Monthly Archives: February 2012

One Less Thing

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I came home more than a few days this week and said to my best friend, “They never stopped asking me questions!” It’s true, they didn’t. I thought I was going to go crazy.

Like most teachers I can handle about three questions in any given moment. The make them stop factor only happens when this number reaches six questions in any given moment and two of the six have to do with the bathroom or why I chose to wear this sweater today over their favorite one (seriously why do the kids have a favorite of my sweaters?).

At some point on Friday one of my guys offers this up, “Last week was easy, we needed you to do your watch thing and make sure we got it; I guess we did cause you really bumped it up. Don’t worry; we’ll get it soon, and by the way we do know it’s called a semicolon, but winky face is way more fun to say.”

Maybe he’s right? Maybe they’ll be normal again on Tuesday– regardless as long as they’re using the winky face correctly, that’s one less thing I’ll be correcting.

Maybe?

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When you’re a good teacher, sometimes you have to do nothing. I mean it probably looks like nothing, but sometimes when you’ve given them the tools, you’ve got to let them use them. Alone. No hand holding. No answering questions. And I’m so pretending not to see that one kid that’s struggling right now, cause it’s his fight and the best way for me to help him is to give him space.

It’s a fickle chemistry this knowing when to step in and knowing when to let them struggle. My first instinct is to always have a conference going on, always be moving around the room, but there are times when you just shouldn’t, when you should let them be with their book or their journal and let them journey the way you do.

The best part of my job is showing kids the journey, not the one that happens sitting in a school desk, the one that happens on the floor with your journal, when you shut out the world and figure out that who you are exactly isn’t who you thought you were. Cause I’ve been lost in a journal or a book and somehow in all that lostness, I’ve found myself, and maybe my job is more about helping these kids find themselves than anything else?

ahappyneighbor—Part I

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And because I’m always trying to make everything a little more fantastic in my classroom, and since I never make too much of anything easy on myself…this year I decided that ALL of my students would learn about Detroit. That’s right, leveled texts and tons of them, hours upon hours of Internet research so every group could access the information, tons of Goggle searches and Youtube videos. I even went to the library, and you know how much that pains me.

This year instead of having Evan work with small groups of ten students in each class, he would work with everyone, right from the start. If Detroit and Evan had so greatly impacted 30 kids last year, why not go for 90? (because it’s crazy, that’s why?!)

Who in their right mind would try to write a new curriculum on a place they’ve never been, using the common core for the first time and incorporating both reading and writing standards for levels three through High School? acrazyteacher ahappyteacher

So we jumped in Mid-October. A history of Michigan with focus on Detroit, oh and sing-a-longs for fluency (thank you Bog Segar and The White Stripes). When I tell you I ran groups and made copies, I want you to understand the massive undertaking this was. I think I stayed for over an hour after school on Friday just to do one weeks worth of copying and this unit lasted until the last week in December!


As we studied, the kids shared their information with eachother via skits, power points, photos, drawings, essays, and graphic organizers. Each group had to learn from the other because honestly I couldn’t find the same information at all the different levels. Here’s the catch, each group listened to the other, because each group had the common experience of what we’re calling, “Evan videos”.

Again, Evan filled in gaps I just couldn’t find in texts. He made Detroit real and cool and funny (very funny, if you ever need to make a fourteen-year-old laugh; email me for Evan’s contact info). Like last year, Evan brought learning to life with relationship; work was completed not so much because I was asking them to do it, but more because Evan had suggested it was cool or because Evan had been there before. The power of cool in the life of an 8th grader is unreal.

 

What am I trying to say here? Why am I doing all this extra work?

Well, part of it is that you’ve got to enter into relationship with kids to make anything work. By letting the kids meet my best friend and interact with him, I make myself more real and they see the authentic nature by which my whole life is run. They know that I write inside and outside of school, because I tell them I do, because Evan tells them I do, and because I suspect some of them stalk me here.

The extra work, the copies, the hours sorting through information? I like learning; Detroit is a cool city, with a rich history. At the end of the day, the more excited I can be about a topic, the more excited the kids will be; my energy, my enthusiasm, my classroom—it’s contagious.