New Year...New Books

Just wanted to take a moment to share three titles with you that my students are enjoying.  Always looking for titles that might engage readers...for those who love it and especially for those who don't appreciate this hobby as I do.

I wrote a grant last summer to buy books for our student book club.  The following are the first three:

• The Iron Trial by popular authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare:  the first in a series, this novel's protagonist is a male.  Have you noticed that so many of the heroes are actually heroines? Currently, I only have one copy of the next in the series The Copper Gauntlet...need more, as they all want to read the next one as soon as they finish the first. Please read more here on my book review blog about this series.
• The Red Queen by 24-year-old Victoria Aveyard (once you begin reading, you will understand why I included her age...such a good writer):  Main character Mare is both a Silver and a Red...and finds herself betrothed to one of the two Princes.  Lots of twists and turns (literally...as the Queen has the power to take over your mind and inflict great pain).  This one is the first of three...and plans are underway to take The Red Queen to the big screen.  Yes, please read before watching!  A must!
• The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons:  A stand-alone.  These seem more uncommon nowadays, don't they?  This novel, too, takes the reader to a dystopic society where women are valued primarily as breeders, which is main character Aya's future as she has been captured and will soon be auctioned...or will she?

Currently, as we speak, the faculty book read for January is being discussed.  Unless minds and opinions change, we will be reading The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens or Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn (this one was recommend by author Gretchen Rubin as one of her three monthly recommendations for January)...or both over the next two months.   

For our local book store's book club (now celebrating its 15th year!), we are reading Turn Away Thy Son by Arkansan Elizabeth Jacoway, who wrote about the Little Rock Central Nine.

Then for personal, spiritual growth, I am reading Beth Moore's new book Audacious.  So very good...and so very timely for me.  I have also begun Alistair Begg's Pathway to Freedom for a Sunday evening study and am working through Beth Moore's Jesus The One and Only for our Making Choices Bible Study Group.

Please share...what are you reading good?

Happy reading!

16 Intentions

For the past several years, I have written, instead of resolutions, intentions.  In my previous post, I spent some time reflecting on my completion...or lack thereof...of 2015's Intentions.  While I did not complete hardly any to extent to which I had hoped, I have few regrets.

Now, to look forward on this last evening in 2015 to 16 Intentions...and in no certain order...:

1. For several years now, I have participated in the My One Word Challenge:  quiet, peace, fit, smile, completer.  These words have had powerful impacts on my life, never wanting to leave any of these words behind.  Thus, after a few days contemplation and after having read several pages of Beth Moore's new book Audacious, the word that has chosen me for 2016 is all.  More about this word choice to be found here at My Prayer Walk.  My intention here focuses more on all people...honestly, I am not sure where I plan to go with this word.  2016 will tell the story of this word.  Yes, all the story.
2. Read.  In the previous years, I have focused on reading more...and I do want to read more.  More fiction.  More nonfiction.  Just more.  Or I may read less and focus on the content within each more.  Here, you may see where my Intention to Read may lead, for I am gathering and listing the challenges and books for my books clubs that I hope to delve within the pages of the many journeys each will encourage.
3. Become more involved in my professional memberships.  Currently, I enjoy presenting and increasing my activity within the Arkansas Reading Association (also serve as secretary for our local reading council) and the Arkansas Teachers for National Board Certification.  I hope to be able to write much more about this soon, for these professional organizations remind me of who I was, who I truly am, and who I hope to be.
4. Enjoy time with My Daughter.  Sixteen...and going on much older than I want her to be!...she will be a senior next year, and this Christmas Break has given me the time to peacefully accept that I want that year with her, for I had been contemplating sending out my resume.  The Girl has had four heart surgeries, and if I know one thing, we are not promised tomorrow.  Therefore, if given the gift of the One Year, I accept it.
5. Enjoy time with The Husband.  He is such a good man, and he loves me.  He also enjoys shooting his rifles and is the most excellent of marksmen.  He would enjoy my becoming a better markswoman.  We also hope to travel a bit across our state and experience its wonders even more on our "dates."  
6. Book Clubs...I so enjoy the ones in which I am involved, both in person and online.  I intend to read more of those books.  Last year, I waited too close to the deadline/meeting time and then was not able to fully participate in the discussions.  Speaking of which, I have two meetings next week...reading I shall be doing!
7. Book Clubs, Part 2...as much as I love books and reading them, I also enjoy getting to know those involved within these gatherings...teachers, students, my little lady friends at the local book store, and my Jesus Girls in my bible study group.  Fellowship every time we gather.
8. Bible Study:  Currently, I very much enjoy Bible study with our Making Choices group, a group of ladies from throughout our area, a group that changes yet remains the same.  I also enjoy online studies and have chosen again to follow along with Joanna Weaver's Word of God Speak 2016, while also completing my chronological read of the Bible, which currently coincides with our study of Beth Moore's Jesus The One and Only.  As the year progresses, I may choose another online, yet I have learned that sometimes fewer is more.
9. Ladies on a Mission:  This is a new group we began late last fall (met three times), one in which we are organizing again for this year.  Our style informal, we plan a mini-lesson, choose an area in our community to visit, create a small gift for that chosen area, then deliver those tokens...an an outreach...while ladies grow closer, fellowshipping.
10. Music...piano...songs.  I so enjoy playing the piano, a gift I have that I don't always understand, for I play by "ear"; therefore, I need to "hear" more songs, so I may play them.  So many beautiful songs.  Just one a week?  52 songs.  That I would love to accomplish!
11. Quilt.  Last year I only made one quilt, yet I have material purchased to probably make 20 or more.  I want to make quilts!  Quilts for babies...four on their way now.  Quilts for friends.  Quilts for family.  Quilts for me!
12. Be a friend.  To myself.  To my students.  To my peers.  To my friends.  To them I would like to give the gift of time and a quiet mouth and a listening ear.
13. Write.  Each year, I intend to blog more.  This, I plan again!  I am also discovering that I enjoy writing poetry, writing for friends and family on birthday and special occasions.  Maybe more poetry will come out of me besides these times and National Poetry Month.
14. Tammy Time.  Downtime.  Conference Time.  Canning Time.  Reading Time. Family Time.  Friend Time. Just the gift of time to not be stressed about things that are bigger than I am.  The gift of time to not be stressed...just to rest until the answers come.
15. More organized.  My desk.  My classroom.  My Sunday School area.  My car.  My house.  Yes, ALL areas of my life.
16. Less teaching.  More teaching.  In some areas of my life I have resolved to commit less in some areas.  Just the way it has to be for now.  In other areas, I shall teach more.  Oh, for the wisdom to know how to handle both...and handle them well.

There.  16 Intentions. I am very much looking forward to 2016...yes, I am!

Happy New Year!  Planning any Intentions?

Reflecting on 2015...

Listed below were my 15 Intentions for this past year.  Having now looked over them, my first reaction?  I'm a failure!  I sure was busy, though, to have been such a failure!  May we check out this list?

• Read and complete more classics.  Six is my goal with Rebecca being my first choice.

• Have yet to begin Rebecca, which means, no, I did not meet this goal. Read fewer books than in several of my past years.  Hummmm. 

• Complete more professional reads.  I have a “basic” ASCD membership and with it, I receive five newly released PD books.  I want to read three (front to back) before this year is over.

• No, glanced at all of the books.  Read none of them.  I did complete Reading Nonfiction.  This may just be one of those books that changes who I am as a teacher...if I were allowed to change.  Maybe those choices will be mine again one day.

• Complete more woman-hours improving my marksmanship.  Plus, this means quality time with The Hubby.  Yes!

• No, not nearly enough hours spend on this...although I still appreciate being an owner of several.

• Completely learn more gospel songs…especially those in our church song book.  So many beautiful songs in that book.  Songs I want to learn.

• Began the year learning...and learned a few along the way.  Not near the number I had hoped to learn, though.

• Continue book club involvement:  both for our BHS Reads and for the Paper Chase Bookstore.  This year, I signed up at Library Thing for the 75’ers…to read 75 books in 2015.  (Today, I started the first one!)  Here’s a link to my reading intentions for 2015.

• Yes (my first!), I did remain involved in these book clubs; even wrote and received a grant for one them!

• Complete Bible studies with the group of ladies that meet at our church.  Just really love this time.

• Yes!  Love the Making Choices Bible Study group.  Now, we are studying Beth Moore's Jesus The One and Only (our third study for this year:  we also completed Esther and Stronger).  Very good time!

• Completely read the Bible through this year by signing up for and completing Joanne Weaver’s challenge.  I am also happy that Beth Moore’s SSMT is back.  Click here for more info.

• Will finish the Old Testament.  What an amazing time for me.  This read was a chronological one, one I recommend for all.  Thus, I did not complete this Intention, but I did complete what I needed for this time.

• I began Moore's SSMT...did not finish.

• Develop more “complete” relationships with my students.  I want to go back to being THAT teacher, the one they remember years later as the caring one, yet the one who has high expectations.

• No, probably not for the Spring 2015.

• Yes, for Fall 2015, for I had to step back from curriculum expectations and remind myself of a reason I teach...the students, especially when the other reason I teach was stripped from us:  curriculum and choices therein.  What a year.

• Develop more complete professional relations.  I would like to become more active on the state level in our reading association and within our state’s National Board organization.

• Yes...was just asked to serve on the Arkansas Reading Association Board.

• Yes...presented at both of these organizations' state conferences.

• Write.  Blog on one of my four blogs a minimum of two times a week and possible submit an article to a professional magazine.

• Yes...and no.  Not nearly what I should have written.  Reflection is so powerful.
• Moved my blog here.  I decided to no longer pay for my Edublogs, and all my other blogs are with Google.  Here we are!

• Cultivate relationships.  With friends.  With my children.  With my husband.  With our families.

• Yes...and no.  Made a few choices this year that resulted in my withdrawing from some relationships...hummm, maybe this one should go within the next bullet.
• I have so enjoyed getting to know the ladies in my book clubs...Paper Chase and Making Choices.  I am blessed by theme.

• Say no.  No.

• Maybe?

• Teach.  Complete my four units of study more.

• Yes...for Spring 2015.

• No...for Fall 2016.  What a semester.  
• Yes...for Fall 2016.  Behavior-wise, I am blessed with some of the best classes I have had in some time.  The dynamics of every class is just right.  If you are a teacher, you understand what sometimes happens when one class exits and the next enters.  Amazing what combinations of students may result!

• Tammy Time:  quilting, crocheting, reading, gardening, painting.

• Yes...and no.  Need more of this.

• Peace.  Quiet.  Fit.  Smile. These were my four words for My One Word Challenges for the previous four  years.  These words have had such tremendous impact on my life.  Please, please consider going tomyoneword.org, learning more about this inspiring opportunity, and committing to whatever word chooses you.  I don’t want to leave these words behind…want more of all four!  Plus, now, I am ready to COMPLETE  my next word….

• Yes...and no.  Need more of these words, also.

Am I a completer?  Yes.  Completely?  Not in the ways I had intended, but I did accomplish much this year, more so for my spiritual self than for my professional self.  With that, I am very okay.

Professionally, this fall semester just about resulted in the death of me as a teacher.  Sounds dramatic, doesn't it?  At times, too much drama was involved, sometimes on my part.

For the first time in my career, I challenged a text...a challenge for which I was not respected and turned quite ugly, probably resulting in damaging my career within the district I teach.  I know it resulted in the lowest points in my career.  

I will never challenge a text within this district again.  While I do definitely see such decisions as part of my job (why should this ever be placed on the shoulders of students...and their parents, when we should make those calls before they get that far?), this point of view, though, is not supported within my building or district.  I am to teach whatever is placed before me in a very thick three-ring binder (no, not a textbook...or is it?) and accept whatever content might be within.  Here enters my spiritual side...when things become bigger than I am, I have learned to turn them over to Him.  This resulted in three texts being pulled.  He is the completer.  There...I am finally learning.

Now, to begin thinking about 2016.  Yes, some of these Intentions will again be placed on my next year's list...along with others.  AND, as these years advance, I am allowed to add one more...16 Intentions.

On what have you reflected?

A Book Recommendation for You

Are you a teacher?  Of secondary level students?  Then, this is a must read for you.

This past week I shared this book...Reading Nonfiction by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst...at the Arkansas Reading Conference, where one third grade teacher said that, based on the overview, she, too, could use this book's content within her class.  Yes, a must read.

With such an emphasis now on nonfiction texts (even within our secondary English classes), close reading strategies remain a pertinent topic.  Authors Beers and Probst suggest teaching students the following:

• Three BIG Questions
• Five Signposts
• Seven Strategies for before, during and after reading

At Teachers Pay Teachers, several teachers have created resources for both this book and the authors' previous book Notice and Note.  Cute, colorful posters.  Bookmarks.  Yes, those items that make us happy!  AND some of the resources are free!  

The primary difference between the two books is that Reading Nonfiction focuses on informational texts, while Notice and Note zones in on literary texts.  Both good.  Both needed.  I hope to work with all the signposts, incorporating them, as I begin even more diligently readying my students to take the ACT Aspire next spring, on which they will be asked to analyze two texts, choose a common claim, and support with three pieces of evidence from the texts.  We have worked much practicing this with one text; must now incorporate multiple texts.

These books go nicely with the premise of Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them...a practice I am attempting to journey back (as our new current curriculum has eaten much of my time as I read and prepare and think...that I could have spent creating and writing beside my students...stay tuned for my next post at Treasure Chest of Thoughts).

I would love to host or participate in a book study of either book.  Should you know of such a book club or be interested in our creating one, please share!

Happy reading!

_________________________

Also posted at Mrs. G's Book Thoughts.

Each Class a Home

Yesterday morning I awoke to read an email that no teacher wants to read:  a wreck involving six of students...two fatalities...one critical...

Because yesterday was a scheduled professional development and parent-teacher conference day, the beginning of another new norm starts today.  As I sit here pondering about what today brings, I picture each class coming, going, coming, going...four times this will happen today, each its own little microcosm of unique individuals, personalities, losses, relationships, all affected in some way by this tragedy that has ricocheted off every member of our school family.

My students (and their families as they visit) love my classroom, for we live in a "homey" room:  comfy chairs, lamps, pictures/paintings on the wall.  Today, I pray they find comfort and that healing begins as they enter and leave this house of ours.

Today, though, two of our class/family members will be missing:  one eased into Heaven during that wreck, another recovers in a hospital.  Tomorrow (we are on an A/B block schedule), we will miss another, as he lies critical in another hospital.  The others will be missed next door and in many other classes across our building.

I was asked last night by a grieving grandparent/teacher...should she send her granddaughter or allow her to remain home...so many empty seats today.

My reply?  I suggested she send her...as I will send my daughter.  Today begins healing, as they meet, remember, grieve...and begin our new normal.

This event reminds me that not every day for every student has my classroom always been a home, for I in the busyness of school life get caught up in the just that, of pushing the curriculum, mastering standards, attempting to achieve objectives.  Today, though, is not about busyness...today is about celebrating the lives they lived, the memories they shared...today is about life, whether living it here on earth or in that next life.

If you are a Christian, I ask that you pray for my school family today...thank you.

Now and Then

As this quarter ends (wow, the year is one-fourth over!), I should pause here and reflect (much more than I have been!)...

Our district chose to implement a new curriculum this year...from which we are not to deviate.

Going to go out on a limb here and just say (again), that the beauty of any foliage is the blend of all of those colors.  We, in education, seem to do this much:  take things to extreme.  One way is right to expense of all others.  Why not just a blend of all the best practices?

You may know where this is going...and to continue the metaphor a bit more:  right now I feel like a trunk whose bright and colorful limbs have all but been hacked off.  Yes, over time, as I become familiar with unread texts, new limbs will sprout.  As the limbs grow and thicken and become covered with greenery, the units will develop with my style and methods, making it mine.

This pruning, though, has now happened four times in my going-on 11 years.  How many times can a tree be so severely pruned without killing the tree?

To make matters even more difficult for me (of course, if you listen to the other side, the difficulty lies there!), I have challenged the teaching of two of the texts due to content that I deemed inappropriate for 10th and 12th grade level students.  Just to clarify:  I did not challenge the topics, just the way the topic was presented.

I will not be challenging any more texts. No gratitude was ever expressed for what could have become negative news in the paper.  I was, however, asked if I am a racist.  (Yes, quite offensive.) I know I am now viewed as prudish, old-fashioned, too right-wing. Too, too, too...

I support what our principal has always suggested...don't say or do anything in the classroom that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of the local newspaper.  Good bar to set.  I just can't live up to it anymore.  Nor, I suppose, am I expected to do so.

I once saw it as my job to protect my students, their parents.  I saw it as my job to not allow offensive texts to enter my classroom.  Again...I am not talking about never discussing topics on which we don't all agree.  Students should be challenged.  I should be challenged.  Our job is to encourage their and my thinking.

Please let me clarify, though, just a bit more:  think of the most offensive words and descriptive racial and sexual situations that you might imagine. (Well, right up to Fifty Shades of Grey...or so I hear; that's one series I haven't read.  Does that make me prudish?!)  Yes, that offensive word...that's the one I do not want in my classroom.  Yes, those explicit sexual scenes...those have no place in my classroom.

May I give you an example:  we have chatted in my room that, at no point, should an adult ever molest a youngster.  Ever.  Never.  Should they know about it and cannot deal with exposing such evilness, all they have to do is tell me.  I can deal with it.  BUT never should my students have to read in detail about such an incident, about the explicit exposure of body parts and the thoughts of the perpetrator during such exposures or the responses of those being violated...and all the language that usually goes with such writings and occurrences.

Texts are coming up that I do find offensive, texts that I don't want to teach, texts that contain content not appropriate for a classroom.  No, I am not going to challenge them.  The repercussions have been harsh and long-lasting.

I used to think I would be in education for 40 years.  I loved it that much.  Now, I just hope to make it through 28 and retirement.

Then...I am able to help a student have dress shoes for Homecoming.

Then...I listen to a student talk about his mom...who has been in jail and now has cancer, and he asks me to pray.

Then...I have to ask another student, "Do you have food in your house?"

Then...I remember.  Teaching is not about the job that mine has become.  It's about the passion and the compassion.

So, no, I will not challenge anymore texts.  

I will protect those involved in such "then" situations.  I will encourage them to think.  I will help prepare them to have a better life than they have now.  That is my passion...and my job.

The New Norm

This past Saturday, I attended a NBCT Leadership Institute...and it was just so inspiring.  Truly.

As I sat there, I concluded that the greatest take-away from this day was the reminder that this is the reason I am who I am.  Over the past decade, I have changed so much to fit into my district that I often wonder if the "real" me still exists.  Then, I attend such a meeting as this one, and those former beliefs and convictions arise again.

Let's pause here; shall we?  Has the last decade been "bad"?  No.  Not all of it.  In many ways, my teaching style has grown, evolved.  But...I do miss myself from time to time...that teacher I want to be, that teacher I thought I would one day be.  But...alas, obviously that was just not meant to be.

Yet...attending such meetings as those hosted by professional organizations offers one time to reflect, to grow, to emulate what the best in the field are implementing.  To listen first hand to leaders, sharing current trends and energizing those present, makes me hungry for more such gatherings.  (We attend few of these within our district as all of our professional development is provided in-house.)

As I sat there, I concluded also that I have failed to encourage my peers to become National Board Certified Teachers.  Then and there, texts began to fly, the first two immediately responding that, yes, this is the year for them.

Then, one of those ideas that just come from nowhere, but somewhere, popped into the brain.  What if ATNBC (Arkansas Teachers for National Board Certification) "borrowed" an idea from Arkansas Reading Association (another organization I enjoy) and supported a local county meeting of NBCT's once or twice a year to disseminate updates and to rally those thinking about going through the process?  Why not!

Why am I a NBCT?  I like that sense of professionalism, of belonging to a group of ever growing peers who have "achieved."  The most significant outcome of my having become certified was and continues to be the depth of reflection that this process encourages, thereby, inspiring me to be ever learning.

I have said...every teacher should have to complete the portfolio entries that focus on student achievement and professionalism.  Those two alone would revolutionize how teachers view themselves...and how others view this field.

Soooo...yesterday, I began gathering a list of NBCT's in our county...going to spread a bit of this inspiration!