Lessons Learned

There are two more weeks to this school year, and all I can think about is teaching next year. I am returning to the classroom after two years, with a caboodle of new learning from working through a Masters Degree and my job as Curriculum Coordinator. These two years have taught me some big lessons:

1. Language Arts teaching is all about transferable skills. It is about learning the processes and strategies for reading any text and writing any piece and discussing any topic. Reading units become less about the specific text (e.g., Wringer) and more about applying reading comprehension strategies or understanding character development or how to read nonlinear text. Writing units become less about the topic (e.g., character essay) and more about finding topics that are meaningful or using mentor texts to learn new crafting moves or how to adjust for purpose, audience, and genre. When approaching teaching in this way, I begin to question the value of some of the assignments I used to give. When planning, I must ask myself 'How is this useful for this student in the long term? Is this something that can be used with any text/writing piece/discussion topic?' If the answer is no, then it becomes yet another activity that keeps kids busy without moving them forward in their learning.

2. My kids come to me with lots of learning behind them, and they will carry what they learn in my class with them to the next grade. Somehow I lost that vertical idea in the day-to-day pressures of classroom teaching. But remembering that my class is but one notch in the long-term learning process puts my teaching in perspective: I don't have to teach as if students are empty vessels, nor do I have to teach every skill to mastery. Knowing what my students already know-- through familiarity with the previous curricular units and pre-assessment-- and knowing what they will be doing next year makes my teaching focused and targeted. This way I can move every student forward.

3. Planning is key. I have always been good at planning, but now I see that weekly plans, even unit-long plans, are not long enough. Laying out the year, planning how one unit sets the base to be applied and extended later, planning how skills and concepts are distributed and spiraled, makes for a logical and organized sequence of learning for students. But even year-long plans aren't long enough; vertical planning with teachers at grade levels before and after really makes that progression come to life.

4. Trust your gut. Education is full of new trends, conflicting ideas, "best practice" of all kinds. When reading professional journals or news articles, I get a gut feeling that the idea fits right in with what I believe is true, or that it just doesn't sit right. When it's the latter, I need to consider what it is that makes me uncomfortable: maybe it's such a new idea that I don't have any previous knowledge to hang it on; maybe it flies in the face of educational theories I embrace (e.g., constructivist learning, whole language); or maybe there is too much opinion without any research to back it up. Rather than jumping on the latest trend touting itself as "best practice", it's important to consider it in context of what I believe is best for kids.

I'm sure there are more big lessons, but I'll stop there. I hope that as I jump back into the mad rush of classroom teaching, I can hold onto these big ideas. If I forget, will you remind me?

Natural-born storytellers

At the International Festival of Authors in Toronto in October, Diana Athill, British author, interviewed Canadian author Alice Munro, who recently published a short story collection, Too Much Happiness. In the interview, Athill asked Munro if she believes there are natural-born storytellers. Through the dialogue between the two authors, they both came to the conclusion that, yes, there are people in this world who are storytellers and there are others who are not (the full podcast is available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/in-other-words/exclusive-munro-athill-podcast/article1333923).

As a teacher of writing, I must call this into question. My message to students is that all of us are writers; all of us have stories to tell; all of us can learn from the masters and become writers of craft and meaning. But if two great, experienced, professional writers such as Athill and Munro believe it's all inherited in one's genes at birth, then why bother? Why not send the message to students, "Hey, some of you have it, and some don't. So… whatever."

I do not consider myself a natural storyteller. I enjoy writing, I think I can craft an eloquent essay, but stories do not spring fully formed from my head like Athena from Zeus' forehead. Then again, I don't spend each day with the expectation that I will write something, that I must come up with yet another idea, another story to spin. Maybe if I lived as professional authors lived, I would become a storyteller-- the self-fulfilling prophecy: I act like a storyteller; therefore I am a storyteller. But I don't have the time or commitment for that; I am a teacher and a mother, my days are full. So is my prophecy: I don't act like a storyteller; therefore, I am not?

No, I have to believe what I preach, that we all have important things to tell the world. Maybe it's not fiction that I write (for the very reason that I have no story ideas), but I can tell a story about my own life, or about my own thinking, or about someone else's life or thinking. And I can tell it well, with crafting moves learned from masters like Munro. This faith in my own writing, which has improved immensely since I started teaching the art of writing (do as I do, and as I say), makes me believe that all people are storytellers. My job is to help the more reluctant ones find their voice so they can join the others that already know the joy of sending their words out into the world.