Category Archives: Life in the Classroom

Family is the basis of society

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Elementary, Life in the Classroom | ,

Last month I wrote about the history of character education in American schools and drilled down to the character traits and values the Basic Education Act in our state outlined as important for schools to teach. One of these values is the concept that family is the basis of society. In other words, family is the foundation upon which our society is built. Let’s check in on the state of American families from yesteryear to today to see how our foundation is holding up.

According to Pew Research, in the 1960s, almost 73% of children were being raised in intact homes with their parents of origin. Today, only 46% of our students are coming from home where they have an intact family of origin. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this means over half of the children in our classrooms have felt the trauma of family break up and may be grappling with the complexity of living in a blended family. How do we teach about the importance of family when literally, the majority of our students will not grow up in an intact family?

We could talk about the about the different family structures out there. Unfortunately, no matter how you spin the numbers, study after study shows children coming from an intact family of origin fare the best when it comes to behavior and academic achievement. There are exceptions to the rule, but society is not built upon exceptions; it is built on the norm. We need to help our students develop the skills they will need to participate in healthy family lives as adults.

One lesson to teach…maintaining an intact family takes self-regulation skills.

Many times I have told a student escalating in conflict to hit the “cool it” seat outside my door. There the student can sit in simmering anger, chose to practice the breathing reminders (or not) and simply take a moment. I check on them. Have they breathed? Are they ready to talk? It is not until they have cooled enough and breathed enough to talk and hear words that I go and sit with them. I hear them out. We talk about the pain and shame that usually was the root of the conflict. We talk about how good it was to get away for a moment to clear out thinking. We talk about what we could have done differently so the anger did not get so hot. We talk about many of the other self-regulation skills we have learned in class.

And then I ask, “Why do you think it is important to learn to manage your feelings and manage conflict?”

If the student is fresh to the experience of the “cool it seat” they replay with, “So I don’t get in trouble.” That is true; for now. Back to class the student goes.

My repeat offenders hear an additional lesson. They hear a variation of the following:

“Hey, we seem to meet out here a lot. I am thinking I need to let you know a secret of life. Think you’re ready for a secret?”

What kid doesn’t like an insider secret? There is almost always a nod or at least a shrug of “Whatever” that really translates in my teacher’s mind to, “Please, give me the secret to ending this. I need to stop doing this same dumb thing. Help me out.”

I pull my chair closer and lean in. All kids know the best secrets are told leaning in.

I begin. “The thing is this. You do not magically get handed a pamphlet on how to handle anger and frustration when you are handed your child in the hospital. You do not get handed a book about how to love someone when you get married. If you think your own child or your wife someday could never make you as angry or frustrated as your classmate, you are beyond wrong.”

Repeat Offender just stares back. Still listening, but not hearing it yet.

“How mad that kid made you by taking your pencil and lying about it? That is nothing compared to your own 15 year-old sneaking out and lying about it. If you think for a moment that your wife won’t make you want to slam your fist through the wall from sheer frustration, you don’t get what loving and living with someone for a long time means.”

Repeat Offender usually says something snarky about not having kids or not being married. I always look them straight in the face and simply say, “True, but you are a kid. So, maybe you know how it feels to have a parent out of control…”

Most of the time there is a small wince. I hate that wince. It means they know.

“You job at this age is to learn to manage your emotions and your actions so that someday you have the skills to deal with your child without treating them like you just treated your classmate. You are here to learn how to keep your fist unclenched and at your sides instead of into walls. You are here to learn to hear the words of someone else, even when you are mad at them.”

Repeat Offender nods.

“Do you know why you need these skills?”

Repeat Offender knows somewhere in his heart, but does not know how to say the words.

I help. “You need the skills of self-regulation so you can have a happy life. So you can have a happy family.”

There is not a lesson I can teach about family being the basis of society. There are only moments I can grasp as teachable. If even one of my Repeat Offenders hears me and takes their need to learn self-regulation to heart, it is one more chance for a family to be kept intact in a healthy way. Healthy families are the basis of a healthy society.

*For the record, physical and emotional violence are not the only causes of families to fall apart. There are many other ways in which self-regulation plays a role in creating healthy family dynamics. There are also many other ways I teach self-regulation. Those will be the subject of my next blog as they connect to the other areas teaching character and values in the classroom.

Teaching Builds Character!

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, Social Issues

It takes a little knowledge to dig a little deeper sometimes. This month, I am hitting the knowledge. Next month – I am digging a little deeper. What am I talking about? Character education! Let’s first get a little history…

A triad of men formed the genesis of what is called character education today.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was fascinated with both his own moral character and those of his fellow Americans. At the age of twenty, he set out to develop his own moral character in a systematic way and devised a way to evaluate how well he was adhering to his top thirteen traits of character. He wrote about these same traits as being excellent tools to derive moral answers to the questions of every day life for children. Some of these same traits (such as resolution, industry and justice) form the backbone of today’s character education programs. I wonder what app he would develop in today’s world to self-monitor his character?

Horace Mann (1796-1859) did not think the schools of his era were lacking in the ability to teach academics, but was lacking in something far more imperative to society; moral reasoning. He was of the mind education should not only include moral instruction, but that it should be mandatory. Mann’s home state of Massachusetts became the first state to require that children attend classes in 1852. The law stated every child must attend school to learn read and do math. If parents refused, they were fined large sums of money and if they still refused, their children were removed from their homes and their parental rights were severed. Wow-times have changed! Part of this severity was due to the importance Mann placed in having all children raised with having been taught moral reasoning.

William McGuffey (1800-1873) had an equally strong impact in the formation of early learning. He became a teacher at the wise, old age of fourteen. He began to see the importance of have a unified approach in schools to moral learning and developed the most popular curriculum in history; the McGuffey Readers. These schoolbooks were laden with Biblical stories and moral lessons. In this way, the prevailing social norms of the time were established for the students. These lessons became the foundation of moral development for early American children for many generations.

Continue reading →

What My Mom Taught Me About Teaching

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Education, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

On January 14th 2019 my mother died. I sat with her for nearly eighteen hours, and was there when her breathing slowed and stopped.  

My mother taught in Seattle public schools for a decade before becoming a stay at home mom. Some of my earliest memories are of her classroom and the daycare adjacent to her classroom. There was a door with a window between us. A green cot I lay on, but never slept on for nap time. A paper mache T-Rex. It seemed huge. The drawer she said her purse was stolen from. A woman I was not related to, but we called Aunt. Dusty light in a 60’s style classroom.  

As a stay at home mom, my mom thrived. She was the type that made things happen: lunches, events, or after school programs. Our county didn’t have a rec sports league so she co-founded one. She taught me to read. Put books in my hands. Drove me everywhere. Music lessons. Friends. Ballparks. Yelled louder than any parent in any baseball stands anywhere. Ever. A growl of a cheer.  

She had a huge social network. And she was kind to everyone. My town was small enough, at the time, most people knew her, and therefore most people knew me in any given situation. I hated that fact as a kid. I’m a classic introvert preferring to be left alone often, and she a classic extrovert—thriving on the social network. But mom taught me to be kind, or at least civil, to everyone I met, no matter what. And to respect kindness as the highest form of human interaction.   

My mother also was an alcoholic. She would not like me saying this. She would say I’m not preserving her dignity. And from her perspective, she’s right. But in my early life my mom taught me to be kind, she taught me to be honest, and she taught me to pay attention to language. And in her later life she taught me to practice these things under strenuous circumstances. I’ve learned over the years that accurately naming something is a kindness. I would argue acknowledging my mom’s disease, and loving her are one act. I would argue putting the truth on the table under bright light takes away its power. Alcoholism gets between people, naming it (without judgement) puts it to the side.  

She struggled with that, and it is ok, because it is hard. She could not untangle the connotation of judgement from the word alcoholic. Perhaps that is a perspective from her personality or from her generation, either way it does not matter anymore. We disagreed on this until the day of her death. But what I’ve found over the last few weeks is that the people who love her most, knew and in their own ways acknowledged her disease and loved her all at once. Life is supposed to be hard. If it were easy there would be nothing to do and we’d have no sense of value. And the lesson of naming something, no matter how difficult, proved just as powerful as my mom’s early lessons about kindness.  

The day after my mom died, I went to work. I started my AP Language class with a colleague’s student teacher observing, something planned weeks ago. I tried to teach. I started talking about sentences, periodic and cumulative sentences. I thought I mixed them up. Fumbled through definitions. I couldn’t focus. I started sweating. I have never felt so lost in front of students. Even in my first years of teaching. So, I stopped.  

I told my students that we knew each other too well after four months, and I could not continue without explaining why I was a mess. I told them my mom died. A subtle shock wave moved through the room. They went quiet. I’ve been teaching for fifteen years and I really believe the single most important thing a teacher can do is be authentic. I told them I was ok, and would be gone the rest of the week. We were quiet as a group for a few beats. That morning I held back because it did not seem appropriate to burden my students with my grief. But standing before them, I just could not fake it at that level. They saw right through the façade, because I’d worked hard to be vulnerable and real and together all year and when I wasn’t everything was wrong. Naming the reality put everything into the fluorescent classroom light. I stopped sweating. We could move on. They said they were sorry with murmurs, with their eyes, and with their awkward teenage silences. It was amazing.  

Playground Victory

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Elementary, Games, Life in the Classroom

A few years ago I dragged my husband to a playground in Illinois near my grandparents’ house. I was eager to show him my favorite piece of playground equipment, a unique contraption that spun around like a merry-go-round. It had bench seats you could sit or stand on. There were bars connecting the seating arrangement at the bottom to the armature at the top, and there were swivels at the top and bottom of each connecting bar. On those hot summer days we could run around and get the system rotating, then we could rock it to make it swing back and forth, all at the same time. It was glorious!

After some exploring, I finally brought my husband to the right spot. All we found was a worn circle in the grass.

Horrified, I set off to find someone in charge. I finally found someone who could answer my question. I described the piece of equipment and said, “I don’t know what you’d call it.”

The man said, “Our lawyers called it a liability.”

I’ve been through multiple playground renovations at public schools. Every time we ripped out equipment pieces that were deemed unsafe. In their place we installed increasingly bland structures.

I remember earlier deletions from the playground and how the principal at the time explained there had been a broken arm. That’s all it took to make items disappear—to make them unavailable for everyone.

I should tell you another story. When I was a toddler, my grandmother shopped for a couple of ottomans for me to climb on. Before she made the purchase, she asked the salesman if they would be safe for a two-year-old.

He said, “Lady, I don’t know from safe. One nephew of mine was walking on a two-by-four on the driveway, fell off, and broke his arm. Another nephew rode his tricycle down the stairs to the concrete floor of the basement and walked away without a scratch. I can’t say what’s safe!”

(I have to admit, I grew up in the era of “let them get hurt—that’ll teach them not to do it again.” I didn’t see a bicycle helmet until I was in college!)

Over the years I’ve watched increasingly safe equipment make recess more boring and less of an outlet for our high-energy kids, giving them little room to run, few things to climb, and nothing to lift. The motto for the Olympics is “Higher, Faster, Stronger.” It seems like the motto for playgrounds became “Stay lower, Go slower, Take your turn.”

Here was my lament—We keep making things safer and safer so our children never got hurt, so they never experience pain. They end up with no existential association of risk with physical danger. Then they grow up and go out for extreme sports! By protecting our children in a layer of bubble wrap until they turn 18, ironically, we make them less prepared to make considered choices as adults.

Meanwhile, as our playgrounds became less and less appealing to children, the number of office referrals for poor behavior during recess steadily rose. At one point the solution that was proposed in multiple states was nothing short of draconian—no recesses at all.

Over the years some backlash arose against the sea of bland. The Adventure Playground movement, which began in Europe after WWII, spread to Washington neighborhoods. Mercer Island has their own Adventure Playground where “in eight years … they’ve only had a few nails in shoes and one broken arm.”

U.S. playground design … [has] long prioritized safety over adventure.

Once our school started imagining what a new playground might look like, I got involved immediately.

At the very least, I argued, an elementary school needs a track around the perimeter of the playground so kids can run laps or compete in foot races. (My grandfather was born in 1904. That’s all the boys did for recess at his school. They ran foot races. Every day. Every recess. He did really well in track at college!)

Faster!

I wanted things kids could push or pull or lift. Can you imagine having really heavy disks kids could push over the tarmac to play tic-tac-toe or checkers? Or giant Lincoln Logs made of 4x4s? Or why can’t the really little kids build with big, loose parts such as Imagination Playground blocks?

Stronger!

And I added that there had to be stuff for kids to climb on. I know, if kids are even a foot off the ground, they can fall and get hurt, but climbing is a physical need for a lot of children. We must find a way to accommodate that need. I’d rather having them climbing on things during recess than during class time!

Higher!

At a class meeting my students added their input. They wanted a dome with rope nets for climbing. They wanted a spinning toy. They wanted a Gaga Ball Pit.

They wanted swings.

“Hold on,” I said. “Swings got removed out years ago because of liability issues. So did all the merry-go-rounds. I’m all for brainstorming, but we do have to be realistic.” (Sigh.)

Nevertheless, I carefully wrote down each idea and conveyed the list to our playground committee. The poster wish list hung in our principal’s office for the rest of the year as we worked on grants and fundraising.

I have to admit, my expectations were low. I’m delighted to say I was wrong!

We got the track.

The spinning toy.

The dome with rope nets.

The Gaga Ball Pit.

 

We even got the swings!

(I never thought I’d see swings at a public school ever again!)

The whole school is thrilled with the change in office referral stats. There have been almost none since the new playground was installed.

If your district says it’s not possible to have this type of equipment at your school, you want to go to work on changing some people’s minds.

One of my over-arching goals in school is to have fun. It’s absolutely fabulous to see kids having a whole lot more fun out at recess.

New Year’s Resolutions for a Busy Teacher

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Education, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized

 

This blog is brought to you by boxes of Christmas decorations, a beleaguered faux Canadian Pine, and the heavenly aroma of black-eyed peas and pork.

New Year’s Resolution #1: Stick to Worthwhile Tasks and Activities

The new year is upon us, happening too fast, as usual. Just as we get used to the schedule of a Winter Break, we are trying to get a mountain of tasks done before school starts up in a few short days. Where does the time go?

That’s really the gist of it, isn’t it? Where does time go? As teachers, we are always scrambling to fit all the learning we can between two bells. We have to cram all the planning, copying, and bathroom breaks into those all too few precious moments, and most of us take the work home, too. We are always squeezing too much into too little time. The struggle is to make all of our time, our students and our own personal time, worthwhile.

I resolve to ensure that my students do not suffer through meaningless busy work.

And, because I am important, too, I will give myself meaningful and worthwhile tasks, too. I will let go of the “busy work” that wastes time, and I will focus on what makes my life more complete. I want to always be able to say, “it’s worth my time.”

New Year’s Resolution #2: Take Time to Celebrate

As I pack away my Christmas décor, removing the sparkle and glow from our home, carefully tucking away old ornaments and our faux Canadian pine, I am feeling sentimental. It all goes by so fast. Not just the holiday, but the year…everything.

In the gloom of winter, we create an artificial shine to remind us of the celebration of all that we love. It’s nice, but it’s fleeting. In light of this, I resolve to make sure that those who are precious to me know that they are. I want to openly value my family and friends, and my students, too.

I resolve to tell my students what is wonderful about each and every one of them.

Likewise, I want to joyfully express my love of learning, of literature, of history and of theater. I want to share what is precious to me with those who I value and hold dear. We should never lose the sparkle and glow that we so intentionally celebrate this time of year. We need to spread it out thouogh the year with enthusiasm.

New Year’s Resolution #3: Expect Great Things in the Future

As I write this, my home is filled with the savory aroma of black-eyed peas, collard greens, and pork. It’s a tradition in our family, and in many places around the country, to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s. It’s for luck and prosperity in the new year. Wikipedia confirms it: “The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion.” It’s a lovely smell, and it brings back a lot of memories. But this year, I am really looking forward to so much more. I have a lot I want to accomplish, so bring on those black-eyed peas!

This year, I will be going on an international field experience with Fulbright’s Teachers for Global Classrooms. Last week I found out that my assignment is in Morocco during March. That is big news and such a trip can only be life changing. I am overwhelmed and excited, to be sure.

However, this year could be amazing for so many other reasons, and I don’t want to lose sight of any of it. I have a grandson to enjoy, a young horse to ride, an amazing family. And, not to be forgotten, I have some incredible students in my life right now. I want to plan for the best possible outcomes for us all.

Luck would be nice, but I am setting my expectations very high.

I resolve to expect great things, from myself and my students.

So, let’s break it down. Here is Mrs. Olmos’s advice for a great 2019, for herself, mainly. However, I think these goals/resolutions could work for any teacher.

  • Stick to what is most worthwhile.
  • Celebrate all the good stuff.
  • Have outrageous expectations.

And have a Happy New Year!

A Proposal to Support Student Mental Health and Safety

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

Have you checked out Governor Inslee’s Proposed 2019-2020 Budget and Policy Highlights? There is a lot to sort through, but, of course, I went straight to the K-12 education highlights. Like my students, I can digest the relevant text more readily. I’ll browse the rest…eventually. But, when it comes to education, they have my attention.

There are some interesting, but not especially surprising, bits. Along with restoring local levy authority, the governor proposes to spend more money on programs to support special education, science education, para-educator training, dual language programs, and recruiting teachers from diverse populations. Everything I read echoed needs in my own school, so I can understand why it’s all there. I hope that these proposed programs reach so far as to benefit my own students in the near future.

However, another area of the budget caught my eye. The proposed budget includes $7.5 million for programs to support student mental health and safety, which is a relatively small amount compared to the rest of the budget. Clearly, recent news events have raised our collective awareness of the need for safer schools and mental health services for our students. Therefore, it’s not surprising that it’s in the budget proposal.

The document suggests  supports for districts to offer a “coordinated approach to prevention, early identification and intervention for student behavioral health and safety needs.” It specifies safe schools plans, recognition and response to emotional and behavioral distress, and funding for expansion of access to behavioral health services. All of this sounds reasonable, but it seems like we are focusing on the symptoms and not the causes of the crisis. If it is truly about prevention, what will we be doing differently in schools to prevent distress?

Don’t get me wrong; we need all of the supports mentioned in the proposal. We need more counselors in our buildings. We need plans for school safety that are actionable. We need all educational personnel to be trained to recognize and respond to symptoms of emotional distress. But, does anyone take time to wonder how we could prevent getting to the point where we are responding to distress?

Teachers see students struggle every day. Of course, there is the normal struggle that involves a math problem or a difficult text. However, kids are suffering from more serious struggles. These emotional and behavioral struggles are less tangible, but just as real, and far more frightening. They could be issues brought on by poverty, homelessness, self-esteem, gender identity, sexual orientation, bullying, isolation, or mental illness. To complicate things, our world has become a contentious place to live, and kids are hearing such fearful rhetoric around them on a daily basis. How can they feel supported and safe in the face of emotional crises?

Teens in particular suffer from increased rates of depression and suicidal ideation. Social media often exacerbates their problems, as some students cannot escape the social pressures of their peers so long as they have their phone to check 24/7. Here’s a recent USA Today article that takes on this topic.

We teachers know the problem is monumental, so we spend a lot of time thinking about what schools can do. What can we do? Well, for one, we should do our best to make our schools and our classrooms, safe and supportive places for our students.

Every student needs to be truly seen, heard, and valued. They need the opportunity to show their individual talents and pursue their own interests. This is how we can fully support the mental and emotional health of our students.

Specifically, we need to shift our focus from purely academic achievement to creativity and collaborative learning. I have no issue with traditional standards and assessments. They’ve been the bread and butter of my career, to be honest. But, I know from experience that my students come alive when we are working on creative projects. They talk to each other, truly talk to one another. They empathize, they support, they give of themselves. These simple acts are what make us human. They put us in touch with one another and with the work that we produce.

I see it in my teaching practice. My drama students create close bonds of respect and support, cheering one another on for each and every performance. My Art Club students talk about their problems over Wednesday afternoons of watercolors and pen and ink, comforting and encouraging one another, letting the troubles of the week slip away. Even my least artsy kids choose video or dioramas or other creative projects when given a chance. Art heals, encourages, supports, and edifies.

Simply put, if students only go through the motions of education, listening to lectures, taking traditional tests, and conforming to the standards, they are not expressing what is hidden inside of them. That hidden part of them needs nurturing and needs to grow in a safe and supported environment.

If we want to spend money on emotional and behavioral health of our students, I propose this: Spend it all on arts education. Get every child into visual and performing arts programs. Have them create from their souls. Have them work in groups to create together. Have them feel the support of their peers and the admiration of their teachers. The arts support the emotional and mental health of our students directly. I have seen it in action. It works.

Not convinced by my anecdotal evidence? Try these resources:

The Healing Power of Art from Harvard’s Women’s Health Watch

How Making Art Helps Teens Better Understand Their Mental Health from Mindshift

Anxiety.org’s articles on using improvisational theater to relieve anxiety

New Year’s Resolution: Eight Seconds Every Time

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Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom | , , ,

My New Year’s resolution is to not find myself on a bull ride with a student. In bull riding, an eight second ride earns the intrepid rider a spot on the scoreboard. It is intense and tough to do. In teaching, eight seconds can earn your student a chance at learning and you a chance at teaching.

I clearly remember the first classroom rodeo I observed as a student teacher. The moment came as a too-old-for-his-grade middle schooler was asked to move seats because he was talking.

After no response, the teacher walked closer to the student and through gritted teach said, “Move. Now!” The student just stared back at him. You could almost see the boy’s hand slip perfectly into the bull rope as his shoulders slightly tensed.

The boy broke his stare. As he looked away, his words were just barely loud enough for the teacher to hear. “Whatever dude.”

That was it. The chute was flung open and the bull ride began.

Continue reading →

On Leveraging Technology: part three of several–tools, devices, &iInstruments

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Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Web/Tech

The main response to concerns over screen time and children that I have run into is that educational screen time is not the same as entertainment screen time. I take the point, but I have my doubts. One of my chief concerns is the blind belief in the goodness of technology. Anand Giridharadas illustrates this in a recent interview with Krista Tippet. Giridharadas points out that in Silicone Valley

“there’s this thing of dropping out of college because…they feel they have the technical knowledge they need to get started. And part of what they’re dropping out of, in many cases, is the liberal arts education that is precisely designed to give you these kinds of frameworks to understand things like, history is cyclical, and good things have bad effects, and things go ways that you couldn’t anticipate, and just this normal understanding of how the human condition,…works.

When you have people with that much power over humanity, that much power to decide more and more how children learn and how commerce works and how power functions, and they basically have a naïve, childlike understanding that any tool that they invent will inherently make things better, you go to a very dark place.”

I share his concerns. Teaching literature, the human condition is an obsession, so this resonates with me (plus, I believe in the philosophy of a liberal arts education), but I’m putting my doubts aside for the moment to consider how to maximize the positive potential technology offers the classroom. I want to illustrate a framework for technology in the classroom (or anywhere else).

Recently a friend of mine offered this distinction summarized from Andy Crouch: humans, as inventive, industrious, and inventive beings regularly use tools, devices, and instruments. The distinctions work as follows: Continue reading →

A Reminder about the Holidays

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Current Affairs, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

Shortly before Thanksgiving, my principal always sends our staff a key reminder about the two-month-long commercial marathon that is the “holiday season” in our country.

The simple message carries two main points: First, while the holiday season might be joyous and celebratory for many of us, for a large number of our students it is a time of uncertainty and even turmoil. Existing housing or economic instability is exacerbated by extra-short days and extra-long, cold nights; a roof and heat are not necessarily guarantees. The pressures of gift-giving and consumerism amplify the divide between the haves and have-nots as our students navigate that difficult social landscape around who gets what, wants what, or how many gifts end up under the tree. (As one former student put it years ago, “I never understood why Santa always liked the rich kids more…even the ones who were jerks.”) Add to all this the financial and personal stresses that the adults in our kids’ lives experience…stress that our students observe and absorb…and the kids who walk into our classrooms on these inter-holiday days might be carrying extra burdens we don’t see the rest of the year.

And this all leads us to the email’s second point: As the adult, be careful not to take things personally. That kid who was always on time and engaged in September and October might fold in on himself in December, or that engagement might drift to mere compliance which might shift to full blown resistance. For others, the simmer might be much quicker to turn to a boil, as pressures from outside crank up the emotional heat. Behavior might deteriorate, focus might be hard to achieve, and tempers might be on edge. The email’s message: Don’t take it personally, and be mindful about your reaction lest you escalate an already escalated state. This is an important reminder for the adults in our system. We can’t take it personally. It isn’t us. It isn’t even them. How we react makes all the difference if the rest of the kid’s world is turmoil hiding behind tinsel.

It is important that we as teachers recognize just how different our students lives might be than what we picture. Teachers, by law, must be college graduates. Teachers, for the most part, maintain stable month-to-month and year-to-year employment. While it is true that far too many teachers do struggle financially and end up taking on additional work, particularly early in their careers, we have to remember that the vast majority of us have levels of economic and housing stability that a huge percentage of our students might not.

The National Center for Children in Poverty digests statistics from the 2016 American Community Survey to help paint the picture about the kids our systems serve. Here in Washington, our childhood poverty and low-income rates are a tick lower than the national average, but on average about two of every five kids in our system falls under either the “low-income” or “in poverty” classification.

Of course, a lower family income doesn’t inherently mean family struggle or instability…nor does affluence guarantee that students aren’t feeling unusual stresses this time of year. It cannot hurt us as professionals, though, to be extra mindful during these dark months of the unique external pressures that this supposedly festive season might have on our students.

In my own English classroom, I have used daily journaling to get to know about my students’ relationships with this time of year. The prompts draw out stories from kids about great winter memories with family and friends as well as clarity about which students love cancelled-school snow days and which ones dread them. Their writing reveals what sorts of excitements or worries this time of year brings for kids.

We must remember that for many kids “Winter Break” may be a time for family togetherness, vacations or playing in the snow. For others, it means a break from the warmth of a classroom, the consistency of meals, and adult support and supervision. We can’t solve all of these challenges for our kids, but we can certainly do our best to keep school a safe, welcoming, and stable place, even if the world outside our walls cannot provide the same.

Equity: From Policy to Practice

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Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development

This past Tuesday, I spoke at our local school board meeting in favor of a draft Board Policy taking a proactive stance on educational equity in our system. Over the last few months, I’ve been tangentially involved with reviewing and revising this proposed policy, and as it nears final approval, I wanted to be sure to voice my position about why we need an “equity policy.”

Early on in this work, I felt that the policy was rather controversy-free. It called out the need for our system to take proactive steps to ensure equitable outcomes for all learners, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status or disability. How could that raise controversy?

I learned something quickly, though: Talking equity for students with disabilities? No sweat. For kids in poverty? People are all-in. Gender? Hardly a ripple, despite the struggles many have accepting the reality that non-binary and transgender students exist.

Race? A much different story.

That we would propose a policy addressing racial equity was baffling to many people… staff and community members alike.

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