#iwishmystudentsknew

After spending several months trolling twitter and its hashtag #wishmyteacherknew and thinking to myself, "wow, I really want to do this with my students" I came upon an article that has changed my perspective.  I am sure there are lots of things that my students would like to tell me but not knowing how to write or spell is a barrier to the philosophy behind this trending hashtag.  I have even spent hours trying to figure out how to do this activity with my students. I've asked myself "why am I so determined to try and do something my students may not be ready for?" I've figured it out.  (I think).  I know how many outside factors affect a child's ability to learn.  I know that a child born in August will learn at a different rate than a child born in September (assuming the birthday cut off date is September 1).  What it has taken me a while to "see" is what these affecting factors actually look like in the classroom.  I'm only in my second year of teaching the same grade and already I can see the differences things like socioeconomic status, prior social experience, nuclear family structure, and culture make.  My determination to participate in #iwishmyteacherknew is rooted in the fact that I want my students to know that I know how much of how they can learn is out of their control. That being said, here is my list of #iwishmystudentsknew.

I wish my students knew:

• I constantly think about them-even when I am not at school
• I am always learning, and want to be a better teacher
• I sometimes don't think I know what I am doing
• I try so hard to teach everything that sometimes it feels like I taught nothing.
• I insist that everyone is kind to one another all the time because my peers were not kind to me when I was in school.
• I forget to smile because I take my job of teaching so seriously.  I'm not mad, promise.
• I cry when I get frustrated, just like you. 
• The real story of why I became a teacher.

Even writing these things down has made me realize how powerful my relationships with my students is.  It can make all the difference in the world and I know that above all, this is what I can control in order to provide my students with the opportunity to learn.  

Another thing I wish my students knew is that I had teachers who thought I was special and did not give up on me and that is what pushes me to remember to exercise a lot of patience when teaching. It was not until recently I learned that my sixth grade reading teacher spent a long time (months perhaps?) getting me to read something other than The Boxcar Children for literature.  That is dedication.  

A special teacher, whom I never was a student of, is the reason I am a teacher.  She used to pay me to grade science journals when I was 14. She made it fun with her wicked sense of humor. She was one of the first ones to write me a letter of recommendation to apply for teaching jobs.  Later, when I got my teaching degree, I was her substitute. I wish I could call her often, especially to tell her about all my "ah-ha" moments in my classroom.  There are lots.  

Writing this entry has had an effect on my I did not expect.  I started this entry because I wanted to be a part of a social media trend and explain why I was so drawn to participate in it, especially since I had found a way to, through the hashtag #iwishmystudentsknew.  However, what I did not expect is to be reflecting on what I know affects and drives my desire to teach.  Even though I may not be able to explain most of these to my students, I realize how important it is reflect upon myself as a person rather than focusing on the mechanics of a lesson and how I could change it.  I think this (blogging) is a habit I will have to get back in to because I recall how much I learned from doing this during my master's classes.  

Ciao for now and here is to a great new school year.

Truth: It can be taught

There was a huge milestone for my class today.  Like, so big it was almost EPIC! Seriously. Wait for it....drum-roll please!!!! All of my students walked from our classroom to the gym for PE in a straight line, WITHOUT talking. Seriously, it was so amazing. The best part was that three other teachers saw my kinders walking in their most awesome line and were impressed!! e even got a shout-out from another teacher-"kinders, you're rocking the hallway today!" It was mind blowing! I did not know that something as simple as teaching kids how to walk in a civilized manner in the hallway could be so incredibly rewarding. Oh my goodness. I am still elated just thinking about this HUGE milestone that my students have passed.
Okay, so maybe there is the possibility that I am enjoying kindergarten way more than I ever thought I would. It really is enjoyable.  I am to a point now that I can do a little breathing and think about my classroom as a group of learners that I am going to have for the whole entire year!! They're all mine! That might sound a little creepy but  having subbed year after year after year and never having a group of kids long enough to see if I was even effective at my job was frustrating.  Knowing that I have the opportunity to apply what I have been learning, through formal education with my Master's Degree and classroom experience, is absolutely mind blowing to me.
I honestly feel like I won the lottery with this job.  The community of professionals I work with are top notch.  Everyone I interact with really wants to be at school and a part of the community.  I have never really been able to articulate what I was missing as a substitute as far as teaching but now that I have it, I am struggling to describe it.  The community.  It is that good.  Having a principal who supports me 100%, checks in on me on a regular basis, and follows through with what she says she is going to do, AND visits my classroom is outstanding! I've never had a principal come in and just want to observe.  It doesn't bother me at all to have people visit my classroom. In fact, I like it when people check in because they are another mind I can glean information from in order to improve the learning that is happening in my class!
Speaking of visitors, I had a big one in my classroom last Thursday.  Actually, it might have been Tuesday. I can't remember. I am sitting down at the carpet with my students, in a circle.  It is the first day of our new science unit and I have just brought out the worms in their bins and am giving instructions on how to hold the worm in addition to introducing vocabulary They are very excited to get new critters to hold and observe. I have quite a few scientists in my class. :) The students are anxiously awaiting a turn to see what I have in the dirt and worm filled containers.  In walks the superintendent! She is very nice and had a badge on so I knew she was someone important from the district.  She promptly sits down in my students' circle and dives right into the lesson as I take a roundworm (the ones that get really, really long and skinny in the rain), and ask "who wants to hold a worm?" and the class erupts into screams of surprise, glee, joy, nervousness as they wait for their chance to hold or look at a worm.  I wasn't quite sure how she would take the loud excitement but she just hung around, asked the kids questions, held a worm and said thank you for letting her visit! I love visitors!

I feel I can't close this post without a shout-out to all have supported me and encouraged me while I have started this new job.  It has been amazing to be surrounded by people who genuinely are excited that I am teaching kindergarten in my very own classroom. It's still a bit surreal that I get to wake up and go to the same classroom every single day, until the end of the school year.  Really. It's happening.

Learning curves, Kindergarten style

Hello! This and the forthcoming posts are a dramatically different approach to teaching that I was experiencing four years ago at this time.  Four years ago, I was juggling five grades, in a culture I knew nothing about, with very little constructive feedback that was useful.  I left feeling bitter about teaching but not yet ready to give up.  After all, I had started my master's program at SPU and figured that continuing to learn would give me a shot at landing my dream job.  It took four years but I think I have landed my dream job.  Though kindergarten is not a grade I would have told you I would voluntarily teach, it seems it was the job that I needed to break though and gain the experiences I have been craving.  I am finally putting all that conceptual, textbook knowledge to good use.  Further I actually see the impact of an effectively run professional community looks like.  I did not know what a professional community looked like as a participant.  As a sub and a student at SPU I gained all sorts of factoids and concrete data about what works in a school, what doesn't work, and the many types of professional structures that can exist in a school.  I'm experiences it and it is a thousand times better than reading about it.  When you read about something, you tend to think, "awwww, that's nice," or "sounds good in theory but what about practice?" There is no reading and doubting here.  It's real.

 In the first two weeks of my job I have set goals, attained them, critiqued them, reflected upon myself as a teacher and the skills I have and need to learn.  A huge factor in this is the fact that I have a mentor who I work with on a weekly basis, who helps me by walking me through the evaluation process, providing feedback, and answering my questions (about anything!!).  The second critical factor is that I have a principal who wants to be in my classroom!! This is one of those conceptual things that I knew was supposed to happen but had never experienced it knowing I would get feedback that would help me improve.  It's amazing to come out of a meeting with my principal feeling as though I am not failing as a teacher and that it's absolutely okay to not be perfect at everything.  I was also told I am very intuitive towards what I need to learn and the amount of reflection I can provide about myself and teaching is incredible.  (Thanks SPU!) I thank SPU because my entire program consisted of reflecting upon myself as a teacher and my teaching experiences.

My principal is also a hoot. She is hilarious.  She is also one of the most straightforward, honest, and caring people I have met.  She truly wants me to succeed as a kindergarten teacher.  Even when she hired me, she told me that she knew my experience was not in kindergarten and that she would provide the support I needed to scaffold my knowledge of kindergarten instruction.  In my feedback today, she reiterated that she is keeping my learning curve in mind.  It's incredible.  I cannot say that enough.  To finally have a professional community where rambling on and on about teaching is acceptable and you feel supported and welcomed is the most amazing thing ever.

Labels and feeling Christian (or not)

I have to say that perspective is everything.  I frequently get a look of shock when I tell people that I voluntarily coordinate/direct youth at my church.  I certainly don't do it alone, I have another trusty adult or two by my side as I attempt to guide these youth towards what it means to be a Christian.  However it was recently brought to my attention that I am most certainly not a youth director, I am a youth coordinator.  There is a distinquished line between the two labels, apparently.  However, I have been thinking a lot about what it is like to be told I am not something.  This is not the first time I have been told I am not something but somehow it has gotten me to think deeper about who I am and what I am wanting to do with my life.  For the past few years I constantly hear, well you're not a real teacher when you're a substitute.  I have learned to take the comment as an opportunty to make people think what a real teacher is.  In fact, I once asked a group of students what is a fake teacher, if I am not real?  I can't remember the reaction but it certainly got them to stop and think about the meaning of their statement that I am not a real teacher.  I think I am comforted to know that I have an answer to being told that I am not a real teacher.  I answer a question with a question .  So how do I respond what I am told I am not a youth director? This one is harder that the being told I am not a real teacher because I have not had as many years preactice being a youth director as I have being a teach. 

Right now I am really uncomfortable with being told that I am not a youth director.  I keep asking myself what is the difference between a youth director and a youth coordinator? Why do I do what am doing with youth when I am told I am not something?  I will tell you that it is the youth who drive me.  I want them to experience what feeling like a Christian is.  I want to provide them with opportunities to view Christianity from their own eyes and express themselves.  I want to create great moments of question because I think that is one of the greatest gifts I can offer to a youth.  

Tonight at Theology Pub I was able to listen to different viewpoints on youth ministry and what it provides for a church.  The concencus was that, as a result of having youth in one's congregation and providing them with opportunities to serve their church, experience large gatherings with other Lutheran/Chistian youth, and building a comfortable community, you get the future of the church.  So what happens when the support to keep engaging these youth is not there? I'm left feeling slightly deflated and wondering how to I minister to youth who do not have pastoral leadership. 

The conversation tonight was evolutionary and we really dug deep into the shifting ideology of society and how this creates a challange in ministry.  Can we minister the same way we did 15 or 20 years ago? Most certainly not because the culture and demographics of church have changed.  Church is not always the center of people's day to day routines.  I see this in the ratio of families who come on a regular basis and sacrifice things like sports to come to church compared to those who attend church service or activites when it's convenient to their schedule. Dispite not being able to minister in the exact same way as I was ministered to 20 years ago, I still think there is a key to ministering and connecting to today's youth.  Excitement.  They have to feel the excitement of what it is like to interact with other youth in the non traditional setting of church.  I like to call it "feeling Christian."  The great thing about "feeling Christian" is that there is not one way to feel Christian.  The downside is that it is hard to describe what feeling Christian feels like because it is different for everybody and being in different places and spaces make each of us feel different.  The other thing is that it take an enormous amount of faith in one's self to continue to search for more of that feeling once you have experienced it.  Getting youth to that experience is one of the challanges I face in what I do.  I now am asking myself questions like "so, just what am I doing to provide these youth with experiences to feel Christian?" or "how do I understand what experiences they crave to experience feeling and being Chrsitian?" It's a tough one that I do not have the answer to as I have just asked myself the question. 

 I still cannot describe in a concise amount of words the feeling that I get going to the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans two years ago.  That feeling spreads like a virus when you have 35,000 (yes, that is THOUSAND) youth in one city on a mission to experience serving others on a large scale.  I get giddy with excitement just thinking about it, let alone talking about it.  But that is just it, the feeling I can't describe is what I want my youth I am ministering to to feel so they can be strong and sure in their own faith.  This excitement leads to the passion of outreach; the desire to work for the benefit of others.  I think this is really hard in today's society where value is measured in things, best car, most money, highest paying job, latest smart phone, you get the idea.  Creating a feeling of Christianity is hard (keep in mind, I use feeling singularly but am implying that each individual has their own feeling) but that might just be what I am being called to do as a youth leader/coordinator/minister/director/mentor/whatever you want to label it.  

What this week has taught me is how important it is to listen and check in with myself periodically ensure that I am whole and right in my own faith so I can lead others.  I would not be a good leader if I was not taking care of my own faith. 

 How I take care of my faith has certainly changed over the past few years but what has continued to grow is that excitement of being a Christian and all it has to offer me so I can continue to give back to others.  The word community has come up frequently over the last few weeks at Theology Pub  as well.  Community is certainly what attracts me to and keeps me coming back to the church I grew up in.  It's a familiar context in which I know what being Christian "looks like."  One question i ask myself is how to do I create circumstances or point out opportunities to be a part of the church community and break away from labels? At the moment, itt feels very separate.  But I don't know how to always bridge that gap that exists.  For now, I am going to keep ministering in the best way I know how and to be a role model so hopefully some of my excitement for God will catch on.  

Continued healing

Last night was quite revolutionary for me.  I didn't realize how much I needed to take care of myself so that I can continue to serve others.  Throughout the service last night, I was thinking about how I can bring more clarity into my life so that I can deal with the stressors and approach them with "dealing" mechanisms, rather just coping mechanisms.  It was so nice to go to church in a sanctuary I was not constantly looking around to see who is there so I can catch them after Sunday school or give parents paperwork for their youth. I was anonymous, and it felt nice.  I could focus on myself and really learn and understand how I needed to take care of myself.  

Today, with the Sunday school program I clearly understood the reason I felt compelled to go to a longest night worship service last night.  The chaos of getting kids into costumes, making sure every kid and adult had their script and knew where they were supposed to be would surely have been wearing on me had I not gone to worship and given some of my burdens back to God.  I don't always thing of emotional burdens as something that can be given away and often it takes an experience where I realize that my reaction is totally irrational and there is  a feeling of not having much left of myself to give.  And so I went.  The trusty words, "and also with you" that I have repeated all my life connected me to the elderly woman who had so much to give through her own grief.  I guess this is what it takes to have faith and why I keep having it.  Sometimes I have to be reminded to not hold onto and control everything.  It's hard and the main reason I have faith in God.  I'm not the one in control and that sometimes takes attending a church service because you're pulled towards the experience even though you don't understand why.  

Healing for Myself

Well, I think I figured something out tonight.  I don't want another fake Christmas where I am pretending to be happy to keep others believing that I am totally happy around the holidays.  Quite frankly, this time of the year is the toughest, not only because I am missing those who have died before I was ready but the dark, grey days make it difficult to think about being happy and focusing on the hope that I know I can feel at times.
I did something different tonight, something I have never done before.  I went to my very first longest  night service and boy was that what I needed.  I spent the day baking with friends and thought that I was going to be okay but as I was driving home, something happened that made me decide that I needed to go, even if I did not know how I was going to react.  I was being tailgated by a person who wasn't as lucky as me to have two working head lights.  They were unhappy that I had to hit my breaks to avoid hitting the person in front of me who had slowed down for the accident on the side of the road.  Rather than just slow down, let the person pass, I break checked them, and then laid on my horn long and hard, I mean, I pushed the horn until it was not possible to push it any more because they cut me off prior to speeding off.  I decided right then and there that I was too angry at someone else's stupidity and I needed to do something about it.  So, thankfully google has voice activated searching which allowed me to search for Advent Lutheran Church to find out if they had a longest night service.  Turns out, they didand despite   being 20 minutes late, I was welcomed with a scarf, a pack of tissue, and a hug.  It was the most raw I had allowed myself to feel in church in a long time.  I  t is amazing how safe a sanctuary makes you feel.  I finally felt free to let my emotions out and be true to what I was feeling.  Sad, grief stricken, and hopeful.  No matter how horrible I feel, that hope is always there.  God.  He's always there.  They must be the same thing.  If both are always there, no matter how I feel, then it's true and what I need, even if the only thing telling me what I need is my gut feeling.  I had no idea, that after sitting in church tonight, how relieved I would feel.  Relief from my anguish and what I am scared of.  Relief from trying to handle the burdens of life by myself.  I admit that sometimes God isn't the first person I think of the let my burdens go to.  It seems like I should always go to God first, because of my Christianity, but I don't.  I'm a flawed human, who often tries to talk herself out of feeling a certain way just because there are feelings that one should not feel towards others, like expectation.
The feeling of disappointment after trying so hard to please an unappeasable person, wears down on me.  It's often so much more work to hide the disappointment and shame that I feel after disappointing someone who makes their own choices, reacts in their own way, and chooses their words without thinking.  This year is about me.  Not me in a sense that I want to be the center of attention because I would much rather  be the observer who continues to learn to notice what goes on around her, but the me who focuses on keeping herself healthy.  I really want to break my habit of talking myself out of feeling certain ways because someone else might get offended by my feeling that way.  Strangely enough, I think the person who I fret about the most is the one who probably feels the same way.  It's hard to not understand why the other person doesn't react/feel the same as you.  It's hard to accept that the other person can't/won't/doesn't deal with having the same feelings I wrestle with. I recently realized that I am putting too much effort into acting in way that prevents an honest reaction from another person.  I am not being true to myself.  In an effort to be selfless I have neglected myself and that is unhealthy.
Tonight I went to a church where I was not running around doing fifty thousand things at once nor was I the one arranging for youth to be at the right pace at the right time, connecting with parents constantly to convince them that growing up in a church is not just about fun youth stuff but rather about family in the family of the congregation.  I could think about myself.  It was a relief.  I began to see the hope again.  I feel renewed and can see more of the hope. There was a grandma in front of me, who had more worry lines on her face that she should have to bear.  She held my had, while hers was shaking with age and just squeezed it as hard as she could to try and take just some of my pain away.      After the service was over she bent over and reminded me that God will bless me with the strength I need to live.  All I could manage to say through my tears was "and also with you." What a typical Lutheran response. After she and her husband left, another member of the church game over to sit by me, (and bring me kleenex which I desperately needed).  All she did was sit and let me know she was there.  What a relief, a sign of hope.  Before she left, she asked me if I was going to be okay and the answer once again, is yes.  I'm going to be okay.  Even as I sit here, the tears are starting to come back as I remember how exposed I felt as I sat in the pew and cried while surrounded with people who could console someone despite their own grief.  Maybe tonight was my crucifixion moment where I had to have the power of God put right in front of me as a reminder.  IT was almost like God saying, "Hey you!!! Yeah, you!!!  You can't forget about me even with all you have to give.  I can help you with this!!"
Sometimes we need these God moments.   I admit that "seeing" God is not my thing.  IN my life, I "realize" God more often that I "see" him.  For me, it's more about after the fact.  Kind of like when you go into a job interview and when you walk out to your car and drive away, and THEN remember the amazing question you had to ask.  That's how God works with me.  Not sure why but it works and I'm content with it.

Keeping the faith

Well, it has been a long time since I have updated this blog about my teaching career.  For the past two years I have been working on completing my Master's degree, which I did in June.  I thought that I could work the summer and tide myself over until school started again and I honestly thought that I would have a job by now!  I thought that the Master's degree would the be the key to immediate hiring.  Well, it turns out that I was wrong, really wrong.  Now, I don't mean to have sounded overconfident regarding my degree but I really thought that my degree would be my "golden ticket."  Now, enough of the pity party but what I am proud to say is that my degree gave me more than I ever expected.  After my teaching experience in MT, I still knew that this was the right profession for me but I didn't know how to talk about my experience except to say how horrible it was at times and that I learned a lot.  Awesome.  I learned a lot. My experience at SPU while earning my degree taught me that there is a triune relationship that must exist for a classroom to be an education learning environment.  That triune relationship consists of school, parents, and community.  It takes a team to educate the whole child.  This is what was missing from my experience and made me feel like I was living in a foreign country and taking the role of a drill sergeant rather than a teacher.  I learned how incredibly important it is to understand the culture in which I teach.  I had an epic failure the first two months of school with my classroom management because I did not know that these students had no ability to think in the abstract.  It took me two months to learn that money, even fake Monopoly-like money was a powerful tool in educating them about value, cost, and responsibility.  I never used the money for academic values (like incentive to turn in work-that was expected-no questions).  Rather, I used it to teach them the value of proper behavior and to show that when they earned more money, they were rewarded and could have privileges.  Again, back to feeling like a drill sergeant because I took away all privileges and they had to earn them with behavior.  This experiences was me learning about the culture in which I was teaching.
I have many, many examples of what I learned about my experience in MT through my program.  Even though, at this time I do not have my classroom there is still hope.  After all, school doesn't start for three weeks.  I just have to keep the faith that I am destined to be a teacher and that my next experience will help me understand what I want to learn about in my PhD program.