Career Challenges: The Life of a Temp

I had a hard week.


I found out last Friday that I was going to be bumped from my current school. Being a beginning teacher, the rules of my district dictate that I must give X years' worth of service, obtain a certain number of good teaching evaluations, and generally be a marketable person before I can acquire the coveted permanent contract. Along the way, it certainly doesn't hurt to have some people in your corner, rooting for you to get your contract to the higher-ups. I'm not yet at a point where I am eligible for a permanent contract because my district has been increasing the criteria steadily for the last two years. It feels like a carrot that I can never really catch, no matter how hard I chase it down. But I can practically taste it. 


Non-teacher folk might wonder, "What's the big deal?" Well, gentle reader, the difference between being a temporary contract teacher and a permanent contract teacher is about a world's breadth.


Permanent contract teachers know year to year where they will teach. Temps have to face the prospect of moving schools (or not having an assignment at all) each Spring.


In the Spring, when the staffing cycles begin, a permanent contract teacher can have their pick of the available jobs and bump a temp out of his/her place because, as the rhetoric goes, "The job never truly belongs to the temporary teacher." I mean, obviously, on a semantic level, that makes sense. But this is where being a permanent contract teacher rocks: that job belongs to you. You don't ever have to leave unless you want to. Or unless you are some sort of criminal, but let's assume that it's not an option here.

Permanent contract teachers can go on maternity leave and know that they will have a guaranteed, reserved job to return to following their year off. Temps can go on maternity leave but will have no idea where they will be when they return to work, because their position will be gone.


Permanent contract teachers are given PD opportunities and resources that help make them invaluable members of any staff. Temps are often passed over for certain opportunities and resources because they are not necessarily "worth the investment" as they may not be part of the staff the following year. Case in point, my classroom has been without shelves for the last two years. I keep asking for them. I am an English teacher and I don't have shelves. This winter, a SmartBoard was ordered on behalf of my department for my classroom and I went for SmartBoard training, only to find out that someone in Math got the Board instead. I hate the saying, "It is what it is," but it sort of fits here.


This is just a sampling of some of the important differences between having one's permanent contract and being a temp. But I'll get back to the point.


I knew, as I approached May, that my job was in jeopardy. Last year, I felt reasonably confident about being able to stay at my current school, but this year felt different. There was something in the air. When it was confirmed, my stomach did that sickening flip-flop thing and I felt that uncomfortable prickle that one gets when faced with unwanted change.


I know that it's human nature not to want to change. I know that everything really does happen for a reason. And I know that wherever I go, there will be kids to love, opportunities to grow, and things to learn about myself. On an intellectual level, I am fully aware that everything will be okay, but my heart is still aching.


I'm trying to remember that things are hurting a little more than they ought to because my career is in its infancy and my scope of experience is limited. I've only been teaching three years. In thirty years from now, this will be a laugh. For example, when I look back on some of the ridiculous high school drama that happened between my then-boyfriend and me, I can't believe it felt like such a big deal—you'd think my world was ending. Now that we're married, all that past heartache seems totally silly, but I think eleven and a half years together allows a certain sense of clarity.


I grieved all weekend, (which, in a slightly ironic sense, happened to be my school's grad), allowed my mom to take a crack at cheering me up, and ate a lot of Goldfish crackers. Felt a little better. Prepared to be optimistic, but failed on Monday. Failed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then on Thursday, I prepared to break the news to my kids. I decided it was time to be positive, and I was. I soldiered through without any tears, that is, until I got home and read an email from a particularly devastated student. I comforted myself with Kraft Dinner and potato chips. Today, my kids insisted that I still come to their grad next year, something that I'm not convinced will be as important to them when another year has passed.


Now that it's the weekend, I'm preparing to buckle down to finish some marking, work on my resumé, and do some soul-healing yoga.


It's time to be positive, and hot damn, I am ready to see what else is out there for me. Hopefully, whatever/wherever it is, it includes classroom shelves. :)

The long-awaited Hamlet post

I had a meltdown the last time I posted here.

Then, every time I was tempted to post here again, I was reminded that I promised to post about my Hamlet unit and I'd grumble and go check Facebook instead. It's not that I didn't want to share my ideas, but somehow I felt turned off of them because my kids' essays went so badly. I've taken some time to reflect and I'm realizing—belatedly—that my kids' marks are not necessarily reflective of the quality of my unit.

Overall, I felt really pleased with my Hamlet unit and the way it came together. It was happening in the midst of my teaching evaluation, which was nerve-wracking for a few different reasons. And, in spite of riding the wave of insanity that followed getting married in September, the fact that I had fun teaching Hamlet is pretty much a miracle.

I began with a simple activity that I hoped would get my kids thinking about the dilemmas Hamlet faces and the choices/sacrifices he makes in order to reach his goal. I made a list of about 30-40 things that I identified as probable obligations/priorities for most young people: family, friends, work, school, dance, leisure time, volunteerism, meditation, personal integrity, faith, reputation, networking, etc. I started by asking my kids to cross off any items that were completely irrelevant in their lives. Then I asked them to cross off five more items. Most kids frowned as they did so, but when that was finished, they were still mostly satisfied with their lists. Then I asked for three more to be crossed off. Two more. One more. By the end, everyone was groaning and sighing melodramatically.

Many of them felt that they had sacrified something really important in order to preserve what was truly indispensable in their lives. For many, the things they "saved" were family, friends, and personal integrity (although a few students who lacked the wherewithal to look up "integrity" were embarrassed when they revealed that they'd crossed it off).

For some reason, I can't find it right now but if I find it later on, I'll post it in a Google Doc. Following this activity, I began with an introduction to the three main families in Hamlet: Hamlet's, Laertes', and Fortinbras' families. I gave a brief overview of the character names and their relationships via quick sociogram drawn on my board. Then, in the next class, we began looking at the text.

We viewed Hamlet via Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation—a gorgeous film that stays reasonably true to the text. I would often pause and comment on/ask questions about what was unfurling before us, and I found that having a visual representation in front of them seemed to help them latch onto the language. It was important to me to show my kids other ways that Hamlet can be portrayed, though, so I often punctuated my lessons with clips showing David Tennant and, more hilariously, Mel Gibson as Hamlet. My kids used their books alongside the film, but since I played the film with subtitles, they did not need to look down and up and down and up. They used their books more for soliloquy analysis and for note-taking while we watched the film.

Watching Hamlet in this way and spending some lengthier stretches of time on soliloquies meant that my unit only lasted about six and a half weeks, which was kind of nice. I assigned my kids two things to do for me over Christmas break: make a soliloquy video in groups of two to four people and write an essay individually. These items would be due in January.

Everything seemed great. My kids seemed inspired, we talked about writing, we talked about themes and big ideas they could flesh out, and overall, I left for Christmas break feeling so good about my unit!

Then January came. I got these essays in from my kids and the marks spanned the gamut from INS all the way to 98%. What is INS, you say? Basically, INS (Insufficient), according to Alberta Learning's Diploma marking rubric, is not even a measure of quality. Kids who get INS on essays need to bomb so badly that you can't even give them 5%. One of my kids didn't even write on a topic at all, so I pretty much had no choice.

As I marked a particularly bad series of duds, I felt waves of disappointment and.. anger. Some of the stuff I read felt like an actual slap in the face. The worst part is that I started to feel responsible. Didn't I teach this? Did I miss something? Did they miss something and I didn't realize they missed it? How could this have gone so wrong? I took it really hard. And then I decided to make an opportunity out of the situation.

I decided to teach my kids what rewriting is all about. I introduced a reflection activity wherein students who wished to rewrite their papers would re-read their work and then answer five prompts that helped them evaluate their work. The prompts basically asked them to pinpoint their areas of success as well as areas of struggle; after all, it's their job to figure out what's wrong—not mine. They would submit this rewrite proposal of sorts and, after reading over their proposals, I'd schedule a mandatory conference date/time.

The conferences were mandatory because I wanted to have an opportunity to dissect each kid's essay with him/her by my side, discuss the big ideas, the evidence, where things went off track, and how to focus the ideas more clearly. With some of the kids, it was a matter of showing them various ways they could organize and plan their ideas so that writing the essay itself would be a more efficient process. Conferences went anywhere from five to thirty minutes depending on the kid. Rewritten essays were due one week from the conference date so that our conversation would (hopefully) still be fresh in their minds.

Well, since the papers had gone pretty badly across the board, I found myself scheduling about sixty kids for conferences. As you can imagine, the conferences took the better part of a month's time to do because I met with anywhere from two to five kids per day during my lunch hour (save for days when I had supervision) and after school.

I'm glad I did the conferencing and that I gave my students the chance to rewrite their essays with purpose, but one thing is for sure: doing so put me a mile behind in my marking. The Hamlet Essay Debacle became the impetus for an entire month's worth of remedial writing exercises, grammar lessons, peer responding, and revision, revision, revision. Between January and February, I took in somewhere in the neighbourhood of four separate, mostly small-scale writing assignments. It was totally worth it, but at the same time, I'm now struggling to keep my head above water with planning and marking for my six classes.

So I guess there were lots of good things that came out of my Hamlet unit and a lot of challenges as well, for both my students and me. There are things that I plan to change in the future, but I'll have to put that on hold because in the meantime, I'm keeping my nose to the marking grindstone and praying that I can get all these assignments off my desk before July. No meltdowns this time.

On the brink of an existential crisis

Okay, I'm being a bit of a drama queen.

The truth is, I sort of am having a mini existential meltdown. I think it's no coincidence that I only ever feel this way when I'm marking. Nonetheless, I don't think I've ever felt so bummed out about marking an essay before. I wish I could resolve this feeling of utter dejection, but halfway through my first class set of Hamlet essays, I have already found two that are way below acceptable standards. I know that in time I'll develop a thicker skin and not feel the urge to take any of this last-minute-carelessly-written-bullshit personally, but right now, at this exact moment in time, I actually feel kind of... insulted? And sad. And really, really disappointed. In my kids, and maybe even kind of in myself.

Moments like this are what cause me to question myself, my practice, and my work. Where did we go wrong? What could I have done? Didn't we practice? Didn't we conference? Didn't we edit and reread and conference some more? Didn't I teach them anything?! Agh. And here I was, drafting this great post about how awesome my Hamlet unit was. I'll probably post that within the next week or so anyway, because I still stand by a lot of what I did accomplish this year, but one thing's for sure: these essays (so far) have knocked the wind right out of my sails. And thrown my sailors overboard. And set my boat on fire.

Yes, I know there are some good essays in this pile somewhere. But for now, I'm going to go crawl into my bed and pout.

You know that feeling

...when you're skidding down the stairs on your heels, arms flailing, stomach lurching, so startled at your loss of footing that you don't even have the wherewithal to yelp or curse, and suddenly you reach the security of the floor, magically regaining your balance, leaving you shocked and amazed that you didn't land sprawling on your back?

That feeling pretty much sums up the last three and a half months of my life.

(No apologies for that mega run-on, by the way.)

Anyway, lots of cool things have happened since my last post:

1. Edcamp Edmonton happened! Kudos to my friend, Erin, for being awesome and working with an equally awesome group of people to bring Edcamp Edmonton to life. And kudos to her parents for feeding us with delicious food.
   
   
2. I taught Hamlet in six weeks! And, more importantly, I surprised myself by loving every minute of it.
   
   
3. I created a novel study unit for To Kill a Mockingbird based on the concept of learning centers.
   
   
4. My second Teaching Evaluation began.
   
   

Today's post will be about Edcamp. I am drafting epic posts about my Hamlet and TKAM units and will post those in due course.

Edcamp was great. I mean, just overall, the idea of Edcamps is genius: Like-minded (and unlike-minded) people all together, talking about issues that are important to them, asking about things they don't know much about, and offering to lead discussions about things they know a lot about. It's PD for people who are tired of being told what PD is. For anyone who feels that the PD opportunities presented to them at conferences and conventions are often largely redundant, not useful, impractical, or downright silly, Edcamp is the solution. We began the day with sticky notes. At one table, we'd write down topics that we were comfortable sharing, and at the other we'd write down topics that we wanted to learn more about. We talked about Twitter, grabbed coffee and breakfast munchies, and went off to our first sessions. At lunch we learned about neat technology-related things we could use in our classrooms, and then went off for our afternoon sessions. I went to sessions on engagement, classroom physicality, assessment, and ELA practices. A handful of us collaborated on a Google Doc throughout the day, which you can look at here; you can also read Erin's take on Edcamp Edmonton here.

The venue was incredibly beautiful, the food was plentiful and so delicious, and the conversations were thought-provoking, inspiring, and above all, reassuring. It was reassuring to know that there are other educators out there who are interested in the same things that I am: making education authentic, prioritizing student learning over mindless assessment, shrugging off (as much as possible) the suffocating bureaucracy nonsense in favour of doing right by our students, and trying to be the best teachers we can be.

Check out the Edcamp Edmonton team and follow them on Twitter!

• Erin Ochoa @erinneo
• Greg MacCollum @gmacteach
• Daniel Espejo @danielespejo
• Derek Hatch @hatcherelli
• Trevor Meister @tjmeister
• Steven Boyko @stevenboyko
• Christine Marlowe @Xeryfyn
• Aaron Ball @MrAaronBall

The next Edcamp Edmonton is happening in mid-April, so for any and all Albertan educators out there who read this thing, you better be there!

Heading into Year Two with surprisingly little clarity.

Greetings, gentle reader.

I'm a mere month into my second year at my school and this is what I've been up to so far:

1. I discovered that my classroom has blinds this year -- happy day! Still no shelves. Them's the breaks, I guess! I suppose it's just one less opportunity to create a mess in my space.
   
   
2. My teaching schedule was changed from four classes of English 10 Honours and two classes of English 20 Pure to three classes of 10 Honours, two classes 20 Pure, and one class 20 Honours! I pooped my pants a little bit (in the most hyperbolic and non-literal way) when I realized that I had a week to figure out the 20 Honours program, but luckily I decided to avoid that task until at least November. So far, so good.
   
   
3. I ate at least half my weight in candy. Note to self: when buying candy for students, only buy enough to feed the students. Seriously, I was eating sour candies today and the sheer amount of acidic sugar in my mouth caused my tongue to start bleeding spontaneously. I was not deterred, but I do honestly worry that at the ripe old age of twenty-five, I may be giving myself my first cavity. First world problem?
   
   
4. I discovered that my ability to unit plan and lesson plan is mostly intuitive and not really ever concrete. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that I have already changed my mind about what I'm going to teach my grade ten classes no less than four times since the start of the year. Maybe it's because -- according to a personality test that all staff and students at my school did this year -- I'm an ENFJ? More on this later.
   
   
5. I discovered that #4 is a good thing, albeit a little disconcerting at first. I hoped to enter into my second year with more clarity than last year, but I didn't really. In fact, I'd say that I feel a distinct lack of clarity when it comes to my planning process. In a way it's good because it indicates to me that my teaching style is evolving and that I'm not willing to settle on the stuff I did last year. When I think back to the way I began the year last year, I shake my head and vow that I'll never do it that way again. It wasn't wrong or bad, it was just not really the way I want to do things. It's not that way I'd like to learn, nor the way I'd like to teach. So I'm not going to do it like that anymore. It's as easy (and hard) as that!
   
   
6. I ended up on Awards Committee again. Cue mournful violin music.
   
   
7. Oh yeah, and I got married!



Photo credit: Ryan and Beth Photographers
http://www.ryanandbeth.ca/


Basically, things have been pretty crazy on my end. Compound the stress of starting a new school year and getting married halfway through September (not recommended, by the by) with the fact that I'm moving houses this weekend, and I'm sure it seems somewhat amazing that I'm sitting around with my dogs, drinking coffee at 1:00am and blogging my little heart out.  This is called an avoidance tactic, and aside from high school English, it is my specialty!

Here's a happy ray of sunshine: despite feeling a little unsure about the way I'm constructing my unit(s), amazing things are happening in my classes every day. I don't have a single class that is quiet or disinterested. My kids are happy and actually really good at discussing stuff! This is encouraging. One day I reflected back on my discussion with one of my grade eleven classes and I discovered that the questions I had asked basically scaffolded the outline of an analytical essay -- purely by accident! This kind of happy accident is part of what I think makes me an intuitive personality type, which is what a nifty little website told me this week.

Part of an initiative at my school this year is putting emphasis on learning styles/profiles, which is a core idea in the International Baccalaureate program. All students and staff were asked to do a personality profile quiz, which spits out a four-letter result at the end, placing you somewhere in these categories:

Introverted / Extraverted
Sensing / iNtuitive
Thinking / Feeling
Perceiving / Judging

My results indicated that I am moderately Extraverted, moderately iNtuitive, strongly Feeling, and slightly Judging (ENFJ). So basically, I'm comfortable in public/social situations, I tend to make decisions based on the circumstances that I'm in at the time, I am keenly aware of emotional atmosphere and tend to empathize with others, and I am generally fond of having some order, routine, and structure. That's actually kind of a crappy explanation, but I'm not interested in boring you with the details. The website claimed that ENFJ is the "Idealist Portrait of a Teacher," and although I don't usually give much thought to these things, I thought that was kind of neat. Go check it out for yourself!

Anyway, I definitely feel that the best descriptor of my teaching so far this year has been intuitive. I know what I don't want to do but I'm not 100% sure what it is that I do want to do -- at least, not in its fully realized format. For example, something that I'm not interested in doing this year is teaching by genre, though of course when it comes to large works, it's pretty much impossible not to do so. As an example, my grade eleven course last year looked basically like this:

September - early October: Short Stories
Mid-October: Writing workshops
November - December: Novel Study
January: Classic Poetry and midterm prep
February - early April: Hamlet (The longest unit of LIFE)
Mid-April: Contemporary Poetry and Song
May: A Streetcar Named Desire
June: Essays/articles, final exam prep

...and I mean, it wasn't the worst thing that could possibly happen, but it was also not really something that worked for my personality. I just sort of started teaching that way at the top of the year and by the time I wanted to change it, it was too late.

This year, I want to teach by theme, mostly. The basic, overarching theme in grade eleven at my school is death (no, seriously) and "The Journey." I see it this way: most of the literature we have in my school deals heavily with death, and if you think about character development in general, one could argue that the journey theme is a given. I'm feeling a little beholden to certain texts that have been set out by well-respected and learned predecessors, but we'll see how everything plays out as the year goes on.

And this whole, "We'll see how everything plays out" thing is pretty much MY theme for the year, by the way.

Right now with my elevens, I'm starting off by talking about appearances and reality. We've discussed "The Metaphor" by Budge Wilson (not my favourite story by a mile but I was a little stranded for ideas at the moment) and The Illusionist. I'm interested in doing "Birches" by Robert Frost next with my Honours kids and I'm still working out what text I'd like to do next with my matriculation kids. It's a little piecemeal and kind of simplistic right now, but basically I want to be able to give them a variety of texts to begin the year so that they learn to see the same theme weaving through each of them; then I want to start Hamlet with them in a few weeks to round off the unit.

My tens started with a pretty heavy theme -- life and death. We've been exploring the topic in dozens of different ways, though, spanning things like religious ideologies, zombies, metaphorical interpretations of what it means to live/exist, artificial intelligence, growing skin in petri dishes, and people and events that alter one's perspective of their own mortality. Plus lots of other stuff in between. We began with John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud," then Isabel Huggan's "Celia Behind Me," and now we're reading an essay by Desmond Tutu where he talks about how discovering the fact that he has cancer has changed his life. I'm actually really excited about this unit so far and think it'll segue nicely into Macbeth.

I guess the issue I'm grappling with right now is that if I teach units by theme, I feel obligated to make them write their essays on that specific theme. But I don't want to. I'd rather compile a bank of essay questions and let them pick what they want to write about. And I'd have them choose a new topic for every essay they write for me. I could probably still have them do some sort of comparitive writing task where they write about their unit theme as it is portrayed in two different texts they have studied. These ideas clearly require a bit more percolation.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm really into promoting a sense of autonomy (or maybe it's just straight up ownership) in my kids these days. I just feel like giving them that choice teaches them an important skill -- discernment -- and also in an ideal world would give them a heightened sense of personal investment in their writing. I definitely see value in giving them a topic that they have to adhere to, but I also think that it's easier to be an obedient robot than it is to be creative and insightful.

Anyway, to wrap up yet another epic post, I'll just say that I'm having a great time so far. Firstly, I'm fortunate to be part of a supportive and ridiculously intelligent department, and secondly, I've been blessed with an incredible group of kids this year. I feel so much joy every day talking to them and seeing what they're capable of -- which is a lot. And although my approach so far this year has been a little, shall we say, on the meandering side, I definitely don't think it's aimless nor unsuccessful. And both my kids and I are having a lot more fun in the first month of school than we did last year.

Seems like progress to me.



PS: Have you registered for Edcamp Edmonton yet? Find the Edcamp Edmonton folks on Twitter, too! Doooo it!

Summer ramblings

Ahoy!

Okay, so I'll start by saying that I'm reallllllly going to try not to fall off the blogging wagon going into this school year like I did after March. My summer has been pretty nondescript so far, and it's already half over! I put my name in the hat to teach English in summer school for July, but being that there was basically zero interest in English 10 or 20, I was off the hook (and not as rich as I hoped I might be). Them's the breaks!

This is what I've been up to:

          1.  Dancing and yoga

          2.  Doing some leisure reading (I'm currently on Catching Fire, the second book in the
               Hunger Games triology)

          3.  Sitting on my arse

       3.1.  More sitting

   3.2-3.  Some slouching and laying

          4.  Reading Young House Love, an amazing blog about DIY renos, raising
               babies, and being awesome in general. I heard about this blog from my friend who
               writes an equally entertaining personal finance blog.

          5.  Working up the energy to start planning for next year

          6.  Planning my wedding (seven weeks away as of today!)

          7.  Getting excited about adding "dance teacher" to my resumé

          8.   Oh yeah, and I took an impromptu, week-long trip to Victoria with my bestie.


Item #1: Dancing and yoga have been great! Admittedly, I haven't gone to yoga in a full week, but it is my goal to go tomorrow fo sho! I'm down to just one dance class and one troupe rehearsal per week now, which is nice and relaxed. I'd like to choreograph a solo by the end of August, but that will depend on how much time I can actually devote to that.

Item #2: I knew going into the Hunger Games trilogy that I was going to be reading YA lit, and although I am definitely ready to throw my book(s) across the room every time Suzanne Collins ends a chapter with a major revelation or jarring sentence, I'm enjoying the books so far! I was first turned onto the books by a ton of my kids saying that Mockingjay  (the third book in the series) was the best book they'd read recently last year, and when many other people, adults included, chimed in with praise for the series, I put it on my summer reading list. One of my kids basically told me that if I could read anything all summer, it should be this series, so you can imagine how fun it's been to tweet with her about my reading progress on Twitter. Another one of my students is following me/our conversation and is now "feeling left out" and says she'll read the book so she can join the talk. Score!

Items #3.0-3.3: Pretty self-explanatory. I'm sitting/slouching as I type this post. Yeeeahh.

Item #4: Add both of the blogs I mentioned to your list of interesting blogs that you like to read. Do it. In case you didn't believe in the awesomeness I described the first time I mentioned them, believe it now. Click here and then here. Then watch yourself slouch about pathetically as you read these blogs for hours.

Item #5: I haven't done a lot in the way of year planning, that's for sure, but one thing I have done is purchased some neat stuff for my classroom. I'm prayyying that I get more bulletin boards over the summer! Most of the stuff I got is along the lines of frivolous, cosmetic stuff such as nice borders for my bulletin boards (to add to the collection of nice borders I already owned and could have just kept using if I weren't such a frivolous dink). Along with borders, I got some new posters which I am VERY excited to put up, plus something that looks like this:



Picture this, except grey with grey/black zebra print. Hells to the yeah.



This thingy is technically an over-the-door shoe organizer but that's not what I have in mind for it! Last year my grade tens and I read an essay about the idea of truth being woven into pieces of fiction and it sparked a really good discussion about what novels have really resonated with us over the years and what truths we can extract from fiction. One thing led to another and pretty soon my kids and I were trading book recommendations and synopses. I think what I'd like to do is start a book recommendations thing using these pockets. I will be limited to twenty-four strains, but I think that should be pretty good for just grades 10 and 11, and they can change as time goes on.

My idea is to fill each pouch with blank index cards. On the front of each pouch, I'll clip an index card that says a novel/series title, a specific genre (so, maybe something like "Coming of Age Storylines" as opposed to, you know, "Romance"), a particular author (someone with a distinct writing voice like Lemony Snickett or J.R.R. Tolkien), etc. and the cards inside the pouch will be books that I think you could like based on liking whatever is on the front of the pouch. I'd try to include some sort of explanation why I'd link Book A to Book B, though. So it's kind of a guided "If you liked _________, maybe you'll like _________!" thing. Maybe there could be multiple recommendations on each index card..!

For example, I think that if people enjoy reading the much-hyped The Help, they could also enjoy The Secret Life of Bees (dealing with the idea of interracial sisterhood), Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café (dealing with similar themes of racial discrimination and social division in the post-Depression American South), or even The Cellist of Sarajevo (which is narrated from several different characters' POVs). If they end up liking The Secret Life of Bees, maybe they'll like The Birth House (for the coming-of-age element, or the concept of holistic healing). And there could be a way of ranking how easy of a read it is, perhaps, so that if let's say there was a Lord of the Flies pouch, you might include The Hunger Games trilogy as an easier read that could stem from LOTF, whereas you might include Blindness as a jump up in reading difficulty/intensity.
Anyway, my thought is that I would get it going but kids could also contribute to it at will. If they aren't interested, they don't have to do it -- it's mostly there for kids who are looking for something good to read and recommendations they can trust. It would be an ongoing fixture in my classroom for as long as I can stay there. And one day when I leave my school, it could come with me.

Item #6: Wedding planning is going well, but I'm going to need to get a LOT of details in place in the next four weeks so that I don't have to take much time off leading up to my wedding. I don't want to leave my kids stranded so early in the year.

Item #7: My troupe and I are going to be teaching a class at a studio very close to my school starting this September! Being that there are five of us teaching the class, we'll probably just do it in pairs and that way the time commitment won't be so strenuous. Either way, I'm super pumped about being able to teach dancing!

Item #8: My best friend just graduated this year from the U of A's Faculté Saint Jean's Elementary Ed program and was fortunate in securing herself a position in St. Albert for this coming fall! She and I are basically the same person, except that she has wild, curly hair and blue eyes. Anyway, she and I took an impromptu trip to Victoria which ended last week, which was filled with many great discussions, but notably some intense ones about teaching. During a particularly lively debate about the whole "the journey's more important than the destination" adage, I focused my professional priorities into this hierarchy:

1) Get kids to love learning... or at least to be less afraid of it.
2) Teach the curriculum.
3) Eat, sleep, bathe.

The fundamental issue that I identify with the education system as it exists today is that what I placed as #2 -- teach the curriculum -- is most people's (including the students') #1 priority. Fill out that checklist. Cover that material. Get 'em ready for that big, scary test at the end of the literary rainbow. Does it matter if we drag them through the mud in order to get there? Does it matter if they only do the work because they just want a grade? I think it does. The intention behind #2 is what determines whether or not my #1 (get kids to love learning) even exists.

Some people may argue that my job is to teach the curriculum whether the kids like it or not. Some people feel that if a teacher can get a kid from Point A to Point B, that means that the teacher in question is automatically a good teacher. The point I blustered about at length as my bestie and I drove across Vancouver Island was that I actually think that being a good teacher has nothing to do with getting from Point A to Point B. I also said something along the lines of not believing in a Point B (Think Matrix-style -- "There is no Point B!"). Well, okay, it's not that I don't believe in a Point B, and, in a more specific way, the curricular objectives set out for us. Obviously I think they're important. What I meant to say, though, was that these Point Bs that we designate are, ultimately, not actually related to that all-important goal of getting kids to love learning. I mean, sometimes those things fortuitously fall into place together, but not always. Sometimes, in some classrooms, it's actually a rare occurrence.

As a simple but effective example, I had a kid at the beginning of the year who was so disengaged, he was actually seeking out opportunities to nap in my class, regardless of what I was doing. Throughout the year he showed potential in his writing, but sadly, by the end of June, he still couldn't write a strong thesis. In terms of the curriculum and teaching him to write well, things didn't really go so well. But by the end of the school year, this same kid was one of my most engaged students in discussions and he'd often show up at my door after school to chat with me about what he was reading in his spare time, which at one point was -- wait for it -- John Milton's Paradise Lost. Was this kid my strongest kid? No. Did he learn the curriculum? Sure, some of it. Did he come out of my class loving literature and wanting to learn more? Yes ma'am (or sir, or neither, as you'd prefer). Can you guess which of these points is most important to me?

Anyway, to bring yet another pedantic post to an end, I'll leave you with a couple pictures of classroom posters I bought and another nerdy t-shirt I plan to wear this year.

 

Link to this poster here.

Link to this poster here.

Link to this t-shirt here.

Stay cool, my friends! And remember to wear sunscreen!

Have you ever done a reading recommendations wall? How did it go for you? What format did you use? Do you like to wear silly, subject-specific shirts to make your kids laugh? What do you think about standardized curricula? Are you loving So You Think You Can Dance this year? I am. Melanie for the win!

Breaking a monstrous hiatus. Also in this episode: awards!

Yeah, wow. I started this post in May and basically never finished it! And now... my triumphant return! Cue fanfare and flying colours.

I sort of ended up on Awards Committee by accident in September, not that it's suuuuuch a bad thing.. cough cough. Well, okay, let's just say that I have no intention of being on that committee next year. At my school we have two awards ceremonies every year. In October, we have the awards ceremony to acknowledge the accomplishments of last year's 10s and 11s (this year's 11s and 12s). In June, the 12s receive their final awards for the year, including highest achievement over all three years, service awards, subject proficiency, etc.

Ah, subject proficiency. That was always my favourite one, at least up until I missed out on the English award by a scant percent in grade twelve! As a student, that scant percent was SO important. I beat myself up over it. I cursed the girl who won the award. I pouted. A lot. I'm sure I even vented about it in my teenage blog of old.

Ultimately, the award was a piece of paper that the secretaries had printed off at school and stuck into a navy blue folder, and if only I had been just 1% better, it could have been mine. And what would I have done with it? Probably recycled it after a couple years. But the glory -- the SHEER GLORY! -- of winning that award would have been worth it for a while.

As a teacher now, my colleagues and I often marvel at how compulsively motivated our kids are by grades and grades alone. Ironically, the very reason behind this obsession with grades is the fact that we as teachers even bother to keep up the ridiculous tradition in the first place. So here we are, planning Awards Night and wondering, "Well gee whiz, I wonder why my kids won't put effort into anything unless it's for marks!" EM, rewind back to that oh-so-important piece of paper that the secretaries print off in the office. Rewind back to the fact that my school needs to have two awards nights per year instead of the standard one.

Why do we continue to pass out awards? Why oh why do I find myself listening to fellow Awards Committee members debating amongst themselves how many stickers we should put on so-and-so's certificate? Seriously... how many stickers? (I poked fun at this very debate once and the response I got was something along the lines of, "Oh, but the kids just love the stickers! They compare them and one-up each other based on their stickers!" Great, one more ridiculous student behaviour we should encourage.)

Why are we content to perpetuate a system where kids are more interested in going home and saying, "This is the grade I got on my test," versus, "This is what I learned/experienced/thought about today"? Why do we insist on upholding this nonsensical system of "If you do this, you'll get that," and "You did something great according to these arbitrary, systemized standards and rules! Here is a reward!" Although the simple, straightforward answer is that we just happen to work in a system that teaches us to teach our kids to be motivated by grades, awards, honours, and other extrinsic rewards I still wonder when education stopped being a reward in and of itself.

If my first year of teaching and being part of Awards Committee taught me anything, it's that there's not really a ton we can do about changing the system as it exists. The fact is that we are an awards-driven society. The certificates our kids get in high school are mere placeholders for future versions of the same stuff: the + tacked onto the A on their university exams, the "with Distinction" on their degrees, the year-end bonus on their paycheques, etc. However, I do believe that in the meantime, we can place less -- a lot less -- emphasis on grades and the idea that the number on the report card is what should determine self-worth or good teaching or good learning. That's my goal for this coming year, anyway.

Oh, and I'm gonna avoid that dang Awards Committee like the plague.



What do you think? Are you part of your school's awards committee? Does your school even have an awards committee? How can teachers work together to bring the focus back to experiences instead of stupid pieces of paper stuffed into cardstock folders?