Making Miracles

Along with many of you, I am stirring restlessly on the evening before the start of a new school year. I thought I was being creative when I began to pen "Twas the Night Before School". One line in, I turned to Google, thinking Someone has to have done this before... And, of course, they did.

In today's world, nearly all knowledge is accessible in a few clicks. To conceive an original idea is much less probable given the widespread, immediate, and public transmission of information and text via the internet - no longer do we need to wait for information or ideas to be published and transmitted between cultures, across professions, etc. (Much less memorize mountains of facts!).

It was easy to concede that my moment of inspiration was anything but original. But, even after searching and finding an already-penned poem about the night before school, I contemplated creating my own version, too. Before I continued though, I paused to ask myself, What would be the purpose?

Living in a connected, digital world beckons the question of purpose much more than it is asked.

I didn't pen my own version of the poem because my purpose was not to sort through the anxiousness of the night before school - after eight years, I don't really get the jitters anymore. My purpose, however, was to articulate the tiny wonder that is teaching - the reason I can't sleep. As teachers, I believe that our work is indeed the stuff of miracles. And, as much as education policy or internal politics may give us reason to vent, I truly believe what was already articulated for me when I googled my not-so-original idea:

"...they cannot take our voices, our ideas, our knowledge or relationships away,
so happy back-to-school to all, may learning and leadership be our mainstay."

Just because an idea isn't original, doesn't mean it isn't powerful. But as teachers, we must ask What is my purpose? What do I want students to learn by doing this? We must get beyond the standard, the jargon, and the test. We must answer this question truly and authentically. And when we do, miracles will happen.

'Twas the Night Before School (student version)

'Twas the Night Before School (teacher version)

Teaching with "Connectedness"

I'm not a math person. In fact, I sat down to do some budgeting last night and after two attempts at trying to re-do my Christmas budget, I had a $1300 discrepancy between the two figures I calculated for Christmas cash. No joke! Luckily, my husband looked at my figures and found my mistake. Everything was fine and there was actually double the amount I projected.

It led my husband and I to talk about the discrepancy between our understanding of mathematics. While I got As, he definitely didn't. And yet as an adult, he can compute faster and more accurately than I can; I still struggle with math. I learned math by following steps, doing formulas, drilling a step-by-step method. I learned the how to do the problems, but not what they meant. My husband, on the other hand, can conceptualize, estimate, and apply to find an accurate solution to novel situations (not to mention our Christmas budget!). He learned math by conceptualizing it and connecting it to real situations; I learned math by following the teacher's directions.

According to Wikipedia, "In mathematics, connectedness is used to refer to various properties meaning, in some sense, "all one piece"." I think I may have talked about this in a college-level math class called "Dots, Coin Flips, and Probability" in regards to social networking and the 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon, but I'm not sure. But applying the idea of "all one piece" to education seems pretty important to me. It probably would have changed my concept of mathematics (not to mention my Christmas budget potential blunder!).

Connectedness in education isn't really a new idea. Thematic teaching, Teaching by Design, and Integrated Curriculum have all made their way into our education jargon in the last few decades. Schema theory is based on the idea we learn best this way, too.

While my role as reading specialist in my school is not really for me to perform as a typical literacy coach, one of my goals is to spark as much reflection as possible in the teachers I work with. Recently, many teachers have approached me with the struggle of planning curriculum to achieve balanced literacy while still meeting the demands of the district's requirements (and fitting in the umpteen assessments we have to give each month....). Connectedness has been my answer.

I believe in the need for connectedness in our teaching. As we plan our instruction, we need to begin with connecting reading and writing and move to connecting reading/writing with other content areas. Teaching thematically and/or with essential questions can help us to do this. But as a start, we can first examine how each aspect of our literacy block connects. 

If we teach reading how I learned math, our kids will continue to be able to define what a metaphor is but not understand how to interpret it in reading, explain its significance to a particular piece of text, why it is important in a greater economic/social/political context, and then apply it aptly in their own reading and writing. Knowing what a metaphor is isn't the point. Being able to read, write, and use rhetoric deftly and purposefully is. 

As teachers, we need to find opportunities to connect our curriculum to make it meaningful for our students. Not only will it help them to become better readers and writers, but it will enable us to "get it all in" as we balance district requirements with individual student needs (and still try to have a little fun!). 

This morning, the e-newsletter for Choice Literacy was in my inbox and featured these two articles by Franki Sibberson:

• Similes, Metaphors, Homophones and Synonyms: Children's Books to Teach the Language of Word 
• Reflecting on the First Six Weeks of Word Study 

Sibberson shows how we can reach a sense of connectedness in teaching the elements of literacy. It's not enough to teach balanced literacy, but we need to connect each of the essential components of literacy as we teach them. Otherwise, we will be teaching reading like I was taught mathematics. And you saw where that got me!