Significant Learning

Well, I had decided when I came back to the blog that Sunday would be my regular blogging day, but this Sunday I was coming back from the lake and sleeping.  Therefore, Tuesday is blogging day.  We're two days into in-service week at my school.  The children and their parents came for Open House last night, and we start school next Monday.  Amidst all the yearly reminders and required sessions on things-we-need-to-know-for-a-great-year, two things stood out to me, and they've been mulling around in my brain for the past 48 hours.

The first thing is a quote that my principal asks everyone she interviews for teaching positions.  She always states her favorite quote and asks each candidate what it means to him or her.  The quote is, "No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship."  I have no idea what my response was when she asked me that question.  I'm sure I was so adrenaline-driven that I just blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.  However, in the course of the day yesterday, she also told us the answer that one of my coworkers gave in his interview, and it's probably one of my favorite things I've heard lately.  He said that his job (our job as teachers) isn't just to create significant 7th graders.  Our job is to create significant adults.  Therefore, significant learning is lifelong learning.  It's learning that creates significant adults.

Now, "significant" is relative to the child, but the essence of this response rang in my ears all day yesterday, especially during Open House last night.  I'm not just preparing kids to be great seventh graders; I should be giving them the knowledge or thirst for knowledge that they need to grow into individuals who thrive on inquiry and critical thinking.  I should be striving to foster individuality and creativity.  In my opinion, those are the qualities that breed "significance," far more than superior standardized test taking skills breed significance.  I get it that standardized testing is part of my reality as a teacher, but I really want my focus this year to be on authentic learning experiences.

The second thing that stuck in my mind was a speaker we heard today during our district's convocation.  His call to action for us was to tell the positive stories of our classroom.  When he said that, I immediately thought, "Oh, I have got this! I do that in my blog!"  But then I went on to think about happy hour with my friends, when I complain about the tough things that happened during the week or the problem children I dealt with; I thought about calling my boyfriend to vent about that tough class period that was slowly wearing me down; I thought about whining to my parents about the papers I had to grade and the lack of effort a student may have made on an assignment.  I began to realize that I'm not always a great ambassador for my school.

Here's the thing, I adore my job.  The pros far outweigh the cons.  And while it's important to vent to protect one's general sanity, I need to make sure I'm advertising to everyone around me that middle school is wonderful, and my job is rewarding and fulfilling.  In a show of good faith toward my decision to be more positive, here's a small positive story to start me off...

At Open House last night, I saw hundreds of people.  Parents, students, and siblings came through my room all night.  Somewhere in the middle of the rush, two former students of mine came into my room. I taught them during my first year of teaching, and they were always causing chaos or forgetting homework.  Anyway, these two boys walked in my door with huge smiles on their faces, silently sat down in desks, and waited patiently for a group of new parents and students to leave and visit other classrooms.  When the group had moved on, these two boys stood up and gave me huge bear hugs that swallowed me (even in 9th grade they're already taller than me), and they said, "We sure miss you, Ms. Herring." They stayed and chatted, telling me about school, summer vacations, and football. Open House was the third or fourth time since being in seventh grade that these two boys have come back together to visit me.  I've said before that it's the little things that can really make any day better.  Their visit made my day better because their visit meant that I made a difference for them.  Maybe it was a small difference.  But regardless of the size of the impact, just knowing that they remembered seventh grade English enough to stop by and update me on their lives made me smile to myself.  Visits like theirs, letters that students send me to say "thank you" or "I miss your class;" those are the only signs I need that slowly but surely, I'm helping to create significant adults.

So I look forward to a  year of significant learning and sweet stories of my classroom.  I can't wait to get started and get to know this new group of kids.  I really, truly believe that this will be the best year yet.

Middle School Drama

Well, a new school year starts tomorrow for me.  It's officially time to get my classroom looking all shiny and new for the first day of school.  Last week, I was fortunate to get to spend most of the week at the lake doing absolutely nothing but laying in the sun and reading books.  It was much needed and much enjoyed.  I would always rather read young adult fiction than adult fiction, and I'm currently obsessed with author John Green and am in the process of reading all of his books. I started Paper Towns while I was there, and I'm loving it so far.  Anyway, I also read a nonfiction book related to teaching middle school to get me geared up for a new school year.  I started doing this last summer and decided to make it a personal tradition of sorts, a way to learn something new that I can apply to my work.  Last year, I read What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali.  This year, I read The Drama Years by Haley Kilpatrick.

Now, I was a middle school girl a lot more recently than the majority of my co-workers, and I remember having some pretty petty and ridiculous drama.  Despite feeling not all too removed from the upheaval of middle school, it was really good for me to read this book.  Kilpatrick dives into the pressures and frustrations that face todays sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls and discusses problems, like frienemies, mean girls, boys, and self esteem, by providing interviews with middle school and high school girls who are willing to share their thoughts and feelings.  What I realized in reading the book is that a lot of these problems don't go away post-middle school.  Girls who become twenty-something and thirty-something women still deal with frienemies, mean girls, boys/men, and self esteem.  Middle school is merely our introduction to issues and pressures that are always going to be there in some form or fashion.

All of this got me thinking; am I really acting as a good role model for my girls at school?  Am I modeling how to resolve conflicts and providing a listening, empathetic ear? Am I Tina Fey's character in Mean Girls?....just kidding.  Anyway, my point here is that as I was reading I started to realize that somewhere along the way, my mindset shifted toward adulthood, and I started to see the "silly drama" my students are dealing with for all its pettiness and not as the monumental moment that a 13-year-old girls can feel that it is.  While it's important for me to bring these kids back down to Earth, it's also important for me to practice greater understanding when their dramas turn into traumas.  The middle school girl experience is different, even from when I was in middle school back in the day.  Social networks and cyberbullying make girls even more vulnerable than they once were to the Regina Georges of their own generation.  I feel like it's my responsibility to be available.

In the chaos of the day-to-day, being "available" can be tough.  The thirty minutes of relative silence that is my lunch time is like an oasis some days, making it hard to say yes when a student says, "Ms. Herring, do you have time to talk?"  But it's my job to have that time. Some girls can't or won't talk with their parents, and girls need wisdom beyond the capacity of a fellow 13-year-old sometimes.  So my resolution for this year is to be available, to be empathetic, to be a listener, to be what my students need as they navigate the drama.

I'm Back!

I'M BACK!! I've probably lost my entire readership after this impressively long hiatus, but I'm excited to get back to writing regardless.  My last post was in early February, about six months ago, so you can imagine that a lot has happened in the time since I last shared the wisdom of my delightful middle school students.  My reasons for taking a break from the blog were both personal and professional.  In a nutshell, my life just got out of balance.  In late January, my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma, which was a really tough experience for my whole family.  His strength and positive attitude throughout his treatment was incredibly inspiring, and last week we found out that he is 100% cancer free!  Needless to say, it was a very happy week for our whole family.

Since I left my small but mighty audience hanging when I stopped writing in February, here are some highlights on how my classroom rounded out the year...

• We increased our use of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) by using our cell phones to build vocabulary acquisition and comprehension skills.
• We created iBooks using our new and exciting knowledge of the elements of science fiction writing.
• We did AWESOME on the ACTAAP! 97% of my students scored Proficient or Advanced on their state tests in literacy.  I totally did a happy dance when I found that out.

Then, it was summer time!  Well, sort of... Summer school started the day after school let out for the year.  For the second year in a row, I was fortunate to work with a diligent, determined, and delightful group of kids in summer school.  We read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, which they loved, and we diagrammed sentences, which they loved a little less.  It was so rewarding to see such a great group of kids make the progress they need to be more successful in the next school year.  

Post-summer school, there was finally a little time for rest and relaxation to get excited for a new school year.  I am finishing up my Masters degree, and I'm pretty darn excited to start my third year of teaching as my first year not being a student, too.  Of course, I'm a student of my students.  I'm sure this new group will come in ready to teach me lots of new lessons, and I'm excited to learn from them. Today marks the beginning of the end for Ms.Herring's summer break.  This Thursday, August 1, is my first day back at work.  I can't lie, I'm thrilled to get back.  I'm antsy to get my classroom ready and meet my new students and try new things in my classroom.  It's going to be good to be back!

Small Smiles and the Word of the Week

The past two weeks of my life have easily been the most stressful consecutive weeks of my life.  Two members of my immediate family have dealt with major health concerns and had surgeries, and one of my boyfriend's oldest and dearest friends passed away in the line of duty as a police officer.  Experiencing all of the stress, fear, and worry that came along with these situations made it difficult to focus on anything else.  I felt like I was floating through my day, hazily responding to students and colleagues, losing my train of thought in the middle of tasks and conversations as my mind would wander back to the worries.  Even my students could tell I wasn't myself.  It was as if they were tiptoeing around me everyday.  I have never heard my classes so quiet and reserved.

While those worries don't go aways, they are eased in knowing that my family and friends are constantly praying for the situations with which I am currently struggling.  I've been doing a daily reflection that my principal gave me (on a particularly bad day when I was an emotional basket case), and it has provided me so much peace and centeredness as I start my day at my desk each morning.

Another thing that has brought brightness to my school day is my students. Something I've never blogged about but have used in my classroom since I began teaching last year is the Word of the Week.  Word of the Week, or WotW, is one of my favorite standing lessons that I do each week.  Every Monday, the bellringer is a short worksheet that asks students various questions in order to help them understand a new vocabulary word.  Then, beginning on Tuesday, students can use the word in a sentence during class in order to get a piece of candy after class.

This leads to some really great sentences, like this one:

"Ms. Herring, I really comprehended that lesson, thanks to your great teaching!"

And some sentences that make it sound like they've never learned English before:

"Ms. Herring, you sure comprehended that lesson to me this afternoon!"

When they really "get" the word, their sentences make me smile, especially when the word is so far out of their normal vocabularies.  When it's obvious that they totally don't get the word, and they butcher it terribly on the off-chance that I'll give them candy, it makes me smile even bigger.

Lately I've been reminded about the importance of small smiles.  Sometimes, even in the middle of the worst weeks, all you need is one of those small smiles to get you through the day.  Fortunately, the Word of the Week this week is "embody,"  so I'm sure I'll be getting plenty of small smiles out of hearing them try to use that!

The Power of Respect

It's been well over a month since the last time I had a chance to write, but it's not for lack of material. I promise.

On the last day of school, I took my "Elf Club" members to Wal-mart to spend over $20,000 that they raised throughout the fall semester to support the Christmas giving of the local Kiwanis Club.  Their giving spirit and their excitement to know that they were helping others was infectious.  I honestly think it was the highlight of my holiday season.

And then there was Christmas with my family.  Closely followed by "Snowpocalypse 2012," which made me appreciate electricity and the freedom to go where I want to go when I want to go there maybe more than I have ever appreciated electricity and the freedom to go where I want to go when I want to go there.  It was truly a weeklong exercise in extreme patience.

After the snow melted, I got to ring in 2013 with my best friends in the whole world and my fantastic boyfriend.

And then before I knew it, we were back in school.  The children all came back looking a little taller than I remembered and acting a little more confident (and slightly more full of themselves, per any almost-8th-grader).  I was thrilled to see my students again!  As nice as it is to still live my adult work life on a middle school schedule, complete with a Christmas break, I always start to get antsy by the time we start back up for second semester.

Anyway, as excited as I was to see the children, I was a little shocked, after the first couple of days back, that a few of my students had magically discovered the art of sass and bad attitudes in their two weeks away from me.  I found myself having to reassert my expectations and drop a few detentions on some kids.  I even had to write my first pink slip, which was maybe my least favorite teaching experience to date.  I found myself wondering last week why a kid would make things so hard on themselves?  I mean, I get it.  They're testing the boundaries, figuring it out, asserting their independence and trying to gain adult respect, blah, blah, blah, child psychology, etc., etc.  But knowing why they seemed to have forgotten all the rules made it no less frustrating.  Suffice it to say that Ms. Herring ended up winning the battle because, let's face it, the teacher always wins.  This week has been so much less stressful.

Our 3rd quarter unit is all about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  It is my favorite unit because middle school students are so hyper-sensitive to the idea of justice.  They want justice and equality for themselves, and as they learn about the injustices that people suffered only 50 years ago in this country, you can see their indignation growing.  Last week, they wrote and delivered anti-bullying speeches in the style of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.  It was so powerful.  One student, who talked about his own experience being bullied in front of his classmates, almost cried when they stood to applaud him after his speech.  Other students preached against bullying as if they were standing at a pulpit.

Probably the thing that I am the most excited about at work right now is our field trip. That's right.  We are taking 400 7th graders on a field trip!  This week, we are studying the Little Rock Central High Crisis and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette's role in reporting the situation at the time.  Next week, with that knowledge, every 7th grader at my middle school will go to Little Rock and have the opportunity to walk the same path up the front stairs of Central High that the Little Rock Nine took in 1957.  I am so excited for them to have that authentic learning experience.

Over the past few weeks, I have watched my students attitudes and perspectives change with each new day that we have talked about racism and segregation and bullying.  They are making connections between the past and the present, and they are learning the true importance of respect for all.  Seeing my students learn this valuable lesson at a time in their lives when they are so prone to be egocentric is such a rewarding experience.  It reminds me that I'm not just shaping readers or writers or good students.  I'm shaping children who will grow up to be adults; adults who will hopefully remember the power of respect and the power of equality.

Keep It Fresh

Merry 10 days until Christmas Break!  I'm currently in countdown mode, and so are my students.  That much is obvious when you watch them try to sit still in class.  It seems like the world's most impossible task these days.  I can't complain too much since I'm the same way, though.  I made all my copies for the entire month of December the week after Thanksgiving.  Can you say antsy?  Anyway, despite the antsy behavior, my students this year have miraculously managed to avoid the "second quarter slump," a term I coined last year when I realized all my students decided to give up on being productive students who turn their work in from Thanksgiving to the end of the semester.  This group of kids has managed to turn everything in (mostly) on time, and they have done it (mostly) with smiles on their faces.  Thankfully, we're currently studying Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the only novel in our current curriculum that I also taught last year.  It's been a huge relief to be able to finally pull something out of a filing cabinet that I worked really hard on last year and actually put it to use again.

I did add one new assignment this December that I had never done before, though, and I must say that I think it's my new favorite.  This year, I volunteered to pilot a "bring your own device" policy in my classroom.  I haven't had much of a chance to put it to use quite yet because I also have a classroom set of iPads.  This means that there's no point in kids bringing their own devices for most class activities.  (Sidenote to teachers reading this: I realize that I am totally blessed by the educational technology gods to have all these resources.  I swear I'm not bragging).  Anyway, I finally decided to use my BYOD privileges this month for an extra credit project using the social network Instagram.

Each week, my students post pictures of English/language arts related things from the real world.  Last week, they had to find a grammar or spelling error, and they did a great job! They even caught my spelling mistake when I sent a homework reminder text home one day.  It really seemed to alert them to the grammar around them.  This week, starting today, they can turn in a picture of a simile, metaphor, pun, or oxymoron.  So far, I have received some super cheesy puns, and it has absolutely made my week.  Every time I check my phone, I seem to have a new notification about a picture someone has posted.

Probably my favorite part of this project is how excited my kids have been about it.  When I accidentally misspelled a word in their homework reminder text, a student posted it to Instagram almost immediately after the text was sent.  Then, three students commented on the picture using our vocabulary words of the week!  I love when I can trick my students into being English nerds.  It's my favorite. Anyway, the lesson I learned in all this is to keep it fresh.  I was so excited to keep my lessons and handouts from last year to teach A Christmas Carol this month, but I ended up being way more excited to do something new and fun.  What a great reminder of why I love being a middle school teacher. And now, let the Christmas countdown continue...

I'm So Thankful

I normally begin an entry by apologizing for my hiatus if I know it's been a while since the last time I wrote. But I've decided that, at least for this year, I'm going to have to stop doing that.  If I apologize every time that it's been too long since I last blogged, then I'm going to end up started every single entry with an apology.  This year has just been so busy!

Amidst all the busyness, it can be so easy to get overwhelmed.  I have spent a lot of time this semester just trying to keep my head above water when it comes to school and grad school.  It's just a LOT.  I know I've talked with several teachers in my building who feel the same way this year.  Implementing a new curriculum is hard work.  Implementing a new curriculum and having a family, friends, and a life outside of work can be even harder.  However, it's doable.  It's just more doable when you find a light at the end of the tunnel on which to focus.  We all need a little beacon of hope in our day-to-day.  Mine is Christmas break.  Only four more weeks :)

In addition to finding that light at the end of the tunnel, I think it's important to pause in the midst of all the chaos and deadlines and memos and due dates and remember to be thankful.  Today, I want to reflect on why I am thankful.

I am thankful to be surrounded by wonderful people at home, at work, and in my community.  I know there are many people who don't have a support system to lean on when things get tough.

I am thankful to have a job that, while sometimes exhausting and frustrating, is rewarding and exciting everyday.  I know there are many people who don't have a job at all.

Above all, I have recently decided that I am thankful for enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm, in many ways, is a lost art.  I think that as people become adults and slide into the grind of working, they lose their enthusiasm.  I realized this week, as I was reflecting on my thankfulness, that enthusiasm is one of the qualities that I adore in middle school students.  If I ask them to come get their graded papers ninja-style, they do it with gusto.  If I ask them to sell an Industrial Revolution invention to the class like the Oxyclean man, they make up a cheer about the piano on the spot.  If I have a bad day, they write me letters of encouragement and put them on my desk when I'm not looking.  When you're thirteen, you still see the fun and the excitement in the little things in life, and you latch onto that fun.  To me, that's something worth emulating as an adult.  I want to be as enthusiastic as they are.  I want to encourage them when they have a bad day.  Most of all, I want to continue to be inspired by my students.

In the middle of all the craziness that 2012 had brought with it, I am immensely grateful to be teaching the group of students that I am teaching this year.  What a blessing to be surrounded by so much enthusiasm.  I hope it's contagious.  I'll definitely be needing to catch some in order to make it to Christmas.