Seeking Change

I am in the second semester of my fourth year at J.C. Harmon High School.   For the past two years I have been teaching Strategic Reading and supporting my students and classroom teachers with literacy strategies in the content classrooms.   I was invited to propose a intervention process for struggling adolescent readers, someone listened, and for the past two years that curriculum and intervention process has been used in the 8 middle schools and 4 mainstream high schools in the district.   It has kept me busy, but also intellectually engaged with kids and adults.

During this same time, Emily has found success and connections in high school  This year she is the ads editor on the yearbook, she was in two productions in the drama department,  and she survived two marching bands seasons.   She took two trips this years.  With the yearbook, she traveled to Washington D.C.  With the marching band, she traveled to California to march in a parade, at the Holiday Bowl game, and in Disney Land.   She is now trying to decide if she wants to be involved in the AP or IB programs in her high school.  In order to make this decision, she has to have some future vision of where she wants to go to college and what she wants to commit her life to as an adult.  This is hard talk for a momma to hear.  She is talking about schools that are hours away from home.

Samuel is working his way through the purgatory of middle school.  He has done remarkably well, with only a couple of glitches.  His glitches tend to have more to do with adults who have too much too do or too little actual interest in students.  The lessons were good for Sam as a student and for me as a parent.  We are constantly learning how to navigate this world of public education with personal challenges.   Right now,  Sam is playing basketball for the first season of b-ball supported at the middle school level in his district for 29 years.   He made the B-team.  He was disappointed, for sure. He struggles with the try-out process.  I think he gets too anxious or nervous.  In the games he is much more impressive, but that is too late for making the team he wants.  I he is making the best of it.  There is growth needed.  He will be a better leader and stronger player in many ways.

My Ashley has been out on her own for 8 years.  Emily will be gone, for the most part, in another 2 1/2 , and Sam in 4 1/2.   It seems too soon.  I feel like the business of life, and most specifically of being at teacher, hasn't given me enough time with them.    This school year in particular I spent most of the weekend for the first four months of school in Iowa with my mom while she was in the hospital in Des Moines.   The rest of the time, I was trying to support this TLI (Targeted Literacy Instruction) program.    I am feeling the pull to moderate my existence more, spend more time making memories and living the moments.  I spend so much time checking off lists of things i need to do.    I am in a transitional place.  I "plan" to listen and reflect more as this school year winds down.  I am feeling a pull for change.    I have a difficult time believing God's will for me includes leaving students, but at the same time I am feeling some kind of needed shift.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development - Model Presentation

Students were asked to present Google presentations of important theories to modern education.  This video shows the presentation Nathan Cushenbery-Andrews and I created to model the process.

Keyanna Tolon teaching about the Bill of Rights in Mr. Aguilar's class at Northwest Middle

This is one of my Teaching Academy students.  Keyanna was given some limited materials.  She was able to prepare an engaging lesson to introduce the students to the bill of rights and how it all it connect to them as adolescents.   She really did step up.  She engaged the students initially with a discussion/debate over whether or not children should have the same rights as adults.  She wrapped up the lesson about what rights they do have under the constitution.  Finally,  the students read case studies and assumed the role of judges in deciding each with their group case.    I was impressed with Keyana and several others high school students who boldly stood before classrooms full of middle schoolers in summer school.   I am impressed.  I would have struggled to do the same at 16 and 17.

Summer Experiences - Teachers Do Work in the Summer

Theory Presentations: LaPrincia, Me, and Destiny 

Each summer seems to offer me a new experience.  Lets see...when I came to this district in 2006, I spent the summer, before I ever started teaching here, writing benchmarks.  I had no idea what a benchmark test was really for or how they would be used in the district.  During my first year, I taught 91 benchmarks (standards) with the options of 4 tests for each standard.  So if the student didn't pass the  FOUR QUESTION benchmark test, they were to be retaught and retested up to three additional times.  Imagine what class time could turn into under that system.....not good.   We've moved on after 3 or 4 years of that.

In subsequent summers, I taught two years of summer school, I taught one summer of enrichment with 7th graders from Northwest Middle (detailed in this blog somewhere), and I spent a summer of rewriting standards and collecting resources as we transitioned to Common Core.   Last summer, I spent the summer with the Greater Kansas Writer's Project.   This summer, I fell into the opportunity to work with PrepKC and the Teaching Academy.   I never imagined the experience would be so enjoyable.  I love teaching students about teaching.   For four weeks we've taught students about the theories of development and classroom management,  the importance of our words, he issues of equity, and the challenges of the first year.   They have observed and taught in classes from preschool to middle school.   I have been impressed with many of them.  I think they have developed a strong sense of how much work it takes to be an excellent teacher.  Some will choose not to teach after this, but they will do so with awareness that good teachers offer an important contribution to society, even if teaching isn't for them.

I finished my reading specialist this past semester.  More and more I find I really want to contribute to helping others reach adolescent struggling readers.  This experience only re-enforced that desire.  I will work more with students and teachers in the coming year.  It is my sincere desire,  my prayer even, that my work will improve the lives of students who've been lost in the system for too long.  We've let too many kids down in this system.  I want to do my part to change that for the students in my little corner of the system.   I also hope to see some of these young people from the Teaching Academy come back and impact their communities with integrity and hard work.

Still Living The Dream...but at Harmon in Year 2

Block 2 English, Harmon Year 1 

I am in my last quarter of my second year at Harmon.  At the same time, I am in my last semester of work for my Reading Specialist.  I am exhausted and overwhelmed, but happy to be in the place....near the end.

I was determined to finish my specialist (and not complete a doctorate now) because Emily is headed to high school and Sam is headed to middle school.  I am headed on the short track toward the empty nest and I don't want to miss a minute of the time I have left to be involved in their lives in a consistent meaningful way.   I am a total failure this year.  I have too many work related responsibilities, three graduate classes while serving in two ministries.  I love working, and I love serving, but I truly love parenting more than anything else.  I often forget that because I am so overwhelmed with the have-to stuff, that I neglect the, often more important, want-to stuff.  I think this may be a common problems for teachers with my obsessive personality.

So as I finish this school year, I am looking to set very different priorities for next school year.  If I narrow it down to the areas that really matter, my family and my students, then my community will benefit more form the focus.

Long Time Gone

I spent my summer as part of the Great Kansas City Writer's Project in the Summer Institute of 2012.  I put this experience off for many years because I didn't want to take from my family's coveted summer adventures.  My babies are now 11 and 13.  My oldest daughter is now 23.  I decided they might like me to be gone some this summer.  Sam and Em spent most of those days with  Ashley at the "All Things Small"" Daycare (you can follow them on Twitter).  Indeed, they were okay with my working through the summer institute while they hung with the cutest kids in the Metro.  We still did hang out quite a bit, but it was time for me to take this opportunity to explore this professional development and make writing instruction better from my freshmen.

When you have an intensive six hours a day, five days a week, for four weeks experience, it seems essential that any new beliefs you have about writing and writing instruction be embedded in your action right away.  One of the things I have always believed, and believe even more strongly now, is that the more you read the better you read and the more you write the better you write.  I already read a whole heck of a lot.  I decided I needed to get back to the practice of writing a whole heck of a lot more.  I started out strong.  I got a flash drive where I intended to record my writing as I committed to writing about 30 minutes a day.  One of the things I wanted to do is to get on to paper all those crazy stories I tell my students.  So for one, okay maybe two days,  I wrote down some of those stories.    That was about 2 months ago.   

I got back to my classroom and all the responsibilities I tend to accept, and the writing returned to it's location in the basement of my priority structure.   I do write with my students, and I love doing that.  I may even start to post those shaky efforts here, but I've rejected the practice of sitting in the quiet of my personal space and writing my stories in honest and authentic ways.  

I have four blogs.  Yes, FOUR blogs.  It occurred to me that each as a purpose I can use as a way to motivate my writing.  The intention behind this blog has always been to work out the thoughts and feeling, successes and failures of mixing urban education with passionate parenting.  So I asked Emily to join me here.  She will be the new manager of this site.  She will post pictures and the occasional post.  Mostly, I am hoping this collaboration will help remind me to write and be reflective about those two things I love most...teaching and parenting.   

Emily, Ashley, Sam and Mom - Memorial Day 2011.  We all still miss Grandpa. 

Summer's End

I have one week of summer vacation.  Sam and Emily have a bit over two weeks.  I was looking at my list from the beginning of the summer and, miracle of all miracles, we got it all done.  We've also managed to get a few friends over, played some games, and seen a few summer blockbusters.  Our faves:  Mr. Poppers Penguins and Captain America.

We are now all feeling a little flu-ish. We're hanging around the house more lately anyway because it is so hot and it costs money to interact with the world.   I am  working my way through "The Kennedys," an 8 part series over the presidential years of JFK.  I am also getting last minute things done for school that will make things a little easier once classes get started.  Next Friday, I will meet with my new administration for the first time.  I am a bit nervous, but mostly anxious to understand the expectations and schedule.

Emily will be in middle school and she is crazy nervous about it.  I know she will be amazing in middle school, but I can't keep her from experiencing the required anxieties over each rite of passage moment. Sam is looking forward to 5th grade, but is not necessarily in a hurry to start school again.  He is enjoying this sleeping late thing. He is deeply struggling to get to sleep at night.  That makes his morning wake time later and later.  I hope we can all get back on track smoothly in a couple weeks.