Spring has Sprung!

As I sit in my empty classroom, all of my students are off at spring sports competitions, I can't help but feel overwhelmed. Finishing my second semester as a doctoral student, preparing my seniors for graduation and ultimately moving away to college and hoping to continue to affect positive change for those who will be in my classroom next year is proving heavy this spring. All I really want to do is enjoy the weather and stare at the mountains with the sun shining on them. Alas, I am a much better student AND teacher than that! My biggest struggle is currently finding articles for a literature review for one of my classes. My review is supposed to be related to my dissertation topic, which makes sense, BUT there seems to be very little research in that vein. My prof said I should read at least 50 articles before I really start writing and exploring the themes....that is amazingly hard! I can't find a whole lot of articles and I feel like this paper might win :(

Dreams

The other day one of my students asked me what my dream is. I took pause because none of them had ever asked that before. I told him my dream is to change the world and he asked me how I was going to do that. My answer was simple, each time I help a student succeed and learn I'm changing the world for the better...a little at a time. Kylene Beers is one of my literacy goddesses and she wrote on her own blog (kylenebeers.com/blog) "Dear teachers, don’t you lose sight of the opportunity you have each day to make a difference in each child’s life." This time of year we all need to be reminded of the importance of our students' dreams so we don't get overwhelmed with all of the testing. I firmly believe it is one of my purposes in life to change the world and help my students achieve their own dreams. Standardized tests are just a test, they can only truly measure how a student did that one day at that particular time in that specific place. The multiple choice questions do not actually help us to help our students to learn, in some ways they actually inhibit our abilities to encourage the joys of learning. Yes, we must assess our students and yes, they need to know strategies to read questions and understand what is expected of them in any given situation. No matter what you can do, or must do, in your classroom don't lose sight of why we teach. We teach to help our students discover their passions and we encourage them to follow their dreams. We are the change makers in the world!

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Unlike The 6 Million Dollar Man, teachers weren't offered a way to become stronger and awesome after a near death experience, we have to figure it out for ourselves. As I work to plan this year at a new and very tiny school, begin my doctoral degree and move to a small town out west, I've been thinking a lot about how we connect to each other.

For one of my doctoral classes, I've been asked to create Google+ and Twitter accounts. Because I am a good student and always looking to learn, I have opened them and started to explore. Those accounts, especially Twitter got me thinking. How can we best use technology in our classrooms?

I'm all for using technology to connect with students and help them to learn and become prepared for the future, I will admit however that Twitter bothers me. From what I understand, anyone can follow anyone else. There is no way to keep worlds separate
(assuming you are a constant Tweeter).

That being said I encourage exploration in the world of technology, you never really know what the best way to help a student may be!

Educators should be like Olympians

Before the Olympics began in July, I watched Oprah's special on some of our most famous Olympians. Carl Lewis said that striving for less than excellence is unacceptable...and I think he is onto something.

Our world continues to berate teachers and the education system for being poor. We are, overall, a fairly poor system because not all of us strive for excellence in the classroom. I do not believe, however, that the lack of excellence is because of a lack of desire. I believe it is because of a lack of confidence, support, and preparedness. I realize many of us spend hours upon hours preparing but we are often reworking the same thing instead of working on something new. In order to achieve excellence we must make the leap into new territory, whether that involves new texts, new styles of teaching or a new way of gathering references.

This year I will start a new job in a very tiny district with little budget on which to survive. My challenges will be many, including structuring a classroom for only two students, teaching English to students from 5th to 12th grade and bringing in new frames of reference and materials for my normally remote and somewhat sheltered students. I am lucky to have the support from friends and family who willingly purchased new texts for my classroom. People outside of the classroom really do play a role in improving the world of education, whether they know it or not. Just like Olympians have support systems to help them become the best, educators need support systems to become excellent.

Add your friends and family to your toolbox and see what you can accomplish with a little help. Share new text titles with friends, sign up for an educator blog, check out DonorsChoose.org, visit Teachers Pay Teachers, use ReadWriteThink.org, read new magazines, watch shows the kids enjoy and listen to their music on occasion. You never know what you can use successfully in the classroom until you are willing to explore the routes open to you. Sometimes the seemingly obscure is what you've been looking for all along.

Ending up

The year has finally ended and this has been the hardest of my career to date. I do realize that it will likely not remain that way forever. I made it and the teachers in the trenches seem to have made it as well. As we go forward, at least in the state of Texas, we have new standards to process as well as new TEKS in some of our core areas. I look forward to the summer with friends and family. This is my time to refill my proverbial cup and I'm excited about it. In a couple of weeks a friend and I will be traveling to Florida for a workshop with English teachers. We already have plans for things we'd like to plan while on our road trip - among those plans we want to write some new songs for the classroom. In the fall I will begin my doctoral degree in Reading and I am very excited. I hope to one day become a professor and teach the next generation of teachers. The best way for a novice teacher to learn, aside from being thrust into the classroom, is to learn from other teachers. The way I figure it, if I can teach at least five novice teachers to teach in the way I know it should be done then I've reached hundreds more students than I ever could on my own. For the summer, refill your cup but also read and learn. If we stop learning then we ultimately stop teaching. New things and ways in the classroom are not evil - they are required to keep our students engaged and help them to learn and retain. If you have not yet seen "Waiting for Superman", rent it now! Enjoy the summer and I hope to post more regularly when school begins again.

Giving up to gain

I realize I started this blog about teaching but as I sit in a small coffee shop in far west Texas, I realize that as the teacher, I am the most important tool. That being said, it is time to be self reflective and selfish.

2011 was a crazy year in our world and I feel a little out of place and confused, so I've begun seeking help and wisdom from others. I bought a book called "Give It Up" that talks about giving something you feel is necessary and important up each month to really examine what you need and want in life. I'm only on chapter three but I can already feel the wheels turning on how to change and simplify my life.

My goal as a teacher is to change the world for my students, but I feel I've lost the art of changing the world for myself. I rarely sit down and write a story for myself or take an entire weekend to read a book any longer. Those may seem simple but in reality they help change my perspectives and focus. I no longer seek ways to help those less fortunate than I and I hate that. In 2012, not only will I need to work harder to find the positive in life but I will also work to simplify my life and make a difference in the world, no matter how small that difference may seem.

As teachers and people, I encourage you to do the same thing. Find your joy if it has gotten away from you. Write a poem or a song, sing and dance with the dogs or the kids, clean out your closets and bookshelves and donate those to people who need them more than you. Make 2012 a year to really be proud of yourselves!

Above all else, remember that you the teacher are the biggest and best tool on the classroom. With all the politics in the world we cannot afford to take ourselves for granted any longer.

Exercise

I realize this is sort of an evil word, especially this time of year when we all eat too much and the stress of the past year shows up in all sorts of places. I for one, have been trying to make myself exercise on a nightly basis - mostly because I feel like a tub of lard and I know exercise makes me feel better about myself and how I do things. Getting back into it however is super hard but I do love the way my muscles feel the day after. I also realize that my eating habits have got to change. The past few months I have not been eating as well as I should because I've been having a tough time adjusting to my new surroundings and position. Adjustment is just what it is, an adjustment and some take us longer to work through than others.

I hope you don't feel like this is me complaining, it really is not - it is a reminder, for me and possibly you, that adjustments are an exercise in life. For me, I need the physical exercise as well as the mental exercise in order to be at my best in my home and my classroom. I know I am a better teacher when I exercise my body at home. Perhaps that is because I sleep better, perhaps it is because I feel more confident in my own skin, perhaps it is because I don't have a nagging feeling in the back of my head during the day that my pants are too tight or I feel uncomfortable in the clothing I've got on. No matter what, exercise yourself, it will help you as a person and ultimately as a teacher.

Thank you for changing the world one kid at a time. Remember that changes are not bad things but they do take time.