new test, no fear

This year I keep hearing the same things over again:
Standards have changed!
The new STAAR test is more rigorous!
Writing must happen across the curriculum!
There's no time for the fluff writing that used to happen!
FEAR! BLAME! GUILT! WORRY!

Uh, okay... so my 4th grade students have the unique experience of being the first to take this new, highly rigorous writing assessment at the end of the year.

So they are expected to write two short pieces instead of one longer piece.

And one of these compositions will be an expository piece.

Oh, and don't forget the stamp across every thing we're told this year, "No. Fantasy. Writing. At. All. Period. No. Matter. What."

At district meetings, there is nail biting and fretting and eyes filled with horror.

At faculty meetings we look at graphs and bullet points and pie charts on the importance of rigor and excellence and content area writing.

And at each meeting, I grit my teeth and swallow down the words I want to say. No, let's amend that. I swallow down the words I want to scream:

Who cares?!

I mean, in all seriousness, why should this test alter what we've already been doing? My students write what they want, how they want, and whenever they want. Along the way I offer them learning experiences that hone their skills and broaden their craft.

The point is, if you lead your students to love learning, it doesn't matter what tests get thrown at them. A master learner has no reason to fear being asked to show what they know. We're delighted to share our knowledge.

We have already been writing expository pieces, to explain our learning across the curriculum, persuasive pieces, letters, poems, narratives, and God forbid, the poor stepchild of the 2011 writing year, fantasy. When they have free time, they'd rather write than read or even draw. When I offer writing opportunities outside of school, many of them jump at the chance to participate.

If we are already doing what is best for students, the introduction of a new rigorous state test is not a reason to freak out and board the windows against the demons of free thought.

Let the STAAR come, I say, and we'll show it what we're made of.

slice of life tuesday: it's about the kids

30 days ago, I was excited to bring a cornucopia of new ideas into this school year. Plans for a new word study program, ideas from writing workshops I attended over the summer, and a commitment to a daily math workshop all acted as catalysts to launch me happily into a new year of experiments to enjoy.

2 weeks ago, I walked through the hall towards my room, smiling to myself at how fortunate I was to spend my days doing something I love. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. The ideas I brought into the classroom were shifting and changing into activities that would work for my students. Although there were bumps along the way, I felt confident.

7 days ago I left a meeting feeling like all my hard work meant nothing, that it was impossible to meet the needs of my students, balance the desires of my principal, and implement the type of instruction I believe in -- all at the same time.

This morning I welcomed my intern and quickly found a way to involve her in the class, focused on my students, laughed at my mistakes, and generally enjoyed the day with my students. I almost recaptured the beginning of year joy, almost let go of the mounting stress.

This afternoon I sat down to a faculty meeting where I listened to a woman encourage us to stay positive and bit my lip through a discussion about testing -- although my mind rattled and the words bubbled up in my throat so fiercely that I thought I would either burst into tears or burst into hysterics if I didn't speak up.

Tonight I'm thinking about the devotion so many teachers have to their students. Not devotion to a test, or an objective, or even a single subject or style of teaching. It's not devotion to a campus, although we do certainly tend to become territorial! We get up early each morning, often shuttling our own children out the door, already thinking about our students. We spend the day at our wit's ends, racking our brains for that one right way to reach each student. After hours each day trying to find the solution of how to fit the monstrous amount of necessary teaching into a schedule that laughs at anything more than the bare minimum, we say goodbye to our students, go back to our rooms, and begin grading, planning, assembling, and plotting all over again.

I'm thinking about how I fill my huge bag each night and drag everything I can fit into it home so I can continue working. I'm thinking about sitting behind my laptop or a book or papers into the late hours of the night, grading and planning and assembling and plotting ways to make sense of the days that are completely beyond all sense.

I'm thinking that it doesn't matter if you call it a TAKS or a STAAR or any other name. It doesn't matter if we teach TEKS or Common Core. It’s not about the data or the numbers or the graphs and the statistics.

It’s about the kids. It’s about the pure, real learning that happens when children and teachers meet each other every day ready to work together. It’s about keeping it real in a school system determined to forget that teaching is not about the numbers – it’s about the kids.

Celebrate Your Muchness.

I finished the draft of the (rockin awesome) proposal to my principal in hopes of inspiring her to let me teach a boys writing class twice a week this year.  Dude, that's a really long, terrible sentence, but I am tired and that's just how it's going to stay.  My apologies.  Sort of.

Writing this letter brought up so many hopes and fears for the upcoming school year.  Being a part of the National Writing Project has (drumroll for the oncoming cliche, please!) been a life changing experience.  Like, clouds parting, sunbeams streaming down, Hallelujah angels singing, and all that jazz.

I'm stoked.

We're toppling into July, I haven't had one summer-ish day in all of June, and all I can think about is the many exciting new things I'm eager to try out in my classroom come August.

I want to take all this knowledge, all this affirmation, all this ALLNESS from the past month and wear it like armor into the oncoming school year.

Because, although annoyingly optimistic, I'm not stupid.

I know what is likely to happen upon settling back into my classroom.  I can hear the, "You want to do what??" and "Why are you causing so much extra work for yourself?" and all the other darts that will be thrown my way, popping little holes in my puffed up "But this is how it's supposed to be!" perfect world dreamland.

And sure, I've always been the one to head upstream, vigilantly shouting, "Let's try it this way!" when everyone is staring at me like I'm wearing the Emperor's New Clothes.  I get it.  I'm the girl with the crazy ideas that are sure to fail...

Only, they don't fail.  And when they do, I revamp, and come at it from a new direction.  My excitement makes my kids excited.  They can't even help themselves.  They're uber-peppy by association.  I love to read, they love to read.  I love to write, they love to write.  I love to do jumping jacks, they spring out of their seats and cheer like I just announced we're going to Disney World.

It's an interesting thing, attitude.

So I'll cling to my realization that --wow-- there are so many other teachers out there that think the way I do, and I'll stand firm on my belief that what kids need is a teacher dedicated to toughing out the hard parts with them and cheering with them in every victorious moment --no matter how small-- and sometimes, just sometimes, when I'm verging on forgetting what's important, in the face of TAKS tests and standards and assessments and paperwork and meetings and insane schedules and seemingly impossible and annoyingly unnecessary hurdles, I'll close my eyes and remember 16 women writing quietly together every morning, sharing through tears, learning new ways to climb mountains, and above all, celebrating in each other's "muchness".

(How's THAT for long and rambling sentences that spread out before you like a road untravelled?)

Life

It isn't surprising, I suppose, that I haven't had much to say I have been been so quiet in the past month.

Not surprising, but still disappointing.

When I write, I feel most sure of myself.  When I write, I work out all the problems that keep me up at night, bouncing around my head as if I were an all-night racquetball court, begging for players to come in and tromp around the courts for a while.

When I write, the chameleon slinks away, and I stand alone with myself, and I am not afraid.

Sadly, life rarely cares much for whether or not I have time to write.  Even sadder, the more stressed I am, the less time I tend to make myself take for things like, shall we say, staying sane through daily writing.

The past few weeks have been like a roller coaster with a side of crack.  Way too much sensory overload, not enough time to digest my circumstances before the next bend, dip, loop, or terrific twist comes my way.

Did I mention the TAKS for reading and math are next week?  Next. Week.

Or that my principal may honestly die from disappointment if we don't make exemplary for the 4th consecutive year?  No lie.

How about the fact that I'm still waiting to hear back about grad school?  Seriously.  How hard is it to get one university to transfer information to another university??

Then there's the maddeningly happy fact that I get to be a part of NWP's summer institute this year!  Still dorkily excited for summer to arrive.

Oh, and I'm packing up my big seven person family and moving to a new area in a house that seems impossibly large?  Who's going to clean that beast??

Then there is that resume I need to finish if I actually hope to have a shot at applying for that new position... oh sweet momma, have I lost my mind??

Not to mention: Dos' school has decided I absolutely, positively, without-a-doubt simply must turn in paperwork proving he's an Aspie if I would like his 504 to remain in place?  EARTH TO SCHOOL -- have you met my kid??  Paperwork should not be necessary here!

Among other, less interesting tidbits of life from the past month, I'm actually surprised I've held tight without any major interruption in my regularly scheduled moments tiptoeing through the world of the sane.

Choice

We spend so much time in the classroom trying to cram the "necessary" learning down our students throats, I fear we miss the central thing that learning should be about.  I wonder how many times we've missed the mark with a student because we insisted that they melt into the conformity of the classroom rather than allowing them to learn and show what they've learned in their own way.

On Friday, before spring break began, I told my class I wanted them to write to me about a place in the world they would go if there were no limits on choosing.  They were pretty jazzed about this, as we had just celebrated World Party as a school and they had learned many new and exciting things about countries all over the world.

We talked a bit about what this particular writing piece might look like.  I threw some ideas out such as writing a letter as if you were currently at the place you chose, and they asked about things like -- "Can it be a fiction story? Can I pretend like I've already been there?  What if I want to write about a place I NEVER want to go back to?  What if it's not another country -- what if the place I most want to go is right here in America?" and the list went on and on.  It was a loud, chaotic conversation, with much hopping up and down and arms waving in the air.  We had our own classroom version of a rave going on.  Who knew writing could bring kids to such a frenzy of anticipation?

Typically, I shy away from fiction in the classroom.  It's sort of embarrassing to admit.  I do it because I've been teaching writing for 3 years and it's what I was told to do.  Because, so said my mentors, "Not very many kids can write fiction well, and you don't want to unleash something they can't control.  Imagine what that would look like!"  This seemed odd to me, because actually, YES, I do want to unleash something big and crazy and wild in my classroom -- because I do actually believe that if they love it, they can learn how to wield it well.  But, it is only in this past year that I have become comfortable enough to walk away from the direction my peers seem to be heading and walk in a way that feels right for me, and for my kids.

So on Friday, I told them they could write in whatever way they wanted: fiction, nonfiction, diary entry, comic strip -- you name it, you can do it.

And my room turned into a sort of Disney World of writing.  As usual, kids were working together, sprawled out on the floor and on pillows, under tables and in the rocking chair.  But today, the room pulsed with a new kind of energy.  The energy of choice.  Boys that had previously struggled to find their voice were clamoring to share their writing, and a few students that typically struggle to organize their thoughts into a coherent story were writing such powerful stuff I was nearly in tears.

We celebrated by running out into the halls and finding teachers that had previously coached some of my students to share their new treasures.  It was a magical moment.  I was beaming, my kids were ecstatic, and I had to just sit back and watch in awe as they buzzed around each other, laughing and sharing in each other's joy.

And at the end of it all, I sat outside the circle of 20, listening and cheering and clapping as they read their work outloud, and I wondered, "How could I have missed this?  How could I have not known we could have THIS kind of joy about writing -- every day?  Did I truly let the monster of the TAKS test rattle my beliefs so much that children quite capable of writing gems have been suffocated beneath the must-do's and can-not's of a curriculum driven by one goal -- passing the test?"  And it hurt to think that they could have been so much MORE than what I allowed them to be.  It hurt to know that had I not stood my ground and done what I knew was best.  Don't get me wrong -- my kids enjoy writing and we have tons of fun exploring the world of words together.  But... I stifled them.  As I listened to one boy in particular share a story about hunting in Africa -- describing perfectly the feeling of the rifle against his shoulder and the sound of the gunfire -- this same boy that literally needs help constructing each sentence word by terribly painful word -- I knew.  I had not given them the choices they needed to bloom.

Never again.

Already my team is talking about how to amp up our plans for next year.  Daily grammar sheets and weekly TAKS writing prompts are some of the thoughts that have been tossed onto the table.  I cringed, but waited.  Right now it is my season for gathering facts, storing up resources, making my plan.  It's not easy being the lone dissenter, but sometimes it is hugely necessary.

Let's get this thing on the road, already

I feel a bit like Captain Hook, followed tediously by the tock-tick-tocking of time that refuses to be stopped.

I've done all I can do, my kids have grown so tremendously that I can barely remember the fear that kicked me in the gut at the beginning of the school year when I realized just how extreme one class can be from another, and we are one day of instruction away from the writing TAKS.

Tomorrow will be a day full of team building, pep talks, and good ole stress relief.

I know my kids are ready.  I hope I've let THEM know how amazed I am by their progress.

I'm just ready for the day after the TAKS.