#sol24 March 10 Years Younger

 

I wore glasses most of my life; although, I did wear contact lenses for a few years. To be honest, my image of myself is with glasses and I reach for them even when I awake in the middle of the night and when I look at myself in the mirror. 

Yet, all of a sudden, thanks to the miracle of cataract surgery in just one eye, I no longer need glasses to drive or walk through life!

To be honest, I have been concerned that I look much older without my glasses that I thought hid my wrinkles. I have been concerned I look much older without mascara (which I must give up for a few while). To be honest, I have been missing my glasses and my old life, until today.

"You look 10 years younger," she began, "with your bright eyes dancing free of your glasses."\

"Are your serious?" I asked, as I felt old, naked and exposed in this new format of me.

"Oh yes, she added," you look great without glasses!

In my desire to be honest, I will likely be wearing glasses again to work on computers, to see up close, and to circumvent parts of my world.  

Yet, today, a friend made my day!  

Too bad that she too needs her eyes fixed!

CCSS Humor: What are you reading this summer?

Common Core Humor!  

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#SOL2014 - The day the slices piled up too high

I really wanted to draft a SOL back on Saturday after I spent an energizing day at a conference in the city watching wise and learned people grapple with the CCS, APPR and other new initiatives that challenge us to think beyond our experiences and to make the most out of parts of our profession that are not congruent with our thinking!

I was going to draft a post on Sunday night describing hunting for hours through mounds of old mailing labels, birthday cards, and bank statements (in vain) for a deed that it turned out could be easily found at Town Hall in a matter of moments.  It's what we do out of respect for those we love, even if the work is fruitless.

I started to draft a post last night before I headed to bed. One of my students plopped himself down in his seat yesterday and announced with great pride that his teacher had ALL the Frog and Toad books in his classroom  HE was going to read them all before the end of the year.  His excitement and commitment made me smile all day.  He may have been a struggling reader at one time; however, now he was an excited reader!

Yet, when I sat down to write last night, my mind raced to all the posts above (and a few others) that were circling in my head waiting to be written.  How could I decide what to write? Which post was most worthy?  As I tried to write about one subject, the others scurried about like dust bunnies on the floor.

SO, this post is partially my "planning" notebook page so that I can go back and provide due diligence to my stories waiting to be written.

BUT, this post is mostly where I reflect on WHY we write every Tuesday and WHY we need to have our students write EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Back in March, I did not have this problem.  Every day I wrote slices of my life. I looked at my life through a writerly lens - every day.  Now that it's May and my SOL posts are fewer and far between; thus, the slices pile up like laundry waiting to be put away.  When the baskets are filled and the piles are so high, you can't even figure out where to start and so (if you are like me) you might not do anything for days and days hoping the disorder will somehow correct itself!

The central message of my post is clear to me as I bare my piled-high thoughts and the discord in my writerly life.  Writing, like exercise, reading, and even doing laundry, is easiest when it is a regular, anticipated and expected part of our daily routine.  When we put it off....or when the piles are too high, it's hard to get started!  

#celebratelu Celebrating Dreams, Hopes and Wishes

  

It's Saturday and I'm going to celebrate thanks to Ruth and her Saturday morning celebrators who every week nudge me to do so! http://www.ruthayreswrites.com/ 

1) It's going to be a sunny Saturday and I'm very shortly off to the big city for a seminar; thus, that in and of itself is a reason to celebrate after a week of sad and often serious weather situations. 

2) It appears that my alliterative side is in full bloom even if the flowers are a little late so that would also be a reason to celebrate; however this week I am actually celebrating dreams, hopes and wishes: the ones that survive in spite challenges and the ones that sustain us throughout the challenges of our professional and personal lives.  

3)  As I prepared for my end-of-the-year evaluation, I did some self-reflection on what I had accomplished during this past school year and what I wanted to do in the future.  I'm sure that more than one principal has rolled his/her eyes when I left the office after sharing my dreams.  I am grateful that my current principal at least listens and embraces them! 

4) Among the ideas and images for next year that pop into my mind are this: I want to have a "take a book-give a book area" in the lobby next year like Sarah Kizzer. What a great idea! I could do this!  
http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/take-a-book-leave-a-book-by-sara-kieffer-kizzier/

5) I (still) have many school dreams.  I want to be more organized and more prepared every year.  I want to make some of my dreams a reality, however, like this one: I want to have a school-wide poetry month in April next year even though it is a testing-preparing and stress-filled month! I want to have poems in the hallways and on the stairways.  I want poems posted on bus ceilings and in the bathrooms too!  Short funny ones that will make kids smile.  I want them posted near the mailboxes and on the morning bulletin for teachers.  Poems of encouragement that will sustain us all. I want to post a poem a day all month long.   http://www.pinterest.com/pin/114138171779516945/ 

6) As I reflect on my home-life and family, I also have hopes and dreams. I hope that some cleaning-fairy will arrive to cart off the dust bunnies and that some shopping-fairy will arrive with bags of fresh veggies and fruits to sustain us each week. I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking (and dreaming) about how to make this one happen! 

7) Finally, last but certainly not least, I pray that my growing family will continue to surround and sustain me and each other with the love, fuel and fortitude that only love, friends and families can provide.    

Fidgety Kids ?

The title certainly caught my eye
A Link Between Fidgety Boys and a Sputtering Economy
I read this NY Times article "closely" in a CCS-sort of way.  I questioned the "facts vs the opinions" in the article and wondered about the "arguments" the author used to defend his points.  I also read this article under the lens of a mom, auntie, and teacher with lots of boys AND girls who fidget!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/a-link-between-fidgety-boys-and-a-sputtering-economy.html?ref=education&_r=0
I read...and my mind was reeling in golden thoughts....
The gap in behavioral skills between young girls and boys is even bigger than the gap between rich and poor. Really? I thought as I continued to read. I thought we had closed that gap a bit...
By kindergarten, girls are substantially more attentive, better behaved, more sensitive, more persistent, more flexible and more independent than boys, according to a new paper from Third Way, a Washington research group. The gap grows over the course of elementary school and feeds into academic gaps between the sexes. By eighth grade, 48 percent of girls receive a mix of A’s and B’s or better. Only 31 percent of boys do. Oh my, I thought as I got to this part.  That is quite a gap.  I wonder, however, does it cut across all subject areas?  Does this mean in math and science? Does this include computers and health?  What about girls who don't (according to some studies) answer as many questions? Does this happen in all schools?  Does it happen across all socioeconomic groups???????What is wrong with me?  I don't see this.  I see lots of fidgety girls and boys!
To put it another way, the American economy — for all its troubles (and all of the lingering sexism) — looks to be doing pretty well when you focus on girls. The portion of women earning a four-year college degree has jumped more than 75 percent over the last quarter-century, in line with what has happened in other rich countries. Median inflation-adjusted female earnings are up almost 35 percent over the same span, census data show — while male earnings, incredibly, haven’t risen at all. I really did not believe this at first.....but then I started, at least in my early morning mind, to argue that some, maybe most of that gain might be in "correction" after many years of earning far less! Then, I started to argue with myself and think that most of us do not see our kids, colleagues or friends with gender, race, or religion determined limits.

At college graduation ceremonies around the country this spring, women in caps and gowns will easily outnumber men. Seriously, I wondered, do boys finish later? What happens to them?  Is there also a gap coming out of HS?  Is it college problem or could it begin long before when they fidget as beginners. Why do girls fare better? Are girls less fidgety in other parts of the country?   
"....In today’s economy, being tough and being strong are not what leads to success.” Being tough and strong are important for resiliency I would think....but I must agree that is not what our schools are about is it.  Or, does the author mean physical strength?   
So thanks to some early morning reading of the NY Times online and thanks to some heavy duty thinking all day long, I looked at my students and pondered the facts vs. opinions in this text.  I must admit that at least among my students, FIDGETY is not a gender specific quality. They all seem to focus and learn best with differentiated instruction that focuses on hands on learning.  Perhaps, it's not about gender as much as it is about what we do in school to make sure all kids learn...but then I guess I am responding in an argument that would likely make the CCS gurus smile.  I am reading critically and thinking deeply.  I leave my reading with more questions than answers the way they would want it!  

Close reading, looking, and thinking

I have been (and still am, at times) 

Guilty of scanning quickly without reading, 

Glazing over details without recognizing what's important, 

Responding without reflecting,
Flying through life without stopping 

To appreciate the details.     

My reading of Chris Lehman and Kate Robert's book, Close Reading has contributed to an increased awareness of how I read, see, and think differently when I stop and look closely at the details of what I read, see, and live.

While the strategies of close reading are becoming part of teachers' reading strategies - their "bags of tricks," I am finding that another, unexpected lens is how I am looking at visual media, my yard and my life a bit more closely.  I am taking the time (at least at times) to stop and smell the roses - even when they have not yet bloomed!  

I am noticing the snow on the roof in the first chapter, Spring, in Frog and Toad are Friends.  I've read the story a zillion times but never noticed the snow as a sign of how Frog probably tried to wake up his hibernating friend on the first day of spring, in March! 

 

I am looking closely at the honey bees swarming the cherry blossoms.  What noise they make!  How busy they are during those first warm days when they have so much to do.  

I am hearing the complaints of my elderly mom as calls for attention.  I am not taking the complaints personally these days.  

I am seeing things (like our APPR binders) in a new and less stressful light.  They are things that need to be done, like laundry and cleaning!.  They do not need to be perfect - just good enough to show that we have tried and are working professionally. 

I am noticing and finding JOY ( my OLW) in what I have rather than what I want ( most of the time); complaining about the CCS less and embracing the good parts more.

   Perhaps this is an objective of the CCS?
   Perhaps we all need to stop and smell the roses a bit more?  

Something to think about

This appeared on "Twitter" this morning.  At first, I saw this as a great reminder as we psych ourselves and our students to just "do their best" on the High Stakes Math Assessment this week. 
Yet, before I even finished typing this note, I realize that this is pretty good advice for just about everything in life! 

The Day Mother Nature Played April Fools

We really did eat outside just days before.

We really did put away the salt and pull out the sandals.

We even, foolishly, planted pansies in the warm spring sunshine.

Then in a moment of reminding us we are not in charge, 

Mother Nature sent us scrambling for scrapers and winter coats.

It was an unexpected spring snow,  

a powerful reminder that sunshiny warm days are gifts.

If you looked closely through the icy branches,

covered with real honest-to-goodness-snow that morning,

you could almost see Mother Nature smiling at us! 

Later in the day,

as I scurried around the big city doing business,

I noticed what at first appeared to be more snow!

Then, I realized that Mother Nature was 

filling the streets and our hearts with her real spring gifts.

While it was Spring Break,

I could not help but think about the Central Message

(Common Core connection intended)
gleaned from surprise snow and spring trees. 

I smiled and assured Mother Nature,

"I get the message, don't you worry!" 

Adapting, Adjusting, Fitting In

"Prior experiences" was ringing in my head as I looked "closely" at an image a friend posted.  For some, this might be an image of a child who needs to learn the alphabet or perhaps an indication of a visual perceptual issues.  For others, this might be an indication of 100% code coverage.

I saw diverse individuals,

Pushed, pulled, morphed, by outside forces,

Trying to "fit in"

While some are doing OK,

Others are clearly

Uncomfortable,

Like poor X.

Text Dependent Questions

http://wwwatanabe.blogspot.com/2013/04/close-read-complex-text-and-annotate.html

Creating Assessment Capable Learners

Creating Assessment Capable Learners

"Formative assessment is--or should be--the bridge or causeway between today's lesson and tomorrow's." Carol Ann Tomlinson

Close Reading Resource

While I did not create these Infographics, I sure wish I had!

Check out this website. 

http://wwwatanabe.blogspot.com/

Close Reading and ASCD Graphics

So, now that the SOL and ELA challenges are over for 2014, it's time to get back to working on how we can be the best we can be! 
The concept of Close Reading is one of the good parts of the CCSS. I loved this graphic.  It came from Pinterest - who would have ever guessed! 
 http://www.pinterest.com/officialascd/education-infographics/
From ASCD

#weareteachers Sharing Apps for STEAM

What are you bringing back to school from your winter break?

On your way home, or as you rethink your lessons for next week....

Head on over

We Are Teachers has is a great list of Apps organized for STEAM.  

All the links are there

http://www.weareteachers.com/community/blogs/weareteachersblog/blog-wat/2013/06/26/60-apps-for-teaching-steam

#EDWEEK Common-Core Tensions

I've tried, like most teachers, to understand and embrace the CCS.  Let's be honest, I don't want to be THAT teacher who says, "the old ways are the best."  There are always ways we can make our teaching and student learning more effective for all students.....SO I read and read and read....like this article from this wee's Education Week  Common-Core Tensions Cause Union Heartburn - Education Week

It describes the tension and political strife that has endured with the "roll out of the CCSS" in New York and in other states.  It's an important read for all of us who really want to do our best to prepare our students for the world in which they will live.  It's an important read for parents, too, as they work with us to assure their students have the very best educations and are prepared for the future. 

However, I couldn't help but smile, a wee bit, as I read the article and random thoughts from not so long ago, wandered through my mind.  We're in the midst of a new politically and emotionally charged debate about what is best for all kids in which we are embroiled today.  In some ways, it's like the Great Reading Wars of the last century! 

Perhaps, we can look at history, and put kids and learning ahead of political and personal agendas, as we work through this current educational debate?

http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1655&context=reading_horizons

Where Does Poetry Fit? A Common Core Dilemma Part 2

There are no specific CCS mentions of poetry in primary standards for reading or writing

however, there are specific references to stanzas and poetic language.  In addition,

approximately 15% of the NYS add-on part of the CCSS includes poetry, as in the sample

below.

So, where does poetry fit?  Everywhere! 

               Phonemic Awareness

           Close Reading 

           Central Message

           Partnered with Mentor Texts  

           Grammar  (parts of speech)

           Responding to Reading

           Oral Presentations