It Only Took Twenty-Five Short Years

I have a new guru--my mom. She's amazing. I don't where to begin. She teaches first grade, which is so different than teaching high school. But her insights to teaching are so authentic, experienced and inspiring. I spent the whole first twenty-four years of my life trying to be something different than both of my parents.  I wanted to be my own person. But the more time  spend with my mom the more I realize she is the inspiration for the person, the teacher, I am now. She's in her late fifties (I'm sorry for putting that out there Mom), but she's not jaded. Despite it all, she laughs, she loves and she teaches. She knows so much--all the various movements of the last thirty years and can describe them in first-person detail. She's been there through it all. It's like listening to a history book that speaks aloud with fire and reflection. Thanks Mom. I'm sorry that it took me so long to realize that trying to not be like you was a fruitless effort. These day I want to be just like you.

"Life Is a Highway...

School ends in two days, but apparently with all this blogging and reflection, I've already put this year behind me. Driving home from school today I thought of a way to tie down (or free) our freshmen English course to a coherent and meaningful foundation. As of now, we cover run down a checklist of classics: "The Scarlet Ibis," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Most Dangerous Game," "The Gift of the Magi," The Odyssey, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet. I'm sure I'm too dense to see it, but I have trouble seeing/understanding the strand that connects these pieces. So 

here's my the idea for a freshmen English course: English for a Developing Citizen.

I think the new principal at our school would like this for two reasons: one, he is trying to develop an academy (teams) for struggling freshmen that would provide these students with a sense of purpose and place within the daunting structure of the high school; and two, he's always talking about turning our students from mere students into world citizens. I completely agree with him and personally feel that English shouldn't be taught in school if the focus isn't providing students with the tools to become better peo

ple. Hence, this would be a first-year English course that introduces what it means to be a a good citizen.

So this course's mastery objective would be to teach students what it means to be a good citizen and it would be broken down into units. The units would be thematic and have corresponding unit assessments that focus on applying the skills gained in the unit to "real world" situations. Playing on the "real world" phrase a bit, the s

tructure of the course (especially assessments) would be based on the model of reality t.v. shows. OK...bear with me a bit here. This would work especially well in an academy/team because different classes would be different teams. I've been so lucky to work with a teacher who shares a lot of the same ideas as me, and we had a few friendly competitions this year; the kids responded really well to it, which makes me think turning to the course in this direction could generate a lot of enthusiasm and a strong community. Each unit would have a number of minor applications corresponding to the skills taught and then the unit assessment would be a big, hyped-up challenge. Think Real World/R

oad Rules Challenge. Students today are inundated with reality TV, so this would be using a medium they are familiar with to engage and excite them. The entire course would be part of a larger competition. If done in the right way, this would foster a real sense of community even among competing classes.

Here's a brainstorming syllabus:

ENGLISH FOR THE DEVELOPING CITIZEN

English IA and IB

Course objective: This course, using literature as its foundation, guides and encourages students to become better citizens of their school

, local and world communities. Students will will participate in various instructional activities and assessments in order to apply the life lessons that are presented in literature to real-world situations. By the end of the course, students will have a working idea of what it means to be a good citizen and how they can continue to develop their citizenship by using literature as a springboard. 

Units, Literature and Assessments:

1. Teamwork

"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Edward Connell

"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe

"The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst

"The Gift of the Magi" by O Henry 

Assessment: Team five-paragraph essay building challenge

2. Community

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Assessment: Create an ideal classroom. This is a bare-bones assessment right now but would be developed a lot more. 

3.  Character (and possibly an emphasis on decision making)

The Odyssey by Homer

Assessment: We are still working on plans for this unit but we were thinking of doing something with an odyssey around the school. This could tie into the assessment.

4. Creativity

The focus here would be on enhancing writing skills

Assessment: The Apprentice-style challenge where teams must develop and market a product that teaches students to write effectively

5.  Tolerance 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Assessment: Develop and execute a plan to 

educate the school about the need for tolerance. This year our class came up with a Wall of Tolerance made from surveys they took from the student body...it was pretty cool. I like the idea of some sort of monument because it gets kids thinking about the physical spaces they use and occupy and artistic forms of communication.

6. Communication

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Assessment: This year my coworker came up with an awesome assessment that involved making the play accessible to the masses. 

Students can expect to develop, enhance and apply their writing skills because the ability to write effectively is a benchmark of becoming a good citizen. In addition to mastering the standard five-paragraph essay, students will blog all of their writing online, participate in monitored online forums for homework, and use their writing skills to interact with the school, local and world communities. 

So that's the end of my brainstorming syllabus. By the way, I totally stole the blogging essay idea from this teacher-- http://hipteacher.typepad.com/ . Large contingency of readers (Mom and now Michael (mom's boyfriend), any thoughts?

I knew my hour-and-fifteen-minute, ever-more-expensive car ride home was good for something. 

...And I'm going to ride it all night long." 

How Do You Measure a Year?

1. I taught citing incorrectly for the first two trimesters.

2. I made a girl, who has a terminal disease in remission, feel guilty about earning bonus points.

3. I didn't keep organized book lists and probably lost fifteen books for my department. 

4. I thought solving problems after school would work better than a corny joke.

5. I gave out several handouts with grammatical errors. Ok, I'm lying   --many handouts.

6. I didn't do the required SAT prep one day a week during the last trimester, and I did it about every two weeks during the first two trimesters. I hate SAT prep and my students know it.

7. I was intimidated by and nervous around some students, and as a result, I made several snappy, rude comments that I would expect to hear out of the mouthes of students and not my mouth.

8. I quizzed my students on vocabulary words that I didn't (and still don't) know the definitions for.

9. After trying REALLY hard not to, I gave up on four students.

10. I had a student tell me today that she can't stop thinking and now she thinks in a way she never knew possible before because of my class.

I'm going to say it was a successful year.

11. I haven't lost my tendency to be overly optimistic sometimes.

Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the 

life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, 

the laws of the universe will be simpler." 

Henry David Thoreau

The first class of students I taught graduated last night. Our school uses trimesters, and I only taught senior classes for the first trimester; my time with them seems like a memory of an old rain cloud that has since past. At the beginning of this year, I was very green (I'm not talking being eco friendly here; I mean green, the old-fashioned way). I butted heads with a lot of students; in fact, practically my whole period 5 class. They hated me, I tried my hardest not to hate them, they didn't do homework and wanted to talk all during class, I tried to get them do work and wanted to cry all during class (shockingly I've just about made it through my first year without shedding one tear; I came quite close once but the tear did not fall), and basically period 5 and I shared a mutual existence in school hell. 

I have since come to better understand the good that exists in each of my students as I have let go of our roles of student and teacher and tried to embrace our mutual humanity. I remember it being really hard to read students' work when papers had comments like "You are only my teacher and nothing to me, so don't try," " This was supposed to be our fun senior year and you've ruined it," and my all-time favorite, "This class makes me want to put a bullet through my head." At least the last comment was the final line of a poem that utilized each of the five senses. It was very challenging and practically impossible for me not to take these comments as an attack on my teaching and me as a person (Eckard Tolle's A New Earth was a great help for moving past these types of judgements). So to say the least, this graduating class, which embodies my first round of mistakes, carried some baggage for me.

Graduation was amazing. As I watched each signifier of my various mistakes walk across the stage at graduation, I realized that we both made it. I just smiled and clapped to my palms hurt for every student because I wanted each of my students to see that despite our head butting, I recognized, supported and was pushing for their accomplishments--their humanity--the whole time. The most rewarding part of graduation was having students who I failed smile at me as they walked by my seat; some smiles were a bit uncomfortable and some were genuine. Such smiles seemed to be mutual recognitions of our mistakes and our successes. 

The best smile I shared was with A. He was a student I admired from the beginning because of his natural ability for symbolic, analytical and artistic thinking, but at the time he wasn't ready to give respect to a young, first-year, female teacher, and the young, first-year, female teacher had no idea that his anger towards her stemmed from something deep within and reacted to it very personally. Last night his smile was bright, just like his soul, and being on the receiving end of it felt good. No, it felt great. It gave me hope for him and it gave me hope for me.

After I went home, I was lying in bed and was reflecting over the course of the night. I was thinking about the various mistakes I made (some that will be hard to let go of), and it dawned on me why I made every single one of my mistakes--I was trying my best to do what was best for my students. Sometimes while watching out for one, I hurt another in the process, but my motivation was always to give students the tools to become better people. This realization brought a bit of sunshine to that rain cloud in the distance.