More students are returning to campus every week; we LOVE OUR STUDENTS!!!
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Every person who walks through our door has a problem with an impossible solution.
We will get through this together; it's the only way. Nearly every single teacher on my campus is hybrid teaching.
The MicroblogI learned about microblogs many years ago and I LOVED the concept.
It's a blog. It's a sentence. It's what we're all looking for when we get a hold of a blog with a recipe and there's SO MUCH WRITING before the actual recipe. So, I'll be brief in many of my upcoming blogs, because I'll follow the microblog model. Ready or Not, Here we go!We're in the game. Our bench is deep.
Here we go. Many of us share a combined worry about what education will look like when we come back in the fall. In the county where I reside in Texas, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases hit an all time high today, which makes me wonder even more about what the fall will look like for our classrooms.
My family is--thankfully--taking a long time to come back from social distancing. We're doing a few things, but remain entirely cautious about being out and about. One thing that I've added back into my schedule is my adult tap class! There are three adults in the class + one teacher, and the studio where we rehearse is large. We tap while wearing masks (it's so hard to breathe!), and we stay in our very own lanes if we have to cross the floor. For five weeks during this distancing time, we held class over Zoom. Ours is the main adult class in the studio (the other classes cater to tiny humans), so we were the first group to come back into the studio because we are AWESOME at following social distance directions. The studio opened up this week to have more classes meeting in person. Without going into the protocols that are in place at the dance studio (because that's not the true purpose of this post), I want to share what our tap teacher told us about the tiny humans who have been returning in person: their sparkle is missing. You know "sparkle." It's the look in their eyes when they're totally ON in class and engaged. Imagine how students who are having a fully body experience in a tap class could possible be missing their sparkle! The educators in the room (3 out of the 4 adults in the room educate tiny humans in some way) agreed that it's been a lot of screen time between online delivery of instruction and regular screen entertainment. The sparkle was overshadowed by a glassy-eyed look and the teacher had a hard time getting students (who were normally ALL IN for dance class) to really connect with her. Out of her day full of classes, only 3 students had their sparkle. That got me to thinking about how we could help our students find their sparkle when we see them next in person. I anticipate that it won't be enough to simply be together in the building. For the staff members, we'll be excited to be with our friends and colleagues once more. For our students--as ever--we need to plan to go that extra mile right out of the gate. My idea is this: Welcome & first week activities that incorporate the five senses. Help your students to awaken their bodies to be ready for learning. There are a plethora of ideas that could go along with the five senses, and I've listed just a few below. Hopefully my meager offering of ideas will: a. find funding from your school (if you submit your idea in time for someone to go on a school shopping errand or ask your PTA to help!); b. be a springboard for you to create your own, because my list certainly isn't exhaustive; and, c. make you excited to do something you've never done before when welcoming students back.
I don't have a classroom of my own anymore because I'm an assistant principal. If a teacher came to me asking for help with any of the above ideas, I'd be happy to make a bag of carrots happen, bring a towel (or ten), or buy different textures of paper for a class to use to decorate a spirit tube. We have to awaken the senses and give the sparkle back to our tiny humans. In the process of giving the tiny humans their sparkle back, we'll grab some of that sparkle, too! I've been preparing for the worst for about a month now. I have a number of friends who live overseas and saw how this virus was changing their daily life, so I had time and the presence of mind to think about what I needed to do get my family ready. I made a plan. Three weeks ago on a Thursday, I called all of my doctor offices and got prescription refills sorted out. Text messages started flying into my phone that various prescriptions were ready (I have a chronic disease that requires a number of medications to keep me alive and well-managed). My boss stopped in to tell me something while I was on hold--in that rare moment with the walkie talkie wasn't squawking with a teacher in need of support or a visitor at the front desk--and asked me, "Are you getting ready?" "Yes. I'm getting ready," I answered, embarrassed that I had to take two minutes for a personal phone call. "Good," she said. "You need to be ready." She totally gets it. That Friday, I went to my local warehouse club after school (hot weekend plans, obvs) and walked up and down the aisles while I thought to myself, "Is that someone I can reproduce? Do I need to buy that, or can I make that from scratch? Do I have the freezer space for that?" I walked out with a bail of toilet paper (we had enough paper towels), a case of tomato sauce (I have no interest in making that), a case of canned tuna (hello, college survival tuna melts), three dozen eggs (they only sell them in three dozen bundles), a bag of flour, and a bag of sugar. The only thing I really saw missing from the shelves was the chicken noodle soup. "No biggie," I thought. "I can make that so easily." I went online and ordered dog food and the ever-popular peanut butter pill pockets for the Stout Nation Pups. The next day, I went to the grocery store for our regular weekly groceries and bought an extra box of butter, an extra carton of milk (the kind we buy has a long shelf life...like until May), picked up an extra two onions, and a package of fresh mint. Nothing says "springtime" to me more than cucumber mint infused water. Life continued. I watched on social media as more and more data-watching-agencies reported rising numbers of those being infected with COVID-19 around the world. I unpacked all of my prescriptions into their proper storage areas (I'm telling ya, it's A LOT) and took an inventory to make sure I had everything I needed for the next 90 days to--quite literally--stay alive. I went to school. I loved on our students. I didn't do much thinking about the interruption that could come, because it wasn't time...yet. My thoughts were consumed with the impending standardized testing, a busy spring calendar, and supporting our staff as they dreamed big dreams for our tiny humans. To be perfectly honest, I was also planning my costume for how I would be Julia Child to help our 3rd graders kick off their biography unit on the Monday after Spring Break (think of a living wax museum display, visiting each of our 5 language arts classrooms, complete with costume, wig, and a VOILA! moment to display her kid-friendly biography book on a silver serving tray. Oh, and lipstick.). Spring break came and our district made the difficult decision to cancel school for the following week. I breathed a sigh of relief--one week where my compromised immune system would be protected. And then--only a few days later--we received the news that we'd be cancelled until Easter. I thought of our contract employees. I thought of our students. I thought of the individual teachers that would be struggling with this decision and the world around them for various reasons. And then, my thoughts turned to Julia Child and I mentally took inventory of how much butter I had in my fridge. I'm a WASP gal, through and through. In a crisis, my oven is almost always on. I have something for my hands to do. The washing machine is going. The dishwasher hardly stops. All of these things have remained true during the COVID-19 social distancing. The Stout Nation Pups will no doubt need therapy when this is all over, because they're becoming more co-dependent on their humans the longer we're home with them. And, these days, we're home 24/7 because Stout Nation is certainly observing social distancing. The Pups are awful at it (see photo). Three of us from school have been video, phone, and text conferencing with each other about our next steps as we move forward to support our community. Often times, I wish I could write about the process we go through when making decisions for our community and each factor that goes into the creation of a plan. The number one thing that holds me back from doing that--rightfully so--is confidentiality. I want to protect the professionals, students, and families with whom I work, so we aren't really ever able to share the entire process. And that's okay! I knew that going into this role. My thoughts return again to Julia Child. She's been quoted saying: You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients. So, here is my recipe of fresh ingredients to get through to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic and the decisions that are being made for/with/by us: 3 1/2 cups of patience 3/4 cup of grace 3/4 cup of packed trust 1/2 cup hope 1/4 cup sifted courage 3 Tablespoons fresh grit (can substitute Houston oak tree pollen, if needed) 1 Tablespoon determination 1 teaspoon calm 1/4 teaspoon joy 1 cup melted butter Blend ingredients together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until mixture is just combined. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 60 minutes. Bake at 98.6 Fahrenheit until toothpick comes out clean. Be well. The idea of having a student media intern is floating around education, and I tried it for the first time in the 2018-2019 school year. Our school mascot is the Jaguar, so our interns are called the Jaguar Media Interns. In this post, I will share a few organization ideas I will use for 2019-2020 as we step up our program to have more interns on campus per week. To understand WHY we need so much organization, here's a quick glimpse at what we started with: We had one iPad, a charger, and I made some name tags to go into badge holders with two different colored lanyards (a green and a yellow). Students who were interested signed up, and a class per week (or sometimes a class for two weeks, depending on the calendar), hosted the student media interns. There were usually two students in a class so they could pair together and help troubleshoot issues or review instructions. A super duper fancy iridescent pouch held the iPad, two badges, a laminated instruction sheet, and a charger. The pouch was so gregarious that when students carried it down the hallway, folks were like, "Oh there go the media interns!" It also helped that they had badges that we had to pry out of their hands at the end of their rotation week--the students LOVED this program! For 2019-2020, we will up the iPad count to SIX. I think. I don't really know for sure, but if I put it out there in the universe, the funding will come. That's how education funding works, right? With a higher number of media pouches, I knew I needed to be creative. The iridescent pouch cannot be reproduced as it was bought for a whopping $5 on a DSW clearance. I saw it on the rack five years ago and thought, "Buy it. It'll be amazing some day in your classroom." You know what I'm talking about. We've ALL had that thought. That's why we have a closet or a bin of stuff our spouses look at and think, "that's school stuff." Here's a picture of the pouches we'll use in 2019-2020: Totes awesome, RIGHT?! This is a swim bag purchased on clearance from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Shout out to my Mom who is a BB&B member and has that coupon on the app and was shopping with me on my "OMG A TREASURE!" day. These pouches measure big enough to hold a device and all the badges, instruction pages, chargers, etc. that come with being a Jaguar Media Intern. The pouch is waterproof (just a bonus, not a necessity for this purpose), it zips, and it has a handle. Oh, and did I mention it's made of iridescent mermaid fabric?! The tiny humans will be petting it all down the hallway when they retrieve it each morning. No way they'll forget to come and get their pouch! Each pouch will have a luggage tag, which I purchased on sale from Samsonite. Each pouch has a different luggage tag to help students know which pouch is theirs for the week, since all the pouches look the same. I purchased one extra pouch and one extra luggage tag because, well, the tiny humans are very moist and things happen. Eww.
We've all been there. I'm excited to increase our participation in the Jaguar Media Intern program for 2019-2020 and I'm even more excited to have a shimmery way to organize all of the moving parts! Your school might be interested in morning music, or maybe your team is already playing music during arrival in the morning. Each year, I put together a set of playlists to be played during morning arrival for our students (we're a 3rd - 5th grade campus). Before I tell you HOW I balance my playlists, I must give you the warning about violating copyright law. If you download music from a service like iTunes or if you play music from a streaming service like Pandora/Spotify/Apple music, you DO NOT own the rights to play it over the speakers for public listening. Your payment to iTunes or your streaming service merely gives you the license to download the music and listen to it yourself, not play it for hundreds of children. Many educators think that educators are never going to be sued for copyright violation; that is an incorrect assumption. In Spring 2019, Houston ISD had a lawsuit brought up against them because teachers had copied protected study guide material for distribution and ignored the "don't copy this" warnings at the bottom of the study guides. I do a few things on my campus to help make sure I stay within copyright law: I use royalty free music at all possible moments for any videos and presentations; I make my music selections for our school be in line with the curriculum standards for our state music curriculum so that our music supports the curriculum being taught by our music department. Look at that picture. That's me, privately consuming the music I've legally purchased the licenses for on my music account. I hope you look the same as you are picking out perfectly balanced playlists that are legally protected for your own consumption.
I have eight different morning music playlists. Four are full of pop-style music, Four are full of classical-style music. There aren't any songs that repeat on the playlists. The pop-style music lists are titled "Week * Mon Fri" because I listen to them on Mondays and Fridays. The classical-style music lists are titled "Week * Classical" and I listen to them on Tuesdays - Thursdays. Keep reading beyond the example lists below to know my philosophy in how I determined the styles of composers/artists we needed to have in our morning music. Week A Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like): Earth, Wind & Fire LunchMoney Lewis Diana Ross & Michael Jackson Jonsi Dillon Francis Grace VanderWaal Panic! At the Disco Week B Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like): Village People Mary J. Blige Kelly Clarkson BTS & Charli XCX The Jacksons Mary J. Blige Week C Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like): Kool & The Gang Jonas Brothers Katrina & The Waves Matt and Kim Aretha Frankin Kygo & Rita Ora KC and the Sunshine Band Week D Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like): Stevie Wonder SEVENTEEN The Jacksons Imagine Dragons Jonas Brothers Pentatonix The Beatles Week A Classical (songs are in the style of artists like): Debussy Desplat R. Schumann Morricone Bernstein Faure The Mantovani Orchestra Week B Classical (songs are in the style of artists like): Shankar Bright Sheng Mussorgsky Bun-Ching Lam Max Richter Week C Classical (songs are in the style of artists like): George Walker Voces8 Marc Melits Chopin D. Benard Roumain McFerrin Nat King Cole Dave Brubeck Week D Classical (songs are in the style of artists like): Tommy Emmanuel Adam Holzman Joaquin Rodrigo Tango Project German Nogueira Leo Brouwer There's a philosophy to building these playlists, and they centralize around theme and representation. The pop-style playlists will always have uplifting songs that don't talk about relationships, how good a boy/girl looks, etc. The pop-style songs will be about hope, strength, perseverance, and/or moving your body to stay active. The classical-style playlists are 100% representation. Week A is mostly filled with European American composers, Week B is mostly filled with living Asian American composers, Week C is mostly filled with living African American composers, and Week D is mostly filled with living Latin American composers. There are some very old, very dead white people sprinkled into Week B and Week C, but that's only because the style of the composition meets the audible guidelines of the style in which the composers in Week B and Week C created their frameworks of sound. We keep a device near our sound system with a calendar of music like this that we might play as student arrive. The calendar is your typical grid, month view calendar and has the exact playlist that should be played on each day. This way, the same playlist doesn't get played over and over and over again. (What's interesting about this is that we have staff members who say they hear the same thing every week; they for sure don't because the science of the calendar doesn't fail! We have a top notch person in charge of the playlists and there is rarely an error, if ever, of which list is playing on which day.) When you have a calendar set up in a public place for anyone who has access to the sound device, the calendar is a way to ensure that the knowledge of what should be played isn't kept by ONE person; it's community knowledge! Representation matters in every single walk of our students' lives. Representation should happen with school posters, read alouds, working novels, and even with morning music. All we have to do is consider doing something differently than plugging in a streaming service and walking away (that's illegal, anyway, so...we probably shouldn't do that any more...). Having a playlist that is balanced with representation of my students helps me to become a balanced educator. My district hosted a What Great Educators Do Differently conference yesterday, and it was as awesome as I remembered it being when I was able to attend a few years ago. There's nothing quite like an infusion of energy and positivity in April to launch into planning for next year. I have four main takeaways (and SO MANY more tweets) that I'd like to use to really bring my thoughts together from everything I learned yesterday. Our kids are struggling with content. The struggle is REAL. The content is DEEP. The time is SHORT. When we deliver content to our students, anything short of making it the most exciting experience in the history of their existence is doing them a disservice. Dave Burgess talked about delivering content at the peak moment of engagement. When we pair student engagement with content delivery, THAT IS THE ULTIMATE experience for our students. Yes, it's tough and it's like creating a 10 dish meal where all the timers perfectly sound in chorus...but that's why teaching is an art! When we use passion, enthusiasm, showmanship, and creativity we create sheer magic for our students. Using elements of connection like mystery, curiosity, buzz, and anticipation help us burst out of boring content standards and push through to actual student engagement. And for goodness sake, we have got to PLAN OUR QUESTIONS. The right question can take our students from static noise to great insight. If our lesson plans don't have any kind of question stems or a note about what kind of springboard we're going to use to get our students where they need to be, then we're not planning for great instruction. I will type/say this until I have numb fingertips or am blue in the face: great teachers plan for questioning. Here's a completely transparent thought to share: Rick Wormeli made my brain hurt in all the right ways with his session about standards based grading. I'm not really sure what I'm ready to invite into my heart regarding standards based grading, but his session brought out some terrific points that I'd like to personally consider as we look at our campus' grading policies going forward:
We cannot control for the variables that kids face when they go home. We CAN control for the variables that WE bring to the classroom. Because kids deserve it. Controlling our own variables is the light, the way, and the truth that will lead our class and building cultures to be what we all want it to be: a place where kids are happy to be here and excited to learn. Sometimes all of the variables collide in this awful, super wreck. And it's so frustrating. Those are the days that I want to stop by Sonic on my way home to eat a MEDIUM sized order of mozzarella sticks (medium means it's been a bad day. The small size is what I use whenever it's just a day where Sonic is on my mind.)I need to look and see that when my classes aren't going well, it's because I--as the grown up in the room with a fancy teaching degree-haven't done enough hoisting to shift my sails. If classroom management is a sail on my boat, then the students are the collective wind (especially on bean burrito day, if you catch my "drift"...so many puns it's almost painful.) We have great educators all around us who are trying different things, and sometimes those things are going to fall flat. Like totally flat. Like Columbus thought the world was flat, flat. FHLAAAHT. Be ready to grant grace to the teacher next door who tries something new and falls flat on their face. Because we've all been there. It's what you do next that counts. We need to be Oprah with the grace granting, especially when the teacher is trying something new and taking a risk. If we want to choose who we teach, then we need to apply to work in a private school. Or a charter school. There is absolutely NO PLACE in public education for a teacher to say, "That student doesn't belong in my class." or "I don't want to have him in my testing group." Sure, there are personality conflicts and concerns with how teachers and students will build relationships; however, being part of a democracy means that we get to teach everyone. Being a public school educator the best kid-sized gift in the whole wide world, and sometimes they even come with a super cute bow on top.
And finally, my biggest share from the conference (but I didn't want to make it a 5th takeaway, because it's so powerful as a stand alone thought): When a child presents a facade of apathy, there's something else going on that the teacher can't see or control. Apathy is the cloak with which our students cover themselves to call out for our help. It's hard to see it, but that's why we have special teacher goggles. Go and be great. It's time. |
AuthorHi! I'm Virginia Stout, and I love education. *Hi Virginia* Welcome to Stout Nation; enjoy! Archives
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