Skip to main content

No Teacher Is an Island

I meet regularly with two of my friends, and I consider them to be dynamite teachers. We used to work together, and they truly helped me survive my first and second years of teaching. Before we discovered the #NerdyBookClub, we called ourselves the "nerd herd." Sometimes, I think my students know more about my friends than they do me.

On a local level, this community is so important. Like I've said, I would've quit long before if I hadn't had this support network to share my failures and successes. Just yesterday, we spent hours at a Panera to talk about what we are changing, removing, and implementing in our classrooms this fall. We all run similar classrooms in that we believe in the workshop model, independent reading and writing, and student choice. At the same time, we all work in different contexts that have unique visions, schedules, and other requirements, so we discuss ways that we can make others' ideas work in our settings. 

In fact, these two friends and I are presenting this year at the Michigan Council of Teachers of English's fall conference. We've spent a lot of time talking about whole-class novels and making them work, and we want to share that conversation and our learning with others. (Quick preview: There is no panacea for this dilemma, but we have some ideas that might work!)

Like man, no teacher is an island. You can't do everything on your own, and you can't get better without sharing and learning from others. With that said, I'd compare Twitter chats to the Burkean Parlor. The conversations are taking place all the time, whether you participate or not. You can come and go at any time. In fact, some people messaged me this morning to let me know they are just now getting a chance to view the Storify archive of last night's #nctechat--And that's okay! They're still able to network and reflect.

The nicest thing about these networks or communities is that you realize you aren't alone. The conversation that is happening is directly relevant to your classroom and your inquiries. Once you overcome the fear of being the one teacher that just can't make something work--and believe me, I am in that category way too often--you realize that there's a host of people out there who have and are willing to share, or there are others that are wondering the same thing.

And this is why I don't understand why many forget about their parent organizations and support networks after being in education for so long. It's about being connected. It's about continued learning. I'm a card-carrying member of NCTE, and I know that they "have my back" when I'm lost, confused, or want to learn more about something. 

If you aren't a member of MCTE, NCTE, MRA, MACUL, etc., you need to be. And if you aren't on Twitter or are still an "egg," you need to get involved. Research shows that the hardest part about doing something is getting started. Don't say you'll do it tomorrow or later today. Start now! 

Comments

  1. I completely agree with you Kevin! I don't think I would be a teacher entering her 13th year if I didn't have my former colleagues, my PLN, NCTE, the Nerdy Book Club, and Encouraging Teachers (a Facebook group). We teachers need to others who are willing to share ideas with us, as well as pick us up when we are having a rough time with something. Thank you for sharing what all teachers need to hear/see! We cannot be an island!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Handwritten Cue Cards in the 21st Century

I just stumbled upon this behind-the-scenes clip of Saturday Night Live's cue card process. This is intense writing. This is writing that is dependent upon trust and checks and balances. Over a short period of time, skits are written, drafted on cards, revised, and the cards revised over and over again. I also really love that SNL continues to use cue cards and not a teleprompter. Like Wally points out, technology can fail. Handwritten cue cards ensure the show goes on. Comedy is hard work. Writing is hard work. Changes are made up until the last minute to get things just right. This is a form of real-world writing.

Six Things to Keep in Mind When Your Class is NaNo-ing

Students recently drafted their reflections about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so I wrote beside them about the lessons that I had learned. Here they are: Limit the other work you give . While you may feel the pressure to have copious assignments in your grade book (there tends to be a sort of teacher shaming if you don't have many assignments in, as if there is a magical number), you have to recognize what is valuable and what is not, especially during the 30-day writing frenzy that NaNoWriMo is. I tried to make every assignment relevant for the month and their novels. Students encountered "daily challenges" (these quickly turned into every-other-day challenges) that focused on many of the necessary elements to good novels: dialogue, story world development, character creation, subplots, etc. Everything was designed so that students could use their work in their novels, and it allowed me to have short glimpses of the types of things they were writing abo

Past Secretaries of Education

After last night's hearing with nominee DeVos, I decided to research past education secretaries. Senator Alexander talked a lot about "precedent" when it came to procedures regarding the HELP Committee. Let us remember that the first education secretary was appointed in 1979. That's the same year that Congress created the department under Jimmy Carter. This is also the same department that Ronald Reagan promised to abolish. Even the first education secretary had experience in government. Shirley M. Hufstedler was both a federal and state appeals court judge. I'm going to say that because of that experience, she's probably familiar with law and how laws work. As we saw last night, when Betsy DeVos was redirected a question because her answer implied that states could choose to implement federal law or not, she might need a refresher. Then we had Terrel Bell, who was a high school teacher, bus driver, and served in the Marines. Again, a long list of public