Category Archives: Professional Development

The Pivot

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Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership | , , , , ,

We are pivoting, again.

Pivot? I keep hearing this word, and the famous phrase from The Princess Bride keeps running through my head: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In the dictionary, pivot (v.) means to turn in place, as if on a point. Synonyms include rotate, revolve, and swivel. I get it, because what it means in a staff meeting is that yesterday may have been an in-person hybrid day, but now we are pivoting to fully remote teaching temporarily, due to a rise in cases of Covid-19 in our district. We are swiveling, changing direction, quickly without pause. We have done it three times this year, and it looks like we need to be prepared to pivot in the future. This is the new normal in education, shifting to meet the immediate needs of our students. Not a bad thing, in general.

However, I don’t want to merely pivot, at least the swivel variety of pivot. In business, a pivot is a true change of course. The product is not selling, so change the product or get a new one to sell. I’m feeling more like that. Students are failing in record numbers. Teachers and students are struggling with engagement and isolation. Not only is this a problem in itself, but it has also revealed and highlighted some troubling pre-existing conditions in education. (There are many, so I will leave you to imagine your favorites.)

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Goals: 2020-Style

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tell me about your goals. What were they before Covid-19? What are they now?

I’m guessing they are somewhat different. Our priorities have shifted. At home, this is good – more time with family and pets, and far less time on our hair!

However, my educator goals have suffered terribly. Prior to this year, I had clear and powerful goals for my classroom, my students, and myself. In fact, I had three areas that I was independently researching or promoting, and I was really fired up about them, too. I was building a toolbox of my own to be the best teacher I could be to my students.

Here are my goals, pre-Covid:

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This Is Heavy: The WATAC Conference and Finding Meaning

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Professional Development, Uncategorized

Last weekend I attended the 4th Annual Washington Teacher Advisory Council’s Spring Conference.  The planners re-organized their conference into an online format. Amazingly, they were able to accommodate the largest number of attendees in their history thus far. That is one positive when it comes to the distance learning format. We can fit more folks into the “room.”

Don’t get me wrong; I would have much preferred seeing all my friends and colleagues from around the state in person. I look forward to it every year. However, seeing them all virtually and hearing how they are dealing with our unprecedented issues these last months of the school year was invaluable.

If you are unfamiliar with WATAC, it is an organization formed initially to organize award-winning teachers in our state to make our expertise available to stakeholders with influence on education policy. Since its inception, it has expanded to include leaders from all aspects of education – administration, certificated, and classified. Anyone with an interest in teacher leadership is welcome at the conference. And, for me, the conference has been a great way to get a shot of teacher energy as the final stretch of the school year hits, and I really, really need that boost.

This year…I really needed a boost.

Don’t we all? The truth is I am actually grieving. I wobble back and forth between shock, depression, and a sort of manic activity level of problem solving. I’m a mess! In fact, the concept of the five stages of grief won’t get out of my head. Although, losing a loved one is unspeakably worse, losing my classroom feels like a huge loss.  After all, I love my job. I love the most annoying of my seventh graders and the snarkiest of my seniors. I am deeply attached to my classroom, my kids, and my teacher lifestyle. So, yes, I am grieving the loss.

The five stages are trademarked, actually. You can go to David Kessler’s website, if you are interested in what he says about grief and grieving. After wondering if I was actually experiencing grief, I looked over the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Yep. I’m doing all of that.

The conference theme was “Back to the Future, and keynote speaker Amy Campbell, our current Washington State Teacher of the Year, quoted the famous meme that comes from the movie Back to the Future, the one where Marty McFly says, “This is heavy.”

This IS heavy, Marty. You thought it was tough that your mom had a crush on you. But this, THIS is heavy.

Education is changing. This is not merely a moment of pause. We can’t go back to normal. In this crisis we have pulled back a curtain and revealed serious problems with equity in education. Yes, we knew they were there, but it is easy to just go about our business making little shifts that don’t rock the boat too much.

It won’t work that way this time. Serious change is needed, and now is exactly the time to work on it.

As Amy told us- speaking directly to my teacher soul – we are experiencing loss. We are in a crisis that impacts our safety, our economy, and our mental health. “Hindsight really is 2020,” and we need to find our “place on the continuum and start moving forward.”

Most importantly, she said, “Old normal should not be the final destination.” And I feel that. I really do.

As a member of the teacher panel later in the conference, I was asked what was working, what was hard, and what I want to take into the future of education. I don’t remember what I said exactly, and I hope it made some sense at the time. But, I can summarize right now.

What’s working? YouTube, Padlet, Zoom, and all the technology no one thought we could use on such a large scale.

What’s hard? Missing the kids and noticing that some fell off the radar when the crisis hit. Many of my kids live in crisis all the time. Not knowing where they are right now is indescribably tough..

What to take forward? Poor kids, rural kids, isolated kids—they deserve whatever the other kids get. I don’t want to see how the one-to-one schools gracefully flipped their systems to accommodate distance learning. I want to see how internet access becomes a universal right for all families. I want legitimate supports for English language learners and students with IEPs and 504 plans. I want to see every teacher receiving the training to support distance learning. I want my tiny district to have more than the grit, goodwill, and volunteer spirit that is filling the gaps in the system. I want equity for all- educators, families, students, all of us.

That’s what I would take to the future.

So, thank you Amy and all the other wonderful WATAC planners and facilitators. You acknowledged what we are going through and you set us on an impassioned path to the future. You did not pretend it was easy, but you did assure us that we are not alone on this journey. There are a lot of amazing educators who are fighting the fight alongside us. So thank you.

In closing, my grief research led me to David Kessler’s final stage of grief from his latest book. He calls it “finding meaning.” It is the way that we can begin to move forward. We find meaning in the loss. I am starting to feel like I am on that path. With the “loss” of my familiar job as an educator, I am focusing on how to reinvent it to make it equitable, relevant, engaging, and, well, comforting, for the students of my future classroom, online or elsewhere. I am beginning to plan going back to the future.

WATAC Facebook Page

Amy’s Keynote on OSPI’s YouTube Channel

The Wrong Kind of Tired

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, Professional Development

In December, I realized I was drowning. I was frequently getting sick, my class was spiraling out of control, and I would leave work so exhausted. I was facing overwhelming anxiety each day. 


When everything is a mess, it’s hard to know where to start. 

New teachers often find themselves in this position. It’s the position of not knowing what you don’t know. Looking back on my first year, it was incredibly hard to ask for help because it was impossible to pinpoint exactly what I needed. 

Entering my second year I felt much more confident that I had it down, but as the months ticked by my classroom management began falling apart. 

I reached out to one of my instructional coaches about what was happening in my classroom and she came in to observe a few times. While observing she never intervened, even when things got chaotic. We met a few days later to debrief. Surprisingly, she didn’t give me feedback on what she saw; instead, she just listened as I told her all of the things I felt were falling apart.

At the end of the conversation, she said to me, “You are the wrong kind of tired. You are exhausted because you spend your day putting out fires, not teaching. That’s called burnout and we are going to fix it.” 

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What is Social Justice?

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Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Social Issues

Educators are aware of 21st-century skills required for students such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, technology literacy, flexibility, leadership, and social skills. However, what about 21st-century skills educators must possess? 

Often this school of thought is overshadowed by the concentrated focus on student learning.  Current educators need to develop, practice, and implement skills like social justice pedagogy, intersectionality, culturally responsive teaching, and implicit bias.  Developing new skills will take time and mental reconfiguration of what teaching has become in the 21st century, but where to begin? Social justice would be a great starting point.

Social justice can be defined as seeing students for who they are and where they come from, as well as providing each student with an equitable distribution of educational supports or resources that allow the student to feel safe and secure.  At times it may seem easier to emphasize what social justice is not.  

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Going Global, Revisited

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Education, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership, Travel, Uncategorized | , , , ,

Last September, I wrote a blog as I was just starting a 10-week course with the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program. As I wrote that blog, I was just learning about global competencies for myself and my students. It has been eight months since then, and it feels like a lifetime. I’m not the same teacher I was at the beginning of the year. I’m better.

Rabat, Morocco

Let me explain how it happened. In December, after my 10-week course, I was assigned to a cohort destined for Morocco.  It was stressful finding out that I was in the cohort scheduled to leave the earliest, as they are spread out over the spring and summer months, with Morocco being the first of the five cohorts to go. We had just over two months to prepare to be out of our classrooms for three weeks.

In February the Fulbright TGC fellows attended a symposium in Washington D.C. where we learned more about global education and met teachers from Morocco and other host countries. We had security briefings and cultural trainings in preparation for our trips. I met with my cohort face-to-face, while other cohorts for other destinations (Peru, Indonesia, Senegal, Columbia, and India) met to learn the specifics of their journeys. It was exciting and overwhelming, especially since there were only two weeks between the symposium and our departure!

During the time between the symposium and my trip, I frantically scrambled to prepare my classes for my absence and myself for this otherworldly experience. I began a dialogue via WhatsApp with my amazing host teacher, Rachid El Machehouri, an English teacher in Tangier. As he built an agenda around my interests, it became exciting and real. I was on my way to Africa to visit teachers and students.

Junior high students, Tangier

 

And so it was that for three weeks in March I traveled to Morocco with my Fulbright TGC cohort. The experience was life changing. Any trip abroad, especially for a fairly inexperienced traveler, can feel like the whole world is finally opening up to you. But, this was more. I got to experience classrooms and teaching in another country.

In my first blog about Global Ed, I introduced elements from ASCD’s Global Competent Learning Continuum, a rubric that measures a teacher’s global competencies. You can explore the full continuum here.  

 

Now I would like to connect these ideas to the new teacher I am becoming. Likewise, if you are a teacher with the opportunity to bring the world into your classroom, either virtually or through your own travel experiences, I commend you. Your students are definitely better for it. Measure yourself by the same rubric. We all have room to grow.
Teacher Dispositions
1. Empathy and valuing multiple perspectives
2. Commitment to promoting equity worldwide

FEELING: I felt that I was strong in teacher dispositions from the start, but I have a whole new metric now. What can top the experience of being in a room full of Muslim students on the day of a massacre in a New Zealand mosque? Do you think I had the chance to value a different perspective from my own? When those students showed me compassion as the outsider, how did that impact my own idea of empathy? My commitment to teaching compassion and promoting equity grew tenfold.

Teacher Knowledge
3. Understanding of global conditions and current events
4. Understanding of the ways that the world is interconnected
5. Experiential understanding of multiple cultures
6. Understanding of intercultural communication

KNOWING: With travel and the learning that accompanies it, a teacher’s knowledge cannot help but grow. I learned so much about North Africa, about Muslims, and about Moroccan people. I learned about how we are all essentially alike, despite our differences. I witnessed the way a multilingual culture gracefully moves between languages, valuing linguistic diversity and encouraging communication of all types. Moroccans openly communicate verbally and nonverbally. They don’t shut out strangers. It is shocking and illuminating, as it contrasts so starkly with how Americans are often cut off from others. Continue reading →

Thrilled about a new mandate? YES!

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development |

On May 9th, Governor Inslee signed a law that surely will affect our most vulnerable of students deeply. This new law reads: “Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, and every other school year thereafter, school districts must use one of the professional learning days funded under RCW 28A.150.415 to train school district staff in one or more of the following topics: Social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, using the model plan developed under RCW 28A.320.1271 related to recognition and response to emotional or behavioral distress, consideration of adverse childhood experiences, mental health literacy, anti-bullying strategies, or culturally sustaining practices.

I cannot believe it. This is such an incredibly positive step in the right direction! I am especially excited to see trauma-informed practices included in this new law.

Last month I wrote about the importance of teaching students self-regulation skills, especially in regards to how they would like their lives to play out. The challenging part is having the insight as a teacher into the impact of trauma on students to help these students regulate. Often their regulatory behaviors are counter-intuitive it would seem and only when you know the motivations driving them do they begin to make sense. Insights are not always enough though. You have to be able to act on this knowledge. An equally difficult aspect of helping students of trauma is to have the skills required to respond to emotionally laden situations in a healthy manner. Up until now, access to this knowledge and these skills have been limited. This is the case no long. Now, the question becomes, “Can this knowledge and these skills truly help, and if so, how?” Continue reading →

On Leveraging Technology—part five: a sorting

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Education, Education Policy, Professional Development, Web/Tech

On Leveraging Technology—part five: a sorting

When I started writing about technology in the classroom back in October I began with these central questions:

  • How do we teach mindful use of technology to students who are already immersed in technology?
  • How do I deal with the inherent assumptions in the previous question that imply such immersion is negative?
  • Is such immersion negative?

A host of other questions has arisen from my explorations.

Context: My district decided against one-to-one technology adoption after passing our technology levy. The district my children attended adopted one-to-one. The comparison has been interesting. Of course, the comparison is not perfect. I’m a teacher in one district, and a parent in another. Obviously different perspectives. I’ve also made some clear decisions about my kids and technology, and technology in my personal life, which I laid out in the first post.

Here I am at the end of March, the longest month, and where am I really with answering these questions?

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The Wheels on the Bus

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Education, Professional Development

I’ve spent sixteen years teaching for my current district and until recently I couldn’t have told you what road or geographic landmark determines whether a student attends my school or the neighboring district’s high school.  I did know that our district is large geographically. We have a “remote but necessary” elementary school in our district that serves 40 students who live upriver.  

We use a variety of terms to describe geographic areas in our school community.  Upriver is a pretty common term used to describe the area due east of our community that parallels the Lewis River.  I first heard this term when I started teaching in the district. When we received our first yearly snow, I was told that the kids who live upriver needed to go home.  I didn’t really understand but later, during the summer, I went hiking and discovered that upriver includes a significant elevation gain that approaches the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Mt. St. Helens.   The bottoms is another area I’ve often heard students reference. I really had no sense of where that was nor did I ever find myself in a position to go explore the area. I’d ask and folks would point in a direction but it never made much sense to me.  There was talk amongst staff that students would go hang out by the bottoms. I also knew that some of my students lived over there (wherever it was). I came to learn that this area is close to the Columbia River. There are a few parks down there and a road that runs along it that seems a bit too narrow for driving high speeds.  It’s also host to some local farms and farm families.

Over the past few years I’ve been really thinking about what it means to “know my students.”  Like many, I do interest inventories at the beginning of the year to diagnose learning styles.  I learn about likes and dislikes, habits, playlists, and have my students write me a letter so I can get a sense of their voice.  Last year, I decided that I wasn’t okay with the fact that I could go a class period without talking to each student, so I positioned myself in front of my classroom door every class period before students walked in so that I could at least greet them coming into class.  I find these interactions encouraging as they’ve led to other, deeper conversations about issues going on at home, struggles students are having with peers, or challenges students are facing in my class. But at the end of last year, I still found myself wanting to learn more about the community my students live in.

Because of my work as a part time instructional coach I assist in the planning for site based professional development experiences.  I asked our principal if he would be willing to carve out time before the school year to take our staff on a “field trip” to see our community.  I wanted to know where the bottoms are and what conditions were like for our students.  I wanted to see the boundary lines so I could better understand our students and our district.  My principal figured out the “how” and the route, and when we came back for our August trainings, our staff loaded into a school bus one morning to take a tour.  The bus took us to places that aren’t on the main roads or that I pass as I drive to work each day. We went past the subsidized housing units, the trailer parks, and piled up decommissioned railroad cars that families live in near the bottoms.  We drove past the camp ground that lacks running water that is home to some of our students.  The bus driver took us up roads that quickly climb elevation to some of the most beautiful homes in our community with expansive and breathtaking views of valleys and rivers (Note: How do our bus drivers turn the bus around up there?). While the tour was guided by my principal, staff who grew up in town added information to help round out the experience.  On that day we saw poverty and wealth and my eyes were opened to the stark contrast between what home looks like for so many of my students.

That trip was nearly four months ago and it still resonates with me.  I find myself thinking about where my students live and what their lives must be like in those apartments, houses, trailers, and tents.  I’m really seeing my students. I find myself patient with the student who couldn’t finish her work last night. I know now that she doesn’t have reliable electricity.  

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!