Yes, I Still Have Some Fingernails Left...

I’ve bitten my fingernails since I was a little kid. Who knows how these things even start? Now that I’m older it’s simply a hard habit to break, so I might go a couple months without biting them and then pick it up again, maybe as a response to stress or just something to do absent-mindedly for no reason at all. I also bite the skin around my nails, crack my knuckles, and bounce my knees and feet while sitting down. Most people find these nervous habits quite annoying, so I try to curb them when I’m not alone. Of course, now that my husband is out of town for work for a bit, no one is around to help me stop. :)

Have I mentioned I’m so glad to have a husband who loves me unconditionally? Even with all my craziness? I’m very blessed, from my incredible family to my relatively good health and everything in between.

However...and there has to be a ‘however’, because who writes a blog post to state that all is well in the world? Who does any sort of writing to say that everything’s fine? In writing, there has to be some sort of problem. Something must be considered or analyzed or mulled over. A character must encounter an obstacle in a fiction novel. Even in an excellently written nonfiction article, there must be a problem to be resolved from the outset. We take a journey with the author to find the answer. Thomas Newkirk makes this argument in his article ‘How We Really Comprehend Nonfiction’ in the March edition of Educational Leadership. (I’d put a link to the article here, but you have to be a member to view the full text on www.ascd.org). 

Anyway, the ‘however‘ in this case is that it’s mid-July and I am still unemployed. I enjoyed my brief time as a Literacy Coach here in Norman, but the funding for the position ran out. I was left to find new work, along with other Literacy Coaches at different middle schools in Norman. I knew going into the job that this was a distinct possibility, if not an inevitability; the principal was clear from the start that funding was low. This knowledge hasn’t been much of a comfort, though. The past few months have been a new lesson for this teacher in steadily rising agony, self-doubt, and obsession. My nails have been bitten down to the quick and I’m questioning every action and non-action I take: Should I call this district again about job openings or will I seem pushy? Should I email that principal again to make sure she hasn’t forgotten me, or will the email just get buried in her inbox? At the end of the summer, I would just love to teach. I would especially love to teach middle school kids and help them become skilled readers and writers. At the least, I certainly want to teach kids to look for the problem in a text, the “itch to scratch” that Newkirk describes. After all, if they can identify and comprehend the central conflict in the text they are doing pretty well. 

I guess it really started last fall, and I found it funny to read an old blog post from March 15th, in which I described the feeling of a jobless applicant running on a wheel that seems to go nowhere: “Once my student teaching wrapped up, I spent time with family and spent time job searching. To say that it was maddening would be an extreme understatement. The waiting, the wondering, the overanalyzing of every minuscule detail of the search-apply-interview process – it was driving me crazy. Then out of nowhere, another job popped up, I interviewed, and got it! Now I am a Literacy Resource Teacher at a middle school in town...” Of course in that post I was the giddy teacher who had found a job and could get off the wheel for a bit. Now I am right back on:

I’ve now been on a total of seven interviews since last fall. One was successful in getting me the short-lived job as a Literacy Coach. One was early in the morning and God only knows what I said with my without the aid of coffee - that was bad. In another one, the administrators already had a particular person in mind for the job and my interviewing was just a courtesy, really. Another went really, really well! I sounded intelligent, the administrators nodded in agreement to the things I said, and I walked away feeling very optimistic. Then I lost out on that job to someone with more experience. In another interview, the principal stepped out of the room twice to take phone calls. While he was occupied, I had to talk to the school counselor/secretary. (It’s a small school and some people wear multiple hats). She told me how much she couldn’t stand middle school kids and couldn’t believe I enjoyed it. As politely as I could, I told her I loved working with that age group and left it at that. 

I’ve been rejected via phone call, letter, and face-to-face. I’ve been rejected by simply not hearing back from people at all and seeing the listing disappear from the job board like a mirage. I feel like I have “paid my dues”, as they say. I know I don’t have much experience, but I’m dedicated to working hard and learning more about my craft everyday. I’m also a qualified applicant who went to a good university and I’m thisclose to finishing my Masters degree. By the way, when people talk about the economy and the public sector jobs being in a dismal state...I’m the sort of person they’re talking about. I’m stuck waiting by the phone and hoping I didn’t accidentally turn it off or something:

Early episode of Friends, Season 1 Episode 20, The One With the Evil Orthodontist

If my only concern was making a buck, I wouldn’t be so worried, but what’s really at stake here is much bigger: my health insurance. My husband does freelance work, so he can’t get insurance through an employer. And, once I got the Literacy Coach job in February, I got off of my parent’s health insurance and onto the best plan that was offered to me by the school district. Most of my paycheck went toward that insurance and will continue to until my contract is officially up in August. Not only is it great coverage that I want to continue, but I simply have to have something. 

I am not the kind of person who can go without insurance. My life is dependent on the infusions of Remicade that I get roughly every two months from my rheumatologist. Remicade is an enormously expensive biologic medication I take for my Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and it’s keeping me in remission. I know this because I tried going without the Remicade in 2010, at which point my left knee became inflamed to more than three times its normal size. Things have gotten back to normal now that I’ve recovered from this flareup, but it was a necessary reminder of what can happen so easily if I let my disease go untreated. I know I can’t afford Remicade without insurance, unless I want to quickly accumulate a lot of debt. Bottom line: I’ll take a job anywhere with good health insurance if I can’t get a teaching job very, very soon. 

I went on an interview last Thursday and I think it went well. If I got it, I would be teaching at an alternative school here in Norman. It would be a great learning experience for me and quite the challenge. The administrator said she would “let me know either way” sometime early this week. Now that it’s after five o’clock on this Monday evening, I’ll hope for her call tomorrow. So, yes, I still have some hope - and some fingernails - left as I continue the job search. Please wish me luck, and send me prayers, good vibes, or whatever you like. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for listening. :)     

Just Tell Me How...

As a new teacher who strives for professionalism, I am happy to be a member of ASCD, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The benefits of membership are well worth the cost – five books a year, lots of magazines, access to online articles and professional development, and probably a few other things I haven’t discovered yet. Anyway, I get excited in my nerdy little way when I see the newest magazine in my mailbox. The authors always have a unique way of presenting their research so that I can learn a lot in one short publication.

The topic of each month’s volume is always relevant, but none more so for me than March’s Volume 69, Number 6 – Reading: The Core Skill. Being that I was hired as a “reading specialist” of sorts, I was very excited to dive into this issue. I’ve only read two articles so far, but they have already helped me feel better, like maybe I am helping my students a little bit? Put it this way – I don’t think I’m doing any harm, but I still feel unprepared on most days, wondering if I’m doing the right things for the kids.

The first article I read was Allington and Gabriel’s “Every Child, Every Day”, on pages 10-15. The authors outline the six best practices for teaching children to read, especially those who struggle with reading. In their view, these are six practices that every child should be doing every day in school. And the good news? Most of these practices are what they term “high-impact, low-input” strategies. They have a very positive and significant effect on student’s reading skills, and they are relatively easy to implement; no special materials are required and no sacrifices are needed to time or money.

The first best practice is “every child reads something he or she chooses”. This makes sense to many educators and anyone who knows about intrinsic motivation. As Daniel Pink has argued, engagement is only possible when we are allowed some autonomy. Allington and Gabriel agree: “The research base on student-selected reading is robust and conclusive: Students read more, understand more, and are more likely to continue reading when they have the opportunity to choose what they read”. It isn’t that students should only read items of their choosing, the authors maintain, but they should have their choice at least once a day.

The other best practices are similarly sensible: (2) “Every child reads accurately”, (3) “Every child reads something he or she understands”, (4) “Every child writes about something personally meaningful”, (5) “Every child talks with peers about reading and writing”, and (6) “Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud”.

When I read the details of children reading accurately and comprehending, I couldn’t help but think, “Just tell me how. Tell. Me. How.” How do I know when they are reading on level? How do I know when they experience “high-success reading”? I’m still not sure.

I was happy to read that the authors want students to be learning comprehension strategies as a connected whole, rather than in parts. Many remediation programs focus on skills one at a time as though they are mutually exclusive, which is ridiculous. We don’t read a text to identify the author’s purpose OR to understand context clues OR to make predictions. We use all of those skills when we read, plus a lot more. Instead of learning “basic skills in isolation” we should be “reading connected text for meaning”.

The best practice that made me feel quite relieved was the last one – every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud”. I do this with my students every day, usually doing all the reading aloud. I know that they need to hear the correct pronunciation of words. They need to have some phrases, idioms, and other items of note pointed out to them. Most importantly, though, they just need to hear proper fluency. By no means am I the best and most fluent speaker, but I’m a much more experienced reader than most of my struggling and reluctant readers. Maybe I am having a positive impact on their reading skills? I sure hope so. I will keep working, studying, and trying new strategies, and report as much as I can along the way.

P.S. If I had to pick the most important sentence in the whole article it would be this: “When we consider that the typical 4^th grade classroom has students reading anywhere from the 2^nd grade to the 9^th grade reading levels (and that later grades have an even wider range), the idea that one workbook or textbook could meet the needs of every reader is absurd” The bottom line is that workbooks and textbooks are not the end-all, be-all. Students need a great variety of real books to learn to read and to enjoy reading.

Creative Writing

It isn't very often that I get to write creatively as a graduate student.

For that matter, I never really wrote creatively as an undergraduate. In the world of academia, informative writing is the bulk of what we do. We research, cite our sources, research some more, and then for a change of pace, we do a little research.

Dr. Baines lets us do things a bit differently, though. During our last class, he had us partake in several multisensory minilessons before finally assembling a poem of our very own. (I can't remember the last time I had written a poem...maybe high school?) The subject was Love, and we began with a discussion of the many cliche expressions surrounding love. Our goal was to create something original, moving beyond the typical images, and we engaged many senses to do so.

Eventually I'll describe the lesson itself in some detail, but for now I'm going to leave you hanging. :) This weekend I will have much more time to blog about how we created the poems. Until then, I leave you with an audio recording of me reading the poem. I titled it "A Fresh Start on Love". Picture a woman watching a beautiful sunset on the rocky coast of Maine, deciding to start anew...

*After several minutes of tinkering with the Mac* Well, there was going to be an audio recording. It's not posting here on Blogger, so I will ask my tech savvy friends tomorrow how I go about this. Thanks for bearing with me! :)

***

A few classes later, and after talking to my classmates, I decided to make this easier. Here is the video, courtesy of my friend, Jamie, and her iPhone! :)

Online Learning

I have a Thursday night class at OU that I really enjoy. The people are fun, understanding, and highly intelligent, so it is an honor to spend time with them. It’s also just nice to talk with fellow teachers who understand the craziness of my days.

Our professor is Dr. Lawrence Baines, a really great person and mentor. We sit in class, drink tea that he provides, and talk about all things teaching. No matter how long my week has been, I look forward to it because the discussion is so engaging.

I tell you all this for two reasons: 1) to plug my awesome teacher’s books, available on Amazon, with lots of great information and strategies for teachers, and 2) because I will often reference articles here on this blog that Dr. Baines gives us to read. As I’ve said before, it is easy to use online spaces like blogs and Facebook accounts to spread awareness and advocate a position. The more I teach the more I feel that advocacy is important – the general public needs to know more about modern teaching.

One such article that Dr. Baines recently provided was “How Online Learning Companies bought America’s School”, published by The Nation in November of last year. The article’s premise is that online learning companies have slowly but surely insinuated themselves into our K-12 classrooms, mostly without our knowledge or approval (and when I say “our”, I mean students, parents, teachers, communities, and really all of the U.S., because we all have a stake in K-12 education).

Companies have used money and lobbyists to leverage themselves, and they have put up a front with philanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, much like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Of course, I will let you read the article yourself to discover for yourself the hows and whys. You can probably figure it out without much prompting – the motive for these companies is money, and lots of it. Our nation’s children represent a “market” to them, ready to be tapped. The company executives stand to make a bundle of cash, and our kids end up…well, they don’t seem to care much about the kids, or if they do, they are looking at the situation with dollar signs in their eyes.

The question that I came up with by the end of the article (along with a feeling of nausea) was how do we, as teachers and citizens, fight back? After all, I read this article during my plan period at work, while I was also eating lunch. Where do we find the time, not to mention the money, to fight for what we know is right for our clients, the real consumers of our work – who are they? That’s right, they’re children. Not millionaires and billionaires who can spend hours perfecting their golf game and ordering servants to clean their golden toilets. The people we work for are kids, kids with minds and bodies that are still developing, who have a plethora of issues to deal with already. We do what we can within our schools to make a difference. But when companies from outside begin to order us around, we take umbrage. When their orders have a negative impact on kids, we get downright pissed off. Of course, getting mad isn’t productive. We need to channel that anger into a strategy for fighting back. Teachers reading this, what are your thoughts? Until next time...

First Teaching Job

Good afternoon, my lovely readers! I apologize for my long absence. I have no excuse other than to say that the pace of my life has picked up quite a bit since my last post. As always, I hope to be a better blogger, but there are so many things to do that by the time I think to myself, “I should write a blog post about that”, I don’t get to it…It’s a lame excuse, I know, and I’ll get better. :) Anyway, I want to blog about the high and low moments of my days. I feel that thinking and reflecting on them will make me a better person and a better teacher.

Last fall, I completed my student teaching internship here in Norman. My post “140 Children” dealt with some of my first impressions, but then my blogging hiatus kicked off and you didn’t get to hear any more of my adventures. I’ll try to work in some stories from time to time, but the thing is that many of them repeat themselves naturally. Kids are kids, as one of my mentors wisely told me. They are absolutely unique, make no mistake, but many of their situations are alike. So, now that I find myself in a new job (that’s right!), many of the stories – both heartbreaking and inspiring – will crop up again and again.

Once my student teaching wrapped up, I spent time with family and spent time job searching. To say that was maddening would be an extreme understatement. The waiting, the wondering, the overanalyzing of every minuscule detail of the search-apply-interview process – it was driving me crazy. Then out of nowhere, another job popped up, I interviewed, and got it! Now I am a Literacy Resource Teacher at a middle school in town, helping kids with their reading skills in small groups. I work with different students every day, from all three grade levels (6, 7 and 8). In total, I see about 60 students a week and am trying to differentiate lessons for each group.

It is not a job that I would have expected doing, but it sure beats subbing and it gets my foot in the door here. Most importantly, it gets me some experience in working with kids who struggle when it comes to reading text. They are a mixed bag – many know they need help and are defiant, many know they need help and are grateful for any knowledge they can absorb, and still others do not even realize how important reading is and would rather get hit by a bus” than read anything (in the actual words of one student). Others believe that they can read just fine and see no reason to spend their Explo time with me once a week. They have threatened to have their parents call the school, so we’ll see how well that works for them. I have tried telling them their reading comprehension is the real issue – can they read something and understand it afterwards? I have also tried to convince them that we can read things that are fun and interesting to them. Indeed, that is what I would prefer. Some believe me, and they’re very forthright with their preferences. Others doubt my sincerity and are staying quiet until I can gain their trust.

I’m sure I could go on and on, but I will stop for now. If I am going to make blogging a regular thing, I need to keep it short. My hope is that by reflecting, thinking, and writing about my school life, I will gain some insight. Maybe I will learn about myself or my students, who knows? If nothing else, I hope to preserve some of the amazing moments in the life of a teacher. Everything happens by so fast, and memories fade. With a blog to record some fleeting thoughts, I hope to preserve them.