One More Thought on Common Core

This past week, I received an overwhelming, and mostly positive, response to my last post about Common Core State Standards.  It was so wonderful to hear from so many teachers who are providing for the needs of their students and facilitating change with a positive attitude.  I loved seeing that teacher leadership is alive and well in many school districts.  I don't typically address "hot button topics" like CCSS on the blog, but after noticing so many negative reactions, I really felt the need to reflect on how we teachers can work within our establishment to create better classroom environments and rigorous, engaging instruction that meets the needs of all of our students.

I do want to say that the views expressed in that entry, and in all of my blog entries, are my personal views, and not the views of my district, or any other organization with which I may be involved.  They are simply the musings of a middle school teacher, my attempt to reflect on my work and decompress each week.  I was thrilled to have so many new readers this week, and I hope that people continue to read and find pieces of "wisdom from the middle" that are applicable in their own lives. I would also love to hear from other teachers who are currently implementing CCSS.  Our work for students can only be made stronger by connecting and sharing with fellow educators.  Please email me or tweet me! I'm always looking to grow my PLN.

I also want to share a resource on Common Core that I think can provide a lot of clarity.  There's a lot of misinformation about the CCSS floating around the Internet and being discussed in the media.  One of the 21st century skills that my students and I focus on throughout the year is evaluating the truthfulness and usefulness of print, web, and media sources.  In an age when it seems like the loudest and most adversarial opinions get the most screen time,  I want my students to be able to evaluate the practicality of the arguments they hear.  I want them to be able to sift through misinformation to find strong resources.  In the case of Common Core, the best source of information about the standards is the standards themselves.  If you click on this link, it will direct you to the Key Design Considerations in the Introduction to the Standards.  This past week, my friend and colleague Dr. Dixie Keyes directed me to the last section of this part of the document.  It's subtitled "What is not covered by the standards."  If you're interested in what the CCSS are, I think it is equally important to understand what the standards are not.  Whether you are a teacher or a parent, whether you feel like you agree or disagree with CCSS, your particular argument can only be made stronger by going to the source.  I'd encourage you to read them.  It may change your opinion, and it will definitely provide you with more clarity.  It was good for me to revisit them this past week with my team, as we looked at ways that we could continue to strengthen our own ELA curriculum for the greater benefit of our students.

This past week, my students analyzed speeches delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.  We discussed the importance of rhetorical devices in persuasive speaking and identified common themes in both speeches.  Both speakers were striving for liberty, equality, and unity, values our nation was founded on. One of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes says, "the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."  I've worked in education for only a short time, but it seems to be an area that is sometimes surrounded with "challenge and controversy."  Let's rise to the challenge for the benefit of those we educate.  

Why I Don't Hate Common Core

Normally, at the end of winter break, I find myself excited and antsy to get back into my classroom.  Tomorrow is the big day, but I just don't seem to be nearly as geared up as normal.  I blame Twitter.  Over the break, I've had a lot more time to explore social media than I typically do, and most of the time, I find that Twitter is a place where I find awesome new resources for my classroom.  However, over the break, I feel like so many of the things I saw on my Twitter feed were less about helping a sister out with new classroom ideas and more about complaining about Common Core, lack of funds, lack of resources, lack of support, lack of you-name-it.  What I'm saying is, Twitter got whiny, and instead of feeling sympathetic, I just felt mad.

Here are two things I know for a fact:

1. People hate change.

2. People love to complain about their jobs.

I don't care who you are, whether you're a teacher or a sales rep or an investment banker.  Everyone loves to play the my-job-is-harder-than-yours game.  As a young teacher who has been in the field less than five years, I agree with all those other teachers out there in the Twittersphere.  Teaching is a hard job.  If you want to get things done your way, you have to play to whatever politics there may be in your district, cross your fingers that you have a supportive administrator, and then pretty much just make it happen with your own blood, sweat, and tears (and probably your own funding).  I get it.  I chose an underpaid and underappreciated profession.  But I also didn't choose it because I thought I was going to be overpaid or even appreciated a normal amount.  I chose it because I love kids, and I'm passionate about creating more curious, creative humans.

A lot of people in a lot of states are up in arms about Common Core because they believe it squeezes creativity and inquiry out of the classroom.  I would like to disagree about that and provide evidence to support my disagreement.  My school is in its second year of implementing Common Core State Standards.  As our team created our seventh grade curriculum, we really chose to focus on how to move to a more inquiry-focused, student-led model of learning.  Yes, we changed our core texts to increase the rigor of our students' reading.  Yes, we are still subject to quarterly standardized testing, like many other districts, and, yes, we were able to cover all the standards in depth by the end of the school year while still allowing students choice in both reading and writing projects.  My classroom is far more creative and collaborative now than it was during my first year of teaching and implementing Common Core has helped our English department move to a much more team-oriented, cross-curricular approach.  

I realize that the introduction of the CCSS has been a rough transition.  Not every educational leader understands that the standards are a framework from which to build a curriculum.  I'm fortunate to have very supportive adminstrators.  Not every teacher has that.  But I guess I'm frustrated because people are really playing the blame game here.  Instead of taking ownership of the fact that teaching is hard, and teachers don't have a voice, and all the rest, why don't we take ownership of the fact that, at a grassroots level, we can create change?  No, we can't change our states' decision to use or not use Common Core, but we can open our classroom doors and our hearts and our minds to impact the lives of our colleagues and our students in a positive way.  We can choose to smile and share victories in the teachers lounge and on Twitter instead of complaining and saying teaching's almost not "worth it" anymore.  

We all have frustrating days and weeks and months.  Life is hard sometimes, whether you're a teacher, a principal, a student, or a parent.  Rather than get caught up in the negative, let's all get caught up in the positive.  In fact, let's create the positive.  Let's create some positive, and then post it on Twitter and share some positive.  That's going to be my goal for 2014.  What about you?

Spreading a Little Sunshine on my PLN

Here we go! Michael Mills (@aquiamigo) has pulled me into some Twitter fun and convinced me to share a little bit about my life outside of teaching.  Here's a link to his post as well as a link to the post that nominated him, written by Sandy Kendell (@edtechsandyk).  I only presently know Sandy through Twitter as a member of my PLN, but I'm really excited to be sitting on a panel with both Michael and Sandy at SXSWedu in March 2014!

From what I've read on several blogs, this challenge started out with the Sunshine Award and became a way for educators to share about themselves and learn about other members of their PLNs.

Here are the rules…

1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
4. List 11 bloggers.  They should be bloggers you believe deserve a little recognition and a little blogging love!
5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they’ve been nominated.  (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.)

1. Michael Mills nominated me for this, teaches me awesome ways to use technology in my classroom, and has presented and worked with me several times in the past few years.  As our mutual friend Donna Wake says, "He's the next big thing in education." (and I'm super fortunate to work with him!)

2. Random Facts: 

1. When I was a toddler, I slept with books instead of stuffed animals.  My love for books has not died down since.
2. I received my favorite birthday present ever in my whole life on my 8th birthday.  My dad rented a hot air balloon and surprised me with a ride around town.  It's one of my most vivid memories.  
3. In college, I competed in the Miss Arkansas pageant twice.  I made the Top Ten both times and received enough scholarship money to pay for my senior year of college.  I never did capture the Miss Arkansas crown, though.  I quit competing the day I was offered my first teaching job.
4. My perfect day would involve sleeping in, waking up to hot coffee and an excellent book, and literally doing nothing else all day. 
5. I move at a frenetic pace, and I always have.  When I has a kid, I used to always get in trouble for walking ahead of my parents.  At work people make fun of me (in a nice way) for always "clacking" down the hall. 
6. As a young educator with no children of my own, I still call my students "my kids."  I hope I always, always love my students enough to refer to them as "my kids," even when I really do have my own kids.
7. My favorite food will forever and always be peanut butter. 
8. I went to Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for my freshman year of college, but then I got homesick and transferred to the University of Central Arkansas to finish my degree.  UCA allowed me to build relationships with professors and educators in Arkansas that may never have otherwise developed, so I feel like it was definitely the right call in the end.
9. I am a truly left-handed person.  Most left-handed people can do at least some tasks right-handed. I cannot do anything right-handed at all.
10. I can only sneeze in twos.  Never just one sneeze, never three sneezes.  Just two. Every time.  
11. It is a sad but true fact that I never truly learned how to ride a bike.  Maybe someday someone will teach me!

3. Answers to Michael's questions:

1. If you could choose who would play you in a movie, who would it be? Tiny Fey.  I don't even have to think about it.  I adore her and we're both brunettes!
2. If you had to work a minimum wage job, what would it be? I would probably work in women's retail.  That's what I did before I started teaching, and I loved getting to meet people and dress them up!
3. What decade produced the best music and why? 90s.  Pop princesses. Indie rock. Boy bands. Grunge.  I could listen to 90s Pandora radio all day, everyday.
4. What movie makes you cry every time you watch it? The Blindside.  So much kindness and generosity.  It's just beautiful to me that those kinds of stories can come from real life.
5. What book took you the most amount of time to read? Gone with the Wind.  I read it for the first time in 6th grade. It took me a whole semester, but I was determined to finish it. As an adult, it takes me a lot longer to read anything nonfiction.  
6. What television show not on now would you like to see return? 30 Rock.  See above comments about my love for Tina Fey.  I would also have loved it if The Office never ended, but all good things, eventually, must come to an end.
7. If you could have a vacation home anywhere, where would it be? Fiji.  I want one of those little bungalows out in the middle of the ocean.  I've pinned about ten of them on Pinterest.  Unfortunately, they are all out of my teacher's salary price range on vacation homes :)
8. If you could have dinner with anyone living today, who would it be? That's a really tough question.  I think Maya Angelou.  Her work is really inspiring to me, and I would want her to teach me how to teach my students to love poetry. It's probably cheating if I write down two, but I would also really like to sit down to coffee with J.K. Rowling and talk about Harry Potter for several hours. Could I maybe have dinner with Maya and after-dinner coffee and dessert with J.K.?
9. Which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars, and why? I pick Star Trek.  I don't have a good reason why.  I think it's just a matter of preference.
10. If you could make one federal law by fiat, what would it be? This is a tough one.  I think I would make a law that requires adults to retake their driving test every 10 years.  However, I may only currently feel this way because holiday traffic has been awful and I live by the mall.
11. What’s your favorite Schoolhouse Rock video? Conjunction Junction. Not even a contest.

4. Eleven people I'm glad I follow on Twitter: 

Note: This list is a combination of people I have never met but constantly find myself favoriting and retweeting on Twitter mixed with people I know and admire in "real life." Also, they are in no particular order.  I copied and pasted them from my "following" list on Twitter :)

1. Christopher Lehman ‏ @iChrisLehman
2. Dana Huff ‏ @danamhuff
3. Justin Stortz ‏ @newfirewithin
4. Kelly Gallagher ‏ @KellyGToGo
5. Noel Gieringer ‏ @msgieringer
6. Vicki Davis ‏ @coolcatteacher
7. Sandy Kendell ‏ @EdTechSandyK
8. Michael S. Mills ‏ @AquiAmigo
9. Dixie Keyes ‏ @DixieKeyes
10. Eric Sheninger ‏ @NMHS_Principal
11. Ben Kuhlman ‏ @bkuhl2you

5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they’ve been nominated.

1. What is your favorite topic to teach in your classroom?
2. What's the title and author of the last book you read just for fun?
3. What's the title and author of the last book you Book Talked to your students?
4. What is your favorite technology tool and how do you use it?
5. What is your favorite childhood memory?
6. Describe your perfect meal.
7. If you could go back in time and be any age again, how old would you be? Why?
8. What's your favorite weekend activity/hobby?
9. What made you decide to become an educator?
10. What's the funniest/most memorable thing a student has ever said to you?
11. If you could institute any new policy in your school, what would it be and why?

Ok, done and done!  Thanks, Michael! Time to pass it on…

Are You a Scrooge?

One of my favorite parts of my job is introducing my students to great works of literature that they might never pick up and read on their own.  During second quarter, we teach Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  I really love the seventh grade curriculum that our team of teachers has built over the past couple of years as we've implemented Common Core, but I have to say that teaching this particular work is one of the highlights of my school year.  What I love so much about A Christmas Carol is the fact that there is so much depth to Ebenezer Scrooge's character.  It seems like every year I'm fortunate to learn something new about this character from the understandings of each new group of students.  I love how they look at this work in a new way each year and focus in on different aspects of Scrooge's character.

This week as we read the play, class after class kept focusing on the same thing--Scrooge's childhood.  Poor Ebenezer Scrooge has a pretty crummy childhood. He has little to no relationship with his father, he is isolated and has few friends, and the only person he loves, his sister, dies as a young woman.  In almost every class, at least one student brought up the point that it's not hard to see how Ebenezer Scrooge became a mean, isolated old miser.  He was a product of his childhood experiences.  Instead of showing resilience and overcoming his childhood isolation and sadness, he let it define him.

To say the least, I was really impressed that my students got to this particular point on their own.  I ask guiding questions as we read, but this particular understanding of Scrooge's character came straight from my students.  It caused me to reflect on how this idea of being defined by our circumstances holds parallel to our own everyday lives as teachers. Many of our students struggle not to be defined by their circumstances.  I teach a very socioeconomically diverse group of students.  Some of them have incredibly supportive, involved families while some of my students are practically raising themselves.  It's not difficult to see the impact of their environment on their social and academic lives.

I also started to reflect on how this idea of being a product of our surroundings could connect to teachers.  Our school surroundings try to impact us all the time.  In the three years I've been teaching full-time, I've been part of completely overhauling a curriculum, implementing new policies, and learning a new teacher evaluation system.  I'd say those things could have a pretty large impact on my teaching.  Teachers, in general, seem to always be having new things heaped on them or thrown at them.  Instead of removing some tasks and replacing them with others, it seems to me that, many times, more and more things are added to our proverbial "plates" until we have so much on our plate that it can't all feasibly get accomplished.

Here's the thing, though.  We have to decide, collectively, if we will be a product of our environment or with we will choose, instead, to define our schools.  Now, obviously, I don't mean that we can decide what we want to do and don't want to do and just say "shove it" to everything else.  What I mean is that we can choose to let our struggles (i.e., teacher evaluation, high stakes testing, crazy parents, crazy students, mountains of paperwork, etc.) define our day-to-day, or we can face these things knowing that despite them, we will do what it takes to impact the lives of the children we teach and we will reflect on and appreciate the small, sweet moments when our students have a positive impact on us.

Personally, I don't want to be a Scrooge. However, I know there are days when I'm a Scrooge about the plethora of tasks involved in doing my job.  My Christmas resolution is to be less of a Scrooge and more of a Tiny Tim.  I want to appreciate the little positive things in my day instead of focusing on the big frustrating things.  I want to define my environment, not let it define me.

An Update on My Goals for Better Teaching

Yesterday, I got to enjoy a lovely "ice day" off from school, thanks to our most recent Arkansas "winter weather event."  I don't think it's been nearly as bad as our trusty weathermen and weatherwomen predicted, but that could also be because they told me I would most likely lose power.  Instead, I've been warm and toasty in my yoga pants, drinking lots of coffee and reading books.  I could have blogged yesterday, but I decided it sounded much more attractive to sleep in and do a whole lot of nothing.

I did do a little bit of work yesterday, actually.  A couple posts ago, I reflected on my NCTE experience and gave myself three goals for how my work would change. My first goal was to Book Talk more often.  I made a strong start this past Monday by Book Talking two books that I read over Thanksgiving break/on my way to and from Boston.  I gave my stamp of approval to Ender's Game, and all six of my classroom copies were checked out that day, as well as Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachman, which I only had on my iPad.  I now have two copies on the way from Amazon after getting multiple requests to check it out.  I have always required my students to Book Talk, but this year I've really dropped the ball on sharing my own reading.  It was so fun to see kids excited about these two books, and I'm looking forward to sharing my Snow Day reading next week.

Another one of my goals was to implement Google Docs into my writing instruction.  That required more people than just me signing on. Since my students are under 13 years of age for most of the school year, I have to carefully consider CIPA and COPA laws when I make my Internet decisions.  However, I received the go-ahead from my principal and our technology director last week to pilot the use of Google Drive with two classes. Yesterday, I spent my morning setting up their classes and playing around with Doctopus and some other scripts, reading blogs, and watching videos about different uses of the Drive.  I'm really excited to get started!  I think it's going to be really interesting to see if moving writing instruction to the Drive has a significant impact on my students' work.  I'm really looking forward to comparing the length and quality of student writing in the Google Drive classes to the length and quality of writing produced in the traditional composition notebooks.  Yay for action research! :)  I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes, promise!

Dear Students, Thank you

While I was at NCTE last week, I left my students a writing assignment.  I asked them to write a thank you letter to any adult in our middle school. I told them it could be a teacher, principal, counselor, lunch lady, custodian, substitute, any adult.  My only requirement was that they choose someone who has helped them through middle school and that they make it meaningful.  I wanted them to share with that grown-up his or her true impact.  I knew that I was really needing a pick-me-up before our Thanksgiving break, and, judging by recent lunch conversations, my colleagues were really needing a pick-me-up, too. 

We have the whole week off for Thanksgiving this year, so yesterday I had the opportunity to spend a quiet, uninterrupted day in my classroom reading their letters.  I was amazed and pleased to find that, without receiving any direction from me to do so, my students managed to write at least one thank you letter to every seventh grade teacher, every counselor, every principal, the lunch ladies, the secretaries, the librarian, and the custodians. Reading their kind, thoughtful, honest letters inspired me to write my own thank you letter. I've found this year, that my students seem to really like it when I have to do the homework assignment, too.

Dear Students, 

My name is Ms. Herring, and I am thankful for you. I'm thankful for your smiles and greetings on mornings when I'm sleepy or sad or frustrated. I'm thankful for your encouragement and patience when a lesson doesn't go as I planned, or when our wireless internet quits working, or when the network fails to save your paper that you spent two days typing. I'm thankful for the mutual respect we've developed as our year has progressed, and I'm thankful for the trust you've put in me to be your teacher and to, in some small way, prepare you for your future.

I'm thankful for the times when you laugh at my nerdy teacher jokes, and I'm thankful for the times you say thank you after a lesson, either with your words or with the "light bulb moment" I can see on your face.  I'm thankful for the times I have to ask you to be quiet and get focused because it means you're excited to be at school (whether you'll admit it or not), and I'm thankful for the opportunity to channel that energy and excitement into your learning. 

Most of all, I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to know you.  I'm thankful that I get to be surrounded by interesting, funny, smart kids all day.  I'm thankful that I get to read your writing and hear your thinking in class.  I'm thankful that you come into my classroom everyday prepared to let me stretch your mind in some way. On this particular Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for a job that I love and for students that make it an easy job to adore. 

Sincerely,

Ms. Herring

Reflections on NCTE: How My Work Will Change

A week ago, I cannot even begin to explain to you how excited I was for Thanksgiving break. I love my job and my students, but I was TIRED.  My students were also TIRED, and more than that, they were ANTSY, which made me even more tired.  We were all greatly in need of a little time off to recharge.  Now that I have returned from NCTE in Boston, I am the farthest thing from tired; I am so excited to get back to my classroom and share my learning with my students!  I knew that NCTE would be a great opportunity for me to learn new things, but I don't think I anticipated the renewal that would come from attending the conference.  Being surrounded by English teachers and authors who were as excited as me to nerd out and talk about reading and writing was like a little slice of my own personal nerd heaven.  It. Was. Awesome.  I also had the opportunity to present with some of my colleagues, and not only did people show up at eight o'clock in the morning to listen to us, we had a full room with people in the hall!  Talk about a humbling experience.

One thing I loved about the conference was following the #ncte13 conversation on Twitter.  I added some new educators and authors to my small but growing PLN, and I was able to attend sessions presented by people I had only previously known from Twitter.  Pretty cool. Unfortunately, I was only able to be in one place at a time, as I have not been able to find any way to create a Harry Potter-style time-turner, but thanks to #ncte13, I was able to feel like I was catching the high points of sessions I wasn't able to attend.  I left NCTE feeling more connected and with a desire to help my students feel more connected in the classroom.  I think that new feeling of connectedness and support led to a greater feeling of renewal in my own work.  I was reminded that thousands of teachers across the country are fired up about making a difference.  Thousands of teachers are passionate about changing the face of education.  Thousands of teachers are hungry to grow and change their practice for the benefit of their students.  I am one of many.  My students deserve to feel that kind of renewal, too.  They are one of millions across our country.  Far from shrinking their individual importance, that increases their significance.  They are not alone.  Someone in our world feels they way they do, and there are so many opportunities for them to connect and find that to be true.  I can facilitate that connection through writing and reading. 

Now that I've had about 24 hours to reflect on my NCTE experience, I've come up with some goals for guiding my students toward greater connectedness...

1. Book Talk more books!  I read constantly, but I don't share my own reading with students often enough.  They need to see that they can connect with me through reading, and that they can connect with new characters in books.
2. Experiment with using Google Docs for the writing process.  The first session I attended at NCTE was about this topic, and I left the session ready to make this happen in my room.  I really believe this can change the way I facilitate the writing process, and it can change the way my students communicate with each other and me about their work.
3. Even the playing field.  Carl Anderson discussed the importance of sharing our own writing and reading with our students and empowering our students to identify themselves as writers and readers.  I want to strive to talk to my students as equals in their process.  I want to encourage them to use the language of readers and writers.  This will strengthen their skills and my own skills as well.

Ultimately, I want to turn to more of a workshop approach in my classroom.  With the pressure of standards and testing, it can be difficult to relinquish control and flip the classroom, but our students deserve to learn how to guide their own process. I'm ready and excited to make that happen.