on trusting your gut.

I’ve spent my share of teaching/admin years in K-8 schools with weekly riot fights, police officers on payroll, non-drill lockdowns and I even once confiscated a gun from a fourth grader.

Violence in high-poverty schools is no joke, but take into account that several of the settings described here were first-year “turnaround charters,” you can imagine how desperation for new student enrollment plays a powerful role.

First year “turnaround charters” have no room for Picky Pollys. We need kids, kids equal dollars and hey, your kid was “recommended” for expulsion? C’mon in! We’d love to have you!

Reflecting on these earlier years and how my teacher voice has grown, I regret not speaking up more. Working in high poverty schools has always been my choice, and although frequently surprised, I knew that things would be tough. 

Asking for help in these tough situations, unfortunately, was not my strong suit. Neither was speaking up.

I remember the first time a student threw a desk across my classroom. Escorting twenty-five students to safety is quite an unnerving task as a rookie. We’re trained to remove the students from the classroom, call for assistance and wait for crisis- intervention certified colleagues to help deescalate or restrain the upset child.

Like other situations in years to follow, this was not an isolated incident. With lack of intensive counseling/psychological support services in some school communities, kids often get help, but not necessarily the long-term help they need.

Or they just transfer to the next new “turnaround charter” up the street.

As teachers, and non-experts in child psychology and psychiatry, we often put our trust in school support services and administrators to take necessary steps to keep all kids safe, especially with the big stuff.

We all have the best intentions, but too many times, I’ve felt unsafe at work. This is not the fault of administrators or anyone else, it just happened that way. So over time, I changed my approach to it all.

I stopped breaking up fights, started calling out parents to their faces and became ultra-sensitive to students triggers- sometimes to the point where I let a child sleep in my class, just so not to poke the bear. 

This is real talk, teachers. Forgive me for sounding insensitive, but now on my second pregnancy, I make my voice well heard in these situations.

Even though I (usually) end up loving the emotionally distraught child/children in my class more than any other, safety comes first. It’s not only about love, it’s about safety.

When I speak up now, I’m not just advocating for my unborn child, but I’m standing up for the twenty-nine other scared students...some of which are already on edge due to chaotic home situations.

Taking the proactive approach has proven to be most effective these days. Once I sense a trigger, or catch the invisible steam pouring from a child’s ears, or even read some seriously aggressive body language-I call for assistance.

Waiting for the crap to hit the fan does no one any good, and if I’m questioned or challenged about the student or students needing to be removed from class, then I push harder.

Understandably, as a more seasoned teacher, administrators and behavior interventionists probably trust me now more than they would’ve fourteen years ago. Trust or not though, I wish I would’ve pushed harder when I was younger. I might’ve prevented a whole lot of situations from escalating to physical aggression.

Effectively picking your battles is no easy task. Teachers question their own judgement probably every four minutes, so the best we can do is go with our guts.

As long as we keep ourselves in check about the fine line between standing up for things and whining all of the time, then I think there’s nothing wrong with being a squeaky wheel about stuff that matters.

The decision makers and leadership team juggle just as much as we do...sometimes they need to hear voices from teachers like you and me to refresh their memories about life in the classroom. We know our kids, we know their triggers, and we aren’t just teachers, we are their first line of safety each school day.

So these days, I’m following my gut more. I speak up on the important things and if I’m not heard, I professionally push harder in the name of student safety and high quality teaching and learning.

And if the outcome doesn’t change, after all of the pushing...at least I know I tried. Power to the teacher!

on telling yourself no.

Thankfully, I’ve nearly mastered the art of telling others no.  In the name of not overcommitting myself, I politely respond with, No I can’t make the baby shower.  Sorry, let’s raincheck on happy hour.  Or, unfortunately, planning a field trip right now is just too much.  

Saying no to myself, though...that’s another story.  Like most jobs that serve others, a teacher’s work is never done.  Slacking and procrastination directly impacts our students, and teacher-guilt can be so real that we don’t know when to stop.

Years ago, I encountered a principal who refused to open the school building on weekends.  Lesson plan deadlines ran Thursdays by 5, and weekend emails from leadership were non-existent.  Forcing teachers to enjoy their weekends, proved to be a mandate that made sense and paid off.  

Nowadays, weekend building hours are a given, and dare they close shop for our “days of rest,” someone is begging for the key.

Kids present in the building or not, we are still in our physical work environment.  The brain knows this.  

Guilty of the constant-wheel-turning work brain, myself, I know it’s hard to shut down.  Spending Sundays in the copy room and Saturday mornings grading and planning in coffeeshops can become unhealthy, though.  Before you know it, it’s counterproductive and some of us begin to resent our over-demanding careers.      

The question is, are you really that much more effective working seven-days a week?

Learning time-saving tips from friends throughout my career, many say that maximizing prep-time can be the golden ticket to work-free weekends.  Tips such as, Saying no to leaders when they spontaneously ask to meet during your prep, with, “I’m available, but I was planning on giving students feedback from their morning writing, so they can revise this afternoon.”

Another borrowed prep-time tip, is listening to headphones to stay focused and avoiding extensive vent sessions you could save for later.  

Don’t get me wrong, isolating yourself in the name of being more efficient is a fine line.  Your people are your people, and love and support from your colleagues is necessary for survival.  You do however, have to make a choice sometimes.  Chill and chat now or chill and chat tonight, outside of the workplace, with family, friends, or just you and a hot bath.  

Education is an emotional field.  Our hearts and heads can be taken through the ringer on the day to day, so time to reset should be mandatory.   

Maybe happy hours and baby showers get back to feeling less like commitments and more like a necessary boost for the soul. Well, baby showers, I don't know... 

Power to the teacher!

on censorship.

How cool is this?  I beamed.  The President of the United States, a leader who will bring real change and genuine faith and who gets it will speak to students in classrooms across our nation tomorrow.  

This means something.  And teachers across America can quote President Obama and refer back to his relevant advice to our kids.  I wonder if this was his idea?

My anticipation of Obama’s back-to-school speech, coupled with the handful of anti-Obama (but let’s be real, anti-Black president) parents in my 2009 school community reminded me how much I missed the big city and surrounding myself with like-minded people. Am I the only one geeking out over this around here?

As the school-wide instructional leader at that time, I had both power in decision making and the responsibility to collaborate with teachers and parents to provide the best educational opportunities for our kids.  We all wanted success for these young minds.

So to my surprise, blatant verbal threats blasted through my not-so-smart silver flip phone just days before the 2009 speech was to air.  

Do you really think I’m going to let you show my daughter that?  If I find out she was part of that viewing, we are going to have another conversation.  

Or…

“I will pull my three kids if you show that man on the TV.”

And the kinder-toned demands…

“We do not support Barack Obama, and if you are planning on showing that speech to my child, he needs to be removed from class.”

So I did what any school leader would do. We held a viewing party and I strongly encouraged teachers to show the live speech.  

Some teachers chose not to play it and some parents kept their kids home that day.  To be expected...

We’re not reading To Kill a Mockingbird in fourth grade, people.  We are watching a nationally publicized speech from the President of the United States of America!

And don’t get me wrong, eight years later, I cringe at the sound of our current president’s voice.  But do I play CNN Student News each morning for my fifth graders?  Yes.  And when Trump blurts out another ignorant message do I want to cover and protect my kids’ innocent ears?  Yes.    

Debating, analyzing and digging deep on various points of views makes for a hellova class discussion, doesn’t it, though?  Who knows, kids might even develop their own opinions, beyond their teachers, parents or President’s.  (Gasp!)

Is that what those parents and teachers were scared of in 2009?  That kids might’ve liked what Obama had to say, and the adults weren’t okay with that?  

In the end, reality is reality.  And I’m no proponent of inappropriate language, sexual content or glamorized violence in school settings, but uncovering age-appropriate controversial topics surrounding us in today’s current events with a carefully chosen text set makes sense to me.  

The challenge now is to teach our students how to back up their newly developed opinions with strong text evidence.  Sending y’all strength and yoga breaths on this one...

Stay woke teachers.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Power to the teacher.  

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”  -Barack Obama, Back-to-School Speech, September 8, 2009

Want to read more?  Check out Obama’s entire speech here.  

on reading for fun.

Choosing between reading a book and watching Netflix is a no-brainer for me.  Last night, I shamefully indulged on three episodes of MTV’s Catfish while simultaneously trolling Instagram, Facebook and posting recipes on Pinterest that will likely never make it to my stomach.  

Who knew the Goosebumps addicted ten-year-old would one day choose crap TV over the new Gillian Flynn novel?  Who knew the literature loving fifteen-year-old who skipped the SparkNotes and fell in love with The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby would one day forgo a Saturday night snuggle with a thought-provoking autobiography to binge watch A Handmaid’s Tale.  (Don’t get me wrong, what a thought-provoking series!)

So what’s changed?  Technology of course.  The voracious reader I once was, slowly faded when smartphones, insta-movies, insta-music, insta-TV and insta-everything broke through in my early twenties.  As an educator, I obviously still love books, somehow though I rarely read for pleasure.  And books don’t make my Christmas list anymore.  

Thankfully that once book-obsessed child experienced a K-12 education with offered perspectives from Huck Finn, Veruca Salt, Ramona Quimby, Hester Prynne, Atticus Finch, The Babysitters Club girls and more.  

Do our students of today read for fun?  Do they like reading, or is it another chore like drying dishes?  Do they choose chapter books over Snapchat?  At home, how do they escape?  

Teachers hope reading logs and Accelerated Reader competitions promote lifelong readers, and for some kids, I think this does work.  In reality though, my guess is that kids do most of their reading at school.  

In the classroom, what is their purpose for reading?  Back in the eighties, pre-insta era, Nancy Atwell (In the Middle, 1987) researched and shared a list of negative things kids learn about reading:

• Reading is difficult, serious business.  
• Reading is a performance for the audience of one: the teacher.  
• Reading is always followed by a test.  
• Readers break whole texts into separate pieces to be read and dissected one fragment at a time.  
• There is another kind of reading, a fun, satisfying kind you can do on your free time or outside of school.  

Atwell goes on to propose Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), also known as Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) where students across a school (or classroom) read for twenty or thirty minutes for pure pleasure.  Students choose their own books, there is no quiz to follow, and they just sit (or stand or lay down) and cuddle up with a good book.  

The last time I worked in a school that did this was 2004 in my student teaching placement.  With so much pressure for bridging the gap and catching up struggling readers, we rarely offer designated reading for enjoyment.  If not accompanied by comprehension questions and graphic organizers, we feel the need to hold some sort of accountability for their reading time.  

I get this.  My teacher friends get this.  We know lack of SSR and DEAR time in many schools hurts everyone’s goal of promoting lifelong readers.  

We know guided reading works, and with so little time to bridge gaps, we pick structured reading practice over unstructured.  

And since we also know kids go home and jump on Snapchat, we know they’re likely not staying up late reading Dragon Ball Z comics rather than playing the video game.

So fellow educators, I propose we bring back reading for fun in our classrooms.  For some of us, we have to sacrifice twenty minutes a day of target instruction that we know our kids need.  

I, too, feel this pressure.  Children though, can learn empathy, self-love, perseverance and relate to characters and real people, that just may inspire them to follow their dreams in life.  

Books can offer an escape into dystopian worlds, foreign countries and magical places that students may not encounter otherwise.  Yes, video games and films provide themes and settings, but is the movie ever really as good as the book?    

Growing up loving books opened my eyes to things before I ever got out of my parent’s house.  Throwing yourself into the human experience through the eyes of others is powerful.  

Hopefully, more schools prioritize the importance of reading for fun, or even to better ourselves as part of an ever-changing society that could use more empathy right now.      

Power to the Teacher!

on parents as teachers.

I’m newish to momhood and my perspective is that of a co-parent to an ultra easy going toddler, and so far, being a mom is pretty great.  If my own mother is right, though, my daughter will one day evolve into the back-talking, know-it-all fourteen-year old I once was.

Dear God, I hope not.  

Rolling with the punches and embracing the highs and lows is standard training wheel practice for new parents. From what I hear, it only gets harder.  The love grows and grows, and so does the complexity of decision making.  And oh how the love grows...

Guilt, self-doubt and forever responsibility whispers, Am I a bad parent?  Is my kid this way because of me?  And so it goes..

As an educator, pre-baby days, I hated when my students' parents asked me if I was a parent.  

“Um, no...someday, though.”  

Internally I knew what they meant.  Are you a parent?  Because if you aren’t, then you just don’t get it, lady.  

We both knew that quality teachers need not be parents, but it wasn’t until recently that I understood the skepticism.  

Coming off double rounds of conferences from my former job and now my current, October brought me nearly twelve hours of parent-teacher face time.  From enlightening to disappointing to emotional, as always, parent-teacher conferences proved to be well-worth the time investment for everyone.   

I’ve been a parent for nearly two years now, however, this month revealed the new teacher-as-a parent-me, more than ever.   

1. I’m nicer to parents.  I don’t sugar coat the truth, but I’m just nicer.  
2. I sandwich comment everything. Positive comment + (what to work on) + positive comment.  On tough days, as a parent, it feels good to know you’re doing something right.  
3. I take things less personally.  Chances are, the parent breathing fire onto your stack of ungraded papers as you smile and nod, is either mad at herself, her kid or something else entirely.  Teachers are an easy target.  I mean, who wants to admit their child is just plain lazy?  Or worse...a bully?

Maybe this recent reflection is something I should’ve learned pre-parenthood, as an educator, but never did.  And maybe it’s all nonsense.  

Maybe, though, it’s the self-doubt and gut-wrenching love for my daughter that makes me think a little more deeply about how I frame things to parents.  If I were this kid’s parent, how would I receive this?  (Well if I were this kid’s parent, I would teach him to respect adults, and be kind to his peers, and...and..and...)

Hey, I didn’t say my mindset has changed-it’s my approach that has changed.    Just kidding.  Sort of.  Power to the teacher!

on being the cool teacher.

Mr. Robinson was not cool.  Fly-away gray hair, speech after preach about oxymorons and onomatopoeia, with a dry sense of humor that my fourteen year old self-centered attitude could care less about...this man was not all that and a bag of chips in 1996.  

I do recall, though, Mr. Robinson respecting my input on the upcoming figurative language unit.  

“Next week we’ll dive into Toy Story’s generous offering of imagery, symbolism and irony.”

“Realllly Mr. Robinson?  Ugh. That’s a kids’ movie.” I faintly rolled my eyes as he leaned over to check my work.  

Five days later, he introduced our rarely-ever satisfied junior high school English class to the genius Bobby Fischer.  Mr. Robinson used his special teacher powers to reveal metaphors and personification as we uncovered the true depth of the world famous chess champ via biopic.  

Clearly I was too cool for school to appreciate Mr. Robinson at the time, but as the story goes, years later, cozied up at a Michigan State University Coffee Beanery over a twelve-page English paper, I remembered this great teacher.  All of the irony and oxymoron mumbo jumbo meant something.

This teacher knew exactly what he was doing and I was too young and dumb to realize it.  

Actually, my favorite teacher that year was our health teacher because we “birthed egg babies” and carried them from class to class for two weeks.  Naming my new “daughter,” Savannah, and journaling about the whole experience for a huge chunk of my grade beat boring English class.

Oh, to be fourteen again... 

I am not the cool teacher.  I used to be the cool teacher in my novice days, and some kids might think I’m cool on some days, but I doubt I'll be remembered as a favorite.  

Via today’s text conversation, my comrade out east shared this wise analogy: Good teaching is like good parenting.  Kids who grow up to have strong values and ethics hated their parents as tweens and teens.  These kids might not have had the cool parents, but in the long run it paid off.  

Student engagement is a non-negotiable for myself and most teachers.  Project-based learning, inquiry investigations, page turning novel studies and more fill our classrooms with joy and student success.  The crux of it all, though, has to be rooted in standards-based instruction.  

Research-based best practices and tasks that build stamina and self-discipline may not be the popular student vote, but hey, it works.  

Strong student-teacher relationships are definitely necessary for learning.  If positive mentor relationships were all that kids needed, though, then basketball coaches and pastors and parents could all take our jobs tomorrow.

We all know, however, that teachers are more than just mentors. We all know that school can’t be party time 100% of the day, 180 days per year.  And we all know that, despite possible insecurities or external pressures, the cool teacher doesn’t always mean, the effective teacher.  

Hey teachers, you know your stuff.  You listen to your kids and you plan with their interests in mind.  You are mindful of what it’s like to walk a lesson in their shoes.  You get it.  

So we shall let the students trust in us, and we shall trust in Vygotsky or Piaget or Marzano or our comrade teacher down the hall.  

We may not be cool, but hopefully, we help our students uncover the coolness of learning along the way.  

Power to the teacher!

on following your heart. part one.

Last week I left my job to follow my heart.  

I’m not referring to the sometimes crippling devotion to my husband and daughter kind of heart, I’m talking about my teacher heart.  

Honestly, it was time I started practicing what I preached.  My last blog post was on integrity and not long before that-on schools on boats.  Who was I to be nudging teachers to commit themselves to innovation and transformation when I didn’t take my own advice?

Gaslighting myself about the perfect daily schedule, teaching my favorite grade and content, and serving in an organization with kids I loved and adults that supported me, is why I stayed so long.

Resigning felt like more of a healthy breakup- it’s not you it’s me.  Or-we just don’t want the same things anymore.  And then there was-we’re just at very different points in our lives right now.  

The truth is, I could no longer fully commit myself in an environment that didn’t make me happy.  And since I knew the catalyst for this dissatisfaction, I sought out a school setting that better aligned with my educational values.  And I took the job.  

Despite discrete eyerolls from fellow educators, I have no shame leaving in October.  My students deserve a teacher who believes in her practices and a teacher who they can trust to provide them with the tools they will one day access to achieve their dreams.

I am that teacher... I just can’t be that teacher in any setting.  Fortunate enough to have a wide range of teaching experiences to pull from, the reality for me comes down to values.  

Do I believe that I’m doing right by kids everyday?  Will these lessons offer students a path to future happiness?  Would I want my own child experiencing this curriculum?  

It was better to say goodbye then to unintentionally project my negativity upon my students.  I loved my staff, loved my kids and loved my bosses.  My heart just couldn’t hold on any longer.  

And I don’t apologize for that.  I just wish (for my students’ sakes) I would’ve listened to my heart sooner.  

So we’ll see what happens.  This marks the first time I followed my heart to a new position in the same city.  Will it feel different? Or are all New Orleans’ schools inherently similar but just wrapped in contrasting pretty packages?

And does the system ultimately dictate the type of education our kids will experience?  

Only time will tell.  For now, though, things are looking up...and my teacher heart is feeling good!

Power to the teacher!

on integrity.

Shortly after The Oprah Show aired it’s last hour of heart-wrenching, influential programming in 2011, I would lean on google for inspirational Oprah quotes when I needed a pick-me-up.  Today I do the same with Michelle.  

"At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and  your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are." -Michelle Obama

We are the presidents of our classrooms where values matter.  

Reflecting on this revelation, I’m thinking more and more that education is all about integrity.

Do we respect the process of teaching and learning and everything in between?  Do we commit to doing what’s right, despite the potential backlash?  

The truth is, teachers become teachers to make a serious impact.  Many believe it’s their duty to contribute to social justice in this country.  We work thirteen hour days instead of eight, because we refuse to offer our kids mediocrity.  

Integrity, like most core values, has a spectrum, and being the human beings that we are, sliding up and down the scale at times is understandable.  

As educators though, why aren’t we holding on to this value for dear life?  Why do we end up selling out to  fear, pressure or our competitive nature?  

Good people teach to the test.  Good people use sterile formulaic processes to teach the art of narrative writing.  Good people teach science all year out of a textbook.  Is this integrity?

Teachers know what’s right, but we cave.  And if we don’t cave we must swallow our pride and stand tall when our effectiveness is questioned and our student projects are overlooked for a shiny piece of golden assessment data.  

For me, the integrity pieces falls hard here: Why don't the things that count in life, count in schools? Why don’t our assessments match the creative and critical thinking experiences required for real life success?

What message is this sending kids?  And would you teach your own child the way you teach your students?

I think schools do a fantastic job praising and encouraging core values.  Students are recognized for honesty, compassion and perseverance by committed school communities.  There really is nothing like a kid’s face when he gets a solid compliment.  

But as for high stakes, we reward the bottom line. Numbers. Numbers count.  

No, not introspective poetry.  Not a killer hypothesis proved correct by the good ‘ol scientific method. Not a historical case study to be analyzed with evidence and theory.  

Although this kind of learning is celebrated, it’s not what we use to measure student mastery or teacher effectiveness, which is why so many teachers skip the projects and the deep rooted socratic seminars just to cover more content.  

In the end, teachers have to make a choice whether they want breadth or depth.  Breadth can pull some good scores in the short term, but depth holds strong for life.  Depth and meaning sticks.  

Staying true to your integrity can be a lonely road in education these days, but the long term effects on kids can be monumental.  And worth it.  

So what then?  I think the first step is being honest with ourselves about what kind of teacher we are, and who we want to be...loving ourselves but pushing to be better than the day before...

What kind of teacher do you want to be?

Power to the teacher!