on parent communication.

Backyard barbecues are where it’s at.  Burgers and beer, family and friends and (unless you’re grilling) nothing to do but kick back and catch up with your people.   

No matter the occasion, we are usually welcomed with the basics, like, “How’s your job going?” Or, “What’s new with you?”  And almost always, “How’s so and so doing?”  

These days, I’m usually greeted with inquiries about my baby girl, and I can’t help but wonder how these questions will evolve over time.  “How’s she doing in school?  Is she still dancing?”

Parental pride is something fierce.  Although I’m still a rookie, there’s no denying that sprinkled over the cupcake of unconditional love, lies pride.  

In education, I sometimes have to remind myself that this is someone’s child.  After mentally running through the phone conversation, but before I press call on the saved parent contact, I take a deep breath.  Be honest, Kelli, but don’t be harsh.  This is someone’s kid.  

Wishing I reported more positive behaviors to parents, I recently asked myself...why don’t I?  

Making a pros and cons list, I came up with six pros and just one con.  The obvious con will go unnamed because we all just know.

Pros for Increasing Positive Parent Calls

1. Praising students to parents may improve parent/child relationships.
2. Praising students to parents may improve teacher/student relationships.
3. Valuing academic or social/emotional student accomplishments reinforces positive behaviors in the classroom.  
4. Calling home about school, might bring conversations about student learning to a family’s 21st century “dinner table.”   
5. Taking the time to acknowledge the little things, may build self-confidence, especially in students who need it.  
6. Kids who always do the right thing want their parents to know, too.   

In this reflection, I’ve dared myself to take on a ten day challenge.  Contact one parent per day regarding positive student behavior. Ten days, two school weeks.  

I dare you to do the same...  You just might change backyard barbecue conversation for months!  

How’s Jacob doing?

Oh, he’s so good.  His teacher just called about how he always asks great questions in science class.  Tell em, baby.  Tell ‘em about science!  (insert proud mama grin)

And who knows, becoming habitual about positive parent phone calls might lift our teacher spirits, too.

Power to the teacher.   

on schools on boats.

Imagine teaching on a barge.  A barge.  No not because you are homeschooling your children as your family transports goods from state to state.

Imagine teaching on the kind of barge that facilitates projects that tackle erosion problems, social and community issues and aims to improve environmental conditions in your region, Southeast Louisiana.  

The rapid loss of land makes the region more vulnerable to storm surges caused by hurricanes, and Plaquemines Parish experienced severe damage from storms in 2005 and 2011.

“We literally have populations that are going to have to move,” Cochran said. “And America has really never done that.” (USA TODAY)

Check out the two minute video of New Harmony High School here.  It’s revolutionary!

Coming off Mother Earth’s Rebellion of 2017, it makes me think that schools like this, are exactly what we need.  

Like many metropolitan cities (though New Orleans feels far from metropolitan), we have a thriving arts scene here.  It’s the birthplace of jazz, a culinary paradise and just driving through the French Quarter or Bywater will make you feel like you're in an actual painting.  

We have one of the best creative arts schools in the country, NOCCA, and the middle and high school marching bands performing at Mardi Gras keep the crowds dancing hard in the moonlight.  

Money talks, though, and school funding comes from test scores, not from student-run urban gardens.  Unless your child has the privilege of being accepted to one of these innovative and thriving schools that kids absolutely love, then these things become extracurricular.  

Sticky, make it sticky they say.  Well if we want to make the curriculum sticky, then why not embed the core subjects into projects that matter?  

We don’t all need a 10 million dollar grant, like this cool school on a boat, but we do need the freedom as teachers to integrate the core content areas into learning experiences that matter to kids.  

So, until teachers have that freedom and as benchmarks and bubble sheets slowly swallow us whole, we will dream of a day when the testing obsession bubble pops...and our students won’t have to wait until once a year for The Science Fair.  

Thirteen years from now, I will send my daughter to a school like NOCCA or New Harmony High. And I will be that crazy mom that does whatever it takes to get her in.

By then though, I hope this kind of education is the norm...just how we do things in this country. Imagine the possibilities...

Power to the teacher!

on being yourself-not the teacher next door.

Names and locations have been protected in the following teacher tale so that I may never receive an angry email or lawsuit for slander, but this is real talk, my friends.   

Blatant sarcasm, yelling at kids, laughing at kids, out-right embarrassing kids was common practice in Ms. X’s classroom.  Only two years my senior, she intimidated me more than I care to admit.   

Bible verse preaching and snarky threats echoed throughout her classroom in Some City, USA.  Middle schoolers cried outside her door.  Administration often turned their heads on some cringe-worthy threats she made during her militant silent transitions.

At least the halls are quiet, they thought.  

Despite my initial gasp at this sort of teaching and management style, whatever I was doing was not working, and whatever she was doing earned her straight up respect and compliance 98% of the time.

Oh, did I mentioned we shared the same students?  Same kids, different subject.  

Still in my early teaching years, I played it safe and rarely pushed boundaries, so this was new to me.  Several years later, this kind of teacher behavior doesn’t surprise me.  There’s at least one in each school, with their “whatever it takes” practices.  Maybe not this extreme, but close enough.  

As a newbie, I remember thinking, nothing about this teacher will ever be me.  

And as the story goes, though, she had control of her students and I did not.  Her students always listened and mine did not.  The parents loved her.  

Students feared Ms. X but they laughed in my face.  Needless to say, one of my administrators suggested I collaborate with her on classroom management practices and assigned me to a “Classroom Management 101” mandatory PD class with seven of my fellow teacher friends.  

Should we be more like Ms. X? We debated.  It was only October and we wanted our students to learn, already!

“Off the record, Kelli.  That kind of management doesn’t work, long-term,” my favorite teacher coach explained.

It was November by now, and things were improving slightly.

“Well, why do her kids listen and mine don’t?” I whined.  

“Do you want your classroom to feel like that?

“Um, no.”

“Well then have patience and you will get your groove and so will your kids.  Just be patient,” he whispered.

And so I did. I used my cheesy rap writing talents and focused on building student relationships until eventually I gained more respect.  

Flash forward to June of that year...all staff gathered to celebrate yearly student gains and our freshly released state test scores.  Sharing my “team table” with Ms. X, while making class lists for the following school year, she confidently reminded our table that she doesn’t have behavior issues with any of the students, so we could put them wherever.  

Smiling and nodding while simultaneously pinching my other colleague, it was time for the big reveal of the state test results.  

“Drumroll please..” Our principal hummed.  

In true charter school fashion, teacher names projected on the screen, ranked by overall raw test scores.  Although this practice makes me wanna vomit, I looked anyway.

Guess who was number one in grades 3-8 and guess who was at the bottom?  Yes, (shameless brag) my kids rocked the test.  

At that time I didn’t know any better, and held on to test scores to prove teacher effectiveness.  So I’ll reiterate that, at the time, I was proud.  Not because they bombed in her class, but because with the help of family, friends and teacher coaches, I stayed true to my educational beliefs and my students succeeded.  

I share this teacher tale not to persuade you to ignore the teaching practices of those different from you.  We should learn from each other, and even more so from teachers outside our comfort zone.  In the case of Ms. X, I learned not only who I was, but also who I wasn’t.   

Ultimately though, we know that what’s best for our kids is that we are comfortable in our own skin.  We have to believe that we are doing what’s right for our students, so that they can reach their true potential.

More than a decade later, I still compare myself. I still wonder why I can't be like the teacher next door. Even though I know, I still do it way too much.  

Thinking back to my favorite teacher coach, I know he had it right.  Be patient, you’ll eventually get your groove and so will your kiddos. It really is the truth. 

Power to the teacher!

 

on hard lessons.

Snuggling up with my pouty-faced pitbull and a supersized bag of Sour Patch Kids Xtreme, it was Netflix and quiet time in the Watson household.  Sharing a Netflix code with my brother miles away, coupled with my husband’s undying love for Marvel movies and my daughter’s new obsession with Coraline, the “Because you watched…” section usually disappoints.   

The formula fairies often offer  me something like Hotel Transylvania 2 or Captain America-far from my preferred taste.    

This time, though, Netflix got it right.  Hard Lessons, and it’s gritty eighties Valencia non- filtered movie cover caught my eye.  I love me a good teacher success story.

Five minutes deep, I had to IMDB it up.  Denzel?  Nawwww.  But it is true, teacher friends.  Denzel Washington, stars in the 1986 biopic about a New Orleans raised,  Los Angeles public school principal, Mr. George McKenna, who, in a matter of a few years, no less than transforms, not only an entire school, but the entire neighborhood.  

And this was a time when Bloods and Crips dominated Los Angeles.   The film reveals the power of gangs on school communities and the power of a principal to make education reign.  

Now I won’t divulge any more than this, but, it’s pretty evident that George McKenna was and still is one of a kind.  Many teachers and principals have come along with the hard core tough love and dedication that George McKenna has, but this man, or at least the way Denzel portrays him, is like Prince or Michael Jackson.  They have some innate magical powers.  

I wish I had the charisma of Denzel.  And the hard-to-pinpoint gifts of Mr. George McKenna.  His character in that film definitely does call me out on my nasty habit of relinquishing ownership (AKA blaming external factors) when times get tough.  As a school leader for decades, he stands by his belief that the principal is the number one factor in a school’s success.   

He takes ownership of his own role in education. McKenna knows the principal can’t do it alone, but knows that the responsibility of school success falls on us.  The adults.  Despite drugs and achievement gaps and poverty and adolescent apathy...it’s on us.  

Reluctantly swallowing some hard truth, there were lots of hard lessons for me in that film. Thank you Netflix.  And with music by Herbie Hancock, why did it take until 2017 for this movie gem to fall in my lap?  Needless to say, it’s definitely worth checking out on your next movie night.  

We may not all be George McKenna’s, but we do get one step closer each day.  

Last week, one of my colleague’s offered me some top notch reflection to brighten my day.  He said, "You know, when teaching times get tough,  I think to myself...this may be my seventh year teaching and I still haven’t figured it all out, but who knows...this could be the year."  

Hey teachers, each day, we are one step closer to being the Lebron James' of education...who knows..this could be the year.

Power to the teacher!

on survival mode.

Riot fights, food fights, schools with no books, the revolving door of teacher hires, fires and walkouts...I’ve seen the worst of it in turnaround schools.  Despite the chaos, given the opportunity, I would do it again.  Then of course, not now.

Turnaround charter school models are designed to persevere through the growing pains, with the greater good in mind, using dramatic approaches to “fix things”, striving for better schools of choice for the surrounding communities.  It’s usually first time teachers, first time principals and local families in search of the best school option for their children.   

Spending exactly 71.4% of my teaching or leading experiences in turnaround charters, you would think that I’d have more answers when it comes to student behavior, and a bunch of tried and tested tricks up my sleeve to showcase at all-day PD’s, but no. It’s was all kind of a blur.

I chalk it up to survival mode.  Those years were spent in full out survival mode, where the good days were monumental and the bad ones I prefer to forget.   Test scores reigned, and the happy hours were fruitful.

Teacher friends were my brothers and sisters and my students were my own children.

Unless you’re one of the few natural born teacher geniuses out there, being a new teacher in a tough school can drown you.  Not just drain you, but drown you.  The last thing I needed as a new teacher was to be left in the middle of the ocean with my self-made life preserver and a three lifeboats of third graders with no supplies.  

God knows the school leaders were just trying to stay alive, too.  But it happened.  We were “empowered” to keep anything short of a fist fight within our four solid walls.  Repetitive disruptions, profanity, blatant disrespect...it was on us.  

Turnaround school or not, though, teachers still seem to be buying the narrative that if we don’t take on classroom management alone, we are weak. But why?  

Okay, so no one is going to call us weak to our faces, but the messages of “If you send kids out of class, then you let them take away your power,” and “Ask yourself if you’ve really tried everything, before having a student removed,” are quite obvious and sometimes received as condescending to teachers.  

Again, I’ve been on both sides of this.  Leadership is hard.  Teachers do have to take ownership of their classrooms.  Together, we do have to do whatever we can to make it work and help students succeed.  

Sometimes though, after the same student calls out twelve times and works your classroom like a funnel cloud of distraction, you’ve decided enough is enough.  

You’re not going to sacrifice twenty-eight other student educations for your pride.  You swallow the interrogation of “well, what did they actually do?” or “This isn’t something to send a kid out for..is it?”  Or my comrade’s favorite, “have you tried those cushy stress balls for him?” And you smile and nod and go back to teaching the hell out of that lesson.  

I mean, do you really think we haven’t tried everything before we called for help? The parent’s number is on speed dial for heaven’s sake.     

Thankfully, I’ve encountered plenty of school climates that differentiate teacher support with student behavior as much as we differentiate learning for our students.  It’s a must.  

New teachers or vets, we all need support from time to time.  I’m hoping that we all can recognize that when teachers ask for help, they probably need it.  

Approach is everything.

I would much rather have someone support me in the moment,  and reflect with me later.  If this isn’t the case for you, teachers, then find the people that will give you that support.  Reflect, learn from your mistakes, and move forward.  

To all of the teachers that are in survival mode, I commend your perseverance.  If you find yourself in the ocean with a self-made life preserver and a life boat of bright-eyed students, make sure to call an SOS.   

Let’s be real, survival mode can only last so long before it goes one way or the other.  

Sending positive vibes from New Orleans...Power to the Teacher!

on crying at work.

The last time I cried in front my students is never.  The last time I cried at work was last year, Face Timing my daughter in a closet classroom, tied to a breastpump, a batch of ungraded papers and her sweet little “Mamas” chirping through the phone.  

The last time I cried about work was two days ago.  Call it passion, call it exhaustion, call it whatever, but sometimes education makes me cry.  I’m a pro at bottling it up for the comfort of my own car or couch, but it definitely happens.   

Monday turned out to be a garden-variety bad day, too many moments of teaching to thirty-two blank faces, mumbling mouths or eyes screaming, I just don’t care what you have to say, lady.  

This followed by my own self-doubt, self-pity and pit-of-my-stomach frustration led to a nasty little cocktail of...why am I a teacher?    

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, nobody is allowed to call me dramatic except myself, but yeah...maybe I was being a liiiittle dramatic.  C’mon though, unless you have the superpowers to turn on and off emotions, teaching cuts you down deep and builds you back up, faster than you can say Silent Lunch.   

Sustaining that pretty poker face at work takes practice, and teacher triggers are different for everyone.  Most of us agree, though, that we’re not holding back tears because a kid hurt our feelings.  We’re adults, and by this age, our skin is mighty thick enough to muster some snarky comment from a ten-year-old about our “stupid” lesson.   

When it comes to teacher tears of frustration, often times it boils down to either 1. Loss of control, or 2. The feeling that kids didn’t learn.   These two acknowledgments have offered me plenty of doses of sleepless nights and Indeed.com search sessions.  

Does it mean I don’t love teaching?  No.  But it does make me question why it has to be so damn hard?  Yes.  And why, after this many years in the game, is it still so damn hard?  

Clearly, I’m still searching for answers.  

Emotions of love, pain, triumph, failure and everything in between fill our classrooms daily, with the Goddess Of Education peering over us, whispering….they must learn, teacher, they must learn!

Self-proclaimed non-movie crier that I am, education makes me cry sometimes.  Never ever ever ever will I cry in front of students, but I will cry on a car ride home.  They may “just be kids,”  but they’re our kids.  And love makes you cry sometimes.

Power to the Teacher.   

on reinventing yourself.

Tilting his head back as the barely-there remnants of Purple Bag Doritos fall ever so swiftly from bag to mouth, my husband slides the next mystery box my way.  Two bottles of Pinot, a pound of sour patch kids and three hours later, we are ankle deep in a semi-productive storage closet cleaning.  

We dig through file box after photo pile, spending more time reminiscing than we do purging papers and expired insurance policies.  

What’s this?  

Oh, that’s my teaching portfolio.

Really? Let me, see!  

Haha, okay babe.  It’s like fifteen years old.  I mean, I’ve added to it, but it’s pretty outdated.  

Yeah, funny how all of these photos are circa pre-smartphones.  I wanna look though!

Peeling through clear plastic pages of certificates, student work and reference letters, Michael stumbled upon my teaching philosophy.  Buzz words from the 2000’s like, kinesthetic learning, differentiated instruction and guided reading splattered the page with a standard red appled ABC border.  

I'm actually surprised an Eminem or Nelly CD didn't fall out of the portfolio pocket. Or maybe a Will Ferrell comedy on DVD.

Snatching the portfolio, I recalled my twenty-two-year-old self.  My twenty-two-year-old teaching philosophy written with bright eyes.   Frankly, I probably cut and pasted it from a handful of exemplars presented in one of my education undergrad courses, but it was mostly mine! 

Teaching philosophies change,  kids change, teachers change...education changes over time.  

In 2004 my teaching philosophy wasn’t my own, but by 2005 it had developed, 2010 it refined and in recent years has evolved into a truer form of what I believe in my heart.

If the goal is to impact students and their impressionable young minds, then what do we prioritize?  How do we even know what’s most important anymore?  How do we do it in 180 days?

So much to choose from...so much to believe...so much to try..

Two weeks ago, in hopes of inspiring some good PD conversations around project-based learning, I asked my fellow ELA teachers to reflect on favorite teachers from their childhood.  

It turned out, that in a room of forty-five, there were very few commonalities.  The X Factor in this group, though, was that every one of the “favorites” made them feel special.

It made me think, do I make all of my kids feel special? I need to rethink this year.

In teaching, it’s not just about the restart button that comes with the new school year.

It’s about your ever-evolving self, getting a chance to try something new, a chance to impact kids using the good and bad memories of trial and error, innovative research, hard data and powerful inspirations to change their lives with more confidence than the year before.

The new school year can bring the new you.  Well, the new teacher-you.  With your refined pedagogical philosophies and fly and fresh wardrobe.   

Lord knows you can refine and refresh throughout the school year, but reinventing yourself in February for the same thirty students who met you in September, might be a tough sell.  

We may not own our own business, but we own our own classroom. Craft those 2017-2018 mission and vision statements with your gained wisdom and ever-developing understanding of what kids really need.  

For me, teaching philosophies have evolved into learning philosophies,  what will the end product be?  How do students learn? How will my students leave this year?  How will this year impact their lives down the road?

And in fifteen more years, I hope I get that same feeling I did, when my husband shoveled spicy Dorito crumbs into his face...daaamn...my educational beliefs have chaaanged!  

Power to the teacher.