I Walk The Line

So, Johnny Cash sang about walking the line 60+ years ago, singing about how he tried to stay on the straight and narrow path of “being good” in the face of temptations. 

As I sit in my living room, I think about the many, many lines I am walking the line these days despite the fact that I don’t go very far (or anywhere). And how the line is ever shifting and confusing. Remember a month or two ago when we just had to stay in groups of less than 250 people? Or just use hand sanitizer more often? That WAS walking the line! 

So, here are a few lines I’m currently walking

• The line between getting exercise and being around other people.
• The line between being a good parent and a good employee.
• The line between braving Publix again or ordering takeout (and supporting a local small business).
• The line between needing Pop Tarts for mental health and not needing Pop Tarts for physical health.
• The line between needing to make an amazing, engaging lesson so the students actually do it and learn something and the line between needing to not spend 20 hours on a screen.

It’s a definite line.

Because A leads to B leads to C leads to D... like this ...

If I assign boring work, the kids won’t be engaged.  

If the kids aren’t engaged, they will stop logging in. 

If they stop logging in, they stop learning in my class. 

If they stop logging into my class, they might stop learning altogether. 

If they stop learning altogether, the fourth quarter is a waste.

If fourth quarter is a waste, my most struggling students will be even more behind than ever.

If my most struggling students are even more behind, then how will they ever catch up?

However ... 

I have to walk the line. 

Have you gone down the rabbit hole looking for some cool activity lately? The internet is a big place. Go looking for something more interesting than the usual stuff and you can spend hours and hours digging and sifting through the resources. You can get lost and sucked into a time warp where you search and explore for hours, emerging well after dark wondering where your day went. 

You have to balance your students’ needs with your own needs. This is always true, but work blends into home life a little more easily now that we can’t get into our cars at the end of the day and leave the school building. 

Number one, as Dr. Grego said in his recent email, please give yourself grace. 

This is not your regular classroom. You are not teaching five 45-minute lessons anyway. The kids are not in front of you. So, please give yourself and the kids grace to still work through figuring these things out. Let it be messy. Let lessons bomb. Be forgiving when the kids mess up or you mess up or when a lesson falls flat that you thought would rock. Or when the technology doesn’t work. Or when the kids don’t work. For real. 

Number two is that many hands make light work. How do you make a great lesson? How do you find great resources? Where do these colleagues find awesome virtual field trips and learning games? Divide and conquer! 

You can use the resources that come out of our office or share the work with your friends and colleagues. 

But please walk the line between finding engaging lessons and working too hard. Please don’t work too hard. Life is too stressful right now for you to spend 18 hours a day on your computer. 

But please don’t totally skip the engaging piece and just assign textbook readings with questions at the end. If we do that, we lose kids. And if we lose kids right now, it’s awfully hard to find them again.

What lines are you currently walking? How are you succeeding (or not) at walking the line between engagement and overdoing it? How are your kids responding? 

I really do want to hear from you. I really do miss you all! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org 

-Tracy

Previews for Curiosity

I love movie previews. I have seen the previews for EVERYTHING and then they make me WANT to watch the movie!

A good preview can catch you in and make you want to see a movie you thought you had no interest in. It can make you say “Wait a minute! I DO know something about that movie! It’s the one that has so-and-so in it. It’s the one about such-and-such! That’ actually looks cool!”

While a lesson is not ALWAYS as fun as a movie (Although,  I have seen some of your lessons. They are pretty dang fun), but sometimes, we have to get the kids interested with a preview. Sometimes, they’re not automatically interested on their own. Sometimes, we have to drum up a little interest.  

I have seen three quick and easy ways to preview a lesson that take little to no preparation. You can do them at the beginning of a lesson or you can do them at the end of the day before to get the kids curious about the next day. 

Curiosity is a powerful tool. It gets kids engaged. And we all know that kids who are engaged are learning while kids who aren’t really engaged are just going through the motions, which means they aren’t really learning. They’re just doing busy work

1. Have them skim a text or reading to find the one or two most used words that are going to come up. But give them a super-short time limit so they’re not actually reading. Give them 30 seconds and make it a game. They’re just skimming. Then, based on their skim, ask them what they’re about to read about. Now they’re curious. Why are we going to read so much about the word “states”? Or about the word “nobles”? Or what’s a “silk road” going to be all about?

2. Give the kids 3-5 words from the upcoming lesson and have them work with a partner to put the words in a sentence. They should not be entirely unfamiliar terms, because the kids can’t do much with a pile of unfamiliar words, but mostly familiar words. For Post-classical china, I’d use “silk, trade, great wall, paper, ideas”. For the lead-up to the Civil War, I’d use “North, South, Slave, free, election”. See how well their sentences explain what they’re going to learn. Then, if you want to get FANCY, have them return to that sentence after the lesson or unit and fix up that sentence. They can even do a “I used to think ___ but now I think__” to reflect on how much they’ve learned”

3. A third way is to just ask a big question and have kids turn and talk. “How can you get silk from here to there? What if it’s something heavier and breakable like porcelain?” What should we do if Texas wants to leave the USA? Should we let them -- or make them stay? How does the government try to guarantee our rights? How can it do a better job?

Let’s continue to be intentional to build curiosity and engagement in our students so they WANT to learn!

How can you use previews to build curiosity and engagement in your lessons? How do you already do this? I’m SO curious!!

Email me! Newmantr@pcsb.org 

Think Alouds and Big Brains

Dang it’s cold for us Floridians today!  Stay warm today, colleagues! 

I know you know this but sometimes it helps to be reminded. 

You have a college degree. Some of you have more than one college degree. In order to have a college degree you have to either be a good reader or you have to have a LOT of strategies to get you around your reading deficits. 

Your STUDENTS do NOT have college degrees. They are middle or high school students. Many are not strong readers ... YET. 

Even your strong teen readers aren’t as strong as your experienced, college-educated teacher-reader selves. 

That’s why I need you to do something to help them out.

Think. Aloud.

Just like a kid who lives in a family of junk-food-eaters needs someone to model good eating habits, a kid who doesn’t know what good reading looks and sounds like INSIDE HIS HEAD needs someone to show him.

And guess what, Teacher? You are the perfect person! 

A good reader does several things all at once that they are probably unaware of. Doing some thinking aloud will help your readers -- from 6th grade strugglers to 12th graders ready for college -- be more aware of what’s going on in their OWN heads and be more intentional, stronger readers. 

So, how do I think aloud, Tracy? I can’t really just let my thoughts escape my lips. That won’t bode well for the students. 

Well, a think-aloud is series of specific ways you actually do react to text. You do these things, but often, as a college-educated reader, you do them so quickly, you don’t even notice that you’re doing them! 

So, the next time you’re reading some text with your students, try to slow down, notice what you’re doing, and point it out to the kids. Tell them what you’re doing and WHY you’re doing it. Just modelling can go a looong way

Here are a few ideas. 

Predict

• “I bet this is going to be about …”
• “I bet that the Spartans are going to lose at some point …”

Ask questions

• “Why did Empress Wu do that?”
• “What is the author talking about?”
• “What does that word mean?”

React

• “Wow! That’s amazing!”
• “Well that guy just did a stupid thing”
• “No, Harry Potter! Don’t do that!”

Make connections

• “That’s like what we read about with Buddhism”
• “That’s like the movie I saw last summer”
• “That reminds me of a poem we read in Language Arts class”

Make mental pictures

• “So the Olmecs are in Mexico, in the map I’m picturing”
• “I bet people in the Alps mountains freaked out when they saw Hannibal’s elephants!  
• “I’m picturing that guy as tall and mean”

Read out loud to your kids once in a while and model these Think-Aloud strategies. It helps them be better readers. Be explicit in your explaining what you’re doing and why. And don’t worry about being the best audiobook worthy reader. You-the-college-educated-adult are still better than they are! And if you can do it semi-regularly with you stopping to explain your thinking aloud, can seriously impact their reading. 

It’s something you do without even noticing. So slow your big brain down and show these kids how it’s done. 

Have a great week -- and stay warm, Floridians! 

Summertime and the Reading's Easy

It's about that time, y’all!

The school year is almost over!  We are so close, I can almost SMELL the beach from here!

So, it’s time for my annual summer reading list. You definitely don’t have to read the same book I AM, but I do recommend that you find SOME books to read, preferably the kind you don’t have time to read during the school year.

I fully admit to being academically “tired” during the year and reading mostly flaky stuff. But in the SUMMER, my brain is less worn out and more fresh. It’s a great time to read some “real” books while I have a little distance from the school day and school year. It’s easier to get through “real” books in the summer.

It’s important to do your OWN summer PD your OWN way, and reading books to refresh your thinking and practice is a great way to do that.

Read on the plane.

Read at the beach.

Read on your couch.

Listen in your car.

It doesn’t matter WHERE or WHEN, just read!

So, here is my book list for Summer 2019!

1. These Kids Are Out Of Control: Why We Must Re-imagine Classroom Management for Equity by H. Richard Milner IV et al.  admit to having this one already downloaded and ready to go! So many of us struggle with classroom management. And we also struggle with equity and how to use/apply/cultivate it effectively. And maybe some of us have noticed that the teachers with the best relationships with kids, with the strongest equity practices -- have fewer classroom management issues. Let’s work on figuring this out together! (PS -- If I love this book as much as I think I will, I’d like to do it as a book study in the fall. Who’s with me?)
2. Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone)? By Sam Wineburg. I admit, I’m already a couple chapters into this one. It’s pretty brutal, leaving no sacred cows alone. Roasting Howard Zinn, TAH grants, Bloom’s Taxonomy, George Washington, Google, pretty much all assessments of the past 100 years, and lots of other things I generally like and think highly of, Wineburg shoots right through all that stuff to the heart of teaching history and to historical thinking. And, despite me really being a fan of things like George Washington, the TAH, and Bloom, this book is amazing so far. It really gets past all the pieces to the Big Question: Why do we teach history to kids, and how can we do that better?
3. The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation by Jonathan Hennessy. This year, I have two graphic novels on my list, in an attempt to see if and how I can use them with students next year. The first is a graphic novel of the US Constitution -- which should be wonderful for students struggling to read and get engaged in Civics & Gov. Imagine giving it to a struggling reader to give him or her a little background before jumping to the actual text of the actual constitution! That could be a great scaffold!
4. The Odyssey, A Graphic Novel by Gareth Hinds looks promising, too! I admit that my third grader read it and found nothing objectionable (and she still gets outraged by the “h” word -- hell). But I don’t know how I would use it -- yet. I have to actually read it to think through that.
5. The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. This book blew my mind. I’m not much of a scientist -- and definitely not knowledgeable enough to be a NEUROSCIENTIST, but this book was practical and easy to understand and explained SO MUCH about our world, about education, about our kids and ourselves. It really amazed me with it’s readability and about how much useful stuff I got out of it!
1. *Caveat: there is a chapter about human sexuality in there. It has nothing to do with teaching social studies, but don’t be shocked when it is in the book. That’s not why I am recommending the book. It's the rest of the book that I recommend!
6. Beneath A Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King (author of The Devil in the Grove. This is another important, powerful book about racial terror in Florida. You will see the familiar Willis McCall reappear in this book. It looks like an emotionally difficult read, but I can handle that in the summer.
7. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About The World by Tim Marshall. I am so intrigued, I can’t help myself. Which maps, in particular, explain everything about the world? I have no idea. But I plan to read and find out!  

How about you? What’s on your teacher summer reading list? Want to read one on my list and talk about it via email?Or over fruity beachy beverages? Want to share what YOU plan on reading? Or tell me what you thought of a book?

Email me! I love to know! newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

The Connection Is Made

It’s getting down to the end. We have less than six weeks of school left (!!). The weather is  gorgeous. The kids have Spring Fever. The “senioritis” is trickling down to junioritis, freshmanitis, eighthgradeitis, even sixthgradeitis! It’s intermittently testing season and field trip season and schedules are all funky and out of whack.

How on earth do we keep any continuity or connections between topics and lessons from one day to the next?  

Especially when we don’t see one group of kids until Thursday because of testing/field trip/special events?

As usual, my magic wand is in the shop. And my magic bullets are in the mail.  

But it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be more intentional in having kids make connections.

Here are two ideas that you can work in, regardless of how frequently -- or infrequently -- you see your kids this month.

1. 
   Clifhangers: How do we remember the important points of Game of Thrones or whatever TV show we haven’t seen in a while? The shows usually helps us out by leaving us with a cliffhanger at the end of one episode.

Cliffhangers are great for that last one-minute of class when you don’t  have time to start something else. Just throw out a fairly interesting question from tomorrow’s lesson and remind kids to “stay tuned” to find out.

• What are some of the most important Supreme Court cases of all time?
• What is Lincoln going to do when states start seceding?
• How can the Roman Republic stay a republic when it adds all this new territory?
• How smoothly do you think these former colonies are going to move into independence?
• What different areas are going to outwardly fight against integration -- and which areas are going to fight passively?

It’s ok that they don’t have the answers. They’re NOT SUPPOSED TO! A cliffhanger is there to make them curious about the next lesson. It’s supposed to engage their brains a little after your class is over.

We know it’s not likely that they will ponder that question all night and lose sleep over it. But even if it crosses SOME of their minds once or twice, then their brains are “primed” and ready to connect new content to the old content.

Curiosity is a powerful force for engagement and learning. And it doesn’t require a lot of prep to add in.

2. Previously On: The next way to help kids is to regularly ask  kids what they remembered from yesterday’s lesson (or the previous time’s lesson) -- ask as bellwork or during the lesson intro.

There are several ways to do this.

• You can just flat out ask -- “what did you remember from yesterday’s lesson?”
• You can toss out a couple of terms from yesterday and ask what they have to do with the main topic.
• You can ask a review question about the previous lesson, test-style.
• You can ask kids to turn and talk about what they know or remember about the previous lesson’s topic.

3. Connections: Put a couple of terms from recent lessons on the board. Then ask kids to use a certain amount of them (6? 10?) on their paper -- with ARROWS showing how they are connected.

This helps kids explore the connections between topics which helps build schema and solidifies it all in their heads.

It requires the kids to not only know the content, but know and understand how each goes with another.

How can we help kids make connections within and between content? How can we help them keep some continuity when our schedules get crazy? How can we start the review process a little bit at a time?

Help kids make connections. Try it!

And let me know how it goes! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy