SOLSC #7: What does a new teacher need to learn?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

My school is a Teaching Residency school, where most classrooms are led by a lead teacher (or "master teacher," not a term I'm particularly excited about) and a Teaching Resident (a novice teacher). Teaching Residents work alongside their leads for an entire school year, while simultaneously taking evening classes towards their Masters in Teaching, and then they move on to be the "teacher of record" in a classroom of their very own next year. It is an intensive process! A couple times during the school year, we have "Resident swaps," where we assign Residents to work in a different age classroom, so that they might have some exposure to a different grade level. We are a community of teacher learners, so it is good to mix things up and hear everyone's reflections afterwards.

This week, we had a Resident from the kindergarten classroom come to our classroom for the day and my Resident went to the kindergarten classroom. I explained the "teacher swap" to the preschoolers, and I asked them - What should we teach Mr. Smith [the Teaching Resident who was visiting our room for the day]? Without a moment's hesitation, they rattled off the following possibilities:

- karate
- how to make jewelry
- how to stretch
- the song, "Three Little Birds"
- how to do gymnastics
- how to make play dough
- arts and crafts
- how to make gak

It is delightful to me that this is their school world - nothing but fun, fun, fun! We had a great time with Mr. Smith and I think he enjoyed his day with us immensely. 

SOLSC #2 Is that the way the wind blows?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

4:17am. The howling wind wakes me up, much too early for the school day, much too late to get back to sleep, just right for writing and reflecting. Just write.

Sad.

This wild burst of a windstorm has cancelled my evening flight; we got the text from the airline late last night. Tony and I were headed to Maine to see my parents. They are 88 and increasingly frail, my Mom with dementia, my Dad with Parkinson's. We try to visit them every couple of months, to check in, to smile, to absorb. We keep our eyes peeled for affordable flights and we grab an available weekend and we make it happen. I am blessed that my brother Mark lives only one mile from their retirement community, and is able to check in on them all the time; we love to visit Mark and Sue, too. 

This wind, this wild, relentless wind has cancelled our flight. So weird. I don't remember ever having this experience before. I don't remember having a wind storm. No snow. I don't hear rain; they say there may be some rain, minimal rain. Just wind, wind that roars like ocean waves. Wind that wakes me and makes me wonder, where am I?

Exhausted.

This has been yet another windy blur of a week. It's end of second trimester, a crescendo of 

data, to be both collected and entered, 

report cards, to be drafted, written, edited, proofed, 

children's projects, to be finalized,

our Learning Showcase, to be readied and executed,

Teaching Residents, to be coached through all of the above, 

and

daily teaching, to be somehow done in the midst of it all.

Whew.

Is that me, toppling over?

Joy.

I can't let the joyful moments just blow by.

1 - My preschoolers were beaming about their projects last evening, showing their treasures to their families, telling them how their (quite whimsical) engineering devices worked, taking their families on a wild imaginative ride, and, literally, dancing through the classroom all evening, like mini windbursts.

2 - My Teaching Residents (I have two this year...that's a topic for another slice!) were so energized and motivated this past week, they were like mini windstorms of their very own...making sure every preschooler's work was completed, adding beautiful touches to our classroom, creating a delightful video montage for the Showcase, juggling all the different professional demands, and keeping light spirits throughout the storm and bluster of this week.

3 - Today will be simply a half day at school with children and a half day of work time, to tie up those loose ends on report cards and data. Whew. We'll be able to take a deep cleansing breath.

Bonus: We will fly out tomorrow to see my parents...losing one day, but perhaps, perhaps, perhaps gaining another? I may take Monday off ... to add just one more wind metaphor, I guess that means I'll be blowing off Monday ;-) 

And now this slice is 

gone with the wind.

Tuesday SOL When to walk away?

I am participating in the
Tuesday Slice of Life.
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

One particular child has been giving my Teaching Resident a "run for her money." This little friend has decided that he will not participate in our daily ritual clean up of the classroom. When Sweet Honey in the Rock sings their delightful cue for everyone to stop playing and instead put things away, this preschooler makes a tighter grip on the toys in his hand and scoots under one of our classroom tables to hide. 

If you weren't responsible for all these preschoolers, if you weren't hoping to get the room cleared so that the day could continue with lunch and nap, maybe if you were simply there as a spectator to observe children's different approaches to clean up, I suppose you might find his antics pretty hilarious. However, the Teaching Resident does feel responsible for all these preschoolers. She has been openly wondering, How can I motivate him? What motivates him? What is so difficult about clean up? Shouldn't preschoolers be expected to help clean up their own things? Isn't following through on routine an important skill? 

As soon as the music starts, he hides under the table. The Teaching Resident has tried so many different tactics - 

taking him aside at the outset of the day and calmly stating expectations for clean up [he assures her that 'no, he will not clean']; 

taking him out from under the table and trying to guide him through the clean up, with teacher as his partner [he cries throughout the process]; 

giving him a partner to clean with [he folds his arm and continues to refuse - once, the partner joined him under the table to hide!]; 

giving him a heads up for the clean up, a gentle warning, so that he might complete his playing before cleaning [this just made him go under the table earlier]; and, of course, 

talking to his family about this recalcitrance [as the baby of the family, cleaning up one's things isn't a big expectation at home].

This little preschooler is the Teaching Resident's best teacher. He is "Exhibit A," illustrating the art of teaching - there is no one script to follow in guiding students, nothing you teach will ever go 'perfectly,' and it is essential to build good connections with each student. 

When the Teaching Resident asked for my advice about this little stinker, she shared how she finds herself thinking about him in the evenings, frustrated at her inability to figure this out. I think it is really terrific that she wrestles with this. I complimented her on how many different tactics she has tried. She has taken time to reflect, to look at it from different perspectives. He is telling us that he really, really, really doesn't want to do something. 

I believe - when we go head-to-head with a child, I think we have already lost. For whatever reason, he has dug his heels in about this expectation. Digging one's heels is the most power a preschooler ever has. I suggested a moratorium on the expectation of clean up for this one child. Yes. What if we simply ignore the challenging behavior and work on building a strong connection with him? What would happen if we let go of this specific expectation (wordlessly, without any fanfare) and engaged with him in more positive ways, for example working and playing beside him, asking questions, having conversation, being joyful? Dare to let it go. 

What will we notice? 

Reminds me of Kenny Rogers' song "The Gambler,"

You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run.

sol17-29 Isn't teaching easy?

I am participating in the
Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day of March 2017. 

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity
for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

My Teaching Resident is working as our classroom lead this week, and she will take the lead more and more over the remaining weeks in the school year. This is always a hard and amazing time of year for me, as I struggle to step back, intervene, or fix situations, and, simultaneously, I watch the Teaching Resident grow before my eyes. Yes, hard and amazing. Our "transfer of power" is not understood by the children - or, actually, maybe it is immediately understood. It seems that the Teaching Resident's voice doesn't carry as much authority. The children find the small openings in her directions and expectations, and act in ways I have never experienced before. For a novice teacher, these new, unexpected behaviors are challenging and constant work.

There's something about this time of year - when the Teaching Resident is leading - that always reminds me of the first six weeks of school. Today, things fell apart at clean up. Clean up! A routine that has been in place since day one...without a doubt, the children KNOW this routine. Oh my, did things fall apart. There was running. There was a just a wee bit of throwing. There was lots of disinterest, identified by children who sidled away from the work, hung out in one's cubby - avoiding. But the piece de resistance was the tantrums - three absolutely amazing loud, screaming tantrums, one feeding off another, bringing the room to such a level of discord...all because these three children did not want to stop playing. Wow.

What was super impressive: my Teaching Resident stopped the clean up music and had everyone breathe in/breathe out. It took several minutes, but calm came back. (It helped immeasurably that I slipped two of the hysterical children for breaks in other rooms - there's no conversing with someone who is having a tantrum; save your conversation for when they are calmer.) Somehow we returned to cleaning, and then we went on with our day. Right afterwards, my Teaching Resident said - "Children, 1, Teacher, 0." It must have felt like she 'failed' or 'lost' - but, honestly, isn't this how we learn our best behavior management practices, having endured these tough situations?

Later, we reflected together. We talked about reading the room - what clues did we miss that things were going to fall apart? Are there things that should be slowed down? Would it help to pull certain children aside before clean up and speak to them in advance/prepare them for what happens next? Would it help to talk to the class and reflect on what went wrong? Repeat expectations? Problem-solve together? So much to think about, so many possibilities. Tomorrow is another day and it will be better!

You have to let them spill the food

This is a Tuesday Slice of Life for Two Writing Teachers. 

Check out their website for many more reflections on teaching.


_________

"If you want your child to learn to take his dishes to the sink after eating, 

you have to expect him to drop the plate, spill the milk, and slop the food, first."

Not sure this is the precise quote.
Not even sure who provided me this wisdom.
However, I find it profound.

This is how one becomes more competent - by making mistakes. I know this.

For me, it is the trickiest part of being a lead teacher, working alongside a beginning teacher. Mid-year, under our "gradual release" plan, my beginning teacher is taking the lead almost two full days a week - leading the children to and from the classroom, reading books aloud, planning centers activities and small groups, resolving children's conflicts, and more.

I am stepping back, as best I can,
reminding myself that

she's going to drop the plate,

and that's okay.

Think of all the 'rookie' mistakes we do as beginning teachers, learning to lead a class:

• doggedly follow lesson plans rather than shifting to meet what the student needs;
• under-plan lessons, and unsure what to do to fill the bonus time that remains;
• take a bathroom break even though a small crisis is brewing in the classroom; 
• gather materials for a lesson after the lesson has begun;
• begin reading a book before all the children are paying attention;
• become focused on one child at the expense of many others;
• lead lines down the hall and to the playground, oblivious to what is happening at the end of the line;
• talk at students rather than converse with students;
• miss opportunities to instigate children's engagement;
• unable or uncertain as to how to move away from one part of room in order to meet some unexpected need in another part of the room;
• solve children's conflicts for them rather than coach the children to listen to one another and resolve the issue themselves;
• become hyper-focused on all the negative behaviors that children are doing;
• get defensive when more is expected, because it feels as if you are already doing so much.

As lead teacher,
it is essential to see each of these (and many more) as the 'rookie' mistakes that they are,

with no malevolence intended.

I spend a lot of time trying to identify those 'chunks' that went well, to help her build on these. I remind myself that she simply cannot see the full picture yet, and, in time, she will.

It is important to let go, let mistakes happen, watch things fall apart, and trust that they can be put back together again.

It would definitely be easier to do it myself - but that is not the point, is it?

This is a huge challenge for me, staying patient as I coach the beginning teacher through these teachable moments. I want to be the calm voice that says, 

"I see you tried....next, you will...."

It is a work in progress.