"Learn how to be an advocate."

“Learn how to be an advocate.”

“Don’t be a coward.”

             These are two Dr. Gallow quotes I have in my notes from last week. Being brave and being an advocate is important, and I struggle with with it. A big problem I have being an advocate is operating from a stance of “No one is trying to be a bad guy.” When I think someone who is letting their bigotry show is A Bad Guy, sometimes I just get hot under the collar and I go off on them. Then we’re just yelling at each other and getting no where. But if I’m going to operate as a teacher from a stance of “All students can succeed”, I should probably extend a similar courtesy to adults, right? I mean, I’m not done learning either and I would want someone to give me the benefit of the doubt when I do or say something bigoted.

             I’m also beginning to see that being a teacher advocate has a broader scope than I originally perceived. It isn’t just about having difficult conversations with peers and colleagues about racism or transphobia, it includes caring enough about my students education to really put in work to best support their learning. There is this great list “8 Ways Not To Be An ‘Ally’: A Non-Comprehensive List” by Mia McKenzie that comes to mind as I’m writing this blog. Here is #6:

“6. Challenge oppression in personal situations but not in systemic ways.

It’s enough that you said something when your Grandma used the T-word. The fact that you go to work everyday at a queer organization where none of the fifty employees are trans* women and you never say nothing about it is beside the point. You’re battling interpersonal “isms” and that’s what really matters. Except…you know…not really. Transphobia, ableism, racism, and all those other phobias/isms aren’t just interpersonal issues. They are hella systemic. And checking your grandma isn’t going to fix them. Think bigger, k?”

             I think as a teacher I have an opportunity to challenge oppression is systemic ways. I can practice restorative justice instead of using punitive discipline. I can use research based strategies to best support English Language Learners. I can make school a positive experience for students of color and maybe they will want to go into teaching. I can challenge all of my students academically and help them graduate with a full toolbox. And I can find respectful, effective ways to call out homophobia in the teacher’s lounge. Being an ally is a lifelong practice, so here’s to keeping it up.
             What does being an advocate or an ally in your school or your classroom mean to you?

The Risk Zone vs. The Danger Zone

Teacher Burnout. It’s one of my biggest fears. What if in 10 years I am just exhausted and I want to quit?
At the Administrator Panel on Tuesday, Josh urged teachers to leave The Comfort Zone. The best teaching and learning happens in the Risk Zone. Teacher Burnout lives in The Danger Zone. That framework really informed my reading and thinking this week. I’m going to use Book Clubs when I teach, and implement Inquiry Units. Where’s my risk zone? Where’s my danger zone?
When discussing the best way to implement Inquiry Units, Daniels and Zemelman tell me “Don’t start too big! A project that takes three or four class periods can be plenty” (Daniels and Zemelman 2004, p. 226). It’s one of those pieces of advice you might think is so obvious, no one needs to hear it. But I really needed to hear it! ‘Inquiry Unit’ makes me think Important Month Long Interdisciplinary Project. As a first year teacher, that sounds like The Danger Zone. I loved their advice on really training students for Book Clubs, and starting off with “‘modified student choice’” (p. 205). I’ve never run a Book Club before, so I’m immediately in either The Risk Zone or The Danger Zone.  But giving students a few days to browse through books, and then using student ballots to create artful groups sounds like The Risk Zone.

I appreciate that the text addresses assessment, and have discovered a relevant Youtube Subgenre: Student Book Trailers! Here are two examples, one students made for the book Holes by Louis Sachar and a more elaborate trailer for Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Students could make them as a final project, and they could be used in lieu of book talks for future Book Clubs. 

What do y’all think your Risk Zone and Danger Zone activities are as new teachers?

Researched Based Classroom Communities!

This week’s reading on writing activities and classroom communities brought me back to an experience I had this summer in MLED 330 with Dr. Horwitz. My class was doing Save the Last Word for Me pretty much as described by Daniels and Zimmerman ( 2004 p. 133). To refresh your memory, the exercise goes more or less like this:
Students select a quote or passage from a reading and write it on one side of an index card. They write their thoughts about it on the opposite side. In small groups, each student reads their selection, and then the other group members each share their own thoughts about it. The student whose quote it was gets to share their opinion last.
In my MLED 330 the whole class received a list of quotations from Nelson Mandela's inaugural speech in 1994, and was asked to pick one that stood out to us. We were to write the quotation on an index card, and our thoughts about it on the other side. To be honest, I thought all the quotations were...cheesy. Well, I guess cheesy is really casting my thoughts in a different light because the ‘quote’ I selected for the front side of the index card was the citation ‘Nelson Mandela, 1994’ and on the opposite side I drew ‘Nelson Mandela, 1994’ as a tramp stamp peaking out from someone’s jeans. You have no idea how much I am kicking myself for throwing that out as I write this post. 
I was not responding to the prompt in this way to be difficult, or to be rude or abrasive… I just didn’t like any of the quotations. As I read my selection, I was a little afraid my classmates would think I was just being difficult. Instead, my peers thought I was trying to point out that in this speech, Mandela quotes Marianne Williamson, and since his speech, some of her words have been misattributed to him. We all laughed at my drawing, I learned something new, and my classmates told me to relax, they don’t think I’m an obstinate person.

 
So how else does this experience connect to this week’s readings other than it is an anecdote involving an activity the book recommends? In discussing classroom communities the text advocates for classrooms being a place “where students trust the teacher and believe it’s safe to take risks” (p. 171). I don’t think I would have taken the risk of doing something that could possibly portray me in a negative light in a classroom without community. This willingness to take a risk both reveals connections I had, and strengthened them. It also aided in my learning. I have an experience that makes me remember the year Neslon Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa, and I know about this misattribution of Marianne Williamson’s words, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.”
The text emphasizes that building communities in classrooms is not about “fluffy ‘team-building’ exercises” (p. 171), it is about research based practices that “give reading in our subjects the full meaning it deserves” (p. 167).
Before I leave you dear reader, I would like to call attention to the research based practice of “believ[ing] [students] can do well in school” (p. 168). That is a paradigm I want to operate from! I just want to think that way! I think students can tell when you give up and I don’t want to ever give up and look at a student and think, “There is no way that student can succeed.” However, I constantly find myself in conversations with people, some of whom are teachers, who try to get me to give them a but. “I believe all students can do well, but not in this case...but not those kids...but not in that district.” I do not want to give a qualifier, and I do not want to cave into the pressure I feel to say “but I know I’m young and naive and I’m sure I’ll meet students who will certainly fail.” I want to scream, “I believe students can do well and research shows this mindset will lead to more student success!! Help me stay positive, I know teaching is hard!”

Do any of you have similar experiences with people telling you to give up on the kind of teacher you want to be before you even get started?

Parent Panel

“[We] need to view everyone as a public intellectual...Change that matters is always collective in nature.”

Full disclosure: this selection is from reading I am doing for another project. At the risk of appearing like I am lazily double dipping, I include this selection because it just feels so darned appropriate. I don’t think parents or students are often sincerely asked for their opinion. Both the parent and student panel have shown me that these folks really know what they are talking about. At this parent panel, I learned both some of this knowledge parents have to share and the ways that the district of Central Falls is utilizing their knowledge. I see evidence of change at CF and it’s really encouraging.

 

Okay, so what did I learn from the parent’s who were awesome and donated their time to the panel?

Maybe it seems obvious, but I never would have thought to call a parent if a student is hanging out with a new group of friends. Two weeks ago I thought phone calls were relegated strictly to academic roadblocks or successes. But of course a parent wants to know if their child’s social life is shifting.

The other big of course is that ALL PARENTS CARE. That is the paradigm I want to work from. Sitting in front of four parents who took the time and worked up the nerve to come share their knowledge with me really made that concept hit home.

In my notes from the panel I also have, “Invite!! Invite!! Invite!!”. If I keep making my classroom welcome and open, little by little, parents will come.

And how did I see CF utilizing parent knowledge?

A lot of this was from information Dr.Gallow provided. I think it’s great that there are almost weekly public meetings, and parent rooms in many of CF’s schools. I am curious about how these meetings actually go.

And the questions to always be asking myself: “How will this affect your classroom practice Colleen? What are you going to be doing with this information NOW?”

I loved the suggestion to write ‘Call a Parent’ into my lesson plans. WHOEVER READS THIS PLEASE ASK ME IF I CALLED A PARENT AT THE END OF TEACHING MY LESSON AT CF.  I also took away some great questions to ask potential schools during future job interviews. Who is your home school liason? What kinds of translation services does your school have? How often are parents in the schools? If I’m being honest, calling lots of parents and doing lots of home visits not only sounds really important, but really exhausting. Especially as a new teacher, I want a school that will support me in being the kind of teacher I want to be. 

References

Campano, Gerald., Sanchez, Lenny. (2010). Embodying Socially Just Policy in Practice. In sj Miller & D. E. Kirkland (Eds.), Change Matters, Critical Essays on Moving Social Justice Research from Theory to Policy (25-32). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publisher.