HARK HOW THE BELLS! SWEET SILVER BELLS! ALL SEEM TO SAY! THROW CARES AWAY! CHRISTMAS IS –
I know, I know – we complain about it every year, but that doesn’t stop the machine from cranking this baby up as early as they think might squeeze a few more half-pennies from the masses. And it IS coming… sooner than you think. We’re past Fall Break, the new has worn off, the time has changed, and things just seem to get busier and busier. Sure, we MEANT to keep up with our online teacher friends and we bookmarked those edu-blogs to read, but…
No worries. I got you. It’s what I do. Here are the “Shouldn’t Miss” posts from #oklaed and beyond this past week or two…
Never Give Up Hope – Regular readers and vintage #11FF might not expect me to be quite so hooked on Jon Harper, aka Bailey & Derek’s Daddy, given his penchant for emotional, inspirational, warm and toasty caring kinda things. That’s not really my comfort zone. But it works for him, and underneath it runs a current not of sugar and fairy dust, but of risk – and gut checks – and breaking the $%&@ rules if it might be best for kids. In this short piece he rolls the dice on a troubled kid and seeks his help mediating between two younger boys. Then he walks away. Follow Harper on the Twitters at @jonharper70bd – really. Go, now – do it.
Clutch / Breakthrough – As long as we’re full of hope and acknowledging the moments of healing light, here’s a double shot of Rebecka Peterson on OneGoodThing this past week. My daughter – who’s as sharp as a gar, but scathingly merciless regarding any teacher she deems unworthy (where do kids GET these attitudes?) – still loves Mrs. Peterson best of anyone she had in high school, including me. That’s OK, though – I do too. Bask in the mathematical and pedagogical wisdom of Peterson at @RebeckaMozdeh on the Twitters. #oklaed
#OurSchool – Seth Meier of Excellence In Mediocrity shares his take on this year’s release of the infamous Oklahoma Public Schools A-F Report Cards. **Spoiler Alert** He’s not impressed. It’s probably sour grapes, though – sounds like #HisSchool wastes all their time and resources on serving kids, growing their potential, and developing the sorts of relationships that lead to a lifetime love of learning and a belief in what’s possible when we apply ourselves to greatness. Pshaw! That crap is SO not on the high stakes state standardized tests. Follow Meier and his Twittering at @SethMeier. #oklaed
Nothing {New} To See Here… – Mindy Dennison at This Teacher Sings drops a ‘DUH’ on those bewildered as to why treating people badly and paying them poorly makes them not want to teach. In other “Who Knew?’ news, politicians just want to get elected and pro wrestling is almost as fake as a Kardashians episode. Trigger Warning: I’m pretty sure I detect traces of snark and sarcasm from Dennison as she ponders HOW any of this remains so COMPLICATED for state leggies. What’s NOT complicated is following Dennison when she’s Twitterizing as @MrsDSings, so let’s go do that now, kay? #oklaed
On Slow Readers And What It Means for Student Reading Identity / Then It Just Doesn’t Matter – A pair from Pernille Ripp on Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension – both richer and truer than ought to be possible in such brevity. From the first: “Since when did taking your time as you read become something to be ashamed of?” and from the other: “So when they hate reading we must attack that first. Not the strategies, not the skills, but the emotion that is attached to everything we are trying to do. We must dig and dig and dig to find out why. And we must ask, and we must talk, and we must give them a chance to change their mind, if even just in the slightest way, as we create classrooms that are run on a culture of love for our subject, rather than a need to cover curriculum.” Ripp excites me because she says things I would want to say if I’d realized how strongly I thought and felt them, then crushes me with how simply she pleads with us to please try to take care of our children in ways which should be so obvious. It’s like crying in church. Read her. Follow her. Buy her books. @PernilleRipp
Finally, In Honor Of NaNoWriMo2015, A Post (and an Idea) Well Worth Another Look…
Detachment: An Object Lesson (November 2014)– Dan Tricarico, aka The Zen Teacher, shares a writing assignment I would have found bizarre and possibly pointless several years ago. Now I realize he was just a bit ahead of me on the ‘getting a clue’ curve (I can admit this because he’s too Zen to ever throw it back at me, but he knows it’s true), and I love Love LOVE this one. I’m going to find some pretense for doing this in my AmGovt class this month, because… defiance. And tenure. Oh – and it’s good for the children, too. Be good for your children by being in the moment with Dan on the Twitters at @TheZenTeacher and buying his book. At least add it to your wish list – I hear there’s a holiday of some sort coming up soon, and who knows what might turn up?
Go, my #11FF Darlings – go be amazing, no matter what that looks like for you this week. I’ll leave you with a trifecta tribute to National Novel Writing Month, beginning with one of the strangest, wrongest things ever done to a Beatles song…
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Gonna write you a letter… gonna write you a book…
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It’s amazing what words can do…
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What was in that letter that calls to me, to me, to me? What was in that letter – straight to the very heart of me? What was in that letter that haunts me from this distance? What was in that letter – so sure, so persistent…?
Yeah, I know – but I don’t think he means just a literal letter. Go write your book, in whatever form that means for you. Straight to the very heart.