Time Flies...

Well, I was hoping that my classes last semester would provide blogging inspiration but instead it left me buried in paperwork and exams. Has it really been six months since I’ve written a blog?!?! This semester is not panning out to be much different, however I will say that my classes are much more meaningful now that I can actually relate them to my career.
In my brief but glorious 3 week break from classes I read Debbie Miller’s book, Reading with Meaning. The books takes the reader through the school year with a class of first graders during their reader’s workshop. Man, was I impressed with what these first grader’s were capable of by the end of the school year! Several student artifacts were presented in the book and, from a developmental perspective, these students seem to be thinking at a much higher cognitive level than is typical of a 7 year old.
Her technique had a strong focus on metacognition and comprehension. She modeled, explicitly, the thinking process of readers and spent a significant amount of time characterizing qualities of readers. These first graders were making insightful inferences and comparisons. They were having thoughtful discussions and (in an unexpectedly abstract manner) making metaphors to describe reading. Below are a couple of quotes provided by her students, one about inferring and one about synthesizing:

“When we infer together, it’s like a wire that connects from my head to someone else’s head, on and on and on, all around the circle.” – Riley (Reading with Meaning, Miller, 2002)

“Synthesizing is like putting a puzzle together. You have to sort out your thinking and put it in the right place.”- Cory (Reading with Meaning, Miller, 2002)

Maybe its lack of experience spending enough time with first graders, but that seems highly philosophical for that age in my mind. It’s amazing to me that her method instilled such a deep understanding not just of the texts but of the process, the strategies which they will probably be using throughout their academic career. I guess I have become accustomed to expecting reading instruction to first focus on how to read, then to move into comprehension. I think Miller’s approach is brilliant. What resulted was that students became highly motivated to build reading skills.
I recommend this book, although some of the comments on Amazon stated that the book is probably more suited for new teachers. I learned a lot from her technique that I intend to use and will likely be re-reading this book a few times to re-absorb it.

Teachers as Dream Enablers

I just read a very inspiring post by blogger Marnee Brick about teaching children to set achievable goals towards their aspirations.
I don’t think there is a person out there that goes into teaching because they love paperwork. I don’t think they do it expecting daily respect and professional recognition. And I definitely don’t think anyone does it for the money. I think people go into teaching because they really want to do something that will have a positive impact and that they want to impart the knowledge they have acquired so that someone just starting out in the world will be a little wiser, a little more prepared for the road ahead.
Even though I am not yet a teacher, I can already tell that it is going to be hard to stay focused on the real reasons I wanted to go into this profession.
In her post, Brick stated,

We need to encourage children to believe that there is a place out there beyond their reality and that they hold the power within them to be the change.

This touched something within me. It really makes you stop and think about what we teach through our attitudes and responses.
I believe that some of our responses are so completely engraved within us that unconsciously we perpetuate self defeating behaviors. It’s a cycle, passed down from generation to generation, it infiltrates the messages we receive from all around, in life, in the media, in literature. We learned from observation, as did our parents, and their parents and so forth that there are limitations, that certain things are hard or impossible. We learn what to expect from life, what we deserve and don’t and how to blame others or consequence for things that, in reality, are in our control. We make excuses, blame, complain and give in all the time without giving it any second thought. This is self defeating behavior and the cycle has to break somewhere. Just think of all the positive changes that could be accomplished, on a global scale, if all people were proactive, took responsibility for their own actions, set personal goals and stopped making excuses or trying to place blame.
On a small scale, teachers have the opportunity to impart this change one student at a time. It comes from exactly what Marnee Brick’s post was all about: Teaching students that they can make their dreams come true and giving them the tools to close the gap between a wish and reality.
Its really worth some consideration to think about how, as a teacher, we can incorporate these tools into daily curricular activities so that they become second nature to students; because, in reality, we don’t know if they will get the necessary reinforcement from other people in their life, we don’t know what kinds of behaviors are being modeled for them and we don’t know if their future teachers are going to reinforce the concept of setting big goals and making them reality one step at a time.
I love every time I hear a story about someone who worked hard to become successful and followed their dreams, despite growing up in poverty, or having a disability, or any other limiting circumstance. When I hear those stories I know that there was someone in their life who was encouraging and modeling positive behaviors throughout their childhood.
It’s one of the most important things we can teach children, that they can be anything and that their dreams are achievable, but they have to know that it’s a process, and it involves proactive effort, that no body is going to make it happen for them.
Thanks to Marnee Brick for writing this, I have been in a bit of a slump lately and this really helped me to consider some of my own big dreams and the steps necessary to make them happen.