School Shootings: A title I never wanted to write.

Posted on February 24, 2018 by conversationeducation

I wake yet again, with a heavy heart as I think of all of the children, all of my dear friends, colleagues, young moms, dads and yes, even myself who will walk into a school building today. I have to be honest, each time there is a school shooting I become hyper aware of the brick and mortar I am entering. I look left, I look right, I take a deep breath and hope that you asking for my ID behind the locked doors is enough to keep us all safe. I try to take solace in the fact that so many of YOU are in the building already and that on this day we will all remain safe. It is a risk and one that becomes more and more immediate and, one that is absolutely absurd, one that I will continue to take, as will all of you.

I come from an age where public school buildings were just that, open to the public. You could drive up, walk into the office at any time of the day with no buzzers, no ID, no nothing. The freedom of those times is not lost on me. That freedom is what we must work our way back to, but as my Dad said on 911, “things are forever changed”. Boy was he right. I just never knew it would continue to get worse and worse. As my career shifted and changed and I moved from one school to many I slowly saw this change of “security” as I encountered one locked door after another. My initial and lasting thoughts are of sheer frustration. I hate the idea of kids behind locked doors. I am annoyed at having to “prove” myself every time I wanted to enter as someone who would do no harm. I know I “should” be happy that these procedures are in place, but I am not. At every turn we lose one right after another and all in the name of fear. And my greatest fear is that we will continue to move in this direction, arming teachers, installing metal detectors and officers before we look at and address the root of the problem. It is time to say NO!

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I started watching The Handmaid’s Tale, adapted for a TV series from a book that I read in college, a book that remains torn and tattered on my shelf from those days in the 80’s when I read it and reread it, in sheer disbelief. For me it was one of THOSE books that haunts you for life. The TV adaptation is well done as it is put in more modern times, but to be honest, it frightens me because all of the characters are saying what we are saying about what is going on in this world right now. “They can’t DO this” shout the woman as they lose their bank accounts, their jobs, their livelihood as they drink a bottle of wine together after being escorted out of their jobs one after another.

the handmaid's tale

I flash to my book group where we all discuss the absurdity of what is happening in this country and yes, we are drinking our wine and agreeing with each other, but I can’t help but think about what is going on behind closed doors and how, honestly, powerless I feel. When did WE become so powerless? I have done the marches, I have written and sent my postcards, and I will continue to work to get the right people in office …but to what end? It just doesn’t feel like enough. It NEVER feels like enough. We KNOW Russia intervened with the election and still…NOTHING happens….yet.

In walk these amazing kids from Stoneman Douglas High. For the first time since November (you know which November I mean) I have begun to unearth some hope rising inside of me. It has to be THIS generation with fire in their bellies, that (with millions of 18 year olds who will be eligible to vote this year) need to show up. They did not show up at our last election, disenfranchised with the process and rightly so, but ultimately action is more effective than inaction.

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At the same time I feel the need to apologize to all of those generations younger than me that we did not do an adequate job at keeping this country united and safe for all of you.

At a local elementary school this week I was about to have class when a 5-minute emergency staff meeting was called. It was to address the upcoming scheduled walk out in March for 17 minutes; one minute for each child gunned down in Florida. As this is an elementary school they were working to make sure that, if teachers wanted to participate then that was their right and they would work to make that happen. What I appreciated even more was the fierce message that we must protect our kids and that although some may know about what is going on, that many others may not and that protecting their innocence is of utmost importance. While I appreciated this open dialogue I was once again saddened that this had to be a topic. Period.

We chose a career, many of us out of passion; one that was fascinating to us as we work to learn to understand the inner workings of children: the minds and hearts of these little beings that come into our care each day. The kids we each take home with us, the ones that we mull over as we are in the shower, driving to school, the ones who perplex us, the ones who hug us. We are in the trenches each and every day trying to make a difference but the distractions of the world are slowly taking over keeping us from doing what we need to do. Our schools are far from perfect, but the right to an education is what is at stake here. We NEED to preserve this institution to ensure a fair and equal education for ALL in SAFE spaces. 2018-01-25-protest-get-up-stand-up-for-your-rights-400-300 Not just the rich and the famous and the lucky, but also the poor, the unknown and the not so lucky. We are so much better than what plays out every day on the media. We just are. And fighting for the rights of each individual is just something we have to do. There is no other choice when you sit in a 3^rd grade classroom and watch a teacher read aloud to a group of students who are enthralled with the reading of Wonder, as they discuss empathy, caring, understanding and what it means to be an outcast or when you see a kindergartener make her own book that she is dying to share with you or when you see a table of first graders giggling at Captain Underpants together or when you see 6th graders confer with their teacher on the Civil Rights movement giving voice to how they are personally discriminated against. This all matters. What you do matters. Don’t forget that in the wake of all that tries to undermine that.

Remembering Jean Robbins

Posted on November 22, 2015 by conversationeducation

I read an essay, ham of god, by Anne Lamott to begin class this week. I used to read aloud all the time, but as with many good practices we just let them slide to the wayside. I read because I was trying to find some humor, solace and some kind of sense of all that is happening in the world. I read because my dear friend and mentor, Jean Robbins always said, read aloud.

Jean passed away on November 8^th. Jean was one of those people who comes into your life and never leaves. She was kind, generous and incredibly good at connecting people and to people herself. I am forever grateful to have known her.

I attended her service yesterday afternoon, only to be greeted by so many faces from the past. It was as if a timeline of my teaching career spread across the room, from my Maplewood School Ed 500 teacher, Karolina Bodner and Internship principal, Dennis Harrington and fellow intern, Judy George to Maryellen Webb one of my first teaching partners at Barrington Elementary School to Nancy Barcelos, one of my teaching colleagues from Pollard School in Plaistow to Rachel Small, a student I have had in class for LTT to David McCormick who teaches at the Writer’s Academy to Ellin Erwin who’s daughter was in my Writer’s Academy class 2 summers ago to Maryellen Giacobbi, whose work with Don Graves changed the way we taught writing forever.

It hit me that so many of the amazing educators in my life were in some way connected to Jean. This was no accident. I was not alone in this as we stood talking “Jean” people began to make more and more connections…”oh you know so and so….” and that is how the legend of Jean will live on as we each continue to make these connections one at a time, for a lifetime.

You see, Jean and I met while she was a supervisor of interns many years ago at Barrington Elementary School. I had a troubled intern who would often show up to work so hung-over that she could not function. Jean and I banded together and recommended that she not move forward with her career in teaching. (This was not something that was done, as by the time one made it to their internship it was pretty much a done deal that they would go on to teach!) I am not sure what happened to that intern, but Jean and I had formed a bond by making a tough decision, but the right decision.

So when my daughter, Emma, was diagnosed with Leukemia at 3 and a half, I walked out of my 4^th grade classroom at the Pollard School and never returned to a classroom full time again. When I thought my teaching career was over I called Jean about a year into Emma’s treatment as a stay at home Mom with a sick child and her younger brother who never sat still. I was exhausted, housebound and NEEDED something to get me out and to get my brain working again. Jean promptly set up a meeting and introduced me to Tom Newkirk and Louise Wrobleski, two of the most influential people in my life today. They offered me a consultant position at the Sandown school. I accepted as it meant I would work one day a week, a day to be out and be something other than mother and caretaker.

I was so excited that I ran out and bought the very first car phone, the size of a small loaf of bread so that I could be contacted if needed as Mom and went back to work in this capacity. As time went on and Emma got healthier my load increased until one day Tom offered me a part –time position as Field Coordinator for Learning Through Teaching and that is where I have been for the past 15 years. Jean changed the course of my life and for that I am forever grateful.

I always said I wanted to be like Jean when I grew up, always traveling, swapping her home before HomeExchange or Airbnb even existed. I learned at her service that she had been abroad 50 times and her son in law, Gary listed them all. I always knew Jean missed LTT meetings as she was often travelling, but 50 times! WOW!! I guess it is time to grow up, to take and create every travel opportunity I can and just do it!

I started when I walked out that door and had a choice to go home or to follow through with my plans to revisit my singing sisters for a sing along in Portsmouth with Voices From the Heart. I was tired, but I knew that Jean would have gone because she said she was going. As I drove along route 4 towards Portsmouth I noticed the sky was turning a slight pink. The further I drove, the more intense the colors became. I reveled in these colors and pulled over in Newick’s parking lot, the smell of fried everything wafting in the air, to capture it. It seemed like the perfect end to a service where one woman impacted so many people’s lives and while what she did seems short of miraculous, I realize what she did was to fight for children, to stand up for what was right for kids and teachers and to connect people near and far.

Jean’s sunset from Newicks.

I remember Jean telling me a story about being at a train station in Germany and while there was a language barrier, Jean laughed her wonderful laugh and recalled a little boy tugging on his mothers shirtsleeve screaming, “NEIN, NEIN!!” Through her laughter she said, “NO, is one word that is universal and sounds pretty much the same in every language”. And then she listed off all of the translations of no she could remember.

So I salute you, Jean Robbins, Grand Dame of education in New Hampshire, as the sun sets on a beautiful life, a life that touched so many. May we all live with an open heart, listen to each other, reach across our borders and connect with each other and the world.

You are loved. You are missed.

Good Night Jean.

Gathering the Light

Posted on December 6, 2014 by conversationeducation

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle”. Walt Whitman

I love dressing up my house for Christmas. In fact, it may just be my most favorite part of this crazy season. Sure I love seeing people, and finding the perfect gifts and the season of giving and all of that, but there is nothing more creatively satisfying then just being alone in my home and making it merry and bright.

This year I am obsessed with little lights. I have spent more money on lights than anything else…yet. (I haven’t actually even started my shopping yet!) There is something about lighting up every room with twinkling lights that make it feel…dare I say, like sacred space. Lighting up each room combats the shortness of light we get this time of year.

If you have never lived in New England then it is hard to imagine these days, as they grow shorter and shorter. Your every fiber craves sunshine and warmth. Your hibernation switch turns on and you have to make yourself leave your warm cave.

But this year I seem to be better at embracing these dark days and seeing them as an opportunity to create. I find great comfort on my couch next to the sparkling Christmas tree. There is peace here. There is nothing I “have” to do, other than work. The spirit of the empty nest has taken over and I find myself incredibly peaceful in that I don’t have to think about anyone or anything else other than myself. I don’t know if I have ever experienced this before and while I am sure that I must have in my youth, this feels very different. It is liberating and while I love and miss my kids, I am also settling into a space of my own where I am not constantly worrying and trying to fix things as much as I trust them to make their ways in the world. How cool is that?

Trust is something I have been thinking a lot about. There is so little trust in this crazy world it seems. We have to “prove” everything beyond the shadow of a doubt with numbers and statistics. My yoga helps remind me every day of how incredibly simple life could be if only we trusted that things will be the way they are to be. They just are and it is not up to us to try to “fix” everything.

This incessant “fixing” has taken over our schools and in that need to always fix, fix, fix we miss what is working. We miss those faces staring up at us from their desks, little sponges ready and waiting and all we are doing is running around trying to identify their deficits and thus putting out the little lights that are within each of them. It is a dark time in education. I really believe this to be true. It is dark because it is rampant with fear, high stakes and lack of humanity, but perhaps it will be in this time of darkness that greatness will emerge. “Out of darkness comes light…”

Recently I have even heard myself saying that I am not long for this work. This work that I love because of the heavy shadows that seems to hide in every corner, and then I have a class with a group of bright people who give me hope and help me to hang on…

I pulled out of the parking lot and into a glow of gorgeous pinks, oranges and hues of blues. The kind of sky you only wish you could capture in some way, but words and watercolors fall short of the miracle of what it is. And so I savor it as I drive home, breathing in every changing landscape bathed in such a beautiful sunset, trumpeting out this day in a glorious celebration of light dancing with light.

I smile at the sky and at the conversation left behind minutes earlier and wonder how did I get so lucky to do this “work”? Work isn’t even a good word for it because I love it so much. Work implies that it is grueling and hard, but for me it is just a natural flow of who I am, a better extension of myself than I am or ever could be in my ordinary life.

And in this darkness I find light. In my teachers, in their students, in the fact that they want to be there to discuss, to explore, to learn, to converse, to connect, to find support, to be together on a dark afternoon in December to look beyond the darkness and into the light in each other’s eyes. They light up my life.

Light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong. Opposites that are always living side by side. Without one we would not have the other and so in the spirit of the season I choose to see the light, the good and the right knowing their counterparts are right there alongside them allowing us the gift of seeing the grey in between because in the end it is both. It is always both and everything in between. Who or what is the light in your life?

“All is calm, all is bright.”

Bad Raps: In Poetry, Social Media and Of Course, The Common Core

Posted on January 20, 2014 by conversationeducation

Poetry and Social Media have both had their share of bad raps.

The poetry of our (collective) past was often presented as something that was only available to those chosen few who may or may not find the many levels of hidden meanings tucked in between the lines. Every time I bring poetry to my teachers, there is a group squirm in the room as everyone shifts in their seats and falls back into their past experiences with poetry.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.
– Joseph Joubert

Poetry was not available and many hold fast to the belief that it still isn’t. But thanks to modern day poets such as Billy Collins, Mary Oliver and even those of old such as e.e. cummings, poetry can be accessible to all. With a little patience and practice some even come to enjoy poetry.

We just need to shift out of our old habit of thinking we “won’t get it” and realize that what we take from the poem is enough. It may just be the sound of the words or how they are arranged; it may be a line that strikes the soul, or an adverse reaction to an image. Whatever it is, it is for us. Poetry can move people to their own “edges” if you will, asking them to work and think a little bit more and little bit harder, what does that mean?

“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” Khalil Gibran

Social Media has also gotten a bad rap, especially when we are having conversations about our youth. And while we might be concerned about the growing evolutionary thumbs of this next generation and their inability to communicate face to face without a device are worthy concerns, there is the upside to this wonderful world of technology.

Credit to http://www.thedrum.com –

One is the meeting of poetry and social media I encountered these past couple of weeks as poetry swept it’s way onto Facebook and flooded my feed with fabulous poets and poetry. The way it worked was simple. Read a poem posted by a friend and if you liked that poem they would send you a poet and you in turn posted a poem by that assigned poet.

I can only wonder how many hits poetry.org and other such sites got this poetry month. It was a treat to go onto Facebook wondering what poem or poet you would see next. It was also interesting to see what new poets might come up. And even if the poem was one I knew, it was nice to be revisited by old favorites. Some even went so far as to research their assigned poet, posting photos and biographical information as well as a poem. There were side conversations about how many poets some knew and how thrilled others were to be introduced to new poets. Others felt “out of their league” but quickly immersed themselves in finding the perfect poem. Some began the process of identification as one who likes and dare I even say might consider writing poetry.

I can’t tell you how many poems I added to my poetry folder for future teaching! There was a crazy wonderful poetry community created through social media with people across the country that never would have been possible without social media. It was, if I may say so myself, pretty damn cool!

And then we come to the Common Core where poetry is not mentioned, named or listed in any categories in the entire document. And while the intent was not to eliminate poetry, that is the interpretation of many. Schools are reading this document as a curriculum even when it clearly states that it is NOT! But the subtle, or not so subtle message underlying the omission of poetry is that what is not listed will not be tested; therefore precious time will not be wasted teaching it. Schools without Shel Silvserstien, Prelutsky, Roald Dahl, A.A. Milne, and Sharon Creech will be very sad places.

While I realize you have all heard me rant and rave on about the CCSS nation wide hold on education, I do not believe I have given it’s history justice and so I direct you here to a link where Diane Ravitch lays out the history of the Common Core and it’s daunting predecessors.

Diane Ravitch

I believe this history gives context to why we are where we are and how incredibly insipid it is. I believe anyone who has any stock in the public educational system needs to read this. I would like to see this article go viral. The more we know the more we can begin to understand what is at stake.

And so I leave you with my assigned poet (by the fabulous Children’s poet, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, who you must check out at this link) and the words of ee cummings: enjoy, savor and just take it in for what it is, let it linger on your tongue for the sweetness that it is and nothing more or less.

e.e. cummings

E. E. Cummings (1894 – 1962)

I Will Wade Out

i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
Will i complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

And as the world goes, I read this post to my daughter, Emma and she reminded me that her choir in High School sang this poem as composed by Eric Whitacre. Love the connections! And while we don’t have a recording of her choir, here is a youtube link to another choir singing it. Glorious!

I Will Wade Out

Stories and More: A Daughter’s Encyclopedia of Her Dad

Posted on December 9, 2013 by conversationeducation

There are so many ways to tell a story. We just had an intimate celebration of my Dad’s life for those who knew him. It started with cocktail hour and then it was story time. I heard so many stories about my Dad that I had never heard. I loved hearing about his life as a boss, a friend, brother-in-law, Bumpa and of course as a father. In the words of Eben Alexander in his book, Proof of Heaven he writes, “A story–a true story–can heal as much as medicine can.”

So how was I going to talk about Dad in 10 minutes or less and really give a sense of who he was to me? I was thinking about the text, “Days With My Father” which started on line and is now a book, but that did not exactly capture what I was hoping to do as it only reflected the end of his father’s life. I wanted more than that. And then I thought back to the last time I wrote about my Dad, using Wallace Steven’s, “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. I wrote up 13 Moments with Dad and took it to the service.

I only got through maybe half of them, but then as I went back to the piece I didn’t like it. I envisioned something different and then I remembered the book, The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. If you have not read this book then it must go on your list to be read. I scoured my shelves and re-worked the piece again. I am thrilled with the possibilities and so I will share a few of them and they are rough. There are so many that have yet to be written, but this is where I am now and I am still struggling with each subtitle as well as how many to write. Yet another piece of writing that is never done, but is just done enough for now to make my point here on this blog, that writing and thinking takes time and that honoring where our students are in that moment is priceless.

And again, while I realize this is a very personal piece on an educational blog and even somewhat self-indulgent, I have come to realize that living a literate life is very personal and that we need more of these personal connections to allow us to see each other, face to face.

So here we go…

A Daughter’s Encyclopedia of Her Dad

A for Always

“You need to leave the hospital right now, ”Dad’s voice echoed, quiet yet firm. After 13 days of never leaving my leukemia-ridden 3 and a half year old Emma’s side, she was overdosed in one of her surgeries. My Dad was the first to arrive and he was the only one who told me to leave. And so for the first time I left. Dad drove me home to see Zachary and spend one night out of the hospital.

What I have come to realize after his death is that no matter what Dad had my back. I just knew that if I ever needed anything he would have been there and just knowing that keeps you from ever really needing anything at all…

“This too shall pass”, my Dad’s words of wisdom he shared with me when in the throes of Emma’s illness. And eventually it did.

B for Best Friend

My best friend, Krissy stopped by to say goodbye on her way to her new prep school hours away, Northfield, Mount Hermon. As we stood in the driveway sobbing together and lamenting our impending separation she said, “Why don’t you come too?”

And so I went and checked out the school, knowing that we did not have the money for me to go to private school, but interested to see where Dad had also gone when he was younger. (That was a story we all knew too well. How he hitchhiked there 3 times and begged them to accept him and yes, they finally did. “It changed my life,” he would say. ) Did I need my life to be changed?

He walked into my bedroom, pitch black and through the darkness he just said, “If you really want to go to Northfield, we will figure out a way to make it to happen.” And then he left the room.

I did not go. I didn’t need to go. I think I just needed to know I could go.

C for Call

I picked up the phone to hear Dad’s voice. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” And I would tell Dad what I had been up to and he would listen and respond. One day I was telling him the latest woes of parenting and he stopped me and said, “You have raised great kids.” Again I was left silent. The man of few words was speaking… and he was saying something from the heart. “No, I mean it. They are great kids. You have done a really good job with them.”

What he could not see were the tears running down my cheeks as I flipped the bacon and then Mom got on the phone. Per usual at that point he would make his exit and say with sarcastic contempt, “Well I will let you two talk for the next few hours” and he hung up.

And what he needs to know is that he too has raised 3 really great kids.

D for Dancing

I made my Dad do a Father Daughter dance at my wedding. My mother had often lamented at the lack of dancing and nights out on the town with my father. He resisted the idea of that dance, but just like one day when I came home from college and hugged my parents and forced my Dad to hug me back, I forced him to do that dance with me. Not only did he dance, but he even did it with a smile.

But you must know that dancing with my Dad was more like standing in the middle of a floor where there was music playing and making slight shuffles to the right and to the left. Rhythm was not really involved, but even standing there as he held me in dance position, right arm up left on my waist was enough. And Mom, I don’t think you missed much not making those nights out dancing with Dad!

E for Employee

As a new summer employee at my Dad’s newspaper, The New Hampshire Business Review, I was excited to finally be a bigger part of the family business. I envisioned learning the ropes of journalism and seeing what made a company tick. I was assigned to work for my sister under the term “data entry”. Day after day of entering information and categorizing it. God forbid I actually ask a question of my beloved “boss” as she would look at me in disgust and say, “I already told you how to do that!!” Never before had I felt like such a peon in a job. Even waitressing was easier than trying to fit into this very tight system that had been established so many years ago where I quickly realized that being a family member only meant there were higher expectations of you and no family bennies whatsoever. In fact, it began to seem like being family was more of a curse than a blessing…at least at the office!

One day while I was sitting in my Dad’s big black chair and spinning around like I used to when I was little I opened his top drawer to find a pen and instead I found a one and a half inch stack of checks. My gut sank as I looked to see that the check on top was made out to Don Madden. As I flipped through them all the same name appeared over and over and over again. A flipbook of Don Madden checks and the implications that he was paying everyone else made me gasp. His investment in this business ran deeper than I had ever realized.

I finished that summer and never complained again. It was my last time working at the paper.

F for Faces

Hey, do you see the face?” Dad would ask as he pointed at a picture, a painting or even out the window at a tree. Whereupon we would all look and sometimes we might see it and others we would have no idea what he was seeing. He “saw” things that others did not see be it in the visual, looking out the window or into the future political arena.

Since my Dad’s death I have started to “see” faces everywhere!! I am taking an intense course to become a yoga teacher and in that course we are studying anatomy and all through the lessons I see faces. Faces on ovaries, kidneys with eyes staring at me and then the profile of a young man peering out of the liver. Every time I see one I say hello to my Dad and am forever reminded that we must look, look and then look again with an open mind and you never know just what you might “see”.

H for Hugging

Hugging. From that day forward every time I saw my Dad I hugged him. Over time he came to expect it and dare I even say that he might have even leaned in first once or twice himself! He was an interesting hugger, more of a leaner really, but still I didn’t care. Some say huggers are buggers, but eventually they give in and realize that hugging isn’t so bad after all.

I for Indulgence

“Daddy, will you PLEASE do your Donald Duck voice?” we would plead for hours on end and usually the answer was no. To this day is amazes me how few times we actually heard it and it was something that tickled us pinker than pink as we would laugh and laugh. What was it that kept him from wanting to do it more? To indulge his kids just a few more times and yet if you think back, it made it all that much more incredible when he did it. “Less is more,” he would say if he was helping me with my writing. “Less is more”

L for Late

Driving home after curfew one night in the yellow bumblebee I devised a plan to pick up some speed down Page Road and then cut the engine and drift into the driveway with the lights off in hopes that I could “sneak” in and not be discovered. As I turned in, the car slowly moved towards the barn, activating the sensor bathing me in bright light. Damn, I thought as I began to open the car door and realized there was movement all around. As I looked closer I realized I had coasted into a sea of raccoons. Big raccoons, little raccoons, raccoons swarming the car and coming towards me. I slammed the door and began to scream, “Dad!!” “Dad!!” Of course he couldn’t hear me and so I layed on the horn. Eventually Dad appeared in his boxers and shooshed all the raccoons away, saying, “Get outta here ya saps!” As he was getting rid of them I made a dash for the house. He followed me in and said, “You’re late.”

M for Moving

“I am calling to check in with you because we looked at a house in New London and well, I just wanted to be sure that you were okay with that.” I paused in disbelief. Was my Dad actually calling to ask me about their life decision? The silence lingered and he said, “Are you there?” “Yes Dad, I am here.” “Well, you and your mother spend so much time together and well, I just wanted to know what you thought about us making this move.”

“Do what you need to do Dad, and I will be fine.” And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me that our relationship had shifted so dramatically over the years but that I hadn’t even realized it. The older he got the more he said and the more he said the more I listened. I am so glad they lived nearby for 10 years.

S for Swearing

Dad announced as we sat on the lime green carpet during a major heat wave in 1975 that we were going on a family vacation. Lisa, Jamie and I screamed and shouted with joy as visions of Disney rides and beaches and pools danced through our heads he said we needed to pack as we would be leaving at 4 in the morning just to get a good head start.

We woke at 4 filled with Christmas morning anticipation and settled ourselves into the blue paneled station wagon. Lisa and I settled into our makeshift bed in the very back complete with blankets and pillows and Jamie in his own bed in the middle seat with the cooler. Little did we know that we would never get out of the car except for the occasional bathroom break and over 14 days and 4,000 miles later having seen all of Newfoundland and even Labrador. Oh the stories from that trip!

It was the first time I ever heard Dad swear as he got back into the car at a random gas station as Mom was handing us snowballs and candy bars to keep us quiet and we were fighting over them and anything else from being in such a confined space for too long when Dad snapped and yelled, “All you kids do is fight, fart and swear!” I remember thinking…did Dad just say fart?

T for Tomasen

My name. Thank you Dad for making up the most incredible, bestest, most awesome name in the world just for me. Something about having my name always made me feel like I was different. (It also helped that Lisa was actually a tiny bit jealous of it too as I was jealous of most everything she had, especially that incredible cassette recorder she had in Weare, but I digress!) What I love most about my name are all of the stories it has generated. As a man of stories, and as a great storyteller I would imagine you might have thought, what kind of name would bring great stories?

W for Wondering

“I would like to come over, there seems to be something wrong with my computer.” He would arrive, laptop under his arm, and I would pour the coffee as he would begin to describe in detail just what was or was not happening with his laptop. We would sit together and I would map out the steps, write them down and he would thank me profusely for being so patient with him. “We always knew you would be a teacher,” he said. “The hours you would spend in your room with all of those imaginary students, we just knew you would be a teacher.

During one of those visits he told me that he was ok with dying. He talked and talked and told me that I was the “listener”. I didn’t know what to do with that information today as I wonder…years later…if he would have said the same thing on the day he died.

So, as you can see there are many pieces missing, many in process, and just a sampling of an attempt to remember the stories of my Dad.

Jeff Wilhelm in his book on narratives tells a story about a decision-making process one of his kids was making and asked this question, “Which decision will make the best stories?”

My Dad’s life in stories was what he would have hoped for. Of that I am sure. What I am not sure about is how many stories are still out there, untold, about my Dad and about all of those students we work with.

We are only as good as our stories and honoring those should be a part of our daily work with students, whether reading them, writing them and absolutely always celebrating them. Period. I mean, in the end, what else is there really?

Stupid is as Stupid Does: More on The Common Core

Posted on November 19, 2013 by conversationeducation

The other night we stumbled upon the movie Forrest Gump. Man, I forget what a great movie it is on SO many levels. The scene that really made me pause was when Forrest’s mother, played brilliantly by Sally Fields, is at the local public school and the principal holds up a life –sized graph with 3 sections. He points out the top section and says this is Above Average, then to the middle section indicating Average (duh!) and then to a point in the Below Average section stating, this is where Forrest lies. Her response is what I wish all of our responses are to the numbers we use to sum up our youth, our schools, our teachers and beyond. She looks at the Principal like he has lost his mind when he says Forrest will need to attend a special school where she retorts in her perfect southern accent, “Oh for God’s Sake, It is only 5 silly little points, the boy will be going to school here.” And that is the end of the scene. Soon after you see Forrest getting on the big yellow school bus.

Of course as you watch the embedded history lessons and how Forrest had a hand in so much that we never knew the one line that really sticks out is “Stupid is as stupid does.”

And that is where we are in education right now. Stupid is as stupid does. We are so caught up in those graphs and charts and data that we cant even see what is right in front of us. The more I hear the more stupid it all becomes and I think we need to be more like Mrs. Gump and stop giving these tests and everything that surrounds them so much energy and weight. Part of the problem is that there are so many stories, myths and misconceptions around the Common Core that nobody even knows what is going on.

See here to read “Ten Colossal Errors of the Common Core Standards: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/11/common_core_standards_ten_colo.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB

Did you know there are some schools here in New Hampshire who are saying “NO” to the Common Core? And while they ARE being penalized in terms of funding, losing about $100,000.00 they are looking forward realizing that to implement the tests surrounding the Common Core is going to cost their district over $200,000.00. Why are we so incredibly short sighted when it comes to these top down mandates. What are we so afraid of?

I have said it before and I will say it again, if my kids were starting in public school right now I would get them out! Or in the words of Jenny, “Run Forrest Run!” Run from the shackles of numbers and testing! Our kids are being used as lab rats and caught up in a sea of bureaucratic and political snares that have nothing to do with a better education for each. Our educational system is being bullied into the dregs of privatization where companies can and will dictate what happens in our schools.

Pearson already is! Pearson is an enormous conglomeration that has tentacles that reach into more areas of education than you cannot even imagine. This octopus of a machine has created the tests that children will take that are too hard on many levels. The other day I was sent a link to the Smarter Balance site where I could go in and “take” the test at many different levels. I chose 3^rd grade and went to the LA section. Immediately, I thought of all of the hundreds of 3^rd graders I have worked with and my anxiety level started to rise. The first question is about a Chinese child, Little Lang, who is learning his or her characters. I think of those who don’t have the background knowledge that Chinese characters are letters. This character goes off with his brush…how many 3^rd graders “write” with a brush? And it just goes from there. At the end there were multiple questions to answer and of course lots of places for written responses.

As a highly analytical person I can often see at least 2 very distinct answers that “could” be true or right. And after that question I went on to the second one and then realized this was only 2 out of 50! And that is JUST the Language Arts section.

Here is a link to the test. See for yourself!!

https://sbacpt.tds.airast.org/student/

And once the numbers come out we will see exactly what these tests are designed to do, to create a new narrative of the epic failure of our public school system. But as with every magical story there will be the night in shining armor who will show up in shiny new textbooks wrapped in bubble wrap, a colorful collage of books and workbooks to fix all of your districts woes in one fell swoop. And the publisher will be….yes, you guessed it, Pearson. The one who set up the tests in the first place.

And even more disturbing is that if you are really worried about test performance Pearson has test prep materials ready for sale to get all of your little lemmings in line. In fact one teacher in New York City found one of the exact prep test questions on the “actual” test! The message again? If you want to do well on these tests then you must have Pearson test prep. Do you see the irony here? Do you taste the incredible conflict of interest?

There are many things that have started to rumble around the country that give me hope! One group of parents in New York State sent all of their kids test scores back to the school and the company. Great! But the kids still had to suffer through the tests! Other groups are opting out of these tests and the more we get on board with this the more likely is that we can take back our educational system and begin from the ground up to rebuild it. Top down…stupid is as stupid does.

A link to Fair Test listing the many ways to Opt Out locally and Nationally: http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out

And although this video is showing up all over my Facebook feed I am going to link to it here as well because this kid has guts and makes some great points!! Again, he gives me hope. Imagine if more of our students stood up for what they think is right and just and fair.

http://youngcons.com/legit-tennessee-high-school-senior-decimates-common-core/

He is something huh? And as Forrest says “Momma always says life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” In this case, if you dig to the bottom of the box you can see quite clearly what we are gonna get, and it tastes nothing like chocolates!!

Learning as a Deeply Personal Experience: On Teaching Readers and Writers

Posted on October 6, 2013 by conversationeducation

The buzz of Mentor Texts has been around for quite a while now and while I like this idea, what I don’t like is that our young writers are often instructed to use a particular mentor text for a given time as assignments. Using a particular structure to do this, instead of exposing them to a variety of ideas and texts and then helping and guiding our students to figure out what would work best for them, the writers.

What would happen if we asked our young writers to first think about what it was they wanted to say, to write about, to read about, to discover and then come up with the best way to express this?

When my daughter was first diagnosed with leukemia I kept a journal and wrote down every single little detail of our experience. It was exhausting to get onto those pages all that I felt I needed to. Her every reaction to every drug, the times she received the doses, the different emotions experienced, missing my 8 month old at home. I quickly fell behind and was angry that I was missing so much of what I thought I needed to get down, in the name of control.

Book of Poetry by Dan Rothermel

And then one day someone brought me this small book called, Sweet Dreams, Robyn written by Dan Rothermel. It is a collection of poems he wrote about his daughter with cancer. This book transformed my writing life. Suddenly, I had the permission and allowed myself to write in poetry finding it easier to get down all that I wanted to without getting muddled in all of the pros it took. In the words of my Dad, “less is more” in writing.

With the death of my father I had this same experience as I was meandering through the blog world I found a blog that just spoke to me. She writes a fictional piece about the death of her mother and says,

“It came together when I was working on a blog post about Wallace Stevens one of my favorite poets. His “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” was on my mind while I was reading Paul Harding’s Tinkers.”

Her mentor Wallace Stevens gave her what she needed to capture what she wanted to write in fiction and I instantly knew that this too would be the perfect way for me to capture and process my father dying. Snippets of strong images that I needed to get down on paper and so her blog became my mentor text. It was more than perfect.

You can find her blog at http://deborahbrasket.wordpress.com/

So here is my version, based on the ideas I stole from her that she stole from Wallace Stevens.

13 Ways of Looking at Death Just Before, During and After

I called him on the phone, his voice weak and wavering as his hand fought to keep the phone still. “Hey Dad, how are you feeling?”

“Bad. This is Bad. What I have is really bad.” I cringe, as I know he knows it is bad. Sepsis. Blood infection on top of pneumonia not to mention his COPD, heart disease and diabetes…

He has never said it was bad before. He always said, “It is getting better.

It is bad.

His oxygen cord lies on the dirty floor as it takes her a moment to realize there are no lines crossing his face, lines of plastic jewelry tubes that have become as permanent as his glasses. He is not getting any air.

And she wonders…just how long has he been without oxygen?

She calls the nurse and insists he gets a new one. Nurse never responds to the absence of his air or how long he has been without it.

Idiots.

III

She is alone with him, Red Sox images flashing in the dark room, sound blaring while she simultaneously plays Candy Crush. He wakes, peers over and says, ”You are still here? I really appreciate that.”

I smile.

And we go on like that for hours.

The Sox won.

Won the AL East Title. He is not aware.

She hoped it was a good sign.

She is always looking for signs.

Today is a good day. He is out of bed, sitting up in the hospital chair as she enters. He starts talking, “You know I sat up all night trying to remember the kids names.”

She thinks it must be all of the grandkids that he is forgetting…he continues…

“I know I have 3 kids. 2 daughters and a son.”

“Yes that is right” she replies, as he looks up at her and says, “The first daughter is Lisa.”

“Yes Dad, Lisa is your first daughter.”

“Then there is another one, you, what is your name?”

Her 10-year-old self emerges and screams inside, YOU named me Dad!! Don’t you remember? I have the coolest name in the world because YOU made it up.

That’s enough of this name game.

We gotta get him the hell out of this hospital.

Me, My Dad and Lisa

My once virile father sits perched on the kitchen island pursing for air. How did he get in the house so quickly? My brother in law carried him in, like a baby in his arms, but he was amazed at just how heavy he really was, all filled up with 9 days of hospital IV fluids so he had to stop to rest.

We still laugh at the absurdity of my Dad sitting with his feet swinging on the kitchen counter. Who says you don’t go backwards?

He then carries him the next leg into the bed where he will remain until he dies.

Each breath is a struggle and you can tell it actually hurts. Never mind when he coughs. He just wants to feel better, but he doesn’t really as he tries to negotiate in his head that he is now home and how he thought being home would make him feel better…but he doesn’t. Now what? You can see it coursing across his forehead like the GMA banner in Times Square. Now what? Now what? Now what?

VII

Doctor came to the house. Yes, in 2013 a Doctor actually came to meet the needs of his patient. There is a God. (See previous post on Systems)

Dad chose hospice. Visions of nurses, social workers and support at our side danced her head as she wondered…does he really know what he is choosing?

She is sent up to the Local Colonial Pharmacy to get the “hospice kit”. A box filled with drugs and lots of other things medical that you don’t want to know about never mind even think about using.

She is the chosen one to give her father his first dose of comfort packaged in a needless syringe to be administered orally. Flashbacks of shoving chemo filled syringes disguised in chocolate pudding to her 3 and a half-year-old smack her in the face.

Click…she re-enters that mode and just does what she has to do. She has been here before and she just does it. Nurse Ratched is back in the house.

VIII

My brother arrives a few minutes after giving my Dad the morphine.

The pill that he was begging for.

The morphine that I was afraid of.

The morphine that came without the nurses and the social workers and the volunteers to help us through this process.

Where in the hell were those hospice people she had heard so many wonderful stories about?

All they got was hospice in a box that had to be refrigerated.

It was just My Mom and I with my Dad yelling at us, “Will you just give it to me for God’s sake, I don’t care if it is the wrong dose.”

He begged for relief as we became more and more agitated and unsteady in the moment, dropping syringes, reading and rereading the prescription and even calling the pharmacist.

And finally I just gave it to him as he gasped for air and I suddenly realized we too had been as negligent as the hospital.

His oxygen tank had run out. No wonder he was desperate for something. How many ways are there to torture a man?

And they left the room when her brother arrived.

Jamie and Dad

Morphine overdose. Her brother horrified that we left him alone with a his father who was fine and talking with him one minute and then was suddenly hallucinating and trying to get out of bed. His strength mammoth as my mother got in bed behind him to restrain him. He could not walk on those big boats of feet filled with fluid.

I call the VNA. I reach out for those hospice people who were supposed to be there and tell him we need help ASAP!!!!!

He responds that giving morphine is an “art” and not that you gave him too much but that if he had been there he would have started with a lower dose. After telling her this for the 4^th time she wants to reach out and punch him through the phone…then why the HELL would you hand it over to an amateur?

He arrives at the house and starts talking about the “art” of dosing morphine again!!! She sees red and runs from him to avoid physically clobbering him.

Next Time…I give him ¼ of the recommended dose.

Thank you, Honorary Dr. Brother James. It says you can give it every 30 minutes. One quarter of a dose lasted him 12 hours.

Insanity.

He lays in bed and sleeps, or so it seems, soundly for days on end.

The question dancing through the house…”when will it happen?”

The family has their own form of hospice in a “Come to Jesus” kind of scene from a bad Lifetime Movie. We all give him permission to go, hands on, tears flying. Sister Lisa actually seems to be cheering him up to the pearly gates. Everybody says their peace and then we all continue to sit with big red puffy eyes, exhausted and we wait.

He doesn’t go.

When will he go?

He doesn’t go.

From the background Cousin Anne tells us, “He isn’t going to go right now, it doesn’t happen like that.” And snaps us out of our delusions that we can will him to go in that moment.

The sleepless nights wear on as brother and sister get up at different times to peek in to see my mother sleeping next to my yes, still breathing, father.

Exhaustion settles into the house and takes a seat on the couch alongside us.

Maybe he is not going anywhere. Maybe he will live forever.

Meals are delivered. They are all amazed at how they just show up and are so thankful because eating and food have not been on their radar.

Dad has not really eaten or had anything to drink for over 12 days.

Unless you count 4 little bird bites here and there. I fed him his last scrambled egg from Lisa’s chickens a couple days ago. No solid food since eating 5 bites of that egg. No water. Nothing.

How does the human body beat on? Especially one we all thought was so fragile?

His Hands don’t even look like his anymore they are so filled up with fluid, boxers hands.

Every moment stretches on as you wonder…when will his last breath be? Who will be with him? She wonders all of these things as she crawls into bed with him and rubs his back and quietly cries for her Daddy while the Red Sox blare on the radio from the bedside table next to us.

“How can something so natural be so unnatural?” son James wonders.

XII

She wakes at 8. Walks downstairs past her sleeping brother and sees her mother making the bed around her father’s still body. His breathing has changed. It is short. Very short. She says, get the morphine.

I know I must give him him the rest of the syringe…the same dose I administered 5 days earlier…it was what he needed. He was hardly breathing.

Mom is on his right. She is on his left.

He opens his eyes for the first time since the morphine began. The biggest widest eyes you have ever seen and he looked over at my Mom and she said, “Look at those big beautiful brown eyes. I love those eyes. They have not been that open in years. I wonder why none of you got those eyes? I am the dominant one.”

“I always wished I had gotten those brown eyes I respond as his eyes then slowly trail to find me on the left. He stares right at me for a moment and then it is as if he is looking to something beyond me. He holds that gaze for what seems like forever before he moves his sights straight ahead and opens them even wider. He was seeing the light. He liked it. He felt peaceful as he took one long deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Is that it?” Mom and I looked at each other. It seemed to be. No pulse.

And then out of nowhere one last little breath just to mess with us as we laughed.

Dad died.

8:15 am on Sunday, September 29^th, 2013.

It was beautiful.

Dad and Mom taking flight on Chappy

XIII

She misses him. They all miss him. She is not sure what to do so she talks about him. She remembers him. She reads. She writes about him. She laughs at his Donald Duck impression stored away on her computer. She shuffles through years of pictures and marvels at how great he looked for so long regardless of his health issues. She thanks her Mom for keeping him so healthy for so long. She misses him. Every day.

He was a great man.

He had 9 lives.

He lived every one of them fully.

He was her Dad.

I love this piece because for me it captures all that I want to remember and all that was there during this incredibly intense, scary, weird time. I feel better after reading about others experiences and then writing my own.

What would have happened had I been in a student in class and I was asked to write a recipe or a persuasive essay from one character in my assigned book to another when all I could think about was my Dad? Do we consider the lives of our writers, where they are and what they have to say and what they are interested in reading about?

I would argue that right now we teach the writing and not the writers. We teach the reading and not the readers. We think about checking things off. Persuasive Essay, check, Informational Reading, check, Memoir, check, Close Reading, Check.

What would happen if we trusted and guided readers and writers to know, to figure out what it was they wanted to know more about, what they wanted to say and then focused on helping them discover the best way or ways to read about it and say it? If we gave them the time to read others and think to themselves, “Hey, I could write something like that!”

Reading and Writing are my “go to’s” when I am trying to figure something out, process emotions, inform, wonder, preach, question, express, persuade, create, think, communicate, get lost and so many other things. What if the goal of every reading and writing curriculum was to help our readers and writers see reading and writing as a “go to” and not just a series of assignments to be completed, but tools for life?

And while this all may seem incredibly personal for a blog on education, I believe I am finally finding my stride in that a real and true education is deeply personal.

And I wonder…are we afraid of this authenticity? These truths?

And even as I consider posting this, putting it out into the world, I question myself. Do we want to hear or read these truths? Why do I put it out there? And while I know none of these answers I only know that I will…

Follow the link below to read my Dad’s obituary beautifully written by my sister, Lisa.

http://www.chadwickfuneralservice.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2263261&fh_id=12966

Let’s Simplify, Not Justify: In Defense of the ART of Teaching

Posted on June 11, 2013 by conversationeducation

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. “

John Steinbeck

What is the art of teaching??

In the children’s book of the Three Questions, a retelling of the original story by Leo Tolstoy, a young boy is on a quest to find the answers to these three questions:

When is the best time to do things?
Photo Credit: kellykorenek.wordpress.com
Who is the most important one?
What is the right thing to do?

As Nikolai goes off to meet with the wise old tortoise to find the answers to his questions he discovers that when he is not searching for the answers, he actually finds them. He rescues a mother panda bear and her baby from a terrible storm as the tortoise looks on and observes the boys actions.

Nikolai is still disappointed at the end of this ordeal because he is frustrated that he has not been given the answers. The tortoise wisely tells him that his questions were answered through his actions. He ends the story reminding the boy.

Photo Credit: bookimagecollective.blogspot.com

“Remember then that there is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. For these, my dear boy, are the answers to what is most important in this world. This is why we are here.”

This is why we are here and this is why I love to teach in a workshop because this kind of teaching and learning requires us all to be present. These are the essential questions that matter in my teaching in the moment, an essential part of the “art” of teaching. Keeping true to this art of teaching requires careful listening, intuition and improvisation on the part of every person in the workshop; most importantly, the teacher. There is no guidebook to where you can check off what you are going to do because the truth is that you don’t know what you are going to teach until you are in that moment with that child. Terry Moher, in her work on conferring refers to this as “teaching not knowing.”

Photo Credit: wondergressive.com

One problem is that there is so much noise and distraction in schools right now . I would love for every person, administrator, parent, citizen and politician to go and just shadow a teacher for a day. Yes, one whole day so that they can see first hand just what is being asked of teachers. So much of what is deemed necessary is done so by others, it has become more about justifying every action, each student, their numbers, their percentages, their scores and less about “who” that student is and what is is they might need.

The distractions away from the simplicity of teaching our students are more numerous than you can even imagine. There is a hurried frenzy that seems to buzz through so many schools. Lost is the feeling of nurturing, slowness and taking each moment at a time. Disappearing from early childhood classrooms are blocks, dress-up centers, imaginative play areas, sand tables and any element of play. Teachers are more frazzled and students, if they buy in to this system, are as well. The pressure to perform is on and yet…to what end?

Photo Credit: magazine.byu.edu

When I model lessons in classrooms one of the most common responses is, “that was great, BUT, I don’t have that kind of time to allow kids to think things through.”. I would argue that we don’t have time NOT to let them think!! And in this I believe that we all must make choices and for me it is as simple as asking myself and grounding my teaching in these 3 questions, When is the most important time? Now. Who is the most important one? The one I am with. And what is the right thing to do? It is to do good for the one at my side. What if we just made it that simple? What if that was at the very CORE of what we were doing in all of our schools with all of our kids?

More time to simplify. Less time to justify.

It just simply makes sense to me.

Photo Credit: http://www.etsy.com

Reflections on Drama, Drama Worlds and the Land of Misfit Kids

Posted on June 4, 2013 by conversationeducation

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in him time plays many parts.” William Shakespeare, As You Like It.

I have always been a great fan of using drama and movement in the classroom. Here I look at the dramas that unfold regardless of what we do or don’t do.

As I enter the room I look around. Who is here? Who is not here? Who is talking to whom and who is not talking to anyone? What is the “pulse” of the group today? Is the energy high? Low? Medium? Do I read stress, playfulness, and exhaustion? What does this group hold today? What dramas are unfolding before my eyes? What will happen in this class today?

Photo Credit: hobbinol.wordpress.com

By observing drama worlds within our classrooms we then invite our students to “read” the drama actions going on in their worlds with a heightened sense of awareness, reflection and learning. Each classroom is unique just as each individual within each classroom is unique. Understanding one’s self, the group and being able to “see” from someone else’s point of view allows us to teach empathy and real life skills that will be forever invaluable for our students. We can call this “dramatic consciousness” where we ask of our students and ourselves to be aware of what is happening in and around us, within the books we read, the characters we create and the meaning that we ultimately make for ourselves.

“Dramatic consciousness means bring aware that there is dramatic action taking place in one’s life, in one’s work, in the lives of the people who make up the school community. It implies being present to that drama, engaged in its passions, struggles and adventures, rather than being psychologically distant, removed from the action.”

Robert J. Starratt, The Drama of Schooling: The Schooling of Drama

Photo Credit: http://www.adaptastraining.com

One year, my first year at a new school I had the privilege of getting a class of “misfits”. I say this with love for each of these children, but the truth of the matter was that I had gotten all of the students whose parents had not made requests for other teachers. I was new, the unknown and the keeper of all of the students whose parents did not know to make requests or were just not interested in doing so. This group of kids was one of the most challenging and consequently rewarding groups I have ever worked with. We spent much of the year working on group dynamics and accepting people for who they were. When I say misfits I am talking about all of those kids who had something incredibly special about them that had yet to be nurtured. They were a group for whom school was not a comfortable stage. They were a group, who by the end of the year became the tightest knit group of students I have ever had.

“And so faith is closing your eyes and following the breath of your own soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and non-existence have merged into relevance. All that matters is the little part you play in the vast drama.”

-Anonymous

As individuals they were as different as they were talented. The everyday work of school, sitting at one’s desk and performing a series of tasks was not going to work for not just a couple of them, but literally for none of them. If they were not coded then they were labeled with some kind of something that supposedly hindered their ability to learn. They were also the group that took to drama more than any other. It was a way for them to be and to show their learning through movement. It was what eventually made this group do things that were beyond comprehension. Every day was filled with dramatic activities and chances for kids to “become” someone other than themselves. Puppetry, theater, role-playing, Picture Book Dramas, Joke – Telling, Songs, Poet’s Theater were parts of every day often inspired by the students themselves.

One beautiful spring day I was called to the principal’s office to discuss an upcoming “fight” that was to take place the very next day. The rumor was that many of the kids in my class were involved. Involved? That was putting it mildly. They had all gotten together as a class for each recess for weeks and worked on the planning and execution of this upcoming “event”. It was to be a showdown between two boys in our class who had agreed to “fight”. There was a marketing committee who went around at each recess talking up the upcoming event. There was a sales committee that created and sold tickets to the event. There were judges, participants and even prizes to be donated by various other students in the class. There were flyers made, and all of the the other third grade classes were buying the tickets and oh yes, did I mention, they were also placing bets on who would be the winner? In their own time they had created an entire drama world where each of them were the stars. The organization, thoughtfulness and planning that went into this event was amazing. But, we were at school and what were we going to do about this? The fight was cancelled, much to the relief of the contenders and monies were returned to the rightful owners. Letters of apology were written and yet, through it all there was a part of me that was actually proud of these kids and what they had almost pulled off.

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”

-Oscar Wilde

Photo Credit: http://www.tumblr.com

So, I took the pulse of the group and ran with it. We broke down the drama of the event they had planned, unpacked it and gathered on the carpet and discussed all of the skills they used to plan and eventually execute such an event. After mapping them out I proposed that we use all of these skills in order to plan an event that might actually help someone or a cause. The thinking began and the ideas started to flow. What would we do? At the time we were studying the rainforest and after careful consideration it was decided that we, as a class, would buy a portion of a rainforest. The efforts to raise money began as the kids headed up different committees and the money was eventually earned and we purchased an acre of a rainforest that would never be destroyed. We received a picture and a document stating it had been saved and the best part was that out of this planning and execution nobody got hurt and even better part of the world was saved.

“Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.”

John Updike

It seems to me that too often in our school worlds we see things in black and white. Sure, what they planned was inappropriate for school, but as a group it was an amazing feat. Here was a group of kids who lingered on the outskirts of the popular kids, who became, as a group, the focus of the third grade recess. They had planned an event that every other third grader wanted to be a part of. As a group these students created and made a drama world where they were center stage and not behind the scenes where most of them had been most of their school careers. And even as I write this I realize that this is not completely true because many of those kids were front and center, but not in a place that was helping them. Many were in trouble with the “law” for numerous accounts and even in this we need to ask, what is the drama action that is happening and what need is it fulfilling? Attention. Working together they were able to get this attention in a positive way.

We spend a great deal of time focusing on everything that is wrong. What is right? These kids were brilliant….but school was never a place where their genius was discovered. I just think we can do better. And part of better is helping kids to see their roles in life, in school and as individuals. Lights, Camera…ACTION!

Photo Credit: shakespeareinaction.wordpress.com

The Power of Modeling, Connection, Trust and Play

Posted on May 14, 2013 by conversationeducation

When my daughter Emma was three, she was playing happily in her corner of the kitchen where I had created her own little “house” complete with a wooden hutch, oven, highchair and cradle for her own dolls. She spent hours creating her own reality of being a Mom. One day I was about to wander in when I stopped and peered around the corner (yes mothers do spy!) and as I watched her rock her baby and look into her eyes adoringly, one of those warm washes of love and perfection poured over me. It was a moment that I wanted to sink into and enjoy.

Emma took her baby, placed her into the high chair and began feeding her and gently said, “Eat, dammit. Eat your food, dammit.”

Emma

I stood there in horror, unable to move and continued to watch. After the lovely meal, Emma placed her baby into the cradle and in a very nurturing way, covered her up with the blanket and said, “Now time to go to sleep, dammit.”

Again, that word hit me, smacked me right across the face and left a sting. What had happened to my perfect mother moment?

“Emma”, I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Putting my baby to bed. She is tired.”

“I see that. I heard you use a “D” word that I was wondering about.”

“A D word?” she contemplated. “Oh, Dammit?”

“Yes that is the one.”

“Oh, that is my baby’s name Momma.”

Silenced again.

The power of modeling…

I have been known to tell this story when working with teachers to show how modeling is one of the most powerful tools we have and that we can use it to show our literate lives for our students every day. It is what we do, not just what we say. We need to talk about what we read, write and wonder; to show them first hand that literacy is not about school, it is about life and how we choose to live this life. When students see that we are interested in writing, reading books, articles, blogs, on-line periodicals, newspapers etc., they can “see” how we live each literate day. When we talk about a great book we found at a used bookstore or bring in our favorite children’s book, they can catch a glimpse of our lives beyond the four walls of school. And they begin to consider theirs as well.

Bridging the gap between “school” reading and “life” reading is critical. As an instructor in the English Department at the University of New Hampshire’s Learning Through Teaching professional development program, I have the privilege of going into classrooms and supporting teachers in their coursework. Every time I enter a classroom I have my Writer’s Notebook and other sundry of books with me. It could be a couple of children’s picture books, the current novel I am reading, or more recently my Ipad. Kids ask me about the ever-present essentials (appendages?) that I carry with me. They are curious and I can open them up and share small pieces of myself with them. It is an entry point for conversations about reading and writing.

When I am modeling a lesson for a teacher or group of teachers, I start by talking to the class about my passion for reading and writing; my excitement over a new author I have found, what I am working on myself in writing or how a word looks or sounds. And it is authentic. I love words. I love to read and write and when kids feel that from me, they too want to be a part of that energy. It is infectious and it is not hard to get them to buy in as I ask them to repeat a word with me, a nice long juicy word like onomatopoeia, that they can take home with them and share with their families. “There is a world in a word,” Lev Vygotsky wrote and it’s up to us to open up those worlds.

Toting Libba Moore Grey’s, My Momma Had a Dancin’ Heart under my arm, I entered Emily Spear’s wonderful and familiar first grade classroom where I was greeted with hugs and an offer for one of those famous birthday cupcake that are handed to you with great love and grey grubby hands. I received the confection’s love, knowing it would never get eaten and smiling at the gesture.

I settled into the comfy rocker and had a brief time to reconnect as they told me about their latest ventures in writing. Voices rang all around me as they shared their latest “sound” words. Three little girls got closer and asked about the pink necklace I was wearing twirling it in their hands and marveling when I told them it was a crystal. “ooooh…you must be rich!”. I explained it was a gift from my sister and that SHE was the rich one because she had ME for a sister. They giggled.

Taking this time to connect with these kids is a critical part of the modeling process. It only took a few minutes, but in that time my words and actions showed them I was interested in THEM. This gives me an advantage because I have re-established our working relationship and can then move into our writing time together. I am reconnecting and we are exchanging trust in these small moments.

I read aloud, knowing that I wanted to model Moore’s use of playfully hyphenated words as a craft the kids could name and experiment with. I stopped and wrote some examples on the white board:

tip-tapping

song-singing

finger-snapping

We talked about these words and wondered why the author would use the hyphen. They quickly identified that it made it into one word, made the reader say the word more quickly and created rhythm. For each dance in the book I asked for a volunteer to get up and “perform” each season’s ballet. They were eager to move and the movement brought this story to life for all.

We then brainstormed a name for these words and the list consisted of

1.describing words

2. two words in one

3. DASH-ing words.

It was democratically decided that DASH-ing words described them most accurately because of the dash (hyphen) and use of the suffix ”ing” on the end of each word. And while some may be thinking this is not correct it is playful and something the kids will remember. Let’s just call it poetic license! Next, I asked them to go and try out some of the DASH-ing words in their own writing.

And the play began. Some kids came up with what we called Double DASH-ing words such as tweet-tweet-tweeting. Morgan, who I thought was struggling was left to her own thinking for some time and arrived at my side with this incredible poem:

Swish-swash

Slush-sliding

Icicles-banging

Against the long

White world

But the world

Is not always white

Wow! I just love the image of the long white world…

We all came back to the carpet, shared our DASH-ing words and created a chart with all of the examples the kids had come up with, creating a classroom “model” that they could refer back to and add to.

Photo Credit: http://recoveringyou.com/trusting-an-addict/

I left the room, again humbled at the brilliance of these kids and just what they can do if given the time, space, place and a model of what is possible. Trusting our students. What a concept and something we can all do, Dammit!!

Conversation Education

Talking through what it means to lead a literate life and beyond.

Category Archives: teaching

School Shootings: A title I never wanted to write.

Remembering Jean Robbins

Gathering the Light

Stories and More: A Daughter’s Encyclopedia of Her Dad

Stupid is as Stupid Does: More on The Common Core

Learning as a Deeply Personal Experience: On Teaching Readers and Writers

Let’s Simplify, Not Justify: In Defense of the ART of Teaching

Reflections on Drama, Drama Worlds and the Land of Misfit Kids

The Power of Modeling, Connection, Trust and Play

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