The Difference It Makes

When I think back to the cookie cutter approach to teaching, learning, textbooks and tests of my own 'education', I shudder.  Mind you, I was one of the lucky ones; book-learning came relatively easy for me.

 Seeing my name on the wall didn't bother me-I got STARS!

I LOVED to read and write and spell!

But not everyone did.  Not everyone could make the grade.  

Some children never got a spelling star.

Some kids hated to be asked to read aloud.

Some kids hated school.

WHY?

Christmas Gifts Welcome in the Classroom

                          

As we returned to class this past week and carried out the annual Show and Tell ritual, I was struck by the number of digital gadgets my students had received...

Laptops, I Pods, tablets, Wii systems, e Readers, Nintendo DS contraptions, cellphones, digital cameras...all in the hands of my ten-year old students!

I was also struck how - when I was not much older than they are - reading science fiction, that the fiction included handheld devices that one could speak into and see the other person!  How impossible that seemed back in the day of the rotary-dial telephone.  Web-camming is a new verb and now we can Skype with students around the world in realtime!

When I was my students' age the word computers evoked an image of the roomful of computer framesNASA had to use in order to guide the various space  missions. 

(And yes, I watched the televising of those first steps on the moon on a black&white TV!)  

These days many of my students own personal computers that fit into their jeans pocket!

                           

Back at it!

For a multitude of reasons I have not been posting here for months.  Not that I haven't been working and writing!  I have been teaching in the busy, messy, noisy way Vicki Davis talks about.
And I have been continuing my graduate studies.  And my volunteer work... and my family life!

With two students who have autism and another whose first language is not English ...in addition to the other smiling/not smiling faces in our class this year, I have been extra busy as a teacher since September rolled in.  (There aren't actually enough hours in the day, are there?!)

Or at least I felt busier!  And stressed out a little more too!

Teacher stress is very real but it's not unmanageable.  Recognizing that you are experiencing it and acknowledging that it is a normal emotion in this profession is perhaps key to staying sane!

For the love of reading

It is only our fifth day  in school and it fills me with such pleasure as I gaze around my classroom during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) and see so many children ... all 21 of them with their heads lowered over the pages of the various texts they have selected.

 I'm not surprised by what I see.  The culture of reading in our school is well established.  If I walked down the corridor to our Grade 8 rooms, I would see the same sight!


It's just that seeing them all engrossed in books just a few days after the start of the school year means they are already doing something positive and powerful for themselves.  When I eventually move into lessons about characterization and word choice and conflict and connections to texts, we will already have that shared experience of becoming engaged as readers.


And shared it is...it is essential for me to practice what I preach!  I vary my material - novels at MY reading level/interest, university texts, and of course I regularly read new books that have have been ordered for our class library.

The kids SEE me as a reader.  

They also KNOW I am a reader when I can speak in an informed way about the books I am recommending.  When I determine from their interest surveys or a conversation that they prefer mysteries I can suggest everything from Cam Jansen to "How Come the Best Clues are Always in the Garbage?" to Encyclopedia Brown.

Momentum

With so many things on my proverbial plate at this time of year, it was very easy to lose the sense of momentum I had felt earlier and equally easy to not make the time to do something I have so enjoyed...blogging.

It is also somewhat overwhelming when I read so many wonderful blogs and I wonder where they find the time!?  I have come to realize, of course, they carve it out, they take it early in the morning before they go to work (that doesn't fit me!!) or in bits and pieces throughout the day/evening or even across the whole week.  Whatever it takes... they take because they want and need to blog.

So I begin again and will do what I can when I can!