Mining For Hidden Gems

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her 2009 TED talk titled The Danger of a Single Story explains what happens when what we know of a place or a people (or even a historical event) is shaped by one perspective. What we have is an incomplete story and often an inaccurate one. If we believe that first story on face value and are not diligent in our own truth-seeking, it will settle in our brain and consciousness and claim prime real estate - squatters' rights. Any other story will have to now compete with it. Any new information is filtered through that initial imprinting. And it may take decades to supplant that initial story or add to it. Here is my personal experience with swallowing  incomplete truths: I was fifteen years old when I came to the United States from Iran. My knowledge of Black people and their culture was limited to what I had seen on dubbed TV shows and athletes at Olympic games, i.e very incomplete, twisted and inaccurate. I had very little knowledge of the Civil Right...

I have learned so much about teaching and learning by observing nature (Read Goose Liver Pedagogy , Butterfly Facts for a Teacher and Untitled  for other musings on nature and teaching) Last year I hired someone to trim my trees. I was so desperate to get the job done that I just went with the random person who had left their card on my door and wasn't asking for a lot of money.  When I came home I was shocked to see how they had pretty much hacked all of my trees down without any attention to aesthetics or shape. I was sure I had lost all of my crepe myrtles. But a couple of weeks later I began to see signs of branches and leaves coming back! The trees bloomed all summer and I was relieved that I hadn't lost them. When winter came, the crepe myrtles naturally lost their leaves and became bare again. But as Spring approached, I began to worry that most of them would not bud or bloom again. There was no sign of new growth. In mid-March, I went on a closer inspection and notice...

As teachers we want to believe we love all of our students equally and treat each and every one of them the same. We know that equality and equity are not quite the same things. This graphic has been helpful to me and my students in understanding that each of us may need different resources to gain equal access to learning. If equality is the end, equity is the means to get to that end. What we hope to achieve is a society where each and every member has an equal voice, their needs are considered with equal urgency and concern, their lives are valued equally and they have the same rights and privileges for participation. Equity is how we get there. Equity is recognizing that we do not live in a world that has always believed in equality, that some of us are not starting at the same place as others because of hundreds of years of inequality. Equity means that we recognize the beautiful diversity of our communities and appreciate the various ways we learn and express ourselves, even w...

I ran into a former student at the office supply store the other day. She greeted me with her sweet smile and let me know that she remembers her fourth grade year and me fondly. She also let me know that she is graduating as a dental hygienist soon and will be looking for a job in her field. I was not surprised. I remember her as a serious student, diligent, hard working and conscientious  - all the qualities that I knew would allow her to succeed in school and in life. On top of that she was kind, well-mannered and always wore a smile on her face. "Jesse" was my student ten years ago while we still offered transitional bilingual services to our students that came from Spanish speaking homes. The goal of a transitional program was to strengthen a student's English proficiency enough so that they could transition to a monolingual classroom. It was a remedial model that looked at students' multiple languages as a handicap and not an asset. That year "Jesse" ...

I've been reading and thinking a lot about reflection this year and wondering how to create an environment that fosters the kind of thinking that leads to learning from experiences. On Tuesday, when my students came back from two weeks on Winter break and we sat on the carpet to catch up and reconnect, I asked them to take a minute and think about what they had learned? I admit I was trying to avoid the situation where some of my students had a lot to say about where they went and what they got and others felt left out. I wasn't sure how it would go. I was prepared for a lot of silence and repeated answers. But I was pleasantly surprised.  Here are some of their responses: "I learned that you have to be really patient when you go on a long road trip." "I learned that dogs need a lot of care and attention, otherwise you have to give them away." "I learned what it means when people say Christmas is about family. I knew it was true but this year I real...

I use poetry and songs every day as a way to build reading fluency in my students. It takes no more than 5 minutes to read a poem or sing a song two or three times.Through poems and songs I also fill their heads with beautiful language; beautiful language that later shows up in their talk and in their writing. Because words also get stuck in their heads, I try to use selections that carry a positive messages, affirmations that can hide in some corner of their brain and raise their voices when most needed. Last Spring, I came across a performance by Andy Grammer and the PS22 choir of his song: "Don't Give Up On Me". I showed the video to my class as an example of feeling the words you sing or recite. I also told them that if a song was going to get stuck in their head, I'd rather it be one that said: I will fight I will fight for you I always do until my heart Is black and blue . . . I'm not givin' up I'm not givin' up, givin' up No, not me...

There are ten minutes in my teaching day that I will not give up or exchange for some other activity no matter what. When fire drills, assemblies and assessments interrupt my regular schedule, I still try to find ten minutes to read aloud to my students. These are the most joyful moments of my day but I also know that there is a high rate of return on this little investment. Last year, we read nine books together. When I ask my students to write book recommendations, they often choose one of the ones I have read aloud to them. When I run into them years after they have left my classroom, what they remember are the books I read to them. Here are some of the reasons I safeguard my read aloud time: The voice of the fluent reader becomes imprinted on the text - I have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. When I picked up his new book Talking to Strangers  I realized I was hearing his voice as I read the text and it flowed easily and rapidly. Right after f...