In the arena

12 of 31 at Two Writing Teachers!

What can turn an eloquent writer who lives a writerly life into a hesitant, jittery mess? The threat of all her dreams for the future being snatched away because of one test on one day...

At 10:30 today, when the "regular" testing window ended, nearly all of my beleaguered ELLs were still writing away with furrowed brows and clenched jaws. More than half were still working at 11:15, earning themselves a hard-working ELL rite of passage: the solitary graduation testing lunch break. As we walked downstairs, they stretched their tense muscles and shook the exhaustion from their dull eyes.

"I'd like to see the people who made these tests spend this many hours writing that many passages in a row... in their second language!" I joked, and they slowly tried on smiles as if attempting to remember what it felt like to be people instead of writing robots.

Once settled into our little room in the guidance office, shut off from the rest of the school to maintain test security, they gradually came to life. As we chatted (in English only, avoiding the one topic that was looming over all of our heads like a low-hanging fog), their backs relaxed and they leaned back in their seats. A few giggles even rippled through the room as they regained a little bit of energy.

All too soon, it was time to head back into the dense clouds of testing territory. "Oh boy! Let's finish the test! Aren't you excited?" Grinning, I hopped up with extra sparkles in my eyes, trying to keep their energy from being eaten by the malicious testing fog. "Yay, you can do it! You're almost there!" I clapped and skipped as they took their seats with wan smiles and just a few eye rolls.

Nearly three more hours of scribbling and scratching, flipping through dictionaries, rolling achy necks and loosening weary wrists. I just wanted to hug each one of them, right there in the middle of the test. (Don't worry, I didn't!)

One by one, they exhaled deeply and stacked their test booklets. While writing a pass back to class, I looked each student in the eye and whispered "I'm so proud of you! You worked so hard!" as relief and confidence crept back into their faces.

Finally, four warriors remained as the last minutes of the school day ticked away. "Great job! I'm so proud of how hard you worked! You are awesome!" Glimmers of light returned to their eyes as I high-fived each of these champions. No matter what the scores say in a few months, I couldn't be more proud. After all, as Theodore Roosevelt so wisely declared: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood..."

Three arduous days down, two to go. They are striving valiantly, and they deserve to be honored for that.

A sweet surprise awaits my sweet students tomorrow to get them through Day 4 of 5!

The joy of collaboration

Today we had a waiver day (no kids, PD all day) due to Race to the Top funding.  My brain is pretty fried, so here's a short reflection:

• The opportunity to discuss and APPLY whole-district ideas with people from my subject area is invaluable.  It's so important to figure out together how WE are going to apply RttT and progress measures to OUR classrooms to benefit student learning.
• Nothing helps decrease stress like talking things out with colleagues and realizing that they are all feeling the same way I do: a mixture of confidence and being overwhelmed.  Yes, we track our kids' progress all the time through a wide variety of authentic measures, so we're already ahead of many people, I suppose. However, it's going to take a lot of work to start formally documenting all of that progress and making it more concrete. Moreover, I'm not the only one who needs to do a lot more formal pre-assessing to identify concretely where kids are STARTING so we really know HOW MUCH they're growing.
• I LOVE collaboration -- at least, with colleagues who are "on the bus" (as School #2's principal would say) with the same types of ideas that I am.  I wish I got to collaborate with challenging, hard-working peers more often.  My current position makes me feel like an island, and while I definitely have an independent streak (I am an only child, after all!), I crave dialogue and idea-sharing and someone to work with on all these big initiatives that are looming ahead.   Moreover, I love the feeling of excitement that comes from passionate colleagues working together to increase student learning.  
• Since I don't get to connect with those "real-life" colleagues nearly as often or as consistently as I'd like, thank you to all of the wonderful teacher bloggers who also inspire, share your ideas and feelings, and provide that same excitement about student learning.  You are like a mini-collaboration session in my RSS reader every day!

Tuesday's "Inspiration": Why Growth Mindset Matters

On the snapshot of my new 5-year journal in Tuesday's slice of life, you might have noticed that Tuesday's question was "What inspired you today?"  I LOVED this question, because I love the idea of finding something inspiring in each day.  In fact, I bet it would be a pretty good exercise to ask yourself that question EVERY day! Anyway, on Tuesday I happened to have an easy answer to record: a video clip by Rick Wormelli that my principal showed us during our staff meeting that day.

I've always been a believer in the growth mindset, so I was enthusiastically nodding my head constantly during the video.  Not to say it didn't make me think though -- Wormelli's analogies are fantastic examples of WHY these ideas are so important.  Moreover, Wormelli exudes his passion for student learning throughout the video, and it's certainly contagious.

If you're ready to be inspired, watch below:


Something I hadn't really thought about was that so many things in life can be done over and over until you've mastered them.  How many people be driving right now if we only got to take that driver's test once?  (Well I would, but that's not the point!)

Above all though, I love his conclusion that if you let a kid fail or not complete an assignment, you're basically saying "This isn't important," and then why did you assign it anyway?  This has always been my philosophy, but I never articulated it as well as he does.  I do not give zeros or D's or F's; it must be done, re-done, re-taken, whatever.  I refuse to let even the smallest homework assignment go, because I wouldn't have given it to you if I didn't want you to do it and didn't believe you would learn from it!  (This is also why my kids only have homework for me about once a week, but maybe I'll write more on that another time.)  Like he says, "I will haunt your nightmares!" I will track you down and make you do it, whether it's an incomplete homework or a quiz that needs re-taken.  (There is literally a kid right now that I've been bugging ever since before break to turn in a little homework assignment.  I don't want to give him a zero and move on, I want him to do the practice because I believe it's important!)  I believe all of my students are completely capable of doing well on every assignment.  If they don't, they need to find out why and complete the learning, not just give up and move on!

The new idea that my principal brought up after we watched the video is that maybe everyone should be allowed to re-dos and retakes -- kids who just passed your mastery mark or even kids who just missed a few little things. Should they be able to re-do too, if they want?  If they're inspired to fix their mistakes and grow in their learning, they should have the opportunity -- even if their mistakes are small or not as numerous.

How did the video inspire you?  Are these new ideas or already part of your personal teaching philosophy?