A Little Reader's Theatre Drama

For those who aren't aware, I'm a third grade teacher....this year anyway. In an effort to develop reading fluency, one approach is to employ reader's theatre. My class isn't new to reader's theatre. But what I heard today made me chuckle a bit.

They were working/reading in groups of three, a skit on an animal trainer. I overhear one girl say, "How many times I gotta tell you to read with EXCITEMENT? It's a SCRIPT!!"

Ha! How 'bout them apples!!

"Mr. Flemming, can we go in the hallway?"

The culture we create as teachers in our classrooms determines so much more than what can be written in a single blog post. The same can be said of building administrators and I say it quite often, "It's the culture you create. It's the culture you create. It's the culture you create."

I'm not a perfect teacher, but I do pride myself in my attempts to keep trying, to keep reaching, to try something new, different, and fresh, to make average good, good better, and better the very best!

One thing I started teaching explicitly as the situations arose was talking. Talking out problems. Identifying possible solutions. Listening. I've been known to say, even in my years teaching middle school grades "3rd grade problem, 3rd grade solution. YOU solve the conflict before I do."

There have been times I've brought all parties out into the hallway to work out a problem, with my demonstrating how to listen, how to sift the facts out from what one "thought" were the facts and to discuss a possible solution. These sessions have been quick 2-minute sessions with my leaving the kids out in the hallway to arrive at a solution. That's the new school part of me. The old school part of me also told them that they had better come up with a resolution or that I would come up with one, PE-RI-OD!! That was incentive enough! (I can hear the progressives now, counterproductive?? Well, I am still a work in progress. I believe in a mixture of some things old and some things new.)

Since I've allowed such sessions in the hallway, kids will come up to me and say "Mr. Flemming, can me and ___ go in the hallway?" or "Mr. Flemming, me and so-n-so need to resolve a conflict, can we go in the hallway?" Many times I say yes. And to be honest, sometimes I'm like "ummm, oh boy, what did I start?" I do give in 99.2% of the time because conflict resolution is an important soft (or maybe even a hard) skill for life!!

Today a couple of kids, after a 30 minutes, even pulled a Flem and said, "Mr. Flemming, we need so-n-so out here because we can't solve it without him," implying he may have been a witness or a part of the problem from the start.

Despite the tests of my adjusting to 3rd grade, they are making me proud in so many ways!

Note: I've also taught them to ask to be excused to the hallway to FART!!!!
Sheesssh!!! They will cut the cheese right there in the room!!!! lol
Now, they ask and I LET THEM GO OUT and walk it off!!!!!
{Insert laughing with tears emoji}

The 207 Literary Revival

{Que to church organist backing up the preacher...}

There are joys and challenges, my brothers and sisters, of teaching and learning in Philadelphia!!
Can I get a witness?!?

No, seriously, I prefer to blog and tweet about many of the joys of teaching and learning with my 3rd graders even though there are many many challenges that are inherent with working in an urban area like my Philly hometown.

Our reading program in 207 was....ok. There was/is learning and reading enjoyment, but as a teacher I was a little dissatisfied. Perhaps it's the drive in me to always try something different, to always make improvements, to make bad good, good better, and better the best it can be. Never satisfied. Always trying.

Well, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume and no traditional homework assignments in February sparked a little literary revival.

Initially, the no homework thing was a risk. I was questioned, and I welcomed the questions. I actually appreciated the questions because I was able to gauge, somewhat, who really pays attention to the goings-on in class. There were several reasons why I chose to make that snap decision for February. Rising from rubble of that risk, however, was 1--a great experience in Ecology and 2--this literary revival.

The "homework" throughout the month involved reading particular chapters in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and coming prepared to discuss what we read the previous night. Even without the traditional homework assignments, many weren't even doing the reading. I'd go all "Flem" in class (and I'll leave that there) and decide to converse with those who did read. Any student who's ever had me knows that literary discussions in 105....ooops....207 are more than just about the plot. During the discussions a range of emotions are showcased by us all.  From pure happiness indicated by raucous laughter to empathy to deep reflective sorrow to getting fully enraged, it's all fair game in 10....ahem...207!

That sparked a jealousy in some students who were not doing the readings and were left out of these feelings! How can you feel what we're feeling if you have no idea what we're talking about? So many would go home and read or read during SSR* in class so that they could participate. Even struggling readers found ways to push themselves, some asking someone at home to read to/with them. They rose to the occasion!

We ended the reading and are finishing up an essay we started early on! How can I tell it was a literary revival? One, the discussions were great! Two, the kids nearly tore up our class library making the connection to that book and a book that had been in the library the entire year, Fudge Mania. They couldn't WAIT to read it!! Some divulging elements of the book before the rest of us even realized it was in the library!

Oh, but wait, I should be using Story Town? It has its place. And I did use it that time when...cuz see what had happened was, because I be doin' stuff and whatnot...but then I be like

(Just code switched on them and some are just as lost right now...it's cool though...lol)

*Note: SSR is NEVER a time filler in 10...207, but is intentional. Reading for pleasure, anything they want, is intentional. And I'd love to (and have) engage in pedagogical discussions on the DEregulation of Silent Sustained Reading. Let the kids read. Leave them alone. And don't use SSR or DEAR as punitive with things like, "YOU KNOW WHAT CLASS!! Since you want to talk and play around, take out a book and read!! SSR!! That'll teach you!!" Ummmm....naw!! Nope!

Detention for Mastery! *Edited*

Several groups gathered today at School District of Philadelphia headquarters to protest the mass privatization of our public schools. Community groups of parents, teachers, and advocates gathered to chant, to be visible, to speak, and to make our presence known. Among the groups was the NAACP!

Mastery Charter School parents, students, teachers, CEO and supporters of their cause were also there and counter-protested. It's the 1st Amendment at work, in the exact same space where we were.

Ok, sure!

But....

I take issue with the adults "hyping" up the kids to interrupt PARENTS as they spoke in favor of keeping our schools TRUELY public!! I heard and saw the obnoxious adults with my own two ears and eyes. Mastery's adults permitting and encouraging their students to interrupt PARENTS who were speaking into the mic says to me "we don't appreciate parents who disagree with us and we will turn a deaf ear to you, yea rather, we'll interrupt you and drown you out!"

For that alone I say we stamp Mastery Charter School's demerit card 1000x over and give THEM a detention!!

I also have a problem with cowardly adults!!

Detention!!

Who, pray tell, hides behind hype teens?

Detention!!

Be man or woman enough to stand with me toe-to-toe and explain how you think it's fair to divert money and resources from an under-resourced school system to your schools?

For hiding behind your students and for egging them on to interrupt parents as they spoke...

Detention!!!

I'm also curious to know if they used time during the school day to organize the students for these very political purposes! When did you type up notices to gather? When did you make announcements or send emails? Hmmmm.....501(c)3??? Hmmmm....???
Are the kids getting paid? Maybe extra credit? Gift cards? I just have some questions. How much money is Philadelphia School Partnership sending your way to "help out"?

I say we figure all of this out in detention!!!

A Quick TFA Reply

Teaching was my 1st choice, B.S.Ed!
Teaching continued to be my choice, M.Ed!
I will continue to learn and grow as an educator, some three professional certifications, another return to the graduate school classroom, several years into this calling and hosts of students over the years who come back and still call me their teacher....later!

Ecology 207

Call it by whatever name you want, but here are my positive ramblings of what we're doing in science, in Ecology 207. I'm calling it learning design, although this term may not be 100% true to the known pedagogical concept, but it fits perfectly here. Plus, since when do I ever operate in a fixed pedagogical box? Ha! Whatever is best for my students!

For the first conscious time in my teaching career, the students, with guidance, designed how they would learn and present content on ecosystems. I introduced some basic ecological terms including "ecosystems". Together we looked for a list of ecosystems. From there the question was, "how are we going to learn about these ecosystems?"

I took notes (see below) as they shared lots of ideas for how they would learn about these ecosystems. I displayed the notes in a word document as I typed them. I used an LCD projector and screen.  We also discussed how they would show what they learned. I typed these up as well. Together we came up with the "directions" for the project, learning some new vocabulary along the way.
We eventually made our way to Powerpoint to display the project information.

Our technology is EXTREMELY limited in the classroom, but we've been rotating on the computer. A colleague was kind enough to donate her classroom computer to our classroom. That makes two desktops.

Throughout the school year I've been showing them how to do Internet research, showing them how to determine if we could rely on the websites or not. I've also instructed them to check a few sites to verify the information they are reading is accurate, if there was any doubt.

In addition to Internet research, there were science text books that I borrowed from a vacant classroom. Wow! Actual books!! Together we navigated through tables of contents and indexes.

It doesn't end there. The learning experience continued with me showing them how to do Powerpoint presentations. Each day or so I'd show them little things and let them go play around with it and learn some more on their own. A few kids have become the teachers when pairs of students would go on and try to navigate through the application.

There are NO words that can really capture how I feel about this whole learning experience!! It's been great! They are learning quite a bit! They are reading, researching, using digital tools, learning ecology content, navigating  what it means to work collaboratively (for those who chose to work with a teammate, this was also a choice), etc. etc. etc.

They will present their research however they desire. Some are choosing Powerpoint. Others are choosing posters, written summaries, poster board displays, mini-lectures, whatever they desire!

They set a due date for March 9th. We shall see!! Stay tuned.
By the way, ALL of it has been and will be done in class! This is purposeful.

Notes from class:

A Flint Water Crisis convo

A couple of weeks ago my students and I had an interesting chat about the goings on in Flint, Michigan, particularly about the water "situation". I showed them on Google Earth where Michigan was, including Flint. I showed them the Flint River and Lake Huron as well. We discussed what happened and showed some news clips.

I then took them to our class twitter page and showed them the hashtag  #Philly2Flint and we discussed  what people were doing to try and help. (There was a mini-lesson on hashtags)

Since then, they heard and learned a bit more from the news and from their parents. We talked again yesterday and today. Yesterday, they saw their teacher donate money to the cause. Today I showed them the receipt.

We discussed how many of the people are black. Many of today's discussions were sparked by a girl in particular who asked ALL OF THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!!

Why didn't they (those in charge) just turn the bad water off?

So, how was it that they were drinking bad water?

Why didn't they do anything?

So, the people that are giving money, how do they (organizations) make sure the people (of Flint) don't buy other stuff with the money and only the stuff dealing with the water?

And other questions...