What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Happy back-to-school time, everyone! The teachers in my division have been hammering away at new bulletin boards, exciting lesson plans, and team building activities since last Monday. I've really enjoyed my time with my colleagues and was especially impressed with how our division handled back-to-school professional development (more about that in another blog post).

Usually on this blog, I post a summer reading list of books I want to read that summer and hope we'll all read together. I usually cross off two or three of them and then move on. So, this year, I didn't even do that. I knew I'd have to read at least one book for our school's summer reading program and one for the class I took in July. Otherwise, I just let books good books happen to me.

Our school did away with required summer reading where a student writes an essay when we're all back at school a few years ago. I never had to do that in high school, but I understand it was a common practice. We've struggled with wanting to encourage kids to read over the summer but not wanting to squelch any burgeoning love of reading under the heavy stacks of "have to" reading. 

The school's new librarian came up with a couple of ingenious plans. First, she set up student-teacher book clubs. Teachers could select from books we thought kids would enjoy and she facilitated students signing up with a funny video and class visits. We then had two book club meetings in the community over the summer. At one of them, another kid we knew, who had also read the book, stopped by and talked with us, too. Our group read Into the Wild and it spurred a lot of interesting discussions about what it means to be adventurous versus stupid and cruel to your parents. I haven't heard how other book clubs fared. On Friday, we have our last meeting where we'll eat pizza, watch the movie, and talk about the differences in portraying a story across different media.

I also read two great teaching books this summer I want to tell you about. For the Central Virginia Writing Project, I read Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them. This book really helped me refine our writing workshop in my class and create a more structured peer conferencing program. It's definitely an English teacher book. I also re-read Teaching for Joy and Justice which just got me excited as I reminded myself why I got into teaching in the first place: to help students find their voices and project them in healthy ways. I underlined just about every activity in this book. The book's author co-teaches a history/language arts class with her husband, so she's got some great ideas for teachers in other disciplines.

One of my good friends loaned me her copy of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith of One Hundred and One Dalmatians fame. You know those books that you're sort of angry when you're done because you loved it so much and now it's over? This book made me that kind of angry. C also devoured it and he hasn't read any fiction since the last Game of Thrones book came out.

Brigid Shulte's Overwhelmed helped me think about how I buy into the ideal worker culture that privileges face time in the office over meaningful work that we finish before going home to our families. Two of my new academic year resolutions are to stop trying to multi-task and to let go of trying to feel on top of my work. Teaching, by its very nature, is never done. There are always newer bulletin boards to put up, better ways to arrange desks to facilitate student learning, a cool update to make to the class website. I want to do these things. But I don't want to do only these things. I want to write and practice yoga and spend some time camping. I've never been one of those teachers who can leave things at school on Friday and pick up where I left off on Monday. I don't think I ever will be, but this year I'm going to take one weekend day off from work and try to be more efficient the other six days of the week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Getting to the "Main Event"

Over the weekend, my mentor teacher from my first teaching job posted a link to this blog post. The teacher implores students to realize that the content learned in school is not the "main event." The teacher argues that the social and emotional learning that goes into getting up, getting to class, engaging with the material and others, and getting the work done is the main event of school.

I think I've always believed that. I nodded emphatically in graduate school when we were told we were going out into the world to teach students not content. I've embraced one-on-one conversations with students about how to change their attitude and believe in their ability to meet adversity with grace (instead of the oft used alternatives of yelling or shutting down).

But I'm not sure I've communicated to my students outside of our weekly community meetings why school's main events are about so much more than grades and sitting quietly for forty-five minute stretches. I'm going to share this blog post with them and discuss what it means to not quit and what support they need not to just make it through these last few weeks of school but to thrive in them. I'll report back on what I hear.

One of my teacher friends with whom I shared this link said she planned to edit out the "grow a pair" statement not for it's "colorful" aspect but because she doesn't want students to see success as gendered. I think Ms. C is spot on, and I'll be doing the same.

On Switching Schools

In a little more than a week, I go back to work. I report earlier than most of my colleagues because for the second time in two years, I will be new to a school division. Deciding to leave the school that took a chance on little ol' provisionally-licensed me was really hard.

Fellow Curry alums will remember the mantra know your students, know your students, know your students. When you are in the business of building relationships, it can feel hard, wrong, and maybe even damaging to your students to leave your school. The commute added up to an hour and a half each day, way-early mornings, and having even less of a life than many first-year teachers. So, when a position became open at the high school in the city where I already live, I applied. About a week after I put in my application, one of my favorite professors from grad school co-authored this study about teacher turnover negatively impacting whole schools. Awesome.

In the end, I had to decide what kind of teacher I want to be. I could be a martyr teacher who pulls myself out of a bed at 5:15 every morning and never sees my friends or take my dog for a walk. I think there are a lot of teachers like this -- especially young teachers. But I can't imagine that they last long.

I decided, instead, to be a teacher who is a real person. Living and working in the same community doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. I could have moved to the small town where I worked, but that seemed like giving up a lot for a job, too. I have an amazing network of friends where I live as well as constant access to entertainment aimed at young professionals.

As I continued to debate myself (and got the job offer), I realized two things: I cannot stem the tide of teacher turnover myself. More importantly, in any other career, accepting a job that is closer to home, pays more, and offers more benefits would be a no-brainer. So, while I couldn't "fix" teacher turnover, I could act like any other graduate-school educated professional and push against the idea of teachers as people who should sacrifice a living wage, reasonable working conditions, and a life outside the classroom. I really do believe that it will take seeing teaching as a job much like any other to increase teacher quality. I took the job.

My students at my old school were hilarious, smart, and challenging. I will miss seeing them grow and learn more. In the end, I had to take the job that made me a more whole, balanced, well-compensated person. I really do think the resulting peace of mind will make me a better teacher.