You Know You're a Teacher When...

You know you're a teacher when...

• Your weekend planning begins on the ride home from school on Friday mentally calculating how much "school time" you need to reserve to get ready for the Monday morning bell. 

You know you're a teacher when...

•  Even trips to the antique mall for relaxation wind up including purchases for that "special project" for one student or another.

You know you're a teacher when...

• You gather supplies from your house for next week's lessons -- books, legos, and other trinkets that you are convinced will be better used/served by your students than your own family. 

You know you're a teacher when...

•  You know that to stay balanced on the weekend you give up sleep instead of family time. 

I'm nearing the end of the Te@chthought #reflectiveteacher challenge.  So far, I haven't missed a day!  I'm a bit confused and flattered by the followers of this blog, but feel I must tell my teacher friends how much the process of forced reflective blogging (as opposed to talking about what I want to talk about) has been to my teaching.  I encourage you to try it -- even if the every day model doesn't work.  The reality is, this takes less than 30 minutes a day.  (Maybe that will help you excuse the grammar and punctuation mistakes!)

On to today's challenge!

Day 27

What role do weekends and holidays play in your teaching?

 The chart to the right isn't mine, but it certainly reflects the thought process of many teachers.  For a TOG (Teacher of the Gifted), the number of independent projects happening with my students at any given time is so varied, that my weekends are filled with post it notes on my computer screen to share with the project managers the following week.  

Perhaps it's a book I discover, or the perfect pin found in the antique mall for the National History Day project, or somebody in the community who casually mentions a passion or interest or expertise in the EXACT topic currently on the radar for one of my kids.

 I've nearly perfected the "I'm truly interested in what you're saying" look while inside screaming "THIS GUY IS PERFECT TO TALK TO (insert student name here) !"   Often it is a resource that I find browsing the databases at UCONN, who still hasn't kicked me out of the library access system, even though I finished my masters a year ago.  (Please don't rat me out!)

Our lesson plans are due in the system by 8 am on Monday for the entire week.  We have a template to complete for each lesson which, we are told, we must need more training on because it is the PERFECT template to use to teach, but none of us agrees with this.  Yet we fill it in, and then do whatever we need to do to draft plans that actually can function as a worthwhile tool for us in front of students.  It is a giant blessing and curse that our district has access to our online network and can work from home with access to all of our files.  The reality is that having semi-interrupted time to plan a week's worth of lessons is so much more worthwhile than the smidgins of time between parent phone calls, meetings with colleagues and administrators, and photocopying required makes the weekend seem like a blessing of time, even if I do often treat Sunday as the first day of my work week.

Our district uses most of the legal holidays, excluding the family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, as inservice days.  The kids are off for Columbus Day, we are analyzing data and in in-service training.  

In short, to be a teacher, you can't turn off the fascination in learning new things on the weekend.  We certainly don't want our students to shut down from Friday to Monday, and the same applies to teachers.  I can't imagine how difficult the reboot to my brain would be on Monday morning if I were not engaged and focused on my job -- albeit at a slower and more relaxed pace -- during the weekends.  We all fear the blue screen of death on our computers -- and in our brains.  D-L-R-O-W.  (Or should it be D-E-L-R-I-H-W?)  

The weekends, by design, are there for sanity.  And sometimes sanity means keeping your brain booted up with the job in the forefront.

Happy Weekend!

Even if you didn't ask, BOOKSTORES RULE!

The Te@chthought prompt for today excited me tremendously because I thought I would be able to ramble on about my complete love and fascination with the inspirations of random things that I find -- usually from one of three places:

1. University Bookstores
2. Students
3. Amazon's "helpful" recommendations just for me.  

It would be so easy to tell you about my early inspiration for developing curriculum through the (often) tradebooks I have discovered on the tables and shelves of university bookstores.  It started in 2005 when I was addicted to COSI's tomato, mozzarella and chicken pocket sandwich, and ate it every single day for two full weeks while in grad school at U Penn.  Fortunately for me, and not so fortunate for my bank account, COSI's was directly next door to the U Penn bookstore.  It was there that I discovered the book The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived and began to craft curriculum for high school gifted seminars.  (Now known as Themes in Literature).  While I still love bookstores, students, and the ever-growing list of books that Amazon recommends for me, Te@chthought wasn't asking.

Today's prompt actually was referencing SITES -- online places for help, tips and resources.  I know when to write to a prompt when I see one, so here goes...

Day 26 

What are your three favorite go-to sites for help/tips/resources in your teaching?

Initially, I was less than thrilled.  Then I started to realize how many amazing resources we will all have at the end of the day when we read each other's blogs.   I'm planning on posting the ones that seem relevant to me in links on my Pintrest -- mostly because I feel the need to apologize to anyone who decides to follow me and sends me a notification.  I know it's there, I just don't use it like I could.  (Which is probably true of many of my resources, but let's get to the top three!)

 My top three current sites are:

habitsofmind.org

Just this morning I received an email advising me that the Habits of Mind site had been renovated, with all sorts of new teaching tips and materials.  This site makes it easy (and interactive) to teach kids the skills of metacognition.  They've even created posters, online games, and a cool selection of quotes to support their 16 Habits of Mind philosophy.  Teach them to think.  Really.

http://www.brainpickings.org/

My friend, Flapjack Stevens, turned me on to this site, and the accompanying Sunday morning email.  If you sign up for the email, I suggest you grab the toast and hot beverage before you open your email, because you'll be inspired for a long time.  It's the 21st century version of the book list from the New York Times.

http://hoagiesgifted.org/

Created by a mom who was looking for a central place to find resources, hoagiesgifted is a phenomenon all its own.  Even if you don't teach exclusively gifted kids, the resources available on this site are the be all and end all.  There are tons of resources for parents, teachers, AND kids.

And when you're done looking there for inspiration, talk to your students.  Chances are, they have their own suggestions -- and will help you build your Pintrest boards so that you won't be embarrassed when you get notification that someone is following you and your boards. 

The Broken Record of Autonomy

Happy Thursday!  Some may say I sound a bit overly enthusiastic the day after a very long day that started at 6:30 am and ended at 9:08 pm when the last parent left my classroom, but I have good reason to celebrate today.

Today was Presentation Day for my Themes in Lit. students.  They've been working for over a week on series of collaborative projects focusing on the life of Leonardo daVinci.  They profiled their own series of self-generated 100 questions to align themselves with da Vinci's fascination with Engineering, Architecture, Science or Art.  This self-sort created the collaborative groups, and the groups met to identify one area, within their area, to focus their curiosity and design a presentation for the class.  There were no guidelines or restrictions beyond that directive.

It's a good thing for me that I've learned to let go.

The Te@chthought Blog Challenge prompt for today is:

Day 25
The ideal collaboration between students–what would it look like?

As you may have guessed by the title of this piece, and the brief introduction, the ideal collaboration between students is exactly what I have had the pleasure of witnessing this week.  My students learners became instantly focused and engaged -- and many of the groups visited topics that others had never heard of or considered.  In one class, there were so many "scientists" that the group split into "Social Scientists" and "Physical Scientists", with the social scientists examining the work of Freud, and others, as they considered the possibility (and ramifications) of daVinci's homosexuality (in a narrated drama presented by the group), and the physical scientists exploring Vitruvian Man and the associated ratios and proportions of the human body.    The artists drew parallels between VanGogh and daVinci's motivation in their work.  The architecture groups in each class considered the hunting lodge of King Ferdinand of France or the analysis of da Vinci's ideal city in comparison to present day New York City.  I could go on and on listing the creative approaches and topics presented by these kids.  (If you're reading this, and know a kid in the class, ask them what they did!)

Vetruvian man -- the perfect specimen?

The thing that many find most difficult, including me, as how to begin to imagine two things:

1. How does this work?  How do kids decide on a topic and motivate each other to consistently create something that is beyond the expectation (and sometimes imagination) of their teacher?
2. How do I grade projects without a (gasp!) rubric?  Especially a group project where it is difficult to assess equal participation in both design and presentation?

Blueprint comparison between da Vinci's city and present day NYC.

So my answer is this:  my students consistently rise above the imaginary bar in my mind.  As gifted kids, they are their own worst critics.  I know, and so do they, that if I set a bar, they'd meet it -- every time.  By giving them autonomy (here comes the broken record) , they learn more, dig deeper, and engage more fully with the material they are studying.  The two classes cross-share ideas, doubling the information that the population of gifted kids in the building are talking about.  And when they are finished, and asked to reflect on the entire process, they (without prompting), give feedback like this:

• I now try to see other people's perspective on different topics.  I have become more curious.
• I started less focused on observing my surroundings, and am now more interested in them.
• I was interested in creating questions and see how they related.
• I started very unenthusiastically, but really enjoyed journaling.
• I have grown in liking questions, and I normally hate them.
• I think I appreciate da Vinci's way of thought.
• ...rather, (this class) influenced me in thinking about other areas of my life.
• I have become way more open-minded.
• My growth was involving scientific thinking.
• I was fascinated by curiosity, it helped give me motivation to write again and do other things.
• I think curiosita has inspired me to look more into people's culture.
• I liked asking questions and now I'm more consciously aware when I'm asking questions in my head.
• I think I've enhanced my appreciation for the thinking process.

Granted, this was one activity, in two classes.  I've used the model before in the form of TDOs (which I've mentioned before -- think 20% projects ala Google).  So far, it hasn't let me down.

If it has done anything, it has reaffirmed my passion for gifted brains, and the need for them to choose their own paths for learning.

  

I'm Beyond Happy, Actually.

  

Unsolicited mail from students makes up some of the best content in my "Happy File."  This particular piece (pictured above) is one example of the deep impact that autonomous learning makes on both teachers and students.

Te@chthought blog challenge  #reflectiveteacher

Day 24

Which learning trend captures your attention the most, and why? (Mobile learning, project-based learning, game-based learning, etc.)

Say what you want about trends...  here today, gone tomorrow.  If you consider your own preferences, however, and the responses of learners for more than fifty years, (and probably longer than that), people who REALLY are interested in learning learn best through immersion in a topic of interest.

What is the best way to learn a language?  Go hang out with people who speak that language.  What is the best way to learn to sing?  Certainly not watching videos of people singing -- it's about finding a community.  Authentic learning is the key to meaningful, insightful, learning.  More so if the learner is also responsible for structuring the outcome of that learning.

Today I sat in a chair in a circle of 27 freshmen after returning their rough drafts of their first essays.  My observations were the following:

1.  The word "invigorating" is either trending on twitter, or a vocab word this week.  NINE students used the word to describe a potential career.

2.  Despite my best efforts, nearly everyone wrote their INFORMATIVE piece using first or second person.  I circled so many "I" and "YOU"s that my pen nearly went dry.

3.  All in all, everyone did fairly well with including the material requested from the graphic organizer of research they'd completed prior to the rough draft.

Here's how the conversation went:

ME:             So.  How do you think the final draft should be graded?
THEM:        Blank stares.  Finally - from one student -- "Don't you use rubrics?"
ME:             Sure.  What should it look like?
THEM:        Blank stares.
ME:             Seriously.  What is important to you in this final draft?  What should I grade you on?  I want to know what is important to you.

After a few minutes of looking at me and shuffling silently, and not so silently, in their chairs, they realized I wasn't backing down.

ME:             The rough draft was worth 40 points.  What should the final draft be worth?

Someone suggested 100 points.  Others argued against it.  Eventually they opted for 100 points "because the math is easy."  Sheesh.  Powergrade will calculate it, but whatever....

They all looked relieved, as if the chore were now over.  And then I dropped the other shoe.

ME:             So what is the criteria for the 100 points?

This time they got it.  Someone suggested that MLA formatting was important, someone else agreed.  I stopped and told them that I had a motion and a second.  Discuss.  Weird looks ensued.  I think you get the idea.

With a student scribe at the board, I sat amongst these 14 year olds and created a democratic classroom.  They owned the rubric, and once they realized it, they did a great job in crafting it.

The point here is autonomy.  The trend I am most focused on these days is the concept of fostering the autonomous learner.  Give ownership to individuals and to classes.  Let them define their projects, their focus, and their timelines,  (within reason).  I adopted this philosophy about a year and a half ago with gifted classes, and have expanded the philosophy to include my academic Information Literacy classes using the process described above.  What I've found is that the kids produce better quality work -- often amazing me with their products -- when I don't supply the benchmark for them to hit.

In my higher level classes, we hold each other accountable.  Is it about a Personal Record?  You bet.  It's about each individual defining where they are, and reaching for where they are capable.  Autonomous Learning and Democratic Classrooms can, and do, exist.  I encourage you to try to give your students a greater voice in their own learning and assessment process.  What I've found since I started this is that kids are working harder than ever, and reflecting upon their learning, and looking to see what they are capable of doing that pleases THEM instead of me.

Last semester, I dug out an old rubric for that final career essay and scored the new set of papers against it.  My class scored a full 11 points higher on the old rubric, on average, than the class who was graded only using my rubric.  I see growth.  I see achievement.

And I see pride.

I'd love to wax poetic a bit longer on this topic, but it's Back to School Night and I'm off to rearrange my desks!

Do you know the Muffin Man?

Do you know the Muffin Man? Or the chiropractor, the dentist, the banquet hall owner?  Do you know the district justice or the borough councilman?  Are you wishing to connect with your very own beekeeper or landscape architect?  Chances are, you could, simply by finding out where the local Rotary meets.  Having recently infiltrated been invited by one of my local Rotarian friends, Ed, this summer, I was once again reminded of the support that exists in this fellowship of community.   They sing, they joke, the pay money into a kitty that must go somewhere hugely community beneficial, because the dollar bills are plentiful, and flow freely amidst the camaraderie.  It is immediately evident that these are good people, with great connections, and a phenomenal desire for a better world.  Their only flaw appears to be that they meet during the school day, and I only get 30 minutes for lunch.

 The Te@chthought #reflectiveteacher blog challenge is:

Day 23

Write about one way that you “meaningfully” involve the community in the learning in your classroom. If you don’t yet do so, discuss one way you could get started.

 I have had the opportunity on several occasions to speak to the Rotary Club on projects close to me -- once I was invited to speak about Gifted Education in our district, and how our program was designed and implemented.  After the lunching, the singing, the birthday wishes and the dollar bills, this brain trust of the community attentively listened to my presentation, and then surrounded me with support.  It was amazing to me that individuals within the community were so actively engaged and willing to be a part of the education of our students. 

Many members of that small town posse offered time, job shadow opportunities, and asked more questions about the education of the gifted and talented.  That same group sponsors students from our high school in the form of scholarships to attend Rotary Youth Leadership conferences in the summer. 

Did you know that Rotary has opportunities for students?  Our high school has a Key Club, which introduces and promotes service at the high school level.  Plant the seed early, I suppose, is their goal.  The idea of service learning is not a new concept -- but the celebration of service learning continues on in these adults and happens in the form of a lifelong commitment in Rotarians.  They are, as the Te@chthought folks so eloquently define, meaningfully involved in the community of learning, and the community in general, for the students on my caseload.

If only I had more than 30 minutes for lunch, and the ability to carry a tune.  And maybe a stack of dollar bills, I'd be a Rotarian.