In Gratitude

Silence after a successful Twitter chat settles a racing mind and an energized spirit. When the November 4th's #NYEDChat with my talented guest moderator and friend, Rita Wirtz, officially finished, I was immersed in the quietude of a silent room. I reflected on the art and craft of teaching and what was accomplished as connected educators voiced their responses to beautifully crafted questions. What did it mean to me to walk the walk with learners who daily experience and understand the productive struggle? How do I encourage all teachers to passionately continue to hone their craft when faced with learners who are troubled by the unproductive, disquieted moments of classroom work? Being a reflective educator is an essential component of teaching and learning. I am thankful for walking the walk as a teacher and being blessed to have the opportunity to work with so many dedicated and passionate educators.

With this in mind, I collaborated with Rita Wirtz on a post-NYEDChat project to put our thoughts on the art and craft of teaching to paper. We diligently worked for days to research quotes and texts on celebrating the art and craft of teaching and were surprised by the scarcity of articles found. Taking a deep dive into writing from two different sides of the United States, we collaborated via Google Docs, FaceTime, and texting. Collaboration became a true interactive exchange of ideas. You can access our published post, Celebrating Art and Craft of Teaching, Thoughts to Inspire You! at Rita Wirtz's Bam Radio! blog site.

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Because my mind often thinks in terms of poetic thoughts, you will find two modified forms of a golden shovel poem based simply on an inspirational quote and mantra on teaching, Below you will see the lines I chose to be inspired by, how I took each word and wove it as the ending line of a poem.

Inspirational Quote:

“Teaching is a work of heart, love, and passion!" (Rita Wirtz)

Educators celebrate artful teaching,
journeying along a path that is
filled with a myriad of practices, a
collection of collaborative work,
resources, and reflective tools of
quality. They fill their heart-
inspired teaching pathway with love,
joyfully deliberating, collaborating, and
following their innermost passion.
©CV, 2019

Inspirational Mantra:

"Time for Change"

Talking and walking the walk in real-time

breathes hope into a life plan for

renewal and a call to change.

©CV, 2019

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Energized teachers unleash their creativity when designing joyful havens of learning. Each day, they interact with learners as the guides on the journey toward lifelong learning. In gratitude for what teachers do, I ask those who have chosen to follow this esteemed profession to keep on celebrating the art and craft of teaching with heart, love, and passion!

Celebrating the Work of Teachers

It was a busy week, more so than usual as an ELA Consultant. I presented professional development workshops in four different settings to a variety of educators over the course of four days. There were full day presentations to a mix of literacy administrators and English teachers and two late afternoon workshops for either special education teachers or reading teachers. After the last presentation, I felt exhausted for I forgot how difficult it is to wake up early and spend long days in classrooms. On the other hand, I felt exhilarated. 

I honor and celebrate the work that teachers do daily. 

What I Believe:

Post-it Poetry on Teaching

(for National Poetry Month)

I continue to teach because it is a joyful experience working with teachers who are passionate about impacting children's reading and writing lives.

Each weekend, I join Ruth Ayres at her Celebrate This Week blog site to write alongside a group of inspiring educators.

The unveiling of my Winter Wonderland Gallery of Artistic Expressions has been delayed by the workload of this week and the computer problems I have had. Stay tuned for the launch. In the meantime, please see the short video poem I created.

Stamina

Within the dim lit room a peace settled; a celebration brewed. Participants came together as a community. The yoga teacher took her position guiding, modeling moves, and providing support, and so it began - a two hour yoga celebration of joy. 

Flor Villazan at Come Together Yoga Studio

Prior to entering the room, I wondered if I had the stamina to make it through two hours. My muscles ached from the return to yoga after vacationing but I was willing to try. With determination, I engaged in each move in the best way I could. I monitored my speed, listened to the cues my body was giving, and did not hesitate to keep trying. 

For a brief moment, as I moved in and out of poses, my mind interrupted the flow. The word stamina surfaced. It was the prompt word for DigiLit Sunday and I was planning on writing about it. Realizing that it was stamina that I needed, I took in a fresh breath and continued. The energy in the room and the passion of the teacher provided the stimuli to finish strong and celebrate along with the others.

Come Together Yoga Studio, Long Island

Today, I reflect upon the two-hour experience and relate it to teaching. 

1. What does it take to build a culture of trust and engagement? You need an air of positivity, care for humanity, choices, and belief in the human spirit. In the yoga studio a positive environment was established, community honored, choices provided, and the teacher believed in each participant's ability.
2. What does it take to sustain a task? For learners, it takes confidence, determination, support, and stamina. 
3. How do we encourage learners to engage in tasks that may be difficult? Teachers full of passion are the guides on the journey. They enter the learning space with enthusiasm and provide the support needed. As in yoga, teachers instruct, model, release responsibility to the learner, guide, and support. Learners respond to the varied moves in a culture of trust and sharing because they are honored as unique individuals with individual needs. 
4. Why should we celebrate the difficulties and frustrations of learning? Learning is a celebration of moves that lead to accomplishment. Whether the success is small or great, learners should be applauded for their contributions within the learning space. 

Today, I join Margaret Simon and the DigiLit Sunday writing community on the topic of stamina. My takeaways from the yoga session (where I clearly needed stamina) are: to succeed as a learner, determination, persistence, and practice are needed. Understanding that practice is a step toward progress, not perfection allows each learner to become an active participant in a non-judgmental atmosphere. 

On Teachers

When three loves intersect, tasty creations evolve. This week I am immersed in the following projects (among others):

• gathering ideas for two presentations to educators
• creating new poems from seeds of ideas 
• baking batches of cookies as welcoming gifts for family and friends

Three loves, teaching, writing, and baking, will provide the stimuli for me to create as the spring morning opens the sky with sunshine. When gray turns to golden yellow, creativity sparks.

Recently, Rich Czyz, moderator of Four O'Clock Faculty, tweeted out two questions for educators to ponder. Intrigued, I responded. Since it is National Poetry Month and I have been trying to write alongside friends, I used poetic forms to compose my answers. 

Question #1:

If you were responsible for building the perfect teacher, what skills, attributes, or characteristics would you include? 

Along with teaching and writing, I am passionate about baking. While growing up, I learned the art of baking from two master teachers, my grandmother and mother. With enthusiasm and focus for what they loved, these two mentors provided me with recipes to entice family and friends. What follows is a first attempt at penning a recipe for a delicious teacher.

one dose of passion with good cheer,

a cup of kindness to persevere,

sprinkled with uniqueness throughout the year
creates a delicious teacher premiere,
promoted by a skillful mentor marketeer. 

Question #2:
Think of the great teachers that you have come in contact with. What words would you use to describe these great teachers? 

Teachers

passionate guides

stirring, stimulating, encouraging

young learners' endless journeys

Facilitators

Created by Heather Stillfusen

Teaching Matters!

Now off to start my day. Baking and working on my presentations will follow. 

Below is an invitation to connected colleagues to chat on a topic that should entice many to participate. The post can be accessed here.

Today is Slice of Life Tuesday. Please visit Two Writing Teachers where the blogging community dishes out delicious small moments each week. 

 

Tapestry of Thought

Within the course of one month, I wrote what Two Writing Teachers call the daily slice.This March, when winter shook the Northeast, I wove slices of life into a tapestry of thought that has lasted thirty-one days. Today on Day 31, the Slice of Life Story Challenge has come to a close, but not my word weaving. 

Once upon a time in my early teaching life, my professor told me to look at ordinary life events to write about. Laura Robb's tip for me was to write daily. While I have been doing so, this month of writing daily has allowed me to view life with a different lens. I listen (my one little word for 2015), I observe, I learn, and then, I write. With this post, one tapestry will be complete. The stitching may have been patchy in spots, but finely crafted in others. Along the way, I have been guided, supported, and even praised by fellow word weavers. Honing my craft has been a whirlwind of activity in light of daily life encounters. Balancing different lives, such as home, professional, and writing, has been quite the juggling act. I have learned from missteps and am ready to move forward to continue to slice, write poetry, enter literary challenges, tweet, and blog. In the end, I will have beautiful tapestries of thought to call my own. 

Since slicing involves the teaching profession, I created a slice yesterday, Getting to the Heart of Teaching, that I have expanded upon for other challenges. Perhaps, this will become a special tapestry that will transition us into spring.

#PositivePostItDay 

My Animoto video, Getting to the Heart of Great Teaching

Please visit Two Writing Teachers to read other slices from around the country. 

Getting to the Heart of Great Teaching

As I was reading this morning, I found a wonderful Edutopia article, The Heart of Teaching: What It means to be a Great Teacher, by a Twitter colleague, Rusul Airubail. Rusul starts off her piece by saying that "great teacher should be much more than credentials, experience and intelligence." This is so true. In my long career in literacy education, I have discovered the essence of teaching rests in the heart of many an educator. Inward passion inspires educators to take a stance of positivity to impact teaching and learning daily. Dr. Rita Pierson was one such inspiring educator who championed the child. You can read my tribute to her and every teacher here.

Because we are nearing National Poetry Month, I decided to take Rusul's words and compose a Tagxedo word cloud and then, a poem titled, Getting to the Heart of Great Teaching.

Beyond knowledge, 

credentials and intelligence,

teaching is a matter of the heart.

From passion to compassion,

great teaching builds minds,

character, and learning styles.

It provides children of the world,

thirsting for knowledge, 

a real life experience within

a broader view of society.

Great teaching unfolds in hearts

filled with kindness and empathy.

It inspires; builds community;

frames out an approach to

interdependence that leads to

independent meaning making.

Great teaching rests in the heart

and in a positive spirit. 

For those who teach, teaching

is a matter of the heart. 

CVarsalona © 2015. All Rights Reserved

Today is nearing the end of the March of Life Story Challenge. It is Day 30 out of 31. Please visit Two Writing Teachers to read other slices from a variety of writers. 

Celebrate This Week: The Power of Adult Learning Networks

“We do not learn from experience…

we learn from reflecting on experience.” 

John Dewey

Gone are the days when teachers work in isolation and don't share what they do. 

Photo shared via http://ingvihrannar.com/14-things-that-are-obsolete-in-21st-century-schools/

Reflection has made educators aware of the power of the collaborative community in which sharing is common and welcomed. Today, via Twitter educational chats, teachers are from across the country are speaking about the effectiveness of educators coming together regularly to grow as learners. Regional, district, and building trainings and consistent staff meeting times are means to connect and build shared resources. Through various types of purposeful professional development, teachers learn new strategies, practices, and protocols to further their teaching and their students' learning.  As Meeno Rami says in her new book, Thrive, "When a school has dense and interconnected relationships among its teachers, it increases its social capital." (p.16)

This week, I celebrate:

• the power of adult learning networks that allows educators to thrive and flourish in cultures of trust, leading to cultures of achievement
• the reflective process that allows educators to step back, stop, and review the learning that takes place daily

Learning is messy 

so reflection is essential to affect change in practice.

Monday and Wednesday of this week, I was involved in professional development that allowed me to design and implement relevant and meaningful learning opportunities for teachers. In order to power up instruction, professional training must be relevant and meaningful, develop connecting relationships, and have opportunities for choice. I have tried to place these components in any professional development program that I run and honor the feedback that I receive to improve my craft.

The photos below are from a professional development program, Teaching Students to Ask Deeper Questions to Uncover Meaning in Text, that I facilitated at Western Suffolk BOCES on Long Island. The teachers came from many different districts and although they did not know each other they were able to form bonds to work on standards-based instructional materials related to their grade level that focused on strong questioning techniques to engage learners. 

The type of collaborative environment that is seen in the photos is an example of the power of connections. Lately, Twitter chats are full of questions exploring the reasons why professional learning networks are instrumental in today's educational world. Meeno Rami emphasizes this point in Thrive. "If we are striving to create a system where the role of the teacher is no longer the lone expert in the room but a co-learner, we need to model that for our students, as well." (p. 16) The example above shows the "connectedness" of twenty-five teachers from across Long Island that were part of my professional development program last Wednesday. Eight groups of teachers connected, collaborated, and created lessons to power up their instructional practices for their learners. Reflection and learning were celebrated on that day. Each teacher walked away with several new tools to add to their literacy toolbox and a short commitment statement to teaching and learning. I celebrated their learning.

In addition, I celebrate the follow-up work that these teachers will do to continue their learning. We know from research that one shot PD is not effective. Therefore, building and district meet-ups are essential. Conversations revolving around rich practices, protocols, and student work to create next steps will be effective means of immediate professional development. 

Lastly, I celebrate asynchronous learning that can be sought via Twitter where educational chats are in abundance. As an example, #NYEDChat will present a discussion, Digital Tools to Power Up Instruction, on Monday, November 17, 2014 at 8:30 pm EST. All are invited to engage in this conversation. 

Each week, Ruth Ayres asks us to celebrate our week at her site, Celebrate this week. Please stop by to read the posts from various writers on how they celebrated the experiences life had to offer them during the week. 

A Slice of Life: Recalling Words to Inspire Teaching

While feeling the sting of Robin Williams' passing, I found a quote by him that struck me as both sad and inspirational.

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

The world is saddened by the death of Robin William, such a talented humorist and actor, especially in light of the fact that his multiple onscreen personalities provided endless moments of enjoyment for all. His words charged with humor brought laughter to the forefront. Little did we know that behind the movie persona, behind the words and ideas, was a complex character with deep issues. 

Teachers, stop and reflect: Perhaps, we need to step back this year and become better "kidwatchers" to understand the nature of each student. Will this reflective act help us find the words and ideas that can fuel individual learning? Will our simple words, our thoughtful actions change the world of the classroom for each learner?

While rummaging through old journals, I found a poem I wrote for the millennium that still holds true for me today. These words although tucked away for years, provided the fuel for my teaching as 2000 brought new changes to the educational scene. I would like to share this poem, thinking that my words and ideas from then may change the landscape of today's literacy classroom as I continue to focus on reflective practices in my life as an ELA consultant. 

This writing is part of A Slice of Life challenge from the Two Writing Teachers Community. You can read what other slicers are thinking about now if you take a stroll over to that site. 

Are You Open to the Word Change?

Change is a word that brings both opportunities and controversies to daily life. While it is essential to be open to new possibilities in this world of altering lifestyles, it is a fearful prospect for many. Even for those who are reflective, change is a conscious act of embracing the new while shedding the old. Sometimes, we do not recognize that changes or updates in life or in our instructional practices are needed. But we do know that choices need to be made. When multiple decisions are facing me and I am already at the overwhelmed mark, I find myself wavering on what is the right choice for that moment. But, if I look at the prospects with a clear head, choice becomes the catalyst for change.

As a third generation baker, I am always mindful of the choices needed to make an occasion festive. Finding the right measurements and ingredients to create a balance are essential parts of the art of baking. Under the tutelage of my grandmother and mother, I learned that baking is more than an act. It is a creative art that incorporates elements of design, technique, and presentation. Careful planning and skill are needed to create delectable confections. Bakers must choose the right blend of ingredients and be organized to manage the steps in a timely fashion. They need to remain mindful and stay in the moment as they hone their craft. What goes into the mix, hopefully comes out a worthy confection, at the hands of a skillful chef.

Isn't this similar to teaching profession? Teachers make choices on a daily basis. They are mindful of what goes into the mix as they blend strategies, practices, and protocols to create lessons that engage students in the process of learning. Educators step back and engage in professional development to refine the teaching arts at the hands of the master chefs. They seek balance and continuously hone their craft to incorporate design, technique, and the hooks to deliver effective lessons. Teachers, as reflective practitioners, are mindful of the data that informs their practice. They need that ingredient to roll out the dough for eager tasters of learning. 

As we assemble the cake, bakers notice if one more layer should be added. Risks may be taken to provide worthy samplings of artistic creations but patience and reflection are needed. Weighing the possibilities may lead to leaving the comfort zone. But decisions could lead to outcomes not anticipated. What if the ingredients used create a heavy mixture or the presentation lacks luster? So, too, in teaching the choices we place into the mix may be too heavy for the recipe and our timing may be off. 

What ifs are always present in the process of creating a recipe but they should not prevent taking the proverbial leap of faith. What is the worst that can happen-the crust droops, the lesson flops? These moments of seemingly unsuccessful events may appear daunting but they should not deter the craftsman from moving forward. The mixture that does not yield the right results can always be changed. At times like these, it is best to pause, reflect, and take next steps to create the best recipe for the moment. If we are open to change, it can lead to new possibilities. Change needs to be embraced to move to the next level of productivity. 

Are you open to the word change? If so, check what goes into your next mixture and decide if you can change one ingredient, measurement, or timing to create a confection that merits attention.