After a year of that, and after I ran out of money, I moved back to Charleston and taught again for two more years at Stiles Point. I was a lucky gal to get back in there. I don't think there are many other schools in Charleston that would have taken me back without question, or to which I'd have wanted to return in the first place. I knew when I returned though, that something had changed. I knew that I wasn't meant to stay in Charleston at that time, and I immediately began looking for jobs abroad.
That's what brought me to China. I had a calling. I knew that the Lord was leading me elsewhere and I prayed and prayed about it until I knew for sure that I was going to the right place. It's funny, because I never could explain WHY I was going other than I knew it's what the Lord wanted. I had no idea (and still don't really) EXACTLY what the Lord wanted me to do, but I am trying to make a difference, even if in a small way, and I'm trying to share His love.
In all of the years of teaching in Charleston, I attended dozens of professional development sessions: seminars in the capital, grad classes at the College of Charleston, in house PD's all over the district. I even presented at a few smaller meetings like for FOSS kit training. I was the first to volunteer to go to sessions like this because, and it's nerdy, I love learning. I love the opportunity to hear about a new method. I also love the chance to have someone remind me of the forgotten approaches to teaching.
One thing I don't tend to enjoy so much is when you go to these sessions and you have someone tell you to get up and move around and make friends and, and, and. Ugh. I am social in the way that I greet people at these events because I think it's important to network. I want to make those connections, but I am not so enthusiastic about the get up and move part. That sounds awful, but many teachers will tell you this is the thing they dread the most. It's a conundrum (my friend Jim's favorite word I think) because we know our students have to get up and move and we know the importance of them sharing ideas, but when it comes to doing it ourselves, we often tend to shy away from it. Please don't get me wrong, I can't sit in a PD for 8 hours without the chance to get up and stretch or at least get my blood flowing, but sometimes they get a little too "two stray and one stay" for me.
This past weekend, I went to the absolute most enjoyable PD I have ever attended. It was held in Hong Kong at the school that offered me a job. This was interesting for me because I got a little taste of "what might have been." The campus of Hong Kong International School is absolutely breathtaking. It sits in the mountains and overlooks a lake. Classroom views are stunning.
The school is huge though, and I think that's one of the reasons I chose to come to Dongguan. I'm happy with my decision, even though I love HK and would LOVE to live there. Dongguan is home for the time being. My friends are here, and if nothing else, God intended for us to meet so that we'd be able to be part of one another's lives.
Back to the conference though...it was a two day seminar featuring keynote speakers Ellin Oliver Keene, Carl Anderson, and Kathy Collins. Those are three names, I'm embarrassed to say, I had never heard before the weekend in Hong Kong. Although they are supposedly "big wigs" in the literacy field, I personally had never heard of them. Now, I'm their biggest fans, and yes, I already follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
The two day conference began on Saturday morning with Ellin talking about "The Role of Engagement in Comprehension." She gave a great keynote where I took copious notes on how to get children involved, engaged, and excited about reading. One of the questions she posed was, "Is it engagement without emotion?" As I'm such a proponent of empathy building, this really struck a chord with me.
Later in the day, I stayed with Ellin for her talk on combining comprehension instruction with the Common Core. I had actually hoped to gain a little more from this talk as I'm new to Reader's Workshop and struggling with making it match my standards based teaching instruction, but it was a great discussion and again I took notes based on her suggestions. More than anything, I felt very reassured that, despite the chaos that might be standards and curriculum, I am a good teacher and I know how to teach children be better readers.
I loved Ellin's made up word when she said, "Resist the urge to curriculumisize the standards." It makes sense. Standards are absolutely necessary when planning, but sometimes we do get a bit carried away. Randomly, did you know that children at the elementary school level (grades 3-5) should be reading 45-60 minutes a day MINIMUM in order to MAINTAIN their level?! If we want students to catch up (because they are below level) or to grow further, they need to read 60-75 minutes A DAY, and this doesn't include whether or not they'll be able to read at home. Here's another sad fact...did you know that the average length of a kindergartener's sentence has decreased in the past few years from 6 words to an average of 3.5 words! Does that not scare the pants off you?!
After these frightening statistics, a lovely catered lunch in the HKIS middle school cafeteria, and a nice little stretch of the legs by way of climbing their many stairs, I went to Carl Anderson's keynote on "Writing Workshop and the 21st Century." If nothing else, this guy is a comedian. He's a genius, but he's hilarious too. I honest to goodness never in my life have laughed so hard at a teacher's convention. Not only funny, he shared some amazing insight into writers workshop, so I followed him to his next session on assessing writers. I have a whole new approach to writing conferences now. He will have to have his own blog post from this little lady, as I can't go into depth at the moment. I'm going to attempt to write a few newspaper articles, so I'll add those later. For now, I'm going to try to add a sound bite from a piece he read to us, "The Sad Pathetic End." I was in stitches.
Sunday was another wonderful day at HKIS with a keynote given by another comedian, Kathy Collins. She started her speech with a video of her running chaotically through a corn maze, loud music blaring and the feeling of complete and utter confusion. The woman is a nut, but someone I'd be thrilled to call my friend and mentor. The topic for her talk was "Creating a Community of Comprehenders." These literacy people like to make up their own words! Her focus was on helping children see how they can be in charge of their own understanding. She had some great little tricks that I've already implemented in my classroom. For example, my students are all creating "shelfies" for their weekend homework. She says it's like porn for avid readers. I created mine and posted here to show you what I'm currently reading. I've got a few other stacks of books lying around the house, but these are the ones on my bedside table. I can't wait to see what my kids produce.
In Kathy's next breakout session, she discussed the importance of reading response. She shared this great poem by Billy Collins. I think I'll have my kids write their own versions.
Looker, gazer, skimmer, skipper,
thumb-licking page turner, peruser,
you getting your print-fix for the day,
pencil-chewer, note-taker, marginalianist
with your checks and x's
first timer or revisiter,
browser, speedster, English major,
flight-ready girl, melancholy boy,
invisible companion, thief, blind date, perfect stranger-
that is me rushing to the window
to see if it's you passing under the shade trees
with a baby carriage or a dog on a leash,
me picking up the phone
to imagine your unimaginable number,
me standing by a map of the world
wondering where you are-
alone on a bench in a train station
or falling asleep, the book sliding to the floor.
When we looked at the poem together, Kathy had us decide who we were in the piece. I jotted down the words that I thought best described me. Gazer, note-taker, revisiter, flight ready girl.
Other great ideas I will take from Kathy are the way we keep reading logs...and how I want to change them. The way we should give more freedom to students, to allow kids to keep a reading diary, a picture journal, a book that rates what they've read. I had my parents fill out a reading survey this week to tell me what they think. They all, well all but one, said they felt the log was helpful, but not absolutely necessary. In other words, they thought I should keep using it but that it wasn't the end all be all. One parent said his child would read no matter whether she had a reading log or not. She's the kind of kid he has to make turn off the light and go to bed. Another parent said her daughter wouldn't read without being forced into it. That bothered me. I don't want to "force" anyone...I don't want to turn the child off to reading altogether.
My last favorite thing from Kathy was the idea of creating a reading timeline that shows memorable parts of your reading history. Mine ended up being something like this:
____________________________________________________________
reading stories seeing Daddy's stacks reading Babysitters Club
reading stories seeing Daddy's stacks reading Babysitters Club
with Nanny of history books on his table RL Stine, and Mary Higgins Clark
in middle school
____________________________________________________________
Honors English in high senior year of high school loving anything of the
school and feeling not taking college English with historical nonfiction genre
worthy Dr. West and LOVING it
When Kathy asked us to make a list of four books that have been important in our life, I struggled. I thought of Wuthering Heights and other classics. Then I thought of The Kitchen Boy, which has always stuck with me. I love to read, but I couldn't get any further than that. This is something I'll really have to ponder. It bothers me that I can't qualify other important books.
After another session with Carl, the conference was over. His last session was a continuum of improving the quality of writing conferences. This man is amazing. I will follow him from now on, which sounds a little stalkerish (look who's making up words now!). When I literally chased him from the session and to the bathroom (I had to go too), I nervously said, "Don't worry, I'm not following you." Great, now he's scared of me.
The one thing that really hit home with me, and this is hard for me because I'm a grammar freak and I can't help myself, but he said, "Teach kids to be a better writer...don't fix up their writing. Teachers have positioned themselves as editors of their students' work...they don't need editors, they need teachers who will wait." It might sound like an obvious thing, that kids need teachers, but this one little statement really made me think about my writing lessons and conferences. So if for nothing else, thank you Carl for that.
Thank you to all three of these people for the wealth of knowledge they shared. Thank you to Hong Kong International School for hosting such a wonderful conference. I am glad no one made me stand up and move around and do silly little activities. I am grateful that I could sit and soak it all in. I'm glad I could take my notes and mull over the wonderful strategies that were shared. I can't wait to see these three goof balls again, wherever they may be. I had more fun those two days than I've had in ages and I have to say, in a place where I often feel like the Joker asking, "Why so serious," I was thrilled to be able to just laugh, and laugh I did.
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