How the best band built the best version of me

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

What if the kids are bored? What if the other staff members don't like it? What if I don't do a good job? What if nobody wants to come back? What if... I take a deep breath and glance back at the awesome picture I put on my title slide. It's one of my favorites, with me as squad leader in the middle of a proud hats-off during my last year in the OSU Marching Band. I glance out across our club members, half-glad there aren't too many and half-wishing there were more today. I think back to my colleague's encouraging reply after I'd sent him my slides yesterday. Okay. Go.

A few minutes later, blood is pounding through my body as hard as when I dove so deeply into creating my slides this weekend that several hours somehow disappeared. I can feel the rush of marching again as I explain how every incredible moment in uniform was built on innumerable hours of diligent, intense, relentless practice. How every roar of the crowd came from countless choices of intentional discomfort and sacrifice: 2-5 hours a day, every day, all summer, repeatedly executing precise fundamentals with militaristic precision. In the heat. In the rain. When I was exhausted. When I was sore. When I wanted to sleep in. Analyzing every movement with a running checklist in my brain. Starting every time with the most basic elements of posture and in-place movements, even when I could have done them in my sleep, because I didn't want to do anything on default. Woody Hayes said that "you're either getting better or you're getting worse," and I wasn't about to get worse.

I run my fingers over the now-taped-up spine of my old spiral notebook and brush its coarse, battered cover against my palm before I pass it to a student. The E-7 notebook. Covered in quotes to inspire myself on the hard days and filled with precious tidbits of feedback from the mentor who would go on to become one of my best friends. My journey to earning the spot reserved for the best marcher in my row, to make sure that I wouldn't get complacent, to keep myself truly getting better every day. Just holding it gives me shivers, 15 years later.

All those hours on the field, devouring feedback after every drill, scrawling notes before jumping back on the line and snapping back to attention for more. Conversations with my friend about hard work, courage, leadership, and life, as we built the trust that was so essential for my growth. The determination with which I cut up the descriptions from our fundamentals packet and rewrote his feedback under each section to study, memorize, and turn into a mental checklist that ran through my head every time I marched. Back straight, horn straight, eyes ahead, legs up, toes strained downward, march "to the wall", don't dip shoulder, don't flash early, relax neck, throw head back, slam back down,  tense shoulders, "hit the table", don't dip, snap leg up...

It's surreal to stand in front of a classroom now, so far removed from those days, and see colleagues and students flipping through those tattered pages. I feel like they can finally see who I am, now that they can see where I came from. This is what I mean when I say I'm hardworking. This is the culture of challenging support, trust, and accountability that I dream of recreating in my classes and in our school.

"Did you guys see what it takes to become the elite of the elite?" the colleague in charge of our club jumps in. He starts to tie my ideas to his hopes for our future discussions and gives me a fist bump, and my blood and breath begin to find their way back to a normal pace.

"I can use this with my classes, right?" As we scurry to class, one colleague excitedly waves the planning worksheet I led the group through.

"I was starting to write up something as you were talking, and then you had it made for us!" another colleague declares. "And wow, those old notes of yours... how do you even learn how to take 22 1/2 inch steps?!" We giggle as I try to explain using maximum toe point to train your muscles to hit the yardline precisely with the ball of your foot every 8 steps. "I think we should keep checking in with our plans all year!" she continues, and I feel hope floating from my toes to my curls.

Examples

Day 15 of 31 at TWT!

"Mrs. M, I loved your post about your daughter with the stickers!"

"Oh yeah, I read that one too! She's so cute!" D. chimes in. "I remember she was so sweet at the Global Cafe!"

"Yeah, we're pretty much covered in stickers by dinnertime most evenings!" I giggle. I love that my kids are really reading my posts this year! 

I talk about my writing with my students all the time, I write in front of them, and I sometimes use my posts as mentor texts in class, but I've never had this many students independently visit my blog, even though I've linked here on our class blog during past March Challenges as well. This year, as I weave through the room during the time I give my students to leave comments, I've been frequently spying the familiar sunset background of my blog up on at least one or two screens.

Maybe it's that commenting has finally taken hold this year the way I've always wanted it to. Maybe it's that our new squad group format (which I seriously promise, again, to write more about soon!) and refined goal work have intensely strengthened the feeling that we are all learners working together to live our class motto of "being our best selves".

(Last week, after sharing how I hadn't met my weekly reading goal, one of my students remarked, "Wait, teachers have learning goals too?"As I started to wonder where he'd been all the other days and weeks I've modeled talking about my goals, another student jumped in: "Mrs. M always works on what we're working on!" Looking back, while the first student isn't exactly known for his stellar attention, I wonder if all that modeling just hadn't seemed as real until he noticed that I was sharing about NOT reaching a goal.)

Maybe living through my personal struggles this fall right in front my students helped them view me more as someone who works hard to persevere through obstacles, just like them.

Maybe this group of students would have just been particularly invested in the March Challenge anyway. But I'd like to think that some of that other work has made a difference. Regardless, it's really fun to see them reading and responding to my posts as a fellow writer and fellow member of our class community.

This morning, when I logged into our class blog to approve comments, this sweet one was waiting for me on the post where I link to my posts here, in response to yesterday's reflection on writing and running, and identity:

Don't you just love that she's encouraging me and giving me advice? She's one of my squad leaders, and I just chose her for our school's special "Celebration of Excellence" award. See why? She has been a major turning point in our class.

"You are one of my biggest examples in life, therefore I believe if you could do something I could do something as you do!" Her words echo in my head.

This is why I teach. This is why I write. This is why I share my reader-writer-learner self-who-is-working-to-get-better with my students.

Reflecting and reaching

Monday.

What did you just think of when you heard that word? Sluggishness? Reluctance? Trying to shake yourself out of a fog? Yeah, me too. Until I get to class.

Mondays in my classes, more than any other day, run like a well-oiled machine. Smooth, simple, with gears turning purposefully. Going somewhere.

Every Monday, our warm-up is the "idiom of the week". Idioms are everywhere (Seriously. Have you noticed? Tomorrow, pay attention to all the idiomatic phrases you hear and read, and then imagine not having grown up with them!), they're hard to figure out if you don't just know them, and they can be pretty silly and fun! (Today's was "to sling mud", and an astute student pointed out that it's a lot like "throwing shade" -- they might not know traditional idioms, but ELLs sure don't struggle to pick up slang!) It's a light, non-threatening way to start the week... and I always smile to see one of our past idioms find its way into a student's writing months later!

Every Monday, we also check in about our academic goals. For the past several years, we've used the WOOP framework to set a goal that we want to work on for about a month. Teaching students to proactively realize what obstacles are standing in their way and plan how to overcome those obstacles has been incredibly powerful. Now that we're also using R-factor concepts, the language of default actions vs. disciplined actions has fit in perfectly with this structure.

This student's current goal is about reading, but it just has to be some academic skill. We fill out the top half when setting a new goal, then one row on the bottom every Monday to check in over the next month.

I used to have students share their progress with a partner, but now that I've shifted my class to a "squad" unit format (posts on that coming soon, I promise!), they share with their whole squads, and the conversations are much more powerful. These check-ins only take a few minutes, but their impact is incredible. Students are leaning forward, nodding, reflecting, and encouraging each other as they honestly share about why they are struggling to meet their goals or how they were successful.

And every Monday, we time ourselves reading for exactly 15 minutes, noting our starting and ending page numbers. When the timer goes off, we enter those pages into our reading goals spreadsheets (template 1 / template 2) to set our page goals for the week (based on Penny Kittle's idea from Book Love) and do a little thinking about our reading. I do my own as a model, and it's fascinating to see how my reading speed changes between and even within books and how much more purposeful I am about my reading when I know I have a specific goal.

thinking boxes

page goal (light green & yellow boxes calculate automatically)

Fingers fly on clicking keys and flip gently through book pages in a settled, nearly-silent hum: purposeful, thoughtful, spinning the foundation for a new week of reading. I could sneak out of the classroom and I'm pretty sure almost everyone would just keep typing. On Thursday, we'll check back in to see what progress we've made, but for now, the invitation to push ourselves forward as readers stands open.

Too much routine can be boring, but on Mondays, our routines anchor us and drive us, using reflection, goals, and community to focus on what matters most: reaching toward our best selves, one week at a time.

Choosing our words

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

"Oh wow, you guys are choosing great words!" I peer over my students' bent heads as they brainstorm and then create signs for their "one little words" for 2017. My kids are just awesome. Seriously, they're amazing! Oh man, I love this job.

I love sharing pieces of myself with my students, showing them how hard I work to be who I am and helping them find ways to do that work for themselves. Every year, I work more goal-setting into my classes, and every year, I'm less afraid to be unperfect in front of my students. Every time I share about my personal and professional goals with them, I can feel the sparks flying from my eyes, turning into glimmers growing in theirs.

So even in the midst of several dismal days of graduation test retakes (a great way to start off the new year, right?!), we're taking the time to reflect on how we grew last semester as readers, writers, learners, and people. We're analyzing our progress and setting specific goals, but we're also choosing "one little word" as an overarching guide in our journey to be better people in 2017.

For me, "one little word" has been such an uplifting way to encourage myself to be better without putting more stress on myself, and that's how I introduced it to my classes this year. We've already done so much goal-setting work that they have well-developed attitudes about working hard to improve, so it really didn't take much to nudge them towards the right kind of brainstorming to discover their words.

We talked about how resolutions often fail, and why our short-term, measurable goals with plans work better for making specific progress. We discussed how, combined with those specific goals, an overarching, broader intention or word can be a positive force that keeps you driving throughout the year. I quickly modeled how I often brainstorm possible goals and look for patterns across my list, and then turned them loose to do their own brainstorming...

And boy, did they arrive at some powerful words!

 A few of the words that have been chosen so far... others are still working. Love these kids!!!

Look out, world. There are some pretty incredible teenagers in room A2. They speak multiple languages, navigate multiple cultures, and handle untold adversity with strength and grace. Best of all, they're working hard to get better every day.