I rediscovered a great article on TeachThought that I had read several years ago, The Two Minds of a Teacher. I had an idea of what I was going to write about this week, and then remembering this article made the picture in my mind more clear. We talk a lot about teaching the whole child. Well the author of this article was focusing on how we can become a "whole teacher by joining the two minds of educators." The author had read an essay by Wendell Berry called "Two Minds" which discussed the idea of everyone having both a Rational Mind and a Sympathetic Mind. Both of these minds are constantly struggling to control what we say and do. So how do these two minds translate in the brain of a teacher? As teachers, we are told to be data-driven. We have standards that we are supposed to adhere to and figure out the best instructional strategy to utilize. We have to develop assessments that will guide our instruction and help us understand what our students know and still need to know. We design lesson plans and entire units and pacing guides that will make sure we have covered all of the standards that we need to cover. All of these actions are the work of our Rational Minds. Even though the task presented to all of us...educate every child...is a seemingly daunting and by all views, rather impossible one, our Rational Mind says that if we respond with logic, if we analyze and strategize, we will accomplish this task. Or we will at least have a plan of how to accomplish the slightly overwhelming, stress-inducing, wake you up in the middle of the night kind of of task that teachers are charged with completing. Thanks to our Rational Mind, we plan, we teach, we assess, we reteach, re-evaluate, we change our plans, and then we start the process all over again. But then, thank goodness, there is the Sympathetic Mind. The part of our mind that allows for curiosity, love, affection and joy. As teachers we have to find a balance between a mind ruled by logic and a mind ruled by affection. While the teacher's Rational Mind tends to take over, as Terry Heick says: "You’re keenly aware, though, of the tearing that has taken place by acting with logic. You’ve separated a learner from their very human circumstances—their interests, past experience, insecurities, and affections. Academic content from their native schema. Proficiency from curiosity. Scientific concepts from the application of science. Reading level from love of reading." For good or bad, we live in an education world that is driven by all things measurable, our career is guided by science and research, which means we have "ridden our profession of superstitions like 'patience', 'self-knowledge' and 'community'." We certainly need the Rational Mind, but we also need to balance it with the Sympathetic Mind. The challenge that has been presented to us is to awaken our whole mind; when we do that we will elevate our teaching to a whole new level. And as Terry Heick so perfectly puts it: "Always insisting, no matter what, that we don't resort to Rationality or even Sympathy, but rather act as 'whole teachers' in every single one of our interactions with and analyses of students, and in doing so model for them the significant practice of being human." Here is our challenge: "to elevate teaching beyond singularities through a kind of marriage–joining our Rational and Sympathetic mind into something inclusive and awake and whole." What will you do this week to become a "whole teacher"? How will you reconnect the learner to his or her human characteristics, striving for proficiency without compromising curiosity? On the flight to DC I started a new book and am already half way done with it. It's called A Soft Place to Land. I have read another book by Janae Marks called From the Desk of Zoe Washington which I loved so I am sure I will enjoy this one. A young girl is struggling with having to move out of their house and into an apartment because her dad lost his job. Plus, her parents are arguing a lot and she is worried that the family stress will mean her parents will get divorced. She makes some great friends who live in the apartment complex and learns about a secret hideout spot just for the kids her age in the apartment. I also started listening to the book I'm Glad My Mom Died, about the child star who was on the show iCarly. And I brought the book Hummingbird with me so hopefully I will find some time to read that one this week.
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Sometimes I have to stop and think what I want to write about for this post, I have to find the post. Other times the post finds me. This week, I feel like this post has been following me around for several weeks. It started when we were looking at iReady data and I was noticing different themes across grades. Then the post idea popped up when I was driving the other day and listening to a great podcast, Cult of Pedagogy. And I feel like the post idea popped up again when we were planning the literacy related spirit days and during some of the discussions during Friday's PD. What is it that I feel like I need to write about? Vocabulary! We have talked a lot about phonics and phonemic awareness this year as we have been focusing on our foundational literacy skill instruction. And we have been thinking about and talking about our writing instruction. Vocabulary is not always an area that we focus on, so this week I have decided to put it front and center. Why do we need to think about vocabulary and how can we imbed vocabulary instruction throughout the day? The more words our students know and understand, the better they will understand the text they are reading in all content areas. Plus, not only does a solid vocabulary boost reading comprehension, it also helps them to become stronger writers. In true UDL fashion, I am going to share information about vocabulary instruction and activities in different ways and you can decide how you want to explore this topic this week. Here is the podcast that I listened to in case you want to listen: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/8-vocabulary-strategies/www.cultofpedagogy.com/8-vocabulary-strategies/ If you like listening to podcasts, I just found an entire podcast dedicated to vocabulary instruction. I have not listened to it yet, but maybe you want to listen and can share what you learn with the rest of us! It's called The Word Conscious Classroom. Here is a quick post with 20 different vocabulary activity ideas. If you like to do your own reading and research, let me send you down this rabbit hole of vocabulary and morphology research on the MA Literacy Site: https://www.doe.mass.edu/massliteracy/skilled-reading/language-comprehend/vocab-morphology.html Maybe you would prefer to watch this video clip that explains some different vocabulary activities: Here's an article written by a literacy specialist who I respect and have been able to collaborate with during different projects. This article is focused on using read alouds, specifically picture books, to help with vocabulary instruction and she includes several book titles. And here are two of my favorite books to use when getting kids excited about vocabulary and collecting words... Of course, another option for you is to simply talk with your team members about what you already are doing for vocabulary instruction, what you can learn from each other, what you could try out that's new, or how you can scale up your vocabulary instruction to imbed it in the different contents areas and squeeze components in at different times during the day. If you have awesome ideas or discover something interesting, please share it with us! I am thinking it would be great to plan a week where we are focusing on vocabulary as a school and we could host a vocabulary dress up day and give kids the chance to work together across grade levels, parade through classrooms, and just celebrate all kinds of words! Sound fun?! Let me know if you want to help us plan! I was gifted several new books so I am trying to work my way several in my currently reading pile. Almost done with Writing Radar and enjoying the writing tips for kids about finding stories and creating writing habits. I got two new beautiful picture books. One is called Once Upon a Story by two amazing authors, Grace Lin and Kate Messner. The other one is called This is a Story by John Schu. You might remember the book I read by this author at the beginning of the year called This is a School.
What's with this week in March? I am not referring to Pi Day or St. Patrick's Day or the Ides of March. By the way...did you know the Ides of March was originally all about the timing of the first full moon? But I guess for those of us in education, we can understand the need to "beware the ides of March." We don't need to know the lunar calendar to tell us when a full moon is happening! Even though there are a few unique dates that happen this week, I actually spent some of this past weekend thinking about this week three years ago. Hard to believe it was three years ago when "the world shut down" for "two weeks." We all remember what we were doing when we got the notification that we were going to be out of school for two weeks. An unexpected break. A chance to temporarily hit the pause button. I know during this week three years ago I was not at thinking that it would be way more than two weeks before we were back in classrooms doing what we do best. I don't want to force you to go back down memory lane to relive the start of the pandemic. But I do think it's a good thing to do to remember what you all did. Educators everywhere were faced with something "unprecedented"....sorry I know that word brings up some PTSD shudders for me. Educators everywhere were told to completely shift how they had been teaching. No manual to read from. No script to tell you how to do that. We all just did it. During this week in March, I think it's important to remember that we can do hard things. We have already been forced to do the hardest thing ever. It's also good to remember that brief time when the whole world actually took a hot minute to recognize how hard an educator's job actually is. Remember when that happened?! Three years later, on the other side of a pandemic, the education world forever changed, and no going back to "normal"...make sure you take time to pause and remember. You have the most difficult and amazing job in the world. You have taught through the most difficult and amazing time. You can do hard things and you deserve to be recognized and celebrated for all you have done and continue to do. So go ahead world. Throw the Ides of March, a nor'easter the week before spring starts, daylight savings, Pi Day, students whose social emotional development was altered during the pandemic, stressed out parents, and whatever else you got at us. We can do hard things. We did the hardest thing already. I was excited to get some book mail in my mailbox on Friday. A friend who works for Bookelicious made some book gifts to me and to my kids. One of the books I started reading already is called A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat. It's a graphic novel memoir about the author's middle school memories. I love memoir and graphic novels so this should be good! I also got an advanced reader copy of City of Magic by Avi. This book doesn't come out until June and is part of a series. Looking forward to reading it and maybe discovering a new series for our students.
We have made it past the halfway point. We are in that interesting time of year between vacation weeks. We've worked hard to set up our expectations in the classroom and in other areas of the school. Students have demonstrated some amazing growth in all areas. But this is the time of year when we sometimes see kids making some bad choices. We might see student motivation dipping. We might find ourselves repeating expectations that we thought they knew, but apparently vacation weeks and snow days have caused some lapses in memory. What can you do to handle different behaviors popping up at this point in the year? I am going to give you a math problem that might be helpful. 2 x 10. Have you ever heard of the 2 by 10 strategy? It's been around for a while, and I cannot take any credit for inventing it. At the heart of 2 x 10, it's all about relationship building. Because we know that when students feel connected, feel a sense of belonging, feel like we care about them, we are able to see improved behavior. Here's how it works. You can do this with as many kids as you want, but I suggest you start with one student, the student who is causing you the most difficulty. Maybe since coming back from break you notice one student who is not motivated or the child is continually making some poor behavior choices even after you have reminded the student about your expectations and the school expectations. Make a commitment to spend 2 minutes connecting with this student for 10 days in a row. You simply have a 2 minute conversation with the child about something that interests them. The whole point is to build a rapport with that student and to focus on having a positive conversation with this student for 10 days in a row. Teachers across the country have been using this strategy and have seen how it works, not just for that one student but often for the class as a whole. Think about it. You have a certain student who requires a lot of time and energy from you and who might often be distracting the rest of the class or disrupting your lessons. When you focus on your relationship with that one student, it can have a ripple effect on the rest of the class. Those two minutes can add back in multiple minutes to your classroom. So think about a student, schedule your two minutes with them for 10 days and see what happens. Remember, that time is not about you instructing them one on one or you helping them with work. It's about connecting, having a conversation, letting them talk with you about what interests them. Give them your undivided, positive attention. And let's see what happens! This weekend I scanned my bookshelves and pulled out a book that I bought several years ago, but I have not read it. It's written by a local author who I heard speak a few years ago, Jack Gantos. It's an interesting book that might make for a different kind of a read aloud for upper elementary. The book is called Writing Radar: Using Your Journal To Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories. It's an easy read and it is full of Jack's personal stories of how he started writing in a journal when he was in 5th grade. And how he used his observations of life to create stories to write about. Throughout the book, he has sketches that he has done and included and he also has writing tips like this one: "This is the only writing oath you'll ever need: I will trust and believe in myself." When I finish it, if anyone wants to borrow it to read, let me know.
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