisive human beings to fictional characters. This produces some pretty amazing results in writing, too, and I can easily ask a student "Are you writing him as a Guardian Supervisor?" This sparks inquiry and research on the character traits begins.
I have to admit watching the students discover their personality is inspiring. It's not as if they don't know who they are, but for the first time, it's like life, their life, is making sense to them.
As for me, I'm always discovering who I am. For today, I'm an Idealist Champion...a catalyst, it says. If I were in Chem I, I'd be that substance that accelerates a chemical reaction. In life, sometimes I'm that person that helps activity happen between others. I like to think even, that sometimes I can help bring about change, or cause others to bring out their own energy, enthusiasm, and friendliness. Mostly, I like to think this lesson on personality is a simple catalyst for students to start leading a reflective life full of learning. One can only hope.
Who I am? Last night I was reading my personality traits book. I'm not sure what this obsession is with my personality. It makes me think I'm trying to figure out who I am, finally, after all these years. Am I going through a mid-life crisis? I don't know. But all of a sudden I am once again intrigued with what my personality says about me.
It's not all of a sudden. For 20 years I've been infatuated. Consumed by traits and charactersistics of myself, my students, my friends, my family. In college, I took the Myers-Briggs as often as possible. I even stooped to the lowest levels of personality testing (and I'm not including the ones on Facebook.) I took color personality tests, animal personality tests, food personality tests, even biblical personality tests. Sounds narcistic, I know. Embarrassing to admit.
When I started teaching, I began to look at ways I could use personality testing in my classroom as a means to get to know my students and to experiment with collaborative learning groups based on the traits. When I first started learning about and teaching Shakespeare, I was in awe of his ability to put personality into the very being of all of his characters with precision and purpose. The Four Humours during Elizabethan times seems to snag the interest of my students...maybe talking about yellow and black bile does that. But moving ahead and transitioning to the modern era of the four personality types and reading Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey, hooked me into to using personality testing in my classroom. Since then, I've asked students take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter in my classroom, calculate their results, read through their personality characteristics, and respond in writing workshop to what plays out in front of them. Most are overwhelmingly shocked by the accuracy. I ask the kids to provide stories and details about their traits. "If your personality indicates you have a tendency to be late, can you write about time when this was an issue for you? Or possibly you already know this about yourself, have you reversed the tendency? If so, how?"
Using the personality test also helps kids think about the actions and personality of characters in the books they read. In their 3-week Letter Essay about what they've been reading, many students pull out distinct traits, and are able to write about decisions they think characters will make throughout the book once they get to know them. It's almost as if the book, in some way, becomes relevant to their own learning because they connect the real world of growing, living, decisive human beings to fictional characters. This produces some pretty amazing results in writing, too, and I can easily ask a student "Are you writing him as a Guardian Supervisor?" This sparks inquiry and research on the character traits begins.
I have to admit watching the students discover their personality is inspiring. It's not as if they don't know who they are, but for the first time, it's like life, their life, is making sense to them.
As for me, I'm always discovering who I am. For today, I'm an Idealist Champion...a catalyst, it says. If I were in Chem I, I'd be that substance that accelerates a chemical reaction. In life, sometimes I'm that person that helps activity happen between others. I like to think even, that sometimes I can help bring about change, or cause others to bring out their own energy, enthusiasm, and friendliness. Mostly, I like to think this lesson on personality is a simple catalyst for students to start leading a reflective life full of learning. One can only hope.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Who Inspired(s) Me to Write...
My 2nd grade teacher let me write a short story, "The Dragon in My Garden", and sent a letter home to my parents about me being a writer. I was hooked. I'm 30 years now into diaries, journals, and blog posts.
Writing gave me a new insight to its value when I started reading my mother's daily journal entries a few years ago, (she passed away 25 years earlier) and I noticed my own writing began to change with it. So did my motivation to write.
Although I never felt stifled as a writer during high school and college, I'm not sure I was ever able to explore my writing thoroughly, and I know I wasn't able to develop myself as a writing teacher until I learned to understand my own processing at the Greater Kansas City Writing Project in 2002.
There's an article floating around on Twitter right now from the New York Times about re-connecting with teachers on Facebook. I can't visit with my 2nd grade teacher anymore, but I'm blessed with teaching during the age of Facebook and just last week a former student posted a compliment on my wall to how I inspired her writing. Fortunately, I get to say back, "it was you, and all your classmates, who continue to inspire my own writing and being a writing teacher." This constant connection and re-connection continues to pull me toward writing and its value in my life.
Writing gave me a new insight to its value when I started reading my mother's daily journal entries a few years ago, (she passed away 25 years earlier) and I noticed my own writing began to change with it. So did my motivation to write.
Although I never felt stifled as a writer during high school and college, I'm not sure I was ever able to explore my writing thoroughly, and I know I wasn't able to develop myself as a writing teacher until I learned to understand my own processing at the Greater Kansas City Writing Project in 2002.
There's an article floating around on Twitter right now from the New York Times about re-connecting with teachers on Facebook. I can't visit with my 2nd grade teacher anymore, but I'm blessed with teaching during the age of Facebook and just last week a former student posted a compliment on my wall to how I inspired her writing. Fortunately, I get to say back, "it was you, and all your classmates, who continue to inspire my own writing and being a writing teacher." This constant connection and re-connection continues to pull me toward writing and its value in my life.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
How to Really Love Your Kids by Sara Allen
I was talking to Sara after SI today and I asked her why she thought her kids loved her class. She said "because I really love them." And then these gems started rolling off her tongue. I typed them as she said them. She teachers 4th-5th grade in Springfield, Missouri.
"Pick up their pencil when it rolls off their desk.
Make sure they're wearing their coat when they go outside...and zip it up.
Go outside and try to catch a football even though you never can.
Let them try on your high heels...who cares how much they cost.
Be yourself.
They know who you are...and they know when you are wearing a mask.
Be authentic.
Be true.
It's not all great--they will get mad at you and they will say things that you did even though you really didn't do it. They will say bad things, you can't let that change how you treat them the next day.
Hold the door open for them. Say hello every morning.
Hold the door when they leave. Say goodbye.
If they are having a bad day, a piece of gum can turn things around.
Let them write a note or journal if they can't get into their math that day.
They can totally tell if you're just there and you are not honing in on what they are saying...this is one of the most important things.
They will feel love if you know they really care. It's not a perfect formula for getting them to do what you want, but you are acknowledging that the are humans and you are in a human relationship with them.
Be determined to get through the bad times. When you are pushed, and pushed, and pushed...at the end of the day you must reconnect and wish them a good evening.
Your tone needs to be respectful.
When you do something silly--tell them how you are breaking yourself out of the box.
Know their ages--they are cute and they are dolls--but they are little people.
Let passion ooze out of everything you do and everything you say.
Let students feel your energy.
Let your room take on that energy...and feed off of that energy.
Maybe that's love. I don't know. But that's what it boils down to...love, honesty, and willingness to learn, grow, and change.
Say no occasionally when they ask for a piece of candy.
Don't give compliments that aren't true. It loses it's meaning.
Be explicit with your feedback--things are just "great."
Recognition is important.
When they give you a picture with your name spelled wrong, hang it up anyway.
When they make you a happy anniversary poster and it's spelled totally wrong and it's 4 feet long--take up the wall space anyway.
When they give you a cookie with their dirty little fingerprints on it, eat it anyway. You won't die.
Be geniune.
Be truly thankful.
When they bring you a wilted flower they forgot to give you last Friday, you put water in a vase and you put it on your desk and you leave it there until it's totally dead.
When vomit splatters on your heels and your skirt...remember that it washes away."
"Pick up their pencil when it rolls off their desk.
Make sure they're wearing their coat when they go outside...and zip it up.
Go outside and try to catch a football even though you never can.
Let them try on your high heels...who cares how much they cost.
Be yourself.
They know who you are...and they know when you are wearing a mask.
Be authentic.
Be true.
It's not all great--they will get mad at you and they will say things that you did even though you really didn't do it. They will say bad things, you can't let that change how you treat them the next day.
Hold the door open for them. Say hello every morning.
Hold the door when they leave. Say goodbye.
If they are having a bad day, a piece of gum can turn things around.
Let them write a note or journal if they can't get into their math that day.
They can totally tell if you're just there and you are not honing in on what they are saying...this is one of the most important things.
They will feel love if you know they really care. It's not a perfect formula for getting them to do what you want, but you are acknowledging that the are humans and you are in a human relationship with them.
Be determined to get through the bad times. When you are pushed, and pushed, and pushed...at the end of the day you must reconnect and wish them a good evening.
Your tone needs to be respectful.
When you do something silly--tell them how you are breaking yourself out of the box.
Know their ages--they are cute and they are dolls--but they are little people.
Let passion ooze out of everything you do and everything you say.
Let students feel your energy.
Let your room take on that energy...and feed off of that energy.
Maybe that's love. I don't know. But that's what it boils down to...love, honesty, and willingness to learn, grow, and change.
Say no occasionally when they ask for a piece of candy.
Don't give compliments that aren't true. It loses it's meaning.
Be explicit with your feedback--things are just "great."
Recognition is important.
When they give you a picture with your name spelled wrong, hang it up anyway.
When they make you a happy anniversary poster and it's spelled totally wrong and it's 4 feet long--take up the wall space anyway.
When they give you a cookie with their dirty little fingerprints on it, eat it anyway. You won't die.
Be geniune.
Be truly thankful.
When they bring you a wilted flower they forgot to give you last Friday, you put water in a vase and you put it on your desk and you leave it there until it's totally dead.
When vomit splatters on your heels and your skirt...remember that it washes away."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)