Piling Metaphors

Piles…

The story of my life.

It seems I’ve lived with them for an eternity.

School papers, ministry details, family matters. Piles everywhere.

Are they a metaphor for a busy mind?

My busy mind?

Are they creativity, genius, and unlimited opportunities?

Or are my piles chaos, paralysis, and missed chances?

A little of both, but more often the latter.

At my age, should I just give up and embrace my piles?

One of my favorite fake Einstein quotes says,

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?”

I don’t know, but I pine for an empty desk.

Maybe I even long for an occasionally empty mind.

Today is my last day of summer.

I love the fresh start of a new school year.

The piles get filed.

Hope is reborn.

Productivity prevails.

How long will it last?

Not long enough, I’m afraid.

A clean desk. #cy365 #t365project #jjaproject A picture in a picture.

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Time for Family and Home, Not Just School

I had an amazing summer. We have a two-month break from school, and for the whole time I was settled into my small desert island nest. You can’t drive more than an hour in one direction here before you get to the sea and have to turn around.

I was home for two months with time to spend cooking and baking for friends, including never-before-attempted recipes, spending leisurely time with people, cleaning and organizing my home, keeping up with daily household chores, reading, reading, reading, writing, eating out, taking long walks in air conditioned spaces, enjoying my husband, reflecting on U.S. politics and racism, reading the Bible, praying, and never feeling anxious or worried–except occasionally about the way our country is headed.

Our first time making California rolls.

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My summer is coming to a close, and I am a little bit dreading going back to the never-ending grind of busyness that the school year has become for me the last few years. Recently I read,  “Wrapping Up My Summer of ‘No'” by Katherine Sokolowski. It was like a rallying cry for me to join her fragile movement of finding balance.

Like Katherine, I can relate to making school not only my work, but my life and leisure, as well. My children are grown and live 7,000 miles away, and my husband is an amazing servant who can cook and clean and does. As a result, I have lots of time to work. And like Katherine, I love working. I love creating opportunities, preparing BreakoutEDU games, writing blog posts, publishing student blog posts, shifting the way we’ve always done it, figuring out how best to meet the needs of my English language learners. I am never satisfied and never feel finished with my work at school.

However, that life is less than complete. I don’t have serenity. I miss out on so many moments of joy. I don’t want the unbalanced life of all work.

I’m reading another book right now, The Four Disciplines of Execution. I believe it’s going to help me in my personal life, my teaching life, and my overseeing life as an English teacher coordinator. When we determine our wildly important goals–one or two of them at a time, we can have more success than when we try to do it all. More about that in a future blog post.

So, Katherine, for now, I pray I really will join you in saying no to the things that trip me up. I want to say yes to the wildly important goals that will help me live with no regrets.

Shift This Book Review

Thanks to Joy Kirr for a book that outlines her growth as a teacher over the last six years. I was privileged to meet her on Twitter in 2012. I have learned a lot about her shifts in education through her blog and on Twitter–with her more than 80,000 positive, affirming, and equipping tweets.

However, now there is something even better. She has invited me into both her classroom and her mind for the rich details. How does this look? How can I shift the classroom environment in my own situation? She wrote a book on it, called Shift This, published by Dave Burgess Consulting.

Currently reading and loving: #ShiftThis by @joykirr1 #cy365 #t365project #jjaproject

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For those who need more specifics on how to create a student-centered classroom environment, this is the easy-to-read, must-read book for you.

Joy begins the book with the beginnings of her journey and a challenging chapter about WHY and HOW questions to ask of your classroom practice. The book continues with chapters on these timely topics:

  • Classroom Environment
  • Classwork
  • Homework
  • Grading
  • Social Media
  • Student-Directed Learning

Finally, Joy ends the book with a chapter called “Resistance.” The opening story, a discussion with a parent asking about homework, is so compelling! It makes me know she has real-life experience with resistance.

Each chapter ends with a Reflection and Call to Action for the reader to write notes about their next steps. In addition, there is a further reading list provided for each chapter.

Joy is so personable and kind. She will always give teachers the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t want to give up your teacher desk, that’s fine, she’ll tell you. “You have to do what works for you…Furniture and walls really aren’t the key to a transformative culture in our classrooms. The key is how we treat students” (Shift This, page 42).

She will always be patient with and give respect to teachers, but when the students’ best interests are in jeopardy, she makes it clear to you. She will always come up on the side of the students. She will influence us, in her kind, personable manner to shift our practice to be more student-centered and student-empowering.

Like Joy, I’ve had more than 20 years teaching experience. I try to be like Joy in another way: Even with her many years of experience, Joy always has something new to learn. In Shift This, Joy consistently models her love for and need for her own personal learning. One thing that spoke to me poignantly was this quote I discovered on her classroom website, which she had linked to in the book. On this Scholars in Room 239 post, I love how she sought advice from parents:

Please help me grow as an educator. Although this is my 22nd year as a teacher, I know I can always do a better job, and I’ve already asked for your child’s feedback. I’d also love your honest feedback.

She’s left a link to an anonymous survey for all the parents of her students. Brava, Joy! You are inspiring us to all be more humble and thriving as educators!

Here are just a few things I’ve gleaned from Shift This for this new school year, which will start in a few weeks. I want to just list them here to help me remember and so I can hold myself accountable:

  1. Choices of material, length, level and more in independent reading. We’ll take a challenge of how many books to read, rather than the traditional one every two weeks. Students will share their “book reports” in informal book talks with peers and other ways to share books they loved.
  2. My teacher desk will become a modified student station, as it was last year. I’m trying to take it to another level, though. Still a work in progress.
  3. Organize my student web page so there are no questions about what we did in class and what is expected of students. Right now, there are still too many unanswered questions on our Grade 5 News page. My excuse: I was new in grade 5 last year. I can’t make that excuse any longer.
  4. Homework each day will be reading an English book for at least 20 minutes. This will be more intentional and monitored than last year. Last year I gave very little homework, and there was little to no resistance from parents and students. I think it is a good decision.
  5. Grading is developing in my school, too. Another work in progress that I will continue to push for and develop is standards-based grading, collecting evidence of mastery.
  6. I will choose a volunteer photographer for each week rather than trying to do it daily as in the past, which didn’t work so well.

Shift This is the kind of book you can read over and over. As you make shifts in your classroom this year, you will see the benefits. Then next summer you will read the book again and see ideas that last summer seemed out of reach. But next fall…you will be ready. (So be sure to date the entries on the Reflection and Call to Action sections. You’ll be back.) On this journey as the chief learner, each fall you will be able to make your classroom a more safe, student-centered, joy-filled, learning-owned-by-students environment.

You can bet, I will return to this book again. For the sake of my students.

The Good and Bad of Writing Every Day in March #sol17 Day 1

The good thing about writing every day in March is that I will remember how to use my blog.
The bad thing about writing every day in March is that I will forget and neglect many other things in life.

The good thing about writing every day is that I will be a good role model for my students.
The bad thing about writing every day is that I will not have time to grade their papers.

The good thing about writing every day is that I will not have time to grade their papers.
The bad thing about writing every day is that I won’t have time to work out my plan for alternatives to grading.

The good thing about writing is it heals and keeps me sane.

The bad thing about writing…hmmm…

I’ll have to think about that.

Jesus and Donald

Donald Trump says quite often that he is Presbyterian. Presbyterians, for centuries, have been followers of Jesus Christ. Here are just a handful of quotes from Jesus and Trump. I can’t help but notice the difference.

Jesus
God blesses those who are humble. Matthew 5:5

Donald
We don’t win anymore. We are going to win again. We are winners, not losers. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to beg me. You’re going to say, Mr. President, we’re so tired of winning, we can’t take it anymore. Please don’t win anymore…The American dream is dead, but we’re going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever before. Donald Trump speech in Pensacola, Florida, January 13, 2016

Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure,it’s not your fault. Tweet by Donald Trump

Jesus
But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Luke 6:27

Donald
When someone crosses you, my advice is ‘Get Even!’ That is not typical advice, but it is real life advice. If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck! When people wrong you, go after those people because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. I love getting even. Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and Life, by Donald J. Trump (2008)

Jesus
Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Matthew 5:34

Donald
I’d say ISIS wants to get you. Washington Post

Jesus
Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone. John 8:7

Donald
Sgt. Berdahl’s a dirty, rotten no-good traitor. I’d fly that son-of-a-bitch back and drop him right over the top. Donald Trump speech in Pensacola, Florida, January 13, 2016

Jesus
For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Mark 8:36

Donald
I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. Brainy Quotes

Jesus
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. Matthew 5:38-39

Donald – On trying to name his favorite Bible verse:

Well, I think many…You know when we get into the Bible I think many, so many. And “an eye for an eye,” you can almost say that. It’s not a particularly nice thing, but you know when you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, you see what’s going on with our country how people are taking advantage of us and how they scoff at us and laugh at us and laugh in our face and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking our — you know, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and we have to be very strong and we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you. NewsRadio WHAM 1180 interview, April 14, 2016

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Jesus, Luke 6:45

Creative and Authentic – That’s What Parents Save

I’m moving soon. We are on the countdown, and it’s now 12 days to moving day.

This is a move of prodigious proportions. We have sold our house and furniture. We are going through all our additional belongings and saving only the most important. We have digitized VHS tapes, micro tapes, and even home movies on DVDs.

Today I went through all the saved school work from grades K-8 of Daughter #1.

More worksheets
AR certificates, math worksheets, spelling tests

So much of what I looked through was easy to decide what to do with. Into the trash can went high stakes test results, report cards, Accelerated Reader certificates, and worksheets.

It doesn’t matter if a student is a high achiever or a low achiever, no parent wants to have years worth of test scores and reports cards that give little information about who their child really is. Most of the report cards had meaningless letter grades with few heartfelt comments. Year after year of high stakes test results don’t show anything worth knowing about my daughter or her education.

Those A.R. certificates remind me of how teachers over the years required my children to read on their tested level. That’s one way to squelch the love of reading–telling a sixth grader she has to read books on a high school level. Really? What is the purpose of Accelerated Reader anyway? It doesn’t promote a love of lifelong reading.

Worksheets. We have stored hundreds of our daughter’s worksheets over the last two decades. Really, no child has ever been deeply invested in a worksheet, have they? Twenty years later and that is even more evident. These were easy to throw away. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for all the hours my daughter wasted on some of these activities.

This looked hopeful…

 

What was in the proud papers folder? More worksheets.

Ironically, I didn’t save one piece of paper from the Proud Papers Folder.  This teacher didn’t understand that what makes a child proud is not papers marked with 100% or “Great Job.”  Children are proud when they invest in authentic work and do an excellent job because they are passionately involved.

To be sure, there were many items to save. I now have half a tub of  letters, science fair reports, artwork, proposals, (my favorite is a “professionally” written proposal to her dad and me for turning our pool house into a club house for her and her friends). Today, while looking through her things, I had fun reading her beautiful poetry and the personal experience narratives that made me laugh and remember.

Some she did all on her own, outside of class. Some were assigned by teachers, like this Pandora’s box made during a unit on ancient Greece.

But all are authentic and creative.  That’s what I saved.

Horrible things in Pandora’s Box, like spinach and Brussels sprouts

New Chapter

Learn

I am a lifelong learner. I’m always saying, “I learn something new every day.”

This summer has been no exception.  However, I only wrote one blog post here this summer. That’s unusual. Typically in June and July I’m busy learning professionally–blogging, vlogging, participating in moocs, attending webinars, tweeting resources on Twitter, posting Flickr pictures and more. This summer I really didn’t. I was sad I didn’t participate in the 20TimeAcademy mooc, Google+ Maker Camp or #clmooc, or submit a proposal for the 2013 K-12 Online Conference. I have totally neglected my #bookaday goal and my friends in the Open Spokes Fellowship.

This summer my learning has been different.

For the past few months, I have been learning DIFFERENT new things every day. I’ve begun a brand new chapter, a major-life-changing chapter.

My husband and I will be moving to Bahrain.  He will be a chaplain in a hospital and a pastor at an English language congregation. After I settle in and when there is an opening, I will be able to teach there too.

We have little international experience. (OK, actually, make that LITTLE.) We’ve never left our continent.  I have traveled to Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana in Mexico and Thunder Bay, Mississauga, Surrey, and Vancouver in Canada. In other words, I’ve driven to Mexican and Canadian border towns.

In February, my husband and I secured our first-ever passports so we could go to Surrey, British Columbia. At the time I thought, Hmmm, now that we have passports, maybe we’ll get to use them again before they expire.

Little did we know, God had a plan for us to use them. You can read more about our story on our new blog, KrebsFollow.org.

Before and After Research

Because we were going to see him speak, seventh graders researched Philip Gans, Holocaust and concentration camp survivor.

These two pictures tell the story of my small group of seventh graders. I tease them sometimes and tell them they are one organism. They are a collaborative, learn-together group. And when an “organism” is studying the Holocaust, sometimes it’s better to do it together.

Being in a connected world of collaborative learning together is a good thing.