OK – I’m going to confess something teachers don’t usually admit or discuss.  I have a favorite class. I teach 6 blocks of students.  I love all my kids and we have a great time together but…Block 7 is my favorite.  Part of it may be that they are a real mix of boys and girls.  Several of my classes are heavy on boys, two of my other classes have only 3 girls in them!  They are also sandwiched between my two most challenging classes so they feel like a reprieve for me in the midst of the siege. Beyond that though, they are, as a group, some of the most kind and caring children I have ever taught. 

After the Sandy Hook shooting, the environment at my school was very strange.  The shooting was not addressed in any kind of global way other than an e-mail to review our lockdown procedures with our students and that we could anticipate a drill in the spring.  We did, eventually, have a moment of silence in honor of the victims, but that came later.  I took the stance that if it came up in my English classes, we would discuss it but if it didn’t, I would not bring it up. 

The whole week I waited (the shooting happened on a Friday)  for my students to say something.  I don’t know if they were taking their cues from the administration, if they talked about it on their own, or if they didn’t think they should talk about it.  Thursday, as we were about to start our writing workshop, one of my girls asked, “Mrs. McG., do you think we could write to the families of Sandy Hook today and let them know we are thinking of them?”

That opened the floodgates and for the next 45 minutes, we talked about the shooting, gun control, familes, siblings, and the emotions and anxiety poured off my kids.  They were thinking about it and many of them were feeling the effects in ways I could not have imagined.  As adults, we can work our way through these terrible events and come out on the other side.  But sometimes kids, without that ability to process, get stuck and need help sorting through all the horror.  We cried together that day and then, it was just the tiniest bit easier for all of us.

Yesterday, I was trying to impress upon them that poetry has the ability to change your life.  Most of my kids have been brought up with Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, and Jack Prelutsky.  Nothing wrong with any of those authors…but poetry can mean more than catchy rhymes and silly fun.  I showed them an Edutopia video of a Bronx poetry slam:

http://www.edutopia.org/poetry-literacy-live-technology-performance-video

Their mouths were hanging open at the end and then they talked about the passion, and imagery, and strength of these poems.  They noticed that the kids in the video were talking about things that really meant something to them and because of that, it meant something to us as well.  In other words, they totally got it. Very often, they get what I am trying to teach them.  I have to admit I love that.

Block 7 students also love writing.  When I ask them to get out their Writer’s Notebooks, they don’t groan, they cheer.  I always save their summatives to grade last because I know they are going to be stellar – it’s my carrot to keep grading because I know I get to read their work when I’m done.  They seem ready to tackle any writing challenge – write a novel in a month? Sure!  Answer a prompt?  No problem. Create a class anthology of poems? Let’s go! It’s so fun to teach kids that love writing almost as much as I do.

So, that’s my confession.  I love Block 7 the best.  I plan on telling them on the last day of schoo,l if they haven’t already guessed.  They deserve to know I loved teaching them and that every day we spent together felt like a gift.  Lucky, lucky me.

I spent most of my teaching career as a special education coteacher.  It’s one of those things that can either be fabulous or hellish.  My fabulous years were ones in which I found true partnerships with the other teachers with whom I shared kids.  Those kids were always at the center of our decision making and none of the team(s) forgot that for a moment.  The hellish years were when I was treated as a teaching assistant – my sole purpose was to ‘circulate and assist’ (shoot me now if I ever have to do THAT again…).  The fabulous years outnumbered the hellish ones by about two to one.  Color me grateful for that…

There are a couple of partners I would teach with again in a heartbeat. It really is the most professional fun I’ve had – to work with a teacher who totally loves kids, loves teaching, and loves anyone else who feels the same way.  And, even though it was really fun for us to teach together, the true beneficiaries were our students.  They got to have two teachers to turn to with questions, concerns, or struggles.  They got to have two different kinds of feedback for everything they did. They doubled their chances of getting the kind of teacher they needed to have.  Lessons had double the amount of thought and preparation so the kids’ chances of remaining engaged were doubled as well.  (Besides, it’s hard to zone out with 4 eyes watching instead of two!)  When it really, really worked, I know we changed kids’ lives in a way that we could not have done nearly as well on our own. 

So, knowing what it takes to make a great coteacher, it should follow that this year as I move to the general educator side of the equation, that I would be the best coteacher ever, right?  Well…not so much.  Although I did not hesitate to have my coteacher, Mike, make his home in our classroom, provide him with a desk of his own and space for his things, and put his name on the door alongside mine, we are not really utilizing the ‘power of 2’ that I believe so strongly in. 

The power of two means that a classroom lucky enough to have two teachers in it should look considerably different than a classroom with only one.  The possibilities for instruction are doubled, for goodness sake, so why not take advantage of this gift?  Splitting the class in half so you are only teaching 12 kids instead of 24, using small group instruction with flexible grouping to bring kids along more quickly or to enrich kids ready to move on, conferencing with kids about their reading and writing while the other teacher monitors the rest of the class,  setting up stations where each teacher gets to work with a small group, and so on and so on.  I know these techniques.  I’ve used them successfully in the past.  And yet it’s almost semester break and we have only done one or two of these strategies!

I’ve allowed myself to fall victim to the same resistant forces that many of my coteachers did in the past.  I worry about covering the standards for the quarter, and grades, and testing, and the ridiculous notion that I need to do it myself in order for it to be done correctly.  Note to myself:  YOU ARE WRONG!!!

Today Mike was absent and I had to handle our two blocks on my own.  It was not pretty.  My first block ended up with everyone at their seats working silently (a first for this school year in any block).  I could not take the under-breath comments, the rolled eyes, the talking during work time another second.  So everyone, guilty and innocent, had to leave the beanbag chairs, the adirondacks, and the pillows on the rug and return to their seats to work silently. 

I was especially incensed because I had created an opening of which I was quite proud – they had to come in the room and sit at the team table that best described their winter break –

• Read a great book (c’mon – I’m an English teacher)
• Saw a great movie
• Got the BEST present ever
• Traveled out of town
• Family visited
• Went skiing, sledding, or skating

Then I gave them 5 minutes to talk to their tablemates. They got to nominate the most interesting story from their group to share with the whole class.  Pretty clever, right?  I knew they’d want to catch up on their first day back from break and this would give them a chance to talk – but with a purpose.  Well, they talked all right – but even when they went back to their home teams, they kept right on talking.  Mini lesson on similes and metaphors – talking.  Reading Lit.Circle books – talking.  Checking vocabulary – talking.  You get the idea.  I got ticked off. 

None of this would ever have happened if Mike were there.  First of all, the boys (our combined classes have 5 girls and 32 boys)  LOVE and respect him and will rarely do anything that might disappoint him in any way.  Secondly,  he is a no nonsense kind of guy.  One raised eyebrow from him and they straighten up. But equally important, I would not have reacted as I did because Mike would have said something about these rowdy rascals that would have made me laugh and see the humor in trying to teach a room full of kids who were not the least bit interested.  Having another adult to bounce things off makes such a difference!

So, here’s my pledge.  When Mike comes back to school, we are going to start again, we are going to do things the right way, we are going to fully utilize this gift of two teachers in our room. 

We are going to make a difference. 

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I LOVE New Year’s Eve! It’s my favorite holiday.  Weird, I know, but it’s been true for decades now.  I love the idea of starting over with a clean slate.  I love the possibilities a new year brings – this year I can get it right!  I love the idea that all those mistakes are SO last year – no way I’ll do those over again, right?  The celebration aspect appeals to me, too.  Everyone excited and happy together, ready to welcome a new year with new opportunities. 

I’m not a fan of resolutions – we all know they don’t work – but reflections are another matter.  Looking back, what went well?  What can I improve?  Work with the National Writing Project and National Board for Professional Teaching Standards over the years has impressed upon me the value of this kind of reflection.  It’s made my teaching better for sure, more thoughtful, more responsive to the needs of the kids sitting in my classroom, more in tune with best practices and research based instruction.

So, here are my top three reflections going into 2013:

1.  Less grading, more feedback – I spend way too much time grading my student’s writing and way too little time sitting beside them, talking about their work.  I know that is my favorite kind of teaching – all the kids busily writing away while I sit in the back talking one on one to a student. I love how close it makes us, how sharing writing and thoughts about that writing really connects us in a powerful way that nothing else can do.  It’s also the single best way that I have found to get my students to really revise – to see their work in a new way and then go about finding a way to communicate that on paper.  They love that I love what they wrote – my kids e-mail me their writing all the time and there is ALWAYS something wonderful about it.  But they also know there is ALWAYS something to improve – word choice, figurative language, structure, voice, etc. and when we sit together and they tell me what they meant to say then I can help them find a way to do that more effectively.

2. Less teacher talk- more student talk:  I pride myself on knowing a lot about cooperative learning.  I’ve been trained by Kagan and know how important it is to have kids actively engaged.  But I find myself more and more doing the talking.  For me, it’s a slippery slope because there is so much material I have to cover and I’m afraid it won’t get done if I don’t tell them what it is.  This is ridiculous – I’m cringing as I write that last sentence.  I know that’s not true and yet I do it anyway!  Even something as simple as ‘Turn and Talk’ where I pose a question and they talk to their neighbor about it for a minute – how simple is that?  That means I have 100% of the kids actively engaged instead of the 10-20% who would actively be listening to me drone on. 

3.  Less literature circle, more real book talk – I got talked into doing literature circles by the English team.  I’ve never really liked them – mostly because I have never found a way of doing them that convinced me that it made readers out of kids.  Even when they choose their lit circle books themselves, they are never as engaged with the book as when they have chosen it independently.  I’m not sure where the  process breaks down, but it always breaks down.  This time I even let the kids design their own ‘Ideal Literature Circles’.  They spent a lot of time figuring out what would work best for them.  Yet here we are again, some kids reading ahead, some kids not reading enough, and discussions that put me to sleep. 

I think when we finish this cycle (please let it be soon) I am going to try letting them read their own books, and then having them come together by genre and discuss what they are reading.  I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but my goal is to make them readers, and the only way I know to do that is to have them choose their own books.

So, there you have it – my reflections for the New Year.  My wish for you – may all your reflections be merry and bright!

Something important happened in our classroom today and it didn’t happen to a student.  We were working furiously to finish our novels for National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) as the deadline looms – Friday at midnight.  Like it is for many of us, computer access is limited at my school and we only have the laptops for two days this week.  My kids are trying very hard to make their word count goals and get their novels into the ‘Word Count Validator’ so they can ‘win’ at NANOWRIMO.  (It sounds more complicated then it really is – actually we just write like crazy for the month of November.)

So, the kids were typing away and I was inputting all their names into Student Publishing* so they can get their books eventually published.  I got up to check on their progress and noticed that one of my students had not written a word.  She is very quiet and shy so I didn’t say anything right away and went to my desk so I could keep tabs on her.  For several minutes she sat staring at the blank screen.  I bit my tongue.  More minutes passed – no typing.  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and said, “You have to write something! Don’t you have any topics in your Writing Journal?”  She pulled her Journal out of her desk (!) and gave it a cursory glance. 

I admit it, I was a nanosecond away from losing it.  Here she was, with this wonderful opportunity to publish her very own book and she was squandering her time!  All the other kids were hard at work, what was the deal?  I knew she didn’t like writing.  She always had her head in a book (like I could complain about THAT!) and didn’t always pay attention. 

But then it occurred to me that often what seems like opposition from a student is actually fear.  Our students want to please us, they want us to like them and to show that we care.  I pulled over my stool and plopped down next to her.  I said,  “What’s going on today?  Why are you having such a hard time with this?”  She just shrugged, obviously uncomfortable but I pressed on.  “Let’s get out your Writing Territories and see if anything intrigues you, ok?”  She pulled her Journal out again and turned to her Writing Territories.  It was jampacked with story ideas.  The one that jumped out at me was ‘girl doesn’t talk – afraid’.  I pointed to it and said, “How about a children’s story about this girl?”  That got a hint of a smile and a fairly vigorous nod. 

I pulled the laptop over and typed, “Once upon a time there was a …is it a little girl or just a girl?”  She said, “a girl” so I typed that.  Then we were off…

Me:  “What was her name?”

Student:  “I want her to have the girl’s name in Lord of the Rings but I can’t remember how to spell it…”

Me: “OK – leave it blank for now and we’ll come back to it and fill it in. Where does she live – a castle, an apartment, a house?”

Student: “a treehouse in the middle of a vast forest”

Me: “Does she live alone or with other people?”

Student: “She lives alone because she has to protect everyone from the mad unicorns.”

Me: “Wow! Unicorns that are evil – I love it! Such a great twist – you think they’re going to be all rainbows and lollipops and POW!

Student: (giggle) “I know, right?  And she is the CHOSEN one to defend everyone and the really bad unicorn – the most evil – is blue!”

Me: “OK – I’m going to go look up your Lord of the Rings chicka – you keep going because I want to see what happens, ok?”

So you know what happens, she typed happily away for the rest of class. (If I find out later on this was from a video game I will be very disappointed.)  My lesson learned today:

Sometimes underneath the appearance of stubborness is a small voice pleading, ‘Help me, please…just help me.”

*http://www.studentpublishing.com/main.php – a great website that will publish one free paperback book for each of your students – including an ‘About the Author’ page at the end!

Today, because they made me, I gave my students their first writing prompt of the year.  Up until now we have been brainstorming, learning how real writers work, reading mentor texts, and experimenting with finding and creating beautiful language.  Today we finished reading Kate DiCamillo’s wonderful novel, The Tiger Rising, with some of the most seamless examples of figurative language I have ever seen in any book, YA or any other genre.  Most of my students loved the book and I’m encouraged by that.  They know what ‘good’ looks and sounds like, at least.

I tweaked the prompt a little by giving them a choice between 3; one about books, one about sports, and one about PE.  I have about 80% boys in my classes so I tend to lean male in my selections to draw them in as much as I can.  I only gave them 30 minutes to write because that was as much time away from real writing as I was willing to give up.  As each block finished and turned in their drafts, with the ‘Checklist for Writers’ stapled to their papers, (seriously – who puts the checklist for anything on the FRONT – they check off they have done the editing BEFORE they write the paper!) I asked the students how the experience was for them.

Here is what I was expecting:

“It was SO boring to write to a prompt.”

“I HATED writing that way – I want to write what I want!”

“Why do they make us do writing this way? It’s not right!”

Instead they told me they liked it, they preferred it, it was fun! I gave them an online survey halfway through the quarter and the results were equally baffling.  When asked if being able to choose their own books (instead of having books assigned by me) was ‘Awful’, ‘OK’, ‘Good’, or ‘Perfect’ 86.7% of my students thought it was positive.  However, when asked how they felt about being able to choose their own topics to write about, 66.6% felt positive about it.  4% thought it was ‘Awful’! 8% thought it was ‘OK’ and 22% didn’t care one way or another! (That group is the one I’m especially concerned about…) 

These are kids who have had nothing but standards based writing since they started school.  They know about 5 paragraph essays. They know about indenting paragraphs and how to use a dictionary.  But they don’t know how to write from their hearts, to move their readers, to create writing that changes lives and minds. They haven’t been moved to tears by someone’s writing, let alone their own.  They are beginning to recognize gorgeous language when they see it.  They may know it’s quality writing but they don’t yet know why.  But they are not real writers.

Real writers start and stop on different pieces, drawn to work on one while letting another simmer on a back burner for awhile.  Real writers write messy first drafts, cross whole lines or sections out, and insert new ideas in the margins.  Real writers play with words, images, and phrases until they get it just right…and then they change it again.  Real writers live with their characters in their heads, create backstories that never make it into any draft, and worry about what happened to their characters when the book or story is finished.  Real writers are constantly thinking about what to write next, how to improve what they’ve written, and how to make time to write some more. 

Real writers do not write to a prompt.  Real writers do not complete editing checklists before they begin writing a word.  Real writers do not enjoy being told the topic they must write about.  Right now my kids are settling for the easy way of writing, the way that doesn’t require much of an investment of their minds or hearts, the formula style of writing that high stakes testing requires.  What they don’t yet know is that their teacher believes they can all be real writers, every last one of them, and it’s time to get to work. 

We are halfway through the marking period (how did THAT happen?) so I thought it was time for some student reflection.  I hoped the students might learn something from looking back but I was the one who gained insights instead.

The first survey was a quickwrite in which I asked them, “Since the start of the school year, what has been easy? What has been hard?”  Then I gave them 5 minutes to write.  Like any other writing, some kids wrote furiously the entire time, some wrote a few lines and stopped.  Some made lists and some wrote paragraphs. Many focused on the academic side of school but some wrote about their bus rides and lunch.  That’s one of the things I love about writing, it gives me a window into their brains.  In just five minutes, I could see what was important to them.

What I learned was that Sam, who I thought was grooving along just fine, was actually extremely stressed about my English class and was worried that he might fail.  He couldn’t see very well from where he was sitting either.  I called him back to my desk to talk and he was near tears.  I had absolutely no idea any of this was going on in his head until I read his quickwrite. We talked about his grades (which were fine) and how he might improve them before report cards come out.  I moved his seat.  He is a changed boy now and bounces into class like Tigger.

What I learned was that Calvin has an hour ride on the bus each way. He has to be up at the crack of dawn to eat breakfast and make it to the bus stop.  If he comes in a little cranky or sleepy, now I know why.  I had no idea any of our students had that kind of trek to get to school.  Most of them live within a 5 mile radius of the school, but because of budget cuts, they share a bus route with the high school which starts an hour earlier then we do.  So, they get on, ride the high school route to the high school and then circle back for the middle school riders who live between the high school and our school.  So much for putting the students first. 

What I learned was that the kids feel pretty good overall about how their year has started.  One thought the math teacher on our team was ‘epic’ (which he is, actually) and others loved the fact that they get free seating at lunch (they get to sit with their friends, instead of assigned seats). They loved the history unit on Western Expansion but not the one on Reconstruction.  They loved that their History teacher is very clear about what she expects from them. They learned that when they study for tests, they do better!

What we learned as a team is that we need to space out our quizzes and tests. The kids were stressed about having more then one in a day.  That’s a legitimate concern! We found out they feel like they have a LOT of vocabulary to learn so we are going to streamline and I will teach the Science/History vocabulary in English class.  We learned that, in general, the kids are happy and confident about doing well in school, and that’s a very good thing.

I think the students appreciate that we are actually listening to their concerns. The activity took 5 minutes of instructional time. The results will benefit everyone much longer.

Next time:  Mrs. McG. gets graded!

I think about this a lot when I’m driving.  What can I do to make sure my students think our classroom is a happy place? What kind of environment can I create that lets them start to associate reading and writing with a positive experience (if they don’t already)? I have a room with no windows and one shared foldable wall.  (Luckily, the math teacher on the other side is very understanding about my Kagan cheers and music playing!)

I started with how the room looks.  I love teal and lime green and I have no idea why, but it soothes me.  Whenever I have to pick color for crafting, I gravitate towards those two colors.  Maybe it’s earth, sky and water – let’s go with that. I also needed to brighten things up because of that perpetual HGTV phrase, “not a lot of natural light”.

So here is one corner of the room. We actually manage to  use only the lamps, no fluorescents, for most of the time, and that helps with atmosphere.  You can’t see in the pictures but the chairs say ‘READ’ on the backs, an idea I got from pinterest.com.  The small lanterns are from Pier One.  The bulletin board shows the settings of the books we are reading.  We have almost all 50 states represented.  Second semester we are going with a world map!

The students are in color coded teams with a desk in the center to hold team bins and books, etc.  Although I like the idea of this extra desk, it does take up a lot of room so I’m not sure if it will continue. 7th graders need all the help they can get with organization, though, so it may be worth the extra space it takes.

On the other side of the room are the bookshelves with a rug and pillows for reading.  These are some of my homeroom kids reading before classes start.  I had no idea that 7th graders would enjoy this area so much.  I have to rotate (and keep track of) who gets the chairs and who gets the rug so they won’t mutiny!

The green and blue bins hold picture books that coordinate with what the kids are studying in math and science. The shoebins have different genres of chapter books. On the top are magazines for those days when they just finished a book or feel like reading something short.  Also, the plate holder displays show recommendations from other teachers on the team with signs that say, “Mrs. Eden recommends…”  Eventually the students will start supplying their recommendations as well.

So, that’s my start at creating a happy reading place.  I would love to hear your comments or suggestions. Next time, creating a happy writing place…

Last night was a great night.  I spent time with some of my favorite people on the planet; a high school teacher, an elementary principal, a reading specialist, and a retired art teacher. We met officially as members of the Northern Virginia Writing Project- Satellite in the Valley- Board to discuss the important work of getting Project services to teachers and children in our area of Virginia.  We did what we always do at the Board meetings – talked about kids and what they need as writers and learners and talked about teachers and what they need as writers and teachers.  Imagine – a room full of educators talking about our profession and how to make things better for students and their teachers.

After the meeting, I went out to dinner with the group named above.  Gayle, the retired art teacher, is the one I have known the longest.  When I first moved to Virginia, I taught K-2 Resource in a rural school where Gayle was the art teacher.  I loved her right away when she said my special education students could come for ‘extra art’ whenever she had a free block.  We were soon collaborating on a book project where I worked with the kids on writing their books and she worked with them to create art to illustrate them.  One of our students was an elective mute. The day we presented our books in a circle on the art room floor, she proudly read her book to the assembled group.  It meant that much to her.  It might never have happened were it not for our teamwork, as my art skills are limited to awkward stick figures.  Gayle’s passion for art inspired all of us. She made the kids believe they could do it.  And they did.

I often think of that moment. We have relatively few moments in teaching where we absolutely know that we made a difference to a student. Most of the time we hope, we pray, we want to believe that what we do matters. But that moment on that floor was a gift to Gayle and I and we will never forget it. One of us always mentions it when we are together. It’s a touchstone moment for us.

Being with these passionate educators at dinner made me realize that we don’t do this kind of teamwork enough.  Sure, we go to professional development and meetings and workshops and inservices and…but sometimes real teamwork comes from sitting around a table in a restaurant and sharing ideas and concerns with other people who ‘get it’.  People who want to help you and your students do better…get better…be better. People who listen, really listen, sometimes hearing what’s behind the words to the hurt or fear underneath.  People who understand the frustration of having people who know absolutely nothing about teaching and learning be the ones in charge of…everything.  People who know the power that writing can bring to a life, how knowing that you are a writer can make everything else in life possible, even with our youngest students. 

So let’s have more of this kind of teamwork.  Let’s make time for these informal gatherings that leave us recharged and ready to battle for our students once again. Let’s honor one another and what we each bring to the table and meet again soon.  I need the teamwork.

When I went to see my Dad last weekend, he cried when he saw me.  In 50+ years the only other thing that brought him to tears was missing my Mum.  That’s when I realized that because of his stroke, his sense of time was distorted and it felt like a really long time since I had been to visit.  In truth, it had only been 2 weeks but I had skipped a weekend and gone to the beach because of reservation deposits I would lose if I bailed and because my lovely children offered to cover for me and spend the weekend with him.  I should have gone to see him.  He should have been my priority, not deposits. 

That experience and the upcoming Back to School Night made me examine what my priorities are for my students this year. I thought and thought about it, made lists, looked for quotes, and came down to two simple goals.  I want them to leave this year knowing they are readers and writers.  That’s it. As I told the parents, many of them come to me already knowing they are readers. (I can tell because they hide their books in their desks so they can read when I’m not looking.) Maybe 2 out of 120 consider themselves writers.  I intend to change that.

It started yesterday with our first official Writer’s Workshop.  This year, like every one previously, the kids are amazed that they get to write about whatever they want.  We’ve spent the first weeks of school brainstorming possible topics so no one could say, “I have nothing to write about.”  Yesterday we looked at some gorgeous black and white photographs from Africa for inspiration. http://www.nickbrandt.com/Category.cfm?nL=0&nS=0 Their pencils couldn’t move fast enough.  We wrote for 10 minutes straight and many said, “Can I work on this at home?” to which I responded, “Do you think real writers work at home? Of course! Go for it!”

The bureaucrats in Virginia and D.C. want my priority to be having my students pass a test in the spring.  For people outside of education making these decisions, that single test score is the only thing that matters.  They don’t see Gabe reading a historical fiction book for the first time and really liking it, thus opening up a world he might have missed.  They don’t see Ryan discovering that he can make people laugh out loud with what he has written and what a difference that made to his sense of himself.  They don’t see the kids excited about publishing a novel for NANOWRIMO and ending the month with a pin that says “I am a first class novelist.” and knowing that it’s true.

Next weekend, one of my former students is reading her original work at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.  She is published in a book called ‘Falling for the Story’ and she will be attending the festival with the likes of Walter Dean Myers, Patricia Polacco and Avi.  There’s no place on any answer sheet for any test to note this accomplishment. But Courtland knows she’s a writer, and that’s good enough for me.

I read an article recently that talked about the importance of kids learning to work together.  Several years ago I read in U.S. News and World Report that the # 1 request of Fortune 500 CEO’s is that their hirees know how to work with other people effectively; not to be good spellers, good communicators, good writers, reading on grade level, but to work well with others.  This got me thinking…if we don’t teach them these skills in school, where will they get them? 

You don’t learn this in families, typically. I was an only child so I know I didn’t get that training at home.  I learned to obey and negotiate and occasionally whine, but not how to get along with my peers.  Even in families with siblings, getting along might mean staying out of each other’s way for the most part, not working together to achieve a common goal.

There is on the job training but from my experience in the classroom, these skills are complicated, require a great deal of ongoing practice, and greatly improve with specific feedback about what’s going right and what needs improvement.  What company is set up that way? 

When I began this school year, I was determined that cooperative learning was going to be a cornerstone of my instruction.  Teaching six different classes on three different levels meant that the students were going to need to help each other when I wasn’t available.  I didn’t think 7th graders would like it, really.  That whole boy/girl awkwardness and kids feeling self conscious 24/7 doesn’t really lend itself to group camaraderie. 

I was wrong to doubt them. Here’s how I know.  The kids have been in colored coded teams since the beginning of school  The first week and a half, they could sit where they wished (until I got to know them better) and then I placed them in 2 girl/2 boy teams wherever possible.  My class of 17 boys and 2 girls is the exception.  I will NEVER split up those two girls! 🙂 

 If one of the members does something great, they get points for their team.  When one of the boys brainstormed a list for writing of ‘The Ten Greatest Steelers of All Time’ he got 10,000 bonus points for his team.  Do something kind for a teammate = points.  Say encouraging words to your team = points.  Clean up your team area = points.  Here’s the thing, though, they haven’t even asked what the points are for!  That tells me that the team is the important part.  I think maybe building the future workforce is the important part.  And it’s really, really fun, too…