Expect Delays Ahead

Last week I was lucky enough to have dinner with Donalyn Miller. That meant I was out later on a weeknight than I usually am (obviously for very good reason) and when I got on the highway to head home, I saw brake lights ahead and flashing lights...and the Expect Delays and Two Left Lanes Closed Ahead signs. Even in the middle of winter, it's apparently still construction season in Wisconsin. The flashing lights were because the construction workers were actively pulling the barrels into the roadway to block the two left lanes for overnight work. So what was once a three lane highway was now down to one. As I sat and waited as cars from three different lanes merged and slowly funneled into just one, it got me thinking. Now, normally this would be just another thing happening, but since I was heading home from a dinner with much conversation about teaching and books and things of that sort, my mind was spinning.

This funneling of so many cars into one narrow lane where we all had to slow down got me thinking about the state of education. Is it really best to try to take so many people in varied states of readiness, ability, desire, and make them all conform to one narrow vision of what should be at that exact time? Ok...so maybe I'm losing my comparison here a little - of course we need to all move over and slow down for the construction workers and lanes being closed. But in the matter of education, is it really best to try to funnel all kids through the same narrow focus at a prescribed time? As I picture the slow down from all of those cars going to the one same place, all I could think of is that if we are doing that to our students, wouldn't that cause the same kind of jam? Expect delays ahead. Yeah. Some move slower, some are ready to go beyond, some have more capable vehicles, some need to watch more what's going on around them, some need to take a detour. Delays can be expected if we aren't thinking of our students as individuals with individual needs and paths to get there. If we try to funnel them all into the same lane, we're not meeting their needs, and we're likely just slowing things down for all.

That vision of the funneling car has stuck with me and reminded me throughout the last week that I need to allow my kids to do what they need to do in their own way, and that they each may have their own path...there's not necessarily just one narrow funnel through which they must pass.

Funny how one small thing + different thoughts in mind = a clarified perspective.

Slice of Life: Saving the Good Things

This is my first official Slice of Life post...of what I hope will be many more. 

This weekend my husband and I went to the farmers market, for perhaps what might be our last visit of the season. One of the best things about Wisconsin and the midwest? Our summer sweet corn. We bought our corn, and then turned the corner and saw the sign for the one we've had before that we really liked, "You've tried the rest, now try the best." Love that slogan! Especially because it's so true. It's delicious, juices run down your chin, sweet bicolor corn that I wish I could eat all year. So we bought more than we can eat this week, knowing that we would be cutting some off the cob to freeze so we could enjoy the sweet taste of summer throughout the gray, dreary, cold days of winter.

And as I thought back to this weekend as we stood there scooping corn kernels into bags, I realized what we were really doing: saving the good stuff for later when we would really need it. And it hit me that I do that in many aspects of my life. It's more than just saving the best for last; it's saving those moments of joy or greatness or celebration for the times when I need to be reminded of them. Those nice emails from friends or family? Saved in a file. The kindest of the personalized signatures from authors I adore? Torn out of those books before taken to my classroom and kept in a file to be made into a display at some point for my library. Those sweet, laugh-out-loud, kind notes from students? Saved in a drawer where I can pull them out whenever I need a pick-me-up or reminder that they appreciate the work I do to help them be successful. And I'll continue to keep those reminders of the good for the times when I need the reminders. I'll keep the good corn and freeze it so it'll be waiting in those times when I can't get it.

The Start of Something New

I've contemplated this for awhile, but I've avoided doing anything about it as I've been focused on other areas, but in thinking about my plans for upcoming curriculum this year, and being especially inspired by the thinking and posts on Lea's new blog: Miss Kelley Writes, and Katherine's blog: Read, Write, Reflect, and the model set by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle in reminding me that I need to be writing if I expect my students to be writers, I realized that a blog like this might just be the best way to go about accomplishing what I want to try...

Which is...
-having a place to publish my writing as a model for my students
-thinking through writing...about my teaching or anything else that strikes my fancy
-modeling the writing process and real-life examples for my students
-a place to keep models I write for my students in class
-to get myself writing more because we all know the more you practice, the better you get
-sharing some of the things I do in the classroom that might help others
-opening up a dialogue with other educators about practices and how to improve
-an easy way to participate in Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life challenge (which I'll be having my students do in their spring write every day challenge also)

And so it begins...

At this point, I'm not sure how active I will be out here, but I've made the first steps toward it by creating the blog and writing this post so I have a place to keep my thoughts. We'll see where it goes from here.