Hindsight

Hindsight is the understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed.  Interestingly, it is possible to both anticipate and understand scenarios, especially if 1) you're older and 2) you've been paying attention.  If your resulting decision-making culminates in better choices and more satisfactory outcomes, you end up being credited with demonstrating common sense.

In so many aspects of life, common sense often partners with compromise, especially when mitigating factors make it near impossible to follow your plan as originally imagined. When faced with a forced, unanticipated readjustment, you experience shock, denial, anger and/or frustration, and you try to bargain with whatever the opposing element may be to see if you can't work a compromise to get back what you're terribly anxious to not lose, even if the loss is temporary. You may wallow in despair when a compromise can't be reached, finding no point in the idea of trying to carry on. You refuse to accept the simple truths laid before you as you repeat the cycle of anger, bargaining (even begging) and depression over and over again.

You grieve, which is normal for all of us. 

Some educators have been grieving since mid-March, while others, likely administrators, haven't been able to grieve fully since they first caught wind of the directives that were going to come from their governor's offices.  They had to experience a much-abbreviated moment of shock before being leapfrogged into acceptance and action, being problem-solvers first, keeping their students, teachers, colleagues and staff safe before steering the ship to turn on a dime while advocating that the need for schooling, the establishment of new learning routines and environments and the building of even stronger parent-teacher partnerships were necessary for the emotional and academic well-being of all of our students.  They reminded us that we'd all be in the business of granting and receiving grace and that our own self-care was critical.  They led and gave us direction.

Families grieved while having to take back many of the responsibilities that they've ceded to schools over the years. Some succeeded, some struggled, and some failed.  Some parents, who previously demonstrated little appreciation for their child's teachers experienced cathartic revelations of having seen the light, pledging to purchase any and all future class supplies and offering to subscribe teachers and staff to wine-of-the-month clubs and advocate for higher pay if we'd "just take my kids back."  Humorous bargaining, but bargaining just the same. "I don't know how ya'll do it" and "no one will ever take you for granted again" were some of the affirmations showered upon us.  March to May was doable for some families, a blessing for others.  Some families, for whatever reasons, never rose to the occasion.

My grief cycle has been dictated by my self-and-family-preservation button remaining engaged causing me to hurdle back and forth through and/or over the usual stages. Schools are now closed: shock, d-e-n-i... acceptance. You have thirty minutes to grab necessities from your classroom: shock, acceptance. You'll be using tools that you've never used before in your classroom beginning next week: s-h-o... acceptance. No, you can't use appropriate content even though you know how to run it through filters and have been for years: anger, acceptance, depression. You'll be teaching your teenager curriculum content along with digital resource navigation while you teach from home: bargaining, acceptance, anger.  You can have fifteen-minute Zoom meetings once a week for your seventeen students and their families: bargaining, anger, acceptance, bargaining, depression. Time to come back to the building to pack up for the summer: acceptance, depression. 

All of these emotions have continued to be in play for me this summer as I've watched and reflected upon the civil unrest, racism, inequality and frankly bad behavior of rather entitled members of our society.  My husband and I continue to discover COVID19 infiltrating our circle of friends near and far, and we see that the numbers haven't dropped, the curve hasn't flattened, realizing now that it likely won't thanks to so many Americans placing their wants before their neighbors' needs.  Taking part in PD and regularly crocheting between visits to my greenhouse and tending my gardening spaces has provided me with pockets of peace and glimmers of hope, but they're not as enduring as I'd like them to be.  As I navigate suggested solutions via social media ranging from homeschooling or digital academy options, pool-noodle hats, temperature checks that don't identify asymptomatic carriers, seven or eight students per classroom, ten online with the acknowledgment that it's likely to be all seventeen or eighteen online a month later, optional mask-wearing partnered with masks worn incorrectly, and at least four times more cleaning and disinfecting that will increase the likelihood of poisoning which is still preferable to dying from "the 'rona," my mind remembers the already present avalanche of other germy, illness-producing normalcies that still occur in classrooms during the best of years.  Twitter users and those posting on Facebook are being polite by not mentioning the urine and feces that accompany the snot, saliva and barf.  I'm thinking this isn't the time to adhere to decorum and professional mystery.

Like many other educators, I'm having a great deal of difficulty believing that the lives of my students, myself and my colleagues are of much value as people granted more decision-making power who want to get back to their own sense of normalcy push us into environments that are now deadlier than they were in March.  They are dancing every version of the sidestep possible in order to justify avoiding common sense and simple truths, and they are willfully, stubbornly committed to the present, not the future.  They're acting as if they'll never have to look back and measure the costs of the decisions they've made. 

I get it. But it's not good enough.

This is tough and it's going to remain difficult.  We don't have all of the answers we need... yet.  They're coming, but not on our fall-through-spring/early summer school schedule.  We're wasting time pretending that they will.

It's also a waste of time trying to ease people into the idea that it will only take some adjustments to get students back to a traditional-ish school setting, and once that setting closes again (which it likely will... ~hindsight~), we're back to square one.  To quote a tweet I stumbled across, "rip the bandaid off, already." Commit to remote learning, and ease back into shared spaces.  We could start making tangible, real plans and preparing, acknowledging that it's a difficult precedent, and sharing the common goal of being back together when it's the right time.  It will only be right when it's more, not less safe for us all, no matter what the budget ledger looks like.

Calling this pandemic a hoax doesn't make what we're experiencing any less deadly.  Not everyone believes what they should, but educators, child advocates and mandated reporters don't get the luxury of being passive spectators. We must err on the side of safety even if it's not perfectly defined and we have no guarantees.  Our solutions can be imperfect, but they must not be dangerously so. 

Setting a precedent happened in March.  It can happen again in August.  It's easier to do difficult things when we can reassure ourselves that the price is worth it.  My son's life is worth it. Your life, my life, our lives are worth it.  Simple.

Inconvenienced is better than suffering and dying.

Grief is normal.

Unpopular is better than guilt-ridden. 

Hindsight is 20/20.

(found on Facebook- contact me if you're the creator so I can credit you, and thank you for the common sense)

Reflection: Mentorship and Pencils During COVID19

COVID19 has certainly been effective at throwing all sorts of systems and semblances of normalcy out the window.  Creating new teaching environments, using new communication platforms and tools and completely reorganizing our days and routines are pretty weighty changes to experience in a short amount of time.  While I wrap up week four of "instruction" and collaboration and problem-solving with all of my colleagues, be they grade-level or building teammates, building and district administrators, special education and other support staff, I know that some folks within the district are likely already beginning to anticipate any needs that parents, students, teachers and staff might have come the fall semester.  Long-range planning happens every year, whether there is a pandemic or some other hurdle in play or not.  No matter when their stay-at-home orders were enacted, other schools and other districts have started to do the same.

During many past springs, I pencil-planned for the upcoming year as soon as the finalized school calendar was published. I pencil-plan rather than ink-plan because I know that events will be rescheduled and our calendar will change.  I'll find new resources, experience new jolts of inspiration, and have to be flexible for unanticipated accommodations. Nothing is set in stone despite the hope that everything will, in time, go according to the way I had both intended and hoped.  Using a pencil indicates that it's a rough draft, the version that precedes the working draft.  For many years the working draft got its fair share of White-Out dabbed across its pages, simply because I liked the glide of ink over the abrasion of pencil. Nowadays, I simply double-click on text, delete it, and revise data within the cell. Knowing that changes will inevitably happen has never caused me to rethink the merit of pencil-planning. It's another way for me to mentally map the foundational pieces I need and plan to implement for my students' benefit.  I doubt I'll ever choose to fly-blind just waiting to be "surprised" during back-to-school PD. I can be informed now and pencil-plan so that future mandates don't throw me against the wall in August.  

As the most veteran member of my grade-level team, and despite having missed the beginning of the year with them thanks to my late-summer surgery and extended recovery time, I am both formally required to act in a mentorship role and personally feel responsible for making myself and my experience regularly available to my colleagues.  I have expanded my PLN over the years to include groups on Twitter and Facebook, and I have been fortunate to meet and learn from all sorts of wonderful early-childhood educators, college professors and library media specialists during my career and master's program.  When I'm asked for help by a teacher in my building or one five states away via social media, I try to make sure to preface what I share with "use it or don't," so that my PLN can cherrypick the best of what I might be able to offer them while hopefully feeling the autonomy to make their own choices and to innovate, rather than pressure to comply and risk becoming a cookie-cutter teacher. I also believe in playing the role of devil's advocate in order to broaden thinking.  Affirmation, agreement, and the feeling of being a contributory component of a trusted partnership where ideas can be shared, explored, or simply explained are essential emotions for members of any team or purposeful group to experience.  I believe that a common goal for teams should be to balance harmony while avoiding tunnel-vision because being repeatedly blindsided by information that could have been shared earlier but wasn't results in wasted time, increased frustration, and eventual mistrust.  Whether lurking or being actively involved in these conversations, I reap the benefit of diverse perspectives and the experiences of others.  I am a mentor and "mentee," a colleague of other educators.

Working from home I still feel like I must operate within dual roles as I teach, collaborate, plan and share.  I'm a colleague who is not only a kindergarten teacher, but the yearbook producer for the school and the moderator for the professional development points requests that teachers submit towards their re-licensure.  I don't respond in philosophic terms to inquiries about the cost of yearbooks, whether or not I have a piece of writing paper that I can scan and share as a template, or the number of points needed for a fifth-year teacher without a master's degree to renew his or her license. However, when colleagues new to teaching and/or new to our building and district ask for a heads-up regarding what to expect from an upcoming grade-level district meeting, or need clarification so that they better understand the shift from academic grading to marks for engagement, my role as mentor requires that I go a bit deeper, and invest time to not only offer the reasoning behind answers and explanations, but to really hear their concerns and worries, too. This can be a highly emotional, intense component of mentorship, especially for someone who empathizes with others.  To me, there is a distinct difference between the nuts and bolts of teaching and the soul of teaching.  As a colleague, I can hand you a ream of construction paper when you've run out.  As a mentor, I can suggest different ways of using it to benefit your students when you ask or express an interest.  Both responses are helpful within their constructs and contexts.  Dictating "you shoulds" or steamrolling others so that they can't learn how to collaborate (though they might feel relief at simply having the decision-making taken out of their hands) are not ways aligned with serving the profession.  Teaching is full of emotions, and not just for the students. Sharing, patience, inclusion and authenticity are essential ingredients to successful mentor/mentee relationships, not to mention team-growing.

Having to try to teach remotely isn't a choice I, or many others, would have made, but wanting to do it as well as I possibly can remains my intention. I hoped to be both an effective colleague and mentor during this time too, but at this point, I feel like I'm failing at giving my immediate colleagues and some distance-edu-friends what they want or need.  None of us is operating at one-hundred percent, and we all react differently to stressful situations.  Issues that have arisen likely wouldn't have become issues at all if the status-quo of our daily instruction with students within our classrooms had been maintained and COVID19 hadn't come along.  We're not all in the same boat, and even our storms differ.  Perhaps some need me to metaphorically just hand them a ream of construction paper, despite the fact that their questions and assertions resemble requests for guidance and/or context.  Compounding this uncertainty for me are *of course*  my old standbys: for one, I can't "hear" another person's tone within an email and rely heavily upon the use of emojis and gifs (score one for social media where emojis reign supreme).  Not many people have the energy, inclination or patience it takes to find the wink, the laughing out loud, or the thinking faces right now, or maybe they're just not considered professional. Secondly, I continue to falsely assume that politeness and consideration will be reciprocated in return for my efforts.  Not everyone says "thank you," during a pandemic (another point for social media where showing appreciation continues to be considered proper etiquette), so I remind myself that it is those with whom we are most familiar that we should afford the most grace, especially when it's for something as simple as forgiving a social faux-pas. After dipping my toes into the ponds and streams of Facebook and the lakes and oceans on Twitter, I'm confident that there are many other teachers across the nation and in other countries who also find navigating their colleagues' emotions a wee bit tricky this month. Perhaps a gross generalization would actually be appropriate for this moment in time: none of us is getting what we hope for right now. 

After four weeks of remote learning, thirteen years in my present district, twenty-four (twenty-five?) years of teaching, and with a nationwide PLN at my fingertips, I still feel both able and inclined to pencil-plan this spring, just as I've done almost every year.  I've worked ahead to curate, create and schedule content via Seesaw, which has afforded me extra time for other pursuits and chores.  Because I've purposely sought out multiple news sources, surfed and chosen to read information shared from teachers in other districts and states regarding their immediate and future proposed solutions to closed schools, and have tracked the daily updates from health officials (I'm ignoring politicians who are advocating for the economy over problem-solving that will save the most lives) that have made it clear that we are, in fact, 1) presently both lab rats and human test subjects and 2) that it won't be safe for us to "return to normal" until we have a vaccine that is at least a year away, I've set myself the task of envisioning what remote learning might look like in August and September (and October, and November, and February, and April 2021). So when questions from colleagues near and far arose this week regarding possible changes and tweaks to the present emergency based technology-heavy format for delivery of instruction, I suggested that any and all continued fine-tuning might reflect not only a current but possibly future need as well: there's a significant chance that we will not be returning to the classroom as hoped for in the fall.  Can I articulate whether my response came from colleague-me or mentor-me?  Not really. Can I unequivocally say that I didn't intend to cause additional stress and worry when I shared my thoughts?  Yes. 

Suffice it to say, I now realize that many teachers are not ready to pencil-plan or entertain possibilities for next year.  Perhaps they don't plan to return and are focusing all of their time and effort into making their last weeks of remote teaching the best that they can for their students and their sanity.  Perhaps their boats and their storms have them planted squarely in the middle of the fiercest fight of their lives and their immediate needs require that they invest all of their time and effort bailing water from their vessel.  Perhaps they prefer the top-down approach, believing that their "circle of control" (yay, ontological coaching, my favorite), is solely dependent upon the decisions of others, so they'd prefer to not do anything at all until an administrator tells them to.  I can admire their perseverance and any commitment they have made to be the best teachers for their students possible. I can empathize with their fear, and sympathize deeply with their pain, with full acknowledgment that it's not just students who have to "do Maslow before Bloom."  No, I'll never advocate that teachers completely hand over the reins of education to administrators and politicians, no matter how much I appreciate all of the "good" ones.  While I believe it's prudent to start the work of tomorrow today, or at least soon regarding the next school year, I understand that not everyone feels the same way for a multitude of reasons. 

And it's here, with these most passive or even resistant of educators, that I find myself feeling neither like colleague-me or mentor-me, but instead wanting to channel Chrisjen Avasarala, a character from one of my favorite science fiction series as I choose to concede (slightly) with this:

"Well, we disagree. One of us is wrong. I think it's you... but I hope it's me."

I hope a true miracle presents itself that enables us to get back to business without fear for our health, or the health of our families, students, colleagues, and neighbors, soon.  But until then...

... hand me a pencil, will you?

My Social Media Use Continues to Evolve as I Ask Myself: Is it the Truth or Confirmation Bias?

One might think that by being a kindergarten teacher, I wouldn't have any concerns regarding content shared via social media aside from protecting students' and colleagues' identities and avoiding posting unprofessional photos or tweets of myself.  But as social media algorithms continue to promote what's shared the most, and lies (*actual* fake news) continue to go unchallenged and are shared ad nauseam, the truth, of which I am a fan, becomes harder and harder to find.  Authentic, transparent, and occasionally painful, the truth helps us to become better navigators of our lives. As a teacher, the truths about children and how they develop, rather than the selling points of edu-brands and promises of education reform initiatives have guided and helped me to grow my pedagogy.

I've taught for a quarter of a century, so I can find the humor in teacher memes.  I have snickered, giggled, and admittedly guffawed at some of them, and have even created one or two myself. When I began to encounter some rather tasteless memes regarding teachers and our jobs, where the humor was being pushed toward titillation rather than truth, I incorrectly assumed that the masses wouldn't care, and would certainly recognize the rhetoric as entertainment rather than fact.  My humor didn't have to be their humor, to each his or her own, after all.  But as I watched the outrage that began to attach itself to these memes, and even the embracement of the naughtiness of the not-quite-true content, the thought began to nag at me: rather than fading, these misrepresentations were spreading like cancer, superimposing themselves upon the architecture of public education just as they would the cells inside a healthy human body, damaging, then destroying it.  Upon deeper reflection, I realized that my career and students have had to endure No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and now "failing government schools," all big-business initiatives, labels, and election-year rhetoric primarily created to manipulate how the public views this profession, while creating the appearance that the government sincerely cares about quality education and how children are taught in schools.  Voters consumed headlines about NCLB, the Common Core, and Race to the Top initiatives like they were Skittles.  How many will now eagerly gobble up "failing government schools" simply because they don't realize they are trapped by their own confirmation biases (and blind trust) masquerading as truth?

Memes and other content don't magically appear out of thin air. When I created the one above several years ago, I had to log onto the eCard site, choose a suitable illustration, figure out how to make my text fit, and hit "publish." People apparently liked it a lot, recognizing and sharing the humor of my sigh-of-relief declaration that there are no photos of me holding the clammy hands of a boy during PE in the 1970's.  Fine... maybe MY hands were the ones that were clammy.  But more and more often, rather than illuminating the art and hilarity of teaching, or commiserating with other teachers about the ups, downs, laughter and tears of our profession, the memes I was encountering were becoming the newest weapon for those who would continue the attack on teachers for their own economic benefit. Other professions and groups of people are regularly targeted as well, which made for an onslaught (ugh!) in all of my feeds because of how diverse (yay!) my friends and those I follow are in reality as well as digital-land.  In trying to find a compromise so that I wouldn't end up tossing the baby out with the bathwater regarding social media (there's so much that I do want to see and share, despite the content I find misleading and unsavory), I first chose to unfollow a whole bunch of folks. On FB it was friends, colleagues, families of former students, strangers, and even family members, though they all remained contacts. On Instagram and Twitter, it was acquaintances and strangers alike. Unfollowing people on Instagram and Twitter yielded almost immediate relief, frankly because I wasn't closely connected to most of them, and because unfollowing removed them and their content entirely.

The hard work came a few months later when I had to challenge my ideas on how I wanted to use FB, rather than how FB wanted to use me (thank you grad school and Digital Minimalism). Was I okay with clothing and cute shoe businesses knowing what I like and don't?  Sure. Have I become a member of a kindergarten curriculum, baking, or crochet-related group on Facebook based on its suggestions?  Yep, and I love what I've encountered there. Did I like the content that was being suggested to me by what some of my friends appreciated? No, not all of the time. But even after fiddling with all of the account settings, I had to re-acknowledge a truth about myself that I've articulated in different ways over the years: I am triggered by very obvious bovine fecal matter. My jaw sets, my cheeks flush, my body tenses, and I feel anything but relaxed, pleasant, or safe.  Despite my own confirmation bias (who doesn't like to be right?), having to repeatedly acknowledge others' truths and mindsets by their continued and often excessive spreading of some of the most unsophisticated memes, pages/groups and clickbait left a bad taste in my mouth, making me feel more fight-or-flight than engaged or entertained.  That's right, unsophisticated. The clickbait posing as investigative journalism claiming to be able to prove that all immigrants are rapists and "articles" about how drinking seventeen cups of coffee per day is healthy are shams and should be easily recognized as such by most of us.  While photos of flowered headbands resting upon the heads of pit bulls are products of the same technique utilized by those who manipulate images for political gain, and though the dogs are certainly deserving to be seen in a more flattering light, shouldn't most people by now have caught on to the ploy? The tugging of the heartstrings?  The triggering of patriotic rage?

Call me a truth snob. Stereotypes, prejudices, misrepresentations, lies, and other marketing ploys really aren't hard to spot for adults.  "Girls aren't good at science." "Those Chinese kids always excel at math." "A woman can't be president because she'd be too emotional." Bovine. Fecal. Matter.  Consumers just want to feel something, and fear, anger, jealousy, and hate are easy sells.  Within our schools, students rely upon us to be good stewards of accurate information as we teach them to navigate all of the content that is available.  This makes it necessary in my opinion, to weed, guard, protect and continue to educate ourselves as teachers, even when we're outside of the classroom getting our social media groove on. Being vigilant about information and knowledge we impart is a significant part of our profession.  CommonSense.org has resources for challenging confirmation bias here. 

Eventually, I unfriended almost three-quarters of my contacts on Facebook and experienced the visceral gut-punch of having a much smaller audience.  I, the person who for years has sought out affirmation from others as a gauge to measure whether or not I'm actually deserving of anything, doing my job correctly, or creating content that helps others, did something that immediately shattered a significant conduit by which I had been feeding myself the idea that who I am and what I do matters. And I survived. Not unlike other addictions, there have certainly been some withdrawal symptoms to work through, but without the mob, there's much less BFM through which I have to sift, making it easier to ground myself and identify any new evolutionary change that might be occurring in my life and pedagogy. As it turns out, I'd like to move from the classroom into the library.  Until then, I'm still a kindergarten teacher, ranter, and sharer of good news. And the good news remains this: knowledge is power. Know how to find the truth, and be brave if and when it challenges your own confirmation biases. 

Though you may need to take some Dramamine (good grief, he never puts the camera down) this video from Veritasium, "Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore," is a great opener for those needing or wanting to learn more about confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.  Initially interested because of the negative effect my own social media use was having on my mood and optimism, I quickly came to realize that other educators and our students would also benefit from the following point being made explicitly: our biases aren't the truth.

Straws and Camels

As a first-year teacher so many years ago, I thought my veteran colleagues had an air of wisdom about themselves.  They looked and sounded experienced.  While they could certainly still be surprised, they never appeared shocked.  Sarcasm was a sign of their seasoning, and their passion for teaching was evident in how they shared, how they offered, and how they employed patience with me. P-l-e-n-t-y of patience.

I remember when they suffered illness, and when others became heartsick.  Puffy eyes, gray pallor, restraint and a need to back away from or even avoid "extras" were quietly noted and the rest of us sympathized, discreetly offered help, and volunteered to take on some of their load, knowing full well that we'd benefit from reciprocity when it was our turn...when life happened...when we were the most human. To care for colleagues, to see them through, was professional.  I found myself the newest member of a teaching family united in purpose, bonded over responsibilities, and when needed, ready to step up to help another through the rough patches.  No one was left by the wayside, no one mourned alone, and it wasn't considered a sign of purposeful antagonism when questions were asked, pedagogy evolved, and new resources came and went... and came again.  The meetings weren't always fun and the arguments could become impassioned; colleagues could make asses out of themselves; apologies were offered; forgiveness was given.  We learned one another's boundaries, strengths, limits and humor.

And we respected them.

Enter NCLB (the Age of Teacher Blame) followed by the Sell-Your-Brand-to-the-Consumer Era, and a collateral gap has emerged between the young bucks and their veteran mentors.  Peppy and eager to implement this generation's peddled cure-alls, newbies have found themselves partnered with colleagues whose pedagogy reflects a much less manic pace and reluctance to toss the baby out with the bathwater.  I remember when shame wasn't associated with this difference.  More and more, today's teachers are burnt out in mere years, instead of burning out after decades.  It's been almost a year since I've blogged here at Kindergarten's 3 R's, so you might wonder if this post is me hinting around that I'm toying with the idea of running away to join the circus.  Clowns give me the creeps, so that's a big NO.  Since:

... here's the short version of what's been going on since last February: I taught.  Continued grad school.  Was busy with family and, time permitting, friends.  I explored other social media. Then a DVT was found in my leg followed by three pulmonary emboli in my chest requiring that my summer vacation be spent healing and learning how to not only handle blood thinners but the accompanying worry, stress, and fear that came along for the ride.  Life happened, as it does.

The new school year started and I was blessed to be able to greet my newest group of students who were unaware of the changes I was experiencing.  My colleagues allowed for the jumble of emotions that were spilling out from me and asked how they could help.  I became better at saying "no" when necessary (something so hard for teachers to do) and for whatever reason assumed that the freight train of public education would slow down a bit to accommodate for the adjusted amount of self-care I found necessary.  This has been my first long-term moment of need where a sabbatical would be much too long of a pause... and I'm nowhere near considering retirement.  I can also still effectively teach kindergarten students the skills that they need and from which they'll benefit most (and I love to do it)... as long as I don't have to recreate the wheel mid-year after spending months establishing the routine that my students and I both need, because *that* dear reader, is the straw threatening to bruise this camel's back.  

I'm not the only one. This afternoon I looked out across a sea of my colleague's faces after it was proposed that we attempt to implement another new modification to the instructional rhythm that we planned and set as our year's pace.  Among the tired were those who were intrigued, along with a few who wore expressions of confusion as they tried imagining how this newest change might affect their jam-packed plan that already barely allows for needed flexibility and breathing room. And then there were some who appeared authentically haggard and disheveled, making me furrow my brow with concern as I realized I hadn't really touched base with them since the frenzied start of our second semester.  Their faces didn't illustrate a desire to deprive students, to slack on the job, or to naysay, scoff at or rebut the suggested modification. None were aspiring to be Debbie Downers either. Their expressions simply pleaded "please, no."

From time to time, some teachers' incentives and intentions are other teachers' camels and straws.

Teachers know that every school year benefits from some rah-rah, and every successful plan requires support and a commitment.  But educators deserve acknowledgment when they've reached their limit too, and it's that accommodation, that consideration, which is rarely if ever provided by a canned program or scripted regimen that dictates hoops to be jumped through in order to attain some status valued by consumers of not a product, but a brand. "Back when I started teaching," curricula and programs were test-piloted by a few teachers with the understanding that an extensive debrief was expected before full-scale adoption would be considered.  This system worked because it enabled the teachers who were most interested and most able to not only explore new resources but to better guide their colleagues as educational needs were identified. Teachers were recognized as whole people with full lives: those with young children could miss more work as their kids shared germs while singles had more time and the freedom to travel hither and yon to conferences, sharing everything they learned upon their return.  Educators motivated to guide the next generation of teachers could regularly host and mentor practicum students while their colleagues next door could build collaborative programs with local businesses or cultural resources to benefit multiple schools.  A grade-level colleague could ask another to share a contract for a year in order to spend more time at home to care for a sick parent, while another could fully mentor a new-to-service teacher before, during and after school daily.  All of these essentials could happen "back in the day" without resentment or shaming because it was understood that the human conditions of both students and teachers contributed to the successes and failures of school.

I too, feel a bit like how some of my incredible colleagues looked this afternoon.  Please.  Not one more thing.  I have enough.  I am doing enough.  I'm not failing my students and I'm not refusing to be a team player. I will jump rail cars and tracks when I am again able.  But not today.  Not this week.

Uncle.

Speaking for Myself: I Do Not Want to Carry a Gun in My Classroom

Another school shooting.  More children and school staff dead.  Video and audio footage of witnesses, survivors, bereaved families, and distraught first responders play on a loop.

Sidebar arguments repeat on television, radio and social media.  Readers, callers, watchers hung up on semantics, the rights of gun owners, misleading headlines, and blame, none of which help the dead, none of which help future victims.  It's not real discourse.  It's slurry.

Memes call for love, demand that teachers carry guns, and fill the screen with lots of American flags, gun-toting patriots, and child-sized coffins.  Political cartoons feature past victims welcoming present heroes, with lots of extra room for the future results of gun violence in Heaven.  Reruns of cartoons depict teachers shielding children from shooters, scenes which never feature background details such as student artwork, projects, math manipulatives, maps, posters, monkey bars, beanbags or copies of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See or history books.  Never band instruments, lunch boxes, bike helmets or graffiti-covered folders.  Nothing to illustrate the child's world that exists within a school.  Nothing to convey the comfort of routine, nothing capturing the excitement of being the star helper, line leader, yearbook editor, or debate team captain. No drawings of the bravery required and demonstrated when reaching out for the monkey bars or reciting lines from a play for the first time.  No renderings of the exuberant smiles or furrowed brows worn as students concentrate on their explorations and learning. No sketches of them reading together, encouraging one another, collaborating, singing, dancing or soaking up life. It's a noticeable lack of representation of the thoughts, feelings and experiences that children ought to have in school, the environment that is their home away from home.

Except now there is live streaming.  Students interviewing students.  Teens, whose lives are in danger, tweeting, calling, texting in real time.  If the loss of life touches some part of your soul, the documentary testimony and journalistic recordings made by students will likely leave you feeling shattered and guilty.  And they should.  Children, innocents, are being shot at.  They are dying.  They are covered in the blood of their friends, mentors and teachers.  They're walking around and through it.  And they know we're watching. They know we're watching when we're supposed to be DOING something. They have come to understand that we're not in the mood to hold ourselves accountable, to do our jobs as parents, guardians, advocates, protectors.  We're shopping for bulletproof liners for backpacks as if our consumerism is our only way to solve this problem, asking Julia and Joaquin if they'd like the pink one or the gray one.  They know what we're implying: we're going to continue to send them to a place where it is becoming more likely they will be shot by someone who should not have a gun.  And though we're being judged fairly, few of us seem ashamed. Self-righteousness is more addictive and rewarding than responsibility.  Too many are inclined to simply express "thoughts and prayers" ad nauseam.  The survivors who scream "KEEP YOUR FUCKING PRAYERS, DO SOMETHING" aren't being disrespectful. Who, other than the hero, is truly worthy of their respect at this point?

I will only speak for myself: I do not want to carry a gun in my classroom.  I do not want to store a firearm in my students' learning space "just in case." I do not happen to believe that the only way to deal with violence is with more violence, weapons with more weapons.  Imagining a gun in my hand within the classroom that I have purposely created and maintained as a safe place for kindergartners, colleagues, and friends of education makes me ill.  I'm no coward, and I'm not a glorified babysitter, soldier, or police officer either.  I am a professional educator who happens to think that far too many of my fellow Americans are performing the gun lobby's sales pitch like puppets, either out of laziness or some misconstrued impression that their "freedoms" are being trampled upon, making the protection of their guns more of a priority than the protection of their children. Cowards are people who throw their hands into the air insisting that there's only ever one solution, intent on committing themselves and the rest of us to horrific outcomes. Too many armchair teachers, administrators, and criminologists willfully refuse to allow themselves to realize that students are exposed en masse throughout every school day, not just when they're "safe" inside a building. They ignore the bus line, football field, the outdoor gardens, parking lot, class registration, recess, sporting events, prom and club activities. They inqure about our schools, ooh and ahh over the metal detectors and armed guard located at the entrance (and not any of the other doors) choosing to ignore that on one day or several, students completing a school service activity or a teacher moving his or her belongings into the building or a parent volunteer will leave an exterior door open, or the A/C will give out on an extremely hot day and someone or many someones will open their windows, or the guard will be living in the restroom thanks to the barrage of germs that attack every newbie. It is because of human nature that both our "secure" systems are never 100% effective, and our peace of mind, if assured with all sorts of gadgetry and alarms, is repeatedly reinforced by thinking that we've done enough to protect ourselves and our children.

We haven't.

"TEACHERS SHOULD BE ARMED! THAT'LL SOLVE THE PROBLEM, BY GOD!" "If a shooter makes the mistake of entering my child's classroom, the teacher can prevent or end a bloodbath!" Folks, the only "winners" in this scenario are the gun manufacturers. Instead of regulating guns, they'd very much like to encourage the purchase of more.  Instead of preventing guns from getting into the hands of those inclined to use them for violence, they want everyone packing.  And because they've somehow gotten a significant percentage of the populace to forget that we're actually capable of solving exceptionally difficult problems without bloodshed, many folks have convinced themselves that my job is to reenact some Shootout at the O.K. Corral scenario, completely disregarding every child's right to learn, grow and thrive in a safe and shielded environment.  "Instead of one gun, there should be multiple guns in schools" is not a reasonable standard to which any of us should allow districts to aspire.  I refuse to drink the snake-oil being peddled by the gun lobby, and I refuse to accept that one day, a Super Star will have to depict me holding anything other than a book, cup of coffee or THEIR hands in mine:

If we ever needed a paradigm shift, now's the time.

My First Rant of the 2016-2017 School Year: I'm GOING There

With August giving way to September, I am happy to report that this year's class of Super Stars and I have had a great start to kindergarten!  We've introduced ourselves, shared, learned and practiced rules and routines, have helped, asked questions, apologized, forgiven, laughed, and even outright guffawed with one another.  After twenty-plus years as a teacher (I took two years off to stay home with my youngest, otherwise this would have been year twenty-three), I too, can honestly say that it has been a fresh start with fresh faces and families.  It might be silly sounding, but adopting the current vernacular, I "puffy-heart" love them all.  

(clip art found here)

Learning styles, needs, strengths and interests haven't changed much over my near quarter-of-a-century career.  Young children still learn best when offered a myriad of tools, songs, stories, and experiences, finger paint and iPads, Blueberries for Sal and Pete the Cat, play dough and teddy bear counters... the more the merrier, with all sorts of growth and mastery occurring in good measure.  Large group, small group, and one-on-one with the teacher, students experience a lot of interaction with their friends, new classmates, teachers, staff and volunteers.  I too, have learned and grown with each and every class.  My advocacy of my Super Stars remains both professional and personal.  I teach them, guide them, support them, and protect them.  Teaching kindergarten for two decades has rocked- it still rocks.

Though students haven't changed much over time, parents certainly have.  Twenty years ago, it was a rare occurrence indeed when I'd have to make a report to Child Protective Services, or teach a parent how best to help their child develop the social, fine motor, behavioral and academic skills necessary to soar at school and life.  Parents were my natural allies, answering the phone when I'd call, attending every conference, replying to my notes, and offering helping hands without (many) hidden agendas.  Only one brought a gun with her to a parent conference, and most parents, colleagues and neighbors agreed that she was crazy.  Over the course of the evolution of education's latest "reform" however, notably beginning with No Child Left Behind and including the mass adoption of technology use in every day life, I've witnessed an uncomfortable shift in parenting, resulting in mothers and fathers eyeing teachers and schools with suspicion first, voicing accusations loudly second, and rarely, if ever offering an appropriate apology when common sense solutions have been reached after much patience on the teacher's part. 

Oh yes, though I truly puffy-heart-love my students and families, I'm going to go there. Other teacher bloggers have expressed similar sentiments, like this well shared post from 2014, but I haven't yet stumbled across an editorial article or blog asking parents if they truly believe that their children are only ever victims during their years within a school's walls, as knee-jerk and frankly, sometimes assaultive parental behavior suggests.  Parents' emails or phone calls to teachers demanding immediate action, threatening a visit to an administrator, or the surprise arrival of a parent simply marching him or herself into the principal's office without any prior notice or attempt at communication with a teacher, occur much more frequently now than they did when I was new to the profession.  Because my career and students have mattered to me, past parental complaints have immediately caused me to ask myself the tough questions:  did I make a mistake?  Did I miss something?  Could I have solved this problem differently?  When faced with parents who employ the sneak attack as their preferred modus operandi, my first response (after shock) for years has been to immediately offer an apology and time to meet to discuss the it's-news-to-me issue.  That's right: I've given parents the benefit of the doubt, and assumed I've made a mistake, miscommunicated, or somehow missed something occurring in my classroom. 

That reaction, now that I'm forty-six years old, have raised three children, taught in three states, in four schools, over twenty one years, and can count my Super Star students and their families in the hundreds, is going to stop.  Instead of half-stories, half-truths, misinterpretations, outright lies or Drama Debbies and Dons pushing me to self-defense, self doubt, or whatever-you-do-just-make-the-parents-happy apology and appeal mode, I'm going to take a deep, cleansing breath, count to three, and then jump right into professionally standing my ground. The child who appeared to enjoy the day, mentioning a small tummy ache right before lunch, and after having eaten bounced through our activities with a smile on her face throughout the rest of the afternoon?  No Ma'am, I didn't ignore her, deprive her of food, force her to eat food, or cough germs onto her food, even though she's now complaining to you at home that her tummy hurts.  The parent who interrogates and escalates his child with questions like "Did you tell Mrs. Sommerville?  And what did Mrs. Sommerville do?  Why didn't Mrs. Sommerville call me? OH MY GOODNESS, YOU MEAN YOU TOLD MRS. SOMMERVILLE AND SHE JUST IGNORED YOU?!?!?!?!?" I'm going to let him know that there's a slight chance that 1) he's not getting the whole picture and 2) I'd be happy to talk with him calmly and respectfully to solve the problem. When a learning disabled classmate is overly-attentive to another child out of admiration and a hope for friendship, and is perhaps awkwardly stumbling through the process of friend-making, I'm going to tell an accusatory parent that her child is not being targeted, bullied, harassed, or stalked.  When a child's responses to unexpected interactions with peers include scowling, screeching, yelling, hitting, flouncing off, sitting and crying, NOT using his or her words, or simply waiting to tell a parent at home, I'm going to tell Mom and Dad that their child too likely needs to learn, see modeled, and practice some social skills strategies in order to self-advocate.  I'm not going to agree that little Bobby or little Sarah be moved to a different class because little Charlene doesn't like him or her.  No pandering or schmoozing choreography, even though those parents want it.  When they approach me with verbal guns a blazin', they're going to be met with Mrs. Sommerville in all of my teacher glory.  It's the Golden Rule folks, and it's time you followed it. 

But I simply must ask... shock and awe videos, social media memes, and urban legends aside, do you believe that teachers spend our days sitting in classrooms, twiddling our thumbs, taunting, ignoring, harassing, belittling, neglecting, and abusing your children?  As I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See at the carpet, do you honestly believe that I wouldn't see shenanigans if they were occurring, and upon seeing them, wouldn't intervene to stop them to get students back on track?  When little Jon accidentally trips little Maisie, don't you think I pause to notice whether or not he apologizes?  Did you know that if he does apologize, and Maisie accepts it, I consider the problem solved, and won't report it to you?  If either Maisie or Jon mentions it to their parents, I certainly hope both families will respond with something along the lines of "Oh good.  Accidents happen, but I'm glad you apologized and were more careful," instead of calling the school and demanding the immediate expulsion of little Jon and an administrative reprimand of me by my principal.  Common sense is always preferable to overkill.

And because I'm truly curious, here are some more questions I have for parents: who on earth told families that my colleagues and I don't care about our students, that we didn't choose this profession as our lifelong career, that our paychecks aren't a necessity, and that we only seek to undermine families, parental authority and involvement, intending to harm our students in any way possible for the sheer entertainment of it?  Who told you that the parent/teacher/school relationship is a one way street, and that your only responsibilities are to police the employees and loudly beat your chest from time to time to show us who's boss?  If you're so concerned about the allocation of resources for your child and his classmates, or think lower student to teacher ratios would benefit all children, why don't you regularly attend school board meetings, familiarize yourself with Department of Education policies, or advocate for increased funding for education?  Why do you refuse to trust teachers until after the school year is over, and you've put them through the wringer?  Why don't you apologize for the mistakes you make as readily as you demand we do?  Would you ever allow anyone, to include your spouse or significant other, to micro-manage, accuse, and disrespect you in the ways that you feel entitled and justified to do to us?  Who told you that good parenting was going from attentive to alarmed in 5.2 seconds, and from involved to subversive and accusatory in less time than that? 

As a teacher, I make mistakes, but not often.  Twenty-one years, three children, and lots of experience works in my favor that way.  My students' favor.  Their families' favor. 

Yes, authentic bullying can happen at school, even in kindergarten.  As a person who experienced my fair share of bullies as a child and an adult, and as an educated professional who doesn't see a benefit to bullying, I stop it when I see it, I investigate it when I hear of it, and I advocate against it.  A child upset because the classmate who played with her yesterday doesn't want to play with her today is not being bullied or neglected, even if those crocodile tears pull insistently at her parent's apron strings.  A parent who tells herself "I'll go above the teacher's head and straight to the principal to demand that this be handled NOW" is not a partner in her child's education.  She's a bully, a blowhard, and likely a chicken.  That's right: if a parent won't speak with me, I don't assume s/he is the authority, I assume s/he's afraid.  I'm polite, and I'm certainly professional.  I do what I can to build relationships with families for the benefit of my students,  but I'm not bowled over, frightened, or put in my place when a parent tries their alpha-commando schtick on me.  I'm experienced, qualified, and well-intentioned, and I refuse to let currently acceptable parenting behaviors suggest as truth the lie that I am victimizing their children, and that my pedagogy is mere punting and parlor tricks.  Hypocritical bullying doesn't impress me.  Doesn't impress many of my colleagues, either.

So there you have it for my first rant of the 2016-2017 school year.  I guess this is what happens now that I'm no longer twenty-six, or thirty-two, or even forty, a first year, seventh year, or fifteenth year teacher.  Luckily, my students have understood me all along, just as parents from "the good old days" did, not too terribly long ago.  School's in session, and as usual, I aim to teach.  We'll see how many parents end up needing a lesson from the teacher who puffy-heart-loves them and their children.

*****

Seriously.  PUFFY.  HEART.  LOVE.  It's going to be my hashtag for this year.

#PuffyHeartLoveThisClass 

Children Can Emulate Native Americans Without Adults Screaming "RACISM." Here's Why:

After reading through a debate regarding a parent's complaint about pre-k students making construction paper feather headbands in November, I came across this post at Education World, "Are You Teaching the 'Real' Story of the 'First Thanksgiving?'"  The article and debate made me realize how lucky I am to have been brought up the way I was as the child of  both native and non-native parents.

Born in Kentucky and raised for the first ten years of my life in Texas, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be immersed in Inupiat culture, and live for over two decades in a state where Native peoples' values, history, songs, beliefs, mythology, subsistence lifestyle, and art aren't merely on display for one month out of the year: Alaska.  I learned about the good, the bad, the historical cruelties suffered by, and remarkable achievements of Indigenous Peoples. I have been a witness to the prejudices that remain and feel pride in the accomplishments and contributions of my Native family and friends today. Endurance, strength, resilience, community, love for family, pride, skill and artistry are all traits worthy of being shared, respected, and celebrated, no matter a person's ethnic or cultural background. 

To develop empathy, children must be encouraged to walk a mile in another's shoes, to imagine how they might feel when meeting strangers for the first time, when deciding who and HOW to trust. Young children try on the clothing and garb of others every day, from their mom's high heels to their dad's Army cap, to sister's riding boots and brother's varsity jacket, developing their personal identity by trying on the markers of others.  They also emulate family members, friends, sports heroes, celebrated musicians, actors, historical figures, community helpers and those blessed with a special talent or gift.

Can children create feathered headbands without the kitsch or racist connotations that instantly pop into their parents' minds upon viewing? Absolutely, but it's up to the teacher to share culturally relevant and accurate information about the earning of feathers (or wearing of a blanket, mask, or story belt) with students AND families.  It's also a family's responsibility to try to understand the intentions behind a lesson or activity before rushing to judgment and labeling a teacher as racist or insensitive.  Do I find it offensive if children emulate respected chiefs, warriors, healers, or shamans, just as they do ballerinas, astronauts, painters, singers, veterinarians, or teachers?  No.  Just as teachers, family and society expose children to other professions and roles worthy of respect through literature, history lessons, field trips, guest speakers, arts and crafts, so too can we teach children about Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples.  Native AND non-Native teachers need quality non-fiction materials and resources, or know how and where to find them. It's also up to teachers and parents to be aware of what's not only culturally sensitive, but developmentally appropriate for young children. 

Three, four, five and six year olds do not need to be exposed to and master the vocabulary of genocide because of the gut reaction of the adults around them. Rather, children should be gently guided as they broaden the scope of their universe from their immediate selves and family to their neighborhood, community, state, nation, and world.

Is it Possible to Provide Academic Rigor ~Without~ Dramatic Play?

Being extremely busy at work while also spending the past two months battling allergies/sinus issues/bronchitis/the common cold/pneumonia has kept me away from blogging for quite some time.  My Super Stars will tell you that I'm on the mend though, because last Wednesday and Thursday, I actually sang a song, all the way through, and didn't forget any words OR COUGH mid-verse.

Look!  It's a light at the end of the Respiratory Tunnel!

Being unable to speak (or sing) did make for increased opportunities to participate in online chats via Twitter and Facebook groups during the lead up to Halloween, and the predictable debate between fellow teachers regarding whether or not dressing up at school was educationally relevant.  A lament across multiple chat threads occurred when fellow early childhood teachers expressed frustration that they weren't allowed to have dramatic play or "pretend" centers in their classrooms. Many veteran teachers shared stories of how they had been asked/told to remove their dress up and puppet centers to make room for more "rigorous" activities, such as worksheets or increased time in front of a computer.  These demands were all made by tech-integration advocates, administrators and school boards, none of whom specialize in child development (it's a real thing).

Considering that children, young adults, and grown ups regularly:

1) go trick-or-treating wearing masks and costumes, using props that they don't usually need in their day to day lives
2) experiment with new hairstyles, clothing, and cosmetics
3) wear the jerseys and sports colors of their favorite athletes without necessarily being athletes themselves
4) don gowns and tuxedos or suits for dances, weddings, anniversaries, proms, birthdays, and religious events
5) participate in cosplay events, portraying their favorite superheroes, book, television, and movie characters
6) wear their "Sunday best" for church
7) participate in clothing themed days for Red Ribbon Week (Wacky Tacky or Pajama Day anyone?)
8) dress up OTHER items, such as their pets, or turn soda bottles or pumpkins into book characters for school projects
9) and perform in dramatic, romantic, or comedic theater

...advocates of developmentally appropriate practice are right to be bothered by the double standard regarding imaginary play.

As illustrated in the list above, it's obvious that adults support dress up and pretend play when it comes to emulation, entertainment AND education, but for some reason, when they walk into a kindergarten classroom and find a child-sized kitchen, box of dress up clothes, or creative construction zone where students fashion artwork and props for their own dramatic play, many voice concerns and criticisms regarding rigor, academic readiness, and "real learning."  Parents are worried their children won't really learn what it means to be at school if they're playing with dolls, filling purses, or pretending to cook a Thanksgiving feast with plastic food.  Teachers worry that the time children spend trying on the roles of others and practicing social skills will reduce the amount of time available to cover academic concepts required for kindergarten mastery.  Administrators can't figure out where dramatic play falls on the evaluation rubric they must use as they determine the efficacy or needs of their teachers, because "developmentally appropriate practice" isn't included on many observation tools or checklists.

My kindergartners like to pretend to be superheroes, villains, weather elements, soldiers, or fantastical creatures when they're outside playing during recess.  They also run, kick, bounce, throw, and catch balls, swing, climb, slide, and work their way across monkey bars.  They roll in the grass, race with their friends to the fence and back, and try to build nests from fallen leaves and twigs.  In our classroom they pretend to be mothers, fathers, older siblings, chefs, veterinarians, office workers, authors, illustrators, and even teachers, their dramatic play role models being more closely associated with real life.  These girls were pretending to be mommies out shopping.  They packed their purses, prepared their babies, and took along their "cell phones" so that they could call one another in the mall to find out where to meet for lunch when their shopping was done.  During dramatic play they regularly "ran into" one another at the mall, discussed purchases they had made, determined which stores they still needed to go to, helped one another with her "baby," and negotiated which restaurant to meet at and what type of food to eat for lunch. One of the girls even created an ATM card out of a post it note to use when paying for her meal, adding her name to the note and the numbers 123456789.

During pretend play, my students' language use and development far surpasses mere vocabulary exposure.  Increased use of adjectives, tenses, and the corrections by peers of misused words can all be heard as classmates try on the personalities of individuals or animals other than themselves.  Empathy, sympathy, humor, and the growing awareness of multiple perspectives helps to widen the scope of each child's world, a development also facilitated by pretend play during our center time.  Opportunities to expand upon concepts introduced somewhere ~other~ than a desk and chair help my students to express their creativity.  Why merely cut and paste pictures of animals on a worksheet that a veterinarian might help, when I can invite students to bring stuffed animals from home to create an animal hospital, complete with stethoscopes, play medical kits, bandaids, scrubs, surgical masks, and cardboard boxes?  Adding paper and pencils to the dramatic play corner enables "animal doctors" to write down prescriptions and medical directions for pet owners, and signs for designated treatment areas too.  Is there another activity where reading, writing, math, sequencing, cause and effect, fine motor, communication, negotiation, turn taking, language and social skills development, problem solving, transitioning, sorting, and cleaning up after oneself are all completely integrated?  And guess which activity is always marked by 100% student engagement and time on task?  That's right: dramatic play.

Casual observers and critics demand to know how we can provide academic rigor through pretend play, to which I must reply:

How can we provide academic rigor and opportunities for growth and development without it?

I've Said it Before, and I'll Say it Again

Reading David Kohn's "Let the Kids Learn Through Play" this morning, my child advocate's voice asserted itself loudly in my head, greatly surprising me since I'm facing the last week of kindergarten, a time when many teachers are near collapse from exhaustion and the wide range of emotions washing over them.  Instead of grumbling incoherently, the voice roared "I've said it before and I'll say it again:"

What I really wish new-to-service teachers, ivory-tower administrators and bubble-boy/girl politicians understood is this: play does not equal "unproductive and non-beneficial fluff time."  Rolling over, crawling, standing upright, balancing, walking, running, climbing, and babbling are ALL challenging to the child beginning to develop his or her skills.  So too are sharing, negotiating, coming to understand cause and effect, developing patience, and learning to use new tools safely and efficiently, such as pencils, scissors, squeeze glue, buttons on a keyboard, or the fragile skin of technology and books.  Don't forget to add broadening language and building stamina to the mix as well, especially because a child's typical work day is full of new tasks, deadlines, social mores, and transitions requiring copious amounts of sustained attention and interaction.  Yes, the "school day" IS a work day schedule that young children are introduced to when they start kindergarten, and it's not an easy or immediate adjustment to make.  I've always found it ironic that many administrators will tell you that kindergartners "don't need naps" by the end of the school year, though we all know plenty of adults who require rest and down time throughout the day.

Because advocates for developmentally appropriate practice are regarded as old softies, our pedagogy is assumed to be lacking in "rigor," "challenge," and even "standards," likely because we insist on giving our students plastic knives at the play doh center instead of surgical grade scalpels.  Well-intentioned (and usually inexperienced) colleagues and administrators bound by asinine funding equations run roughshod over our suggestions, protests, and advice when we dare to express what is obvious to us: young children aren't committing a crime, lacking gumption, failing to perform, or offensive because they're not behaving like short third and fourth graders during their preschool and kindergarten years.  Even worse: teachers who don't appreciate or even like all of the incredible things that four, five and six year olds are, take positions where they inflict their distaste, judgement, and severe lack of knowledge regarding child development upon our youngest learners. These adults are easy to recognize: they're the ones complaining in the lounge or staff meetings about how "these little kids just don't get it" or "they just can't DO anything," while those much better suited to the grade and students are expressing how the academic expectations or assessments aren't appropriate matches for the children we teach.  Guess which group of teachers is regularly criticized for their point of view?  

The development that naturally occurs through play, exploration, partnership, and emotional bonding is not an affliction or unnecessary detour from all things curricular: it's an essential prerequisite for further growth.  Children must, with very few exceptions, roll over before they crawl, crawl before they walk, and become acquainted with and develop many more skills that are necessary in order to build a firm foundation upon which their ABC's, 123's, empathy, and life's passions will stand and grow.  These stages of skill acquisition occur on a continuum: you don't hopscotch over a few squares to get to the end faster, or interpret the wobbly or full face-plant landing as proof that a child needs ankle braces, ski poles, smaller squares, larger squares, or a stunt double in order to be successful within the  grading period allotted.  Time, practice, and encouragement, not developmentally inappropriate demands and deadlines, are the initial supports most children need as they continue their journey as brave, capable human beings through play and partnership.

I Have to Wonder

Between teaching, mothering, housekeeping, illness, wonky weather, committee work, and a looming yearbook publication deadline, it's been difficult to regularly peruse my favorite education blogs, or check every interesting link on Twitter or Pinterest that comes along my feed.  Over the past month, I've only participated in one edchat, my usual Saturday morning global PLC gift to myself.

Don't get me wrong, the classroom has been HOPPING, my Super Stars have been growing, exploring and learning, and the weather, while not my preferred temperature, has not been as inconvenient for us as it has been for many others.  I have just twelve pages of the yearbook left to finish, and my personal goal has me completing the entire annual a week before the company's deadline.  My home has remained relatively clean, and (~whisper voice~) other than one bout of food poisoning, big bad bugs haven't breached our threshold.

Knock wood.

I've been able to tune into bits and pieces of education related conversations and topics though during this busy season, and I've caught myself wondering:

1) Pro/con arguments aside, how can the Common Core ever ~be~ common if the states that adopted it are now in various stages of its implementation or have begun working on repealing it?  And how many publishing companies, knowing the supply and demand rules that always follow fads, mandates, and "needed reforms," are already poised to re-label and resell all of their "Common Core aligned" materials without the CC stickers on them when the pendulum (that never ceased to exist) predictably swings the other way?   Publishers have been able to hit districts multiple times right in the wallet under the guise of providing current and much-needed materials thanks to the reforms of the last ten years.  Budgetary collapses impact STUDENTS in every way, and I haven't met a curriculum publisher yet who feels sorry for its contribution to the misallocation of needed monies  that once made possible appropriate teacher-student ratios and education and life-enhancing programs such as music, band, theater, home economics, art, or AcaDeca.  Those who want to hold folks accountable for their child's school and learning experiences fall for the huckster jive as well, and go straight for the teacher ~instead~ of the reformers, their funding agents, and the publishing companies whose wares they hawk.

 ""

2)  As a veteran instructor, when I hear a teacher (or three) from a single school sing the praises of newly discovered behavior tracking apps and classroom "management"/disciplinary tools, I think "Hmmm... must be a tough group of kids this year" or "Wow, that one must have hit the jackpot in diverse and clashing personalities, bless his/her heart.  Thank goodness a helpful tool has been identified, put in place, and is having a positive effect."  When I hear that an ~entire school~ is considering following a behavior management protocol that includes collecting data on each and every student in every classroom, the LAST THING I think is "Oh good, a tool that'll help manage these troublemakers."  Instead, I become VERY suspicious that a program, schedule, curriculum, pacing guide, or even the general expectations of children are waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy off base, especially if so many children demonstrate "misbehaviors" regularly.  Recesses are taken away from students who haven't "earned them."  Mastery of skills/content is expected earlier, and battery drill and kill "interventions" replace rich, repeated and varied exposure over time as acceptable pedagogical approaches.  Teachers complain that students won't stay in their seats, and even worse, that THEY TALK TO ONE ANOTHER during activities or even (gasp!) DURING L-U-N-C-H!

Let me ask you this: When did children stop being children?  When did they cease to NEED recess?  When did they cease to NEED deep immersion and practice at their own pace to build layers of learning upon a sturdy foundation?  When did children cease to obtain benefits from speaking, interacting, negotiating, questioning, or expressing themselves with adults and with one another?  When did children's natural tendencies, developmental stages, and even quirks, make them deserving en masse of public shaming?

Answer: They didn't.

When did it become okay for parents, teachers, and administrators to believe the hooey sold to them, based on the premise that ~overnight~, children could be rebuilt,  and have their very natures rewritten?



No child deserves to be looked at in disappointment and disgust, with parents, teachers, administrators, and society trying to figure out how best to efficiently and effectively erase, re-write and rebuild the incredible thinkers, doers, and learners that children already are into the automatons of the future.  Children are inclined to do naturally what best suits their growth and development, it's we adults who become impatient with their timeline.  It's we adults who want to speed things up, find a pill to make resistance to our will less strong, and find quick-fix tools that force children into immediate compliance any way we can, even if it means crushing their spirits and making them hate school.

So I have to wonder: Why can't we teach children, instead of inflicting ourselves upon them?

A Call for Context

Today I had to take off my teacher hat and put on my mom crown.

Having taught for eighteen years with three children of my own, this isn't the first time the chapeau-switcharoo has had to occur.  Conferences, social issues, injuries and illness... I've heard it and dealt with it all.  My eldest's seemingly never-ending fascination with all things Titanic... that time when my daughter punched and bloodied a kid twice her size because he tried to prevent her from coming to tell me that he was harassing her... and the ever popular "s/he isn't turning in his/her homework" conversations.

Oh yes.  I've been there.

Today was different however, and I've decided to share the story of it with you partly out of professional courtesy, partly out of professional frustration, and partly because I believe education professionals need to be reminded of a parent's perspective regarding the sharing of disciplinary actions in the public school system.

My youngest is a second grader, and has attended the school where I teach since preschool.  He was diagnosed early on with developmental and communicative delays, likely caused by contracting pneumonia at two weeks of age followed by surgery while still an infant.  He continues to receive speech/language services as well as modeling and practice time with a social skills group.  Learning how to express himself clearly and appropriately has been a long term goal for him, set by my husband, myself, and our stellar school team.  Now, at age eight, he loves dinosaurs, planets, the mysteries of Egypt, and all things Minecraft.  Thanks to the anything-but-petite builds of both me and my husband, The Second Grader is very tall and stocky for his age.  It won't be much longer now before football scouts start knocking at our door, if you know what I mean.  His size makes his outbursts, exuberance, and silliness seem larger than life compared to many of his classmates.

You.  Can't.  Miss.  Him.

This morning, my instructional time was interrupted when I was asked if I could help handle a situation that arose with The Second Grader not fifteen minutes earlier.  Apparently, while lined up outside of his classroom, he was speaking with a classmate, venting his frustration that yet again, his birthday fell during the last week of school, preventing him from being able to enjoy a birthday party during the week.  Despite the fact that he's 1) eight years old, 2) into all things Minecraft, and 3) developmentally delayed (most notably in the areas of communication and social skills, with an IEP in place), an adult became greatly concerned after overhearing The Second Grader speaking to his classmate in the hallway, saying something along the lines of how he wished he could "blow up the school so nobody would have to come to school the last week," and then "blow up all of the schools in the country" so no one would have to spend their "birthday week at school doing work."

I know.  Deep, slow breath in.  Now... exhale.

"Blowing up the school" out of context IS very alarming sounding.  I've been a teacher during the time of  9-11, Columbine, Sandy Hook, and other school-related horrors and tragedies. I've been trained in school safety, and performed fire, tornado, and intruder drills with my students.  I have been fortunate enough to have been partnered with parents and families who have protected their kindergartners from the terrifying images, sounds, and reports of terrorist attacks and unexplainable massacres in real time and when rebroadcast year after year.  I too, have protected not only my students, but my own children from details of the atrocities that humanity can wreck upon itself.

I know.

Though ~not~ a "credible threat," The Second Grader's comments initiated a DEFCON threat level response from the adults around him.  Not quite DEFCON 1, but certainly not DEFCON 4.  His comments weren't questioned, nor was the context determined by the adult who overheard them.  His comments without context were reported to his teacher.  His teacher, concerned that the comments would be shared elsewhere before she could address them had to make sure that higher ups were aware that the comments had been made and that she would be getting more information about what had transpired in the hallway between the Minecraft-savvy students.  Adults other than myself were notified and asked to intervene, despite the fact that I am only four doors away.

Thank goodness for professional courtesy. One adult came straight to me to ask how to proceed.  You can imagine my confusion and my concern as I had to rapidly downshift from teacher to parent unexpectedly.  Appreciative that my aide could take over calendar and story time, I was able to leave the room to question two of the folks involved, though not the adult whose concern initiated the scene.  The Second Grader admitted saying he wanted to "blow up the school."  When I asked him why, he replied "because it's my birthday this week and A-G-A-I-N, I don't get a party until it's the weekend.  I don't like having my birthday during school."  When I asked if he wanted to blow up our school, or our school that he would build in Minecraft, he replied "The school in Minecraft.  I can build it exactly like this one, and have lava explode from a volcano, or have it flood, or make it explode from bombs.  I don't know how to make real bombs, but you can get bombs in Minecraft to get rid of stuff so you can build again."

Context.

(photo here)

What eight year old would express him or herself with "Oh, I strongly dislike having my birthday during the school week.  Do you think we could ask the principal if all of the students could just take the week off so that we could celebrate our birthdays and have parties like we want to? Perhaps we can open up this topic for debate and a vote utilizing Robert's Rules of Order?"

You've likely heard something similar to what The Second Grader is purported to have said.  Your children have said things like it to their friends.  Perhaps in your youth YOU even muttered something along the lines of "Oooooh, I can't stand my mom.  She won't let me go to the mall today.  I wish she'd just die" or "I could just KILL my dad, he's driving me crazy over prom!"  Children reference what they know as they learn how to navigate not only their feelings but how to express them.  My son knows Minecraft.  I knew Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies (and so did many of you).   You didn't really drive a bowie knife through your father's chest because he was stressing out over a formal dance, and I didn't invite Freddy Krueger over for tea and crumpets with my mother because she didn't like a boy I thought was cute.  Similarly, The Second Grader isn't going to track down ordnance in order to blow up a building so he and every other child can stay home and enjoy birthday cake, presents and a party on their weekday birthdate.

Unfortunately, thanks to events such as Columbine and Sandy Hook, adults now believe they must respond immediately and severely for the good of the many, often at the expense of the individual.  Parents are forced to expose our children to details of adult fear and horror so that they won't unknowingly risk accidentally crossing a line in places like school, day care centers, or play dates.  Educated professionals, who are supposed to be schooled in child development and psychology are trained to react first, and ask questions for clarity, understanding, and context for appropriate interpretation later.  What a relief it is, knowing that my son's innocence, lack of experience, and peace of mind were sacrificed for the good of his classmates and teachers, those folks who were never truly in danger anyway.  Common sense has given way to hysteria, and the professional trait of knowing when to immediately react and when to calmly respond is nowhere to be found.

Too bad for the child who ate around the edges of his Pop Tart, identifying what was left over as a gun shape.  If only he had shared that it also resembled the letter "L," or the states of Idaho or Florida.  If only the adults responsible for the guidance of his lifelong learning experiences had taken a breath, controlled their internal fears and biases, and taught him how to recognize alternate possibilities and forms for his creation, utilizing acknowledgement, redirection, and encouragement to explore other possibilities.

You know, those things that we as educators are supposed to do.

Questions that Teachers as Parents Ask Ourselves

Six years ago, I was accused of being an "alarmist outsider" who wouldn't last (even though I had already taught for over a decade), a teacher who "over-communicated with parents," telling them "our secrets," letting them know things they "didn't need to know."  As the schools I'd worked at previously were all trying to increase parent involvement, communication was key, and was considered best practice.  My students benefitted from my partnership with their families.  With administrative approval, I decided to carry on being a bridge-builder.

Fast-forward to this evening: I'm finishing up my eighteenth year of teaching kindergarten.  I've taught in three states and four different school districts.  Having taught grades 1-6 in summer school, kindergarten August-May, and in both Title I and non-Title I schools, I consider myself "highly qualified."  I enjoy friendships with families of former students, and my students themselves.  Once you're Mrs. Sommerville's Super Star, you stay Mrs. Sommerville's Super Star.

Significant changes in education have happened over the course of my career.  In spite of big mandates, tons of press, and proponents and critics having their say, one thing remains true: diversity is the rule, not the exception.  An Alaskan student's educational needs don't match what a New York youngster likely needs to know.  Knowing this, shouldn't the multitude of ways that children across the nation learn about pulley systems be encouraged and allowed, with assessments addressing only the essential common knowledge that every child will likely apply about pulleys in their lives?  How many children from Alabama will ever help haul whales from the ocean onto the beach?  Because most, if not all of them won't, does that mean students in Barrow, Alaska shouldn't be taught how to use a block and tackle on the beach by their teacher, or have the system explained to them as part of their necessary, real life experience?  Should my Kansas students be denied the experience of planting flower bulbs at the beginning of the school year, observing a spring eruption of daffodils, because students in New Mexico don't or won't?  As more and more of our daily lessons become scripted by curricular requirements, less and less time is available for essential activities, activities that are now being labeled "fluff."

I've borne witness as several components of public education, curriculum, consumables and technology, have become hot commodities, and the producers, be they big name publishing houses or independent school teachers on TPT, sell, sell, sell.  Education is not only a profession now, it's a business.  Big business.  The government supports this, and makes sure that districts purchase from a controlled group of assessment and curriculum manufacturers in order to continue to receive funding for students.  Teacher-created materials initially supplemented or filled the holes that the Biggies didn't address or provide for, but if you've ever visited sites that sell items from teachers, you've likely had to sift through products that frankly, don't meet the standard that they should.

Not surprisingly, standardized assessments reflect not only the bias of the test creators themselves, but the performance of the test-takers that is likely affected by a myriad of factors outside of the evaluation environment.  No matter how many granola bars, water bottles, rolls of Smarties, and daily cheers that are given to each child, they all bear the weight of how they handle the pressure: either blow off the test, or develop an ulcer over it.  How the data obtained in this scenario could ever be considered valid is beyond me.

While parents are incessantly barraged with education reform rah-rahs, critics of the negative effects of NCLB, Race to the Top, and other elements of educational reform are evaluated out of the system (or chased out after having their spirits crushed), newbies are hired, and tenure is made near impossible for any teacher to achieve as states move to widen the chasm that now exists between not only administrators and teachers, but teachers and parents, those former partners in education.  This technique is referred to as "divide and conquer."

I'm not just a teacher.  I'm also a mother, and I'm allowed to have an opinion about public school, considering two of my children have moved up through its system and are now attending college, while my youngest is still in elementary school.  I want his teachers to be informed, educated, curious, articulate and impassioned.  I want them to inspire him, guide him, and encourage him to question, discover, create, imagine and share.  As many skills are built upon earlier foundation levels, I understand they must assess his progress, and I have no problem with them communicating how important it is that he do his best, think through his activities, and participate, accepting help from and offering it to teachers, support staff and classmates.  I'd like them to guide him with patience, not urgency.  

Will any teacher be able to do so, if they themselves are limited to parroting out a scripted set of daily lessons and are forced to use a limited set of intervention and enrichment resources?  If teachers know that one-size-doesn't-fit-all, and they differentiate instruction to meet each student's needs, why are so many districts adopting intervention strategies previously used for a handful of students who truly need it as instructional "best practices" for entire classes?  When two of my students can't hold a pencil correctly, I don't make every child use a modified gripper tool.

What can I as a parent do to help my son's teachers, when as an education professional myself, I know all too well what mandates they're bound and limited by, and the threats they face if they question or challenge them?  What can my students' families do to help advocate for their children as I continue to do everything in my power to strengthen the partnership between us?