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You Can’t Count The Apples In A Seed

Hi! Just me again, saying one thing and doing another. I wrote about my blog schedule just last week and was ready to get right to work on it! But on Monday, I strayed right away from the schedule and wrote about schools opening in the Fall because it felt so relevant and something teachers needed to be reading right now. 

I had every intention to dedicate today to introducing Enneagram types and why it can be important in education, but again, another topic came up that I truly felt compelled to write about. I appreciate that I am not getting any hate emails because I’m not following the set schedule I just gave myself. Thanks for letting my intuition take the lead for now. 

Setting up fun, educational activities for my daughter has been a side job and hobby of mine for about two years now. She’s well trained in sensory bins and being responsible with paint, play dough, scissors, and more. I have also been well trained in when and where activities take place. When I’m making dinner it’s a perfect time for unsupervised activities she knows well and can do independently. When her little brother is napping it’s a great time to pull out something new when I can sit with her and walk her through, and help where needed. 

Usually, I am great at seeing the cues of when she needs something besides TV or her regular toys to entertain her. She gets a certain kind of antsy when I am busy and her brain just needs to think and create. But the other day I was so hyper-focused on what I was doing, I didn’t take the time to give her what she needed. She ended up finding some playdough in her bin of activities I keep organized and brought it to the kitchen table asking if she could play with it. She’s an extremely responsible three-year-old, I know! Within minutes she was bored and asking for something new, while I continued to work and ignore her needs. 

My husband was cleaning the kitchen and watching the interactions unfold, seeing both of our needs. I needed to work and my daughter needed an enriching, fun activity, not just play dough. He walked over with a container full of food picks, food stamps, measuring spoons, and my rolling pin and showed my daughter how to roll the playdough, then stamp the shapes or make the food picks stand up, They scooped the dough with the measuring spoons and packed them in tight to make 3D shapes. Less than 5 minutes of instruction and she was on her way to independent play. 

It made me realize that the activities I’ve set up around my house are maybe teaching more than just my daughter. My husband has seen enough of these setups to know what she needed to succeed, and I’m sure my son is picking up on the rules I’ve set by watching his older sister carry out her painting and sensory bins. I also thought about this quote I’ve seen often as a teacher. 

One seed that we plant as teachers will have lasting effects for generations and generations to come. A positive influence on one child can have lasting impressions on everyone they come in contact with, you never know what great work you are doing. 

This apple quote printable was made for me by Kelsie Housley. If you would like to download the PDF to print and hang in your classroom, the link is below. Do me a favor and leave her a comment of thanks if you downloaded it! I would love to show her our appreciation!

You-can-count-the-seed-in-an-appleDownload

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Back To School Fall 2020

I know I just wrote about my blog schedule and that Monday’s are dedicated to past teachers and the influence they had on me/ still have on me. However, I felt like this subject was important to write about and it has been on my mind for weeks and weeks. 

Schools going back in the fall. There are so many politics behind this that I will not get involved in, but I still have been thinking about so many other situations. 

I worry about teachers who are putting their health at risk by going back. 

I worry about teachers who financially rely on this income to support their families and do not have the flexibility to find a new job, especially in this economy. 

I worry about retired teachers and those who have chosen not to go back next year that feel guilty for not being on the front lines as a teacher, but shouldn’t feel this way. 

I worry about the students’ health. 

I worry about COVID outbreaks in schools. 

I worry about the parents’ mental health either with sending kids back to school and the stress that comes with that, or keeping them home and again, the stress that comes with that. 

I worry about the students that utilized school as their refuge from undesirable home life and will not have that in their life. 

There are worries left and right about going back to school, keeping kids home, and all of the inconsistency this Fall brings for us. 

But we do have one certainty we always know to be true- The teachers will show up. They will adapt to online learning, socially distant classrooms, and more. There may be anxiety and stress behind it, but they will show up. It has proven true time and time again, and with my own teacher friends I’ve followed on social media. Most of them have expressed their frustrations and concerns, but at the same time, I see them wearing masks and making their classrooms socially distant. They worry about their students too and how much they will miss if they are learning from home without the proper support. 

How is your school going back in the Fall? What are you worried about and what can you look forward to? 

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New Blog Schedule: A Peek Into What I Will Be Writing About

I’m coming up on one year of writing for this blog, I cannot believe it has been that long! I’ve loved the experience it has given me, the research opportunities, and the new relationships I’ve been able to make. When I began writing, I created a blog schedule. My original blog schedule ended up changing and adapting over time and eventually became non-existent. I was writing what was relevant and important to me at the time, and it truly worked so well! I loved the adaptability of it. 

However, I’m ready to get back into a blogging schedule. I like the consistency and dependability of a blog schedule and it’s what I need in my life right now. Here is what I have settled on. 

Monday: Past Teachers Still Teaching Me Today

I’ve written about past teachers and professors on my blog before and came to realize that they are continuing to teach me as I take these lessons from them and apply them to my education world today. I want to write out each of these stories and gather them together as one big resource. You can read the ones I’ve already written in these links. 

Mrs. Scoresby 

Mr. Meyer

Max Longhurst

Wednesday: How Each Enneagram Type Learns

I wrote about each Myers-Briggs personality type and how to adapt your teaching to each type. For the next ten or so weeks I’ll be breaking down the nine Enneagram types and diving into more depth on what Enneagram is and how to understand it. 

Friday: Feature Friday 

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know Feature Friday has been a consistent Friday post since April! Originally I planned to do this for 2-3 months, but it has been such a hit and so fun to do, I decided to continue. If you are an educator in any shape or form, please reach out to me to be featured. 

What posts are you most excited to see? 

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Feature Friday: Jake Downs

Welcome to Feature Friday! Where we showcase a new teacher each week in an interview. For past Feature Friday interviews, go here. 

Today’s Feature Friday is highlighting Jake Downs. Jake teaches 4th grade in a rural community in Cache Valley, Utah. He also runs a podcast regarding teaching called The Teaching Literacy Podcast. He gives us great insight on the podcast and how it has helped his teaching below. 

What is the Teaching Literacy Podcast and why did you start it?

“The Teaching Literacy Podcast grew out of my experience in my Ph.D. program at Utah State University.  I found there was so much compelling research out there that could really benefit teachers, but it can often be like finding a needle in a haystack.  I also had a few classes where we discussed that there’s not really great channels to allow teachers access to high-quality literacy research.  That really bothered me- there’s this wealth of knowledge out there that could help improve instruction, but it remains largely aloof from teachers.  The current model really follows a trickle-down diffusion approach, which takes time and loses certain nuances.”

“I started the podcast to help address that.  I take quality research, interview the researcher, and talk about their findings and how it would apply to classroom management.  I’ve seen enthusiastic responses from researchers and educators alike. The researchers I’ve talked with are not the stereotypical ivory tower professors, nearly all of them are former teachers who care greatly about supporting our nation’s teachers and readers. Teachers have appreciated listening to research straight from the researcher’s mouth, with ideas of how it could help their instruction.  It’s been a great experience so far, and one I look forward to continuing.”

What is your favorite thing about teaching this age/subject?

“4th grade is a perfect age!  Old enough to be more independent and capable of impressive critical thought, but they still have the magic of childhood that seems to evaporate soon after.  This age group has great content to teach in reading and math as well.” 

“Reading-wise, the third and fourth grades pivot away from a steady diet of phonics and fluency practice, and towards more of a comprehension focus.  Fluency is still an important aspect of my instruction, but I’ve found great satisfaction in teaching reading comprehension, and supporting students to develop proficiency in silent reading efficiency.”

“Math for fourth graders slides toward complexity and abstraction.  For example, in third grade, it’s fairly easy to draw three groups of 6 to model 3×6.  In fourth grade, however, modeling 36×22 becomes more abstract.  We still do it, but we begin to use area models rather than direct representations.  That’s just one example, but I feel that something shifts between third and fourth grades with how the math is approached.”

How have you integrated the arts into your core curriculum?

“One way I’ve integrated art on and off throughout the years is through using ‘One-Pagers’ to integrate reading.  They’re pretty popular right now, just Google the term if you’re unfamiliar, but the gist of it is fusing an artistic representation of a scene from a specific text with summaries and/or direct quotes from the text. One thing good readers do is sift and separate important information from trivial details.  When done right, One-Pagers allow this to be practiced in the classroom in a way that students generally find very engaging.”

If you could recommend one children’s book, what would it be and why? 

“Every year I read ‘City of Ember’ to my students.  It’s a great book about two kids in a dying city that get caught up in an adventure much bigger than themselves- or the city itself.  There are lots of twists and turns, with a jaw-dropping ending.  It’s always a highlight of my year and provides lots of great little teaching moments about comprehension throughout.  A careful reading will show that the ending was there all around, just the bread crumbs were so subtle that it really takes careful reading to put it all together.”

What are your best tips for avoiding burnout? 

“I’ve experienced burnout as an educator, something I think everyone who teaches young minds experiences at one time or another.  There’s a lot of ebb and flow to teaching, but burnout should be avoided at all costs.  It’s like your teeth, if you’re brushing and flossing then getting a cavity filled will be few and far between.  Even if you go to the dentist right when the tooth starts hurting, getting the cavity filled won’t be too bad.  However, if you neglect brushing and flossing, neglect going to the dentist when the tooth starts hurting then pain, infection, and the inevitable root canal is headed your way.”

Something in our culture has made us almost fanatically preventative with our oral health, yet tending to our mental health is much more reactive.  Find what ‘brushing and flossing’ means for you, and do it as much as you need to avoid burnout root canals.  For me, it’s reading good books, thinking deep thoughts, feeling in the driver’s seat with how my classroom is running.  When those things aren’t happening, burnout can creep in for me.  

What do you wish someone would have told you in your first year teaching?  

“There was this perception among my peers in my teaching program that much of what we were learning was relatively useless because things would be different ‘in a real classroom.’  I feel that perception is unfortunate and even dangerous.  True, there is some degree of disconnect between the teaching program and actual classrooms.  But isn’t that true of nearly all non-apprenticeship programs?  Do CPA’s complain about the disconnect between business college and real-life accounting?  What about nurses?” 

“Using a metaphor of learning to fly might be a more productive view towards teacher preparation. Teacher preparation programs are like learning how to fly in a wind tunnel or a flight simulator, assuming many variables to focus on the principles of learning.  The goal isn’t to take a Cessna to the next state over, the goal is to learn the principles of lift, drag, and aero dynamism.  Learning those principles, and the tradeoffs between them are critical to being a successful pilot once you climb into the cockpit.  Yes, piloting an actual plane will have its own learning curve, but the knowledge gained from that crucial pre-flight training will make the difference between a pilot on ‘auto-pilot’ and one who truly understands flying.”

“Good teacher ed programs provide invaluable assistance in ‘flight simulators,’ which means they are not invaluable.  As a first-year teacher, don’t readily discard everything you learned in your prep program.  Find ways to bridge what you’ve learned into your everyday experience.”

How has running your podcast helped you in your teaching?

“Teaching fourth grade, working towards a Ph.D. in literacy, and starting a literacy podcast has been a very fortunate experience.  It’s given me a bit of a ‘workshop’ where what I read and learn from interviews I can tinker within my classroom, and then what I learn from that tinkering informs what I look into next.  It’s certainly been a unique experience- one that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

If you could give teachers one piece of advice about teaching literacy, what would it be?

“Learn the pedagogy and research of literacy.  Teaching Literacy Podcast is one way I’m trying to make that research more readily digestible for educators, but there are many out there.  Once I really started to learn the ‘how’s’ and ‘why’s’ of fluency and reading comprehension my instruction shifted dramatically.  Rather than relying on the curriculum to do the teaching, my curriculum became a tool to leverage my thinking.  I think many of the reading curricula out there are well done and do the things they do for a reason, but they are not a replacement for teacher pedagogical knowledge.  Teachers teach, that’s the bottom line, so learning how reading works will greatly improve any teacher’s instruction.”

Thank you Jake for sharing your insight with us! If you are interested in listening to the Teaching Literacy podcast, you can find it on Apple, Google, or Stitcher. The majority of podcast apps have it available. You can also listen at Teachingliteracypodcast.com. 

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Amidst The Negative, You’re Doing A Good Job

One month before my first-grade year started, I received a letter from my teacher welcoming me to class. To start off my full career as a student, this was a great way to begin. I beamed with pride reading the words my soon-to-be teacher left for me in my mailbox. I knew this year would be extraordinary. 

Our first library trip as a first-grade class was overwhelming for me. I loved reading and I loved books, but I had a hard time choosing with all of the options in front of me. When library time was over and I was about to leave the room empty-handed of something I loved so much, tears overcame my little 6-year-old body. My teacher ran to my aid and led me straight to the shelf I never knew I needed. Books by Ann M. Martin. The Babysitters Club. She told me I would really enjoy them and that it was perfect based on my reading level. This simple act gave me the confidence in her that I could trust her judgment and that she would always be in my corner when I needed her. 

Fast forward to the winter. I was out playing in the snow with friends, too far from the school to hear the recess bell. I walked into the classroom 20 minutes late (it felt like over an hour to me). I felt bad for not following protocol and not paying closer attention to the bell, I knew I would be in trouble. However, it got worse when the blue board came into play… 

The blue board was a public shame. It was a big board with two columns and everyone’s name running down the left, white side. When an individual did something wrong (like come in from recess 20 minutes late), their name was moved to the other side of the board, the blue side. No one wanted to be on the blue board. But walking into my own fate, my name was moved for the first, and only time that year, and my soul was CRUSHED. I felt like my whole relationship and trust with my beloved teacher had shattered in seconds because of one mistake I made. 

Slowly throughout the year, the trust was rebuilt and I truly loved my teacher and the relationship I had with her, but I always held the blue board moment in the back of my mind. I held it so close that at the end of the school year I said to myself, “Someday, I’m going to be a teacher, and I will never use a blue board. That’ll show her!” 

Fast forward even further to my experience as a pre-service teacher. Many college classes spoke of clip charts or “shame boards” and it solidified in me that what my teacher did in first-grade was wrong. I had a small run-in with a clip chart in a different classroom, you can read about the experience here.  During this very brief time of using a clip chart, I still held my resentment for my teacher’s use of the blue board in my heart. I knew how much it affected me, and I truly did not want that for any other student I taught. 

A few years later after I had graduated with my teaching degree and did my long term sub job in a first-grade classroom, I unexpectedly ran into my past teacher while on vacation. I sat and spoke with her for an hour and told her about my experience subbing the same age of kids that she taught for years and years. I asked her advice on certain situations, how she would have handled some of the harder kids I had to teach, and ultimately thanked her for being such an influence on my life, especially for helping me keep my love of reading. I never mentioned the blue board, because even though it was still something that I thought about often, I held no resentment 20 years later. 

But in the conversation, she said something that really stuck out to me. She said:  

“I didn’t teach in a time of educational blogs and information readily at our fingertips, learning new teaching methods took a lot of searching and dedication. I made a lot of mistakes and I worry that I negatively affected the kids that I taught. But then I hear from you the successes you’ve had and it makes me feel better, so thank you for sharing.” 

I found this so interesting that she spoke these words to me since I had not brought up the negative interaction I had with her. I held these words close and silently forgave her for putting my name on the blue board years and years ago. It also made me think about my own interactions with children. 

How have I negatively affected students? 

What positive interactions have I had? 

Also, how many more of my past teachers and professors out there are beating themselves up because they weren’t the perfect teacher every day, and could use an encouraging message from past students? 

Teachers invest their whole heart and soul into educating human beings and often focus on the bad days and interactions. Let’s all take a minute to remember that even if you made a mistake, you’re still a great teacher, and your students still love you. 

You’re doing a good job. 

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Talk, Sing, Read, Write, and Play!

If you do a quick search on this blog of “talk, sing, read, write, play” you’ll find multiple articles I’ve written on the subject. I’ve referenced it many times, but I’ve never dedicated a post to truly defining what it is and what they mean. They are pretty self-explanatory, but let’s really break it down. 

Why do I use these terms together? These are the basic fundamentals for early readers. Reading begins long before preschool or kindergarten, and it’s through our interactions with them that these building blocks are put in place. 

“The power of literacy lies not just in the ability to read and write, but rather in a person’s capacity to apply these skills to effectively connect,  interpret and discern the intricacies of the world in which they live.’

-3P Learning

Talk– Talking with children builds vocabulary, tone awareness, and teaches them how to create and use sentences, and more. Talking, discussing, pointing out, and having conversations with kids teaches them all of these important skills. 

Sing- Singing words in songs can drag out sounds, making it more clear to younger ears to how the sounds work and are pronounced. The rhythms are catchy and easy to remember, and rhyming helps kids see word relations and sounds. 

Read- Obviously reading begets reading. It’s important for them to see words on the page and how they flow and work together. Read road signs, food labels, menus at the restaurants. Words are everywhere! Spending positive interactions reading with children creates a love of books and reading at a young age. 

Write- Writing doesn’t mean write out words and sentences. It means scribble, draw, and create art. These scribbles eventually become circles, squares, and lines, which then turn into letters, words, and sentences. 

“A child’s scribbles are precursors to adult calligraphy.’

– Briana at Carnegie Library of Pittsburg 

Play- Play is a child’s work. Play is where kids learn, grow, and develop. It is the most important task they can do as a child. Whether it’s for reading, writing, speaking, math, social skills, science, history, or more, PLAY is where they work. Read more about play-based learning here. 

Next time you’re overwhelmed by teaching your child letters or words or want them to have better literacy skills, please remember and go back to the basics. 

Talk. Sing. Read. Write. Play. 

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Feature Friday: Hannah Giles

Welcome to Feature Friday! Where we showcase a new teacher each week in an interview. For past Feature Friday interviews, go here. 

Today’s Feature Friday is highlighting Hannah Giles. Hannah teaches first grade in Idaho. She received her education at Brigham Young University of Idaho. Here’s what Hannah has for us today! 

What is your favorite thing about teaching first grade?

“First grade is my favorite because my students are still excited about learning! They are so sweet and come to school with smiles on their faces no matter what they have going on outside of school. It’s really fun being around their positive attitudes every day and their energetic personalities!”

What made you want to go into teaching?

“I have always loved working with children and helping them learn new skills, so it was only fitting that I go into education! I have a  degree in early childhood education and special education, and I always enjoyed being around my uncle who had special needs when I was younger. My interactions with him inspired me to get the special education part of my degree, even though I currently teach in a general education classroom.”

If you could recommend one children’s book, what would it be and why?  

“I would highly recommend “The Bad Seed” by Jory John and Petel Oswald! This is a great story about a seed who has a bad experience which makes him a mean and bitter seed. No one likes to be around him because of the way he acts towards the people around him. In the end, he learns that it’s okay to have bad days but it’s not okay to treat the people around you poorly! There are two other books by these two authors called “The Good Egg” and “The Cool Bean” which are also great!”

What do you wish someone would have told you in your first year teaching? 

“I wish that someone would have told me that it’s okay for a lesson or activity not to work and to keep trying new ideas. You’re not going to reach every single student in the same way, but that’s only because they are all different! Students will remember more of how you made them feel in the classroom and the relationships you build. After the relationship is built, the real learning begins!”

Who influenced you most to choose a career education? 

“I had several teachers while growing up who influenced my choice to go into education! Michelle Watson taught me in fourth and sixth grade. She was an amazing teacher in the way she delivered lessons as well as the relationships she built with her students. I always knew that if I became a teacher, I would want to be just like her!”

What are the benefits you’ve seen in collaborating with your team of teachers? 

“I work in a school that has a Spanish Immersion program and I have a partner teacher who teaches Spanish to our first graders for half the day while I teach English! Then we switch and do it again with the other half of our students. It is a small school, so we are the only first grade teachers, and I could not do it without her. She is an amazing teacher, and I have learned so much from working with her. She has taught me behavior strategies that have helped with some of the most difficult students. Collaboration is so important in teaching, and I lucked out with the best partner!”

How has teaching in a rural area affected your teaching, both positive, and negative?

“Teaching in a rural area has its pros and cons. The community is small, so it’s nice to know most of the parents and families that live there. The town I teach in has a very low SES which makes the kids there very humble and appreciative of everything. They are amazing kids! The main downside is that there are several students who come from hard home lives. Some of the students only eat the food they receive at the school, and it breaks my heart! Overall, I definitely prefer teaching in a small, rural school even with the negative sides of it.”

Thanks, Hannah for your great insight. I think it’s always fun to explore the point of view from a rural teacher because those are the schools I grew up going to. Come back next week for our next Feature Friday to hear from another Idaho teacher!