Saturday, March 29, 2014

Almost Famous

I recently attended the CUE conference in Palm Springs. I'll save that blog post for another time, like three or four months later when I catch my breath and both of my children are napping. You can nag me in June or July if I haven't written it by then.

 I entered my classroom early Monday morning, and flipped through the small stack of papers left for me by my sub. I skimmed her notes for the sake of time, but instead, I got sucked in by her words. It started with this: "Tracy, do you think I could re-enroll in your 6th grade class next year? This has been a fun 3 days."

 Her note continued on in the same vein-your students were perfect. No problems. Perfect. My class. My "day family" (thanks to Lisa Highfill for that saying).

This group of 31 students coming from 9 different elementary schools have become a cohesive and driven group. The credit is not mine, but theirs and the structure of our 6th grade classes on campus. I am fortunate enough that when our middle school opened its doors to 6th graders, that they had the foresight to create its own implementation of 6th grade. All sixth graders have the same core teacher for four, yes, four subjects: history, science, English, and PE. Some of my students are also lucky to have me for their tech elective class too. This class structure encourages that very important social aspect of middle school peer relationships and provides students with a home base.

 Hence, my day family. This is what I tweeted.

Unintentionally provocative, but apparently it piqued some interest in the Twitterverse. My email was full of messages for two days after the original tweet. Your tweet was favorited, your tweet was retweeted. Wow. Who knew something that I posted would create a mild stir. 

Two people who I admire greatly reached out and contacted me about my Tweet. Alice Keeler (wish I had her energy) wanted to see my sub plans. Sure, why not? They weren't anything special. But when I compared them to my October sub plans, I noticed something. In October, my sub plans involved a lot of teacher driven lessons and classroom management suggestions. Conversely, in March the plans had evolved as my students did-they transferred the learning responsibility from the sub to the students.

Diane Main mentioned via Twitter that her class had discussed my Tweet. I shared this news with my class (who were all very excited to hear that "real live people" were talking about them and that they were "almost famous" hence the title of this post). I wanted to take this one step further. I wanted to know why they thought they are successful when a sub is there.

We used Today's Meet to hold a Twitter-like chat. (It always amazes me how quiet and focused they get when using Today's Meet!)

Q1: Why is our class successful when we have a sub?  by Ms. W.
A1: we are successful with subs because everyone wants to learn and you leave us with fun activities to do. by K.
A1: Our class is like a family and we understand each other's strengths and weaknesses  by R
A1: I think our classroom is successful because we teach each other and work well together. by H
A1: our class is good because our plans are fun so we don't need to goof around by E
A1: Are class is successful when we have a sub because we want to get work done together and we are all well caring for each other.  by T

This is just a snippet of the conversation we held online.  To see more, you can click here to see a part of the transcript. Our online conversation lasted about 30 minutes-it was class time well spent, a glimpse into the heart of our class.

I will leave you with this.  Students were continuing to work in their figurative language groups on Monday.  As I was cruising the room, I noticed two giggley students hanging out behind my easel. This is a little bit out of the ordinary, so I crept closer to observe.

Super Tracy
I soon came to the realization that J, a bilingual student, was teaching M, a newcomer from Guatemala, how to say the introduction to their presentation in English. Over and over again, they practiced.  It will be M's first time presenting in our class, AND she first time speaking in English.  I never asked J to do that, I wasn't even here when she decided to try. I am so proud of the both of them.
(The presentation occurred after I wrote this post-but after M spoke, the class erupted in applause!)

For me, teaching (and learning) is about building relationships.  And that is my teaching super power.



(Gobs of thanks for Gwyneth Jones, AKA The Daring Librarian, for her rockin' tutorial on how to create a Super Me!