I was listening to The Moth, a show on NPR (yes, I listen to NPR) with live storytelling in front of a microphone without notes.  Ordinary people stand up and tell extraordinary stories about seemingly ordinary things. 

Tonight, a flight attendant got up to tell the story of an insubordinate passenger who didn't sit down when the seat belt light went on.  It's a pet peeve of stewardesses, but she decided not to judge, but to talk to the man as he stood there waiting for the bathroom.

"Business or pleasure?" she asked him.  "Neither," he replied.  The gentleman explained that his son was a first responder at Ground Zero, who never made it out alive.  He had flown from California to New York to pick up his son's uniform, which was now in the overhead compartment, now the only thing he had left of his son's!

This flight attendant went on to reflect on why she loves her job so much.  "Every person who flies somewhere is going somewhere. The flight is a small part of their story, and I get to be a tiny part of that...We flight attendants think about crowds. 'Stay away from that Fort Lauderdale crowd...That LAX crowd is ugly!' But I like to remember that crowds are made up of lots of individuals--individuals with stories of their own, and I get to be a minor character in their stories for a little while. For that I am thankful."

How true!  We teachers are the same way.  We catch a glimpse of our students and are a part of their lives for a short time.  However, when they look back on the stories of their lives, how will they remember us? 

Are we their heroes that taught them to love to write, who made them forget what they weren't good at, in front of whom they were brave enough to sing out loud, who were maybe the first ones who paid them a compliment on the way they read?  Are we the ones with whom they connected in a way that made them love school, that made them know that although they are "partially proficient" on some piece of paper, they have important things to say?  Are we the characters that made them understand that a reading level is just a step on a journey instead of a label that follows them forever in a comparison to their friends?  This is what we need to be.

Some heroes are a group of principals in New York State who have decided to step up for kids in this Age of Common Core.  You can see some of their work at the site  http://www.newyorkprincipals.org/letter-to-parents-about-testing where they write to parents about testing. 

They have a similar letter to their students that says that the strangers who scored this test only have very limited information about them. 

"They don't know how talented you are at playing an instrument, at the improvement you've made in reading through thousands of hours of practice, or what a good heart you have...They just have this one snapshot of you that one day answering some very challenging questions.  They don't know all the things you've done that have really mattered." (I'm paraphrasing.)  

Such heroes!

I think of Sara, a student who was in my 3rd Grade class years ago.  Sara had learned to dislike writing, because she was continually reminded of how weak her spelling was.  She decided at a very young age that writing was not her thing, because she couldn't spell. 

However, Sara had voice!  She always had something to say, and it usually had great depth at its heart.  I think that Sara really turned her attitude about learning around that year. 

I visited her room in 4th Grade.  She wrote this beautiful poem in her writer's notebook (with some words spelled wrong, but you can't really spell anything too badly if you write it with your soul...). 

COURAGE
I peer out of my
green hat
onto a frosty, white
lake.
My feet are wobblye
like a foal when
born.
But my smiles soon
turned into a
frown.
I fell on the
hard bitter
ice
with a thud.
My mom
glidded twards
me
and put out her hand
sending me a little more
courage
to help me
keep going
on.

I kept in touch with Sara and her parents for a few more years.  Sara enjoyed her writing, but it soon was replaced by other passions.  However, her parents told me that it was 3rd Grade that gave her the desire to find passion for learning, because it wasn't about what she couldn't do.

I think about my role as a character in the story of Sara's life, and realize there is nothing common at the core of it.  Like those New York principals told their students, there was something there that really mattered in our time together.

So as you look back and reread the story of your life as a teacher, think about which other stories you have a cameo appearance in.  What role do you have in these other stories that are a tapestry of story?  How will you be remembered?  Will you the one who honored what made each student special?  Will you be the one who brought the joy of learning by celebrating what kids can do well?  Will you be the hero who sent kids a little more courage to keep going on?  Will you be the one who took the time to ask, "Business or pleasure?"  Think about this in the choices you make each day, because these choices really matter!

It's the first day of spring and new life is coming! The white (and sometimes gray and even black) snow is almost all gone, soon to be replaced with lots of new colors...life seen in blooming ways.  After this winter, many of us can't wait!!

Common Core has seemed to clobber our classrooms with 8 to 10 feet of anchor standards, evaluation systems, testing, bullying, and so many other changes!  How will we ever dig ourselves out?

You have to plant the seeds of new learning that comes from your own learning.  Katie Wood Ray tells us in What You Know by Heart, (Heinemann, 2002) that you can create new curriculum by engaging in your own writing.  Try this out.

Sit down and try something new in your writing.  Maybe you can think of a new way to generate ideas.  Maybe you can find a way of elaborating, or mixing images that are concrete and abstract, or of combining sentences to make meaning.  Then, in the margin do some writing called a teaching story.

A teaching story is a 3-5 sentence reflection on how the strategy worked for you.  Part of it is thinking how you would apply the strategy to your students.  Sure, you were able to mix concrete and abstract images by saying, "I sent her all the patience I had," but how can you help 8-year-olds gesture toward this? 

If you can figure out a way to do this, new learning is born!  It's as invigorating as the first spring breeze--you know the one--the one you feel for the first time on a March afternoon!

When I taught 3rd and 4th Grade, I tweaked the idea of this into other areas.  For example, I had kids evaluate strategies they used in other subject areas...reading, math, spelling, even science.  We called them reading stories, math stories, spelling stories, science stories.  Kids wrote for themselves about how strategies worked for them, and how they could modify them to other situations, or about how they can improve them!   We're always trying to become more metacognitive, and teach our kids to do the same!

It's a good reminder that our learning has to have heart in it, like Katie Wood Ray tells us in the title of her book.  Like with any relationship, you have to bring romance, some newness, or that old black magic back into it.  How hard it must be to teach the same grade level the same way for so many years!  Engaging in your own reading, writing, and other types of learning helps you create new curriculum, to make it always seem like a new spring!

So, finish digging yourself out and get back to the garden!  Start up on your own garden again--your own reading life, writing life, learning life to reinvigorate your teaching!

It will make spring really feel like it's here in your classroom!

Yesterday, we celebrated my daughter Timi's birthday.  She turned three, and we had our family over.  There were lots of gift bags, filled with toys and other great things.

We made the mistake of letting her open up one particular gift before some of the others.  She has a favorite series (in Hungarian of course) called Anna, Peti, Gergo (Anna, Peter, and Greg), a very cute bunch of books about a sister and two brothers, written by their mom about things that happen to them.

Each volume is about 200 pages long, with lots of pictures, so Timi opened up the front cover and began reading it, flipping the pages quickly, and there was no stopping her until she reached the end.

When you listen closely to her read, she's using lots of story language...words that (when translated, say) "Once upon a time," "all of a sudden," "and then," and the like.  She reads with lots of emotion, changing the pitch of her voice to show excitement, anger, fear, sadness, in the little story she makes up just looking at the picture (remember, she's three!)

Isn't that awesome?  Of course, I'm biased.  There are many 3-year-olds who have story language and fluency going when they read their books.  So, how does it get there?  We don't explicitly teach it.  It's modeled when we read to them.  And most kids seem to be natural storytellers, excited about all the firsts around them.

We inherit other people's children when they come to school.  It's really important that we ride the wave of that momentum and develop them into even more excited storytellers, curious about what's going to happen, feeling things about their characters, finding the story in everything they experience!

The rhythm of their own wondering and thinking in stories has to meet the wondering and rhythm of our teaching.  There are certain words that become engrained in our teaching.  What words have become engrained in your teaching rhythm? 

Maybe it's language of certain modes of teaching like the minilesson--Watch me as I...Did you notice...Today and every day...or the conference--How's it going?...What do you do when...Say more about that...

Maybe it's a positive (or negative) discourse about behavior.  Someone just shared with me that her kindergartner daughter got a certificate for "less calling out."  Isn't it interesting to think of that as a compliment, instead of a something that is more positive?  Imagine the power she'd have with that little girl, to build her rhythm of learning by being more positive by saying she "showed respect," or "waited her turn."

Maybe you have a celebratory tone to your teaching by honoring students' best attempts.  Maybe you have a truly exploratory tone by never asking kids a question you think you already know the answer to.  Maybe you maintain a reflective stance in your classroom by asking kids what they've learned. 

What phrases live in your classroom or school that help to build the rhythm of learning in your students?  How do you keep kids learning alive all the time? The rhythm of our teaching can have a lasting effect on who we shape our students into becoming forever!
Did you ever notice that preschool kids ask thousands of questions a day, but by the time they reach the older elementary grades, the questions often stop?  Why is that?  What are our schools doing to slow down this important part of innovation?  What part of the rhythm of our teaching stops the wondering? Do we too often ask questions to "gotcha" kids?  We see it in the rhythm of testing now more than ever!  It's for exactly this reason that the classroom has to do the opposite the rest of the time!

Teacher to teacher, I have to say that the rhythm of our language has to be the kind that keeps our own learning and the learning of our kids going.  Parent to teacher, I have to say that my greatest hope that whoever ends up teaching my kids will help them maintain their rhythm of the story of their learning happily ever after!

Remember the old 1960's comedy series, Get Smart?  I admit, I only saw it in reruns myself, but it sparked the movies later on with Steve Carell.  In the show, secret agents worked in a secret network like the CIA called CONTROL.  It was a Mel Brooks classic that poked fun at espionage.  Imagine what it would sound like in the shadow of NSA!

The title of the series literally meant to get Smart, Maxwell Smart, the secret agent.  However, today we have to make sure we get smart about the way kids learn in this age of Common Core!  However, teaching and school leadership are lonely jobs.  You're locked in a classroom all day with kids.  No phone.  No bathroom.  No access to the outside world.  Principals are lonely, too, often not having anyone on site to share their woes with.

So in a job filled with people who are usually people people, in surroundings that are sort of lonely, it's important to get smart...together!  Here are a few tips on how to do just that!

Tip #1: Visit with Neighbors.  Stop by another classroom to see what's going on.  Talk to your colleague about what you see.  "I notice this ___.  How does that work?"  "How do you deal with ___?"  Rehearse a conference you're thinking about with one of your neighbor's kids.  Try it out in front of your neighbor.  Become professional friends!  Like a good neighbor, invite your friend back to try things out in your room.  Eventually, you'll feel more and more comfortable and share more ideas, coach each other, teach in front of each other.  Once you start chatting professionally, invite others to join you.  Before you know it, you'll have the makings of a network of professional friends!

You can do the same thing if you're a principal.  Get in the car and go down the street to another school.  Walk around together and pop the same kinds of questions.  "I notice this _____.  How does it work?"  "How do you handle _____?"  Have conversations with teachers and students together.  Take your reflections back with you and think about how they fit the world in your school.  And as always, invite your friend back.  And snacks don't hurt, either! :)

Tip #2: Get a Study Buddy.  Work with a colleague to study something together outside the classroom.  Read a professional book together or articles around one topic.  Talk through it, but the key is to always figure out some sort of application.  For example, if you're studying the role of talk, figure out what you'll practice in your classroom, and bring back your reflections to your next meeting.  If you skip this part, you'll only get part of the way there.  It doesn't have to be a book or article though. 

You can study student data and look for trends in your class.  Form some hypothetical small groups for your instruction and imagine those lessons together.  Go back and try them (don't forget this part!) and come back with your reflections on how it went.  Use this information to continue to grow your knowledge on the topic. 

You can also create a practitioner's study group.  This means that you and a colleague or two or six try out a kind of writing together, experimenting with different strategies that you can modify to meet the needs of the grade level you teach.  You can do the same thing with reading by starting your own book club, and trying on different strategies, like pairs of shoes.  Modify the strategies to suit your class.  Come back with reflections next time based on the work you did in your class.  Don't forget to apply this in real life.  Otherwise, you'll never get there!

Principals can do the same thing using materials that fit their work!  This can be books, walk-through sheets, or any other stuff that fits your work.  Don't forget to apply it to your life at school!

Tip #3: Create a Community Bulletin Board.  It's hard to have real face time these days!  Find a space in your school that can be a gathering place for sharing ideas.  The literacy coaches I work with have done this.  We have coaching bulletin board starter kits.  We gather resources about a certain topic and post them on a board that everyone can see.  They then invite teachers to join in the fun and post their own charts, examples of student work, lesson plans, and handouts from workshops to take.  This type of structure works best when more people join in.  Share and share alike.  Once you start it, you can grow momentum around it.  It's a safe way to share and get smarter together.

It doesn't have to be a board, though.  You can have a room in your school that serves as a community share spot where people can post things, borrow books, or meet to talk shop. 

You can have a newsletter that you start up with everyone adding their "column" each time.  If someone knows children's books very well, they can add a monthly recommended read aloud.  If someone is good at conferring, ask for an easy-to-read tip on conferring.  If someone loves poetry, ask them to share one poem each time with one idea on how to use it.

And let's remember blogging.  If I can do it, anyone can.  No further statements on that one!  Except this...try to do a better job than I have (hint, hint...) at getting folks to post responses.  It's the best way to share and grow ideas in community without face time.

So these are three tips on how to get smarter together.  Don't wait for everything to be perfect, just do it.  Don't wait for someone from up above to start this off for you, just do it!  In the age of Common Core, it's critical for us to have lots of knowledge in common. Our students deserve no less!