What skills are needed in a democracy?

According to an article by John Patrick, when we think about teaching students to be informed participants in a democracy there are three areas in which educators tend to focus: civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic virtues.

This is how he describes each area:
"Civic knowledge consists of fundamental ideas and information that learners must know and use to become effective and responsible citizens of a democracy… In particular, it involves concepts and data about democracy in the learner's country and comparisons with other countries.

"Civic skills are the cognitive operations that enable the learner to understand, explain, compare, and evaluate principles and practices of government and citizenship … Civic skills involve the citizen's use of knowledge to think and act competently in response to the ongoing challenges of democratic governance and citizenship.

"Civic virtues … are the traits of character necessary for the preservation and improvement of democratic governance and citizenship. Examples of civic virtues are respect for the worth and dignity of each person, civility, integrity, self-discipline, tolerance, compassion, and patriotism.”

In the context of the school day we can think about these three areas in terms of the content we need to teach, the skills students must develop to understand the content, and the sense of community we build in our classroom so students feel safe and can focus on learning.

The problem solving students do today in math class should build the same skills necessary in the future to solve a budget deficit, an architectural challenge, or an applied math solution to a biological crisis.

The critical thinking students put into planning a debate today should build the same skills necessary in the future to present an argument in court, negotiate an important business deal, or make a political speech.

The social skills students develop while learning to work together in your class should build the same skills they’ll need in the future to hold leadership positions in their jobs, or work with a team to accomplish a business objective.

The skills needed in a democracy are the same skills we already know students need to be successful in school. But if we think about them as important beyond their relevance to passing benchmarks, meeting AYP, and getting good grades – perhaps we’ll endow them with a even more enticing significance.

A Sample Question Curriculum

In November, Center for Inspired Teaching presented at the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum in Denver, CO. Participants in our workshop put their heads together to create a "Question Curriculum" that offers several thought provoking ideas!

Participants began by brainstorming inspired questions their students might ask and then generated sub-questions, divided by subject area, that would address these larger ideas.

K-3 Question Curriculum

Inspired Question: Why is she mean to me?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Social Skills

• How can we include everyone?
• What are ways we can support each other?
• Do we know of periods of time where people were mean to each other?

Language Arts and Reading

• Have you ever felt this way?
• Has anyone read a story about people being mean to you?

Writing

• How can writing help us solve our problems?
• What would you say to someone who was mean to you?
• Can you write a story about a time you solved a problem
• about someone being mean to you?

Science

• How do you feel when someone is mean to you?
• How can you tell how someone is feeling?
• What did you notice when you did…?

Math

• Can we keep track of acts of kindness- tally marks, graph

Inspired Question: Why did my dog die?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Social Skills

• Have you experienced a loss?
• Can you imagine what it feels like?
• How can you help others?
• What helped you?

Language Arts and Reading

• Read books about loss and ask- how did you feel?

Writing

• How can writing help you deal with your loss?

Science

• Life cycle- how do we care for ourselves?
• What happens to our bodies?

Math

• How long do we live?

4-5 Question Curriculum
Inspired Question: Why is our world in conflict?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Reading

• Why did the Holocaust happen?

Writing

• Why do we fight with people we love?

Math

• Why is gas so expensive?

Science

• How will global warming increase conflict?

Social Studies

• Why are we in Iraq?

6-8 Question Curriculum

Inspired Question: Why are things unfair?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Math

• How do we show that things aren’t fair?
• What mathematical representations can illustrate unfairness?

Social Studies

• Should things be unfair?
• Is the justice system fair?

Language Arts and Literature

• What is the definition of unfair?
• What literature pieces give examples of fair/unfair?

Science

• Is ‘survival of the fittest’ fair?
• How do we make environmental decisions?
  

Art

• Does advertising impose ideas of fairness/unfairness?
• What areas of the arts are open to whom? Fair?
  

Health

• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Why are some people healthier than others?

Inspired Question: Why are illegal immigrants returned to Mexico?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Math

• What is the demographic distribution of people in the United States and Mexico?
• What is the relative income between Mexico and the United States?

Social Studies

• What are nations? What are borders?
• How do you choose where you live?

9-12 Question Curriculum
Inspired Question: Why can’t you just tell me?

Subject Area Sub-Questions
Math

• What is the difference between knowing something and understanding something?

Science

• How does discovery lead to new inventions?

Language Arts and Humanities

• Why do you have to learn some things on your own and what experiences have you had on your own?

History

• Why is there only one answer?

More Movement Ideas

What are some other ways you can bring movement into the classroom?

So you want to get your class up and moving... where to begin? These are a few simple activities you can use to get students on their feet and out of their seats. As recess time gets taken over by the cold weather, some of these energy-burners may become the difference between an unruly afternoon and one that makes way for learning!

Warm Ups
Count Down Shake Down: The class should do this in unison. Beginning with the right hand, shake and count in rhythm 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, then do the same with the left hand, the right foot and the left foot. Begin again with the right hand and count in rhythm this time from 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, move to the left hand, right foot and left foot. Continue counting down until you get to one. You can start at a higher or lower number depending on how much shaking you need the class to do!

What's Shakin'? Call out parts of the body to shake, for example:
Shake your right hand.
Add your left shoulder.
Add your right knee.
What's shakin'? Students will respond: "right hand, left shoulder, right knee"
Now, take out your right knee.
Add your left knee.
Take out your right hand.
Add your head.
What's shakin'? Students will respond: "left shoulder, left knee, head"

Zip, Zap, Zop: This activity is done in a circle. The starter gestures (with the palms of both hands together, arms straight, and all fingers pointing out) to someone in the circle and says, "ZIP". That person gestures to someone else in the circle and says, "ZAP". That person gestures to someone else in the circle and says "ZOP". The next player says "ZIP" and play continues.

Subject Specific Movements
Vocabulary Exercises: Students create stretches or exercises that express the meaning behind each of their vocabulary words. These exercises can be used to start each class period or practiced right before the test so the words are fresh in their minds.

Math Movement Chants: Many teachers use math chants and accompanying movements to help students remember concepts or formulas. This site may provide you with a few ideas but you can just as easily have your students create their own.
http://www.songsforteaching.com/numberscounting.htm

Acting Out History: Have students choose particular events from their history or social studies text books to dramatize. Acting out these events and then talking about the experience is a good way to make these "events from the past" relevant to students' lives today.

Science in the Everyday: As much as possible try to connect science concepts to real-world applications. Bring in living things when discussing biology, use common household chemicals when talking about chemistry, look at everyday phenomena to explain physical theories. This is more work for you up front, but the more students connect what they learn in a textbook with their own lives, the more interesting and engaging the material will seem!

New Thanksgiving Stories

At my first Thanksgiving as a new teacher I was the center of attention at the dinner table. My first three months had provided me with plenty of captivating tales to tell. It felt good to make the table ooh and ahh, laugh and gasp, over my stories. But I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable after the dinner table talk died down.

These stories were of the variety that capture public attention, but they were not stories that captured the magic I felt in being a teacher. They were true, but they were also mainly shocking. Like most of the news we hear about schools they featured the appallingly low skills of my students, the struggle to overcome a tremendous lack of resources in my school, the atrocious behaviors that cropped up in my classroom, the adult experiences endured by teenage children, etc., etc., etc.

My stories were not of the inspiring variety, and I remember thinking when I went to bed that I had created a grim picture of my school in the minds of my audience. Though I knew the picture was accurate, it was not complete, and I was sad that I had not used my moment on the stage to talk about all the beautiful things that also happened within those cinder-block walls.

Maybe this is why people have such a bad opinion of schools in general. We don't tend to tell many of the good stories, although in even the worst schools wonderful things happen every day. These are not the things of bold headlines, often they're so tiny they escape the notice of nearly everyone in the building.

Last week we asked our Teacher Advisory Board, a group of about 15 DC Public School teachers, to share their inspiring stories from the past 3 months of school. It took a minute for the group to warm up to the request. That's just not the way we're used to talking about school.

Eventually these are some of the beautiful things that came out:

• A Head Start student who has already been kicked out of 5 elementary schools finally found a teacher who is taking the time to see what makes him tick. He's learning to work with his peers and trust the love he's getting from his teacher.
  
• A music teacher found a way to let a suspended student attend the opera because she'd seen a spark light up in him when he studied the score.
  
• Tasked with the challenge of teaching a classroom full of boys, a teacher changed her style to incorporate more kinesthetic learning in the day.
  
• After struggling under challenging leadership for a few years, a teacher has discovered new enthusiasm for his profession with an inspiring new principal.
• A lesson on nutrition empowered one young girl to teach her mother about what constitutes a healthy breakfast.

These are just a few of the stories we heard, and they're not the kinds of stories you're likely to see covered on tonight's evening news. But they are the kinds of stories that keep teachers coming back to school every day, and they're the stories that hint at the slow but incredibly powerful work we are engaged in when we set about the task of helping children reach their full potential.

I like to think I didn't tell these kinds of stories that Thanksgiving long ago because I didn't have them to tell. But I did. In truth I think I knew they wouldn't get the same reaction out of my audience. Perhaps if we told these stories more, people would begin to expect more out of our schools because they would see what is possible.

This Thanksgiving I have the tales of these teachers to tell. I have the other variety too. But I've come to believe those really aren't the stories people need to hear.

This is Our Classroom

This is a lesson on belonging as taught by a mysteriously decapitated Nasturtium.

After spending several months getting to know my 9th grade students I had arrived at several conclusions - key amongst them was the realization that they hadn't had many of elementary school experiences I remembered with great fondness from my own childhood. So, I tried to find ways to weave these experiences into their adolescent lives in ways that made them seem (at least tangentially) relevant to the curriculum I had to teach (9th Grade English).

The Nasturtium project was one such effort. Most of my students claimed they had never planted anything in their lives - not even the lima-bean-in-a-cup that is the standard science project of so many Kindergarten classrooms. We were beginning a poetry unit and it seemed like as good a time as any to explore the magic of watching a seed grow. I wanted something more exciting than a lima bean and something that would grow quickly so we could write about this growth process weekly and explore the metaphorical connection between the seed>plant>flower and their own lives. Upon a quick study of flowers, the Nasturtium emerged as the seed of choice with only a week's gestation period and the promise of flowers by the end of the month.

The students were so excited to plant the seeds. They took the watering of those seeds more seriously than they had taken most of what we done all year. The poetry flowed each week as they watched the seeds sprout, grow leaves, and then get moved from cups to pots. Simile, metaphor, and personification came naturally as they saw beautiful parallels between the unfurling of each new leaf and their own emergence into young adulthood.

I had three classes doing the project and each was incredibly possessive of its tray of plants. Students often ran to class early to chatter over how their plants were greener, taller, stronger, than those of another class. (In truth they were all basically the same.) They brought in students from other classes to show off the wondrous lives they were cultivating.

Real excitement began to brew as the month drew to an end and the first bud of a flower appeared. Strangely, only one appeared at first. It belonged to Diana in 3rd period. Each morning hoards of students would pour into my classroom to see if Diana's plant had bloomed. What color would it be? When would it appear? How long would it last? These were the questions that bubbled amongst them. A little jealousy was present, but I never thought it would cause any harm.

Then, one day, probably the very day that bud should have burst open, we arrived at 3rd period and found it severed at the stem. A pair of guilty looking scissors lay on the counter beside the plant tray with traces of green juice fresh along the edge of the blades. Someone had snuck into the room when I wasn't there to commit the crime.

Chaos ensued. Anger rose. Some students began to cry. Threats of payback flew. My students, people who had witnessed human cruelty of the worst kind many times in their young lives, were horrified by this tiny act of plant violence. I did not know what to do, so I set aside my plans for the class, moved the desks into a circle, and we talked about how they were feeling.

This was a class that, at the start of the year, regularly erupted into verbal altercations and had come to blows more than once. But surprisingly, none of the students ever suggested the flower-murderer came from their own class. On this day they were adamant that no one in our class would ever hurt one of their own. Even though only one student's plant was affected, they felt a collective sense of loss because that single flower had been a source of collective pride. As I listened to them speak I realized that my silly plant project had become something much bigger for these students. Perhaps it was because they had been asked to make a personal connection to these plants from the time they were seeds.

After some careful discussion moderation, I successfully convinced the class not to partake in retaliatory pruning of the other classes' plants - and we even got some powerful poetry out of the experience. But the best thing that came out of the Nasturtium project, at least for that class, was not particularly academic. It was a sense of belonging and a sense of collective responsibility for one another. That experience has often made me wonder what would happen in our world if teaching kindness, respect, and compassion were as important in our schools as teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Within a week everyone's plant had bloomed, and Diana's quickly grew another flower of its own. The culprit behind the plant crime never came forward but, lucky for us all, the scissors never struck again.

The Rewards of Taking Risks

A teacher brings a field trip she couldn't take into the classroom. Students take a stand in the name of free expression. Each of these true stories was a risk, and the risk-takers experienced the rewards.

The Risk: Carol teaches Pre-K in the inner city. Her students have never been to a pumpkin patch. She wants to do the traditional "trip to a farm" but due to budgetary constraints and concerns that "out of class time = no learning" she's not allowed to take the students this year. Carol is undeterred. She takes a weekend drive to a pumpkin patch and with her own money buys enough pumpkins for every student in the class. She also buys a bushel of apples, several hay bales, and some corn stalks. "If I can't take them to the farm, I"ll bring the farm to them," she says. On Monday morning she arrives at school before the sun comes up and sets to work creating a "pumpkin patch" on the playground. She covers the pumpkins with hay so the students can hunt for them, and hides the apples as well. She ties the cornstalks to tree trunks and sets up a paint station, a clay station, apumpkin carving station, and a giant tarp/tent. When the students arrive they spend the morning "on the farm."

The Reward: "I might get written up for insubordination," Carol says, "but to see the smiles on my students' faces - that made the whole thing worth it." She recognizes that the learning experience her students had that morning trumps whatever she could have taught them about math or writing.

The Risk: Richard walked into high school one day with his usually blonde hair dyed bright green. His hair caused quite a sensation and, in the eyes of his principal, quite a distraction, so by the time 4th period rolled around he was in the office being suspended. I was Richard's American Literature teacher and it just so happened that we were deep in a week-long debate about the virtues and drawbacks of our American freedoms as described in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. When Richard was missing from class, the students shared his story. They were indignant that he should be suspended for what they considered his right to free expression. I encouraged them to use the power of the pen to share their concerns with the principal. They did, but their letter was met with the explanation that the rights of an American citizen and the rights of high school students are not the same. So, they took an even bigger risk. After school they met at one student's house and the entire class dyed their hair a wonderful rainbow of florescent colors.

The Reward: When this group (representing the highest achieving students in the school) marched in the next day, there were too many students to suspend (and too many influential parents involved). Richard was allowed back in school and the students celebrated what they considered a triumph of their rights as free citizens and the potential power of social activism.

Neither of these risks was particularly "academic" and yet it would be difficult to argue that learning didn't take place in each example. While it's never a good idea to take risks that put students in danger, those that challenge their minds and encourage them to seek their own pathways for learning are undeniably valuable.

Ultimately, shouldn't learning that stretches one's mind, takes one to new places, and opens new doors - be exactly the kind of learning we're supposed to do in school?

Being Fully Present for Your Students

With so much to focus on in the classroom it can be easy to switch into auto-pilot when it comes to giving your students feedback. Unfortunately this often cheats you and them out of a meaningful learning experience. So what can we do to be fully present in the classroom?

Engage the Body and the Brain
Your mind and body must work together so if you're going to be mentally engaged with your class you need to be physically engaged as well. Try to exercise before or after work, this will improve your sleep and overall health which will make it easier to focus during the day. You can also include your students in your exercise by starting each class with a brief physical warm-up. This will bring the same benefits to your students!
Learn to Compartmentalize
The better you get at separating your work-life from your home-life the better the classroom experience will be for you, your students, and your family. This doesn't mean you shouldn't share elements of each world with the other. It simply means you deserve to have quality time away from each. The art of teaching requires balance in all aspects of your life. Explore hobbies, go on trips, spend time with people outside of work - these activities will keep you fresh when you're in school.
Listen and Repeat
If you're having trouble focusing on what your students have to say, practice listening and repeating what you hear. You can say things like, "So what you're saying is..." "Am I understanding this correctly?..." This makes the speaker feel heard and ensures that you understand what they've said.

Focus on the Details
Pay specific attention to your students' body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. If you're focusing on these things you're less likely to get distracted. Try to remember details and practice recalling things your students said at the end of the day. If you can remember these things, chances are good you've been fully present during the day.

Eliminate Distractions
With so many ways for people to get in touch with us during the day it's easy to be distracted, even when we're teaching, by the world outside. Confine the use of your email, cell phone, pager, ipod, blackberry, etc. to times when students are not present. Even though its tempting to stay connected all day long, you'll find that you can enjoy the moments in your classroom more when they have your undivided attention.

Be Prepared, Be Organized
It goes without saying that a well planned day goes much better than one planned on the fly. It's not always easy to have everything planned in advance but doing so greatly reduces the stress on you and your students. Try to always be prepared at least one day ahead and have all the materials you'll need for a lesson ready before class begins. At the end of the day take 20 minutes to put everything in order for tomorrow. This ensures a calm start to the morning and a calm morning bodes well for the many hours that follow.
Be Gentle with Yourself
Making an effort to be fully present in your classroom is like any exercise, it takes time to build up the muscles that eventually make it easy. So, don't beat yourself up for daydreaming now and then or having an "off" day. Nobody is perfect, not even teachers. (Though we do come closer than most.)

Why does Differentiation Matter?

Most of us remember learning in classrooms where everyone was doing the same thing at the same time. We turned out okay, so why should our teaching today be any different?

When I was growing up my grandmother entertained me with stories of her school experiences in a one-room schoolhouse in North Dakota. She described Norman Rockwell-esque scenes of trudging through snow to class and huddling around the potbelly stove while the teacher read stories and the class performed plays. What I could never wrap my mind around was the idea of all these kids, babies through teenagers, learning from just one teacher. I always asked my grandmother how it was possible for all the students to do the same thing in her school when they were at such different ages. She always said, "they didn't."

My grandmother went to a school highly specialized in the art of differentiated instruction, and that was nearly a century ago. Today, what seemed like the unfortunate instructional necessity of poor rural schoolhouses is actually being heralded as the best way to help all children learn.

What I didn't realize as a kid listening to my grandmother's magical school stories is that students actually shouldn't all have been doing the same thing in my classes either.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that every human being is different and so it logically follows that we can't possibly all learn the same way. But our schools today are designed under the false premise that we do all learn in roughly the same way. If they acknowledge difference at all it's usually through ability grouping or tracking so "gifted" and "struggling" students are in separate classes. Within these classes there will still be a wide range of difference in student interest, ability, and learning style - but generally speaking teachers are expected to teach everyone the same way.

Teaching as the teacher did in that one-room schoolhouse in North Dakota is a lot of work. It requires knowing each student intimately for her strengths and her weaknesses and devising an instructional plan tailored specifically to that child's needs. In my grandmother's school you had 14-year-olds learning to read next to 9-year-olds writing essays because depending on your parents' occupation you might be well behind your peers thanks to many months of the year spent working the fields.

The teacher was expected to take each student as he or she came - and work to bring everyone up from where they were. In essence, to help each student achieve his or her potential. What if that were the goal of classrooms today instead of everyone achieving some generic measure of achievement as determined by an end-of-grade standardized test?

The good news is, we can make that our goal even in the midst of so much emphasis on standardized tests. If we are really working to help each student in our class meet his or her full potential then chances are pretty good they'll meet the state's standards of achievement in the process. (When you consider the fact that students need to get around 50% of the questions right on standardized tests in DC to be considered "proficient" it's rather clear that our expectations of children in this city could use a boost.)

Differentiated Instruction matters because the life of each child in our care matters and sacrificing even one child in the name of efficiency seems unacceptable when we consider the long term ramifications of that decision.

If the slow reader in 1st grade gets passed along to second grade without the support he needs we all know how that cycle goes - we end up with entire high school classrooms filled with 18-year-olds reading at an elementary level. Those 18-year-olds graduate (if they're tenacious) without the skills to get further education and, unless they're particularly industrious, will be limited to low-paying jobs and a lifetime of struggle to make ends meet in an increasingly expensive society.

We all know these students. Whatever grade you teach you probably have more than one in your class. And when you consider the needs of everyone else in there, it seems impossible to find the time to help each and every student move from where they are to where they need to be. But this is the incredible responsibility and opportunity of the teacher. If you wanted to mass produce something every day, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you probably chose the wrong profession.

Most of us are not teaching in one-room school houses today, but we are still teaching in single classrooms that house tremendous diversity. When confronted with the feeling that teaching to all those needs is impossible it's helpful for me to remember what was possible a decade ago in my grandmother's school.

Differentiated Instruction isn't some newfangled teaching fad - it's just plain good old-fashioned teaching and it's what every student deserves.

Assessing How I Learn

What tools can you teach your students to use to assess the ways in which they learn, and how can these tools help them succeed in school?

Let's start with the premise that every child is born with an innate desire to learn. Now, consider the possibility that given the right environment and the right stimuli every child possesses at least one kind of intelligence in which they can excel.

Unfortunately, our schools are not traditionally designed to celebrate these ideas. We spend a lot more time focusing on what our students don't know how to do than on learning about where their true strengths lie.

If you really think about it, most of the assessment we do in the classroom is designed to help us figure out what our students don't know about a particular subject, topic, concept, etc. We learn a lot about their deficiencies, but their assets often remain hidden unless you happen to be teaching a subject in which they naturally excel. What if things were different?

What would happen if you knew what each of your students needed to excel?
If you knew each of your students' Learning Styles (their strongest and their weakest) you could group them and differentiate assignments accordingly. If you knew where each of your students fell on the spectrum of Multiple Intelligences you could provide them with projects that play to the ways in which they are smart and allow them to demonstrate their knowledge of certain topics in a mode that comes most naturally.

Consider some of these assessment tools and resources:
Learning Styles Online Questionnaire (gives you a quick print-out with your results and includes good descriptions of each of 8 learning styles and the things learners can do to excel in their particular areas of strength)
Learning Style Inventory (online but also can be printed as a hand-out)
Learning Styles Inventory (print from the online version, can easily be filled out by elementary and middle school students)
Learning Styles and Teaching (thorough descriptions of what a teacher can do to cater instruction to specific learning modalities)
Find My Strengths (an online Mulitiple Intelligences assessment)

What would happen if your students knew the learning style modifications they'd have to make to best understand each concept you teach?
Teaching students about learning styles is definitely not in the standard curriculum, but the more students learn about the way their brains work, how they process and receive information, etc., the better equipped they will be to take control of their own learning now and in the future. You can help them build this essential skill by making the process of assessing for Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences transparent. Involve students in reviewing the data gathered from these tests and help them develop study and note-taking strategies that utilize their strengths and help to improve their weaknesses.

Consider some of these activities and resources:
Multiple Intelligences Activity Chart (lists activities ideal for each of the 8 intelligences)
Multiple Intelligences - How to Teach Anything 8 Ways (resources and information)
Student Learning Strengths Inventory (an excellent lesson plan built around teaching students about their learning style)

Loving the Subject

When you have to teach the topics you once feared... you learn to have a new appreciation for your students' perspectives.

I loved being a 5th grade student. We turned the classroom into a rainforest. We wrote our own newspaper. Nearly every homework assignment involved application of creative imagination. In retrospect I realize we studied the things Ms. Rainey loved, and I was lucky they were also the things I loved.

But I don't remember Ms. Rainey ever teaching us any math and the year I spent on vacation from the subject set me back and furthered a math phobia I've had ever since.

Since working at Inspired Teaching I've gotten over the math phobia a little, mostly because I don't have a choice. We incorporate math into just about every workshop we do and the result of this constant bombardment is that I've grown more confident in my skills.

As an English teacher, grammar was the topic I most feared teaching. The first year I taught, much like Ms. Rainey, I avoided it entirely. I now know that was to the detriment of my students who struggled with writing and reading and would have benefited from the exposure to the rules and regulations of language.

It wasn't until I went to grad school and took a class in grammar that I realized just how weak my own skills were. I studied hard and took time to play with each of the rules I learned and try them out in different contexts so I understood where they came from and why they existed. I was not taught grammar in this manner. I had to teach myself in the way I knew I needed to learn. After that class I taught the topic much differently, and without fear.

Thanks to my own struggles to learn the content I now understood why, when dished out as a set of seemingly arbitrary rules, English grammar seemed boring, rigid, and confining. I felt what it was like to be a student on the other side of that intimidating book with all its red lines and tiny font. And I knew that wasn't the experience I wanted to recreate for my students.

So, instead, I assigned teams of students to different grammar rules and worked with them to create lessons they could teach the rest of the class. We practiced with examples. We used our own language to describe the rules. We learned a lot together.

You go into teaching and face a classroom full of students who expect you to be the expert in your field, and most of the time you probably bear some love for the subject(s) you teach. But it's okay to recognize that you don't know everything - and to accept that you might even be a little afraid of some of those things you don't know much about at all.

The act of becoming a teacher doesn't stop the process of being a student and opening ourselves up to learning and teaching simultaneously might just put us in better touch with the students we see each day.

Tell Me Something

Learning how to create safe spaces for students to share their thoughts and feelings can be a challenge when you have so much else to accomplish in a class period. But there are some simple things you can do to make great strides in that direction.

Check-in Notes - Just before students leave class have them jot down on a piece of paper how they're feeling about the class, about their day, about the subject, about your teaching...whatever you choose to ask them. They can do this anonymously or with a name - and when you read through their comments you can get a sense of how they're doing.

Chills and Thrills - (one of my all time favorites!) At the start of class–especially when you can tell the students are coming in a little riled up–ask them to share a chill and a thrill. A thrill is something good going on in their world. A chill is something not-so-good. This simple exercise can do a lot to clear the air. I always made the sharing voluntary but usually got a good variety of students responding.

Assignments About Me - as often as possible try to relate assignments and projects to the lives of your students. This not only gives you a better idea of who they are and where their interests lie, it also makes any activity instantly more engaging for them. With a little thought you can make almost any project personal. If you want students to do a report on a famous person - make it a person they'd like become when they grow up. If you want students to demonstrate understanding of a particular math concept - have them write and solve a word problem about a situation in their own lives where they might need to use this kind of math.

Opportunities Outside Class - It's strange but true that the best time to get to know your students may very well be when they're not in your class. At a football game, after school, at lunch, during recess (if you have it), before school, between classes...these are some of the tiny opportunities you can seek to ask your students how they're doing, talk to them about their plans for the future, and get some insight into what they need to be successful in the present. Outside the context of your class students are often more likely to open up and the things they have to share can help both of you when class is in session!

Measuring Success

Sometimes what we think we're teaching our students is not what they remember learning in our classroom ... and that's not always a bad thing.

When Sheba called my office this spring I was quite certain I was dreaming. After all, it's been 8 years since I was her English teacher and we haven't talked in about 4. But she tracked me down via the internet and wanted to fill me in on her life story - she's in graduate school for veterinary medicine at one of the best schools in the country.

In my class she was supposed to learn how to write a research paper, read the "best" American authors, and get her grammar straight. But what Sheba recalled learning in my class was how to have confidence in expressing herself.

That's not the stuff that researchers look for when analyzing best practices in raising student achievement, but obviously Sheba learned how to meet those measures as well along her academic path.

What I wish for you as you progress through this school year, is that you recognize and celebrate the moments where you are teaching things beyond the curriculum and standards. For example: I remember a class discussion that veered totally off course and became a class period of students opening up to one another about the social pressures of young men and women. That wasn't in the textbook, but it sure did change the way those students thought about one another.

It's easy to think a day that doesn't follow our lesson plan is a day gone sour. But there is a lot to be learned in between the guided practice, independent practice, assessment, etc. that we try to get through each class period. A successful class period should not be measured solely by how well students do on the test at the end of the chapter. Ultimately it will be measured by something we may never be lucky enough to see or hear about - how well our students do in life.

Or, phrased far more eloquently:

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a Walk

Is it possible for your students to learn as much moving around as they do sitting in their seats? Movement doesn't always have to happen in the classroom. In fact, taking a walk with your students can be just as educational as reading a book. Consider the following walks, differentiated by two subject areas.

Can you come up with some of your own? Email them to me at jenna@inspiredteaching.org and I'll share them next week.

Science:

• Protecting the school environment - have students create ongoing experiments they'll use to track pollution in their school community. Once a month take a walk around the school to check the progress of the experiments (for instance, they may be monitoring the amount of trash on the playground, or collecting air samples using strips of paper and Vaseline). You may have students then devise action steps they can take to change their data (arranging a school clean-up day, planting trees, etc.)
• Botany on the block - Take a walk around the block with students and have them collect plant samples that they later identify using reference guides and the internet.
  
• Chemistry in the Cafeteria - Have students spend some time observing the various activities in the Cafeteria kitchen - then have them generate a list of all the chemical events taking place in that space. Take this a step further and have them choose an event to study and explain (how dish detergent works, what happens to the chemical make-up of corn when you cook it, what changes occur in meat when it goes from being frozen to fried, etc.)

Social Studies:

• Who are the historians in your neighborhood? - Take a walk around the school and interview residents in the neighborhood, create a history of the neighborhood based on the stories collected from these walks.
  
• What can architecture teach you? - Find a knowledgeable architect/building historian who can take your students on a tour of the neighborhood and explain the significance on the buildings around the school.
  

Differentiating Between Your Interests and Theirs

There are plenty of things you have to teach, and few of them your students seem interested in learning... how do you bridge this gap?

We were right in the middle of a unit on 19th century American Romance Poets and though I was smitten with the topic it was clear to everyone present that things couldn't get much more dull. I might have celebrated the calm classroom control I was experiencing if it weren't for the fact I had to physically wake half the class up each day when the bell rang. This was not going well.

The fact that Rodney wasn't finding beauty in these words we poured through each day did not surprise me. Nothing had captured his interest all semester so this seemed par for the course. But Rodney ended up saving the day for the whole class, and me, when one afternoon he came up after the bell and handed me a cassette tape. "What's wrong with this stuff you're teaching Ms. Fournel is that it's not speaking to any of us. If you want to hear real poetry, listen to this."

And that's how I met Tupac.

It took me awhile to learn how to listen to Tupac. I was not used to this kind of music and I hadn't developed an ear for hearing more than a repetitious beat. But when I took the time to really hear what Tupac was saying - I could appreciate what Rodney meant. This too, was poetry. And my struggle to reach that conclusion opened my eyes to the struggle my students were experiencing.

From that day on Tupac became part of my curriculum as did countless other musicians, spoken word poets, family storytellers, and visual texts that we will probably never see in the textbooks we're asked to teach.

My students learned more about meter and rhyme, simile and metaphor, irony and symbolism using texts that interested them - than they ever would have using solely the texts that interested me (or my school system).

Sure, I had to photocopy more - and that was a pain because there was never any paper (so I bought it myself). And I sometimes had to justify the music blaring from my room when the principal walked by. But if your ultimate goal is to make sure your students learn, eventually you realize there's no easy way to accomplish that.

You can tap into your students interests by formally surveying them early in the year, or you can simply listen to their conversations and ask them questions to learn more about what they read, what music they like, what natural phenomena they're fascinated by, what their jobs are, where they want to visit, what cultures they're curious about...

Students are so used to us dictating the content they're exposed to in school that they begin to take it like medicine - without much question as to whether or not it's good (or useful) for them. But it doesn't have to be this way and the true fun of teaching comes when it ceases to be a one-way operation. You may very well have a Rodney in your class who has as much to teach you about poetry as you have to teach him.

Confronting Conflict: True Confessions from a First Year Blunder

I was scared and unprepared for the outburst in room 14. But sometimes a little shake-up is just the trick for changing the course of a disaster in the making...

It was early in the first month of my career as a High School English Teacher. I had one of those requisite first-year-teacher-classes overflowing with 35 "freshmen" - many of whom had made their own careers out of staying in that grade. I was 22 and had just graduated from 4 years of idyllic innocence in a Woman's College, oh,... and most of my students were boys.

It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to picture my first few weeks of teaching. To most of my students I was such a departure from what they were used to in the front of the classroom that I got away with a bit of a honeymoon period the first week - due almost entirely (I now think) to the fact that they wanted to see if this smiling, shiny-eyed, long-haired, quiet talking, overly enthusiastic lady was for real.

I don't recall teaching much in those first weeks. I think I mostly uttered the same phrases over and over and over again for 90 minutes (we were on a block schedule): Can I please have your attention? Shhhh! Excuse me. Can we quiet down? I need you to listen. Please stop talking. - and other variations on the theme.

None of this worked very well, and I remember feeling like I was spending every second of every day perched on just this side of complete chaos. And then, one day, we stepped to the other side.

Neka and Michael were the catalysts. Michael said something to her under his breath that certainly was not discernible to me above the general din in the room. Neka flipped out, threw over her desk, and started hitting him. He started hitting back. It was a classic scene from every first-year-teacher documentary. The rest of the class formed lines on either side of the brawl and started chanting "fight! fight! fight!"

And what was I doing in all this? Meekly saying "Stop! Please Stop!" Which worked about as well as all my other pleas in the previous days of class. Oh, and I was also crying. Which was a great addition to my overall effectiveness in the moment.

By now the noise had reached through the walls of my classroom and Ms. Nickens became my hero as she swept into the room and with a mighty boom of her giant voice silenced the masses and ceased the fight. She asked me to step outside as she gave the class a royal talking to. "I have heard you taking advantage of this teacher every day since the start of school and I am tired of it. She is here to help you learn and you are preventing her from doing her job. This is uncalled for and you should be ashamed. You would not do this in my class or Ms. Wilkins class or any of the other classrooms in this school. It is unacceptable for you to do it here. Ms. Fournel is too nice to you. You don't deserve it." And then the bell rang.

I still remember her words. But more importantly I remember the hug she gave me after all the students left. A big hug, one that held up the swiftly melting puddle I became.

"You've got to do something different in here tomorrow." She told me, stating the obvious. "What you have going on is not safe." I had never thought about it in those terms. I certainly felt disrespected by my students, ignored, scared, unimportant, but I never thought about the fact that my ineffectiveness was creating a dangerous situation for them.

The next day we started class with a journal assignment entitled: "What happened yesterday and what we need to do differently to make sure it doesn't happen again." After they wrote down their thoughts we talked about what they needed from me to make our class a place for learning and not for constant noise control. They were surprisingly forthcoming with ideas and turned out to be just as anxious for an end to the craziness as I was.

Things didn't turn around over night. We still had our rough patches. But years later when that class graduated more than one student came up to me and said, "We gave you a horrible first year, but you didn't give up on us."

And that, my friends, is the moral of this story.

Getting to Know You

Are you coming up short when it comes to community building activities? Have you tried every name game in the book? Well, here are a few new suggestions from the Inspired Teaching Staff. These are all things we've tried (in the first weeks of school) to get to know our students.

Dreamcatchers - have your students make dreamcatchers out of twigs and twine and attach strips of paper with their hopes and dreams written down. Hang these in the room to demonstrate the importance of their aspirations to what you are teaching.

First Homework - for the first homework assignment of the year have students write you a letter telling about themselves. This will not only teach you about who they are as individuals - it will also serve as a writing assessment.

Hanging Out - spend as much time outside the classroom with students as possible - sit with them at lunch, if you work with younger kids spend time with them on the playground. Talk to them, ask questions, and get to know who they are both as students and as members of the community.

3 Name Game - in a circle, try this name game - it is a great way to learn names quickly and thoroughly! Teacher says her name: Ms. Fournel (then another student's name) Jacob. Jacob says the teacher's name: Ms. Fournel, (his own ame) Jacob, (and a third person's name) Julie. Julie says Jacob's name: Jacob, (her own name) Julie, (and a third person's name) Janet. Janet says Julie's name: Julie, (her own name) Janet, (and a third person's name) Jordan. Etc. Keep going around the room until everyone is playing quite rapidly - that's when you know the names are really sticking!

Chain of Expectations - In a class of 30, give each student 30 strips of construction paper (each about 2 inches thick). Students share one expectation they have for class and write it down on each strip of paper. These are distributed to the other members of class so each student ends up with 30 strips of paper containing expectations from each one of their classmates. The strips are then assembled into a paper chain so every student has a chain symbolizing the collective expectations of the class. These can be taken home as reminders of the class community or hung around the room to symbolize unity.

A Good Book:
Kincher, Jonni, and Espeland, Pamela (1998). Psychology for Kids II: 40 Fun Experiments That Help You Learn About Others. Free Spirit Publishing.
ISBN: 0915793830
One of our staff members used to use these activities in the beginning of the year to help students learn about themselves and one another.

Some Inspiring Thoughts for the First Day of School.

The students are coming in a week and you're probably feeling the butterflies about now. The key to keeping yourself excited about the year ahead is remembering what inspired you to be a teacher in the first place. Read some quotes from a variety of Inspired DC educators about what inspires them! (Then share some of your own!)

What Inspires You? (Asked to a group of Inspired Teachers at the Inspired Teaching Alumni Conference August 20, 2007)

• Stories, unity, peace, children, animals, people
• Giggles and laughs
• I am inspired by parents
• I get inspired when I do "stuff," make things, use my hands, move around, get that immediate feedback - providing me with self esteem on a higher level - and listening to or playing music in the process kind of gives me a high.
  
• Learning new ideas
  
• Achievement of my students, family, friends, future
• As a teacher of 32 years I am inspired by children's eagerness to obtain knowledge.
• Curiosity, joy, laughter, nature, integrity, creativity
• I am inspired by children's questions.
• Seeing kids achieve because I tried my best to teach them something.
• Writing in a journal and getting a response.
• Singing and listening to music.
• The change of seasons, possibilities, dreaming, love, my elders, plans
• My students, parents, love of subject matter, life
• Lots of learning, precocious children, running and hiking in the city and country, great books, inspiring individuals.
• The children, change, work, challenge, making a difference, my coworkers, nature, hope, YOU.
  

How Much Can I Plan Ahead?

Since your summer vacation is winding to a close, let's think about planning for the school year ahead like planning for a vacation. (Hopefully your year will flow sooo smoothly it will feel like one at times...)

When you plan for a vacation you typically need to know the following:

1. Where you're going.
2. How you're going to get there.
   
3. Where you're going to stay.
   
4. What you're going to eat.
   
5. How much the adventure will cost.
   
6. How long the trip will take.
   

The greatest vacation memories rarely reside in the planning phase. And the snapshots you cherish from your trips are usually of the spontaneous unplanned moments that happen along the way. But a plan still helps.

Without a plan you're more likely to run into problems. You might run out of money, fail to find a hotel with vacancy, get lost, or miss the exciting sights you could have seen on your journey.

However, even with a plan, you have to be flexible in anticipation of the unexpected things that might pop up: a flat tire, a detour, finding a spot you like enough to stay an extra day, etc.

If you think about planning for the school year ahead in terms of planning for a vacation you should be in pretty good shape. You need to know the basic outline of your trip - but you keep yourself open to the possible challenges and opportunities that are likely to occur.

When you're planning for your classes, think of each unit as a journey and plan for it in terms of these questions:

1. Where are you going? - What do you want students to know or be able to do by the end of this unit of study?
   
2. How are you going to get there? - What processes will your students be using to learn the material in this unit?
   
3. Where are you going to stay? - Just as each night of a trip needs a roof and a bed, where are the logical breaks in teaching this unit, what piece should you attempt to get through each day?
   
4. What are you going to eat? - Hungry travelers can be ornery travelers. Your students probably don't eat in class but they still need nourishment of another sort. They need to be engaged! What are you going to do to keep them engaged as they move through this unit?
   
5. How much will this adventure cost? - Think ahead about what materials you'll need to teach this unit, perhaps all you need is a novel, but what if you're doing science experiments? Do you have all your supplies? How can you order them?
   
6. How long will the trip take? - Is this a week-long unit? A month-long unit? Longer? Answering questions 1-5 will give you a good idea of what you have to get through and your final departure and arrival dates.

Once you create your plan be gentle with yourself and remember that the learning takes place as much in the journey as it does in the destination. If it ends up taking 4 weeks instead of 3 that probably means you found some interesting detours and kept the students well fed on engagement. If it finishes up a week early that means you hit a highway somewhere along the route and went 80 when you'd anticipated going 60... that's okay! Hopefully you started planning your next journey and can start that one early!

A plan keeps you from spinning your wheels and gives you the confidence to move forward and know where you've been, but it should be allowed to prevent the magical spontaneity that is a mainstay of true Inspired Teaching.

What's an "essential" question?

"Questions that probe for deeper meaning and set the stage for further questioning foster the development of critical thinking skills and higher order capabilities such as problem-solving and understanding complex systems. A good essential question is the principle component of designing inquiry-based learning."
~ Math Star

"Essential Questions develop foundational understandings. They provide the fundamental organizing principles that bound an inquiry and guide the development of meaningful, authentic tasks." ~ Galileo Educational Network

As you craft your long-term-plan for the year ahead it is easy to follow the guides in your book and teach according to a predetermined sequence of topics like: short stories in September, plays in October, non-fiction in November, memoirs in December, etc... and your assessment of whether each section was understood and taught correctly will probably align with end-of-chapter tests that measure vocabulary retention and reading comprehension. But what life skills will your students learn from this process?

Imagine that yours is the last class your students will ever take. Will they learn things from these units of study that prepare them for the world post-school? They could, and they should, but planning for that kind of learning is more complicated than simply following the guide in a text book. This is where essential questions come in.

Think about what you want your students to really take away from what you are teaching and turn that into a question. For example - if you want them to learn that words are a tool for creating social change your question might be: "How can words impact history?" And then, your unit on non-fiction literature should involve stories and articles whose findings have caused major shifts in policy - the content you teach opens students up to myriad answers to the essential question.

Essential questions are not secreted away in your plan book, they're on your bulletin board, on the chalkboard, in your students' notes. They are a public declaration of the fact that it's okay not to know all the answers - but it's essential to learn how to find them. They guide your instruction and they show students that there is a connectivity between things they are learning.

Some schools and teachers develop a single essential question that guides instruction throughout the entire year. Our question above could fit that bill. In a literature class all the texts - stories, poems, plays, etc. - could be analyzed from the perspective of their potential or actual impact on history.

The older your students get, the more aware they become of the connections or lack thereof between what they learn in school and the "real world." At times you may find they even challenge you on the purpose of learning specific subject matter at all. This happens especially often if the content is difficult to learn. Essential questions guide you in making sure there's always a purpose to what you teach and they empower students to become actively engaged in the process of seeking answers rather than passively waiting for them to be spoon-fed.

Being YOU in the Classroom

When faced with a class full of strangers and the fear of losing control - it's easy to put on a mask and pretend to be someone else... but being yourself may be the better option. This is an excerpt from an essay I wrote several years ago after my second year of teaching in rural North Carolina:

When you go into teaching everyone says, “the kids don’t have to like you, they just have to learn from you.” And in the aftermath of horrible conferences we comfort ourselves with the notion that the same must also be said of parents. Still, there are many nights when we secretly lie awake wishing someone out there would say one kind word, or at very least stop being negative. And if we’re honest, we even wish the kids would like us because then this incredibly difficult job wouldn’t seem quite so hard.

In the quest for such things I’ve tried many tactics in my two years. I’ve tried the “so you hate me, fine, I don’t care,” approach, which really only makes kids hate you for real. I’ve tried the “how about a sucker for every time you don’t curse in class,” and that only makes for hyper-active-foul-mouths. I’ve tried the silent, super-sweet, totally patient, really condescending, completely fed-up, and I-can’t-hear-you treatments . . . I do not recommend a one. I’ve even tried the “yes, you’ve finally done it, you made the new-teacher cry,” approach, (well, you don’t really try that one, you sort of get forced into it.) But at the end of the day the most successful strategy I’ve used, is simply being who I am.

So, with brief interruptions from my education-class-alter-ego, I have basically just been me in the classroom. And now I understand why they advise against this method in education classes. When you give your students the real thing every day, you basically dish yourself out 100% on daily basis. It’s exhausting, and leaves you little to work with on a personal level.

But your students like you, they trust you, and because of this they are willing to take the intellectual risks you ask them to take every day. It took me awhile to learn this, to trust myself to be me in the classroom. Ultimately I learned to hold myself to the same standards I had for my students. We cannot become who we are meant to be by pretending to be someone else.

Problem Solving for Life Outside of School

Did you ever find yourself wondering why you had to learn the Pythagorean theorem? Did you ponder what the broader purpose might be of knowing the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Your students are probably going to wonder about the same kinds of things. What can you tell them? Better yet, what can you do to clarify the connection between what students learn in school and what they'll need to know in life outside of school?

The most immediate strategy, the one that avoids long explanations and rolling eyes, is to make your instruction immediately applicable to students' lives. You can do this through teaching content that touches on their interests, or by making the learning process experiential so students are "learning by doing."

Here are some examples, comment on this blog and send us yours!

Eastern Market Rebuilding Unit
Math - students study the geometry of the building and learn how to use geometry to draw up designs for its rebuilding, or, students study the financial aspects of the rebuilding campaign and create a plan based on researched costs of building materials, labor, permits, etc. to evaluate the overall cost of the project.
Social Studies - students study the history of the building and interview current vendors working there about it's future to create a report about the significance of Eastern Market to DC.
Language Arts - students interview vendors at Eastern Market and write short biographies of each that can be complied into a book, or, students write persuasive letters to local business leaders asking for additional funding to support the reconstruction effort.

DC United Soccer Stadium Unit
Math - students study the cost of the proposed stadium in SE, and use research to create a financial plan for fundraising for the project, or, students look at stadium designs and create and solve math problems about designs that accommodate the greatest number of fans in the smallest amount of space.
Language Arts/Social Studies - students look at the pros and cons of building the stadium, and research articles documenting local political views on the subject to create a well-justified essay taking a side on the issue.
Science - students investigate the various surfaces used in soccer stadiums, they may even practice growing different types of sod, and devise an experiment to test out and determine the best surface for a new stadium.

Getting in the Habit of Seeing Everything

Remember when your teacher used to have "eyes" in the back of her head? Are you growing yours this summer? At Inspired Teaching we consider "observation" to be one of the most important skills a teacher can learn, practice, and develop throughout his or her career.

The ability to really see your students involves much more than simply being able to identify the clothes they're wearing or who they're talking to in the lunch line - but those are still good places to start.

Observing your students ultimately means being keenly aware of what they are doing and why, developing a multi-dimensional picture of their lives both in and outside of school, knowing what they enjoy learning and what presents them with challenge, mapping out the complicated relationships between students and taking the time to understand their complexities. The more complete your observations the better you are able to craft instruction, support, and a classroom community in which every student can succeed.

The legendary "eyes" in the back of teachers' heads come from using all senses to read a room and understand the people in it. Inspired Teachers are constantly watching and listening for new information that will give them a fuller picture of what is happening in their class(es). One teacher we know even had to use his sense of smell to identify a fire that broke out in the back of his room!

It's not too early to begin honing your observation skills. Here are two things you can do this summer to begin exercising your observation muscles, like any muscle they grow stronger the more you practice using them! Please share other exercises you've used or let us know how these work when you try them out by commenting to this blog!

1. Eavesdropping in public - (This exercise is only rude if you let on that you're doing it!) The next time you're at the airport, in a mall, standing in line for movie tickets, riding metro, etc., try listening to the conversations around you. Take in what you hear and then try to figure out what you might learn about the people speaking from their conversations.
Implications for your classroom: You can pick up on a lot by tuning in to your students conversations, for example: you can identify their interests and include those interests in your lessons, and you can learn about outside problems that may be impacting their school experience.

2. Quick Glance Count - When you're in a space with a group of people (your summer classes, the metro, the train platform, the bus, a restaurant, etc.) study them (not rudely) for about 15 seconds and then close your eyes. Think of a characteristic you want to identify, for example: people wearing glasses, people wearing long sleeves, people using computers, people talking on cell phones. Without opening your eyes, see if you can remember how many people share that characteristic. Open your eyes and see how close your memory comes.
Implications for your classroom: Teaching is all about split-second decisions made in response to what's going on around you. If you're reading a passage from a book and look up quickly to notice half the class is asleep - you'll need to change what you're doing to get them involved. As students file in the room rapidly at the first bell you'll watch their body language to gauge the overall mood they'll bring to the beginning of class. Learning to read faces, and bodies, quickly will enable you to adapt your teaching quickly - a secret to classroom management and building community!

Getting to Know You

It may seem like a futile effort to begin planning how you'll get to know your students now. After all, you've got weeks and weeks ahead of you before you meet them for the first time, right?

Well, that's one way of looking at things. Another way might be to start planning now so you're ready for success when the first day begins! Here are 10 things you can do this summer to get you ready for meeting your students:

1. Create a "tell-me-about-yourself" diagnostic, this might include questions about students' interests like, "What is your favorite color? Who is your favorite musician? What do you need your teachers to do to help you be successful? Do you like reading or writing more, and why?"
   
2. Plan a "That's Me" game for the first few days of school so that becomes part of your routine on the first week.
   
3. Create a list of things that were important to you at your students' age to reconnect you with what it was like to be a young person in school.
4. If you have a roster, call/visit each student on that list. This is an excellent way to begin building relationships with your students, and their families!
   
5. Speak with other young people who are the same age as the students you'll begin teaching, you might find them on a playground, in summer camps, at the mall, etc. Find out what they're interested in and being planning units around their interests.
   
6. Plan a "class graph" activity for the first week involving student interests and/or summer activities. This is both a math lesson and a visual representation of where the commonalities and differences exist in your classes.
   
7. Write a letter that you'll send home on the first day of class introducing yourself and sharing your hopes and expectations for the year ahead.
   
8. Plan a "hopes and dreams" activity. You'll give your letter with hopes and dreams for the year - but why not have your students create their own lists to post around the room. Consider including a visual element that connects these words with each student, i.e. a hand print, a footprint, a photograph, etc.
   
9. Plan a "superhero activity" where students create a superhero they'd like to be complete with a list of their superpowers and abilities.
   
10. Take a walk around the neighborhood surrounding your school. Stop into the local shops, say hello to the neighbors, introduce yourself and ask questions so you'll get a feel for where your students come from.
    

No doubt you have ideas you've been pondering lately, send them our way! We'll share them with the rest of the group.

Teacher's Summer Reading List

There are thousands of education books out there that you could read this summer - and many that you have to read for your courses. But these are a few our staff has greatly enjoyed and highly recommends before you start the new year.

On Being a Teacher
Jonathan Kozol Oneworld Publications; Revised edition (November 1, 1994) (isbn#1851680659)
This book offers a passionate exploration of the potential that lies in being a teacher and the role teachers play in helping to shape a just society.

Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom: How to reach and teach all learners, Grades 3-12
Diane Heacox, Ed.D. Free Spirit Publishing; 2002 (isbn#978-1-57542-105-6)
This is a wonderful resource for teachers who want an easy-to-understand guidebook for differentiating instruction. The text avoids jargon and gets down to the practical, if time consuming, steps one must take to tailor instruction so every child in the classroom reaches his or her full potential.

Impro
Keith Johnstone Theatre Arts Books; 1987 (isbn#9780878301171)
This book formed much of the initial inspiration behind Center for Inspired Teaching. It explores the links between improvisational theater, teaching, and life, and offers some deep philosophy about the roles of the student and teacher in the learning process.

Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom
Lisa Delpit New Press; 2006 (isbn#9781595580740)
Delpit's book offers and important look into the role our culture plays in understanding (and misunderstanding) students, and the things teachers can do to build better cultural understanding within the classroom.

Experience and Education
John Dewey Free Press; 1997 (isbn#9780684838281)
This in-depth analysis of both "traditional" and "progressive" education emphasizes the vital role experience should play in all school instruction.

Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach
Sam M. Intrator & Megan Scribner, editors Jossey-Bass; 2003 (isbn#0-7879-6970-2)
This little book juxtaposes poems by well-known poets with the reflections of teachers who found inspiration in the words.

Do you have books to add to the list? Send us your comments and we'll post your suggestions!

Butterflies in Your Stomach

Summer is here, complete with sunny skies, people-filled parks, afternoon thunderstorms, fireflies, watermelon… and, oh yeah, education classes.

For those of you who will go into the classroom for the first time this fall, your moments of summertime relaxation are undoubtedly punctuated by moments when the butterflies in your stomach remind you of the adventure ahead.

For those of you who will begin your second year as teachers this fall, you’re probably loading up on the sleep you lost but still feeling a little nervous about how the year ahead might be different from the year gone by.

And the classes you’re taking are probably making the butterflies flutter a little bit more. You may be thinking “I have to know all about child development and teaching Biology?” “I have to learn how to set up authentic assessments and set up my classroom?” “I have to come up with questions for my students that scale Bloom’s Taxonomy in addition to finding answers to my own questions about being a teacher?”

It can all be a little overwhelming but the Inspired AQUE blog and Center for Inspired Teaching are here to help. We can make this resource as useful as you want it to be. This week we’d love to hear:

• your questions
• your musings
• your concerns
• your curiosities

We’ll take what you offer to inform the blogs we write in the weeks ahead.

Send us your comments! We’ll post them and respond as quickly as possible. Together we can make this an open and rich dialogue.

Among the many things you feel when you become a teacher – from butterflies to bliss to the blues – we will do our best to always be a resource that keeps you from feeling alone.