Byrd Baylor's 1986 classic I'm in Charge of Celebrations is a beautiful account of life in the desert.  Celebrations are such an important part of life in a workshop classroom.  Most of our schools are closing their doors for the year this week.  We'll see lots of pizza parties and end-of-the-year gatherings, but we know that celebrations are so much more than that.  This last week of school is the perfect time to think about how we use celebrations as a part of the learning process!

At their very least (or even their very worst...) celebrations are the positive version of assessment.  They're an opportunity for the teacher, the student, or classmates to give positive feedback.  We do this at the end of writing units when kids read each other's published pieces.  We do this when we pay compliments in conferences.  Some of these become ritualistic if we do them often enough and stop thinking about why we do them.  So why do we do them? 

Brian Cambourne lists response as a critical part of the learning process in his Conditions of Learning theory (1988), meaning that in order to learn anything truly, one needs to have a response to performance.  Sometimes it's a grade (we see this in school.)  Sometimes it's specific advice on how we did (we see this when we are coached in a sport, when we cook something for the first time, or when we drive too fast on the highway.) Sometimes the response comes from within (we see this in the sense of personal satisfaction or dissatisfaction after we do something important.)

But does this response last?  How does it add to our learning?

At it's very best, celebrations are response that lasts for a long time.  It's not what's done after the learning process, but is actually a part of the learning process.  It gives kids the message that what they've done is worth repeating or developing, but how often have we gotten a test back in our own lives with a good grade on it, and then decided that was over, and we'd never have to deal with that topic again? 

The best celebrations are not the ones with the special snacks or the pinatas, but the celebrations that keep on teaching.  If you have celebration bulletin boards where kids' work remains on display for weeks after a unit is over, the audience never goes away.  It's funny how sometimes kids leave to go to the bathroom, and don't come back for a very long time, because they're reading each other's writing, or looking at each other's social studies projects!  In an environment like that, celebrations are so much more real! 

John Hattie tells us in his 2007 work on feedback that response only turns into learning if it's set in an ongoing and authentic context.  Celebrations don't matter if they're not embedded in a community or in some sort of learning that's continuous and meaningful.  Why should a student care what her peers say if she's never going to hear from them again?  Why should she care if the skills that she's hearing about will never come up again?  It's for this reason that we need to create strong communities of learning in our classrooms and schools right away.  This will lead to kids wanting to grow for the positive feedback they receive from one another and from adults.  We also need to have the sort of spiraling curriculum that builds upon itself...where things that have been taught and learned come back with greater depth in subsequent units and subsequent years!  This sort of celebration adds some acceleration to learning, because kids know there is value to what they've learned.  It makes them really listen closely to the response we give them, and they take their learning much more seriously.

So now it's June.  We're all a little tired.  We look back on our year and think about the feedback we've received in our practice...from our supervisors, from our colleagues, from our students, from ourselves.  Does it matter?  Is this year just over to the point we think we just want to start over 90 days from now?  Or is it something more?  Is next year just another year, or is it the next step in a longer journey in our lives as learners and teachers?  Are we celebrating that this year is over, or are we celebrating how we've grown as educators?  Are we thinking about what a great year we've had, or are we considering how the year that just ended has added to the years that are coming? 

If we decide to put our feet up and relax after working really hard these last ten months, that is because we are enjoying a well-deserved rest.  If we decide to do that, thinking about all we've accomplished, how we, along with our students, have grown and changed in our daily lives as teachers and learners, that's is truly a cause to celebrate!

Yesterday was Father's Day, and so it seems fitting to remember one of the fathers of good teaching in reading and writing...Donald Graves (1930-2010).  Don Graves was one of a kind, an excellent teacher and a great person! 

One Saturday Reunion at Teachers College, I heard him tell this story, "What could you do if you had enough guys?"  It's attached here, taken from one of his books of inspirational teaching stories, Teaching Day by Day: 180 Stories to Help You Along the Way (Heinemann, 2004).

Of course, telling the story live was so much more powerful than reading it here.  He said...

In May of my junior year of college, something spontaneous occurred that I've never forgotten.  Just after dinner on a warm spring evening my two roommates and I lazied our way back to the dormitory, lingering by the tennis courts to chat.  One of us posed a simple question, "What could you do if you had enough guys?"  My roommates were physics majors.  One of them whipped out his slide rule and began calculating.  "Yes!" he crowed.  "If each person in the junior class had a hammer and chisel on a scaffold, we could dismantle the brick wall at the south end of the dormitory in about 45 minutes."  We rolled on the grass with laughter.

It's four years now since Don Graves is gone.  It's over 10 years now since he published that story.  It's over 60 years now since the story happened, but the story is still relevant.  What do you think we could do if we had enough guys?  What could we do if as a group we showed everyone around us how powerful it is to give kids voice in their learning?  What could we do if we didn't fear Common Core, and testing, and evaluation, but took control of them through good teaching?  All of us.  All of us learning together and putting into practice what we learn, following new standards, but also creating classrooms that are exciting houses of discovery where kids are at the center as our greatest anchor standard...

Not exactly like putting a VW on someone's lawn or nailing someone's door shut, but just imagine the impact of what we could do if we had enough guys!

How did June get here so fast? 

June is a bittersweet time in the life of a teacher.  We take deep sighs and look forward to summer vacation.  We see just how much our students have grown. 

Still we think about how much we'll miss these kids next year!  Here are a few tips on how to make this June meaningful for us.

Tip #1.  Visit the classes on the grade level below you.  Talk to the teacher ahead of time and plan to visit when they've been reading or writing for a long time.  Then publicly say to the teacher, "Wow, your students have been reading for over 30 minutes!  That's incredible.  Can you do more?"  Of course they will.  Check out some of their writing and compliment them on their volume.  Find anything that you can say about their work and how positive it is.  That way, when they come to you in September and get tired after just a few minutes, or aren't writing so long, you can remind them, "Well I saw you in June, and you were doing so much more."  Of course, kids' stamina and volume of work falls over the summer.  There are some things you can do in September to build them up again, but a part of it is expectations.  If you raise them, it will help them to achieve!

Tip #2.  Look in the mirror at your teaching from the past year.  Reflect on your practices.

What did these students teach you about your practices? 
What will you carry over into your teaching next year?
What was your greatest success (or surprising success) this year?
What will you try differently next year?

Answer these questions in two parts.  The first part should be an honest answer about what you did.  The second part should be an action.  What action will you take because of this reflection?  Write it down in the form of a promise to yourself and your future students.  Do it now, before you forget.  September is so overwhelming!  Use the answers to these questions as the springboard to the professional reading or conversations you might do over the summer (although you don't need to take that too far either!  Make sure to relax!)

Tip #3.  Photocopy some of your students' work.  Ask their permission.  It will make them feel so important.  It will allow you to have a collection of work that can be used as models for students in the future.  Study the work up close, and see what things these students did in their writing that you never really noticed, and think of how you'll use it to teach your students in the future.  So many times, we remember mid-year how well a certain student did something a long time ago, but we can't get our hands on it.  Do it now, while you still can.

Tip #4.  Look around at the physical layout of the classroom.  Think about what worked, and what you'd like to change.  You can't say that you won't change anything.  Having everything the same every year is a recipe for burnout across a long career.  Think about the charts you liked, and the ones you might change.  Think about where your library and your meeting area are.  Think about the configurations of your student tables.  Think about how you handled procedures like classroom jobs, birthdays, and collection of homework.  Change some things up, because that's one of the keys to longevity in this field!

Tip #5.  Make collages of your classroom.  During the last days of school, take your word wall words, your learning charts, your birthday poster, and anything else that's up on your wall, and have your students cut it all up, redistribute it, and create collages of what their year was like.  It will make a nice souvenir of what the year was like, and it will keep you from being tempted to take this year's chart and just use it next year.  The stuff on our walls is supposed to help our students become independent, but they won't use it unless it's meaningful to them.  One key way to make it meaningful is that they should have a hand in creating it.  You'll be amazed at how much more space you have, because you've gotten rid of lots of the clutter from the year.

There you have it.  Some ways to make June a little bit different, and possibly more meaningful for you as you wind down one year, and head toward the next of probably many years in teaching kids!