Collaboration

The second week of school is coming to a close and we are in full swing. I find myself thinking back to a reflection from those lovely days of professional development, before the children arrive and reality sets in. These are the few precious moments we have to set resolutions with a clear mind. Before all is muddied by logistics. The three weeks of in-service training cuts into our summer vacation, but is a true gift to the staff. I am flummoxed as to why every school doesn't construct a similar experience for their educators.

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It is the last Tuesday in August. Students return to our classrooms one week from today. We returned to the building two weeks ago for an intensive orientation where we spent our days thinking about our mission and instructional focus, our practice, our curriculum, our students.  We started each day with a morning meeting in small groups, playing games and laughing together. We went out to lunch with colleagues we may not see again until June. We have been busy, but it’s time to get down to business.

This afternoon we close our final day together with an hour of reflection. We silently wander the halls and take time to review the dozens of posters we have produced on post-it chart paper over the past two weeks. We look over notes, think about the many difficult (and inspiring) conversations that we’ve had, and ask ourselves: So what? What will this look like when they arrive. It is, after all, all about the students.

My task is to synthesize what I have experienced in this orientation and articulate some “take aways.” I will write a letter to myself. I will create a bumper sticker with one pithy statement to take with me and share with others.

So what?

For me it all comes back to our mission:

To nurture a diverse group of students to become lifelong, active participants in their own education, develop a sense of self and community, and become responsible, compassionate members of society.

We start each of our professional development sessions by reciting the mission together. It is on the first slide of every PowerPoint presentation. And I want to make it live in my classroom. This is the first takeaway: keep the mission at the forefront of each action.

The past week has been surprisingly stressful. All should be good and easy this year compared to most (any?) years of teaching in the past. I have a solid teaching team, I know my students, I like the school, I have a great room. But this week I experienced one little glitch of not being able to access my old computer files until yesterday, and I felt paralyzed. I panicked. I couldn’t proceed until I had my files, and I lost a couple of days of prep time. I realized that I have already carved out little grooves in my practice, ruts that may be hard to escape if I do not remain flexible. The days ahead of us will require me to be responsive, tenacious, energetic, and thoughtful. There is no time for ruts. There will be problems this year, as with any, and I will need to be able to “solve” them… or at least work within them. This was the second takeaway: there is strength in flexibility.

I feel fortunate to finally work in a school that pushes and supports collaboration. They expect and encourage grade level teams to work together closely when planning and implementing instruction. I have a grade level teaching partner, an assistant teacher, a special educator who will be working exclusively with our grade, and a student support aide. While it is often difficult for me to work with others (I care too deeply about the opinions of others, and I am not decisive), I do not mind the challenge and know that the result is always better than what I would produce on my own. I do not work well in isolation. In my best teaching moments I have worked closely with another teacher to develop ideas together and share responsibilities of implementation.  Collaborating is not always efficient; it can be time consuming and difficult. But it is worth the effort.

I have worked on grade level teams where the extent of collaboration was sharing computer files and school supplies. I was not satisfied. My greatest concern is that in these two weeks we have not successfully laid a strong foundation for collaboration. That I will once again be on my own, each of us working in our own hemispheres. It is fine to share files and responsibilities, but I want to share ideas. And it is worth it to me to keep trying, even when there is not a shared vision in place. This is the final takeaway: I will not give up on any relationship. 

The Runs

My first year of teaching I taught across the hall from a gentleman who had been a fifth grade for 36 years. Over three decades in the classroom had flattened him into a short, stout man who had the demeanor of Eeyor, but who nevertheless had kept his sense of humor and seemed to enjoy what he did. He was particularly proud of the newspaper his fifth graders produced every year and of his collection of cigar boxes that he sold on Ebay.

He mostly kept to himself that year, we all did, but the day before the first day of school he stopped by my room and poked his head in. I was putting the final touches on a bulletin board that proclaimed a Reading Oasis in the library, complete with hand made construction paper cut outs of islands.

"I always get diarrhea on the first day of school," he confessed in the monotone drawl of a depressed donkey. I repressed the mental image this conjured. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"Every year. I've been doing this so long, you would think I wouldn't bat an eye at the first day. But each year I get the runs. No matter how long you teach, it's still terrifying. Well, good night."

I laughed and relaxed, and thanked him for his comment which was obviously a fabrication intended to make me feel better. I hadn't slept well in two weeks, ever since I was offered the job in mid August, but I was certain that with time my pre-school jitters would subside. Certainly after a few years, opening day would become routine.

This is my tenth year of teaching and I have diarrhea.

In my current school teachers return to the building three weeks before the students. The first week back is about reconnecting with our school culture, bonding as a staff, and thinking deeply about our school mission. It's quite "kumbaya," but an essential part of our training. Teachers generally arrive just in time for the first session and leave as early as possible to make it to a baseball game or yoga class or cocktail hour. It is still summer, after all. In my mind I am working in first and second gear. Nice and easy.

The second week, reality starts to set in. Our professional development shifts to curriculum design. We start mapping out math and literacy for the year, work in grade level teams to pour over the standards and discuss differentiation. But there is still time. The evenings are still filled with long conversations by the pool and trips to the mall for back to school shopping. I shift into third gear. A nice clip.

Tomorrow begins the third week. Family conferences start on Thursday. The students arrive the following Tuesday. It's time. Summer is over. Oh shit. I skip fourth gear and plunge right into fifth.

My to do list seems endless, with high priority items ranging from "label the cubbies" to "re-read chapter 8 of The Art of Teaching Reading." This is the first year I will be "looping" with my students, so there is a certain amount of relief and confidence that comes from meeting the same group of children and families. But I still feel a panic welling inside of me, like when watching a clogged toilet fill after it has been flushed: Maybe it will be okay... maybe it will be okay... maybe... Get the plunger!

Loop De Loop

       As I entered the building this morning I saw the mother of one of my students from last year sitting in the lobby, intensely texting on her phone. She acknowledged my entrance with a raised eyebrow, but did not look up. I put on a big smile, gave an enthusiastic greeting and sat down to ask about her summer and her son. She continued to text and answered a flat "Fine," to all inquiries. I wanted to tell her how I had been thinking about her son a lot and had some ideas about how we could get him moving more during the school day so his excess energy wouldn't impact his behavior in the classroom. But I held back. She did not seem interested in anything I had to say.
      I am about to start the second year of a "loop." I taught 24 second graders last year, and I will teach most of those 24 students, now third graders, this year. I have never experienced a "loop" (indeed, I have never taught the same grade level in the same school twice, not to mention the same kids), but I am very excited about it. I am starting out the year knowing my students, knowing my families. The kids know my expectations and our routines. I feel ready to hit the ground running with most of them. Today it took us less than a day to set up our classroom; we already had a sense of what would and wouldn't work in the space. The potential of the loop is profound.
     But there are drawbacks to a loop. On that rare to common occasion when a student does not like the teacher, or worse yet that the parents do not like the teacher, heading into the second year of a loop can bring a lot of anxiety. With a fresh new class there is generally optimism and excitement. You may not know what it's going to be like, but you can hope for the best. But with a loop, when you are faced with the same teacher, room and classmates as the year before, there can be trepidation. It may be that the teacher does not meet the needs of a student. And there they are, for another year.
      In the moments that I waited for this mother to look up from her cell phone and engage with me, I realized that she must be feeling this trepidation, or at the very least disappointment. I never quite figured out how to best support her high active child last year. And there are others. There is the kid who continued to test low in reading, the one who struggles with attention and handwriting, the girl on the autism spectrum. There are others, too, who grew and excelled last year and whose parents are tickled pink. The majority of the class, I would guess, are excited to return to our "loop." But when I sit down to family conferences next week, I imagined I will have to do some pretty fast talking about how this year is going to be different than last. It has to be. It's my job.
   

And so it begins... again

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a space to reflect on my practice this year. It's still just that: practice. I've been at this for ten years and I still feel decades away from calling myself an expert. Is it that I am just not suited to this business of education, or is there something unique about my journey that lends itself to fallibility and naivete? That's what I'd like to figure out here. What do I know? Why haven't I figured this out yet?

That said, I hope to discover that after all this time I do, after all, know a few things about teaching. At the very least, this sure as hell better be my best year of teaching yet.

The facts:
- This is the first year I will teach the same grade in the same school TWICE (since my first two years of teaching, which were a blurry train wreck)
- I have the same teaching assistant as last year. She has a teaching degree and is smart.
- I have the same students as last year, the second year of a "loop."
- I am teaching third grade: the best year in a human life
- I am teaching in an Expeditionary Learning charter school with the most intelligent, compassionate administration I have ever experienced.

Given the circumstances, I should be able to rock this gig. That, of course, remains to be seen. Nine days until the students arrive.