Teacher leadership is an integral and often under recognized role in our schools. The leverage and impact that a teacher as a leader has on their local school community (not to mention the larger community) is powerful. Still – so many people do not see the power that affects change and comes from within the teaching profession.
Often times, the informal roles that teacher leaders take on can have great impact because their colleagues listen and follow an unappointed, but natural leader. Sometimes it is the quiet action, sometimes it is the consistent action. Always being a professional and a learner, taking on challenges, showing up early, being there for others, sharing their work, opening their classroom door to share with colleagues, sharing reflective thoughts, speaking up at faculty meetings, and sharing ideas that work for the greater good – free of ego. Teachers have an incredible impact on the culture of a building as well as the greater educational community near and far. These informal roles, when nurtured have the potential to lead a culture of positivity in a school, creating a school where students are ultimately achieving more. We know from John Hattie’s research that collective teacher efficacy has the greatest effect size on student achievement. We cannot deny the impact that teacher leaders have on this idea that teachers collectively believe they impact student learning.
Teachers who take on an informal role can do that as a teaching partner, someone who others value and offers insight or a place for reflection. Teachers can help to support the shared vision across a school and by establishing different formal roles in addition to the informal roles can help to develop and nurture those who are inclined for leadership.
Great leaders create leaders
It is important to create an environment that grows and nurtures teachers as leaders. This starts by leaders with titles such as district leaders, building leaders, and literacy coaches modeling leadership behaviors. As the leadership behaviors are modeled it allows others to join in, perhaps in more informal and often times more impactful ways.
Great leaders identify, develop and nurture other leaders. They truly understand the message from Eleanor Roosevelt, “We do well when we all do well.” It is simply no longer enough when we work alone, in our classroom silos. We need to work together in our schools and we need to find those teachers who have the passion to take on the challenge in teacher leadership. Once we can do this we can we rise together, stronger than before and then only then – we will have a greater collective impact on our students.
Whenever I sit down to write a blog post about one of our #G2Great chats, I spend a good deal of time in the archive. I read over the Wakelet, and reflect on the thinking each tweet reveals. I return again and again because they understand the challenges that teaching brings with it and they are so generous as they share their ideas and thinking freely. With each chat, I find that they have such smart things to say full of insight and wisdom. For these, and so many other reasons, I see my teacher colleagues as leaders, each and every one of them.
What values define leadership for you? If you had that power, which value would you choose? When it comes to leadership, these are the words our #G2Great PLN valued most.
I think of them all as leaders, yet if I were to ask if they regarded themselves as leaders, I bet many of them would say, “I’m just a teacher.” On February 7, 2019, #G2Great welcomed leadership guru, Drew Dudley. Drew, is the author of This is Day One A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters. We asked Drew, what his motivation was to write this book:
The book emerged from frustration to be honest. I was frustrated being surrounded by young, dynamic, compassionate and brilliant young people who weren’t comfortable calling themselves leaders. They were raising money to eradicate any number of diseases, dedicating hours upon hours fighting for social justice, sleeping outdoors in sub-zero temperatures to raise awareness of homelessness—yet they didn’t see themselves as leaders because the examples they had been given were all giants. They saw what they were doing as preparation for leadership It came to a head when I asked one of my most remarkable students “why do you matter?” His response? “I don’t yet…that’s why I’m working so hard.” That’s an unacceptable answer from anyone that you care about. However, it was the type of answer echoed by other student, professionals, even CEOs. I was shocked by how many people were living their lives driven by the idea that “I don’t matter yet…that’s why I’m working so hard.” People matter when they engage in acts of leadership, so I wrote the book to highlight a form of leadership to which everyone can and should aspire – one unrelated to money, power and influence. One that urges people to evaluate their leadership not over blocks of time, but on a daily basis. A form of leadership that can give people evidence that they matter every day. Recognizing that in the professional world most people don’t hold executive positions or positions that have traditionally been associated with leadership, I wanted to help people recognize that their leadership wasn’t tied to their salary or title, but to their daily behaviours. A fundamental premise of Day One leadership is that you, your principal, the superintendent, and the CEOs of the world’s biggest companies all woke up this morning having engaged in the exact same number of behaviours that deserve the title of “leadership”: none. That means we all have an opportunity and an obligation to live our own form of leadership every day.
Drew Dudley February 2019
As much as this is a book about leadership, it is a book about self-empowerment. Knowing that leadership is defined more by our actions and values than by our titles and salary. What we do matters, it matters maybe even more than we realize. This was a question that resonated with me, “Why do you matter” is the most difficult self-reflective question for people to answer. Why do you matter? Why should we ask students that question? This is what we said,
Every day is a fresh start. Every day can be “Day One” Day one begins with knowing why we matter. Knowing why we matter gives our lives a sense of meaning and purpose so we may live an authentic meaningful life. Isn’t that what schooling ought to prepare students to do? To live one’s life as their most powerfully authentic self. As I pause and ponder, I begin to wonder, What kind of experience am I creating for students? Am I teaching them to see themselves in this light? There are three important takeaways, Drew wants every teacher to consider:
There are three key things I’ll highlight that I feel are particularly relevant to teachers:
1. The people we choose to use as examples of leaders matter. If we keep our focus on “famous”, we cause our students to devalue the leadership they do demonstrate every day. As much as possible, focus on examples of leadership that aren’t famous, don’t hold positional titles, and. Ask students to identify the most impactful people in their lives, and keep the discussion around examples of leadership behaviours, rather than titles. Students see themselves capable of emulating behaviours, but many don’t see themselves as being able to acquire the positions and titles traditionally associated with leadership.
2. There are a lot of things that are “learned but never taught” in our classrooms that stand in the way of young people embracing their leadership. One of the big ones is that academic achievement is rewarded at a higher level than personal awareness and impact. Whenever possible, reinforce the idea that “I want you to make your grades extraordinary…I want you to work twice as hard to make sure they are the least impressive thing about you.” You can’t just say it though, you have to make sure that the reward structures in your schools actually reinforce that idea.
3. Ask your students, “why do you matter?” Don’t let them wiggle out of answering, and don’t let them claim that they don’t.
Drew Dudley February 2019
Sometimes in life, you get excellent timing. Publishing this post the day before Valentine’s Day gives me an opportunity to send out this message of adoration for every teacher. You matter. You matter because you are shaping a child’s life every day you step into the classroom. You matter. You matter because all of our work and dedication is an investment in the future. You just have to do one important thing: believe it. Only you can make that choice to lean into leadership and get in touch with how powerful you really are. We asked Drew, to share a message about this book that comes from from the heart. A message for every teacher to keep in mind:
I want them all to remember that they drop depth charges. One of the most exciting things about releasing a book is delivering a copy to every single English teacher you’ve ever had. The final one I delivered was to the most influential teacher in my life – a bittersweet meeting as he had been recently diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. During our visit I told him that many of the ideas in the book can be traced back to lessons and insights he had first planted. “Ah yes, the depth charges” he responded. He went on to explain that one of the most rewarding and frustrating things as a teacher was the fact that the most significant impact of his work was often deferred. It was often many years before students truly recognized the value of some of the lessons he tried to impart. “You have to accept that what you’re doing is planting depth-charges in students’ minds,” he explained. “You can’t expect to see the results of your work right away – it could be years before something you said goes off in a student’s mind and helps them in some way. When I was first starting out as a teacher I would get so frustrated that students ‘just weren’t getting it’. I now realize they just weren’t getting it ‘yet’. Their life hadn’t needed that insight yet.” There are very few professions that play a bigger role in how the next generation will understand and engage their leadership. However, the day-to-day reality of the job can often make you feel you’re having little impact. Remember you’re dropping depth-charges – you may never see the way your lessons change the worlds of your students, but they do.
Drew Dudley
These conversations about leadership, authenticity, and empowerment are the kinds of conversations educators need to have and need to have often. Thank you, Drew. Thank you for saying “Yes” and for joining us. You made an impact!
I was one of the lucky recipients of Trevor’s immense wisdom several years ago when he graciously immersed us in the Art of Comprehension (AoC) process in a step-by-step Voxer gathering of friends. From these early learning experiences, I could envision AoC coming to life in the pages of a book someday. Imagine my joy when ‘someday’ became a reality and Trevor asked me to write his foreword. The icing on the book cake was holding his beautiful book in my hands graced by a Peter H. Reynolds cover illustration.
With his book beside me, I turned to Trevor-inspired chat tweets, moving back and forth between the book and chat. It didn’t take long before the gifts Trevor wrapped neatly into a thoughtful comprehension design began to come into view. Writing a #G2Great chat reflection feels like an exploratory venture toward a sense of writerly direction and Trevor’s Five AoC Gifts felt like the perfect path for this post to travel.
AoC Gift #1: Redefining Our “Text” Lens
Narrowly defined views of what constitutes “text” limit our perspective as well as the possibilities for meaningfully using those texts to engage readers of all ages and stages of reading. Trevor shows us that “text” can and should embrace images including photographs, drawings, paintings, artwork, and video. Each of these can inform thinking and thus support our efforts to promote understanding. Visual literacy is certainly a central feature of the AoC process, but Trevor includes words in print within this process including thoughtful connections between images and words. Trevor asks us not to think of The Art of Comprehension as a book about visual literacy but rather as “a book about literacy with an expanded view of what constitutes text” (p 4). This broader perspective widens the repertoire of text experiences we offer children using images and print, both individually or in unison.
AoC Gift #2: Supportive Visual Stepping Stones
A key feature of the AoC process is the Access Lenses shown below and beautifully illustrated by Peter Reynolds (download The Access Lenses here). The Access Lenses, or what Trevor refers to as the Framework and Mood Structures, offer children a concrete visual reference designed to gently nudge thinking as students engage with images and begin learning how careful paying attention to mood can support understanding in ways that offer a visual stepping stone to meaning. This concrete tool is a reminder of the different ways that illustrators, artists and photographers help us notice and then name what we see as this noticing/naming process becomes a pathway to increasing understanding. The Access Lenses provide a temporary scaffold to think about the varied features that inform our thinking and then become talking points that deepen that thinking.
AoC Gift #3: Collective Comprehension Invitation
The AoC process swings a comprehension door wide open so that we can invite our children to enter a supportive thinking space where all ideas are welcome. The open-ended, flexible design makes room for every child to engage in the experience with support, regardless of where they are in the reading process. Using visual texts as a springboard gives each child a seat at the thinking table where engaging, supportive dialogue beckons them as thought partners. In Trevor’s words, AoC “enables all learners, striving readers and nonreaders included, to join classroom conversations– building their confidence as well as community.” (p. 3) The comprehension framework Trevor has created readily supports high level thinking through visuals so that even children who cannot yet read the words yet can become active participants in meaningful, purposeful and yes, rigorous literacy experiences.
AoC Gift #4: Text Inspired Celebratory Conversations
A powerful aspect of the AoC process is the ability to use the text to ignite and support conversations but then gradually fade that support as children collaborate with peers. Teacher-supported conversations set the stage for these collaborative conversations as we step aside and allow shared dialogue to take on a life of its own. This stepping back affords time and space for teachers to listen in on conversations in order to reinforce thinking while watching for signs where stepping back in may be needed. This step in–step out support dance is designed to encourage students to share their ideas as we keep our sights on opportunities to grow independence. This is not remotely akin to the one-size-fits all question interrogations that are commonplace when basal programs lead the way. Rather it leaves room for surprises that arise from student engaged thinking with time to celebrate that thinking in the company of others in a respectful environment.
AoC Gift #5: Joining of Educators in a Common Quest
Toward the end of the chat, Trevor posted the tweet below. It struck me as something so pertinent to the AoC process, and yet a point that I had never really considered before. Trevor is an art teacher who saw the arts as a way to promote and support comprehension. Having been on the receiving end of this rich process through his supportive eye, it was easy for me to see how the art world and the literacy world can collide in joyful harmony. What I love about the thinking in this tweet is that Trevor takes this one step further by reminding us that the image-print merger not only helps us to comprehend texts in ways that heighten the meaning-making process but also heighten our awareness that those texts help us to comprehend our lives for ourselves and students. I love this joining of worlds that are not as different as I had once supposed. Yet Trevor saw these connections all along. Very wise man indeed.
With these gifts in mind, I asked Trevor to share his thinking about the AoC process by responding to three questions. His responses give us insight into how this book came to be.
What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?
I had a rich, arts life growing up. They were a big part of my childhood experience and continued to have an impact all through my college years. Twenty years ago, I decided to enter into education with the belief that the arts were being underutilized and that they could and should be playing a more prominent role in the academic lives of students. However, upon starting my career as an art educator, I quickly realized that the tools I was taught to talk about art effectively, have almost zero impact on people who did not have a rich, arts background or at least a serious interest. After ten years of searching, I realized that entering artworks using reading comprehension skills produced more effective conversations around art and also created a simple, direct way for the arts to directly impact academic development that was more easily understood by my fellow educators who did not have a rich, arts background. More Importantly, through this work, I started to realize that my approach, explained in my book, was helping all learners to explore and share their unique voices. This work created an inclusive culture where every child was able to not only participate in classroom learning but they were able to meaningfully contribute. I hope that my book helps launch joyful exploration of and meaningful conversation around the works of art, books, plays, movies and other texts that students engage with regularly. The arts help us to comprehend and share our human experience, I hope my book helps to make this clearer.
What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?
I hope that educators become more aware of the various forms of texts that demand the use of comprehension skills in order to make meaning of them. I hope they see that all of the arts truly are related and that there is a tremendous amount of overlap between them. I hope they see how all of the arts help us to explore and comprehend our own lives and whether we are writing, acting, singing, painting we can practice and utilize similar communication skills. And I also hope that teachers come to see the Access Lenses, the Framework and the Mood Structures as a simple foundation on which students can construct meaning regardless of the type of text they are exploring.
What is one message from the heart that you would like for every teacher to keep in mind based on your book?
My message from the heart would be that the arts foster joy and connection, even when and especially when times or topics are tough. Meaningful exploration of any form of art helps us to joyfully connect to our peers, our colleagues, our families and even to ourselves. The arts helps us to comprehend our human experience and share our human experience. Seems to me that both of these should be an integral part of a meaningful education.
MARY’S FINAL REFLECTIONS
We are so grateful to Trevor, for sharing his wisdom with our #G2great family. His commitment to the comprehension process through the AoC design shifts his focus beyond the lens of art teacher so that we could all envision a powerful instructional experience where every teacher can place a high priority on meaning making for every children. As I close this post, it seems appropriate to use Trevor’s opening words in his book as they are a reflection of this collective joining of the minds:
“If great books ae great works of art, then reading is a form of art appreciation and writing is a form of art creating. From this stance, literacy teachers are really art teachers without the smocks or carts or dirty, stained hands.”
Thank you for sharpening our view Trevor. And now, it’s time for teachers everywhere to get our hands dirty for kids!
Conversations? Thread? Engaged? Across the Curriculum? Where would the #G2Great chat focus on January 24th, 2019? Talk is typically either a conversation or discussion while a conversation is often defined as an expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people (back and forth comments). The topic is broad, but the questions led to a laser-like focus on students and their learning. As I read through the Wakelet archive, the early ads, and the quotes, several themes emerged.
WHY?
This is an important question that we often seem to address, because without a ‘Why?’ as a focus, we would be adrift. And so an image from Liz Masi (TCRWP Staff Developer) in my Twitter Feed on Friday kept circling in my brain. Workshop, whether reading or writing, has long served as one instructional model that minimizes whole group instruction and maximizes student productivity in terms of time to work . . . talk, and thinking. How does the structure of a 10 – 12 minute mini-lesson in a 60 minute learning workshop do that? A mini-lesson is focused on one teaching point. And that teaching point has a Why? a What? and a How? as shown here.
Liz Masi @lizreadswrites
And the organizational structure for my post was found!
Tweets from the chat that support the WHY:
WHAT?
Talk and Conversation is oral communication. Time spent talking can spark new ideas, convey understanding, clarify misunderstandings, capture in-the-moment thinking, and consolidate learning. But to be both effective and efficient in classrooms today, who is doing the talking? Is it the teacher? The students? Or a combination of both?
Peter Johnston provided many examples of how language affects learning in Choice Words. Attention to both skills and relationships increases the effectiveness of talk. Teachers and students can refer to his research to consider how to deepen learning to arrive at the ultimate transfer goal.
I was fascinated by some research studies that I quickly found through Google Scholar where Teacher Talk Time (TTT) was studied both qualitatively and quantitatively. Aha! Would descriptors lead to deeper understanding? Would there be recommended times or allotments? Like many research efforts, I was left with more questions unanswered. What would define quality teacher talk? What would define quality student talk? How would teachers and students agree? How should time be allocated?
Tweets from our chat that support the WHAT:
HOW?
How will we ensure that conversational threads are established across the day in all classrooms? An initial data point could be student and teacher perceptions of classroom talk. In terms of percentages, what percentage of time is spent on Teacher Talk, Teacher-Student Talk, and Student Talk? A comparison of perception to an actual coding of classroom instruction could verify that perceptual data. Then the discussion could move to whether a change is needed (significantly higher Student Talk than Teacher Talk) or if the status quo is meeting the needs of the learners or the values (the Why?) of the organization. If a change is needed, more information, more study, proposed actions, goal setting . . . all of these could be considered.
Tweets from our chat that support the HOW:
I would be remiss if I didn’t remind readers of another powerful source, Kara Prantikoff’s Teaching Talk: A Practical Guide to Fostering Student Thinking and Conversationhighlighted in this May 18, 2017, #G2Great chat and blog post. This text is a “must have” for teachers who intend to expand student talk as it is grounded in the research, pedagogy, assessment tools, formats, and reflection methods that enhance instruction.
WHY?
Returning to the beginning. . .
The whole point of increasing the quantity and quality of student talk is not about adding in more interrogations or teacher questioning and student answering sessions. A thoughtful review of existing conditions is required. Are students provided time to have conversations, both planned and spontaneous, across the day? Are conversations only allowed after the “teacher is done talking”? Where is the balance in student work and talk? Does it make a difference if you use a “Gradual Release of Responsibility” or if you have a “collaborative classroom”?
Under the “Gradual Release of Responsibility”, teacher talk is not the major focus of time. In many classrooms, Teacher Talk may be be 30-40% of the time with some students then working in small groups or partnerships for a bigger percentage of the time. However, some students may need more support so a “one size fits all” model is never required. And yet a key for this is the fact that the support can and should come from peers. Teachers do not have to provide all the affirmations or answers. Collaborative classrooms provide space and security for students to work together and talk. Collaboration skills and practice are important across the curriculum and the entire day. Learning classrooms are buzzing with conversation. The old maxim, “Students should be seen, not heard” should be the very opposite of classrooms of today. Tables and conversational areas should be strategically placed in classrooms to invite conversations, deepen learning, and create threads of understanding and thinking that permeate the entire learning day.
So what?
My kids are learning; I know they are!
If you have made it this far, I would now challenge you to reflect on your own classroom practices. Check your data on the amount of time that you TALK in your classroom. Start with your teaching point. Do you deliver those three sentences in less than one minute? Does it take you five minutes? If so, you may be working with teaching chapters instead of teaching points. Maybe you need a more specific focus that allows you to explicitly teach one piece at a time.
If we go back to the beginning and the mini-lesson example, that whole class instruction based on Teacher Talk is tightly focused for approximately 10-12 minutes. That is 1 / 6 th of an hour; sixty minutes. So what does that really look like across the day? If you have an 8 period class day, that would mean that you would really only have about 80 minutes of Teacher Talk Time across the day. Who’s Really Doing the Work? The Teacher? Or the Students? Who needs to be doing the talking work? How do we know who is doing the work? Who needs to be creating those conversational threads across the day?
Now What?
Where will you begin? Where will your exploration start? The quality of Teacher Talk Time? The amount of Teacher Talk Time? The quality of Student Talk Time? The amount of Student Talk Time? Student Talk time totally initiated by students to meet their needs with ZERO teacher supervision. Choose your burning question, develop a plan, and improve the dreary winter months by increasing conversational threads across the day!
The word is out: writers make better writing teachers! Oh, boy, while many teachers readily identify as readers not as many identify as writers. The good news? Identifying as a writer doesn’t mean that we all have to be talented authors or that we all have to love writing. We do need to find ways to engage in the writing process to make authentic and meaningful connections that inform our instructional practices. How do we begin to do that work? How do we learn to see beyond our own experiences? How do we build a knowledgable community of others? Meet authors: Sara Holbrook, and Michael Salinger. On January 17, 2019, they, alongside, Stephanie Harvey (wow!), joined #G2Great to talk writing and share their collective wisdom to get this important conversation started.
Working with Scholastic, they have given writing teachers a resource to love and rely upon: From Striving to Thriving Writers. Their motivation for writing this book is simple…
“Our lessons were developed in collaboration with teachers all over the world, and we are excited to share them. We are constantly evolving, modifying, and adapting our lessons to what teachers tell us they need. What we hope is that these writing frameworks will be immediately useful to teachers no matter what writing program they have in place in their school.”
Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger
What exactly are frameworks for writing? After reading, From Striving to Thriving Writers, I now think of frameworks as an elegant tool that students and teachers can use to enter into the writing process. Writing frameworks offers an array of mentors to explore and support writing. They provide a solid structure to hang your hat on while granting safety so writers may take risks:
The chat was a quick one and as I returned to read over tweets to write this post, it became clear that our G2Great PLN had a deep appreciation for the powerful combination of embracing mentorship while encouraging ownership over the process. For me, that is an important takeaway that makes this book an important addition to my professional texts.
What three big takeaways readers can glean from reading this book? According to the authors…
1. Writing in subsequent versions where teachers challenge writers to greater detail and sophistication with each version.
2. Co-construct with students on each version, modeling drafting and revision.
3. Writing is a means for students to communicate their ideas, but it shouldn’t be taught in isolation – all our writing lessons involve collaborative reading, writing, and speaking, developing students’ overall communication skills.
Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger
This is such a well thought out and balanced approach to writing instruction, and it is just so important to be an intentional writing teacher. Teaching students how to write is something that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Regardless of their future pursuits, whether they are writing poetry, memos, blogs, or tweets. Writing is the thing that will help students represent themselves in an increasingly literate world.
This is what I believe: I believe the written word has the power to actualize our individual sense of agency and can be a source of fulfillment. I am very interested in being the best writing teacher I can be. Thank you, Sara, Michael and of course Stephanie for writing From Striving to Thriving Writers. Your book is helping me grow my practice.
If you think so too and would like to learn more please follow these links:
Each year when I am afforded the pleasure of announcing a new #G2Great Anniversary celebration, my heart fills with pride. When our chat door officially opened to welcome conversational dialogue Twitter style on January 8, 2015, there was no possible way that we could imagine the tremendous impact #G2great would have on so many people. We (me and co-moderators, Fran McVeigh, Jenn Hayhurst and Amy Brennan) never envisioned that a six-week exploration of my book, Good to Great Teaching, would launch a four year professional journey that grows stronger with each new year.
On our third anniversary chat on January 4, 2018, we decided to start a new tradition by celebrating a topic near and dear to our hearts: Embracing a Culture of Collective Curiosity. We saw this as an appropriate ritual since curiosity reflects the heart and soul of the #G2Great spirit. Each Thursday night at 8:30, we transform a Twitter hashtag into a community of curious collaborators. We share. We question. We dialogue. We wonder. We explore. We imagine. We envision. We dream. And through this process, we are able to awaken curiosity wonderings that gently nudge us to collective joy surrounded by curious others.
Last year in support of collective curiosity, we invited ten #G2Great educators to pose their own curiosity-inspired questions that would drive our three-year anniversary chat and then respond to those questions on this blog. We enjoyed their questions and reflections so much that we were thrilled when they all agreed to repeat this process on this four-year anniversary. And so for the second year, Brent Gilson, Kitty Donohoe, Jill Davidson and Kim Stewart, Johnny Downey, Susan Vincent, Roman Nowak, Cameron Carter, Susie Thompson Rolander, and Kara Pranikoff each generated our chat questions and responded to them for this blog post:
We celebrate their thoughtful questions and the thinking that those questions inspired in their responses below. Each slide introduces the question they posed followed by their response:
Kim Stewart
Curious educators wonder. They are playful and ask questions to make sense of the world. It is their excitement about learning and the learning of their students which can lead to innovations in education. It is this excitement that inspires other educators to explore their curiosities about learning and teaching. The collective energy of curious educators creates learning environments that stirs the minds of students!
My wish for 2019 is that we celebrate learning environments where educators and students share the joy and excitement of curious minds.
Curiosity is the desire to learn or know more. Approaching our work as educators with a disposition of curiosity means taking an inquiry stance—posing and being guided by questions about our students, our teaching, and ourselves. Curiosity is contagious and when we make our curiosities known to others, we invite them to join us in conversations about learning and teaching. These connections between curious educators, which can happen locally or virtually thanks to platforms such as Twitter, establish authentic learning communities.
In Creating Cultures of Thinking, Ron Ritchart reminds us that “for classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students, schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.” My hope for 2019 is for educators to continue findings ways to connect with one another and share their professional curiosities in order to learn and grow together.
We can learn from our students. Like William Blake intones, young people “see a world in a grain of sand.” In these young minds, curiosity burns fiercely and as educators, it is our job to fan the proverbial flame and not blow it out. Finding like-minded educators will also create support for curiosity.
My wish for 2019: May all educators maintain memories of their own childhood curiosity so as to better understand their students.
Build a bigger fire. The products that claim the easy solution to difficult things teachers face can’t do anything if we don’t give them permission. Build up our students by giving them work that is worthy of them. Give them books that make them question. Give them inquiry projects and problems to solve to fuel their fire instead of oxygen-depleting garbage like AR or TPT handouts that smother a flame and destroy the sense of wonder that our students deserve.
My wish for 2019; If I had one wish for teachers it would be that they be brave enough to stand up for their student curiosity over their own convenience.
During a time where many schools are requiring teachers to use scripted programs, we MUST question the effectiveness for each and every student. We must remain curious about how we can modify our teaching. Frequent formative assessment with each of our students must drive our instruction. In fact, our curiosity needs to heighten when we are asked to use a scripted program.
My wish for 2019 is for schools to stop pushing programs and to start pushing reading books, but I know that won’t happen quickly….So my wish for 2019 is for teachers to be guided by individual student progress not by a script in a program.
Curiosity is generated by our desire to learn. That desire to learn propels and deepens our teaching. We are never experts in our craft. We are always growing and shifting and refining and trying something new. Teaching is a dynamic art. Additionally, every new student we connect with provides a new lens to consider our instruction. It’s our task to reach each individual we come in contact with, so we better remain curious. There is no one right way, this keeps us on our toes and learning, alongside our students.
My wish for 2019 is that inquiry based teaching gets a resurgence. That we go back to the roots of what we know and old constructivism at the core of what we do. We need to create environments of wonder and possibility in our classrooms so that our students can take charge of their learning and let their curiosity guide them.
Wonder and curiosity are sparked through questioning. When reading, I engage my students with questions such as “What is one thing you still wonder about ____?” or “If ___ were to change, what would happen to ____?” Effective questioning promoting wonder and curiosity allows all students to be able to answer with a sense of advocating their own voice!
My wish for 2019 is for educators to take a step back and reflect on themselves. There is no question that our profession can be tiresome. My wish is for colleagues to always take care of themselves in order to be the best they can be in the classroom! If we don’t take care of ourselves, it truly affects our students. This is my 2019 wish for all of you!
In a high school setting, where students often come to us saying they do not enjoy reading or ask if we must read more, I try to select texts that will speak to their heart and make them question their own thinking. An emotional bond with characters is important in building empathy. A desire to want to know more about a certain topic, time period or culture is a sign that I did my job; that I planted a seed of curiosity within them to want to go deeper on their own. That is our mission in literacy education.
My wish for 2019: That each student who enters the doors of high school can share a book that had a lasting impact on their lives, that they enjoyed, and that a natural curiosity and willingness to read is shared by them.
In Reading Recovery we learn about the importance of observational assessments. Marie Clay always talked about needing nothing more than a blank piece of paper. If teachers would remain curious about the way their students are learning, thinking, and growing, we could keep the essence of Marie Clay’s curiosity alive. There is nothing better than sitting next to a child with a fresh piece of paper, and a fresh outlook on the lesson. Standardized tests, screeners, and surface level assessments have a place in raising a flag, or allowing for a quick temperature check. If teachers were to only check a temperature and never diagnose for problems then students everywhere would be lost. There is a recent obsession with quick tests to find quick information but this is not and never will be enough information to actually teach children. Remaining a curious teacher, and using good observational diagnostic assessment data, will lead to more children obtaining what they need.
We need to be curious enough about our students to want to dig deeper than standardized tests can dig. Observation as assessment allows us to make responsive teaching decisions. Our Reading Recovery colleagues used a football coach analogy— coaches don’t plan practices just based on game scores. They watch game footage and then plan practices based on observation of what happens during the game. We could learn from this.
Johnny and Susan Wish for 2019: We hope teachers remain curious about their students and use child-centered assessments to better serve their needs.
Mary’s Final Reflections
When we asked our #G2great friends to participate in our Anniversary Chat again this year, they didn’t hesitate. Their eagerness to breathe life into our anniversary chat once again and then respond in writing for this blog post reflects their deep commitment to this topic of curiosity – a commitment that is shared by every educator who attended our chat this week and many of the weeks before this.
We are so grateful to those of you who return to our chat week after week to engage in collegial dialogue that supports and extends your curiosities as we merge them with those of others. Each of you epitomize curiosity and all it means to our teaching and ultimately to the students who inspire us to make curiosity our priority, both for ourselves and for our students. #G2Great was born within a spirit of curiosity that inspires us to reach far higher than scripts, boxes, programs or packages. We want more than these narrow “DOINGS” that do little to fuel the curiosity that will in turn fuel curiosity for students.
Curiosity begins as a burning ember residing within us all but is is our choice whether we will nurture those embers until it ignites into a celebratory exploration that invites a sense of joyful professional collaborations. This has defined #G2Great for the past four years and it will continue to be our driving force on your behalf.
And so, our wish for you is that your 2019 is filled to brimming with both individually and collectively inspired curiosities. #G2Great is a true labor of love for us, but it would be little more than that if it were not for your dedicated commitment to this profession and to our children. We are so grateful to each of you and we look forward to learning and growing in your company in the years ahead!
We hope you’ll reflect on this challenge and add #G2Great
We hope you’ll reflect on this challenge and add #G2Great
Our #G2Great chat family was abuzz with excitement on 12/13/18 when our good friends #BowTieBoys led by teacher Jason Augustowski returned as our guest hosts (excitement that was elevated by a first time visit from our new friends, #HairBowGirls). #BowTieBoys have taken the chat seat of honor on five previous occasions including 4/26/18, 3/8/18, 5/25/17, 3/6/17 and our very first #BowTieBoys event on 6/9/16 with guest Sam Fremin.
Their most recent visit followed their presentations and attendance at NCTE 2018 in Houston last month based on their reflections of the NCTE theme of Student Voice and Choice. These remarkable young men talk, rap and write about education, sharing with educators their belief that teachers are the key to making our schools a more positive and productive place as they offer specific suggestions that would bridge the existing teacher-student gap.
Pause for just a moment and imagine what these young men ranging from grade eight to senior in high school have accomplished. I wonder how many of us could even envision sharing our ideas about teaching at a national conference, YouTube Channel, or blog post. Having experienced their powerful voices in each of these arenas, I am well aware that their collective commitment to education drives them. They are so uniquely accomplished at raising their voice and listening to them is a reminder that students are our future.
Since this was their fifth #G2Great visit and the topic was student voice and choice, I thought it made sense to depart from the usual #BowTieBoys blog post and let their voices lead the way. I posed questions and they graciously breathed new life into each one. We are so proud to share their words of wisdom on our chat and in this post:
What inspired you to form #bowtieboys? What impact did you hope that this group could have on the education world and in what ways has that vision become a reality? (question posed to teacher, Jason Augustowski)
I was originally inspired to create this group when NCTE came to Washington D.C. in 2014 (our backyard). I had already presented in Chicago, Las Vegas, and Boston and was inspired by how many teachers came to these conventions to collaborate – all in the name of doing right by kids. And that’s when I thought – but there isn’t a kid in the joint. How do we know for sure that we are accurately meeting their needs if they aren’t a part of our planning, our assessing, our grading, our environment building, etc.? I had built a really strong rapport with my students and their families not only through teaching, but through directing school and community musicals and coaching travel paintball. Bringing students along to the conference was the next step in my own professional journey and one in which I truly and whole-heartedly believe. We have to ally with students as 50-50 partners. We need to create with them to offer the most authentic choice and experience in their learning. When establishing environments, we must not only work with our colleagues, but with our kids. We need to make rapport central to the classroom (the famous quote: no kid cares what you know until they know that you care). Let’s replace worksheets with inquiry and assigned readings to libraries of inclusive and diverse texts. Let’s stop focusing on the “rules,” “playing school,” and “the way it is/has always been” and become rebels, disruptors – true educators (that are first and foremost informed ourselves). But not informed by state mandated curriculum. Not informed by politicians who have never set foot in a classroom. Informed by the constituents with whom we work each day: the students (and dare I say it, their parents). And I learned all of this from my students (when I sat down long enough to listen). We presented in D.C. with Sara Kajder about shifting the classroom paradigm (both in terms of flexible seating and autonomous instruction). And I was proud. And I thought this magic could never happen again, for NCTE 2015 was scheduled to take place in Minneapolis… and there was no way parents were going to accompany their kids across the country, right? Wrong!
Being a male teacher, I assumed that male students gravitated to me which is why our group was comprised of boys. So, when our then small group presented in Minneapolis (this time with Lester Laminack) we decided to dress in matching outfits and boast bowties. Lester immediately dubbed us “the #bowtieboys” and the name stuck. Traveling around that conference and the following year in Atlanta, the students were able to learn, make connections and networks with our teacher heroes, enjoy the vendors, and experience a professional situation not common for their age. But after Atlanta in 2016, we were in store for another major shift. Our group grew from three to ten and would then grow again in 2018 to fourteen.
At the start of 2017, our then group of ten, took to the interwebs with a commendable force and passion. They established Twitters, blogs, a YouTube channel, began conducting professional research (they have collectively read my entire professional library), and working on a textbook in which they could encapsulate their flowing ideas. They were dedicated to make a change in education by showing teachers what students can do when given the environment and support. They wanted to partner with teachers and promote that partnering all across our nation. And to some extent (at least we like to believe) they have. They have had the opportunity to present multiple times in St. Louis and Houston, guest host five #G2Great chats, and one #NCTE chat. They have led professional development for career switchers and teachers in our home county and they are ready to do more.
Coming in 2019 we are extremely excited to announce our new identity: BOW-TIE (Bringing Our Why because Teachers Include Everyone). This group of now FORTY students of all genders will manage an all new website featuring the following exciting additions: an About Me page (where teachers can get to know the stories behind each of these incredible students), the Blog (the old posts will be there, but newly reformed and re-imagined. Think Newsletter, Podcasts, and beyond), the YouTube (where students will be writing, shooting, editing, and uploading original content every month), links to social media (not only will students maintain their original Twitter accounts, but we now will post on our GROUP Twitter and Instagram – look for the @handles in the new year), and a Contact Us page to aggregate booking requests. BOW-TIE wants to hit the road and come to a school district near you to learn alongside your teachers, administrators, and students. We couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds and couldn’t be more thankful to all of our friends, colleagues, and supporters who have believed in us from the beginning and helped these students make meaningful contributions to our (and their) world. Below are some of their thoughts:
Being a member of #bowtieboys comes with responsibilities beyond your own school demands. What motivated each of you to become a member of this group?
School stopped being fun for most of us in late elementary or early middle school in part due to a loss in curiosity and creativity. Learning and school in general felt like more and more of burden and our natural curiosity was constantly degraded. Part of why many of us joined was because we saw that school degraded our curiosity, not building it, and that needed to be changed. Not only did curiosity degrade over time, but many of us felt that even as we became closer in age to teachers, they would become more and more standoffish. By advocating for change in these regards, many of us also wanted to push outside our limited bubble and interact with the world in a truly impactful manner.
How have you benefited as a member of the #bowtieboys?
Due to the special and groundbreaking path of the #bowtieboys, we have built nearly unparalleled leadership skills. It is also never a bad thing to be part of anything new and innovative, which is the mission of our group. By reaching into new audiences, we have been able to become affluent with networking skills and advocate for ourselves and others. We have reached into a broad scope outside our confined bubble and interacted with teachers and educators across the nation. We have had an incredible audience to communicate with and for the first time for many of us, we our writing for an intrinsic, not extrinsic cause. By truly doing something we are passionate about, which no doubt requires a lot of time and effort, requires significant self-motivation.
More specifically, we’ve:
Developed leadership and networking skills and have seen a dramatic rise in our public speaking ability.
Started to intellectually evaluate more than just the material and have constructive criticism. Speaking off the hip and being able to talk on the spot.
Learned to share our thoughts in constructive ways.
Been able to reach outside my own bubble and look at many other parts of the world and open my eyes.
Been given a chance to thoughtfully voice opinions and open the door for other students.
Gotten more well-spoken and confident.
Become better, more articulate writers.
Started to write for an actual audience and not a grade, but an intrinsic drive.
Received a platform to speak from and advocate for myself and others.
Learned self-motivation.
Each of you have presented at NCTE, many of you on several occasions. How has this experience changed you? What contributions do you feel that you have made as a result?
NCTE is a lot of networking, plain and simple. By connecting and interacting with educators across America, we have had to build our networking skills, often in a trial by fire. To effectively network, we have to be not only willing but proactive in talking to others. Often, we develop into our own cliques, which isn’t a bad thing, but NCTE helps us move outside these cliques. Not only does NCTE break down any cliques within the #bowtieboys, but also gives us experience to talk to others outside our groups.
In much of the same trial by fire, we have had to become capable to talk (and rap) in front of hordes of teachers. Many adults have rambled on the importance of public speaking, yet few students participate in public speaking outside of class presentations. NCTE gives us a raw unfiltered experience of public speaking.
Finally NCTE is one of our greatest assets in the regard that it serves as our most valuable platform. We put the idea of student voice and choice on full display, often by intertwining typical classroom experience with other intricacies of our lives, seemingly unrelated to teaching, to construct coherent and constructive feedback for teachers from their clientele: the students. Through the fantastic experience that is NCTE, one remarked that they had smiled in those four days more than they had smiled for years.
Why is it important for educators to keep their minds open to what students have to share with us about our own practices? Give an example of how you think your efforts can change the professional world.
Education is to some degree a business, with teachers as the employees and students as the clientele. In any successful business, the employees must cater their products to their clientele. We are the clients of education, and by no means should we completely control the realm of education, but we must be an integral part of the education field. Students are constantly changing, which makes it all the more vital that education changes. Yet this cannot happen without student input, which is why our group is built on giving constructive student critiques that emphasize student voice and choice. Much like how writers don’t notice some of their mistakes, teachers may not notice some of their mistakes. The students can act as a peer editor for the teacher. It makes any of our days when a teacher either asks us what we think could take their teaching from good to great. Even by opening up educators’ mind to student feedback, we feel we have made a pronounced impact on the professional world.
What is one thing that we can do as educators to listen more openly to our students for the purpose of understanding possible changes that will benefit student learning?
One of the schools in our area has a unique schedule where four days a week, students meet with one of their teachers for about 30 minutes and discuss how things are going in that class. Although it is more than a stretch to implement this, the concept can be used as a quick warm up or exit ticket. Just ask your students to give their constructive thoughts on how you can make learning enjoyable. Although there may be ridiculous comments, many students will take the opportunity seriously. Although this isn’t the best way, it is a subtle one and a way to show that you care about your student’s voice. Overall just embodying a transparent pedagogy and keeping an open mind can drive student voice and change.
We have had members of the #bowtieboys contribute to the #g2great chat five times since Sam Fremin originally participated in the chat in 2016. What have you gained from these twitter chats?
Learning new ideas and being able to voice our own ideas has been a cornerstone of the group since we began. With the chat, we have been able to receive quick input from teachers and students from all around the country. A network is created through NCTE that the #g2great chats recreate. Because of this, participants of the chats have become great friends for some of us that we are able to connect with through twitter or at NCTE each year and continue to learn from. It is truly a pleasure to meet new and amazing people.
CLOSING THOUGHTS…
I pause to look back at the profound reflections of fourteen amazing young men and a teacher who trusted them to use their voices to have a positive impact on this profession. As I ponder their sage advice, I am reminded how inspiring it is to see them in action. I have had the great pleasure to watch them work their magic on a crowd and even to participate in their sessions. It has been an honor to get to know each of them personally and I am filled with deep pride for all that they stand for. But now I long for the changes they seek.
You see, we talk a good game about keeping students at the center of our professional efforts but I wonder how often we actually bring the term student-centered to life where matters most. How often do we silence our voices long enough to ask our students how we can be better and truly listen to what that means from their eyes? And if we aren’t doing that, how can we make “student-centered” more than a buzz word and turn it into a reality that could lift us higher as professionals and thus transform our learning spaces into memorable experiences that are for and about students?
As I close this post, There is one picture that was captured at #NCTE18 that captivated me personally and speaks volumes. This photo was taken just before #BowTieBoys presented at a roundtable session chaired by Donalyn Miller called Nerdy Book Club: Building Strong, Inclusive Reading Communities (C.58). I think it says it all:
Take a good look at this remarkable image. THIS beautifully reflects the collective spirit that defines this wonderful group of young men and one dedicated teacher. They each believe deeply in what they are doing and have banded together to help us to see our teaching through their ever so wise eyes. I think that we owe it to them and to this profession to pay attention to what they have to teach us.
As I was finishing this post, I took a moment to peruse the chat once again. For the first time, I noticed a tweet from TQ Williamson shared just after the chat ended. I smiled to think that the #BowTieBoys experience will someday beckon an inspired and curious new educator into this profession filled with the hopes and dreams of what COULD be rather than what IS. Let’s not wait to make TQ’s vision a reality!
I was honored for the opportunity to write our post this week so I dug into this beautiful book with great fervor to prepare. But as I read, I began to worry that I couldn’t possibly capture his brilliant cover to cover thinking. I realized that the only person who could do this post justice was the person who penned those mesmerizing words in the first place. Luckily, Cornelius graciously agreed to an interview and in typical Mary style, I excitedly crafted eleven interview questions and emailed them to him.
On a quiet early Saturday morning from my hotel room in Phoenix Arizona, I joined Cornelius in Google Hangout. I was instantly enraptured listening to his words and the sounds of his children playing in the background. As soon as I asked my first question and listened intently to heartfelt honesty, I realized that his words could take center stage and that the questions would simply follow his lead. And so here are the words verbatim that reduced me to tears within minutes on a lovely early morning interview I will forever hold dear.
As I read Kwame Alexander’s beautiful foreword for your book, I felt transported back in time to the annual International Literacy Association (ILA) Conference two years ago when you led a quiet room filled with love and hope. I can’t help but wonder if a seed for this book was planted that day. How did that experience impact you in writing this book?
CORNELIUS
I think it was the seed actually germinating. The seed has been planted forever. Like I’ve always been this guy. One could argue that I’ve inherited a lot of this work from my ancestors. So really the seed was planted when the first African was brought in chains to the United States. The seed was planted when we decided that we wouldn’t give women equal pay. The seed was planted when we decided that immigrants weren’t equal to people who were born here whatever that means. The seed was planted when colonists killed the first Native American. So the seeds have been around and I am lucky enough to have inherited lots of good mentors and a lot of people have trusted me with their work. And so that room I think was me already holding the seed that so many people have given me and me being not afraid to let it grow in public.
I don’t know if you felt it, but those of us sitting in that room were soaking in all of that from you. That was a magical experience and I recall thinking in that moment how much we needed a book from you because of what you offered that room. You may not have noticed the faces as we looked around the room but they were filled with hope and love. So where did that idea of hope and love fit into this in your mind?
CORNELIUS
One of the things that I hold onto and that I’m very clear about is that hope is not a strategy. The people who are organizing against us are not hoping. They are erecting programs and policies and fundraising. I think one of the greatest tragedies is that when the good guys get together, they just tell us to hope. And so rather for me the word hope is a characteristic. Hope and love are characteristics that I want to hold on to while I’m working. But I think it’s really important, and I say it almost everywhere I go. People ask me if I’m hopeful. I am pragmatically optimistic but I do hold on to hope and love as characteristics of my work but that it must be work. The notion that we go around society telling people to hope while bad people are allowed to organize and plan just doesn’t feel right to me. And so, I always want hope to be the defining feature. I always want love to be the defining feature. When people work with Cornelius they’re like “Wow, that work, that progress that we made together felt very hopeful.” But hope alone cannot be the entirety of our work. I think that’s how the bad guys keep winning. We’ve been duped into thinking that hope and love are the entirety of our work – and they are not.
Do you feel like we’re moving in that direction in education or in the world?
CORNELIUS
You know, Mary, that’s a really tough question for me right now. Just mainly because what this book has done is that I invite all of the hard places. So, you call Cornelius when someone spray paints a swastika on the wall. You call Cornelius when there’s been a hate crime. You call Cornelius when some kid uses the N-word and offends a whole community of people. Lately I see the hardest things. I just got called by a mayor of a town and I was there last week leading a community session. Someone had spray painted racist graffiti all over the school. There had been death threats. There had been a school shooing. I mean there was all kinds of stuff. That’s where I get called into now so I see the hardest of the hard. It’s not just the literacy work. Well, it’s interesting because to me it’s all literacy work. After a hard incident, like after a school shooting or after some big graffiti goes out, it’s really easy to say, “Oh let’s all love each other.” And then we’ll get on the news and we’ll play some nice music and then we wait two weeks and we think that it’s over. But what happens is if we don’t communicate, if we don’t talk about it, these things happen again and again. Like we just hide them behind sayings or euphemisms or whatever. I always tell people that if you sweep mold under the carpet, it just grows. So, if something happens, what we do is love each other and we don’t confront the thing that happened. Then the next time that thing happens it’s going to be three times as big. That’s been my work for the last year and a half. So I do see things changing in that people are willing to talk about them, but I’m ready now to move beyond talk and move into true community engagement. And that’s much of the work that I’m leading. That’s what I was doing last week so when you engage a community, it’s really ugly because you’ve got to say, “Well here’s our truth. Here’s what happened. Here’s how we feel.” And we’ve got to create a space for people to feel. Again, I was in town last week when there was a death threat that had been made and somebody had spray painted on the bathroom wall of the school that they were going to kill all N-words on Monday so they were specific. Parents did not want to send their kids to school on Monday because this was a very credible and articulated threat. And so we had to think about how we were going to do community outreach to those parents who were most impacted. What does outreach look like to black parents vs. outreach to white parents? What does outreach look like to our Jewish parents? And then we have to do that work. We got to get on the phones. We got to call people and let them know that you’re safe here and we care about you. And then there are people who don’t want us to do that work. There are people who are like “You shouldn’t call and everybody should just come to school because it’s okay and why are those people afraid? It’s just spray paint”. And so there’s all of that. I think what happens is that the real work is not beautiful. I’m really trying to lead people through that muck in a way that is defined by hope or in a way that is characterized by love. And so I think these last few months for me have been spent not shying away from the ugly and not afraid to talk about the ugly and that’s really hard for educators. As educators we tend to want to deal in the sunny side of things, but much of our work ain’t sunny. And so how do I lead people into that work in a way that is characterized by hope and by love? That has been the question I’ve been asking myself and to be honest, Mary, I don’t know. In every town it’s a new thing. I think it is changing, but in the way that things get worse before they get better. So, a wound has to scar before it heals and right now I think we’re in the really ugly scar and it’s going to be here for a while.
Did you realize that your work was going to lead you in this direction? It sounds like this is all of the things that you’ve spent your life becoming. But did you know that you would someday start doing this important work beyond the school arena?
CORNELIUS
Well it’s kind of funny again, Mary, because it’s always been my work. One of the things I did for Heinemann is I sent them news clippings of my teenage years. This has been me for twenty-five years, You know, I’ve been doing this stuff since I was fifteen. I have a larger platform now which is like great. It’s really really exciting. But when I think about the work that I’ve always done in my hometown or when I think about the stuff that has mattered to me, it’s always been my work in a very small way. When I was fifteen, I protested my student government and I took it over and became the new president. It was like a minor coup. Then when I was eighteen I was protesting the governor and by eighteen I had spent the evening in Governor Bush’s office in Florida because I was against his policies for schools. It’s kind of been an interesting year for me. I don’t know if I told you a college roommate of mine was running for governor of Florida so it’s been an interesting year for both of us. These are people I’ve been growing up with my entire life and now that we’re forty or forty-one, the work that we’ve been doing forever is now catching the attention of people outside our communities. I didn’t know that this book would do this thing because what’s fascinating is that when you’re in the literacy world, it’s really hard to find out where you fit in. I’ve spent my last eight years with Lucy doing very disciplinary literacy and then on the side being Cornelius but in a very interesting way of doing this disciplinary work. What the book has done is effectively merge the two. That people are starting to see, and I think that people are ready to see, that disciplinary literacy has to be inclusive. That disciplinary literacy has to address nationality and race and class and gender and ability. And that’s really exciting to me. There was a time, and I even remember there were people who I love in this field, who would tell me that my work had no place in teaching. And these are people that I love. And I think it was because we didn’t have the language for it. In many ways when you’re not from a marginalized group you don’t see these things. And so I have always felt the impact of my immigrant-ness on school. I have always felt the impact of my blackness on school. I have always felt those things. But then you work in these overwhelmingly white spaces and people say race doesn’t matter here or gender doesn’t matter here and you’re like, “No it does because I’m here and I’m feeling it.” And it’s unfortunate because we think about things like our current president and I think what our current president has done has made visible all the things that marginalized people have been talking about for two generations. And it’s made it visible to everybody else. And to me that’s a crisis of literacy because people have been communicating these messages for generations but largely people haven’t been listening. Then we think about the language arts; reading writing speaking and listening. So what does it mean that we have a Shirley Chisolm that says, “This was a problem two a generations ago but nobody believes it until Trump shows up.” What does it mean that we have a Carter G Woodson who wrote the book The Mis-Education of the Negro who named this four generations ago but then nobody believes it until Betsy DeVos shows up. And to me that’s a crisis of literacy that people have been speaking – women, people of color, immigrants – but nobody has been listening. That’s a language arts problem.
Note: At this point Cornelius moved me to tears
“I’m imagining you standing in front of that classroom just like in that room at NCTE and I think that the real power is not just what you say but the way that you say it and the way that you move people. Thank you for moving me this morning.”
CORNELIUS
But it’s all of us and I think that everybody feels this way. One of the things I’m learning as a father is that you have permission to be sad and that you have permission to be excited or disappointed. We try to police kids’ emotions all the time. When my daughter gets sad I have to remember that she’s a human and that the thing that made her sad exists and she has permission to be sad. I think that as adults we’ve inherited this mindset that I don’t have permission to feel how I feel. I have a good job. I’m a teacher. I’m a leader in my community. I should not feel sad or I should not feel frustrated because I’m an adult. I think one of the things is that I hope to achieve with my work – and it goes back to that defining quality of hope and love – is that as adults I want to extend the same grace to you as an adult that I extend to my children. That when I listen to my children speak they have permission to be sad and when I listen to Mary speak, she has permission to be frustrated or sad or angry or not know the answer. And we don’t extend that grace to each other and I think that’s what I want my work to do. That I have permission to be imperfect and so do you.
I think you modeled that on the chat Cornelius. I went through and captured all of your tweets and what was amazing is that people would say something and you would respond to them with the message that it’s okay to feel that way. I think that people don’t feel like it’s okay to feel things like self-doubt or all the other things that we all struggle with. That was really amazing.
From the opening words to the closing, I got a sense that this book is YOUR heart on paper and I’m feeling like that’s true listening to you now. What “heart message’ did you hope this book would spread across the universe?
CORNELIUS
It’s complicated and I think that there’s several. One is that it’s bigger than education. Two is that even though it’s so big, we can do it. I know this sounds silly but I was like “Book?” I want them to be able to read the title that we can do it. We Got This. It’s a big message that I wanted for people. Like how can a person browsing the book store or surfing the internet who doesn’t read a single word of the book but just reads the cover leave being a better practitioner? So that’s the message, that we got this, that you are enough and I think that there’s so much in teaching that makes us feel like we’re not enough. And we are. We are. I don’t know how people have gotten to the heart of teachers and made them feel like they can’t do things. And it’s in every setting. Yesterday I was in a school. Many of the kids who were separated at the border from their parents were relocated to New York City. They have incredible trauma, incredible journeys. These people are leaving Central America and Mexico and attempting to find opportunity here and our government sends them away. These teachers are doing such important work in these schools and they are amazing. I’m just the guy who shows up and says nice things but 100% of that work is those teachers showing up every day and doing the work. But even the people who are doing the best work in the world have been made to feel like they’re not enough. So yeah, you asked me about the heart message of the book and it’s really that “You are enough.”
You mentioned the title and I’ve been wondering if there is a reason for the period at the end of We Got This. That really connected with me so is there a meaning to that?
CORNELIUS
Oh yes. That was actually one of the biggest debates in all of the writing of this book. Was it going to be a period? Was it going to be an exclamation point? Was it going to be nothing at all? My designer, Monica, actually became in very many ways a co-writer. The book is so visual that I really wanted the design to kind of make a point and I needed somebody who really understood what I was trying to do. Monica actually invented that period because it’s a definitive “IT IS.” To say We Got This [exclamation] suggests that we don’t always have it. To say We Got This [period] says that even in our imperfection we’ve got it indefinitely. And so I think that period is really important there.
There are so many challenges in education these days and so many things teachers are facing through no fault of their own. Where do we even begin? How do we refuse to allow the challenges to thwart us and still be inspired to lift ourselves up to do what we need to do?
CORNELIUS
There are several parts to that question. I think first of all that the kind of people who become teachers are the kind of people who were good in school. For the most part that means that you’re a rule follower. That means that you’re compliant. That means you listen when the person in charge says listen. And that mindset is not the mindset that usually gets us to a revolution. So it’s really meant for me looking at who I am fundamentally. I want to do the right thing. If there’s a rubric I want to get highly efficient at using it. And so that’s really what I wanted to do and what I lay out in the book: Here’s how to be a nonconformist in public. The question that I’ve been asking myself more recently is “How do I remain radical and also job secure?” And where does the revolutionary live when you’ve got to pay bills and your kids have to be at dance class at 10:30 a.m.? Where are the spaces for the revolution when you’ve got to pick your kids up by 4:00. I think that really it comes down to our action research. I present action research as the answer. We can look at the practices that are not working for us. We can look at the things that people ask us to do and we can say “No” to those things if we are well researched. One of the things that I am not shy about at all and even the reason I went to Teachers College in the first place and why I left my classroom is that I wanted to get smart enough to protect myself. I am really interested, and this is no accidental use of the term, but I am really interested in weaponizing my research to keep whole communities safe. And I think that as teacher, I can engage in a small inquiry project to give as a practitioner my agency back. Or I can engage in a small inquiry project that allows me to do the kind of work study that I need to do even though my kids are ninth graders and everybody is saying that they don’t need word study.
You ask us to do our homework and then make change happen. You may have just answered this, but are you referring to doing this kind of research in order to arm ourselves with knowledge first?
CORNELIUS
Yes, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I joke about a lot but I really really mean it, is that I enter most fights with my pen. And even on my twitter profile it says “Bring your pens to swordfights.” You know that old saying that the pen is mightier than the sword? I really do believe that applies here. If I’ve got a problem with the policy or if I’ve got a problem with the mandate, I don’t sit in the staff meeting and pout about it and I don’t sit in the staff meeting and shout. I get to work. I’m like, here’s the mandate. Here’s what they want me to do. Is this thing actually going to work in my classroom? Let me go try it. Let me collect my data. Let me think about my results. Let me look at the student work. Let me get student testimonials. And then if the thing doesn’t work I show up with all my data and I’m like “Look this mandate that you gave to us is flawed and here’s how I know. Here’s my student testimonials. Here’s my student work. Here are the things that the parents have said. Here’s the change in affect that I’ve noticed in the school over the two weeks that we’ve been implementing this.” So for me it feels really clear. People always want to say that “Wow Cornelius, you’re so brave. You stood up to that principal. You stood up to that superintendent.” I don’t think that it’s brave. I just know that I trust my data. That when I collect the work. When somebody says, “Hey this thing is proven to work” but then I try it with thirty-five students over a course of two or three weeks and it doesn’t work, then there it is. I think that’s been a big thing.
And have your administrators been open to trusting you?
CORNELIUS
Yeah. It’s been really fun and I’m cautious at the same time too. The book is still pretty young so I’m still seeing what it does in the world. A principal bought copies for her entire staff after reading it. She said, “I realize that this book ultimately teaches people to challenge leadership and that’s exactly what I want for my team.” And lots of principals are buying it. The idea that people are choosing to buy a tool to put in the hands of their teachers that allows them to challenge leadership.
That’s impressive for a leader to do that.
CORNELIUS
It’s actually not when you think about it because it’s who we want. I think that you would want that same thing. There are thirty-two children and there’s nobody better equipped on the planet than me to be in this classroom right now. It’s the idea that when you walk into a room you own the room. With all your imperfections. With all of your insecurities. Yes, every imperfection in me right now is perfectly tuned to this room. And every doubt in me right now is perfectly tuned to this task. That wherever I am, there is some reason why I’m there and I do have something to offer. I hope that teachers feel that way.
With Cornelius’ last words we allowed the interview to come to a natural close since it felt as if this beautifully summed up the We Got This. spirit. Cornelius’ thoughtfully honest responses were so inspiring that I could have talked to him all day but I left our conversation with far more than I ever thought possible. Through his words, Cornelius gives us all a glimpse in the world that he has always envisions. His book, our #G2Great chat and this interview felt to me like the trifecta of POSSIBLE. As I close this post, I am reminded how much care Cornelius put into the idea of listening in his book by devoting an entire chapter to that critical topic.
Well, Cornelius, we are listening and yes, my friend…
On November 29, 2018, Dr. Gravity Goldberg returned to the #G2Great chat table for the third time to discuss her fifth book. Previously Gravity joined the #G2Great community with her collaborative partner Renee Houser, What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow?(link) and for Mindset and Moves (link).
All of her books have added to our literacy knowledge but this is the book that will be perfect for new teachers, for mentor teachers, for lead teachers, and even experienced teachers who are experiencing some doubt about their current role and purpose in education or even a “personal crisis” in the form of confidence about their teaching life. This book will lift you up and encourage you to build on your inner strengths as well as seek out a community where you will thrive. The three quotes below were pre-tweeted out to the Twitterverse and the #G2Great community as “Words of Wisdom” in the hour before chat and opened up the topic of #TeachLikeYourself as both a singular and collaborative effort.
And that focus remained for the entire chat. Sometimes we discussed individual teacher roles and sometimes we discussed the collaborative product of the efforts put forth by a group of teachers determined to provide quality learning experiences for all students.
And we were off with this opening quote from Gravity’s new book that listed three key ingredients that teachers need: a deep sense of self, confidence and freedom.What does a deep sense of authenticity or self entail?
A deep sense of authenticity or self means that you, the teacher, know yourself. Your real self shows up to teach. The self that interacts with students, parents, community and staff day after day. The teaching self that is “you”. The you that is focused on the students in front of you who are learning every day just as you are also learning side by side with them. Responsibility for learning rests with the individual teacher and the daily work in the classroom.
As a group, we can be genuinely curious about our students. We can also build on students’ strengths and share our successes. And we can also share what has been successful for our teaching challenges in order to “share the love” for what works when we have high expectations. We will remind each other that FAIL means “First Attempt in Learning” and we will get up and try again when our work misses the mark. Having a thought partner will make this journey toward authenticity easier!
What is “confidence” in our practice?
You have “confidence” in your practice when you use something that has had proven success before. It doesn’t mean that you become a “robot” or immediately “adopt” someone else’s work/beliefs, but it does mean that you will seek out additional ideas if something is not working. You will exhaust all avenues in order to go “the extra mile” for your students.
When we have confidence in our practice, we can face the barriers and stand strong. The barriers are many so we appreciate having a community to stand with, beside, and around us! Internal barriers include self-doubt, comparisons to others, worry, stress and pressure when students don’t make the progress expected. External barriers include: common pacing guides, common assessments, lack of time, limited classroom libraries, mandates that are contrary to beliefs and values, and many more listed in the wakelet. Teachers who have confidence in their practice rise above those barriers and retain their authenticity as well as flourish in the knowledge that students are successful learners!
When do we have the freedom to show up fully as ourselves?
When we feel supported or work in a supportive environment – team, grade level, building or district that is supportive – we have the freedom to show up fully as ourselves. That does mean that we need to take the initiative and be clear about our needs as well as then name when those needs are met in order to enable others to show up fully as themselves. We intentionally and purposefully manage our own self-care daily as well as make sure that we are not impeding others’ path to their own self-care.
Sometimes it means that we have to step out of our comfort zone to help others. The professional relationships that we build and nurture may be in our building or they may be in a different part of our state or even in a distant state. Valuing other ways to connect with individuals is a skill that we can nurture for ourselves as well as help students see the value in connecting with individuals in other locations. Professional learning then becomes about sharing what we have learned as well as what we need to learn and then growing collectively to share ways to continue to grow our knowledge and skills.
The solutions lie within the teachers in every classroom in every building in every district in every state/country. Driven to continue learning, to be the best teacher, to be authentic, and to grow every day – those are characteristics of teachers who are being their “best” teacher every day. If you are having a challenging day, stop and think . . . are you out of balance? RE-center your deep sense of self, your confidence in your teaching, and your freedom to show up freely as yourself. Can you do this by yourself? Who will you ask to help?
The section that I return to often with teachers is:
“Start with Why
Know your why.
Get clear on your what.
Decide on how.” Goldberg, G. (2018). Teach Like Yourself. p.25
When are you authentic?
How do you know?
When do you have the freedom to show up freely as yourself?
Are the ideas in the sketchnote some that you heard in the chat?
Check out these resources for more ideas about being your true authentic teacher self!
On November 8, 2018, the #G2Great community had a powerful conversation about sketchnoting with Tanny McGregor. In her latest book, Ink & Ideas Sketchnotes for Engagement, Comprehension, and Thinking she makes a convincing case to add sketchnoting to instructional practice. Sketchnotes are a visual form of notetaking, They offer another option for learners to make thinking visible in ways that make sense to them.
For more ideas go to Tanny’s : #inkandidea
There is so much to love when it comes to the conversations we have on #G2Great, but one aspect of the chat that I love the most is the openness to new ideas. For many of us, sketchnoting is a new idea. We have been trained to write notes in a specific way or to use predesigned graphic organizers. Why? My theory is that it keeps learning controlled and neat. However, is it the best way to learn? Who knows best? The learner does! We can assess their success by students’ ability to comprehend what is being taught not how to record the learning.
There are so many ways to learn.
Connecting the practice of sketchnoting with our prior knowledge about traditional note-taking, marginalia, and non-linguistic representation, what we believe, and have taught students about this practice during the chat. Here the collective wisdom about sketchnoting from the #G2Great PLN:
Fuel collaboration!
Create opportunities for differentiation!
Support deeper comprehension!
Generate engagement!
Support language learners!
Sharing rationals and practices is one way the #G2Great community helps one another to grow. Another way to commit to a new professional goals – like starting sketchnoting. We were asked to consider these words…
“Is there a place in this lesson where students can opt to use nonlinguistic representation along with or in lieu of conventional writing, should they so choose?”
Tanny McGregor
Here are some ways that teachers pledged to take on this exciting new work:
Challenge students to give sketchnoting go!
Ask students to experiment with new ways of note taking!
Encourage students to start with a doodle!
Offer varied paper choice!
Try out modeling the practice first!
There are so many ways to begin, the most important thing to remember is to actually… begin! Our students deserve as many options as we can give them to learn their best. Learning begins with an open mind. So what do you say? Think on these words of wisdom from Tanny…
Thank you, Tanny. We appreciate your taking the time to share your wisdom with our community. Thank you to Heinemann Publishers for sharing the love with a FREE copy of your fabulous book, Ink & Ideas Sketchnotes for Engagement, Comprehension, and Thinking! But mostly, thank you, for pushing us to think beyond conventional practices to more student-centered ones like sketchnoting. Not only is your work founded on best practice but it is driven by choice and that can make all the difference.
If you are interested in learning more… please explore Tanny’s links:
Her session with Smokey/Nancy Steineke: NCTE Houston, TX on November 15. Title: “Looking to Learn”.
