More fear…and an action plan

It’s been a long time since I have posted here. Since my last post, I’ve experienced some pretty intense challenges in my personal life, one of them being coming to grips with the reality of the pandemic. Like all of us, I watched with wide eyes as our way of life crumbled and we were forced indoors. I was happy to return to work, albeit in a virtual format, to connect with people. I got used to the rhythm of working from home and I have been enjoying it.

I have to say that when things got intense with the pandemic, I was too overwhelmed to open my TweetDeck. I finally got around to it, and even made a post or two, but I think that speaks to where I was in terms of overwhelm. Not that I’m on my own in this; we are all experiencing some level of difficulty through all of this.

I am grateful for the positive tone that the Cohort 21 coaches have fostered. I know we are coming up on our final F2F (virtual format), and I wanted to lay out my action plan. This plan has been on my mind for months now, but I’m going to do my best to flesh it out here. Keep in mind that I intend to implement this next school year (I’m told this is allowed!) when we are …back to…normal? Back to something? I don’t know what we will be back to, or embarking on, but I think this plan is still workable.

Initially I was interested in having fruitful conversations with my students, meeting them in their stress and somehow fostering better mental health and stronger relationships this way. While I still think that this is important, my ideas have kind of narrowed down to an academic focus that allows for conversations. Here is what I have been thinking.

The idea is to create a sense of trust and investment by creating an anchoring topic that we return to in conversation all the time. The topic is an academic goal, or something the student wants to get better at in their academic writing. This isn’t a nebulous “I guess I need to get better at being argumentative in my persuasive essays.” It’s a focused, self-identified, desirable goal that I will help my students work towards by the end of the year.

I do try to connect with my students and ask them how they are doing when we are having conversations about essays. However, I have observed that the sudden “How are you?”doesn’t often yield results. I connect with my students in the classroom when we chat about assignments, but it’s not usually the best setting to have a student open up. Without a relationship, or an anchoring topic to return to again and again, why would a student feel empowered to talk about how they are actually feeling?

I have decided that in order to foster a conversation with adolescents about their work and life, you have to get them invested. They have to care about the “anchor” of your conversation as much as I do.

So when they write their essays next year, I would like to follow steps that look a little like this:

  1. The students should choose one personal thing they want to work on at the start of the essay. This is to get THEM invested in something that they have identified as an area of need based on feedback from earlier work.
  2. I should make plenty of checkpoints for the students to converse with me about that thing throughout the writing process. This would involve regular meetings that target progress on that one area to improve.
  3. I should consider single point rubrics that just focus in on the targeted area. Possibly, there would be co-construction of those rubrics with students. Thank you to Brent Hurley and Jennifer Gonzalez for mentioning these on Twitter and bringing them to my attention.
  4. Students should identify HOW they want their feedback. Would written comments suffice? Do they prefer voice recordings? Perhaps an in-person conversation? All three? Something else?
  5. When they submit essays, they should fill out an honest reflection on the assignment. Things should end off with a one-on-one conversation with the teacher.

Look, I know it’s not fancy. I know it’s not groundbreaking. But I think that having that anchor to converse about will help build relationships with all students. It will create something to invest in for both of us, a point for both of us to return to again and again and build on. In that way, a relationship is built.

Question Breakdown

I thought that I had come up with a really good question. I asked, How might we foster real, brave conversations between students and teachers that lead to real changes within a high-performance, high-output environment? This question sounds fancy. It sounds relevant. And it truly comes from a place of concern and care. But what does it mean?

You see, back when I interviewed my students months ago, as part of my Cohort homework, what they were telling me is that they are stressed. This isn’t anything new, but it really bothers me. Sometimes I try to grapple with the fact that I am part of a system that causes significant stress for these students. Yes, we could look at so many factors besides school that contributes to young people’s stress, including technological distractions and the realities of 21st century life, but I wanted to make a difference in my classroom nonetheless.

I should also mention that my question is partially inspired by one of the discussions we had as a Birch group in one of our face-to-face sessions. Although I don’t think it prudent to go into detail about this discussion here, I will say that I will never forget it and I am grateful to my group member for speaking up about a very real struggle.

So I have been challenged on my question. Although I see meaning in it, one could argue that it is quite vague. I want to give a shoutout to Eric Daigle for challenging me on this, and for our personal conversation during the last face-to-face. I’m going to break my question down into smaller parts.

 

  1. How might we foster real, brave conversations between students and teachers

What is a real, brave conversation? At its core, what I want is for my students to be honest with me. I don’t need them to go into great depths about the state of their emotional health. But I do want my students to see me as a person who cares about what they have to say and what their needs are as a student. For example, a student might be struggling with an assignment and not feel they can speak to me about it honestly. I want that student to have the confidence to speak to me and be very candid about their concerns and needs.

 

  1. …that lead to real changes…

This has to make a difference in the student’s life. It could be a boost in confidence because they sought out help and got what they needed. It could just be making a connection with an adult who cares and getting something off their chest. It could be a sharpening of academic skills. Maybe it could lead to other conversations about life and learning that could have big implications for the future.

 

  1. …within a high-performance, high-output environment?

Schools are stressful. As much as we focus on wellness and the whole student, we are challenging these kids in ways that that stretch them. We also ask them to do a lot: juggle 6-8 classes, volunteer, engage in co-curriculars, pursue leadership opportunities, be away from home, be a good friend, apply to university, embrace failure, and more. They feel the pressure to perform at very high levels. They need support, and they need people to be able to talk to.

I hope this provides some clarity about what I feel and a little bit of context for my question.

 

*A note about blogging: As an English teacher, I find this blogging experience to be difficult! In the spirit of being real, I have to say that I feel very self-conscious here. I think we all expect our English teachers to be good writers and being put in this type of spotlight is hard! This is certainly a potential exercise in empathy as I reflect on how I ask my students to stretch themselves.

 

Fears and Observations

I’m at the stage in the Cohort 21 process at which I feel a little stuck. Maybe this is just the common experience of Cohort people, but if I a perfectly honest, I am feeling discouraged.

On a Twitter chat, I shared my how might we statement with the Cohort community. It was well-received, resulting in some tweets celebrating the idea for the project itself, and others offering wonderful resources. However, as much as I appreciate this reception, I am still wondering if this question is good enough.

Even so, I think I’m asking an important one.

How might we foster real, brave conversations between students and teachers that lead to real changes within a high-performance, high-output environment?

This question needs to be asked, but so many things come to mind that make me doubt it.

Aren’t we already asking this?

Are you essentially trying to be a psychotherapist? (No!)

Hasn’t this been done before?

Aren’t there already so many resources that answer this question?

However, even though these questions bombard my mind, I still think we need to keep asking this. See, no matter how many programs we put in place or how many wonderful people we have leading the way here, we have to keep asking this. We need to keep pushing to be better at this, no matter who we are or who has done groundbreaking things here. No matter how much research exists and how many programs have been devised.

Yes, we need to keep looking to the great work that has been done. We are not looking to reinvent the wheel here. We are not sacrificing good, sound practices on the altar of innovation. We just need to keep being better at this.

The problem is, where do I start?

I started by making some quiet observations on how students behave in one-on-one conversations with me as we worked on refining writing assignments.

Stay tuned!

Teaching Students For Years

One of the things I really enjoy in my teaching life is the opportunity to teach students more than once during their high school careers. I used to teach both English and drama, and sometimes I had students who I taught in both classes for two years straight! One thing I love about this is the opportunity to see students grow. We are so used to the model of teaching a student in one subject area for one year, and then passing them off to the next year. I think there is value in teaching a student over multiple years, if possible.

“I teach four year levels – in ONE classroom!”

When I was a child, I lived in Ireland and went to a school that had two classrooms. In each of those classrooms there were four year levels. The downstairs classroom had junior infants, senior infants, first class, and second class. Going to the upstairs classroom meant you were in third, fourth, fifth, or sixth class. Looking back, it seems intense. Those poor teachers must have felt pulled in so many directions and they had to have been dynamic classroom managers with such a variety of ages to contend with.

Perhaps it wasn’t so bad though. Maybe those teachers only found that their classroom presence was strengthened through developing parent and student relationships over several years. Perhaps students felt a stronger sense of trust in their teacher and more comfortable taking risks and asking questions. Maybe it helped build a sense of community.

Ah, memories!

This summer, when I was visiting my old seaside town in Ireland, I went down the tiny lane where my school is found and gazed up at the old building. I have very happy memories there. Last night at parent teacher meetings, I had the delight of reconnecting with the parents of students I also had last year and being able to discuss the student together with both years in mind.

Is there value in intentionally placing students with the same teacher for multiple years of high school? What are the pros and cons?

On the mismatched shoes incident

Yesterday was a very long day. From consoling a teary student, to working with a more experienced teacher on marking moderation, to introducing a new unit, it was one of those really busy ones. When my day was more or less finished, I glanced down at my feet. Why were my new-school-year new shoes already scuffed? Why was it only my right foot?

I laughed internally when I realized that I had, in my hurry that morning, slipped on a new shoe and an old shoe. Yes, I bought the same shoes this year as I did last year. They look exactly the same except that my old pair (kept as a backup pair under my desk) have a different colour buckle and are considerably more scuffed up.

In our Cohort 21 Twitter chat last night, I mentioned this and managed to get some amused responses. But then I got to thinking that there has to be a teaching metaphor here.

Folks, I got through my day. It wasn’t that easy, but I did it. I didn’t have both of my shiny new shoes, but I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE. I’m the type of person who would like to have it all together when it comes to my teaching. I just don’t though. None of us do. I am striving for it though. While I integrate new and rich practices into my teaching, I have to rely on some older (tried and true?) ones as well. Those old ones aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes they are the well-worn foundations that we know fit and go hand-in-hand (foot-in-foot?) with the new ones.

This is a short one, but hopefully it resonates with you today!

My best learning experience

Hello! My name is Eadaoin and I am very happy to be a part of Cohort 21, season 8. Yesterday was our first face to face meeting and it was a wonderful day of connecting and getting started on the whole process. To start off my C21 blog, here are some thoughts about what has affected me and ways I want to have an impact as a teacher.

My grade 9 & 11 science teacher had a lasting impact on me. I didn’t take science far after high school. I had a biology minor for a very short time during undergrad but soon decided to pursue English and history exclusively. However, I will always remember his science classes in high school. My teacher employed a model of relational learning, making sure to connect with his students through humour. I also remember him taking the time to go home and research our biology questions, whether or not they were related to the topic we were studying, and return soon after with the answers. I remember the kindness.

I want to be a teacher who models kindness for her students.

Social skills is one of the most important things our students can learn. When those skills are in place, all sorts of other types of learning can happen. I think I help develop this skill in my classrooms by just having the students talk to each other. Whether that be through partner work, group discussion, or providing peer feedback, it happens a lot. I also try to work in student-teacher conferences which provides a chance for me to get to know the student better while discussing course matters.

I’m looking forward to a great year with this new network of innovators.