we always connect

my mantra is "only connect" with thanks (and maybe apologies) to E. M. Forster (sic - don't argue. that's really how he spells his last name).

it sums up my philosophy about life and learning and teaching. it needs no explanation or expansion. you can bring your own background to your understanding of my mantra and insert your own meaning. what it means to me might only be of value to me. only connect (did you see what i did there?) to the words and make them yours.

i've even used only connect as my classroom mantra. my kids know all about connections because we talk about them constantly. NOT just because making connections is a reading strategy that helps some kids connect (oops, i did it again) in multiple ways, but because my kids bring so many diverse bits of schema to our classroom and they - ON THEIR OWN - make connections between their lives and the things we learn.

but after watching this little video about mantras, i altered my classroom mantra just a bit. i found the vid in this blog from a principal. his staff created this mantra - EMPOWER, ACHIEVE, LEAD. no offense to his team, but that just seems like a mission statement cut down to three words. they're almost disconnected (oh, turn it around).

then i thought about my mantra and what it means/doesn't mean to the little ones in my class. and i rewrote it.

the revised mantra has multiple meanings for me as i hope it will for them and as i hope it will for you.

we always connect.

the premature death of public education

i am frustrated and disgusted by the political climate in the united states regarding many things but most importantly toward public education. in addition, i believe that if private donors, like bill gates and mark zuckerberg, want to contribute to improving public education, they need to NOT tie their "donations" to their personal agenda. public school teachers have been vilified by media, politicians and non-educators. they have no understanding for the challenges that we face every day in our classrooms. this post is only to make the small statement that public education should NOT be assassinated in this country. it should be nurtured and supported. i'll be back with more.

my story

once upon a time, there was a mom without a job. she cooked and cleaned and drove her youngest daughter to and from school every day. she was bored. her daughter's teacher - like all teachers - needed help in her classroom. someone to read with the kids. someone to correct papers. someone to take a bit of the heavy load off her back. so the mom began helping out in the classroom. and she fell in love. with the kids. the teacher. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and the teacher said, "why don't you go back to college and get your degree? you'd be such a great teacher!" the mom was shocked. she had never considered being a teacher. one of her sisters was the teacher in the family. an amazing teacher. the mom was just a mom. but she started wondering if she could-should-might go back to college. she found out that the closest state university had an off-campus program. she would have to go to school at night and take extra courses at the local community college. she didn't apply for the program. instead she applied for a job in one of the county school systems. she was hired as an instructional assistant. and then she applied for the program. and she was accepted. she worked days and fell in love. with the kids. the teachers. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and she went to school at night and fell in love. with the books. the ideas. the philosophy. the pedagogy. the learning. the everything. she barely slept. she worked herself into exhaustion and illness. she ached to the marrow of her bones. and she didn't stop. she graduated with high honors. summa cum laude. 4.0 average. and she became a teacher. and she fell in love. with the kids. the books. the work. the excitement. the learning. and she lived happily ever after.

power

i just took a personality test and it revealed that *power* is the driving force in my life. i couldn't believe that result. i want to believe that i don't crave power at all. i shun it. i run screaming from it. i hide from it. i'm diametrically opposed to it. my personal philosophy centers on community and collaboration. i'm a social constructivist - knowledge is constructed by people (from little people to grown-up people) working together. everyone is an expert at something. sometimes many things. sometimes one thing. i like it when a group situation is made better by each person contributing something from their area of expertise and by each person learning something from the others, building new skill-sets. the project succeeds because of the united effort of the group and the separate contributions of the group members. but leadership is not necessarily power and power is not necessarily leadership. one can lead quietly and one can wield power without dominating. school leadership takes many forms, from modeling appropriate or desired behaviors or actions to hosting a workshop. leadership transforms the leader and followers. great leaders transform followers into leaders. i'm not power-hungry. but i think that i have leadership potential. as long as i can lead from the back of the room. behind a potted plant.

filling buckets

i am so lucky to have partnered with CH for a writing project this year. she is working on her masters in reading and approached me with a project that would involve character education and writing. she mentioned bucketfillers and i told her that i had done them with my first graders at SSE. i told her about all the quirks of my class - kinders, inclusion, attention issues, poverty, etc. - and she wanted to try. i was concerned, but hopeful that the project would get my kids excited about writing. i read the book - how full is your bucket for kids - to them. they enjoyed it, but it certainly wasn't as good a read as the original book. the next day, i read the original book - have you filled a bucket today - and they were hooked. we had a long discussion about the kinds of things we can do to fill each other's buckets. we colored buckets and taped them to paper cups. then i created a bulletin board with all of the buckets. CH came to our room many mornings and helped the kids fill out bucket slips for each other. the enthusiasm and joy built each day. we taught the kids how to take pictures and let them see examples of good and bad pictures. they were easily able to discern the difference and began taking pictures of each other demonstrating bucketfiller behaviors. not only did our kids write bucketfiller slips to each other, we had them write ideas of how someone could fill a bucket in response to story starters, such as "words are powerful. i use my words..." CH assisted every student to write their ideas and illustrate them. then we scanned the images and built a voicethread. this week we will record our voices on the voicethread. it is impossible to fully describe the joy and enthusiasm in our room that i attribute to this project. our kids are doing good deeds. they are trying so hard to improve behaviors. they recognize when someone's bucket gets dumped out. and they want very much to fill each others' buckets!

bing!

every day since forever we have been looking at the daily bing image and making guesses (inferences) about what it might be. then we research and learn. one of the fourth grade teachers told me that she had started using bing images to get her kids to write. and i thought: bing-o!!! (okay, really bad pun). yesterday, i introduced this idea to my kids. i told them every day they were going to write about the bing image BEFORE we talked about it. they could write a description of what the image looked like. or they could write what they thought the image was. or they could write a story that involved the image in some way. you would have thought i gave them a pony! they went crazy over this idea. now, you must understand that my 6 and 7 year olds do NOT like to write stories. only a couple of them really enjoy writing despite all my attempts to get them to write down all the tales that they tell me every day all day long. talking is much easier for them. today, instead of morning work, i just put the bing homepage up on our big screen (well, 42" flat) and told them to have at it. there was near silence in the room. WHAT???? they wrote and wrote and wrote. then they all wanted to share. and lo and behold, my principal came in to tell me something and they bombarded him with their stories. he seemed pretty pleased. he left and lo and behold, my assistant principal walked in to do an unannounced observation of my teaching. i briefly explained the process to him and we started sharing their writing using the document camera. we switched between their writing and the bing image and we did a little research, too. i made a chart of words that would be useful in future stories by writing fixes for their errors and doing some little phonics and grammar lessons in between. one of my lowest kids - ESL - Spanish speaker - wrote the best story she has ever written. filled a page. we praised her up and down. it was AMAZING work. and such a proud moment for her as her classmates raved about her piece. it was the BEST hour ever. and they cannot wait to do it again. yeah, bing images!!

naturals

they took to netbooks like ducklings to water. perfect naturals. helping each other. asking questions. trying new things fearlessly. nothing earth-shattering today. just 20 kids using computers as tools as if they had been doing it since birth. digital natives. i don't know what computing will look like when they are in middle school, high school or college. but it is so exciting to think that they are taking the first steps toward digital lives. leaps and bounds. there are no baby steps.