Game Time

“Ah, Just like I planned it! You did exactly what I wanted you to do!” Hope shouts gleefully at her dad. She just bested him at a round of Connect Four. Right now while I am writing, her dad is explaining some of his processing strategies on how to plan an attack strategy. We’ve played rounds of Concentration much like I did with my parents except the cards have Disney princesses on them. We've played rounds of Guess Who. We played rounds of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. We’ve got the slow food movement, the art of slowing reading, and in my house we have the fun of slow gaming, family game night.

When I was 10 years old, I was finally allowed to play the grown-up card game of Hi-Lo-Jack. I still remember learning at my great-grandfather’s side along with my parents and grandparents at their tiny winter home in Melbourne, Florida during my Spring Break one year. The tradition still continues as we’ve taught my husband how to play and invariably any family gathering of a least four adults includes a raucous card game.

In 5th grade, I remember playing rounds and rounds of Pick up Sticks and Uno in Ms. Harvey’s class during lunch. Some of my favorite memories of my Dad include playing Trivial Pursuit. He always had some arcane knowledge that I now realize came from the fact that he was 15 years older than my mom. He had an entire decade and a half of knowledge that no one else in the room had. After someone would pose a question, he would smirk and taunt, “Easy, easy!” In college, it was ultimate Scrabble matches with the OED as challenge reference. As an adult I love to play Turbo Cranium and when I really have time in the summer I love to go play live trivia with my friends.

On my phone, I do still play Tetris. I also indulge in Words with Friends and Scramble, but none of these games bring the joy and laughter into my life like playing games face-to-face with friends. It is actually one of the few things that I like about our school library. Kids can and do check out board games. I watch them play during lunch and before and after school. In fact, our media specialist hosts a board game activity day during school. I look forward to testing days when kids are stuck in my classroom for an extra hour because they are the times when I whip out my 7-8 Scrabble boards and we all play.

As I think about all the time in my life spent gaming, I realized I learned more than just how to play a game. I learned how to talk to adults and how to ask questions. I learned how to strategize and make a plan.  I learned how to lose and I learned how to win.  When we make time for slow gaming with kids, they have an opportunity to learn so much more than meets the eye. Ultimately it's just a sacred time for laughter. It's my time now. Have an Operation scheduled with my daughter.

Lighting the Way

The view from outside my portable at 6:30 am.  The windows are full of
figurative language flowers created by my students.  Instead of a word wall,
we have a windows full of words, which I actually have caught them using.
Thank you Kira for showing me how to do this!

I love eavesdropping on teens, especially when they don't think I am listening!  Granted this listening goes with the territory in my field, but I even do a little eavesdropping when they aren't in my class.  With spring forward this week, my portable literally illuminates the sidewalk. Every student who walks to school goes by my classroom and every teacher who parks in the back walks by this bay of windows. I had an opportunity to overhear three girls complementing the windows saying, "That looks like a fun class."  "I wish my classroom looked like that."  I hope all teachers make a classroom inviting for their students.

For the past seven years I have kept the blinds down in this portable. Now the first thing that I do in the morning is turn on the lights and open the blinds.  Initially I kept them closed to keep the sun from hitting us the wrong way and also to keep my students from being distracted.  Besides if I kept my blinds open all the time while I was teaching, what would people see?

Two weeks ago after reading an article about sleep and light, we (my students and I) decided that we should keep our blinds open each day to make sure we are getting enough "blue light."  I love the results.  Students seem awake and I admit sometimes we people watch. The same people come late to school during first period each day.  We wonder, what's their story?  People stop admire and smile at our window.  My students are proud of their work and they get to see the immediate joy it brings others.  I'm glad we made it visible.

I have decided that people should see the inside of my classroom. In this time of high-stakes testing, we need to render our work as visible as possible.  Let people peek into the windows and watch how we inspire students every day, by letting in the light.

Opting In

As a parent, I have thought deeply about what to do with my daughter next year. She will be a third grader.  Last night, I caught her grinding her teeth in her sleep.  What does a second grader have to be stressed out about?  The 44 AR tests that she has to take this nine weeks in order to reach her AR goal? Perhaps?  I have told her not to worry about her AR goal.  The pressure she, however, gets from the teacher easily surpasses my disregard for this.  Unfortunately the AR tests are only a first in a litany of tests that will consume her entire public school career if things keep going the same way that they are in education, especially in the state of Florida. 

When I had a chance to speak to one of the leaders, Kathleen Oropeza, of  Fund Education Now, she asked, "Why not consider opting out of the testing?"  Being a teacher, I know it isn't as simple as that.  Next year, the third grade year, the madness begins!  My daughter will have to demonstrate that she is on grade level by taking the FCAT.  Sadly just missing testing day, does not mean missing the madness that surrounds testing throughout the entire school year.  There are FAIR tests (an oxymoron) and benchmarks to take.   I had been considering opting out all together.  Which makes me cringe! Isn't this what they want?  Parents get mad about testing or get mad about the failure of schools to make the grade.

I love my daughter's school, for all the right reasons. It is small. It is a community school where student live within a two mile distance.  They have art. They have music. They have PE. They have social studies. They have science.  Of course, they also have reading and math.  Did you know some elementary schools opt out of teaching social studies at certain grades because it is not tested?  Have we come down to that?  Scary?  Or is that exactly what they want us to do?  In places where we do not learn from the past, we still continue to make the same mistakes.

Today, I am opting in.  Opting in for public education.  There is a dedicated group of women, founders of Fund Educate Now, who were instrumental in organizing parents to stop the parent trigger law that miraculously did not pass during this legislative section. It will be back with a vengeance next year.  In the meanwhile, consider opting in. Check out the Fund Education Now and think about how you can make a difference in the state of education. I am.

Countdown to Spring Break!



Spring Break 2010, Bahia Honda

We know them the instant that we see them, the snowbirds. My husband works in the hotel business and his work ebbs and flows with the tide of visitors to the Sunshine State. In nine days, my spring break will officially begin. But the spring breakers are already here enjoying their time in the sun. I am looking forward this break as I do every year. It is not an entirely work-free week for me, but I get a chance to move at a slower pace. But before I can do so, over the next nine days I have to




Thursday:  Present to the Reading Task Force
Friday:  Call parents
Saturday: Spend 5 hours training the best reading teachers in the world to me
Sunday:  Write my Reflection for my Evaluation
Monday: Host Academic Intervention with Students
Tuesday: Coordinate Family Literacy Night (16 sessions, hopefully 350 people)
Wednesday:  Finish my Grades
Thursday:  Hunger Games movie release party
Friday:  Host & Evaluate a Full Scale Emergency Exercise

All of these events include managing my regular work week cultivating lifelong readers and writers and future teachers. Luckily, I have many collegues and good friends who will be as exhausted and as excited doing the work with me to make our school a great place for kids. I can't wait to write about each of them in the thoughtful way they deserve, but tonight, here's my slice, a quickwrite.  In the meantime, I will continue to try to find balance. 

The countdown begins!

Stacey's Charge: Reflection on SOLSC

Stacey, one of the co-sponsors of this SOLSC, has charged us with taking some time for reflection about our experiences so far.  Reflection is a habit that I engage in about my teaching practices and is a habit that I try to cultivate in my students who are studying to be teachers.  I also try to cultivate that habit in my students as readers and writers.  Although Bill Bryson is not writing about teaching in his book, At Home, he writes, "It is always quite thrilling to see yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before." (p. 1)  In a way that is what the process of reflection allows the writer, teacher, and learner to do.
What has been easy for me is taking the time to write.  If you asked me about this last March, I would have said it would have been the hardest part of this challenge.  Now that I have practiced making time to exercise for the past year adding writing into my routine hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. What I have learned as I have carved workout time and now writing time is that some ways we choose to spend time aren't a meaningful as the ways that you can choose to spend time.  I gave up watching The Mentalist last week with my husband. Instead, he is my first responder to my blog. My first audience.  Different medium. Shared time.  
I've been challenged in this process because I want to find balance, not only in my blog, but in my writing life. I don't want this to just write about teaching. I don't want write about diabetes. I don't want write about just anything.  I want this blog to be meaningful.   
Well, if you know people are reading your blog, you want to write something worth reading and that is not easy to do every day.  That makes writing hard. Also depending on the writing time that I have available, I can't always make the writing work.  I have many starts and topics that I have saved for another day.  I try to make this blog as clean a draft as possible, but it is hard, because this blog is typically just 1st draft writing with me.  I can't always come up with a clincher or a hook, but practice makes perfect. 

Writing this blog has been the first time that I have participated in a virtual writing community. The last time I have been a member of a writing community was during my work in the National Writing Project at the University of Central Florida in the summer of 1997.  I have been astonished by the number of views.  To me that says, my writing matters to someone aside from me.  And although we would like to all say we should rely on intrinsic motivation,  when we get noticed it still makes you feel good when someone does.  I also value the discipline that it takes to write a blog, especially a daily blog, which has forced me to comment on my friends' blogs.  To truly acknowledge, I hear you from miles away.  I don't have the expectation for everyone who reads my blog to comment.  I appreciate the fact that they have taken the time to stop by.  Yet when I have caught someones' eye or made a connection to them, they comment.  That's powerful.  I  also as a late poster often, always try to comment on another late poster's slice.  They too have been busy and have made it a priority to write.  I like to leave my comment so they too know they have made a connection. 

My favorite read for teachers to learn about reflection, now in 2nd edition!

Will I write in this blog daily after the challenge?  I don't know. I have been thinking about how that might look.  For now, I am content to face the challenge and figure it out another day. 

Spring Hopping

Silver Glen, an unusual salt water spring.

I technically have 3 hobbies that I am most passionate about, reading, ultimate frisbee, and spring hopping.  Spring hopping is a term that my friend Mary coined several years ago as we planned to go to a different spring every week during our summer vacation.  We actually did hop into about 7 different springs on one of those summer days.   My energy to reach such lofty goals has dwindled, but not my passion for one of Florida's best kept secrets, the over 600 springs that dot the interior landscape here. 

Springs never fail to bring you 70 degree water and a relaxing day in the sun . In fact, when it is cold here by Florida standards, springs are almost more preferable to swim, with the temperature differential between the air and the water almost nil. When it is a hot summer day, nothing keeps the heat at bay better than a one hop.

My first experience was at Ginnie Springs, outside of Gainesville Florida in the early nineties.  In my recent travels back to Ginnie Springs, I realized that this spring was more for cave diving creatures or college age crowd.  While tubing down the Sante Fe River between springs, my idyllic memories of days spent here where shattered by the waterproof boom box that had been fashioned out of a cooler.  Spring for me are about disconnecting with technology and reconnecting with nature.  Each spring has its unique characteristics and rules. It is always best to review them before you go.  Here are few of my favorites:

• Rock Springs at Kelly Park great for younger kids, gets packed early; gates close
• Blue Springs; scenic run to snorkel; manatees during cold weather
• DeLeon Springs Old Grist Mill and pancakes; like a giant swimming pool
• Rainbow River, snorkel the entire river or tube it;
• Jupiter Springs; reminiscent of old Florida
• Ichtucknee Springs, tubing
• Weeki Wachee, home of the famous mermaids & an old water park
• Alexander Springs, camping & paddling, good for small children

Spring break happens in two weeks.  If I were in charge of the school calendar, I would schedule the entire spring off rather than the summer when it is too hot to go outside.  Now the weather is  ideal and you will perhaps find me hopping in a few springs on my to-see list, Wakulla Springs and Fanning Springs, or perhaps dipping into a few of my favorites.  Remember you only need a suit, a towel, and enough courage to take your first dip.

Pre-Observation Writing

It may seem like I am writing little here today, but that is because I have spent the past 4.5 hours writing the answers to my pre-conference form for my formal observation on Tuesday and I am still not done.  I have actually been working on this for over two weeks and today I am finalizing my writing.  I am a veteran teacher and should be done, right?  Not so! I assure you. 

Not having a model and only having a list of questions to answer, I only have one framework for responding to them, which is the type of writing that I had to do for National Board certification. With the National Board process, the way that you help the evaluator see the classroom that they never step into is through your writing.  Although my evaluator is stepping into my classroom and has been by several times, I don't want to leave anything to chance. Having listened to transcripts of my teaching and participating in lesson study, I know that it is difficult to capture every conversation and every step in a lesson.  I am making sure that I answer the questions thoroughly and thoughtfully.

Unlike the National Board process where I had many supports in place, this new evaluation process seems to be a solo journey for many.   I have read the Marzano books and could read many more, but  I would like to get back to the regular work of sustaining daily instruction in my classroom and coaching others.  I am sure that others who are in my position realize that this process is time-consuming and I like them, am trying to learn what I can about my teaching, without too much crazy-making. 

I am little comforted by the fact that my colleagues all over the country are going through this process.  I haven't even begun to think to deeply about the value-added model component of this evaluation.  Nor have I considered the eventual outing of teachers in this state and the outings that have already occurred in states that are a year ahead of Florida in this process.  I can't afford to go there right now.  I can only work with the task I have before me, which is to succinctly and thoughtfully allow someone to understand my instruction aside from my students.

As my daughter said, "Mommy, you have been on the computer all day."  Rarely do I spend my Sundays on the computer.  Thank goodness for the rain,  for my friends who understand why I have cancelled all our time together, and for my daughter and husband who are content to entertain each other today.  Let me get back to the one slice of my instructional life so I am prepared for Monday's meeting and Tuesday's instruction.  Soon it will be next Sunday and I will have the opportunity to share my ordinary slice of life.