Breaking my Silence on Ferguson

I have been quietly thinking and researching and stewing the past two days about the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri. And I have remained silent to my friends and family on Facebook while I process. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t feel qualified to respond. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t want to engage with the polarized language I feel saturated in. Maybe I don’t want to say anything because I am still processing.

Perhaps that processing time is a luxury afforded to me by my privilege.

And maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t feel compelled to engage on social media about many “political” ideals that matter to me. My social media being my “friendly  place” seems like my prerogative.

But maybe that’s selfish and short-sided. Because the truth is that the entire world is a friendlier place to me, a white woman, than it is to my black friends and students and colleagues and neighbors and fellow humans of the world. White privilege is a fact in this country. A fact.  While I cannot convince someone who does not believe this of its truth, I will not be silent about it.

My heart is heavy this week with the tragedy of Ferguson. My heart is heavy because a family lost a son, and I cannot imagine this pain. My heart is heavy because black lives matter, and too many have been lost in tragic death sentences that were unsanctioned and unwarranted. My heart is heavy because I know good law enforcement officers who long to keep peace in communities and make the world safer, and they do the best they can every single day. My heart is heavy because I, too, am a public servant in a field that “lacks accountability,” which people think they can do better than me simply because they’ve lived it on the other side of the desk. My heart is heavy because again, what I see on social media shows me that people coming together on an issue that matters so much is further away than ever. My heart is heavy because folks are making broad generalizations about many based on the actions of a few.

My students wrote conclusions for their argument papers on social issues today. I urged them to acknowledge the “gray” in their conclusions. I told them something like this: “If you are pretending like your issue is 100% black and white, then you are being irresponsible. The way to acknowledge the importance of your issue is to acknowledge that it is difficult to discuss and difficult to understand.”

And I brought up Ferguson in my classroom because it’s been on the fringes of our conversation for two days, and I didn’t want to be silent to my students anymore.

“You can say something like, ‘I get that being a law enforcement officer and making split-second decisions is difficult’ and follow it with ‘And I also get that black young men are 21 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than white young men. We have a problem with racism in our society.’ These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, so don’t feel like you have to pretend that they are. Admitting that you’re unsure, that there are multiple perspectives that are difficult to sort out--that doesn’t weaken your argument; it strengthens it. Because you’re showing that this is an issue worth discussing, worth seeking to understand. Don’t ever think that looking at the whole issue and trying to understand it demonstrates weakness.”

I don’t know if these are the right things to say because I’m not sure there are right things to say. But because there are so few “gray” voices in my news feed right now, I wanted to say something. Because if silence indicates that I don’t care about this issue--and the deeper underlying issues it exemplifies, that would be woefully incorrect.

Day 20: Curating Student Work

Day 20: How do you curate student work--or help them do it themselves?

Curating student work is something I've experimented with--rather poorly--the whole time I've been a teacher. I keep experimenting because I truly believe in looking at work as a way for students to be mindful of their growth.

I've mostly used manilla file folders, asking students to keep their major writing pieces, which they flip through a few times a year, and then I send home with them in June, begging them to at least take them home and shove under their beds rather than trashing it on the way out of the building. (No, I do not believe this is the most powerful form of student reflection.)

And reflection is the big piece of the puzzle. Sure, collecting can be powerful when students can compare what they are capable of in May versus what they could do in October. But they have to have the TIME and a GUIDE to help them see the nuances in their writing. Very few students will do this by accident on their own.

This year, since we are 1:1 with Google Chromebooks, I thought I might try helping the kids create Google Sites, with different pages for their different types of writing. This would be an organized place where they could gather their pieces, use the "comment" at the bottom of the page to reflect ever so often, and maybe even look at again next year to remember that they actually did learn something in ninth grade.

Any tips and pointers from folks who have used this method before?

Day 18: I am an Air Traffic Controller.

Day 18: Create a metaphor/simile/analogy that describes your teaching philosophy.

I am an air traffic controller.

This makes me laugh because in eighth grade I thought I wanted to be an air traffic controller, which is pretty much the WORST possible fit for me as a person.

And yet.

Air traffic controllers are trying to guide places that are far from them, over which they have no real control. They offer guidance; pilots must choose to accept it. Likewise, we can guide, nudge, cajole, beg, punish our students in an effort to take them on the path of our choice; however, the path is theirs and if they are going to authentically learn anything, they must engage independently.

Air traffic controllers are making constant on-the-spot decisions. While my on-the-spot decisions are not a matter of life or death, each one has a consequence that I cannot predict. A choice may have no effect on a larger outcome, or it may be the tiny thing that gets a kid back on track. Or off track. Hopefully it doesn't cause a plane crash.

Air traffic controllers are managing flying objects. This is the hopeful part of my metaphor. Students really are true, pure potential. When we can bottle it up and allow ourselves to breathe it in, they are as amazing as planes soaring in the sky. We spend our days in vicarious flight.

Day 16: Superpower

Day 16: If you could have one superpower in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help?

There's a serious answer here, and a silly one.

My serious answer: I would love to stop the clock and let learning be when we are really in the flow, instead of marching to the dead beat of a bell all day long. Sometimes I need 85 minutes for a lesson so the students have time to practice, internalize, play. I would love to be able to stop the clock.

My silly answer: I would love to know when I'm really boring and no one is actually paying attention. Sometimes I know this because it's obvious. But there are other times when there are several student nodding along with me, and I delude myself into thinking that everyone is really engaged when I'm sure everyone is thinking about how I really should have worn a different cardigan or what lunch awaits or whether Jean is going to say yes to the ninth grade dance. And I love the instability and unpredictability of the ninth grade mind. But it would be awesome to just know for sure when every student in my room wishes I would just shut my mouth.

Day 15: Strengths

Day 15: Name three strengths you have as an educator.

1. I am committed. I believe deeply in the ability of education to make a difference in a student's life, and I take the opportunity I am given to be that difference very seriously. This manifests itself in me working to connect with both easy and challenging students, being willing to be the adult in the room and give every kid a fresh start every single day, and searching for the right way to help a student grasp something that is difficult. My heart is in this work because I believe that I have a moral obligation to give the best I can every day.

2. I am calm. While I am passionate about beautiful language and standing up for what is right, I am able to remain calm in the chaos of the classroom. This is true both for days that are difficult when it comes to management and moments with individual students that I'm not sure how to handle. Yoga has changed me for the better here. I am comfortable with waiting, finding my breath, pausing until I know what to say or do.

3. I work backwards. I feel really fortunate that I had a great Methods professor in my undergraduate work that helped me understand aligning goals to assessments and beginning with the end in mind. I believe that my ability to consider a big-picture goal and identify the baby steps it will take to get there helps my course feel organized and flowing toward something.

Of course, there are improvements to be made, always. But I'm not going to deal with those today. I'm just going to note what I think I do well. We should all do this more often.

Day Twelve: A Moving Target

Day Twelve: How do you envision your teaching changing over the next five years?

This is an interesting prompt because I don't know what I don't know yet.

My vision for myself in five years revolves around continuing to focus more on the learning than the teaching.

The teaching--the dissemination of information--is the easy part. The act of learning--helping students actually grow as readers and writers and communicators--is the hard part. And the deeper I go into this profession, the more I realize the vast gap between the two. This will continue to become more prevalent as technology shifts seat time and face-to-face interaction in our classrooms. I have no crystal ball to foresee what this will look like, but I have to imagine that there could be changes in the way we do business in five years--or at least that will be on the horizon. But this is okay as long as we remember that students need teachers to guide them on their paths.

This journey is not just about technology, however. It's about the evolution of fear. When I started teaching, I was so afraid of losing control, of no learning happening, that I over-scripted and controlled everything, thus guaranteeing that each student would learn at a minimal level. As I grow as a teacher, the fear shifts. I'm now afraid of my fear of losing control hindering student potential to learn in my room. This is a much better place to sit because it places student learning directly at the center.

 So, in five years, what do I see?As I become a more skilled professional, I will ask better questions that help students do better thinking. I will listen better during writing conferences because I will continue to understand that this is the way it has to be, regardless of time constraints. I will do less work for students that they can do for themselves. I will continue to grow bolder.

But the reason I say that I don't know what I don't know is that there is a strange paradox in teaching. A wise veteran teacher whom I interviewed for my masters work on teacher sustainability said something to the effect of, "The strange thing about teaching is that the better you get, the harder it gets. You just keep finding new questions and different things you could do better." This is so true. Perhaps in five years, I'll have discovered a whole new element of writing conferences that is NOT about listening and absolutely crucial, but that door is closed to me until I learn how to listen.

This is the most frustrating, amazing, invigorating thing about teaching.

P.S. In five years, I will be more gentle with myself.

Day Ten: A Few Random Things

Day 10: This is kind of fun! 

Share five random facts about yourself.

1. In high school, I badly participated in the improv troupe. 

2. I once got my head stuck in some monkey bars and had to yelp for help.

3. I love popcorn. So much. It's sort of a problem.

4. I am not going to mention dance to my daughter and hope she never learns about it on her own because I don't want to deal with the recitals.

5. I want to play the guitar or the ukelele but I won't work hard enough at it.

Share four things from your bucket list.

1. More travel: specifically; Thailand, Italy, Australia, New York City, among others.

2. Be paid in real money for a piece of writing.

3. Paint something beautiful.

4. Take a public stand on something that makes me nervous.

Share three things that you hope for this year, as a “person” or an educator.

1. Potty training and pacifier weaning and big-girl bed-moving my daughter.

2. Continuing to feel the sense of balance and calm that I have felt as the year began.

3. Allowing myself to feel and share vulnerability in positive ways.

Share two things that have made you laugh or cry as an educator.

1. A 7th grade student who struggled with reading helped another 7th grade student who struggled with English read her poem aloud. The tears came right in that moment.

2. I'd like to share a laugh, but nothing quite seems funny enough, so here's another cry: leading students through Dangerous Intruder Training. I don't get used to the idea, and the fear that grips me while discussing the prospect is almost more than I can handle.

Share one thing you wish more people knew about you.

1. I'm working on getting control of my perfectionism because I've started to see it as detrimental to my happiness rather than just "who I am."

Day Nine: An Accomplishment

Day Nine: Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care).

I've sifted through old rosters to try to tell a great student story, but nothing flashy or stand-out comes to mind. I know that I have a tendency to focus on what's not going well--which makes me a reflective problem-solver, but also unfortunately means that I overlook a lot of good that happens in my classroom every day.

Here's something small. Every year, the final question on my course evaluation is "A time I knew Ms. Griffin cared about me as a human being was _________________." I tell the students that this does two things for me: 1)it's a shameless way for me to feel good about what I do and 2) it helps me see the little things I do that really make a difference.

I'm still doing paper surveys (I know!) so even though these are anonymous, I can identify 95% of their handwriting. I get some blanks, some generic responses, and some that blow me away. But what I'm most proud of is that all different "types" of kids can come up with heartfelt and meaningful responses--the honors students, the struggling students, the easy ones, the challenging ones. And this shows me that I'm doing something right in connecting with kids.

Day Eight: Ode to a Desk

Day Eight: What's in your desk drawer, and what can you infer from its contents?

From the top middle drawer, I pull out lip balm a few times a day. In the top right drawer, I put away my remotes every night when I am resetting the room. In the bottom right drawer, there is a giant bag of trail mix from which I grab a handful most afternoons. My "technology drawer" is jammed full of manuals and chargers and boxes and cords that I "might need someday."

None of this seems too interesting to me. The lip balm and trail mix demonstrate my need to be comfortable while teaching. The technology drawer captures my teaching hoarder: the part of me that fears that the second I get rid of something will be exactly when I need it. The resting place for my remotes demonstrates my deep desire to be organized, something I work on every single day (and this year, it's actually sort of clicking).

What is interesting to me about my desk is the sticky drawer, the one that I have to jam to the side and hold at just the right angle to close. My desk was a throw-away, placed in the hallway for auction by a teacher who'd ordered a new stainless steel model. I saw it there--a big, old, oak beauty, with water stains and pen ridges and little tables you could pull above the drawers--and I knew that I had to have it in my room instead of the flimsy metal space saver that was currently there.

I didn't notice the drawer until several weeks into our time together. The humidity had risen just right for it to start acting up.

I still loved my desk and chalked it up to character. When the inspector toured our 100 year old house to look for significant problems, he minimized the sloping dining room floor, the peeling paint in the window boxes, the strange wiring in the attic. "It's all part of the charm of an old house," he'd say, and I knew he was someone who spoke my language. In houses, furniture, books, I've always loved to imagine the backstory of what this object meant to someone else. Not only are older things more beautiful to me, they're somehow wiser, even inanimate objects. I know this doesn't make much sense.

I'd like to say that the sticky drawer is a metaphor for something, that it reminds me that some students stick before they are able to move, or that the old oak slab reminds me of the wisdom of those before me. But none of those things would be true. I just like my desk; I like its character, its warmth, its backstory. And a little more beauty and a little more story in each day never hurt anything.

Day Seven: Inspiring Colleagues

Day Seven: Who was or is your most inspiring colleague and why?

I sit awash in memory, trying to choose one moment to "write small" about, and nothing comes. From my first days in the classroom as a field experience student to my current place as a sort-of-veteran teacher, colleagues have shown me again and again what it means to be a teacher.

In chronological order, the following folks inspire me.

Debbie Victor radiated optimism while working in a building where the system was working against. She never worked like those students deserved less.

Andrew Rasmussen taught me what passion looks like--for project-based, authentic learning, for public education, and for student-centered thinking, always, no matter what.

Heather Isaacson inspires through kindness, through tears (happy and sad) for all of her kids' stories and backgrounds and accomplishments. She will not rest until teachers that work with students can understand the big picture about their situations and what they need. She changes kids' lives.

Donna Mallin inspires through language, through beautiful writing, through considerate feedback, through a focused lens that reminds me what our discipline is truly about. Her wisdom slays me.

Abby Hendrickson casts a wide net for ideas and refuses to be satisfied with something that is almost just-right. She sends links in the night and pushes back against settling and her big-picture revisionist thinking has made me a better teacher.

Jennifer Paulsen's commitment to professional growth and reading is astounding. If there is a theory you thought was new, Jen heard of it a decade ago. Her joy for reading, her lack of elite thinking about reading, the way she connects kids with books and helps them shape their identities as readers... wow.

Lori Engel never--not a single time--shows frustration or impatience despite her work with some challenging students. Her humility and desire to keep growing remind me to be more open-minded, more patient, more willing to serve.

And the faces are still coming. I've named teachers with whom I've worked (and one advisor) here, but there are faces of administrators who did not choose the easy path, faces of professors, faces of colleagues in my master's program, and more and more and more teachers. I'm going to stop because I want to watch Breaking Bad and eat ice cream with my husband, but this is the point: this is a profession of inspiring people. While the myth of the "bad teacher" may be alive and well in some circles, it does not exist in my actual teaching life. May we continue to fight for professional decision-making so that the creativity and wisdom and inspiration in those above can continue to help students flourish.

Day Six: Tribute to a Mentor

I skipped yesterday and thought I could make it up today, but since it involves posting a photo of my classroom, it will have to wait for another time. No guilt here. Thanks to a dear friend, I'm working on banishing "should."

Day Six: What does a good mentor do?

My mentor taught me to have high expectations for student even when their home lives suck, that it was okay (and often better) to use blunt directives than weak requests (when dealing with middle school students), that leaving a pile of work to go have a drink with colleagues is worth it, and that laughter--every day--is an imperative part of this work.

My mentor was a science teacher, a veteran of twenty or so years who was not only raising her two children, but also a few extras that moved in sometimes. She taught me what I needed to know about managing a classroom, interacting positively with parents while standing my ground, maintaining a professional learning life, and being respected as a hard-working and serious leader among colleagues.

I don't know that she was trying to teach me these things. I learned these things by watching her in her daily teaching life.

These are the things she did:

1. Took the time every single today to let me process and find the good (most days--except for those really crazy ones when there is none to be found). I have no idea how many extra hours she must have had to work that year because I was taking up so much of her time. I was twenty-three, still in my self-centered bubble, and it probably never occurred to me that she might not want to chat about our days because she had other things to do.

2. Treated me like a full-blown colleague. I had to be making dumb mistakes right and left, but she sought my input and never made me feel like a first-year teacher. This helped me have the confidence to feel like I was actually doing the job I was supposed to do.

3. Listened to what I needed. She did not try to offer advice without understanding what it was I was asking for. So often it was just humor.

4. Gave it to me straight. In my status as an eternal optimist, I needed the curtain to be pulled back a few times about what was going on with the big picture in our district. She told me what I needed to know. If I was struggling through something and spinning because I couldn't see that something I was doing was the problem, she would bring it to my attention. Kindly but frankly.

I'm not sure if all new teachers need what I did, but as I process my experience, I'll bet that these four pillars are pretty important. Nancy Johnson was not my district-assigned mentor; she was the mentor that happened to be right across the hall when I needed one to be there. And I am forever grateful for the impact that she had and continues to have on my teaching.

Day Four: What I Love Most

Day Four: What do you love the most about teaching?

There are so many things to love about teaching English. When I get to talk about a story and see something I never saw before because a fifteen-year-old's mind is so different from mine, when I get to watch adolescents respond to each other's writing with maturity and grace, when I get to belly laugh between classes at one-upping of Chuck Norris jokes by teenage boys, it is difficult to believe that I actually get paid to do this.

But my very favorite is a brand new start every year.

There are few images as powerful as a blank slate, and this is what I receive every single August. All the mistakes of the prior year vanish, and the problems become solvable again. Without tangible faces in front of me, my summer planning and dreaming allows me to shoot high and imagine new possibilities. And then it all becomes real and concrete again with new humans in chairs, who haven't made up their minds yet about how this is all going to go. Since I haven't either, the fresh feeling is thick in the room.

New Augusts are my favorite.

Day Three: Goal for Improvement

Does it count as "on time" if I post before the next school day starts? Didn't think so.

Day Three: Discuss one "observation area" that you'd like to improve on for your teacher evaluation.

The area that I'd like to improve most in my teaching this year is in facilitating discussion.

I think my weakness in this area comes from a lack of preparation. I want the students to do the work with the text, come with the ideas, and this is a good thing. But the bad element is that I all too often expect this magic to happen on their own with a simple direction of "reread this paragraph and find a line that shows you something new about ________."

When I put the kids in charge, and we use a guiding question for a Socratic Seminar, and I request substantial preparation work, the discussions are strong. I just need to mandate the same substantial prep work of myself when I'm the one in the driver's seat.

Day Two: Tech Talk

Day Two: Write about one piece of technology that you would like to try this year and why.

True confession: there is nothing on my current technology try-list. With all my talk yesterday about being bold, I still want to be careful that I am using technology to truly enhance student experience and not just "engage" them in activities that don't actually lead to deeper learning. However, here is a list of my current interests/explorations regarding technology.

I am interested in how writing collaboratively can help students grow as individual writers. My students have spent the last two days co-writing literary analysis paragraphs after sharing individual goals based on my feedback on their first paragraphs. I'm curious if collective ownership will take some of the pressure off--and help them learn some new tricks. We used Google docs for this collaborative writing, but the students were sitting side by side and talking as they did so.

I am interested in how Goodreads can help my students stay fired up about their independent reading and make tracking their progress fun rather than tedious.

I am interested in my own use of Twitter and the English Companion Ning. I'd like to participate in more #engchat and #titletalk for my own growth. I'm curious about students following writers on Twitter, trying to grow their muscles of positive use of social media, but I'm not sure I can get most of my 9th graders to truly buy in. I'm not sure--perhaps I was too inconsistent last year with my use of Twitter--but I wonder if young adolescents aren't too interested in combining their social space with their school spaces.

I am interested in inviting more work with visual literacy and movie-making into my room, but not at the expense of student work with words, with crafting their perspective with raw tools. Modifying language is hard enough, and I don't want to replace precious minutes with things that aren't real writing. But in the name of being bold, I think I might need to do some experimenting here.

Day One: Goals

In an effort to jumpstart my reflective writing this year, I've decided to participate in @teachthought's 30 day blogging challenge.

Day One: Write your goals for the school year. Be as specific or as abstract as you'd like to be.

Before the school year began, on a walk with my family, I said that I had one goal for this school year: Be. Bold.

The primary source of this goal comes from my district's move to a 1:1 district using Google Chromebooks. I told my husband that I was afraid that if I didn't set a major intention to be bold using technology, I would let the fear of the unknown, of the temptation to constantly monitor, of my own skill deficits in technology, to hinder the potential of student creation, collaboration, and meaningful work that access to these tools would offer. I didn't want to spend the year managing or worrying; I wanted to spend the year challenging students to come up with new solutions that didn't exist before. I wanted to spend the year allowing students to teach me about their online literacies so I could help them build more cohesive, informed, engaging voices--so they can participate better in what actually matters to them while I expose them to literacies that matter to others.

But boldness in the classroom isn't just about technology. It's about loosening the reins and the plans so real learning can happen. As a first year teacher, I had my share of management problems. (And while we can all tell stories, did you have a fire set in your classroom? Didn't think so.) And they made me miserable. So I have been bound and determined, ever since, that I would be the boss of my classroom. This has led me to start student desks in a grid, every year, to emit seriousness and structure. This has led me to stop every sidebar with a hawklike look so that they don't escalate into larger problems. This has also led to somewhat weak discussion patterns, in part, because I am afraid at times I hold too much authority in the room. Now in my ninth year, I don't need to be afraid of management. I don't have to pretend that I'm the boss anymore because I just know it. I can handle things as they arise. So as one step, I started my desks in a rectangle, a discussion formation. So far, there has been no mutiny.

Boldness also moves into trusting myself as a master educator. While I have loads to learn, still and always, even my license says that I'm an expert. I will do my job and teach the standards I am supposed to teach. But I will do so in a manner that fosters curiosity and bold behaviors in my own students. I will trust my gut when things don't feel right and allow myself to follow a teachable moment when things do. I have spent the last few years letting too many outside forces shape what my classroom is rather than allowing the outside forces to enhance it.

This is the year that I trust my students to learn from their own mistakes regarding technology. This is the year that I trust conversation to lead to learning. And this is the year I trust myself to know what is right. The two rules in Room 9 this year are Be Bold and Be Curious. It has to start with me.