Learning to Ride

Okay, I have a confession to make: Chapter 7 (in the Tomlinson book) was a hard one for me to get through. It starts with a long, bulleted list of things that effective teachers do. As I read through the list, my eyes started to glaze over a little bit. How will I EVER do/be all of those things? Or even SOME of those things? And then, three times in a row, Tomlinson starts a paragraph with the words “It’s really quite simple.” Is it? IS IT? Not to me. To me it seems complicated, overwhelming, and maybe even impossible.

But then, Tomlinson says that living the simplest truths is seldom easy. Now that’s a statement I can get behind.

My truth right now is that I’m kind of freaking out a little. I want desperately to be good at this teaching thing. I want to be a teacher who makes a real difference in her student’s lives. BUT—I know that in order to do that, I’m going to have to take risks. I’m going to have to allow myself lots of room to make mistakes. I’m going to fail at some things. And that’s scary. It really, really is.

Tomlinson says that to teach effectively, we ultimately need to accept 2 challenges. First, we must cultivate a passion for what we do. That feels like the easy part to me. I’m already passionate about this. The next part is the one I feel unsure about: “We need to remove our protective armor and allow our students to shape us.” Wow. It’s hard for me to imagine being that vulnerable.

I love the metaphor that talks about how teaching is like learning how to ride a bike. The best way to ride a bike is to climb on, try it out, inevitably crash and burn, but then stand up, dust ourselves off, and climb back on again. I feel like my career as a teacher will be a lot like that metaphor. I’m nervous (okay fine, I’m terrified), but I think I’m ready to give it a try. I don’t look forward to the metaphorical bumps and bruises I will suffer along the way, but I do look forward to the feeling of exhilaration when I finally learn how to ride.

Demanding Curriculum

My son has always been an excellent speller. In fact, it’s been a pretty rare occasion that we even have to practice his weekly spelling words. There was a short period of time where I was a real stickler about it, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it really wasn’t necessary for him. He would often get 100% on the pretest, and if he didn’t, whatever practice exercises they did at school were enough that he would usually ace the final test on Friday.

As a parent, I wished that he were more challenged in this area. He would often mention to me that the spelling tests were “dumb”, and I can’t say I blame him. It’s hard to feel like something is worthwhile when it takes that little effort.

In my first field experience as a junior in the elementary ed program, I was able to work with an amazing fifth grade teacher named Michelle. I learned so much from her, but one thing I especially loved was that way she handled weekly spelling words. She gave an assessment at the beginning of the year to find each child’s level, and she went from there. Each child had their own unique, personalized spelling list each week, depending on where they were. At first, I couldn’t understand how she possibly had time to do that for her large class of 30+ students, but I soon learned that it was because she was so organized about it, and because she delegated as much of the work to students as possible. Students were responsible for helping one another practice words throughout the week, and even giving each other the spelling test on Fridays, as well as grading. Michelle would monitor and check the student’s work, of course, but it was awesome to see how much responsibility the students were able to take on. I wish I could’ve been there to see it all from the beginning of the year. The bottom line is, there was not even one student in her class who was not challenged by their spelling words each and every week. When they did well on a test, they knew it was because they studied hard and earned it. Further, they all felt a sense of accountability for making sure that their spelling time ran smoothly.

Tomlinson says, “Demanding curriculum and instruction also means the teacher ensures that every student develops the habits of mind necessary for success in school and life.” I got to see this in action in Michelle’s class, and it was an amazing thing! 

Pinterest for the WIN!

Like so many other American women, I'm a little bit addicted to Pinterest. I'd probably be ashamed if I actually knew how many hours I spend on it every week (yes, that's hours, not minutes...)

BUT--it's not all bad! For instance, it's a fantastic way to connect with other teachers and take advantage of their ideas and experience. 

Just the other day, I found this awesome infographic about differentiation! So much wonderful information in an esthetically pleasing layout!

Here it is:

(Credit: ASCD)

Overall, I feel like Tomlinson would agree with the above assessment of differentiation. After all, she said, 

"The idea of differentiating instruction is an approach to teaching that advocates active planning for and attention to student differences in classrooms, in the context of high quality curriculums."