ack

"Oh, Ms. S" I heard one of my kindergarten students sigh as the instructional assistant helped her wash her hands, "I have Beber-fever."

The little one is learning to speak English, but she certainly has a grasp of pop culture...

writing buddies

A third grader listens as her kinder buddy plans out where to put the words on the page

Every year my school has a writing celebration. We go all out- every child and teacher receives a button that says "I Heart Writing". This year we even gave buttons to the visiting parents. There is a breakfast for the parents, each class does some sort of writing celebration to celebrate their published pieces, a whole-class text, or the students' works in progress. Many of the classes cover their classrooms with decorations, one of my fav teachers makes a red carpet for her kids to walk on. This year parnter-in-crime and I covered our tables with red table cloths and cut-out hearts. Each table held a centerpiece of tissue-paper flowers the children made themselves. I've written about it in past years here and here.

In the afternoon every class buddies up with a class on another grade level to share their writing. This year my partner-in-crime and the third grade teacher she was paired with decided to have the kids write together instead of sharing their published pieces.  It was amazing to watch!  I loved watching the third graders patiently plan their writing with the kindergartners, encouraging them to come up with a story idea to put down on paper. The third graders wrote, but all of them took the time to read what they were writing back to the kindergartners so that the five year olds could read the stories themselves. Then the kinders added the illustrations. One set of sisters- a third grader and the kindergartner worked hard on writing a story about what a snowball fight they had. The two leaned laughed and joked as they worked on adding those funny details about who hit who in the face with the snow. Some pairs of boys wrote books about  cars and the third graders took the time to encourage the kinders to think of sound-words to go along with their pictures.

Luckily the most patient third grade girl was paired with Pixie. When her big eyes looked at me and whispered, "Um, Mrs. Lipstick, could you help me with her?" I wished there was more I could do. The excitement for Pixie was just too much for her to sit still...

Standing back and watching the writing process between students in such different grades made me so proud of my school and the commitment we place on writing. For third graders to be able to conference with kindergartners as though they were teachers truly shows that they have been immersed in the culture of writing themselves for so long that they know exactly what is expected. And for the third graders and the kinders to be able to work together so easily on one writing piece shows that as a school we really are teaching writing in much the same way throughout the grade levels, despite the different expectations for each grade.

I heart my school, and of course, I heart writing.

Sing It!

I think my all-time favorite center is the singing center. My first year teaching I got the idea from Debbie Miller's book, Reading with Meaning (If you teach K-3 and are not familiar with this book I highly recommend you run to go get yourself a copy. Just the pictures of her classroom make me drool. She has wonderful ideas and great read-aloud lists to support her teaching topics.)

In one of her first chapters she writes about the importance of using songs both as shared reading and also having song books available for independent reading. Familiar songs instantly become familiar texts once the words are put into their hands, and for many of them it becomes something they can "read" beyond small books with two words on each page. For older readers it promotes fluency- because it is a familiar song their eyes and brain communicate quickly as they process the words, giving them practice for reading regular texts quickly. Looking at print while singing is a great solution for the robotic reading we tend to get when we do shared reading. Yes, we want everyone to stay together when we read as a class, but half the time we are sending the message to the kids that we read slowly. Songs help to counter act that.

As a classroom teacher I milked our familiar songs for all they were worth. One new song a week and we used it as a text for word study, identifying new word wall words, and of course, independent reading. Every week the children went to the "singing center" where they were able to get a copy of the new song, illustrate it, and put it into their song book. Once in their book they were free to read that song as well as any previous songs from our thick stack.  I set up the classroom so that the singing center was facing the air conditioning/heater and was away from reading groups. The children knew they needed to face the heater so that it would (somewhat) drown-out their voices during reading workshop. We sang all the time- during transitions, when we needed a wiggle break, or when we were walking outside so the kids knew each song by heart. (I should add I have a terrible singing voice. It's really painful. But after reading Debbie Miller's description of the power of songs in early literacy I decided that wouldn't stop me. The poor intern-teachers stuck in my room had to act like I wasn't killing their ears.)

This year Pixie ROCKS the singing center. She struggles with the texts we read in guided reading- simple texts with two or three words on a page, she struggles with letter names and their sounds, but she ROCKS the singing center. She could sit there for hours singing the songs over and over again, running her fingers over the words as she sings, with an intensity and focus we rarely see from her at other times. When it's her turn at the center we know her entire group will be singing along with her. Sometimes louder than we'd like, but we've all gotten so use to her singing that it doesn't distract the other readers.

Yesterday after our cupcake adventure we sent the kids to the rug with their reading bags for independent reading. The minute the instructions were out of my mouth I shuddered at what I'd just told them to do. Every kindergartner on the rug for independent reading?  The rug is not that big. There was no way it was going to end well, but we needed to get them away from the tables so we could do one last wipe-down to make sure no cake batter or raw egg was clinging a chair anywhere.

And yet- even with all of them on the rug they pulled out their guided reading books and started to read. And when they were finished with their guided reading books Pixie pulled out her singing book and started singing. Quickly everyone else in the class followed suite. Our whole class sat having a sing-along, independently, as we teachers cleaned in the background. They sang for about 20 minutes with no adult interaction. They weren't all singing the same song so the carpet was full of different versions of color songs, the autumn leaves song, the gathering song, but it didn't matter. Everyone was happy and on task even after the excitement of cooking.  It was pure magic.

egg shells, frosting & cake batter

Today my partner-in-crime and I decided to be brave and try "cooking" with our kinders. Tomorrow is our whole-school writing celebration (one of my fav days of the year) and just to make it even more special we decided we'd have the kids make cupcakes to serve at the celebration.

Now, my all-time secret of cooking with kids in the classroom is to always make 2 batches- one with the kids and one at home. The one with the kids goes straight to the "oven" also known as a trash can kids don't have access to, and the batch made at home appears after an appropriate cooling time. It really takes some of the stress out of the experience. You don't have to worry about their germy fingers getting into the batter, or egg shells mixing in, or some of the cake mix spilling on the floor and not getting into the cupcakes themselves. And of course, they have no idea. Every child gets to ice one cupcake, and partner-in-crime and I will ice the extras we'll share with the parents. They loved it, and (hopefully) all in all it was fairly germ free.

I was so excited to get a picture of the egg cracking that I forgot to tell my friend how to crack the egg. So of course, he opted for the "squeeze" approach. Note the egg yolk on his hand and the shells in the bowl...

Have you ever seen more icing on a cupcake?  It's nothing but a chocolate/vanilla mountain. It's owner is quite proud of her creation, but my stomach hurts just looking at it.

I love the teamwork cooking creates. Every table worked so hard to stir their batter and get their batter into their cupcake tins.  We ended with batter everywhere, but it was totally worth it.

The beginning of life

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend who is training to be a midwife. (She's currently a nicu nurse and her stories always fascinate me!) Since one of my classes this term is focused on atypical development from 0 to age 8 I have found that she is a wealth of information about the articles and studies I'm reading for class about prenatal care and early development. Yesterday, however, I asked her a question about development in the second trimester and she admitted that she wasn't as familiar with that time frame. The clinic where she is doing her midwife internship happens to serve a population living in low socioeconomic status (Avery similar population to the one at my school). She explained that medicaid doesn't start coverung prenatal visits until the 20th week.

Medicaid does not cover prenatal visits until the 20th week.

I can't get that out of my head. I woke up thinking about it this morning.

So all the kids I teach were not eligible for prenatal care until week 20 because their families did not have private insurance. They were too poor to be allowed to have early prenatal care.

I am sure there are studies out there that support why it is alright to wait for the 20 week line but that doesn't change the fact that we have created a huge gap in society between parents who are rich enough for early prenatal care and those who are not. Our children are starting out their earliest days of life already at a disadvantage. And the thing is their parents probably need prenatal care the most. If nothing else they need to hear from a doctor what they can and cannot eat or do. My friends who have been pregnant spent hours on the Internet looking for answers the minute they saw that positive sign. By the time they got to the doctors office they knew many of the recommendations already. They tracked their pregnancy using online programs to be sure of exactly how far along they were. Many of the families at my school do not have Internet access. They are relying only on neighbors and old wives tales to get information before that 20 week visit. They have to hope they correctly count their weeks and don't lose track so that they get to the doctors on time.

My friend also shared with me that in her community there is a distinction between the poorest families and those still on medicaid but still considered to have resources. The public health center will only accept the poorest families, leaving the rest to find a doctor that accepts Medicaid. She also mentioned that the doctors offices only get reimbursed about $25 per visit for these families although the costs are much greater. Sadly, that loss of revenue drives many doctors to not accept Medicaid, leaving an entire set of the population fighting for appointment times for their new babies. Once again, we have created a situation where our children are starting life at an immediate disadvantage from their peers.

Questions, questions, questions

I recently sat in on an IEP where a parent brought a long list of questions. While I know some special education teachers deal with this regularly, at my school it is sadly rare. We are use to the parents nodding along as we go, occasionally asking simple questions, and then signing at the end of the meeting. We've had difficult meetings before, but I've never experienced anything quite like this. The parents had put a lot of thought into their questions. They wanted to understand and truly wanted the best for their daughter. They didn't just want to be told "this is how we do it", they wanted to know why. Why did we word a sentence in one way, why is that considered routine, and what does that routine mean for their child?

As daunting as it was (and it was a relief there were so many of us in the meeting to answer the questions!) it was also refreshing. There was something reassuring about knowing a parent was so invested in their child's progress. It's not like we didn't know the answers to the questions. Sometimes it was hard to find the words to explain something that comes second nature to us, but it was an excellent experience. Why do we word something one way and not another? And could we explain it without using the ed-speak we're so accustom to?

I was recently at a routine doctor visit and was asking questions. My grad school research had me questioning some assumptions I'd previously made and I wanted to know why medical practice leaned one way when the research I was reading leaned another way. The doctor was trying very hard to refrain from rolling her eyes as she curtly told me that's just how it was. (I wont be going back to see her anytime soon).  I wasn't questioning her out of malice, or because I didn't trust her, I just truly wanted to know- She was the expert and I wanted to get her opinion. I realize it makes her job harder to have me ask questions like that, especially when they are not routine questions patients come up with. But I wanted to know. It's my health, after all.

I felt the same way with the parents at the IEP meeting. It certainly didn't feel like they were attacking us, although we easily could have let ourselves feel that way since it seemed they were questioning what seemed to us like small details. But they wanted to know. They wanted to understand why on earth we were going over so many papers and exactly what all those papers and ed-speak words would mean for their child.

I wish more parents would come to use with such thoughtful questions. As a society we need to stop seeing questions as a sign of 'lack of trust' and instead as a way participants show their involvement and their desire to understand. I hope the parents left feeling confident in what the school could do for their child, and more confident in the IEP process as a whole.

Visions, Innovation & Change

I'm ashamed it's been so long since I've blogged last (over a week!) but I've been swimming in my thoughts from EduCon trying to synthesize all the ideas I heard. I've felt absolutely too overwhelmed to post. And then, this evening, when I arrived home from grad class and pulled up my notes on my ipad...  they were gone. Stupid inotepad note taker thing didn't save all of my notes. All of those ideas I thought I was remembering correctly but wrote down just to be sure... gone. The quote about innovation for students from poverty...  gone.

So bare with me as I try to synthesize from memory alone...

First of all, I really had no idea what to expect going into EduCon. One of my fabulous co-workers had been the previous two years and always came back raving about it. She finally convinced me to go and I'm really glad I did. I enjoyed the small conference feel and the structure- instead of presentations each session is really designed to be a conversation where you are able to dive into deeper debates of what is needed at the heart of education by pushing one another to ask hard questions and share ideas/visions/goals.

The session I got the absolute most out of was on change. The presenters began by recognizing that one of the problems in education is that all of our long-term visions for education tend to be different, which makes it hard to initiate policy change on a global scale. We're all talking about different overall visions and goals for education. She asked us to share our broader visions, which led to a fascinating discussion on student self-advocacy, the skills students need to take part in their learning, and the tools we need to get us there. It was interesting to hear from all the different view points- the academic doctoral student working on his dissertation, the instructional coach, the technology specialist, an education consultant working with school districts, a guidance counselor, and a high school teacher. Everyone came from different backgrounds- some of us worked with children from poverty while some worked with children in higher socio-economic situations. Some worked in private schools bound by small resources while others of us worked in large public school districts bound by the greater structure of a large bureaucracy. For the most part, surprisingly, (perhaps because we are all people who chose to come to this unique conference) we all realized our visions for our students and education as a whole was to give students the tools they needed to be successful, teach them to advocate for themselves, teach them it was acceptable to fail as long as they continue to try (take risks), and to ensure that all adults are collaborating together to meet their needs.
So we have a vision, but how do we get there?  We hemmed and hawed over policies, top-down regulations and initiatives, statements and roles of principals and school boards. Yet in the end, what we all found ourselves settling on was that we can't wait for the top to change. If we want change we need to each fight for it individually within our own classrooms. We need to follow our own visions, ask for forgiveness instead of permission, get creative and do what needs to be done in order to work with our kids. In some ways it's an overwhelming and depressing order- the system's never going to change so it's up to you- but in other ways it is freeing. You're never going to get exactly what you want from the system so go ahead and give yourself permission to do what you know how to do best.
If we want to bring innovation to our students (the theme of the conference) we can't wait for the reauthorization of NCLB to suddenly give us permission to do so. We need to bring the innovation to our students ourselves, in anyway we can within the structure we're working in.
As one of the opening panel speakers explained (and I don't know who or have the exact quote because my notes are gone...) nobody talks about innovation with students at high risk or from poverty. Innovation becomes something only the middle and upperclass are privilege enough to be encouraged to experiment with in school. Our children in under-performing schools don't have that privlege.
At this point no one is going to tell us we have to encourage student innovation in our under-performing schools, or with our at-risk children. Yet we can't deny them the chance to learn through the drive to innovate, explore and create. So it's up to us to find ways to bring innovation into our own classrooms in order to fill that gap.

Exhausted from a long weekend with other thoughts floating in my head I have been inspired and overwhelmed by this idea all at once. But it's true. I can't wait on anyone else to make my vision for my students come true.

*my fabulous co-presenter/co-teacher did a great write-up on our google-doc presentation. Check it out!*