Do U C What I C

Took a walk through the new office today, my first step towards starting over in a new place. I just moved across the parking lot, but it might as well be miles away. I didn’t go down my hallway, didn’t peek in my new classroom, I just don’t feel like thinking about it yet. The faces in the office are the same, but it all just felt out of place. My stuff is all in the new place, but the memories are still back across the parking lot…I started my career at Branson over there, my son and his teacher kids friends played games and drove the janitors crazy after school in that building, I watched some teachers come and go, and said goodbye to my mentor and friend as he moved on and up in his career. Most of all though, I felt the love in that building, the bond between teachers, kids, and staff that made it easy to walk through the doors each day and face whatever crazy situation that came up together. As I laid a hand on the door of my new place this morning, I can’t say that I felt comfortable, but the more I visit, the better it will become. Next time I will venture down the hallway, start measuring and thinking about bulletin boards and what will go in each cabinet. Many of my teacher friends made the move with me, but some did not. Change is good, but not always easy. I guess I should be happy I have a job, and I am. I just need a little more time to get over starting over.

Years have passed since I have written here, and yet every time I come back to delete I feel the need to create.

For reasons outside of my control, I have gone astray…given up the fight…forgotten what it is like to truly teach with technology the way I used to, the way I was taught to by my forever friend and mentor Cindy Matzat.

When I started in my current school, technology was the wave, and I rode it. My son was in Kindergarten, I had a classroom of eager students and a closet full of handhelds (yes, you remember those).

Fast forward..my son is in 4th grade, technology is on the back burner, and it’s all about the lit. Model now. I have a classroom of eager students and a closet full of mini laptops that I can use “if I can fit it in the model”.

Fast forward…my son is in 7th grade, the district administrators have discovered iPads, and I am following my superintendent on twitter. They are back on the technology wagon, and encouraging me to get on it…it’s the next big thing! Hmmmm….well OK, if you say so:) never mind I have been tweeting for years, and blogging since 2007…as long as I get to take another lap around the tech track! Bring it on!

I had abandoned this blog for several reasons, but today I felt compelled to come back.  I had started this blog as a sort of personal log of my professional life, and I decided to stroll down memory lane and see what had been on my mind a year ago…two years ago even. 

I have to say it was fun, and sad at the same time for me. 

Fun because I like to look back, and read my own thoughts..it always reminds me of how much I like to write for pleasure…not for an assignment, a professional reflection, a guided reading lesson plan, a grid full of data….just write down what I think..for fun.  I like that.

Sad because it became somewhat obvious to me that I seem to be  on a never ending carousel, going around and around….same battles, same conflicting feelings, same…same…same…  Perhaps the specifics of what caused me to write are different, but the overall feeling of being forced inside the box when I know all I really want to be is outside the box is the same as it was a year ago.  Have I gotten anywhere?  Has anything changed?  Will it ever? 

Again, another blog about my frustration at being a part of the education system…yet I still am not ready to give up…still would not dream of quitting teaching…so I guess I’ll just hang on and keep going around and around until I figure out a way to stop the carousel….or get off.

Hey,

This is a quick post to drum up some help for my METC connections lounge.  We have talked many times about how we are not reaching the right people, preaching to the choir, cocktail parties, etc.  This is my attempt to build the bridge, meet new folks, bring them over to the dark side where the bloggers hang out   If you are coming to METC, and you read this, please go here, add your name to the grid, and spend some time helping out some newbies while you are conferencing!  I promise it will be painless, and probably fun   See you soon!

I’m back from the silence, and writing again.  Seems like someone else has been driving the bus lately, and I am just along for the ride.  I don’t know exactly who is driving, and I am not sure how I got on this bus, but I am telling you that it has been quite a long bumpy ride so far, and this is my conscious effort to get off the bus, or start driving it myself perhaps.

Do you ever just feel like you have lost control, and you can’t put a finger on when it happened?  It doesn’t happen all at once, because then you would realize it.  It happens a tiny bit at a time…one little thing gets chipped away, then another, and when you turn around to see where you have been, you realize how far off course you are.  Who picked this road?  How did we get turned in this direction?  Is my GPS broken?

I did a lot of bus driving last year, and I liked it.  I took some risks, helped make decisions, paved the road.  I also took some hits for it, and decided it was time for me to let someone else drive for awhile.  I needed to nap in the back seat, eat some cheetos, see if someone else could do a better job of driving than I did.   So I napped, and the bus moved on, and now that I am awake and feeling refreshed I can’t imagine how we got where we are!  I guess that is what happens when you nap….someone else takes the wheel and takes the bus in their own direction.  Now I am left wondering if I am even on the right bus.  Maybe I need to drive again, but it seems like we will only be covering the same road we have traveled before, and when I get tired again, the bus will turn back the way we came and all of our progress will be lost.

If you haven’t quit reading this by now, I am surprised.  I don’t know that this post really has an audience, or needs one.  I am just at a point of internal conflict I suppose, and for the first time in 16 years I am not really sure that I want to be doing this anymore.  Not because I don’t love it, but because I don’t think I am doing it well anymore.  I let someone else drive the bus, and now I don’t know if I can get the wheel back again.  What shall I do?  I know not……

Just a quick shout out to my network!  Thanks for the ideas about what I might do with my Google Docs problem today.  i have been so out of the loop lately, I was not sure that anyone would respond.  First round of triage came from across the building, when my BFF dropped what she was doing to come to my rescue.  We managed to find a temporary solution, but neither of us had really tried getting a whole classroom full of kids on a google doc at once, so we were stumped.  Then I put the call out on twitter and plurk for some help.  I should have known you all wouldn’t leave me hanging!  My buddy Jen Wagner and I worked through things on skype, and took a minute to catch up with each others lives.  Lisa, Kelly, and Stephanie shed some light on my problems, and gave me some ideas for what to try tomorrow.  So, once again I am grateful for the tools that help us connect for this kind of reason, but also I miss knowing what everyone is doing, what Bernie is grilling, who Jakes is rooting for….but for some reason I just can’t get my feet under me this year, and so I will continue to make myself scarce until I can get a handle on things.  I just had to stop and say thank you for the help, and I am ready to jump back in tomorrow with some new ideas:)  You guys ROCK!

One of the best days of the year happened yesterday for me.  I saw my new class list for the first time.  Every year, it is like getting the biggest package under the christmas tree for me.  I go over and over the list, looking for names of siblings I have had in the past, wondering if I know any of the parents already, deciphering the notes from past teachers.  I look at those names, and start wondering just how I am going to pull all of this together again and create a loving, creative, self engaging group from this new batch of learners.  I always remind myself to wipe the slate clean, for myself and these kids.  Sure, I read what past teachers say, I consider things like scores and behaviors.  But I also remember that kids get to start over when they come to me, and they may be someone totally different in my classroom….or they may not….but they get that chance.  My slate also gets wiped clean, because I need to give these kids a chance to make their path, because they may not be able to follow the one left behind by past students.  It is always amazing to me how different each group is from the last.  How great is that, the feeling of wiping it all clean, and just seeing what happens?  How many people have jobs where they get to do that every year? 

I have been more nervous than usual about this year, for a lot of reasons.  My district is in transition, and we have all moved, been put in new teams.  We begin year 2 of PLC release time, and I feel the gloves coming off in terms of getting past the “lets all agree and be nice” stage.  We opened a huge can of worms last year by throwing out our referral process and starting RtI , and this year we really need to pick up the pieces and make that work.  My partner in crime, eMINTS, and collaboration has gone to another grade level.  I spent alot of time this summer convincing myself that none of this would affect me, but that was easy to say in May.  Can I protect my classroom from the chaos?  Will my principal still understand how important it is for me to teach the way I do, even if it means I am on a different page than the rest of the team?  His answer to the chaos is to implement more structure, but I don’t know how that will fit with my teaching style.  I don’t want to be a problem child…I respect him, and he does not need more stress.  How important is it to be true to my own beliefs about what students need?  Maybe I should just be a good soldier this year, and hope that things calm down next year.

So this is where my post stopped, and sat in draft for a week, until I read this inspiring post from Bud Hunt.  It made me realize some things. 

One-take risks for the sake of learning.  Teaching the way I do is a risk, and it’s not like I haven’t known that for years.  I have been lucky these past two years to have a bubble of support around me, and that is not totally gone…just a bit further away.  It does not mean that I back away from what I know is right for my students, I just have to be ready to live with the consequences.  I can do that!

Two-chill out! Maybe everything will be fine.  I may have to take smaller steps, walk a bit more softly, rattle a few less cages this year.  Perhaps this will be the year when I find a better balance between home and school, and let a few things go for the sake of sanity, personal relationships, and hallway harmony.  I can do that!

Three-I don’t need permission to do what I know is right for my students.  The classroom is the one place where my students and I create our own safe zone, get things done, take care of each other.  I need to protect the special place we create together.  I can do that!

“Model always what you want your students to do.”  I can’t stop doing what I am doing…because I would never want my students to do that.

“We so need you to do well.”  I can do that!

Thanks Bud, for the inspiration!  You helped me clean my slate…now I am ready

I love learning!  It energizes me, it makes me happy, it puts me in the shoes of my students, it keeps me humble.  I like knowing that there is always something bigger and better out there to be looking for as far as my teaching is concerned.  I think that if I ever felt like not learning, it would be time for me to hang up my recess whistle and step out of the game.  So this week, I was in HEAVEN!!

Those of you who follow me on twitter have probably heard that I have been at a week long Kagan conference.  One thing that makes it great is that I am attending with two of my best teacher buddies, who are also geeks.  We spend our days soaking up all the great Kagan structures, and our nights soaking up the free wi-fi at the hotel!  Doesn’t get much better…(especially when you have some perfect margarita’s within walking distance..yummy.)  But I digress….

If you are like me, you hear Kagan, and you think “oh yeah, that cooperative learning stuff, from the 70′s, I do that”  .  So my friends and I came into it expecting to gain more tools for our already fairly well stocked bag of tricks.  We are all eMINTS teachers, we all stray from direct instruction, and we all work to make our classroom a collaborative learning adventure for our kids.  We were ready to improve on a good thing.  Here is what we learned in a nutshell:

Day 1- if you do cooperative learning without structure, research says that your students will perform lower than a teacher who does direct instruction all day long.  WHAT!!!??  Yes, it’s true!  If we put kids in groups, give them a task, then don’t ensure that they all equally participate in the learning during that task, we are doing harm.  We left day one with a big AHA moment, that was more of a DUH..we should have realized that!

Day 2-  Now we know that our kind of classroom needs some specific tweaking to get the most out of the cooperative learning we are doing.  We realize that we are so engaged in learning that none of us has even thought about checking to see if the building has free wifi.  We haven’t even texted each other!  Wow! 

Day 3- Thinking that today will be the day we top out, overload, and start checking email.  Didn’t happen.  We are too busy taking every structure he dishes out, and plugging it into our own classroom situation.  We are staring to realize that we do have a bit of an advantage over others in the room, because we are used to having students in small groups, managing a classroom where kids are talking and moving.  We start thinking about how cool it would be if our whole district knew Kagan structures! 

Day 4- Still the amazing workshop leader manages to keep our attention, and the day flies by!  We start looking at how the lessons we already do can be tweaked to ensure that students are active participants in learning.  It’s not rocket science for sure.  In fact, it’s common sense. 

Example:  Many times to check for understanding during a mini-lesson or mentor text reading, I tell the students to pair and share the answer to question, or an idea that we have discussed.  Good idea, bad structure, because it does not ensure that every kid participates.  All I have to do is set a timer, tell each kid they have 30 seconds to share, then switch- suddenly it’s equal.  Well, DUH!! why didn’t I think of that myself???

Day 5- yet to come…

I guess my point in all this rambling is that as I start my 17th year of teaching, I am having an AHA moment…again!  You could say I am having a DUH moment I suppose.  I mean, wouldn’t you think that by now I would know what I am doing??  Lord, I sure didn’t think when I started this career that I would be re-inventing myself and my classroom on such a regular basis!! So I can look at it two ways- and I am choosing the AHA path.  AHA!! This is going to benefit my kids so much!  AHA! I don’t have to stop doing what I am already doing well!  AHA!  This is what my kids feel like when I ask them to remember things the first time I teach it!  AHA! My students will love this almost as much as they love blogging!  AHA!  This is why I became a teacher!  I love learning!

The further away I get from NECC, the more I see.  The specific conversations that I had, from the time I sat down at the web 2.0 smackdown at Saturday’s Edubloggercon, to the last conversation I had in the elevator the night before I left are all starting to weave themselves into this tapestry of voices.  It’s all coming together for me, and I am realizing that every conversation I had leads me to one question in my own mind…what will I do?  The whole idea that teaching needs a good kick in the pants is really not up for debate, though I must say I heard a few.  What I did not hear, is a lot of solutions.  Who has the answer for that?  What exactly does the everyday, teach between the bells teacher do to impact the future of education?  Yes, we talked alot about what is wrong, and what we don’t have, and what we don’t do.  I just want to know, what should I do?  How can I help?  I suppose I wanted someone to come over to me at the bloggers cafe and just answer that question for me…lay it out and tell me to run with it.  But I realized about 2 days into the deal, that we were all just really in the same boat, rowing the same direction, not really knowing how to get where we need to go.  So, I started asking some people..”what should we do, what can we do?”  I had some great conversations about that- I talked to Bernie Dodge about my struggles with using webquests in a student-centered, constructivist classroom, and how I could balance those things.  I talked with Tina Steele, Kevin Honeycutt, and Wes Fryer about how we needed to take advantage of our geographic proximity and make something great happen in our little corner of the world.  I talked to Riptide Furse about my ideas for a new kind of technology training model for teachers.  Those, and many other conversations are all mashing up together in my head, and I am beginning to see what I will do.  I spent the last hour creating a model for change, and tomorrow, I will share those ideas with my tech person, and my principal.  Then, if they don’t fire me, I’ll share them with you….well…I’ll share them with you anyway:)  I was beginning to think that all of my social networking (fun as it was)  at NECC had not really produced anything tangible.  Now I see..the powerful force of my network.  Thanks to all of you!!  Also.. to Jeff, Will, Jakes, Shareski, Wagner, and the others in Utecht cafe that morning, who let me just listen for awhile- made an effort to say hello to a newbie, and let me toss a few ideas-thanks-it was empowering to me.

I have started 3 posts about my experience at NECC, and none of them have made it out of the draft box.  Partially that is due to the fact that I was busy having so much fun that I had little time to just sit and write!  I also am having trouble wrapping my head around how to sum up such an event.  I think that as time goes by, things will slowly start to seep out, and I will share those things bit by bit as they come along.  Here is the first bit…NECC, for me, was all about putting myself out there and making the connections.  I did not go there to collect the most t-shirts on the vendor floor.  I did not go there to see the latest new tech gadgets.  I went to connect.  I spent most of my first day running from session to session, and then realized that I had not yet really spoken in depth to anyone.  Day two then became a specific effort to slow down, soak in some conversations, start some as well, and that was the turning point for me.  I realized that the powerful change that would come for me from this conference would happen there..in the Second Life lounge, or the bloggers cafe, around the dinner table, or anywhere else we could find to sit face to face and start to sort out what we wanted and needed from each other as a connected network of educators.  What a great feeling it was to actually collaborate with people who were ready to do the work it takes to make change!   I have to say that the DEN folks are some of the most fun, interesting, and dedicated people I have ever met.  Thanks to Lor, Rip, and the others for taking me under their wing for my first NECC- it would have been a drag without you!  When I get home, and recover from my sleep deprived two weeks, I will be sure to fill in some more bits.