Thinking "Ish-ly"

Last Tuesday, my fifth grade students and I shared a reading of Peter Reynolds' Ish. The book tells the tale of Ramon who loves to draw, but, after his older brother Leon makes fun of his drawings, begins to believe that he can't draw well. Thankfully, Ramon's younger sister, Marisol, helps him to see his drawings differently and he begins to see the "ish-ness" in everything around him.

My students had heard Ish last year when my fourth grade colleagues and I read it at the beginning of the year as a part of our community building. That fact didn't deter their enthusiasm of sharing their thoughts while I read it, or in discussing what working "ish-ly" in our class would look like and how we would need to support one another in order to work "ish-ly."

Some of you may know that I moved from teaching fourth grade to fifth grade this year. Our building went from three sections of fourth grade to two, so someone had to make the switch. I didn't think it would be a big switch. I am in the same classroom, have a third of my same students, and felt like we could just pick up where we left off last year. In many respects, I was correct. My students from last year jumped right into the same routines and have helped those who are new to my classroom. Yet, my standard line from the past week is that "I severely underestimated the amount of work that goes into switching grades."

To summarize the state of my being early last week, I would simply say I was stressed. Nothing seemed to be working, I seemed to be falling behind in everything, and I felt like I had lost the art of teaching. Then on Wednesday, it hit me. I was like Ramon. I felt like I had Leon looking over my shoulder all day, making comments about what was happening in my classroom. I couldn't think clearly because my brain was in a state of panic wondering how I was going to ever recover from this switch.

So, I began to think "ish-ly." I gave myself permission to not know every little detail of 5th grade curriculum at the present time, permission to take things step-by-step, permission to make a pile of items to get back to at another time. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Looking back, I'm sure everything was going along fine before my thinking "ish-ly." All of those "seemed" and "felt" emotions from the previous paragraph were simply in my head. Yet, it took a little book to remind me to stop being a perfectionist and to look around and see the "ish-ness" in my students and my work.

If you're in the world of education, I hope that this finds you well in the new school year. If you happen to be feeling swamped by it all, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Ish. Maybe with a little "ish-ful" thinking you'll find you're doing quite well.

Secrets of Being a Linchpin

There are many characteristics of a linchpin that I can relate to, but I'll spare you my self-analysis. Instead I'll let you in on two secrets on being a linchpin courtesy of Seth Godin.

"The law of linchpin leverage: The more value you create in your job, the fewer clock minutes of labor you actually spend creating that value. In other words, most of the time, you're not being brilliant. Most of the time, you do stuff that ordinary people could do."

"The only way I know of to become a successful linchpin is to build a support team of fellow linchpins."

Linchpin

I picked up a copy of Linchpin by Seth Godin at the library a few months ago after I noticed several others reading it and mentioning it. I've only read through a few chapters whose titles grabbed my attention, but what I've read has been thought-provoking, challenging, and inspiring. With it being summer much of my reading has been in small chunks in many different locations (several different states) and I've lost track of a lot of my thoughts that I wanted to post. So, you'll just have to read it yourself. :>) I'd recommend "Becoming the Linchpin" for starters. "The Culture of Connection" is great as well with a confirmation of all of the collaborative work that we do.

I guess what has struck me the most in my reading is both how necessary it is for me to be a linchpin in my role as an educator and how my own kids and my students will need to be linchpins to succeed in the changing world of work.

If anyone else is reading or has read Linchpin, I'd love to discuss it with you.

Now forming: Curriculum 21 Book Club

Hey ZPS folks,

Interested in taking a closer look at "upgrading" your curriculum (assessments, content, etc.) to better prepare your students for the work of the future? Join us (three teachers, one adminstrator - so far) in reading and discussing Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World.

Shoot me an email if you're interested.

That Workshop Book by Samantha Bennett

Yesterday I picked up a new book called That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think. I first read about it last week when it was mentioned in an article called Our Living Minute on Choice Literacy. Evidently, I had missed its arrival some time last spring (or probably was just too overloaded at the time and hit "mark all as read" on my Reader).

Once I finally got all three kids to bed last night and sat down to tackle my nightly homework (scoring mid-year spelling assessments and reading the next three chapters of Nonfiction in Focus for next week's book club meeting were on last night's agenda), I found myself hooked before I finished the table of contents. I'm sure the other work will get done sometime this week...

It will be some time before I have any time to write my reflections on it, so in the meantime enjoy this review from A Year of Reading.

Christmas Break reading plans

[This was originally posted to a Moodle group in response to the question "What will you be reading over break?"]

I've learned as a parent that any amount of time that I get to read at home is a gift. I always have more reading that I would like to do than I have time for (that's universal, right?). Here are some of my reading plans:

• We've started reading A Magician's Nephew for our family's nightly read aloud. I hate to admit that I have never read The Chronicles of Narnia myself. My parents read them aloud to me when I was young, but I don't remember a lot. I look forward to it as much as the kids each night.
• On the recommendation of some friends, I began reading The River Why? by David James Duncan this summer. Before I got too far into it, Christa stole it to read it for a book club. I checked it out again over Thanksgiving Break, but haven't been able to read more than a page or two.
• A little serendipity has brought Billy Collins' poetry into mind in the past day as well. My brother gave me a copy of Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems for Christmas a few years ago. I pulled it from my short stack of books balanced on the headboard last night and re-read a few of the best (my brother is an English major and marked a dozen or so of his favorite poems in the book). There is a great poem "On Turning Ten" that I'm sure my fourth graders could relate to as most of them will turn 10 this school year. Then this morning I received a bulk e-mail from Don Miller and decided to subscribe to his blog. He had written about Billy Collins' new book in the last month. Love the little coincidences...
  
• Speaking of blogs... I highly recommend the blog A Year of Reading if you're looking for new books for your classroom (or yourself). I check in on a regular basis using Google Reader (Anyone interested in Tech Tips 102?).
• Also, I hope to read the second half of Teaching with Intention and a chapter or two of Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop. Like I said earlier, lofty (and unreachable) goals! :>)