Open the Path

As I previously mentioned, I read a lot.  I reread a number of  books and Astonished is a book I recently read twice.  This book, by Beverly Donofrio, is loaded with wisdom and came fortuitously into my hands this March. In the book, Beverly had something horrendous happen to her and she sought solace in monasteries. She recorded, in wonderful and honest prose, her experiences. She is funny, human, and so very wise.

She recounted how one friend of hers, a sage earth mother type advised, Pray every day. Pray, "Open the path and I will walk it."  It sounded like pretty good advice. So when I finished the book, the prayer began, "Open the path and I'll walk it."  I wrote it down on sticky notes, in my journal, and on bookmarks to help me remember to say it. I said it out loud on my morning walk to work and wrote it with lipstick on the bathroom mirror.

One path that has opened is the chance to teach literature to 8th graders. I am seeing this as an answer to this prayer. Besides working with students with special learning needs in grades 4-8, I will get to reenter the classroom and teach literature  again. It feels like a great opportunity and I am excited to venture in.  I believe good literature has the power to change our lives so I hope, even for a season, to share some stories, books, poems, and articles that kids will want to read closely and a few that will even help them make some sense of their world.

I hope to help them enrich their vocabulary and speak with precision and accuracy so that they know there is a difference between  appreciated, devoted, admired and yes, obsessed. I hope they write way more than I can grade, read much more than we can ever test, and know enough about punctuation rules to break them from time to time.

Another source of good advice came a few months ago when I went with my daughter to her obstetrician and was surprised to meet this motherly and frank lady who is taking wonderful care of my daughter and her unborn blessing. She was talking about the recent phenomenon of being able to read online reviews that patients (or anyone actually)  post . She said, " I don't read those reviews. I just ask God to send me the patients he wants me to have." Again, great advice. What students will I have and why? The ones I am supposed to.

"Open the path and I will walk it."


~Ellen~

Teacher Appreciation: An Unlikely Metaphor

In the merry month of May, my thoughts drift toward my dad, now gone from the earth about 1 1/2 years. His birthday occurred in May, as did my parents' wedding anniversary. There is also a week in May designated "Teacher Appreciation Week"  that I probably only know about because I am a teacher. At any rate, during this week I tend to reflect on the great teachers I have known as well as the source of my inspiration to keep teaching. My dad taught me a lot about teaching through the passion he had for learning and encouraging others. So, this post features a bit of inspiration from my dear dad.

This free-verse poem, titled "Remembering" was one I chose to read at my dad's memorial service because it was like him, both funny and profound.  This week, it reminds me that our role as teachers is often just supportive, not noticed until we aren't there any longer, and hidden so that our students' can look good... much like the object in my dad's metaphor.

Remembered

by H. Eugene Herr

Joe Montano is recalled with a football.

That was this thing, his tool.

Michael J and Isaiah T- a basketball, hoops.

C. S. Lewis- writing and The Inklings

A fellowship of pub and pen.

For me, I want to be remembered as a bra.

On a street in Pittsburg decades ago

Walking to the downtown Y for Employment Anonymous

Kerwin Flannery said to me, "Gene, you are just like a good bra.

You give me a lift."

I'd like to encourage the minds and hearts of family, friends, and foes

to give a lift to what is really there

to help the shape of what is inherent in personality and grace gifts

A bra is hidden, undercover of dress or blouse

and yet its quality is realized

unconsciously there but consciously important

And so I try to pray, to support.

An occasional note, a presence

I need to heal my own heart

To find my fresh spring in Jesus

I need the lift.

I'd rather be--yes, just a bra, in the attire of God's own.

 

Dad, thanks for the wisdom ... and for being just like a good bra. I aspire to the same.

~Ellen~

Because It Matters: Perfectly Imperfect

This picture features two young people, both of them with Down Syndrome, who like the rest of us, are perfectly imperfect. When I first met Maureen, she was four years old and sitting on the floor of her preschool classroom. I walked in the room and laid eyes on this young girl who would have such an impact on my life as a teacher and as a person. She was sitting on the floor, engaged in battle with the zipper on her backpack while the rest of the class was either saying goodbye to a parent for the morning or playing at one of the colorful centers. I wondered why nobody helped her as I watched her struggle for a good 3 or 4 minutes. She managed the zipper (of course she did) and stood up to join her classmates.  That's why nobody helped her, I realized, because she can do it.  I was at her school to do a consultation at their request. It turns out they didn't need all that much help. They were walking the tightrope between high expectations and appropriate support about as well as any team of people I had ever encountered.

Maureen, plain and simple, is a testament to the human spirit and a lesson in meeting life's challenges with everything you've got. She is fortunate to have a family that believes she can learn just about anything and a school that afforded her the "dignity of risk."  Regardless of where a student is served, parochial school, public school, general classroom or special education class, every student deserves the best we can offer.  Because it Matters. Every child has something to contribute to the community and when we devalue anyone, we lose that gift that only he/she can offer.

Here are a couple of lessons I learned from working with the very special students that have come into my life:

• Communication is everything! Students need language and language isn't limited to verbalization. Behavior, gestures, written words, pictures, and words are all language. Watch and observe it all. Nothing should be free (except love and grace) and every action has communicative intent. When students don't have efficient ways to express frustration, anger, or angst, they will often act it out. Give them tools to express themselves in ways that don't cause damage to people or relationships.

• Have high expectations. Expect kids to behave and to follow your rules even if they have Down Syndrome, Autism, or other developmental delays.  Make sure the rules are clear and stated before the activity begins. I think the best parents I know are those who love their kids unconditionally but always expect them to behave the best they can be expected to given their age. If they threaten consequences, they follow through without much ado.

• Choices matter. Sometimes the only choices kids have are to comply or not comply. Given those options most of us would choose to assert our independence by breaking the rules.  Besides being a great language skill, it gives kids some power in acceptable ways. Give lots of choices all through the day: Crayon or pencil? Juice or milk? Now or later? With help or alone? As the child grows, so does the breadth and risk factor of the choices.

• Have a good sense of humor. I think kids with special needs have an uncanny ability to know when someone is for real or not. Learn to laugh with kids and enjoy the special surprises they bring to your day. Be sincere. You aren't fooling anyone, particularly the kids in our midst whose veil between the heart and mind is unclouded by social expectations.

Finally, I have to say that in our schools, churches, homes and communities, when we create places for all God's children we will all grow from the experience. Watching my students give and take in the warm embrace of a loving community is one of the most precious experiences I have been blessed to have.

And here are just a few resources:

www.Do2learn.com  (great website for picture schedules, choice boards, etc)
www.therapystreetforkids.com( amazing resources for sensory needs, writing, strengthening, etc)

Apps
Choiceworks (really love this app. you can build your own schedule and choice boards)
Wet Dry Try ( Handwriting without Tears on the ipad)
Bob Books ( great for beginning readers)

There are so many more...

As my friend Maureen would say, "You're fabulous"  ( and she is and I am a better person for knowing her)
~Ellen~

Bruised Reeds

When our students or our children don't seem to give their best efforts, we are likely to say, "He/She just doesn't care." I've heard it many times and said it a few (I confess).  I've met thousands of kids in my tenure as educator and parent and I have to say I've never met a child who truly didn't care. Learners, especially those who don't learn too much too easily, have a quiver full of coping strategies to mask the fact that they do, in fact, care very much.

A couple of years ago, I was at a west side Wichita establishment that was well known for it's country music and large dance floor. My husband and I arrived there in time for line dancing lessons which was an experience that opened my eyes. I joined the 12 or so people out on the dance floor and the instructor started slowly with no music. He just gave us the words to match the steps he was demonstrating. I repeated the words and the steps along with him. Then he added some music but still spoke  the words telling us what to do. I was still doing fine. Then he stopped saying the words. He played the music and my classmates fell right into place as if they had been line dancing all their lives. I, however, was flummoxed. I couldn't do it. I was so embarrassed and I desperately wanted to yell, "Slow down cowboy. We weren't all born in a barn."  I needed what we call in teacher talk, "extra guided practice."  I tried to do the steps but couldn't and everyone else obviously could so I awkwardly step-scooted off the dance floor, flopped down on a chair and handled it like a mature adult. "Line dancing is stupid," I said, "and I didn't want to do it anyway."  A few days later with some distance from my humiliation,  my mind went to the student in my math class who always just wrote down random answers or the kid who got back his English test with an F on it and acted like it was funny, and I understood them in a new way.

There are a lot of reasons why kids seem to not care.  If we watch and listen, we can usually figure out why. For some, it's because some bigger life issue is casting shadows in their lives and school seems irrelevant. For some, it is just being overwhelmed with lots of new information. Sometimes, like me in line dancing hell, they need more time to practice the new skill.

There are some great words in Isaiah 42 that I try to keep in mind with kids who are discouraged and defensive. These are the kids whose faces I see before I go to sleep at night.

"He will be gentle-he will not shout or raise his voice in public. The bruised reed he will not break..."

I have always felt my students for whom school is difficult are like bruised reeds and that I need to help them stand tall without breaking them.
Some ideas for these learners...

• Start with what they know. A lot of kids with working memory issues check out of class mentally because they can't bring back what you taught them yesterday and apply it to today. Prime the brain and bring back previous content. Show them how it connects or builds on with visual cues.
• Guided practice and lots of it. A teacher asked me once how long to give his math students guided practive before turning them loose on independent work. I told him, "Until they are rolling your eyes at you." 
• Believe in them enough to make them take you seriously. You will not break the bruised reed by having high expectations and letting him/her know you will do what it takes because you believe they can learn what you are teaching.  Tell them you love them enough to sit them in the front row, to monitor their study habits, and to put some restrictions on their distractions.  
• These kids have to know you like them and that you are a safe person. Show your humanity and your sense of humor. Ask them to tell you what helps them the most. Sometimes they will tell you more if they can write it down. One teacher I know had ongoing communication with each of her students with notecards. She'd have them write something down that they had thought about during her class and she'd write back to them. When they filled the note card, she gave them another. She knew more about her students and how to motivate them than anyone in the building.

There are lots more of course but this is a good start.
We are all bruised reeds, in some way or another.... Let's be thankful to those who hold us up and don't trample us down.

~Ellen~

If you Work with Words...

Words spread across a page, scrawled on a note or spilling out from a person's mouth have so much power. Carefully or carelessly chosen, words can move us. Teachers facing the implementation of the Common Core Standards know that we have to look at vocabulary in new and different ways. I am not going to go indepth on those standards but rather, offer a few observations and tools from my own experience.

Recently I walked into the Reading Intervention class I was teaching and handed every student a white board and marker. I started saying words and asking them to draw a simple picture of what came to their mind when they heard the word. This was one student's offering for the word parallel.

 I kept tossing out words and several students asked, "Can we do this all period?" The students who typically weren't at ease with words were shining like stars with this task. I gave them the word "bifurcate" and a couple of kids recognizing the prefix bi- wrote a number 2 on their board. The rest just said, "BifurWHAT?" We stopped and talked about how a person can't have a visual image of a word, if they don't know the meaning. I went on to tell them how I learned the word from an old boyfriend, one who eventually bifurcated my heart, so my image is a heart with a line down the center.

So, regarding vocabulary, I love having kids draw their own understanding of the words they come across and sharing them with each other for several reasons: students are actively engaged, teachers get a quick preassessment of student understanding, seeing each other's ideas deepens understanding. When I gave the kids the word "greedy" it was interesting to see what their ideas were. We shared images of a huge diamond ring, someone eating another person's food, and a smattering of dollar signs. It was a time of discovery for me to see what ideas and background knowledge my students brought into the classroom. 

Whenever we start teaching anything, I've learned we have to start with the vocabulary. In this same class, a student had just been through a math lesson involving expressions and equations. He was trying to do his math lesson and he didn't know the difference between the two. "How did I get to this place in my life" he asked me, "and not know that?"  It is funny what kids say at times when they feel safe.  I know that too many times I have just jumped in with content and not taken the time to build on a solid foundation with essential vocabulary.

My second point regarding vocabulary is that we have to teach it in context and when we are participating in "close reading" that  common core promotes, that is the perfect time. Many students aren't reading nearly as much as they should and therefore not adding to their vocabulary repertoires.  This isn't where we want to dumb things down but neither do we want to frustrate the kids by giving them text with too many words they don't know. The answer? Using rich and complex text, beautiful pieces of poetry and prose, and studying them with students. When we just study vocabulary in isolation, we are likely wasting kids time because there is no context or nuance to give it meaning. Excellent teachers ask students why the author chooses certain verbs and adjectives to convey ideas. Excellent math teachers ask students to find things that are parallel (or perpendicular, etc) in the world around them.

One of my favorite activities, if you have been on Pinterest you have seen it too, is an activity for teaching nuance. Words have shades and intensity as do colors. My friend Natalie, the interior designer, personifies paint colors: That color just hates being on that wall. That red is too harsh, that tan is too weak. Critical readers and writers do the same with words.  Said is too strong, she actually muttered.  Happy is lying if he was just satisfied. Don't understate or overstate. The truth shall set you free.

Here are a couple of resources that I really like:

• The dictionary (no kidding!)
• A dictionary app that I use frequently from Dictionary.com
• Visual Thesaurus App
• Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing by Constance Hale (I love this book. She feeds the reader carefully chosen verbs even as she writes about them. There are ideas for activities that are perfect to do with classes.)
• Constance Hale has a website: www.sinandsyntax.com 
• Vocab Girl can be found on Facebook or www.infosadlier.com/vocabulary-blog
• I read The Christian Science Monitor for the news but also because it has such literary value. I have used excerpts from article to expose my students to well written non-fiction text about current issues.

As Luther says in one of my all time favorite old movies, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, "If you work with words, words are your work."  I rest my case.

Enjoy,
~Ellen~

In Good Company

Weekday mornings, my tennis shoes and backpack stand ready to go. I throw some dressier shoes into the pack, sling the backpack on and head off to work on foot. It isn't such a big deal at all except that in Wichita, KS, few people walk to work. It is only about a mile and a half and after the initial crossing of semi-busy Central avenue, it is a pleasant stroll through a quiet residential neighborhood and then back again at the end of the day.

It all started with The Way, a movie about the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I watched the movie over Thanksgiving break and I became quite interested in the Camino and the meaning of the pilgrimage. That led, of course, to books and in about a months time I had read four books: two on the Camino de Santiago and two on other journeys. They were all wonderful and compelling in their own way. Each of the books featured a person on a journey and how he/she was changed by the experience So, I decided that there was no reason why I couldn't make my own journey each day.

And thus far, most workdays, I have. It's been beautiful really. Crisp cold mornings, some cloudy and some clear.  I have noticed the beauty of each bare branched tree and the singing of the birds.  I have time to think and to pray. Most days I just try to be aware, to notice what is around me and to appreciate my health, my legs, and my senses which allow me to take it all in. I do what I learned from my dad and I pray for the people and edifices I pass. I think about my upcoming day and a group of middle school kids I will teach ( and though I may walk through the valley of sarcasm, lift me up)  and my little readers ( long may they read!) and my coworkers (give them strength).  I think of my daughters and ask God to hold them in His light.

The benefits of walking are many: building muscle tone, cardiovascular  health, mental clarity, and then one good day my husband came home from his yearly check-up telling me a new advantage. "My doctor" he said, "told me that walking makes your butt smaller."  Good enough.

Mostly I do it because it slows me down, helps me live in the moment and gives me more time in solidarity with those who have to walk, who live outside and who brave the elements not because they have a choice but because they are lacking shelter.  By the time I reach my destination,  I am more grateful for my job, my students and my colleagues. I am more aware of my dependency on others and more aware of the need to slow the heck down and listen.

If you are interested, here are the fabulous books I read on walking:

The Way is Made by Walking by Arthur Paul de Boers
I loved this book. He begins, "Once I walked 500 miles to church..." and the rest is a beautiful chronicle of his journey to Santiago.

Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino by Joyce Rupp.
The author also made the whole pilgrimage and she describes her experiences along the way. She was 60 when she took the journey and this fact helped me decide that if she could walk 500 miles over 6 or 7 weeks, I could surely manage 3 miles a day.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
This is one of the best books I have ever read! I loved  Harold Fry and every minute of his pilgrimage. I loved what happened to him as he took this journey. A beautiful book. As I walk to and from school, often a couple of lines come to me from this book: "Life was very different when you walked through it" and 'It surprised Harold how fast and angry cars seemed when you aren't in one." So true.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
A hilarious, irreverent account of hiking the Appalachian Trail. I liked it that he did it in starts and stops and it wasn't completely successful. Still, he hiked that trail.

So, this is my journey since January. In an attempt to see my life as a pilgrimage, to become more mindful and to recognize my workplace as holy ground, I am donning my shoes, throwing on a pack and heading down the road. I am in good company.

~Ellen~

Stepping Back

Winter Sunset
 (P. Herr)

Fill your bowl to the brim

And it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench

Care about people's approval and

you will be their prisoner

Do your work, then step back

The only path to security.

                                                                   Tao Te Ching


        I found this writing in a book I am reading about St. Benedict.  Because I am a hunter/gatherer of pieces of wisdom, I wrote it down.  When I am gone, I fear my children will find little of value save the collections of wise sayings stacked in piles around the house.

     This week, I wanted to do a post on writing but I am putting it off a week. When I saw this quote last week it reminded me of the need to breathe a little between classes and meetings and to recognize that more isn't always more. If fact when it comes to recognizing the way our students learn and the way we function best, often less is, in fact, more.

       This particular quote struck me because of the emphasis on stepping back.  When we work with learners of any age, we can get so caught up with test scores and other pieces of "objective data" that we cease to notice the other important growth happening in their lives.  We know what these things are and they aren't necessarily measurable: depth of understanding, thirst for knowledge, appreciation of diversity, a sense of wonder and the ability to see beyond oneself. 

       Our role in a child's life is important, so important, and we want to do it well. We are, however, only a small piece of fabric in the quilt of our students' lives. The collective efforts of faculty, staff, parents, volunteers, peers, clergy, and community are woven together to form these young people. What we miss, and we will miss something, we need to trust will come from another source.
    
      We do our work and at the end of our day, we step back, breathe, and offer our efforts to God- Someone higher than ourselves whose love for these children surpasses our own as the glory of the sun outshines the brightest candle. 

Peace,
~Ellen~