So I’ve taken about two months off from blogging because I really wanted to focus on something important. My son, my youngest, was finishing his senior year in high school and I wanted to minimize my commitments to things outside of our family and his waning days as a senior. At first I felt the tug to keep up with Twitter chats, book groups, blogs, and professional development, but taking time to prioritize helped me realize how short and precious life is and reminded me that taking a pause is not the same as giving up interests and activities. I had the best time watching my boy finish strong and loved being in the moment for each moment.

I also became more aware of how FOMO (fear of missing out) can eat away at the joys  we have right in front of us. Missing out on a great Twitter chat or a retirement party couldn’t compare to watching my boy play baseball or receive academic recognition. I let it go, let myself be fully in the present moment.

Summer is a season where FOMO can run rampant, especially with teachers and their friends. Because we have no flexibility in our time off, our vacation plans are condensed into these few weeks and months. We try to make the most of it with adventures, experiences, and even purchases. Every day I see posts from friends who are sharing the joys they are experiencing, and almost every day I see some response that says, “jealous”.

I know it may seem innocuous to many people, and this post may seem overly “PC” but I encourage us all to pause and seek a more supportive response for our friends and loved ones. Our envy or jealousy does not add to their joy or help lift them up. I know many of these comments are meant as a humorous reply, but then I notice how the encouraging comments such as, “so happy for you” or “love that your family had this adventure together” can better express how much we love and care about our friends and are truly happy for their well-being and joys.

Another consideration to these responses is how they affect us.

• Are we really jealous? If so, that’s something we can work to address-life is too short to live with the burden of envy. Comparing our lives with others’ crowds out our own feelings of gratitude–an important source of joy. Remember, people aren’t sharing their struggles as much as their happiness. No one’s life is accurately portrayed on social media and many aspects we would not be envious of at all.
• Are we just kidding? It may come off as passive-aggressive if it diminishes the joy of others. Do we find it humorous when we are on the receiving end of these comments? If we are going for humor, maybe we could put a little more creative effort into our responses.

Teachers often carry around a misguided guilt for having “so much time off” as it is. We hear, “must be nice” so much we often feel the need to rationalize our schedule and explain to others that we aren’t being paid for that time. We shouldn’t have to, but it is a reality.

I don’t want to shame anyone who has responded to others’ social media posts or conversations in this way. I have done it myself without much thought to how it might be received. I know this post may irk a few people who think I’m being overly-sensitive. That’s okay if it helps them think more about how our actions affect others, and ourselves. Our world needs more loving kindness and every small gesture we put out into it can create a ripple that is ever extending. Let’s be happy for one another. Let’s lift each other up. Let’s pause before we post. Let’s embrace an attitude of gratitude!

Namasté.

One More Off My TBR Stack

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

Reading also took a back seat these past two months. I turned to audio books to feed my insatiable need-to-read. I downloaded this book on Audible and it drew me in right from the start! I cannot begin to tell you how much I LOVE this story and the character Kya who was slowly abandoned by each member of her family, starting with her mother, and left to survive in the swamps of North Carolina. She is befriended by Tate, who also lost his mother and he teachers her to read and encourages her passion in biology and botany of the marsh life. But in 1969, the handsome, womanizing, former football hero is found dead and the locals immediately suspect the mysterious “marsh girl”. The story weaves back and forth from Kya’s childhood to the trial that will determine her fate so seamlessly and suspensefully. Delia Owens love of nature paints a lush backdrop to this incredible story of heroic grit and survival. The Audible Audio version narrated by Cassandra Cambell is amazing!

For the month of March I will be participating in the Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by The Two Writing Teachers Blog. Each day I will be sharing a Quick Write as my way of slicing. The idea is to offer a SPARK that will kindle thinking and then write as quickly as you can for 5-10 minutes. No filters, no revisions. I’ve been curating a collection of Sparks and will share some with you all month. It’s a great way to ignite your writing life.

That’s News To Me Quick Write.

We are living in a world of BREAKING NEWS, which can keep us on edge if we are trying to stay abreast of it and keep the incoming information in some context or perspective. It almost always beckons us to respond in some way. Similar to quick write responses to print news headlines or magazine articles, we can also encourage our students to respond to news clips of current events or primary source videos. These are sometimes controversial, so always be mindful of your purpose, audience, and information sources to make sure they are appropriate for your students and that you are aware of potential bias and reliability issues. (unless your purpose is to raise awareness of these issues with older students and you want to expose them to these sources).

I recently saw some news clips from the Clinton impeachment hearings and on the eve of the invasion of Iraq wish I had some journal entry or writing that reflected and documented my thinking as news was breaking back then. Never too late to start!

Here’s my 3 minute quick write in response to this C-SPAN clip from yesterday’s news cycle.

Quick writes can help us respond in a visceral and unfiltered way to news and events. We can revisit our responses and see how our thinking can change with time, new facts, or events coming to light. We can see how our first reaction may be quick to judge or born out by more facts. We may learn that sharing our first responses in the privacy of a notebook,  rather than social media may be a better reflective or cathartic practice.

Sure we can pen more thoughtful opinion pieces but that serves a different purpose-to persuade others rather than to explore our own reactions, opinions, and values. This doesn’t replace that form of writing. Writers shouldn’t be compelled to share and if they do, it is important that others are open and accepting of responses.

In a world of constant breaking news, it might be good if our students had a safe and nurturing place to explore their thinking. Our classrooms could be that safe place.

For the month of March I will be participating in the Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by The Two Writing Teachers Blog. Each day I will be sharing a Quick Write as my way of slicing. The idea is to offer a SPARK that will kindle thinking and then write as quickly as you can for 5-10 minutes. No filters, no revisions. I’ve been curating a collection of Sparks and will share some with you all month. It’s a great way to ignite your writing life.

This quick write idea comes from my dear friend, Linda Rief. Linda is one of the most amazing teachers and authors I’ve ever had the privilege to know, and I am constantly inspired by her. Her latest book The Quickwrite Handbook contains 100 mentor texts that invite students to ride the waves of someone else’s words to find their own. She encourages her middle school students to write for 2-3 minutes, capturing anything that comes to mind. I highly recommend this book to every writing teacher. You’ll love it!

In honor of Robert Frost’s birthday (March 26, 1874)  I thought I’d ride the wave of words from one of his most famous poems.  Here’s my 3 minute quick write:

I knew which words I wanted to lift and lean on, and how I’d start my idea, but it was fascinating to see which words raced ahead of my pen in my mind and then made it to the paper. Images, memories, emotions all came flooding over me, just by leaning in and leaning on a few words of Robert Frost’s. I stopped after 3 minutes, knowing right where I can pick up and go if I choose to return to this piece.  (Yet knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back”!)

Try a line from a poem or a page from the book you are reading. Lift a tiny  bit onto your paper and ride the wave! It will be magical!

For the month of March I will be participating in the Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by The Two Writing Teachers Blog. Each day I will be sharing a Quick Write as my way of slicing. The idea is to offer a SPARK that will kindle thinking and then write as quickly as you can for 5-10 minutes. No filters, no revisions. I’ve been curating a collection of Sparks and will share some with you all month. It’s a great way to ignite your writing life.

Jargonese Spark!

As educators, we often forget we speak fluent Jargonese. We throw around acronyms like candy at a parade and can often forget that novice teachers, parents, or community members might be confused by or left out of the conversations that are punctuated by letter strings.  Just this last week I heard:

RTI            IEP          NBPT         PBIS         F&P         MEA     ADD    ADHD

Not only do we speak in these abbreviated terms, but we often don’t stop and think what they might mean to someone who doesn’t live them everyday until we are sitting across from a parent at an Individualized Education Program meeting or a parent/teacher conference and we are met with glassy-eyed stares.

So here’s a quick write that could be “FUN” at staff meetings or PD (that’s professional development, you know). Pop an acronym up on the board and give yourself (and other teachers) 5 minutes to quick write a parent-friendly definition/explanation that does not include any Jargonese. Imagine you are having a conversation. What would you say?

Then share some of your responses. How similar or different are the quick writes? How easy is it to put complex ideas into kid-friendly, parent-friendly, or community-friendly language? What are you thinking about?

Here’s my quick write. (don’t judge!)

RTI

RTI stands for Response to Intervention. We are always looking for ways to support learning and when we find that our regular classroom instruction is not meeting a student’s needs in order to make solid progress, we often look for ways to help-we call this an  INTERVENTION. So we may reteach, give individual support, provide more modeling, give extra practice, or break down a task into smaller skills. Then we observe how the student does (or RESPONDS to that INTERVENTION). We try to assess if that intervention was helpful, or see if we need to try something else. We usually give it a few weeks to look for growth. We sometimes ask others to help us brainstorm ideas and problem-solve issues so that we are giving your child the best support.

Ok, that was 5 minutes and I found myself having to choose alternatives for “one-on-one”  and “adequate” and even wondered if the words “task” and “modeling” might have been obscure for some parents.

Even if you don’t do this with others, it might be helpful to quick write what you might say in a conversation with parents, kids, school boards, or community members BEFORE you are trying to define and explain these jargony concepts. It’s not as easy as you might think, especially when emotions are running high with concerned or stressed parents.You’ll be glad you did!