Advice from My Third Grade Review Partners

One thing's for sure: our students' are learning a lot about writing this year!  Not only are they becoming better writers themselves, but also they are pretty good peer review partners.

I dropped by a second grade class finishing their writer's workshop for the day and I was overcome with pride when they let out a collective "Awww" after their teacher told them time was up; they were in the flow!

Then I had an awesome experience with a group of third graders who told me not only what they liked about my story, but also exactly what I need to do to make it better.

This started weeks ago when I happened upon their class just as they were transitioning from drawing a picture of a place they wanted to write about to actually writing their stories.  I joined them, drew my picture, then wrote my story. I mentioned this experience in an earlier post.

I returned to their class a day or so later while they were learning about adding dialogue to their stories to make them more "in the moment."  I rewrote my story; it needed serious revision.

It's been several weeks, and I hadn't had an opportunity to share my story with them or to hear theirs. Today was the day.

Here's the revised version I read them:

The door slammed open and away he ran!
"Chance! Where are you going?" I shouted as I ran after him.
No answer. Down the hall, down the steps.  First, he; then, me.
"Chance! Stop! Come back."
Across the driveway.  Onto School Street.
He was running as fast as he could.  I was chasing him as fast as I could.
"Stop, now!" I yelled, but he didn't comply with my demand.
I kept running as fast as I could, and . . . I was catching up to him.  He must have been slowing down, running out of steam.
Finally: he stopped.  And I stopped when I caught him.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Running away. I hate school. I don't want to be here any more," he sassed.
"Well, you can't run away from school.  You have to stay until your mom picks you up this afternoon," I replied.
Exhausted, we walked back to school, holding hands, or rather, I was holding his hand to prevent another escape.

Sweet children - they were quick to tell me what they liked.  Bravely, though, they also let me know that my story needs "some onomatopoeia in the part where he's running."

I think that's pretty good writer's advice.  Thank you, third grade! You bring me joy!

I'm off to the revision cycle.

In a Nutshell
Students are learning!  Our new writing program is building skillful writers. And, I'm learning, too.

Balancing Teacher Talk

Have you ever felt that by your second or third class period your lesson was better? Typically, that's because you've practiced it, you've figured out what needs to be said and what doesn't.

I recently conducted a math class where I first observed the teacher teach the lesson, and afterwards, I taught the lesson to the next class.

The difference in the two lessons:  She knew far more about the content than I did, and provided more in-depth explanations upfront, leaving her students less class time to complete the exercises. I, on the other hand, knew only enough to deliver the essentials for that lesson, so my group started on the problems sooner, had time to check and discuss their work along the way, and finished the entire problem set.

Make no mistake, this experience is not to say that I taught the lesson better; if this were a language arts lesson, I would have been the one lingering with the explanation.

This experience illustrates a Direct Instruction premise on which our reading program is built and our school wide instructional philosophy was developed. The script minimizes and standardizes teacher talk to reduce confusion and keep the lesson tightly focused on the intended outcome.

Sometimes, we teachers talk too much.  Because we know our subject well, we may tend toward overkill on an explanation.  And when that happens, we impede learning.

In planning lessons, consider the amount of teacher talk needed: how much is too much, too little or just right?  Plan your explanations in advance; remove the temptation to "practice" on your first class; they deserve your best, too.

DI experts tell us:  "Students deserve precisely planned instruction.... Students ...  are disadvantaged by instruction that is not carefully planned and well implemented.... If we aspire to reach all the students and teach all the objectives, we must plan instruction very carefully."

Marchard-Martella, Slocum & Martella. (2004).  Introduction to Direct Instruction. New York: Pearson.

In a Nutshell
Too much teacher talk may hinder student learning.  Set a timer to limit explanations and challenge yourself to stick to the limit.  Weed the excess.

What ideas do you have or practices do you use to limit your teacher talk?

Doing the Work of a Writer

"Look what I wrote!" Zealous second graders clamored for me to read their story first.

"My story is about ...," a first grader in the water cooler line offered.

"My grandmother died this weekend and I wrote about that," a fifth grader shared.

Writing is taking a front row seat in our curriculum, and I am inspired by our students' excitement.

I, too, am fired up about writing again, and I'm learning along with our students and faculty.

I joined a third grade class for a lesson on developing a story about a place.  First, we drew that place. Then, we wrote a story, a small moment - a seed, about that place.  The next day we were reminded of dialogue and how speakers can make our writing come alive, to help our readers live in the moment.  We revised our stories to include dialogue.

Hey, pssst ... did you notice I transferred that learning to this new piece of writing?  

A fifth grade teacher asked me to teach one of the lessons from our new program. I was happy to oblige, but first I needed to study all of the previous lessons to know what students had been taught and what work they had already produced. This is not a pick-and-choose curriculum; it is spiral - every lesson builds on the previous one.

Fortunately, I was able to use the stories I had written a few days earlier to demonstrate the revision technique for the fifth grade lesson.  Without that, I couldn't have taught the lesson.

When I observed in eighth grade, the teacher was sharing her writer's notebook with students, illustrating techniques for the students to emulate. She, too, has been writing along with students, and often in advance, to work through the curriculum, to provide models for students, to experience the frustration and the triumph that comes with writing.

I look forward to seeing students' progress from first attempt to strategy experimentation to revision to published piece.

Will you, as the teacher, also put yourself into student mode to take the learning path from first to final draft?

In a Nutshell
We all must be learners.  We cannot become better writers or better writing teachers without doing the work of a writer.

source: https://twowritingteachers.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/mem-fox-quote.png 

Grounded in Tradition

I'm really liking our school's new logo.

The iconic oak trees shading our playground hold so much history for this little town, and more recently, for our school.

The new logo speaks to me this way:

The oak tree represents our roots and the foundational aspects of character building and academics we strive to instill in our students.  The mighty oak in its antiquity represents wisdom, steadfast loyalty, and strength, all of which are character traits we endeavor to pass along to our students.

The trunk and limbs, represented through the two arms and hands outwardly stretched, embody the support we provide for our students as they develop their potential.

The leaves represent our students and staff as individuals of varied ages and sizes who, collectively, make up our BCCS family.

Grounded in tradition, a phrase from our Alma Mater, reminds us of where we came from.

Reaching for the future, a statement of hope.

What is unseen in the logo is just as important as what is seen.  Roots.

Roots grow deep into the ground to weather the worst of winds, to drink from within the soil, maintaining life.  Likewise, there is much unseen support at BCCS.  So much that happens that you and I don't see, from the board room where policies and finances are handled to the bathroom where little ones' tears are wiped away, from visionary planning to lesson planning: these are the roots that make BCCS strong.

I'm grateful for this mighty oak - our school - that was planted by a tiny seed - an idea - in our founders' imagination.  I'm grateful for the roots that have taken hold, for the trunk of unwavering support, for the diversity of leaves on our tree.

BCCS gives me joy.

In a Nutshell
To be a Blazer is to be rooted in a tradition of excellence, to grow strong in character and intellect, to contribute to the whole while simultaneously pursuing individual potential.

Attending to the Small Things

Great accomplishments are made possible by attending to the small things. It’s a compilation of many details that leads to success.  As the great Coach John Wooden said, “Big things are accomplished only through perfection of minor details.”  

Wooden’s championship successes in basketball began with him teaching his players – college players – how to put on their socks and shoes.  Talk about basics.  Attention to this level of seemingly minor details resulted in numerous championships.  Nothing fancy. Wooden’s philosophy was simple.  And it led to big wins. 

I think his philosophy is appropriate for our school, as well.  Attend to the details and the big picture – the goal – the mission – will be ultimately fulfilled.

This philosophy asserts that excellence is a by-product of commitment to doing all the small things well, of giving maximum performance 100% of the time, focusing on doing all the little things well consistently and conscientiously. Consistency, never slacking off, never letting down, is indispensable when working toward excellence. 

If you’re here, then it’s at least partly because you want to be the best, to be associated with excellence. Mediocre is not an option.

So, where do we find these little things at our school that add up to excellence, to the brand that our community recognizes as Baconton Community Charter School?

• The little things are found in our family atmosphere. We love each other and we love our students, and it shows. 

•  The little things are found in caring, compassionate teachers who get to know their students and their parents, who treat them as their own children, as family, offering both encouragement and correction with love in their voice.  Our character is not measured by how well we love the easy-to-love kids, but rather, by how well we love the hard-to-love ones.  Love for students sets us apart from other schools. 

• The little things are found in knowledgeable, competent teachers maximizing instructional minutes with engaging bell to bell instruction to ensure every child learns to his potential.  Consider the compound effect of the lost opportunity for learning every time a lesson runs short. Do the math: 5 minutes of free time at the end of the period times 5 days a week times 2 weeks equals a full 50 minute class period times 36 weeks equals 18 class periods. Can anyone afford to give up 18 class periods? 

• The little things are found in modeling respect for others through our words and actions, respect for property through keeping our campus and our classrooms clean and free of litter and our equipment in good repair, and holding our students and ourselves accountable. Consider the message we send when we walk past litter, when our classrooms are cluttered, when we allow students to draw on desks, or chew gum that lands on the sidewalks or under desktops.

• The little things are found in customer service.  Our students and our parents are our customers.  Without them, we have no business.  Our responsibility is to serve them, and each other, cheerfully.  Consider the difference in how you feel when you leave Chic-Fil-A and the cashier says cheerfully “See you again tomorrow” versus how you feel when your server doesn’t refill your drink before you empty it and your food takes nearly an hour to arrive.

•  The little things are found in expecting 100% performance from ourselves each day.  Giving our all.  Being on time and prepared.  Our lesson plans are a to-do list; they keep us on track, making forward progress through our curriculum and ensuring students have the opportunity to learn. Revision is natural, but we can’t revise what we don’t have to start with.  It is cliché, but oh so true:  We are only as strong as our weakest link; if any among us gives less than 100%, we will not achieve the excellence our mission drives us toward. We must be accountable to each other.

Art Linkletter once said, “Do a little more than you’re paid to. Give a little more than you have to.  Try a little harder than you want to.  Aim a little higher than you think possible.”  That’s our challenge: our opportunity to contribute our full measure to our students as individuals and to our school as a collective organization.

In a Nutshell

Our brand is differentiated by the little things.  How are you/me/we attending to the little things?  

Uncovering Our School's Mission

Here’s our school mission – what it is that we claim to do as a school:

Providing a safe, nurturing environment for a diverse community of learners to develop academic potential and ethical character leading to productive citizenship in the 21st century

• Through our charter, we have collectively contracted with Mitchell County and with the State of Georgia to carry out this mission. 
• Through our registration process and family contract, we’ve collectively committed to our parents and students to carry out this mission.  
• When we each signed a contract to work at BCCS, we committed ourselves individually to carry out this mission.  

Each of us must understand and own our mission.   

I revisit this frequently and ask myself, am I fulfilling this mission?  What do I need to do better?

It is our mission – we are tasked with – providing.  That doesn’t just happen.  By definition, provide means to make available; to furnish; to supply or equip.  We have to put it out there for our students to receive.

Safe: physical and emotional safety are necessary for learning to occur. Psychology tells us this – kids can’t learn when they have unmet needs for safety.  We can create safety by how we treat students in our classrooms, on our playgrounds, in our lunchroom, on our athletic fields.

Nurture – to feed & protect; to support and encourage. Our words and actions, our attitudes, build up others or tear them down.  Our mission is to nurture – to build up.  Even when someone needs to be corrected, our mission compels us to do this in a nurturing way.

Environment –the social & cultural forces, influences & conditions that shape the life of a person or a population;  

Providing a safe, nurturing environment: we are tasked with ensuring our students and our staff are surrounded with supportive, encouraging conditions characterized by both physical and emotional safety. For many of our students, a day at school is the best eight hours of their day.  For some of us, school may be an escape from less-than-desirable conditions at home.  We can control our school environment through how we choose to respond; remember, we set the tone in our own classrooms.

Diverse – although the State may define diversity in terms of color, we know our diversity takes many forms.  We have students and staff from all walks of life – different economic circumstances, different cultural traditions, different religious practices, different family makeup, different educational backgrounds, and more. 

Community references the common denominator we share – our school; we’re all in this together!

A diverse community requires that we open our hearts and minds to understand where children and parents are coming from; they may not have grown up like we did; they may not accept responsibilities as eagerly or as responsibly as we expect; their differences, though, should not create a barrier to benefitting fully from being a part of the community.  

It is our mission – our responsibility – to bring each one into this shared community, to teach them how to participate fully, to gain all that is available to them.  They want it – that’s why they’re here; they just may not know how to get it.

Learners – we all are learners, not just our students, but we, too, must be continually in learning mode.  I invite you to embrace learning with a growth mindset for yourself, as well as for your students.  We will be on a significant learning path this year as we learn our new curriculum and new pedagogy with our Eureka Math, Lucy Calkins writing, inquiry based learning, and for some of you, new courses or grade levels, entirely.  

But that’s not all we must learn.  You’ll have a new set of students and new set of parents, new challenges along the way.  What you’ve always done before may not be the most effective for the outcome needed, so I encourage you to seek out, to learn.  To become the most effective teachers, we must be learners first.

To develop: to bring out the capabilities or possibility of; to bring to a more advanced or effective state.  This is movement forward – from one level to the next, often through incremental steps, toward effectiveness or mastery

Academic – that’s the measure of a school – the content we teach

Potential – that which is possible or capable of becoming

Develop academic potential – our mission requires that we move students toward their best academic performance, leading them to becoming all that they can be – their potential.  This is different for every person, but we must not allow ourselves to become comfortable with mediocre, with less than what we and our students are capable of.

But academics, as we know, is not the sum total of our mission.  BCCS was founded on the premise of developing good citizens, which necessitates a strong ethical character, as well.  We are charged with helping students develop ethical character – instilling our Blazer Spirit values in every student and every employee.    

We’ve distilled these traits into our acronym BCCS BLAZER SPIRIT: Baconton – our community, Citizenship, Civility, Sportsmanship, Blazer – one who leads the way, Loyalty, Accountability, Zest, Esprit de Corp, Respect, Self Discipline, Perseverance, Integrity, Resilience, Initiative, and Teamwork.

That is, developing academic potential and ethical character leading to … productive citizenship

We want our students to become producers, to be able to work, to hold jobs of their choosing, to support their families as they grow into adults, to be able to and to desire to give back to their community, participating in our democratic republic as an informed voter, possibly as an elected or appointed official, making life better for all, but above all, being able to take care of oneself financially & intellectually, and contributing to society in a meaningful way.  Productive Citizenship

In the 21^st century.  Our society is changing, and what was good enough years ago, simply isn’t anymore.  Our students must be prepared for this fast evolving world we live in, able to learn and adapt quickly, to be able to place themselves on the cutting edge.  

This new generation of workers will need to develop skillsets as innovators, creators of new ideas, problem solvers, decision makers, effective communicators, collaborators, to be able to research and inquire, to be media literate, technologically savvy, flexible & adaptable, self-directed. 

This is a huge task: our mission.  But it’s just the beginning, the statement of what we will do. This mission demands great accomplishment, excellence.   

In a Nutshell
How do you live this mission?  What aspects of your daily activities put this mission into action?

Your Mission: Why are You Here?

Why are we here? More specifically, why are you here? Why am I here?              

The short answer is that all of us want something better in education, and Baconton has a reputation for being a good school.  The long answer is embedded in each of our experiences. 

Early one morning 16 years ago, as I was dressing for work that day, I felt a powerful call on my life.  It was so unmistakably the hand of God on my shoulder and His voice saying “Teach in Baconton; this is your mission field.”

Fast forward . . . and here I am today, still on this journey.

These years haven’t been easy.  I’ve personally made lots of mistakes, and there have been many times I have questioned whether it is time for me to move along elsewhere.  Yes, I have questioned God about this, and he has shown me undeniably that this is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing.  I don’t take this lightly.  I’ve been given an assignment, and not only is it my paid job to do, but I believe that it is God’s calling on my life to be here.

Like me, many of you also have a testimony of sorts as to why and how you arrived on-scene at BCCS.  It is no accident that any of us is here.  We are 70+ people, each with differing talents, interests and experiences.  We have been brought together for a purpose.  We have a mission to fulfill.

In a Nutshell

What is your personal mission?  Why are you here?  How does your personal mission fit into the school's mission?

Choose an Attitude of Gratitude

And, we're off to a joyful start of a new school year!

We have so much to be thankful for, yet we sometimes get so busy in getting things done that we fail to take those few moments to reflect on what we have.  That's why I felt it so important to begin our first faculty gathering with a call to choose an attitude of gratitude.  

Build a habit of thankfulness. We cannot take our school for granted; we operate under a performance contract, one that is increasingly under greater scrutiny.  We must be thankful for our school, our facilities, our coworkers, our opportunity to exist here, and continually strive to exceed expectations.

Seek joy: be willing “to see even the small good things around you — to allow yourself to give them due notice and to allow these things to lift your spirit.” source

Take a moment every day to reflect on all that is good and right in our work environment and in your life.  See the good, ever how small it is.  Create solutions, rather than drowning in a sea of problems.  

Together we will change our outlook, we will enhance our school climate, we will find greater satisfaction in our jobs, and we will perform better when we honestly acknowledge the good things happening around us. 

We are going to have great year! 

It will not be without its challenges, but we can use these as opportunities for personal and professional growth, both individually and collectively.  

I am confident that with all 70 or so of our employees choosing daily to operate with a thankful heart, we can positively transform our school into greatness.

In a Nutshell

Every day, write down at least one thing that brings you joy that day or that you are thankful for that day.  Date your list.  And periodically, re-read it.  This is your Joy Journal.  Write in it daily.