Sharing My Reading Life

I don't know about you, but I can't remember a time when reading wasn't an integral part of my life.  It isn't something I do on the side or an 'added extra'; it's actually part of who I am.  So it was almost impossibly difficult, for me, to fathom a life that didn't have 'to read' piles in most rooms, a passionate opinion about folded corners v bookmarks and friends who exist only in my imagination and on the pages in which we met.  Until I met my husband. 

He is, most definitely, not a reader. Don't get me wrong, he read. He enjoyed it actually, but it didn't bring him the same core deep satisfaction. I struggled with this for a long time: how could he just get into bed and go to sleep? What did he do whilst waiting for an appointment? Where did he escape? Here was a way of life that made no sense to me. I questioned him. I nagged him (oh yeah, there's that wife of the year nomination again). I interviewed him about possible reading traumas in his childhood.  I even engaged in some serious guerilla reading propaganda attacks to bring about change. 

It didn't work. I realised that my approach was completely wrong. My goal was to convince him that he should read, and that he should love it. Ha! How foolish!

And how reminiscent of so many of the ways we teach reading in schools. We tell our students that they must read and we expect them to engage with the process willingly, if not happily. We offer intervention for those who struggle to read, and fret over those who won't. It's a lot like my guerilla attacks.

You know what? None of that works either. Kids, just like my husband, don't end up loving reading because we make them read or because we tell them they should.

I eventually wore out and concluded that my husband was - and don't get me wrong, I love him dearly - deeply flawed and beyond my capacity to help. (Oops, did I just say that out loud?) I let go. I stopped nagging. I stopped questioning. I stopped reading (excuse the pun) into everything he ever said about his childhood. I stopped planting books. And went back to my own reading life. I started talking about my books. I shared funny little anecdotes that I knew would make him chuckle. I made connections between what I was reading and what was going on in the world. I allowed my reading to become part of our shared life. 

What happened next is hardly a surprise to anyone. He started reading more. Slowly at first, and still not with the same feverish obsession as I do but with his own quiet commitment. 

Here's my theory. It's, like, totally scientific and stuff. It's also GROUNDBREAKINGLY NEW!!! So much of what we do at school rams reading down the throats of our students as something they have to do and be good at. It's not about learning to love the possibilities of reading. And it should be. As Victor Hugo said: 'to learn to read is to light a fire'. Or as Frederick Douglass said: 'once you learn to read you will be forever free'. This is the very essence of what we need to teach students. Once we teach the value of reading, the rest becomes easy. (Please don't think I'm discounting dyslexia or other such issues. They're real. So. Real. And they need more research and student who live with them need more support. This treatise includes these kiddos, but I'm not suggesting that this answers those particular needs.) 

How do we do it? I think we should share our own love of reading. Talk about books. Share funny, sad or powerful parts of our own reading.  Make connections between our own reading, and events that are relevant to the students. Discuss books our students might not yet be able to read but may create a spark. Model our own reading life and the value it has for us.  It's not rocket surgery but I'd go as far as saying that it's more important though.

Let's give it a go. I made a commitment to share more of my reading life/love with my students at the beginning of this week and it's already had an impact. I'll give it a couple of weeks and report back. Who will join me?

 'I love books. I love that moment when  you open one and sink into it. You can escape from the world into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be.' 

~ Elizabeth Scott

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers:

Standard 1 Know the students and how they learn

Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it

Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

While We Teach, We Learn

Created on recite.com

How often have you heard the phrase "the best way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else" or "to really check your understanding of something try teaching it to someone"?   An article that I've just read for one of my M.Ed topics looks at this very idea and unpacks which component of teaching is actually the helpful one.  The article suggests that that whilst preparing to teach something can be helpful in short term learning, it's the act of teaching (explaining, defending and discussing) that leads to long term learning (Fiorello & Mayer 2014).  Which makes sense right? If we know that we're not going to have to actually deliver anything on what we're learning then our engagement levels and motivation will be somewhat lower than if we're going to have other people looking to us for the explanation.

It's such a simple idea isn't it? And I don't know about you but I can really relate to it.

Let me share a little tale... (Settle in because as you can probably correctly predict: I'll take a little while to get to my point.)

I consider myself to be a reasonably literate person. I came through primary school, however, during an era when teaching grammar was not particularly fashionable. Verbs? Articles? Parsing sentences? That was for chumps - we had whole language! (Or maybe we didn't, I could read and write very early so maybe the other kids were doing that while I was allowed to skip it?) I eventually learnt about grammar through studying languages other than English later on. (For which I will be eternally grateful because there are thousands of Australians around my age who still don't know why ending that last sentence with 'on' leaves a slightly acrid taste in my mouth.)

Our current curriculum requires students to understand much more about grammar than I was ever taught, and from the very beginning.  Even in year one students are expected to:

Explore differences in words that represent people, places and things (nouns, including pronouns), happenings and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives) and details such as when, where and how (adverbs) ACELA1452

Investigating & categorising
 types of adverbs

So the other day as I was preparing to teach a lesson about adverbs I realised that whilst I could explain, with a reasonable degree of confidence, a broad definition of an adverb (and the fact that in English that can be placed before AND after verbs) I couldn't really go a great deal further. Eeeeeek! I pulled out my books, swiped frantically on my iPad and pretty quickly learnt more about adverbs than I thought humanly possible for late on a Sunday afternoon.  I designed a learning flow and was actually a bit excited to share it.

The following morning my new learning was settling in my mind like slightly set concrete... I was a bit worried that it wasn't quite strong enough to hold up any questions that might land on it but, of course - and you knew this was going to be the case, because you know that I like happy endings - as I delivered the lesson the concrete set harder and harder. And today, nearly a week later,  I feel confident in my new understanding of adverbs.

What does this mean for me as a leader of learning? How can I incorporate more opportunities for my students to use this strategy meaningfully? How do you use it in your learning environments?



Fiorella L, Mayer RE. (2014). Role of expectations and explanations in learning by teaching. Contemporary Educational Pyschology. 2014;39(20):75-85

As I was reading the article for the first time, I had to chuckle.  I can say that whilst I do genuinely enjoy my uni reading (y'all already knew I was a nerd!) and always take it very seriously, this particular article - without a shadow of a doubt - was getting more attention because it's the one assigned to me to 'teach' the rest of my group. Talk about life imitating art... Or science... Or research... Or whatever we're calling this.  

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...

Standard 1 Know students and how they learn

Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it

Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning

A Gift

It's no great secret that I'm a bit of a learning junkie so it won't come as a surprise to anyone that I've been a wee bit excited about returning to study this year.   I'm braving the waves of postgrad study; I'm enrolled in a Master of Education (specifically an M.Ed in Cognitive Psychology and Educational Practice) at Flinders University. Officially classes started last week, but I jump started things by taking an intensive summer school subject back in January.  

It's that subject that I want to talk about today. That subject was (and still is!) called Conceptions of Giftedness, Intelligence and Creativity. A bit of a mouthful right? Basically, whilst the intelligence and creativity parts of the title are clearly important, the subject really focusses on working out what giftedness actually is so that we, as professionals, can advocate for the gifted kids in our classes, schools and communities. 

It's a bit of a touchy area for me because my two children are gifted. 

Until a few years ago, I raised them as a single parent, just the three of us. My whole experience of parenting was with gifted children: meeting developmental milestones scarily early; dealing with their incessant need for challenge and learning; advocating for their special (yes, special) needs; supporting them in the areas that lagged behind their intellectual and creative development; conversations about anything from nuclear fusion to the medieval English serfs' use of non-arable land; the need to manage social activism from one son who wants to save the world (whilst happily ignoring problems closer to at home). This was my norm and, as such, I never once considered that it might be different to any one else.  

Then I married a man with four sons of his own.  I discovered, very quickly, that there is a huge difference. I could write a thesis on the ways our two groups of boys are different. Some of the differences are simply down to different families of origin but most are not. Most stem from the differences in the way the boys experience, perceive and interpret the world. There's nothing inherently superior in either way; in fact there are 6 different ways because there are 6 different kids. There are undeniable differences though.

This blog post, over at
Crushingtallpoppies.com,
shares my frustration with this myth.

I'm sharing these details of my life because one of our assignments requires us to rebut and then positively reframe myths about giftedness. And... As a parent of gifted children I'm finding it really hard. The first myth we addressed was that all children are gifted. *internal scream* No. They're not.  All children are unique, but they are NOT all gifted. I witness this truth every time I sit at the dinner table with our combined tribe and hear the disparity in conversations. I see it every time I look at the learning tasks of my 14yo gifted son compared to my 14yo stepson. I feel it as I see the frustration in my son at the way his stepbrothers skate over the surface of something he wants to share deeply. I know it in my bones as a mother. Right there, that's where I'm having trouble with this. I'm struggling to step back and be a student rather than mama bear.

Anyone who has seen me with my other kids - the ones who call me Mrs RP - knows that when advocating for them I'm often in full mama bear mode. With these kids I guess it's a bit different though. As Rita Pierson eloquently describes it, I'm acting as their champion. This is different to being mama bear in many ways, but overlaps in others.  Is this why I'm struggling to make the distinction between mama bear and student? The overlap? I don't know but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's something I'll struggle with in all of my studies about giftedness because it has been such a big part of my role as a parent. 

I didn't expect to be so emotionally challenged by my first subject but I can tell you that it has pushed me further and deeper into my readings than I expected so it's probably a good thing. Some might even say it's a gift. Ha!

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning
Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

QR Code Trail Update & Reflection

I'm super tardy in posting this update on my book week QR Code Trail (the original post is here). Sorry! All I can say is that during book week I found a whole pile of new YA novels that I wanted to read before releasing into the wild my classroom. I finally reached the point of being ready to read Divergent. (Gotta say that I'm loving it way more than the movie, but when do bookworms ever enjoy a movie more than the book.)

The codes went all the way around the school.
Parents had to visit many classrooms to find them.

Back to the topic at hand: here's the update.  We had a small but significant number of parents participate in the trail on the first day of book week.  Some others came back the next day to do it. (Yay!) Some of my kiddos met them, with their iPads, and acted as tour guides. Thank goodness they did! Not all parents had wi-fi, and some didn't have QR readers.   Our school internet connection decided to play hide and seek for most of the afternoon too which didn't really help.

However... The parents  enjoyed the experience. My kiddos were able to talk them through both the process and the literacy concepts that each video covers.  From what I could gather, this aspect of the trail was particularly appreciated. Pretty proud of the kiddos for stepping up like this. 

What did I learn from the process on the day?

In terms of the videos themselves: my learning journey continues. I need to improve the sound quality and reduce background noise. The best comments came from children who were guided through very specific - almost leading - questions rather than allowed to freely discuss the topic.  You're welcome to view the videos on the school's YouTube channel.  We've set them to 'no comments' but I'm keen to hear your feedback through this blog or via twitter (@markeetarp).

In terms of the logistics: iPads don't have the world's loudest speakers. I need to provide headphones, especially if it's windy (as it was). 

In terms of the 'entry form': people rarely carry pens these day so I needed to provide those (which meant my kiddos had to run back to the classroom to grab them). I think a better option would be to set up a google form but that would reduce the drama of pulling a winner out of the hat when we choose the winner of the book voucher (to entice participation). Having said that, it would certainly give us another opportunity to demonstrate another of the e-tools we use in the classroom (random name selector).

I'm inspired to build on this experience in the classroom - both the videos and the QR codes.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Standard 6 Professional engagement

Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Reflect Growth

One of our most basic human needs is belonging. It's not the most basic - that would be wi-fi these days - but it's right up there. Belonging to someone or something bigger than ourselves is a constant driver for (most) people. It's why we check Facebook umpteen times a day, it's why we join book clubs and it's why we buy cats! Cats aside, or maybe not, it's really about a need for community.

This year I've found myself part of a new online community. I know that there are hordes of people out there (assuredly not reading this blog) who claim that social networks and online communities are Bad. Yes, capital B Bad.  You know what I think?  I think they were wrong about video killing the radio star and they're wrong about this too.



I even did a little research on the topic and found that I'm not alone. In fact:

"Despite the opinion of some, real community and sense of belonging can be found and nurtured online through participation, collaboration, storytelling and exchange of information." 

May 16, 2015, Do Re Media

This year, I've found myself part of a new and exciting online community of educators called Reflect Growth.  We are are an online community of educators working together to share professional practices and co-create a piece of software.  I'll get to the software in a moment, because it's a bit exciting, but for me the delight has been in finding a community of (mostly local) teachers who share my goal of active professional growth and reflection. Meeting these educators, in person and online, has been refreshing and inspiring.  It's met some of my need for belonging to a community.

And a community it is. We share, amongst other things like coffee and cake,  inspirations, frustrations and goals. We challenge each other's thinking and explore ideas. We've been taking apart the AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers to work out what they really mean, and have hypothesised whether the introduction of them is the precursor of Ofsted style inspections like in the UK. We've talked about the TfEL framework and how it links with our understanding of effective teaching and learning. Pedagogy, padagogy, Blooms, Gardner... You name it, and we've been there. Even if only briefly.

It's been a very busy little community. Much more so than any I've been in before, which begs the question of why?  I have an inkling.  A couple actually.

1. Strong and active foundational members
2. A driving purpose

The couple who launched the Reflect Growth community are originally from the UK, but moved to Australia - presumably for the weather - a few years back. Since arriving, Selena has taken the education world of South Australia by storm and is well known as a mover and shaker. When she speaks, people listen. Her voice demands to be heard (which is actually doubly true when you consider her operatic training) and she put the call out for teachers to get involved with driving their own professional development.  The other half of this (actually very quietly spoken) duo is Matt. Full of ideas and technological know how he is a man with a mission.  Together these two are a force to be reckoned with! They hold us together as a community and, it seems, genuinely care.

I'll come back to the software I mentioned earlier. Still in the early stages of development the app is being designed to support teachers in driving their own professional development. It will help identify areas for growth and collect evidence to support it. Today, I've been privileged to spend some time playing with the prototype. I can't speak highly enough of it!

Next up for the community looks to be teacher challenges that will see us share our practice in an open setting. A version of a virtual classroom visit, sort of, with the opportunity for/expectation of feedback from other community members. Eeek! New ideas and feedback!  Can you see why I enjoy this community so much?

Come join our community at www.reflectgrowth.com! The more the merrier.

(Incidentally, you can check it out on Facebook during your umpteen checks here. Or Twitter here.)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...

Standard 6 Engage in professional learning

Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

End of Term Feedback

Shhh.... Can you hear that?  That's the sound of teachers all over South Australia taking a well earned break. Whether your break is at Cirque du Soleil (like me after school on the last day of term), at a friend's house (like me later that night), at a winery (like me on the weekend), at a professional development conference with one of your students (like me yesterday) or in a coffee shop (like me this morning), or renovating your house (like me ALL the time) I hope you enjoy your break! (Sheesh, after that recap I'm starting to realise why I'm still so tired!)

The end of term is hard for everyone. For some young people the idea of leaving their safe space for a couple of weeks is daunting. For others the lack of social contact over the break is difficult.  I even have a couple of kiddos who miss learning. Woah! Right?!?!  (They are the ones who will read this blog post: you know who you are!)  For me, as a teacher, one of the hardest parts is knowing that it will be two whole weeks before I can act on what I've learnt from the students' end of term feedback about me.  

Yeah yeah, first world teacher problem. Got it.  

So this term I'm going to share some of my reflections about their feedback right here.  

 Let me start by sharing our process.  Each student uses four mini slips of coloured paper and we talk about the kinds of feedback that will be helpful.  (I learnt that the hard way after being told that I should stop wearing jeans which is particularly funny seeing as I've worn jeans to school on approximately 3 occasions EVER.)

It's become a bit of a tradition for me to read the slips on the way home.  I usually read them aloud to my husband and we start to identify trends.  It's a good way to close off the term and start my own reflections.  

There aren't usually many surprises because I seek a LOT of ongoing feedback from my kiddos.  I decided to make word clouds from the feedback this term to see if anything really stood out. 

Nice to see teaching there! I'm not surprised WBW is there (because most of the class really enjoy the organic nature of the activity), and am excited that mentor sentences have popped up. That's something new for me this year.  I'm also really pleased to see so many variations of "pushing me to be the best I can be" and "focusing on what individuals need". 

Fitness is a bit of a no brainer - I have a few vocal boys who ask for this several times a day EVERY day.  Spelling?  We've been talking about various groups needing more explicit spelling lessons so I'm pleased to see this.   I'm sad that I'm not stretching and helping people enough so that's something I can definitely improve on next term. 

There's a fair bit of interest in changing up our lessons too.  I'll take that under advisement and we will get up,  out and about more next term.

This term I've been through some personal challenges and have noticed a change in my own behaviour at school.  The kiddos have clearly noticed too.  I need to stop yelling. I. NEED. TO. STOP. YELLING. It doesn't work anyway. I know that. Time for a change.

Reading and maths aren't something I'm willing (or able) to drop but attending to the attention seeking behaviour and tolerating obnoxious noises are both very fair pieces of feedback.  I am aware of this and have already been making huge efforts to change.  I'll keep plugging away and seek some feedback from my mentors. 

Reading us the curriculum is a strategy I've been using this year when working with the class to develop our own rubrics.  Only one student mentioned it and I recognised their writing so I'll address this personally.

We had a LOT of ongoing projects at the end of the term. It was confusing and overwhelming - even for me.  I think I'll set up a GANNT chart next term so that we can programme our learning better.

Bless their cotton socks for saying nothing. Clearly the prospect of a pizza lunch was getting to them. :)  Another few things here that I'm not in a position to stop and some that I need to address. Shouting rears its head here too. Interesting that it's shouting here but yelling in the previous one. (I wonder if the 3 individuals who said shouting were sitting together?)

I find it interesting that I've been told I'm both strict (something I do well) and give too many chances (something I should stop).  I suppose both are true. I am very clear and consistent in my expectations but/and there are some students who legitimately need more support to make the best choice.   Only 1 student commented that I give too many chances, but I will address this with the whole class early in the term.  

So many important things to think about and learn from!

The kiddos also do a self reflection using the same headings on a single A5 sheet. Fascinating reading, and lots of help in planning for the next term.

Do you have a particular feedback/reflection tool that you use at the end of term?

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know students and how they learn
Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Labels

My husband is a social worker.  Or rather, he was. Now he does counselling and massage. All three come in handy!  More times than I can count he has listened to me as I've enthused, vented, chaffed at restrictions, showed off, planned and debriefed. He's been incredibly patient and I'm more grateful that he realises.

Tonight, over shredded duck and snow pea stir fry,  he helped me unpack some ideas I have around the way we label children. I'll be honest: I have issues with it. I think we 'other' children with labels, whether that is the intention or not.  There is more than one way to view this. Of course there is. This is just MY thinking, right now.

As a parent, I have seen first hand how this works. Our two oldest children are gifted. They are both enrolled in a gifted programme that runs parallel to the mainstream programme at their high school.  They are segregated classes, have different subjects, and go on alternate camps.  The staff of this programme are largely, but not wholly, specialists in gifted education. The school recognises the need for specialist services for these kids. They are quite clearly 'other'. (Don't get me wrong: we advocated for the boys to be included in this programme; we used the label to get the support they need.)

As a teacher, I see a different side of it.  Children come to me with labels. Sometimes I seek a label for them. Sometimes, I'm chastened to admit, I give them one. And these labels change the way the children engage with school. Sometimes the label means that the children have different expected outcomes. Sometimes they are taken out of the classroom for extra support. Sometimes they have extra support in the classroom. Sometimes they have specialised equipment. Sometimes they have behaviour plans that keep them in particular parts of the playground. Always they end up making it clear to the rest of the class that this child is 'other'. 

My issue is that there is an assumption that there's a problem that needs to be fixed. The deficit model which has us approaching students based on our perception of their weaknesses is pervasive.  And insidious. 

By the end of our stir fry, I was quite worked up. My husband reminded me that whatever else I may or may not do, I do see the child in front of me, rather than the label. I can quote their labels, and learn everything I can about the labels but by the time the child is standing in front of me I'm done with that. I see the child in front of me. He or she is welcomed into our class family and celebrated. Nobody is singled out as special. There are no 'others' in our class. There are just people.

And so is my husband, but right now I might just ask him if I can take advantage of his masseuse label. :)

#28daysofwriting

I've spent the afternoon with reading journals and WBW reflections (I wrote a post about our Way Back Wednesday programme that you can read here). It's been both inspiring and frustrating:  the usual highs and lows of getting to know the capabilities of a new class.  Now though, 'tis time to turn my mind to something else: the #28daysofwriting challenge.

It's a simple concept: writing for 28 minutes for 28 days.  The brainchild of Tom Barrett @tombarrett and explained succinctly on his blog The Curious Creative it forces encourages participants to just do it. To just sit down and write for 28 minutes. Too easy... I've had longer showers! (OK, not really. Well. Just the once. Shhhh.)

28 minutes is actually a long time if you're not in the habit of writing. Or if, like me, you're not in the habit of single tasking. And so, for me the benefit has been twofold: I'm writing again and I'm retraining myself to focus on one thing at a time.  Both are incredibly welcome gifts.

Let's start with the writing. I mentioned my students' WBW reflections earlier. It's a fascinating process that grew so much bigger than when I wrote that initial blog post. The students loved it as ferociously as I do - often finding it confronting and occasionally a little overwhelming. I've asked many times why this is, and the answer is always the same: the chance to talk openly, think and then reflect on their learning. And for me, that's what this blog is about (minus the talking, although there's plenty of that going on in my head): thinking and reflecting. I feel better about my teaching... My learning... My life really, when I write.

And the focus thing? Ha! My husband likes to joke that he can dangle something shiny in my peripheral vision and I'll turn to it. I do! We all do - especially teachers:  we are masters of splitting our attention in 25 different directions.  I do see the value in focus though and can harness it well when working with children. I'm just not very good at doing it for myself yet. This challenge is helping me get there.

The teacher in my is giving me a 2 minute warning. The writer in my is fretting that I've left myself with no time to revise or proofread. The multitasker in me is ready to move on. So it's a good thing time is nearly up. I'm challenged by this challenge and that's a good thing. Thanks +Tom Barrett

A Prime Assumption

Mini confession... This time last year I thought one was a prime number. Honestly. I had never really considered any other option so it was a bit of a rude shock when I realised that I was wrong. I was intrigued at the time but I put my curiosity to one side because I was juggling a new class, new year levels and new school. (And by juggling what I mean is trying to not drown.)

This year I'm teaching the same year levels in the same classroom with some of the same kids (can't begin to explain the joy I feel in this - that's a whole different post I think). I have the mental space to investigate why my original assumption was wrong.  So today, in a short break in a meeting, I did. It took no more than a minute.

Probably less than a minute.

And you know what?  I found the answer, I shelved my old assumption as misguided and I moved on. Simple as that.

So why didn't I do it last year?

I can't answer that easily. It probably has to do with some other assumptions I held - about myself. Like many new teachers I assumed that unless I was overwhelmed I wasn't 'doing' early career teaching properly - whatever that means. I assumed that always being on the run meant I'd get 'there' - wherever 'there' is. I assumed that admitting I needed help was a sign of weakness - however that works.

Yep. I held a whole bunch of pretty unhelpful assumptions. And it has taken me me somewhat longer than a minute to find the answers to help me shelve them.  I have though, and I think that's probably why, today, I admitted to my school's Maths Coach that I'd been wrong about a pretty basic fact, asked him for help and then took a moment to look it up.

Many of my assumptions have been challenged in the past year; the prime one being that I need to be anything other than what I already am.


(It turns out that there are several answers to my original question,  all increasingly mathematical, that are succinctly explained here.)