Themes

As I was listening to Sanders read the other day he said, "I noticed a connection between three books. I noticed that each of these books is about a kid growing up and each kid has a new baby brother or sister, and they all feel jealous, but then they change and they learn to share their parents."

Wow. He was finding a theme. This is not easy work for a seven-year old. Think about it. Do we as adults find themes in books easily? No way. I might find a theme in one author's books - like the tension between salvation and sin, or Salinger on middle-class pretense and listlessness - but it is just plain hard to find a theme in books by different authors like Sanders did. It's so cool to find kids doing things like this in my class. Love my job.

Earthquakes, Street-Musicians and Janitors

Inspired by "Growing Readers" by Debbie Miller of TC and yet totally our own.

This was the strongest first week of school I've ever experienced as a teacher of reading.

On Monday, Ronnie, the janitor, and after hours dj of everything from Mingus to Sting and back, handed me a Caribbean Life newspaper excerpt about a new singer from New Orleans. I made a big teacher deal of it in front of my kids, "See how smart people know what their friends are interested in and give information to each other?"

On Tuesday, Joanna asked, "Mr. Shirk, remember when you're friend gave you a newspaper about music can you read it to us?" Happily I complied; it went over their heads. But the act of a seven-year old girl remembering a day later an interaction involving text between two adults and expressing her interest in hearing about it; wow. She is aware that a community of ideas exists between people who are alert and soulful. Also, a good friend pointed out to me that Joanna felt welcomed into this community.

On Wednesday, Julian brought in a book about earthquakes in response to the rare East Coast quake we felt on Tuesday. See the last bullet point on our chart of things good readers do. We added this in response to Julian's contribution. That day (I had also brought in 4 books on earthquakes from the library) we practiced partner reading - book in between two bodies, one pair of hands on book so we don't rip it, quiet voices but lots of reading and talking, reading and talking, and so on.

What do these experiences say about lesson planning?

The things of highest value could not have been written in to my lesson plans because they were responses that my kids and I had to our learning environment. On the other hand, I prepared by sitting in a coffee shop reading Debbie Miller on building a community of readers and I prepared by developing a bond with Ronnie with music blaring in the empty school corridors - "I know that's McCoy Tyner, but that just doesn't sound like Coltrane..."

What's lost when a school, or a graduate school, doesn't call forth this kind of preparedness, or worse, starves responsiveness by over-emphasizing detail in lesson plans.

What do these experiences say about assessment?

It's impossible to put what Joanna and Julian did in a multiple choice test. Yet those are the measures our school wants to use to say we will be as good an elementary school three years from now as City and Country, The School at Columbia or PS 321. This makes me want to be a teacher and learner always, never a policy maker or a leader. Ojala, que haya otro modo de ser lider.

Tea Party of the Radical Center?

Last year Thomas Friedman proposed a Tea Party of the radical center. A contradiction in terms? Yes. Helpful vision? Maybe so. I'm left thinking about this vision after TFA's 20th Anniversary Summit in DC.



Like NYCORE (NY Collective of Radical Educators) and Grassroots Education Movement (grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com), I was expecting the event to feel something like a scientology convention. When Joel Klein said, "Is this our Egypt moment?" and something like "Don't be afraid to stand up to the big interests," I felt a little seasick. Does he say things like that to Rupert or Bill and Melinda. Disgusting. Orwellian.

However, I chose to attend sessions throughout the day that were led mostly by TFA alums who have been in the classroom for 10 and 15 years. Are they the majority? No, but they're out there. And all reaffirmed my connection to the organization. They shared tips and stories about building strong community with students, parents and fellow teachers.

With this in mind, I felt much better at the closing session. An alumna who is a PhD candidate at Temple had good things to say. And I was convinced that the two alumni state senators who spoke are more faithful public servants than the average politician. At the end, a kid from KIPP's orchestra was singing under his breath as he was playing backup to John Legend. Pretty good stuff.

Progress with Non-Fiction

About the difference between fiction and non-fiction, I'm afraid that my kids only understand that "stories are not real" and that "non-fiction is not a story."

So today I asked, "we know that most non-fiction doesn't have a problem and resolution, then what does it have?"

Ashley yelled out, "facts!"

"Good. What types of facts?" I asked. We ended up with this chart through a process in which I asked them to recall non-fiction books that we read, i.e.

Me: "Process is about how things happen. What books did we read this year about how something happens?" -

Kids: "From Pit to Peach Tree"

Me: "Ok, what process, what thing that happened, did that book teach us"

Kids: "How trees grow?"

Me: "Ok, so growth is one of the types of facts that's a process."

(Note: all this was focused to lead up to the skill of summarizing a non-fiction text by writing a main idea and two details.)