Finding Happiness

In Adriana Trigiani’s book Very Valentine the main character, Valentine, comes to realize that her fight to save her families shoe company is getting in the way of what brings her true joy–making shoes. She says, “The way I live from day to day in New York City suddenly seems ridiculous to me. I’ve mortgaged my happiness for a time that may never come. I love making shoes. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?”

I think about her words and compare it to my own life. I spent so many years thinking about leaving the classroom to become a reading coach, a college professor or something bigger. After three years of attempting to be a reading coach, I realize that maybe I too have mortgaged my happiness. I love teaching kids, and I love sharing ideas with teachers. I love collaborating with teachers. Why should I make it more complicated?

I am so thankful to be going back into the classroom where I can teach kids and collaborate with teachers.

What’s In Your Trash Can?

I feel like I’m cheating a little on this slice. I revised a journal entry I wrote in November. Slice of Life Challenge.

Clean out the Trash!

There is a Voices from the Middle journal in the trash can. I am not sure if the message being sent by that is intentional or not, but the sting is still painful.

When I look down and see that journal, I realize that the person who threw it there has no value for it. Since I am a middle school teacher and see myself as a voice from the middle, I can’t help feeling like maybe they have no value for me as well. This is a problem I see in the world around me. So many of us have no value for others. So many of us are willing to discard the things that others cling to. We aren’t willing to take the time to really get to know one another. We are quick to judge and discard the thoughts of those we don’t agree with. I think it is time we all cleaned out our trash cans.

A Twitter Story

“I’m wondering if it is possible to take part in meaningful conversation on Twitter. I always feel more like a stalker.”

I have made several attempts to figure out the ins and outs of Twitter a few times since I first created my Twitter profile in March of 2009. I was drawn to Twitter for the same reason I am drawn to graduate school. I was hoping that I would find a place to connect with like minds and have meaningful conversations, but I just hadn’t been able to figure out how to make it work. It was kind of neat to get random updates on the whereabouts and activities of my friends for a few days, but it didn’t take long before I was tired of having to pull my phone out to delete tweets about what they were eating and where they were going. I figured if I got tired of their tweets, they probably weren’t interested in updates about my activities or score updates from the Nashville Predators games. So, I stopped tweeting for a few weeks. When I went to New Orleans, I gave it another shot though. I guess I figured it would be more interesting for people to hear about my activities since I was in a fun city. Sadly, I would send the tweets and no one would respond. I figured I just wasn’t witty enough to be interesting in 140 characters or less. On June 17th I found Neil Gaiman a.k.a. neilhimself on Twitter and thought maybe the key to Twitter would be to follow people like Neil. People I find very interesting but don’t get the chance to actually meet in real life. So, used the “find people” feature to find people I thought would be interesting to follow. Sadly, there was not an education group to click on so I ended up with a few authors and a few entertainers and spent the next few months feeling like a stalker every time Neil Gaiman sent a tweet. Every so often I would get a message letting me know that I had a new follower, so I would check to see who the person was and try to figure out why they would want to follow me. Most of them were obviously salespeople, but on the morning of January 30th, I discovered a follower that caught me by surprise-caboni a.k.a. Tim Caboni, associate dean, professor, and higher education fundraising scholar at the graduate school of my dreams, Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. Suddenly, my interest in Twitter was back, but I still didn’t know how to use it effectively. I didn’t know what to tweet that would help me connect with like-minded educators and make them want to connect with me.

I think it may have happened today though. Let me see if I can recreate the twitersation here:

Me: I’m wondering if it is possible to take part in meaningful conversation on Twitter. I always feel more like a stalker.

Childofthe80s: I usually jump in. My theory-if people didn’t want others to they wouldn’t make it public.

Me (after discovering wtwriting): I realized that I needed to rethink my following list. Ex. neilhimself = amazing. Not a conversation I could jump into though.

Me: I feel like a teenager again. Trying to figure out where I belong.

In the mean time, as I was clicking around I started finding educators I admire and stalk in real life- Cris Tovani, Donalyn Miller, Carol Jago, Brenda Power and Franki Sibberson. (I really have stalked them in real life. I think I made them late for dinner in Philadelphia because I cornered Cris Tovani at the revolving door. The rest of them were in the limo waiting. Franki Sibberson had to get out of the limo and rescue Cris because they had dinner reservations.) I was beginning to feel like I had possibly found the key to Twitter happiness, and then it happened. I clicked around until I found a link to a blog post byNancyTeaches. Her blog post welcomed me to the world of Twitter that I’ve searched for. She described exactly what I had sought. When I read her words, “Granted, I’ve always been an enthusiastic teacher, but I often felt alone and had to tone it down around my colleagues.” I knew the feeling she was describing. It was the feeling that had led me to Twitter in the first place. I quickly became a follower and sent her a tweet letting her know that I loved her blog post.

Me: NancyTeaches, I love your blog entry.

NancyTeaches: Thanks for the compliment. I would have responded sooner but I was too busy reading your amazing blog.

Me: Thanks. My blog needs much work. I am working on a post in response to your post now.

And so, I say thank you to NancyTeaches for helping me figure out where I belong- right here. I look forward to getting back in the conversation, and I can’t wait to see how using Twitter helps me become a better blogger.

Beautiful Inside and Out

I just got around to reading CEAI‘s Online Devotional from yesterday. The scripture verse for the day was Luke 11:39-40.

Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also?’

Many times, Kathy Branzell ends her devotionals with a question or two. The questions for this devotional are, “What do we need to do to make sure we are beautiful on the inside?” and “How can each of us carry out the attribute of living from the inside-out in our daily environment (classroom, hallways, meetings, cafeteria, office, etc.)?

I realize as I read this that, even though it I don’t do it aloud, I quickly begin to point a finger and shout “Pharisee.” My human desire is to label others ‘Pharisee’ and jump on a pedestal above them; however, I realize that as soon as I do I have become a ‘pharisee’ myself.

I think an important step we need to take toward being beautiful on the inside is stopping long enough to realize that our insides are just as ugly as anyone else’s. If I want to truly be beautiful on the inside, I need to focus on myself. I need to end stop pointing fingers and jumping on pedestals–even if I am doing it silently.

Difficult Conversations

I had a difficult conversation today. It wasn’t fun, but I think it was necessary. It was my first step in speaking up for what I believe. I have been avoiding difficult conversations because I haven’t really been sure how to have them without making the other person angry. I still don’t know how to do that, but I will never figure that out if I don’t start practicing will I?

From the Nightstand

We were granted another snow day today. Naturally, when I woke up I reached over to the nightstand and picked up a book. I figure a snow day is a perfect excuse to finish of a good book. Today’s selection was Invitations to the Worldby Richard Peck. Which is a book that has been taking up space on my nightstand for way too long. It feels good to finally be finished with it, but I am tempted to go back and reread it from the beginning. Here are a few passages that I marked as I was reading. I’m sure there are many more that are worthy of mentioning, but these are the ones I marked.

Children whose lives were already disfigured by poverty, wealth, or some other affliction saw school as a clean, well-lighted place with teachers empowered byt the system and kind of droning routine the young demand. For some of us the standards of school were a clear echo of the values of home. For others school offered the only safe haven. Above its portals were invisibly carved the unspoken motto: FORGET WHERE YOU CAME FROM, ENTER HERE AND LEARN.

This made me think. I have mixed feelings about this motto. Part of me wants to say that it isn’t fair for us to expect our students to enter school and leave themselves behind by forgetting where they came from, but another part of me agrees with this motto. I have been saying for years that teachers need to stop judging students and categorizing them based on where they come from. I have to think if school was a place were we expected all students to succeed instead of assuming that some won’t, we would accomplish more. I guess I would like to change this motto. Instead of posting it on the portal of the school, I’d like to post it above the door from the teachers’ lounge: FORGET WHERE THEY CAME FROM, ENTER HERE AND TEACH.

…the basis of all real learning is fear. Fear of the consequences of not learning, ….

I can’t help thinking of a former student when I read this. She once told me that nothing we did mattered because when she grew up she was going to be just like her mom. When I asked what her mom did, she responded by telling me that her mom didn’t do anything but sit around and watch TV all day and that was exactly what she was going to do when she grew up. When that is the future you imagine for yourself, what is there to learn?

For me, writing a novel is like making a quilt. You gather bright scraps from other people’s lives, and then you stitch them together in a pattern of your own.

This reminds me of Margrethe who is both a writer and a quilter.

…they have to be imperfect enough for improvement and willing to stand up for who they are. They have to take one step nearer maturity in an age when maturing itself has become an elective, and they must show readers the way, give them the word. … We need no novels about how to fit in. Popularity and acceptance cost too much now.

when maturing itself has become an electiveThis really stands out to me. Has maturing become an elective in our society? It only takes one night of TV viewing to realize that it has.

Those of us who were teachers don’t believe much in phases. It’s parents who can explain away their children’s behavior as phases they’re going through. Teachers are less sure. Teachers have evidence that people don’t grow up till they have to. There are people still going through puberty in senior year. A system of school that issues diplomas to people who can’t read them retards their development further, and they look elsewhere for status and identity.
There are people well along in adult life who still believe that being in the right place with the right people will mask their personal inadequacies. Long after graduation there are people voting in a bloc, counting on club membership, trying to live in the smallest world possible. In adult life there are still people searching for scapegoats and finding them.

People don’t grow up until they have to. It makes me wonder what is going to have to happen in our world for people to realize that they have to grow up.

We write for a generation who have needed language less to get what they want from adults, who in their dealings with one another have reason to suspect that the pen is no longer mightier than the sword.

We cannot make adolescent readers out of adolescent illiterates. If you have been coming to school for seven years without having to read, you’ve whipped the system and are lost to us all.

Is it possible for a student to go 7 years without reading? I say, “yes and no.” If reading is the ability to recognize words on paper and call them out, the answer is no. If reading is the ability to recognize words on paper, call them out, and think about what they are saying to you the answer is yes. When students are sitting in classrooms where a study guide is given and memorized for the test, they aren’t really reading and thinking. When all reading is done as a class and the teacher tells the class what they should think, they aren’t really reading and thinking.

Like teaching, writing is something less than a profession, but more than a job. When you aren’t teaching, you’re thinking about teaching. When you’re not writing, you’re thinking about writing.

Happily, American books for the young greeted a new century with a whole spectrum of worthy offerings, from picture books to coming of age novels. …. These page-turners powerfully documented the foreign country adolescence has become in three decades of self rule.

“Words are the only thing which last forever,” Winston Churchill once said. Somehow that truth seems truer now, here in the gray dawn of uncertain new century. Books prepare the literate for change.

Is there a place for the Halo games in our classrooms?

If you have had any conversations with teenagers lately, chances are you have heard about the Halo games. If you want to have a conversation with a teenage boy, mention Halo and chances are he will start talking. I found this to be the case with my 8th graders and have also had a few “Halo” conversations with the welding students I’ve been working with this year. They don’t even care that I have never played the game. They will tell me all about their alien killing tactics and even practice their persuasion techniques as they attempt to convince me that I must take part in this alien killing collaboration. These conversations to me have always been great for building trust with my students, but. I never considered bringing the game into the classroom which is why I was surprised to see the title “Does the Halo 3 Video Game Have a Place in Our Schools” in a recent issue of the edweek.org e-newsletter. You can read the article here.

After reading the article, I wasn’t ready to rush out and buy the game for classroom use, but I did have a few thoughts about how we might use the Halo craze to reach some of our students who seem unreachable.

1. Did you notice that the game is referred to as a first-person shooter game. If you are a literature teacher trying to help students understand the difference between first-person and third-person, you are crazy not to use video games as an example.

2. When trying to get our students to work together, would it help to mention as an example the collaboration that it takes to play Halo?

3. What would happen if we brought this article into the classroom for students to read? Would they have something to say about this topic? Could we even lead into writing a persuasive essay with this article and discussion of it? Would some students want to write an essay encouraging the use of Halo in the classroom? Would some students want to keep it out of the classroom? Could both groups find quotes from this article that would support their opinion?

I’m not ready to bring my Playstation to school, but I do think there is a place for “Halo” conversations in our classrooms.

Perceptions

“We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.” Stephen R. Covey

When I got home this afternoon I was so tired I wanted to go straight to bed. I was worn out from a long day of trying to figure out my role in improving literacy in my school system. While there are many teachers who have that same goal, I am worn down by those who seem happier to complain. The sad thing is that the more worn down I become, the easier it is for me to fall into step with those complainers. After a long meeting that didn’t go nearly as well as I thought it should, a dinner that was less than pleasing for everyone in my family but me and a check of my e-mail, I found myself worn out but unable to sleep. My mind was racing way too fast to allow it to shut down for a nice rest. I finally decided that I should get myself out of bed and put those racing thoughts onto paper. Eventually that paper led me to my blog where I could share my thoughts with those of you whose positive voices I have been missing for too long. My thoughts led me to the question, “How do you get people to open their eyes and see things from the eyes of others?” This question led me to the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People because I remembered that it was in reading this book that I began to open my eyes. On page 18 I found the quote that started this entry, and I was reminded that perhaps if I want to change the situation, I should change myself. I remembered that it isn’t my responsibility to get others to open their eyes. It is my responsibility to change only my own perception.

I think it may have worked. I feel the sleep coming.

From the Nightstand

I have a few reads going on at the same time right now.

Everyone who teaches in a middle school or high school should read this book.

I am finding this very helpful.

I am enjoying this daily dose of leadership advice.

Another great piece of fiction by Chris Crutcher who wrote the second chapter of Adolescent Literacy, the first book on this list.

So, now you know why I haven’t been writing so much lately. I’m too busy reading. Well…. and going to hockey games, and falling asleep on the couch, and visiting with friends and family.

Room 105 Mystery Solvers

I’m excited! Today I met with a great 3rd grade teacher. Starting Monday, I will be joining her three days a week for literature circles. She has a box full of mysteries, a cool detective hat and a desire to, “Give kids the idea that the basal is not the only reading material in a bag of tricks.” and “Get them excited about reading a new genre…..even chapter books. ….for most kids they have never sat and read a chapter book of any kind independently….I would love to see everyone do that at their level!!” The kids are all set with the terms they need to know in order to discuss mysteries and little detective notebooks. Tomorrow they will be choosing the books they want to read. I’m going to learn so much from this experience. I can’t wait!