Day 108"Where's Papa going with that ax?" E.B. White
Why would I ever start a post about my favorite author with a quote from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web? Because today, when I had the great pleasure to sit and listen to Kate DiCamillo, she spoke about how she had avoided any book with an animal on the cover since being emotionally impacted by Black Beauty. She recalled that a professor had prompted her to pick up Charlotte's Web. After reading the first line of his book, Kate's fears had been confirmed! It was a bad idea. In all seriousness, I love Charlotte's Web and I adore the writing of Kate DiCamillo. Kate credited E.B White with writing the TRUTH. E.B. White and Kate have that in common. Kate's books are full of truth, adventure, heartbreak, friendship, determination, struggles with family, and hope. She weaves stories, each unique, that mirror real life in such a way that we readers are left breathless, filled with laughter, wiping away tears, heartsick, joyful, and filled with hope. Her characters are relatable. We can see ourselves in them and we can see people we know in them too. Her characters are so real-world that when they don't remind us of someone we know, they leave us yearning to meet someone just like them. Kate, a self-proclaimed introvert, took questions from the owner of An Unlikely Story, Jeff Kinney. His bookstore, located in Plainville, MA is an absolute delight. He is also the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The question and answer session was utterly enjoyable. I got the sense that this thoughtful woman answered every single question from the heart. More often than not, she answered questions from children. She appeared to pour her whole heart into her responses as she stood before these children and answering their questions honestly. Kate DiCamillo seemed to delight in the questions asked of her. Even though she was on the spot, it appeared that she was completely at ease. This introvert was a masterful story teller. Sitting, and listening to Kate DiCamillo explain where she gets her ideas, how she develops a story, and how she has reacted to her success was the most satisfying way I could possibly spend a Sunday afternoon. As I moved through the cue, waiting to have my books signed, I was fairly panicked over what I would say to Kate when I had the chance. I told her that I was a teacher and that I, too, had been an English major. She asked where I went to school and I told her. She chuckled a little, which was funny. She asked if I wrote. My heart sort of lurched. How could I answer that question? In the moment where I paused to consider my response, one of my colleagues, eves-dropping from behind responded, "yes!" I quickly responded that I do write, but not for children. I do write. Kate talked about how she doesn't write to teach a lesson although her books surely do. She doesn't write for a specific child. She is quite in touch with her eight-year-old self. She writes for herself. She never imagined she'd have a readership. I can relate. Every time I sit down to craft a post, I write for myself. I often joke that my blog has an audience of one...ME...when I re-read a post for the purpose of proofreading. But, I do write. I write every day. I still don't know what will come of it, if anything. For now, I write for myself and it seems worthwhile. My favorite part of Kate's message today was when she addressed teachers directly. There were a remarkable number of teachers in today's audience. She asked how many of us read aloud to our students and then thanked us for doing that. She spoke about the experience of hearing a book read aloud and how those moments can be transformative. She spoke of empathy and how relating to characters in books teaches empathy. She said that her very favorite interactions with her fans are letters she receives from students who acknowledge that they weren't really readers until they encountered one of her books. I am grateful for Kate DiCamillo and all the authors like her who give teachers like me books worthy of being read to nine and ten-year-old consumers of literature eager to get lost inside the world of a magical story. Kate is my favorite of all children's authors. Meeting her today left a lasting impression. She is a gift. Today, I am grateful for Kate!
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Part two...One Part HeartbreakingDay 107After an amazing morning of mathematics inquiry, I delivered my students to gym class and sat down at my desks for a few moments to reflect with my colleagues. I shared how the morning had gone and they shared their experiences. We started to plan for the coming week. Our director of tech. integration popped in and booked a PD session focusing on green screen technology. One of my colleagues left for recess duty. The conversation was turning to politics just as I started to think about heating up my lunch. My classroom phone rang. The secretary had panic in her voice as she asked that I go immediately to the playground. I sprinted down the hallway in my ballet flats. When I was nearly out of the building I heard them call, "green team team to the back playground." This was a serious response. One of my students was in trouble. My classroom simply couldn't be farther from the back playground. When I got out there I was completely out of breath. I noticed one of my students sitting against the chain link fence. Another was with my colleague just outside the playground fence against some thicket. He looked upset. She looked concerned. Then he bolted. By this time, many teachers and staff, as well as our school resource officer, had arrived on the scene. It was hard to know, without talking to anyone, what had happened. I could easily imagine though.
Things had begun to percolate yesterday. This kid has a complicated life. He has moved a lot. There are a lot of adults who make up his immediate family. They all love him but it is complex. Some of his more trusted/consistent adults had been out of town. He was stressed. He'd had a small conflict yesterday with a boy he regards as a friend. His reaction had been a little over the top. He calmed quickly and acknowledged his stress and over-reaction. He seemingly moved on. This kid, whose attendance has been inconsistent, had attended school every day this week. I was feeling really good about that. I should have known. When a boy said something mean to him, legitimately mean, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. The stress caused him to take flight. He wanted out. He was in crisis and at age ten, didn't have all the skills necessary to cope. I'm over four times his age. I don't always have the skills necessary to cope with stress either. In the end, this sweet child broke a little. The adults at my school reacted perfectly. He felt support and love. He knew we were there to keep him safe and to protect him. We followed the protocol and reacted appropriately. Decisions were made in the student's best interest. I wouldn't change a single thing about our response. I wish I could change everything for this student. School is hard. The academic demands we place on our ten-year-olds are not always, in my opinion, reasonable. They can cause stress for students. Some of my fourth-grade students have way too much stress in their lives. Some of them are trying to manage the demands of school while solving adult-sized problems. There is no equity for them in the classroom when this much stress is present. They can't possibly access the curriculum in the same way that their peers, their peers with happy little lives, can. The afternoon was heartbreaking. I want nothing more than to take this child's stress from him. He is sweet and smart and deserves so much more. Teaching is amazing, teaching is heartbreaking. Each day has the potential to leave a teacher feeling gloriously triumphant and devastated. The work can seem impossible and exhausting. Every time I stop to really think about what happened on this particular day, I am reduced to tears. Teaching is so hard but I can't imagine doing anything else. Part one...One Part AmazingDay 106My day was really like two separate days. One part was amazing and the other heartbreaking. We should definitely start with the amazing. We wrapped up a unit in math and it was Friday. I felt like we should have some fun. We started our day with a fraction talk. (www.fractiontalks.com) I love the geometric images there. The partitioning of these images help kids to make meaning of fractions. The images allow my students to reason about relative size and they help to build understanding around equivalency. Plus, kids like them. There is a puzzle-like nature to them that makes them seem fun. Today was the first day my students experienced a fraction talk. One of the images we used was the image below: We used the #noticeandwonder routine to start our conversation. The students made some rich observations. Given that the "whole" is the large square, they noticed that the square had been decomposed into squares, rectangles and triangles. They noticed that the second row would be identical to the first if not for the two squares that were decomposed into triangles. They wondered how many squares it would take to cover the whole. They wondered the same thing about the triangles and the rectangles. They were able to visually partition the shape to figure out the fraction value of each shape. This lead them to more wondering. If the value of one small square is 1/16 the whole, what is the value of the top row? What about the value of the first column? How many different ways can you visually represent the sum of parts equal to one fourth. (eg: rectangle plus rectangle - 1/8 + 1/8 or two small squares plus four triangles - 1/16 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/32 + 1/32 + 1/32) The images really do engage my students. It was exciting for me to see them make meaning of fractions. It made me happy to begin learning about fractions in this way. I love this resource. Then, because it was Friday, and Fridays should be fun, we culminated our unit on multiplication with a 3-Act Task by @gfletchy ( https://gfletchy.com/ ) If you haven't explored Graham Fletcher's site yet, now is the time. We used a task today titled, "Piles of Tiles". While Graham has it lumped in with the third grade tasks as it addresses 3.MD.5,6.7, it is great place for fourth graders to begin when they're first being introduced to these tasks. Even though fourth graders should be able to multiply using powers of ten and should be able to compute area by decomposing a whole into parts, this task is always super challenging for them. The first act in this task is the watching of a very short video. In the video they see a man (Graham) sit down at a table shaped like a giant "plus" sign. He has a gigantic bag of square tiles. He begins to lay the tiles on the table. The students begin to #noticeandwonder. In the end, they are asked to estimate how many tiles are in the bag. They are encouraged to make brave estimates. The estimate a number that is too small but still brave. (ten or even 100 would not be considered a brave estimate.) Many of my students estimated 1,000. Then they estimated a number that was too large but still fairly brave. Estimates ranged from 3,000 to 5,000. They they were asked to estimate using a estimate as exact as possible. While the estimates still ran the gamut, they were all in a reasonable range. The question became: "will there be enough tiles to cover the table?" They were asked what further information they'd like to have access too. This is where my students fell short. They should have had enough experience with square tiles to know that they are one square inch in size. I wish they had wanted to know the size of the table. Instead, they asked how many square tiles it would take to cover the whole table. Some wanted to know how many tiles were in the bag. Hopefully, with more exposure to tasks like this that require deep thinking they will get better at thinking like a mathematician and will have an easier time engaging with a challenging task. The second act revealed some helpful information. The students examined the below images. I was surprised at how hard a time they had making sense of the table diagram. As they set off to work, I was surprised by how many students wanted to just "number grab" and solve without making sense first. Some wanted to add 60 and 60 and say that it would take 120 tiles to cover the table! They weren't at all concerned with the 1,842 tiles in the bag and didn't stop to consider how ridiculous the question was if it only took 120 tiles to cover the table. I had to prompt them to really consider what the red arrows were telling them. Once they could make meaning of the diagram, they were fairly successful in determining that the length of a short side had to be twenty. I did have to ask some groups to decompose the table into smaller sections and to name the shape of the sections they created. Some teams who said that one side was equal to twenty square tiles wanted to say that the other short side was equal to ten. They saw the arrow bisecting the shape and allowed themselves to think that they needed to "cut" the twenty in half. Even after some teams were able to label their diagrams such that they had five squares with sides of 20, they wanted to say that it took 40 or 80 tiles to cover the smaller squares. It was clear to me that even though these kids probably could have spouted off the formula for area, they had little idea of how this knowledge could be applied to problem solving. Over the course of the lesson, I walked from group to group asking "why?" "What makes you think so?' "So, what does that make you wonder?" etc. It is hard not to ask leading questions. It is hard not to give hints. It is REALLY hard to prevent the other adults from becoming teaching members of each group! As teachers, we have to fight the instinct to over-help and give "hints". It takes power away from our students. In the end, after a lot of perseverance and struggle, every team was able to arrive at a solution that worked. Some got there in very round-about ways, but they got there. When we debriefed and viewed the final act, the kids were in consensus. The work had been REALLY satisfying. What I noticed was that every group worked effectively. No one was left behind. Of course, some students contributed more. Some were leaders and some did their best to merely follow the thinking of their peers. Regardless, this was an enormously successful first dive into a 3-Act Task.
It had been a purely amazing mathematical morning. And then...read the post for Day 106 to find our how our day ended with a heartbreaking twist. Day 106I really struggle to get it all in. Plans for the upcoming week begin on Thursday, in a team meeting with my co-teacher who is a special educator. I fine tune the plans over the weekend. My plan book is evidence of the robust instruction that I design for each week. Despite my preparedness to launch those plans, I'm surprised, at the end of each day, at what goes unaccomplished. I have worked hard to limit the time wasted on transitions. I have no fluff in my day. There is no time spent on instruction or activities that don't address standards. Still, there are not enough moments in my day to accomplish all the things I set out to accomplishment and all the things that are critical to my students' success. What I have done a good job of is igniting a passion in my students for reading. Our #classroombookaday challenge is an enormous success. I recently asked students to reflect about their year. I asked a simple question: "How is your year going? Tell me and give me three reasons to support your answer." I couldn't believe how many students cited #classroombookaday as a reason why they were having a good year. It really is a time when we all come together to have a shared experience. The books we're reading are carefully selected. They afford our students opportunities to view the world through a different lens. They expose our students who diversity and the very real and very different problems of others. In other words, #classroombookaday is helping my students to become far more empathetic. In addition, we are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Charlotte's Web. The kids are LOVING both books. After each chapter of The Sorcerer's Stone, the students write a letter to Harry which highlights the major events in the chapter. This is another opportunity for students to become empathetic while also demonstrating their comprehension and writing skills. The letters give me insight into which writing skills need to be highlighted in upcoming lessons. In the coming weeks, scaffolds that support students in highlighting major events will be gradually removed. Letters will begin to demonstrate which of my students can determine main ideas and support those ideas with details. This week, after reading Charlotte's Web, I will ask my students to respond to text dependent questions with varying depths of knowledge. Students will receive some support in their work, but again, supports will be gradually removed as instruction provides students with the skills and strategies that will enable success. I go in to every week with a plan. Each week's plan is robust. Rigor and attention to the standards are always in the forefront. Yet, I still struggle to get it all in. Focusing on a single goal each week helps to keep me focused on what is most important. I work to make every day count. This week. I'm counting on five days of focused instruction and work that will make a difference for my students. That is always the plan!
Day 105Today I attended the wake of a beautiful 44 year-old woman who died too young, leaving behind a young family including her husband and two children. I had her daughter in class last year.
Her daughter was kind of amazing. She had some learning challenges but was she ever determined. Reflecting on the year, I can't believe the progress she made. She was the "little engine who could". I give so much of the credit to this little lady, who never frustrated or gave up on herself. But let me tell you about her mother. Her mom was BEAUTIFUL. She was the kind of natural beauty who made it look effortless. She was battling cancer over the course of the entire year that I had her daughter. There wasn't a meeting or a chance encounter in a coffee shop when she didn't look radiant. She volunteered at the book fair. She attended all meetings for her daughter. She attended parent teacher conferences. She was stunning. Every time I saw her I was taken aback by her beauty. Yes, she did have a gorgeous smile and pretty eyes too. It wasn't just that. She glowed from the inside out. There was a sincerity and a warmth about her that just put you at ease. The fact that she was smart is indisputable but she never made the people around her feel like they weren't her equal. She was extraordinarily kind. I probably met with and emailed and phoned this parent a little more often because her daughter had some significant learning challenges and because her daughter was so determined and because this mother was the kind of advocate that makes a teacher want to anything within her means to help her child. Aside from the loss of hair and the emails explaining that she was hospitalized now and again, I never would have known that she was sick. She was as dedicated a parent as I've ever seen. She put her daughter first. She was very focused on capitalizing on what her kiddo did well and bridging the gaps that were present. As her daughter made progress (and she made some amazing gains) this mom was quick to notice. She was our cheerleader and did everything she could to support our work in the classroom once her daughter returned home. Our classroom theme was Harry Potter. She and her daughter read a Harry book together, sometimes over FaceTime when a hospital stay prevented them from being together. Her daughter clearly got her determination from her mom. When hospital stays were necessary, she always reached out to make sure that the impact felt by her daughter was minimal. No matter what she was going through, she put her kids first. Of course, we had to make sure her daughter was thriving. We owed it to this delightful little girl and her mom. When this little girl's mom couldn't be there, her dad showed up in a big way. It was easy to tell that had a very active roll in her success too. Although I didn't get to know him as well, friends are quick to sing his praises. They've shared that he is every bit as amazing as his wife was. I know that it will be overwhelming at first but I'm cheering this dad on. I know he has a beautiful cheerleader in heaven too. They'll make her proud. I just know it. Day 104
Today I met with some of our district's newest teachers to facilitate a conversation around communicating with parents. Everything about our roll as teachers has changed since I began my career in 1994. I can't think of any aspect of my job that has changed as much as the way I communicate with parents.
When I first began my career, parent communication was limited to handwritten notes received from parents, the occasional phone call, open house, and parent teacher conferences. It wasn't uncommon for me to have my first real exchange with a parent at the parent-teacher conference in November and then to have little communication for the remainder of the year. Honest to goodness, I remember shopping in a "teacher store" and coming across a parent communication notebook where teachers could write a note to parents and a carbon copy of the note would be left with the teacher. I thought I had struck it rich. I didn't have to go to the copier to make a copy of my handwritten response back to the parent. Fast forward to 2018 and parent communication has been made 100% easier by the introduction of technology. Teachers communicate with email, social media, web pages, blogs, and digital portfolios. Trust me, the list goes on and on. The good news is that we're able to share the learning unfolding in our classrooms with much greater ease. The bad news is that if you're like me, you're trying to do it all. As a result, I'm spending TONS of time communicating with parents and I don't have a super sense for how helpful or effective my communication is. I have always said that I will survey parents at the end of a school year to try to understand what works, and what aspects of my practice require retooling. This is the year I'll finally do just that. A lot of what I've learned about Parent/Teacher communication over the years has come from first doing my best and then reflecting so that next time, I can do better. Much of what I shared today seems like it should be common sense. Only, having mentored lots of teachers over the years, I have come to learn that teachers, like students, can benefit form some explicit instruction around communication. It really was an honor to meet these teachers today. They are the future of education. They are well equipped to grab the torch and run with it. I hope that there was some small thing that I shared today that will help them on their journey. Interested in what I shared? Here is my presentation less a few side trips: Day 103Week Five Theme: Student AgencyWhy is student agency important?
Student agency is important. Giving kids a say in their education should start as early as possible. If we are to tout the merits of life long learning then we certainly have to give our students practice at taking the wheel and directing their learning. Giving students voice, choice, and the ability to advocate for what they need and desire is an important first step in helping students become life long learners. Why should we embrace it? I know this sounds basic but we should embrace student agency because it is the most humane thing we can do in our classrooms. Acknowledging that children are individuals with unique interests, talents, and styles, as we build trusting relationships is humane. When we do this, we honor our students and respect the adults they are growing into. When we are able to build trusting relationships with our students, we can encourage them to make choices based on their passions and to take risks. Because we've established this trusting relationship, students will know that they'll have our support when and if they fail. Learning to pursue our passions and take risks is key to success in life. How can this help our students? Student agency, when provided in the elementary classroom, helps our students by giving them safer opportunities to practice making choices and taking risks. When a child fails in a safe environment, and has support figuring out his or her next steps with a trusted adult or classmate, he or she learns that failure is an important part of success. When the teacher is calling all the shots, she owns the failure just as much as the student does. Empowering students to use his or her voice, to make choices in his or her best interest, and to follow his or her passion, and persist even when initial efforts result in failure, helps students to acquire the mindset and habits that will allow them to chase down their dreams. What can or does this look like in my classroom? Students in my classroom have a lot of voice and choice. First, they have a say when it comes to what they will work on during English Language Arts and Mathematics classes as we use structures, the Daily Cafe and math workshop, that support voice and choice. Students can work where they learn best as we use flexible seating. Students have a choice when it comes to how they'll practice their literacy skills. They choose the text, they choose there method (read to self, read to someone, listen to reading), and they choose how they'll attack their learning tasks. Students in our classroom are empowered to advocate for themselves. This happens as students set reading goals and help to determine which lessons they'll receive so that they can take their reading to the next level. In addition, students attend and run their own parent-teacher conferences. In this role, students are positioned to advocate for their needs and celebrate areas where they feel most accomplished. I have a long way to go when it comes to providing agency for my students. In recent months, I've taken a few steps in the right direction. Day 102In preparation for this months faculty meeting, we had to read the first chapter in a book about social emotional learning. While there were a dozen or so teachers who were outraged over this, I wasn't one of them. I don't think it is terrible for a building principal to ask the teachers in the building to read a book in the interest of developing as professionals. I actually think that having a staff who has a common experience with one book can be powerful.
I'm not going to lie. I work full time and my husband does too. We have two teenagers with very active lives. I waited till the weekend before to do my reading. After the original ask, the principal emailed us and asked us to answer the first two comprehension questions. This wasn't a big deal. There was space to respond right in our book. So, I took a couple of hours on Sunday to read the chapter and respond to the questions. I absolutely did resent the fact that I had to do this when what I really wanted to do was to plan for the coming week and beyond. It may not have even been a couple of hours of reading but it sure felt like it. Anyway, I still don't think it was a terrible idea. On Wednesday, the day before our big meeting, we received a third email with a link to a google doc asking us to now type in our responses to the comprehension questions. There was no way I was getting that done in advance of the meeting. At the meeting we sat at tables where all grades were represented by a teacher and where there was a special educator. We had a decent conversation about the text and what resonated for each of us. One thing that was obvious to me was that every teacher at my table had done their reading. Only one of us had posted to the Google doc at the time of the meeting. At the end of the meeting, we were reminded to get our thoughts in the doc. UGH. Here it is three days after the meeting and I was kind of hoping that this request would just go away. It isn't going away. Apparently, this is an important doc that will crystalize this experience. It is awesome because we can return to it again and again to remember the experience of reading this book together. I'm feeling cranky. I don't want to key in my response. The chapter was dry. It was kind of painful to read. Yet, the response I wrote was pretty personal. I didn't mind sharing it at my table. I'm not feeling like I want to type it in that doc. I don't get why we have to take the homework this far. Is it to prove that we did the homework? I really do get that I wouldn't have to spend time complaining about this if I had spent the time it took me to write this post to just type my response into the doc. I get it. Day 101Week four theme: I Wish My Teacher Knew...
Denver teacher, Kyle Schwartz, asks her students a simple question: Fill in the rest of the sentence: "I wish my teacher knew..." The information she receives is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
I have surveyed students and their parents at the beginning of every school year for as long as I can remember. The information that these surveys yield is so much more valuable than any previous report cards or teachers' comments. In a way, asking kids to share information about themselves with me allows them to get a fresh start. They can share exactly what they want me to know and what they think I should know. I appreciate my students' honesty. Their comments and what they choose to share is very helpful. For example, this year some of my students' have shared the following:
Interestingly, I ask the parents some very similar questions. They receive their surveys at Open House. I don't send them home earlier because I'm always afraid that the parents will rush to fill them out and to return them with the other back-to-school paperwork versus completing them with thoughtfulness and care. Even so, there are always a few who are trying to rapidly fill them out while I speak. When I see this, I ask that they wait and give themselves time to think. This isn't always well received. Many parents see these surveys as just one more thing they've got to get done. Sometimes I wonder if this information wouldn't be better gathered over the course of a telephone interview. When the surveys do return to school, I am sometimes disappointed by how seemingly little thought and effort went into their completion. It makes me sad when questions like, "is there anything I should know about your child's academic abilities or previous experiences in the classroom?" and "what are your goals for your child this year?" are left blank. I sometimes wonder why. Is it because the parent doesn't have time, doesn't know what to write, or doesn't care? I'm not really sure why some come back with lots of blanks. Some are extraordinarily thoughtful and do help me to hit the ground running. Any advantage when educating children is appreciated. So, what do I wish parents and students knew? I wish they knew that:
Day 100We are launching our first PBL unit based on the Buck Model. I received training by a Buck Institute trainer this past summer. The training changed the way I look at projects. Our fourth grade team made excellent use of our teacher-directed PD day. We got together and I shared a brief overview of the Buck model. Then, we got right to our plan. We wanted to give students the opportunity to answer an engaging question. We wanted the students to do the real work of writers, and we wanted to give the students an authentic audience for their work.
Our project is set in the middle of a literature unit focusing on Charlotte's Web. Wilber, the starring pig, is born a runt and faces certain death until Fern steps in and saves him from the ax. He begins life in a comfy box next to the oven. He has warmth, and Fern's love, delicious slops and warm milk from a bottle. The pig's life is good! It is good right up until the point that he is sold to the uncle because he is becoming a liability for Fern's family. At the Zuckerman's he joins that other farm animals in the barn. He sleeps in a pile of manure and has a very small pen where he can exercise himself. We'll launch the project by reading Arnold Lobel's, Small Pig. In this tale, the farmer's wife goes on a cleaning spree. She doesn't stop at her house though. She's not happy till she has cleaned the pig pen too. The small pig is enraged and runs away. The inevitable question: How should farm animals be treated? Our students will be writing opinion pieces after conducting their own research. They'll invite local farmers to form a panel. Their author and revise questions to access the information they require in order to form their opinions. At the conclusion of our project, the students' opinion writing pieces will be published in a book that will be donated to the Clough and Taft Public Library. We're pretty excited about the project. We're hoping that students will have an increased appreciation for the food that they eat. We're hoping that they learn about the humane treatment of animals and can weigh the cost/benefits of providing a quality life for farm animals. If you're interested in our project, you can check it out here: Bacon, Beef, and Bird...What is the Word on Farming Practices? A PBL unit based on the BUCK Model |
Marie McManus BrighamA public school teacher who gets to wonder alongside fourth-graders. Archives
December 2018
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