Broken Promises

"Utmost good faith"

that never was

with the election

of this man who

continues to find

new lows, as impossible

as this seems, and I

in good faith can only

weave a tapestry of love

and acceptance, my little

force against the evil

dwelling in a white house



(Inspired by a short line in the Northwest Ordinance enacted by Congress in 1787: "The utmost faith shall always be observed toward the Indians."  Our country is nothing but broken promises.)

The #64Challenge

#64Challenge

(Yes, I'm calling it by a hashtag because for some reason every time I think of it, this is the way I see it written.  Sign of the times, I guess.)

Some things have been floating through my mind for a number of months and now, the day before my 64th birthday, I'm finally ready to commit to an idea.

My Process:

1. I have wanted to do some kind of consistent blogging again.  I've been a bit disappointed at my lack of output, especially over this last summer.  I think a focus will help me a lot.

2. I have thought for a while that I'd like to blog about this coming school year because I'm making a lot of changes and, given my class mix, I may have some cool things to write about.

3. Amy gave me a new notebook. The one I've been using for the last couple of years was a gift from Annmarie, but it's filled up.

4. I knew I didn't want to start a whole new blog, so needed a way to make it fit into this one.

With all this in mind, I've created the #64Challenge.

Here is the general design at this time, subject to change as I see the need:

A. Commitment to 64 posts throughout the school year, labeled as the #64Challenge and numbered.  I may do some other blog posts as well. This will distinguish the project here on the blog.

B. I will write reflections in my journal while at school, and use those as fodder for the blog.

C. I have generated some questions I may use for reflection, based on the important categories here and in my classroom.

 BLUE SPACE: What was the overarching theme, feeling, or focus today? What fed us? How was the sky? Clear? Cloudy? Stormy?

GREEN SPACE: Where was growth? How did we root ourselves? What is expanding? Did anything die?

RIVER FLOW: I read that "books are lakes and stories are rivers." What river ran through class today? What is the small story? What is the larger story?




LIGHTNING STRIKES: I want to keep a good documentation of the "aha moments," both mine and my students'.  I think they go a long way to helping learners grow, and the more we recognize them, the better.



So, that's it!  Will let you know when I get started.

Abundance

Inspired by a line in "To the Bone," a short story by Desiree Cooper.

 

Abundance

There are ways to keep from dwindling down to nothing.

I have filled my soul and spirit

this summer with hope and vision

the direction I have gone has been

a lovely surprise -- I embrace it

I see enhanced value in what I do

and the way I do it. Forethought

Practice. Reflection. The decision

of purposeful action, slow and steady

I have not been to the beach

yet the ocean is inside me, waves

of knowing, the swell of virtue found

in union, not division. Grace and goodness

combating a culture that can lead us astray

causing a hunger and thirst for something real

Billy Preston said "Nothing

from nothing leaves nothing."

Yet in this abundant movement

I am not starving.

I am filled with everything.

Without a Net

I spent yesterday trying to figure out stuff like photo storage and iCloud on my iPhone and iPad, since neither has been backed up in a long time.  I get nervous, thinking, yikes! What if my iPad dies and I'm not backed up?  I've moved the photos to my Mac for safe keeping, and that will suffice. I will clear the way on my devices to add more, but I don't think that it will help the backup problem.

With this in mind, here is today's poem.

What if I go ahead

and live life without a backup?

What am I clinging to anyway?

Technology can strike such fear in us.

But who really cares?

What happens when I'm gone?

This is the real wisdom behind

living in the moment.

What if I can cull things down

to a few important pieces?

And not everything.

What if I cleaned up my own backup

Let the new in?

What does this moment have to

give me that I can store

without a safety net?

 

The Ocean Inside

Last night I read through all the "crash and burns" I wrote at the beginning of our creative writing classes this past school year. C & B is a stream-of-consciousness technique used to burn off things that are on the mind in order to open up to creativity. I always write with the class.

I was a bit taken aback by the many irritations I revealed in the writing. When I think of the school year, I seriously don't remember that stuff.  But then I realized it was because I "crash and burned" it -- I dumped it on the page so I wasn't carrying it.  Cool revelation. It was working!

Anyway, in October I came across a poem I wrote during the crash and burn. I immediately recognized the subject as being something in the book poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.  I had read a chapter called "the poemfish out loud as a way to get started in the crash and burn. (Some kids appreciate having the prompt to get them going.)

Here is what I wrote:

The poemfish swims
on rough days when no one
can remember who or what
they are. The poemfish won't
stop knocking at the door, coming
back for Chromebooks. The poemfish
thinks I wrote a referral when it
was just a lunch detention. The
poemfish knows it is not worth it
to let a student fail -- and the
poemfish really doesn't care. The
poemfish will write an ode to
something long ago & missed.
The poemfish will refill her
water bottle and order more
Rescue Remedy and go to yoga
because there is no better way to
adjust from a day of busy aggravations. 
The poemfish figures missing items
are not coming back and, oh well.
I want to settle into my house &
play mandolin and maybe finally
organize my music I said I would
do last winter. The poemfish knows
it's getting harder & harder to schedule
time with the writing group, our lives
so much busier and crazier. Yet
the poemfish has discovered that
her life can have balance. Yes --
balance after all.

3:20 pm    10/3/18

I was a bit delighted finding this, so I went back to the chapter in Susan's book and found this in the chapter:

The poems really are messages to me whispering, Be calm, go deep, go slow. There's a long poem brewing in me, "The Poemfish," still rough,

...When the poemfish moves
the sea lights up
with stars that dip and swim...
The poemfish lives
in the night ocean.
If you sleep mouth open
the poemfish might swim in.
You'll dream salty words
that swim away sideways, slow...

And now I remember. Worrying about what people think of me and my poems always gets me in trouble. I get lost "out there."  It's the process of writing poems that helps me bring my heart back home. It put me in touch with the ocean inside I can never lose, where poems come from and where I connect to me. (50)

When I go back and look at my "poemfish" poem, I see that it is full of past and present, of calming myself down, of coming to terms, of revelation, and yes, even a weird shift in point of view. In some cases the poemfish was other people who were coming and going. On first read, I think, What a mess. But in reality, it is a useful exercise in revealing the ocean inside, the place we are in any given moment when we are able to just let our thoughts glide by. This writing was connecting me to me. And that is all that matters.  That is what kept me afloat during the school year.

For that, I'm truly grateful!



(Painting graphic "Entre Amigo" by Felix Murillo)

Wind

Inspired by the poem "Don't Bother the Earth Spirit" by Joy Harjo.  The first line is from her poem.

This is no ordinary story

it is as small as making dinner

as large as running for president

it is as small as these marks on a page

as large as music that fills the spheres

it is as small as a cup of tea

as large as the sun on the mountains

We do not live in ordinary ways

We are minute and gigantic at the same time

in the same moment

Follow the breath

It is the wind of the world

Reflections on the 2018-19 School Year

In May, language arts teacher and author Pernille Ripp wrote a blog post called What Did You Want to Be This Year.   I vowed to write my own.

Today I pulled the three pages of notes I made last summer with the title "Keep Your Focus" that I used as my outline for the year.

Short answer: I did pretty well.

In May 2018 I had looked at my reading class and thought, "I have not helped them become readers." Thus, my mission over the summer became one of figuring out how to make that a reality.  I read extensively, created a plan, sold the plan to my reading coach, administration, and reading department, and when the school year began we were ready.

The plan was simple: allow 10 minutes of free reading time in every reading class, as well as during the lunchtime period which has extra time built into it.  Reading teachers taught readers how to make a goal for their reading, our media specialists took time to make sure all classrooms had books available, and we were off and running.

It worked way better than I ever anticipated. The kids bought in immediately. It was like they were waiting!  In fact, the biggest complaint I heard over and over again was that they weren't getting ENOUGH time to read their own books.

Winning!

But back to the purpose of this post -- to reflect on my success in being who I set out to be.


I have five categories that I reflected on to prep this blog.  Here is how I fared:

I wanted to be focused on what was most important: What this means is the emphasis on independent reading, goal setting, and some standard classroom activities that set the right tone. In general, I stuck with this. There was only a short period of time during 2nd quarter when I got a bit off my focus, but in general I remembered what was important.  Sacred reading time. That alone made for a calmer classroom.  And a calmer teacher!

When stressed slow down: This mostly came after I went through my 2nd quarter blitz when I was trying to cram in too much. I happened upon a book called We Got This: Equity Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor. His wise words helped me get much more purposeful about my approach to everything: conducting class, assessing, grading, and relationships. It caused me to write a new mission statement based on the acronym BRIDGE:

Build relationships
Illuminate discovery
Generate expression

Once I had this formula, I knew better what to do in every moment.  I will be revisiting Minor's book before school begins again to be sure that I am implementing as many of his ideas as possible for a successful 19-20.

Get feedback from the classes: With Pernille's insistence, I made sure I was surveying my readers as much as possible to be up to date on what they were thinking about our class.  I then made sure they knew I HEARD their concerns, and we adjusted each class accordingly. This is one of the simplest things a teacher can do, yet in the past I didn't always take the time. Now I know it IS the most important work.

As good as surveys are, I think I will be implementing more class meetings as well this coming year.  Minor has a very short version that gives just a few minutes for kids to express concerns. I am committed to this as a way to keep updated on a more regular basis.  Our classes meet every other day, so I will probably put the meetings on Fridays when we have class.

Create space: It was the glitch in 2nd quarter and the Minor book that made me realize I had to create more space for readers to share their reading experiences.  I hadn't actually made a plan for that, so at the beginning of 3rd quarter I implemented "Reading Fridays" as a way to be sure we connected as readers. This took a variety of forms: watching and responding to videos about the benefits of reading, playing games like CLUMP to share our books, making one-pagers and writing book reviews, and letting our reading coach take a day to have the kids make recommendation tags for the library.  This is a must to kick off at the beginning of the next school year. Class meeting then reading day.  Perfect.

Reduce technology: For several years we had required computer programs for reading, places to go to assess or build skills.  I thankfully was able to set that aside this year. I don't think anyone missed it, and the work we were doing in class, be it independent reading or any of our activities, were obviously more valuable than mindlessly going through a computer program. Through a variety of formative assessments, personal observation, and self-reporting by readers, I could see that all classes grew as thinkers and readers.


PLANS FOR NEXT SCHOOL YEAR

My experience this year -- which created a less stressful environment for me, even though I was teaching four preps -- left me with some energy at the end of the year to begin to think about how we can build on the foundation we began this year. I'm working closely with my partner teacher and reading coach to move toward more directed standards-based learning and grading, as well as deeper instruction in research. We determined as a team that research skills are lacking in our students, and it is time to reclaim what we used to do. The AP for our Reading Dept. has great ideas for this, and will lead us in the right direction. I find this very exciting!

Writing is also going to become a greater part of what we do. I meant for it to be included more last year, but when I ran into roadblocks, I didn't take the time or energy to figure out how to fix the problem. I am being more proactive on writing this year, as it will be implemented more strongly from the start.

Many of our reading teachers are interested in the Global Read Aloud, and we are preparing for it as well.  The community of educators I have met online via Pernille's page as well as the GRA page keep me motivated and hopeful. There are teachers all over the world who believe in their mission and are putting everything into it. I am proud to stand in solidarity with them.  If our readers can be part of a GLOBAL reading community, how much more importance it will hold.  It also may help us try new things like Flipgrid as a way to communicate with others. So many possibilities!

Final answer to the questions Was I who I wanted to be this year?  I'd say 85% of the the time.

Next year I'm shooting for 100% once again. I feel I have the support and the community around me I need to make this happen.  I have no doubt that by keeping my focus, getting feedback, creating space, and being more purposeful, I can succeed.

And nothing feels better than that!