Dismantling the Nest

One of the most frustrating things for me is when I notice that I have a problem, but I don't know how to fix it (or, in the case of my last blog entry, I find that I am unmotivated to learn how to fix it). The first step to solving the problem is identifying it, but sometimes I don't even know how to do that...until I find out that someone else has the same problem and has started to work on it, too.

Although Twitter can sometimes be a complete trash fire, I stand by my assertion that it is also the best free professional development that I have ever experienced. Almost exactly 48 hours ago, I came across the following tweet (included with permission):



This is solid advice across the board, of course, and I'm sure that it is especially encouraging to new teachers to know that not everything needs to be perfect or even finished before students arrive. It is incredibly important for students to have a hand in creating and decorating the space you all will share.

However, the part that really intrigued me was the second piece of advice about the "nest" since I suspected that I was a true offender of "nesting" before I even read the clarification of what it was. I've read about teachers (and I work with some who have done it) giving up their teacher desks to make more room for student workspaces. I have admired the idea of that, but I'm not there yet; I still need a space where I can put stuff and know that students will not (or at least are not supposed to!) bother it and it will be exactly where I left it for later work time.

I am 100% a hoarder, both at school and at home. Not of garbage or animals or anything that would be a health hazard, but I am queen of "I could find a use for this!" Of course, this leads to clutter everywhere. I have become used to piles of books and papers and every available surface covered with mail and boxes and needing to clear a space on my dining room table to eat dinner. It just doesn't bother me...but it probably bothers some of my students, and it makes me, an already not-very-efficient person, even less efficient.



Every year, I do a little bit of a better job putting some systems of organization in place, and a few even last all year. But it's not good enough. It's never good enough when I have exactly what Traci Tousant describes above taking up valuable space that students could be using to store their supplies, use as a workspace, or just have empty until its purpose is revealed to us.

I went into my classroom today with the express purpose of eliminating spaces that could become nest-friendly. I changed the location of almost all of my pieces of furniture, including my desk to take up much less space; I emptied drawers of outdated, unorganized handouts and made them into student-accessible craft storage; I broke down the boxes that I had stored my books in so I wouldn't be tempted to use them as catch-alls.

Recognizing and naming the problem is the first step in the problem-solving process. It seems simple and obvious, but I have learned that nothing - except "First do no harm" - is simple or obvious in teaching. I don't need a perfect or a themed classroom, but I do need one where all of my students and I can learn together and an environment that supports that.

My 14th year of teaching starts in two weeks, and thanks to these wise words, I pledge to live a nest-free life (at least in the classroom!) from now on. 

Graphic from https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/classroom-clutter-keep-toss/

Groundhog Day

At the end of every summer, I SWEAR that I am going to blog during the school year. How hard could it be, really? Not daily, not weekly, but once a month, minimum. Is that honestly so difficult?

Three years of that thinking has shown me that one of two things is true:

1. Yes, it really is that hard. Basically, it's impossible.

2. No, it's not really that hard. I just don't prioritize it.

I choose to believe that the second is true. Those of you who know me, either online or in real life, probably know that one of my top three flaws, personal and professional, is time management. Once I learned the phrase "time optimist," I felt seen. A time optimist always thinks that something will take less time than it does - not because they are lazy or rude, but because they really believe that the thing they are doing (driving to work, getting ready to leave, writing a paper, grading a quiz) will take less time than it actually does. I am unsure if "time optimism" includes not building in extra time, but I absolutely do not do that, either. One minute of traffic will make me at least five minutes late. I don't understand the physics behind it, but it's true. I hate it. And I kind of hate myself for being like that.

A shirt I desperately wish I did not need but should wear everywhere
(https://www.stereohype.com/t-shirt/3390-sorry-i-m-late.html)

What I do not hate is that I believe this is changeable. I read somewhere that a habit takes 30 days to form (and way fewer to break, but that's another story). Sometimes - okay, a lot of the time - I get discouraged thinking about how long it takes to change a behavior and how many of them I want to change. But just like we tell our students, it is possible, and the only person who can decide to change me is me.

Last summer, I read Kate Roberts' A Novel Approach, and this past spring, I read Cornelius Minor's We Got This. Both of these books are written by people that I admire immensely, and both of them offered incredibly insightful ways to improve my teaching. Both of them also echoed a universal truth of teaching: if we say we value something, we have to spend time on it. We have to make the time in class to do the things that we ask our students to value: read, write, think, talk, and grow. We have to take the time to ensure that our schools and classrooms are bastions of safety and progress for ALL students. Optimism and hope have places here, but time optimism does not. Procrastination does not. Avoidance does not. 

Let's do this.

Learner-Centered Innovation: The Reflection

Sadly, my class on Learner-Centered Innovation is coming to a close! I am happy to have finished the book since I tend to buy lots of professional books with the hope and desire of reading them all and improving my teaching, but many of them end up just being skimmed. It takes more concentration for me to read a book that I'm thinking of putting to use instead of one that I'm reading just to learn about something (or just as an escape!), but it is always worth it.

This course was taught by one of my colleagues and friends: Emily Keeter, the science teacher on my team. If you have not checked out her blog yet, you're missing out! It's definitely not just for science teachers - it's for everyone who wants to learn and grow in the classroom.

Last summer, Emily also taught a course where I read The Innovator's Mindset, which piqued my interest in shifting my planning and instruction. I took this course as a follow-up to that one because I think I could have done better during the last school year, and I want to improve this upcoming year with a concrete plan for how to help students discover their strengths and work toward their goals.

This book is full of specific ideas about innovation for both students and teachers. One main thread of the text deals with school culture and the growth mindset. We cannot say that we value innovation if we also punish mistakes (on any level). When we take risks, there are bound to be mistakes or failures because that is an important part of the road to change. However, as Katie Martin writes, "We can change policies and implement new programs, but if we don't empower teachers and create school cultures where people feel valued and free to take risks, we will miss out on our greatest opportunity to change how students learn...We know that kids and adults learn better when learning has an authentic purpose, subjects are integrated, and the learner has agency and choice in the process" (75). In other words, the risks that we will take will allow our students to create for an authentic purpose that deals with multiple subjects in a way THEY decide. This will hopefully lead to more engaged and interested students!

While I enjoyed reading the book (although it is not without its flaws), the best part of this course was, hands-down, the interaction with my colleagues. I think Emily did an incredible job of differentiating the options for responding to the three books from which we could choose, and her faith in our ability to select the ways that worked best (and NOT just the easiest way!) for us made me want to try new things. This is exactly what is discussed in Learner-Centered Innovation. For example, I decided to do a video blog and create a graphic for two different weeks instead of writing a traditional blog. I am much more comfortable writing, but I knew that if I didn't try something new, I wouldn't know how my students felt when I asked them to take risks. The process of doing something that was challenging for me was eye-opening; I had to ask for help from other colleagues (hi Katie!), try different ways of saving and uploading, work with different templates, and pare down my ideas about the book to the basics. I ended up being very proud of what I did and happy that I had the experience of struggling and failing before succeeding so as to have empathy for my students.

I learned an incredible amount from my colleagues in this course. I have taken classes with several of them in the past, and I am always so impressed and excited by what they bring to our discussions. I don't think we get enough time to collaborate with our colleagues who are not part of our department, and I barely know who teaches at the elementary schools (unless they have taken other courses with me in the past). Hearing how teachers in every subject and grade would apply the same ideas in different ways was very eye-opening for me, and every time I posted an idea about how I would do something in my classroom, their comments made my idea much better. I cannot overstate the importance of continued discussion and time for working together in order to put these innovative ideas into action.

Thanks to canva.com and Katie Nelson for making me look like I know anything about creating graphics!

Big Takeaways: Graphic Edition!

Now that I've finished reading Learner-Centered Innovation, my task this week was to share (in some way) what my biggest takeaways from the book are. The easiest thing for me to do would be to write about it, but I'm trying to do things that aren't so easy for me, so I made the graphic below using Canva. I highly recommend Canva; even I was able to navigate it (with the help from a wonderfully patient colleague the first time around), and I found a lot of templates that were helpful to me as I thought about the best way to show my learning. I'm intimidated by the blank document when it comes to visuals, so being able to fill in my work instead of having to create something new really appealed to me.

(Sorry it's a little too big - it was too small to see in any other size!)

Relationships and Education: Booksnap Edition!

As a follow-up to my previous video reflection on relationships and education, here is a booksnap that distills one of my major points into one page. If you haven't tried (or heard of) booksnapping, here is a blog from Tara Martin that explains it very well. I like it a lot and find that it helps me to focus my thoughts since there's only so much that you can put in one snap - and I tend to be somewhat verbose! :) 

This particular booksnap is from page 219 of Learner-Centered Innovation. There were many parts of chapters 8-10 (which I read for this week) that I could have snapped (I was particularly interested in the radical candor section, but I'll save that for another time), but I stuck with the same thread as my video reflection for this one.

Relationships and Education

This week, I am trying video reflecting! The question I am answering is:

Why are relationships so important in innovation and education?

True to form, this video is longer than I intended it to be because I just really have a lot of thoughts about things, so I can't embed it here. Here is a link!

Additionally, I did not directly address innovation in the video, but I did talk about feedback and growth. In my mind, innovation cannot exist without those things: if you are not receptive to feedback, you will not be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone to innovate and you certainly will not be able to improve your efforts. Similarly, you will not grow if you are not receptive to feedback, and growth is essential to innovation. 

Image from http://ixd.prattsi.org/2017/04/what-are-you-really-hearing-effectively-processing-feedback/

Student and Teacher Voices (Short Post #2: Students)

It's that time of the class again - 150 word limit challenge! Here we go... :)

Part 2

How do we create classrooms where student and teacher voices are not only heard, but needed?

For Students

Image from http://dannywoo.typepad.com/my-blog/2013/10/student-voice-series-1-josh-acosta.html

This part seems easier (maybe I mean "more organic" or "easier to think about doing" - it's certainly not easier to manage or plan than everyone doing the same thing, but it's better!). If we truly do embrace the idea of personalized learning, then our teaching is nothing without our students' voices. Again and again, I thought of the point that the person who is doing the work is doing the learning (I know it's brought up here, but I heard it first somewhere else and it's stuck with me for a long time). In order to merge student voice and learning, we should "...revis[e] [our] lesson plans to shift the cognitive load onto students, providing opportunities to engage in higher-level tasks and allowing students to drive the learning experiences" (202). We literally cannot do that without student voices.

Student and Teacher Voices (Short Post #1: Teachers)

It's that time of the class again - 150 word limit challenge! Here we go... :)

Part 1

How do we create classrooms where student and teacher voices are not only heard, but needed?

For Teachers
I think we need to be valued and trusted. There were so many ideas in chapters 5-7 of Learner-Centered Innovation that I was excited about, but all I kept hearing from the little voice in my head was "Time, time, time." I don't mean that I don't have enough time in the class periods (although we could always use more of that), I mean that we don't have enough common planning time with our departments and teams that is OURS. We have agendas that are set by other people and data that we have to read and respond to and we allow schedules to dictate what we do and do not do. I will never stop thinking about this point: "We aligned the staff meetings and team collaboration time to ensure that teachers had time to design new and better learning opportunities, try out some things, receive feedback, and continue to revise" (203). Honestly, that is my DREAM.

Image from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teachers-want-to-be-heard-its-time-to-listen_us_58dbb2cde4b0f087a3041e6b

(HERE is the article where the pull quote came from in case you are interested!)