The Literate Teacher's Manifesto

Today's quickwrite prompt in class was to write a breakup letter to failure. My 8th graders stared at me. In second period, M said, "A breakup letter to failure? But I just had to write a thank you letter to pain Monday!" (We've been working on metaphorical thinking.) In third period, A protested, "But I've never had a failing grade!" So we had to discuss types of failure: academic, athletic, relationships, changes, trying new things... I wanted them to think about the ways failure had affected them, and to reject it. Not because I don't believe there is value in failure, but because it doesn't have to become our constant partner. Just because we fail at something doesn't mean we have to be in a life-long relationship with failure, and I find that many times middle schoolers internalize failure like that. If they have ever been bad at something, they will be bad at it forever and ever, amen. I want them to be prepared to move on from failur...

Y'all. Did you know that Google has a timeline function that will show you everywhere you have been since you got a smartphone? Maybe everybody else in the world knew that, but I did not. And for those of you who maybe also do not know, I'm about to show you how to find it and use it. Now, let me begin by saying that I am shook at the invasion of privacy, and the part of me who would choose the Bill of Rights as a hill I would definitely die on has serious misgivings about the fact that Google knows this much about me. But let me also say that I am old enough that I remember rotary phones and landlines, waiting twenty minutes for AOL to dial up, card catalogs, and atlases to navigate family vacations, and the part of me that remembers all that is profoundly awed by how far technology has come in my lifetime. We live in truly amazing times. Before we begin, let me encourage you to be prepared to devote some time to this. Because it's a rabbit hole and once we start, ther...

It's been a long day, and I am finally sitting down in my writing chair, but before I can get started, I have to indulge in a guilty pleasure. I tuck my legs up under me and slowly peel back the silver lid, being careful to nudge every last drop into the cup before carefully folding the lid in half and setting it aside. I breathe in, smelling memories: Christmas sugar-coated gummies, my mom's old floor cleaner, elementary school scented markers, and that awesome syrup they used to put in antibiotics when I was a kid. I know, I know... maybe it's weird, but chemical orange is one of my favorite scents. The quivering, tensile surface glimmers up at me, reflecting the lamplight. My tiny dessert spoon carves delicately into the smooth top, leaving scallops in its wake and scooping up a quivering, shiny mouthful, the exact shade of orange as the publish button on my blog (reminding me that I need to get started). I savor the first tangy sweet taste on my tongue, swishing i...

It feels more like May than March. The sun is bright, reflecting off the waves, a stark difference from the hazy gray morning we woke up to. The sand stretches to either side of us, dwindling into haze either way, but the water in front of me is clear green-blue and sun sparkles. The warmth of the sun on my toes sets me longing for summer, when I will no longer encase my feet in thick socks and boots. Bare feet mean summer break; pictures of sandy toes and tanned knees in front of blue water. The beach is covered with sunbathers and walkers. There are a few kids who are braving the still-cold waters of the Atlantic. They run kamikaze into the surf, only to retreat, screaming, and try it again thirty seconds later. Teenagers sprawl, bikini-clad, on brightly colored beach towels, while boys in board shorts horseplay nearby. Here and there are individual chairs of readers, sitting quietly and enjoying their books while soaking up the sunshine. Walkers either meander aimlessly or pace pu...

Teacher Me (TM): So how's it going? Student Me (SM): Not great. I'm stuck. I keep thinking about what I might write but every time I start it sounds stupid. TM: So tell me a few of your ideas. SM: Well, I thought about writing from that prompt from Thursday... about being a musical instrument. TM: Yeah? Did you have a pretty good start on that from your quickwrite? SM: Yeah. But when I looked at it I couldn't figure out how to finish it. So then I thought about whining a little, or ranting, I guess. I am frustrated about several things right now. But then I thought nobody wants to hear my whining, and ranting tends to not solve anything. Plus I don't want to be perceived as negative (because been there, done that). TM: Hard same. So what are your other options? SM: I did a presentation the other day. I had a lot to say during that, but now that I sit down to write it down I feel like I'm just repeating myself and saying things people have already hea...

"A book is a loaded gun in the house next door." --Ray Bradbury Books aren't dangerous, but ideas are. Books without ideas never burn. Books whisper stories of injustice to us, asking us to question the way things are. They strap our bare feet firmly into another man's shoes and demand we walk miles. They remove our blinders and our walls, knock down barriers, transcend borders. They strip us of race, religion, ideology, of all the things that separate and divide, and ask us to see others as they truly are: human. Is it any wonder, then, that those who benefit from our division would rather fund a loaded gun for the hands of every teacher than a library in every classroom?

So I sat down to write this slice at 9:24 pm. Tomorrow I am leaving to go to a conference, which I will present at during the 10:00 AM time slot tomorrow morning. My presentation is not done, and my co-presenter and I haven't really talked about what direction we want to go for this session. This afternoon I ran around my room like a crazy person, because not only did I have to be ready to leave for 2 days, I had to be prepare for a field trip tomorrow (and leave instructions for my sub so she would know how to get the kids taken care of). We had a faculty meeting after school today, and I had car duty. My housekeeper is coming to clean tomorrow, so I had to come home and clean so she can come and clean under my mess (Yes, I have a housekeeper. It's the best investment I have ever made!). And my in-laws arrived for a brief visit this afternoon so they can attend my son's band concert tomorrow night, and we went to dinner tonight. And now, I am trying my hardest ...

A poem in the style of Mending Wall , by Robert Frost Something there is that doesn't love a book, That rips the pages breaking spine beneath And drops and leaves the cover in the hall; And makes gaps in stories where characters pass without touching. The work of students is another thing: I have come behind them and made repair Where they have left no consecutive page after page But they would have the one word out of hiding To please the yawping teachers. The gaps I mean, "It wasn't me" has seen or heard them made, But all the same at summer break we find them there. I let my assistant know beyond the door; And on a day we meet to tape the spines and salve their wounds to face another year. To each the pages that have fallen to each And some are torn and some so nearly trash We have to use a spell to keep them whole: "Stay together until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers out with handling them. Oh, just another kind of school ...

Earlier this year, I had my Social Studies students listen to a This I Believe speech, Thirty Things I Believe , that was written by a kindergarten student. We were getting ready to study the Declaration of Independence, which I wanted them to view as a list of things Americans believe. In preparation, I had them to write their own lists of thirty beliefs and record themselves reading them on Flipgrid. It was a pretty cool way to get to know them better, and they discovered many things they had in common with people who seemed very different from them. I didn't get a chance to write my list with them, so I thought I'd use the idea as a slice today. Thirty Things I Believe I believe most people mean well. I believe people are born good and the world turns them bad. I believe it's better to be kind than right. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. I believe there is more to unite us than to divide us. I believe no one reads the "usage and term...

I started the Keto diet on January 7 of this year. It was not a New Year's resolution, because that's just a recipe for failure. It was, instead, a realization that I couldn't afford to buy all new clothes, and if I continued in the direction I was going, that was going to have to happen. I hadn't worn anything but leggings for the Christmas holidays, and I realized that in spite of my leggings saying, "Relax, girl. Have some more cake. We gotchu," my jeans were screaming, "You must stop!" I decided it was time to listen to my jeans. After 2 months and twenty pounds down, I am glad that I did. I really like keto, and it hasn't been that hard to maintain. The worst times are when we go somewhere to eat when they bring the carbs out for free and put them on the table. Like the chips and salsa at Chili's tonight. Or the basket of bread at my favorite Italian restaurant. Or, God forbid, the cheddar garlic biscuits at Red Lobster. But I'm he...

A former student of mine who is in pharmaceutical school right now posted this the other day on the Facespace. I was pretty taken with this image. I am in year seventeen of my teaching career and this year is the first time I have felt like that proverbial candle that is burning on both ends.  It's not so much that I am blazing that much effort as I feel like somebody has set me on fire.  So what's going on? I'm not really sure. I have a tough group of kids this year, but I don't know that they are tougher than groups I've had in the past. I'm getting older, but I don't feel this way at home. There are a lot of new expectations trickling in from various places on high, but isn't that just part of the "teacher life"?  New year, new crop of acronyms, right? Whatever is causing it, I am definitely experiencing burnout symptoms this year. Creeping blues on Sundays, sleeping through my alarm on weekdays, raiding the headache medicin...

For the next month, I am committing again to writing a Slice of Life blog post each day. This is my 2nd time participating in the challenge. Last year, I wrote 28 of 31 slices. Hoping to beat that total this year, even if I may not make all 31! Today I want to share a student snapshot. I'd like to tell you about O.  O was in my best friend's reading and writing workshop last year as a 7th grader, and I heard so many stories about this girl. I knew I had to teach her.  Now, when she was in 7th grade, O was quite a pistol, calling my friend the most random of names, having no idea of what kind of reading she wanted to do, abandoning books with wanton joy, and lying about finishing when she would really abandon every single book she picked up. My first experience with seeing her in action was on a day when my friend's classes were doing a video chat with Nic Stone, and my class was invited to join in for a few minutes.  O was so overjoyed at being able to sp...

This week, Target offered a teacher discount of 15% on classroom supplies-- notebooks, writing utensils, cleaning supplies, and so forth (but not books-- a post for another time). Predictably, there was much rejoicing among the teachers in my PLN, but there was also a not-insignificant amount of pushback. Many teachers in different social media groups advocated a spending freeze; teachers should not spend their own money on classroom supplies. Only by refusing to spend our own money to fund our classrooms, they insisted, could we ever expect to force the state's hand. Others went so far as to imply that it was insulting that Target would even offer the discount, that it was a dismal picture of what the expectations are for educators. I have always been willing to spend my own money to make my classroom what I want it to be. I know that even if some miracle occurred, and funding levels were suddenly restored to pre-Recession levels, it would still not be enough to fund my classroo...

I got sucked into a huge Facebook discussion this afternoon. It all started when a teacher asked the question, "When reading out loud to the class and the n-word appears, do you say it or not?" 334 responses later, and I'm not sure whether the original poster's question has been answered or not. It seems like an innocuous question, right? Any teacher who has ever done a read-aloud has probably been faced with a word that made them pause and think, "Will I say this word?" But the answer here is not as simple as reading a hell , a damn , or even a fuck . There are words that come with their own emotional baggage, that are so heavily weighted with history and policy and society, that's there's not such a simple answer. Ten years ago, before I was the teacher I am now, before Twitter and PLN's and social justice, I was that teacher. The one asking that question. We were preparing to read To Kill A Mockingbird , and I knew that the n-word was coming...

Home "Mid pleasures and palaces tho I may roam/ Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." I cannot count how many times  I have watched the road unwind before me, awash in sun and promise, or how many times I have seen that promise fade behind me in the glow of taillights. I cannot count how many times I have gazed out a window at a patchwork of unfamiliar fields and hills, on the crashing descent of a mountain waterfall, across a snow-covered wonderland with white-coated trees and frozen lakes, or past sun-bathed vineyards basking in Old World charm. I cannot count how many times I have traversed the last rise of that familiar hill, travel-worn, heartsick, weary, to see home rising in the distance. And felt my spirits lifted, my soul, renewed. I have waited for the white fence, the cornfields, the familiar length of a red barn,, and the white house, reigning peacefully over this small kingdom. Bringing bac...

Most days in the summer, you can find me in this chair. It's my weeding chair. I'd be lying if I said that I enjoy spending time in this chair, but it does give me a lot of time to think. During the school year, everything gets filtered through the lens of my classroom, but the summer gives me the time and space to filter my classroom through the lens of other activities. My Paw Lackey and my Mamaw Grace both taught me that there are lessons to be learned from a garden, and I value the time I spend in my garden for the clarity it gives me. This morning, I was thinking about weeds. Every gardener hates weeds. The battle against them is time-consuming and ongoing, and you never really win it. You may reach a temporary truce if you hit a dry spell or if your hubby sneaks into your garden with Roundup (usually doing more harm than good), but eventually, the weeds will come back. They always do.  So it is with bad ideas in education. I have never been in any other c...

I want to start this post with a small story. My family went to dinner with some friends on Friday night, and I wanted to make a real, concerted effort to be present, without my phone. And it turns out, if one person makes that effort, it seems to spread and be contagious, because we were at dinner for about an hour and a half and phones only made an appearance twice. Once, because we were trying to remember "tan George's" real name (George Hamilton... thanks Google), and once because my son got so tickled trying to tell a story that my husband had to take a video of his struggles--they were truly epic. Both of these were good reminders that technology can enrich our time together instead of distract us! And now for the real update: my tracking app predictions were just about right. On average, over the course of the last 5 days, I pick my phone up 40-60 times a day, and spend 3-4 hours on it per day. Ugh. Just seeing it written down there makes me feel even worse. A...