My parents once took my brother and I on a family vacation to Plymouth, Massachusetts. One of the touristy things to do there was to go on a whale watch. At the time it seemed like such a fun idea…until we actually left the dock and discovered that many of the vacationers had not acquired their sea legs. I remember my mom and I holding onto the railing, looking out into the stretch of the ocean searching for whales when she said, “Look at the horizon. It never moves. Isn’t that crazy, to think amidst all this wavy, choppy water, with the boat swaying, that you can look out at something that never moves? If you feel sick, remember to look at the horizon to steady yourself,” I vividly remember that neverending line, that stationary line, that permanent, unwavering comfort.

I’ve thought about this recently. A common phrase I’ve heard lately from my colleagues is, “These kids won’t be ready for next year”.  I hear myself saying it. I hear others say it. It seems as though many are assuming only this school year was impacted by Covid and perhaps the next school year will be back to normal. But if we think that 2020 only impacted the 2020-2021 school year then we are in massive denial. The gaps in instruction alone are going to leave lasting effects. Learning is like a staircase, and when you try to take two steps at a time you often trip. I know I’m not alone when I say that most of the work I’m starting to see in my students is typical for emergent 7th graders. I hear the teachers from the grade level preceding me, warning me how low the current kids are. It is critical that we be patient with our kids, our colleagues, and ourselves on what was taught and learned this school year. Just because kids were back in school this year does not mean they will be equipped or prepared to do typically grade-level work next year. Things are going to continue to change.

And so we must look to the horizon.

Standards and initiatives will change.

So we must look to the horizon.

The social and emotional upheaval that many are still going through, will leave ink stains on their childhood. The disparity will widen between families who could provide social and academic support and those who could not.

Deep breath. Look to the horizon.

If we think that kids are not academically ready for next year, they certainly won’t be social-emotionally ready.

Look to the horizon.

There’s no race. We are instead toiling over gradual miracles.

A mantra of mine is “Be better than yesterday” (spoiler alert: that mantra works REAL well in a pandemic). For me, that mantra is my horizon. The pandemic is not just a crisis-it’s a crisis tangled within crises. There are escalating mental health issues, domestic violence episodes, and financial constraints that push families to desperate limits. And our students are surviving it. Many brains are not in a learning brain mode, they are in survival brain mode (more on that here). But if I’m looking to my horizon, I’ll remember to work on making today better than yesterday.

Your horizon is probably a little different than mine, but also the same. Teachers want what’s best for kids-we want happy kids, we want kids that love reading, and have joyful, literate experiences in our disciplines.  We want to inspire kids.  We want this generation to be better, to think deeply, to be kind.

There are choppy waters ahead. And swaying boats. Likely nausea and vomiting. Changes to come. But if you look out beyond all of it, you will also see your horizon.

I must confess that I’m beginning to consider changing this blog’s name to “Did I Do Anything Right This Week: A Comedy of Errors in a Small Rural Middle School”.

Every week is “A week”; a rough week, a tiring week, a long week. Changes, upheaval, trauma, limitations, gaps, etc. I have noticed that it is beyond easy for me to slip into negative self-talk. Just quit. Why did you choose that? You should’ve done more. You should’ve done less. Why haven’t more gains been made? I’m apt to quiet those thoughts with, “It’s all fine, it will be okay, I’m here in person and that is a gift”. At those times I really struggle because I’m trying to avoid toxic positivity.

What is toxic positivity, you ask? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

I first heard this phrase when I was scrolling my Twitter feed in the fall, when many were returning to school and hearing chants of “You can do anything, Teachers!”. I began to hear the phrase pop up from colleagues; somewhat jokey, somewhat serious. I decided to research the phrase “Toxic Positivity” and while I found a lot of overlapping definitions, I’m not sure that what I found is official.  What I mean by that is, nothing came up from the American Psychological Association. Lots of articles, but not scholarly journals. Just a disclaimer. Anyways,  IMHO, The Psychology Group and VeryWellMind had clear explanations with examples, if you’re looking for more info. My favorite lines:

• Toxic Positivity is “used to cover up or silence the human experience”
• Toxic Positivity occurs when rather than being able to share authentic human emotions and gain unconditional support, people find their feelings dismissed, or outright invalidated.

Really, it’s the idea that you or your feelings are being ignored. Sometimes when I start to slip into my negative self-talk moments I end up numbing my feels. I gloss over my self-deprecation with a bright outlook and channel my energy into what is going really well. It’s not a terrible strategy to look at the good, but it is terrible to ignore realities. I have an asset-based mindset. This means that when I look at my students, I solely look for what they are almost doing well and find the next steps. They can name character feelings? Great! Character trait work is up next. If they can get the literal meaning of a text, I know my next step is teaching them to interpret it. When I’m reading their writing, I look for what is currently present instead of what is absent. It is inherent and part of my wiring. This mindset is not always common and it’s definitely philosophical. I believe with all of my being that an asset over deficiency mindset can reach the student that is furthest away from you, and I believe it can move people forward professionally.

But.

This week, I was looking at my notes from a class about their nonfiction reading work and I thought that for a hot second that all my assets-based thinking was just bullshit. What was I thinking?! Have they learned anything I’ve taught this week?! Would it have been better to note what they were clearly NOT doing?! Was I living in a toxic positive state, trying to desperately reach for what might not be there?

Aside from feeling ineffective, I didn’t sleep super great for a few nights. I couldn’t stop thinking or feeling for some of my kids who are living in really dire situations. I couldn’t turn it “off”, you know? It’s always been a struggle for me to do this, and it comes and goes at certain times in my career. But this week the feels crashed into me like a wave on the sand. My balm for this has been a strong gratitude practice; it helps me find peace, and it helps calm me down. After I finish a gratitude practice I generally feel like things are going to be okay in my life. One of these practices happens first thing each morning when I wake up as I’m drinking coffee all bleary-eyed. Because you know, coffee first. Then gratitude (or anything as far as I’m concerned). This morning time is when I simply sit and be thankful, and thank God for the first three things that pop into my head. Sometimes it’s coffee (and it definitely was on multiple days this week). Blue skies. My boys. My colleagues. Good health. The soft blanket I’m curled up with. My favorite slippers. The things vary. But one day this week I kinda felt like, you know what? This is jacked up. I’m not feeling super grateful at all! AT ALL, I tell you!

My inclination was to shush that sort of thought and remind myself something along the lines of “Everything will be okay, this is just a hard season” or “Just be grateful we’re in school every day, it’s a gift”. And while I believe those things, they were not going to help me in the moment. Although I’ve heard of “Toxic Positivity” from other people, it smacked me in the face to know I might be my own culprit.

I thought, and I wrote, and here’s what I’ve come up with: the difference is the numbing. It’s harmful to numb ourselves, and we do no favors when we try to numb a situation for others. I’m not numbing myself when I acknowledge what my students do well instead of what they do not. I know, very clearly, that there are gaps that exist and miles of learning to go. The assets mindset is only going to help them and myself. But when I tell myself,  “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s all fine, everything’s fine” when everything is not….that is numbing.

I’m not going to tell you that everything will be okay. I’m not even going to tell myself that. Instead, I will see the good that exists, focus on my students’ next steps, admit when I’m feeling stuck, and find colleagues to support me when I’m feeling down. I hope you can do the same.

This year is filled with blurred lines.

How long is a mask break-10 minutes, or 2? Should I let kids touch books when they are browsing? How come they can play on the playground and touch the same monkey bars, but they can’t share a marker? Should I wipe down the pencil sharpener after each use? My mom and my husband work in different districts than I do and it’s unbelievable how things vary between just 3 districts; I can hardly imagine the nationwide permutations.

One very clear thing I have seen this year is the need for intentional, trauma-invested teaching practices. This is not new-only more urgent. This topic has come up with several of my colleagues along with the question of how it can occur inside the classroom. There is less instructional time than ever before and it is hard to know where to cut, and what to cut, from our curricula. When we couple that with the idea of implementing trauma-invested practices we are left with an echoing question: What can actually make a difference?  So many kids have needs rooted from their early baby days, and some have needs that were caused by the pandemic. Dwarfed by the tidal wave of pressures, most days I’m tempted to numb the pressures of teaching with copious amounts of chocolate.

…we are left with an echoing question: What can actually make a difference?

Instead I lean against the wall (see previous blog post), take a breath, and ask “How are you?” to my students.

I have a theory that there are two ways to ask “How are you?”. The first is cursory. Picture yourself walking down the hall and as you pass a colleague, you flash a masked smile and a quick wave. Maybe you’re even late for class. Maybe you’re even slugging a huge bag and carrying a pile of books, dropping pencils, and sort of shuffle jogging because running in the halls certainly isn’t allowed, but you’re late, and…ahem. Anyways. One of you will say, “How are you?” but not expect any personal feelings divulged. It’s just polite. The second type is in a real way. How are you? Variations: Hey. How are you?,  How ARE you?,  I’m just checking in with you, how are you? Eye contact + inviting body language are a must. One of my co-teachers is so, so good at this. She has this beautiful ability to press pause on the world and look inside you when she asks. It cuts right through any facade. It seems to be a really gentle way of saying, “I know the actions your’re showing right now aren’t the real you. Let’s get real. I care.”

I know, I know, it sounds simple. Maybe even to the point of annoyance. Like, really, this is what I chose to write about? But I guess I know all too well how we can get caught up in assessments, maximizing instructional time, and trying to close gaps.

I know how easy it is to get anxious about lesson plans and making every minute count.

I know how overwhelming it feels to have parents to call and assignments to grade and meetings to attend/prepare for.

I know how it is to tightly hold onto something you’re working hard at, only to have the essence slip through your fingers, just as you do when you hold a handful a sand. When you grasp tighter to sand, more seems to slips out-grain by grain.

To be clear, I am not pausing my teaching to individually go around the room and ask “How are you?” with each student. I am working really hard to use transition times to ask how they are, and I do not get to every student each day. I do not have any sort of data tracking record to see who I have spoken to during the week. I’m just shifting my work and energy, asking all of them whenever there is opportunity-beginning of class, end of class, some transition times, during conferences. My conferences, like everything else in the world, are not structured this year in the way that they normally are. Because it’s not a normal school year. But while my students are working independently, my (exceptional) co-teachers are I are working the room, maybe first commenting on something they are doing that’s related to the task, then asking how they are. Occasionally redirecting them and God-willing inspriring them to love reading and writing with all of their heart along the way.

I believe it is the most important question we can ask them.

Here are some responses I got last week:

• “Hungry…can I have a snack? I mean, do you have any snacks?”
• “Tired…my brother stayed up late playing his XBox. We share a bedroom,”
• “Lonely. I miss my friends. I never get to see them”
• “Okay” (shrugs) “It’s school, you know? But I’m glad I’m here and not learning at home”
• “Good, I’m having a pretty good day”
• “Nervous…but kind of like, excited. I have a basketball game today!”
• “Not good. I’m just having a lot of thoughts”
• “Worried. My dad isn’t getting paid this week, he had to stay home from work while he waits for his Covid test result. I don’t even know how we’re getting food to eat”

And THAT is what I need to know. Knowing those pieces of information helps me proceed as a teacher in a way that assignments do not.  They tell me they need me to hold space for them. They tell me if they need patience, reassurance, how comfortable they are, their readiness levels, etc. They tell me if I need to connect with our counseling team. If they need outside agency interventions-some of their needs are bigger than me, and I need to go to an alternate resource. I can’t buy groceries for a family, but we have a local food pantry. They tell me if I can share in a celebration with them. It all confirms the truth of Maslow before Blooms.

The energy and commitment to ask, “How are you?” was inspired by a book I read last Spring called Permission to Feel, by Dr. Marc Brackett. As with all the awesome things in my life I first learned of him through the Brene Brown podcast Unlocking Us and it can be found here. If reading about social/emotional needs and emotional intelligence is your ultimate jam, then I highly recommend this book, it was revolutionizing for me as a parent/teacher/human. Eye opening and a solid reminder that all of us are humans with rich stories to tell, no matter our age.

How are you-in a real way? I would love to know.  It is the most important question we can ask each other.

• From Google:

Doesn’t that sound lovely? I think every teacher I know could use protection and privacy right now. Everyone is exhausted. The profession has been villifed for years. All the people last spring who claimed teachers should make a million dollars a year have vanished. To top it off, there is just no tired like “teaching in a pandemic tired”.

Yesterday during the last period of the day, a colleague said to me, “Hey. Are you alright? Wait, you’re not alright. You look stressed. What’s wrong? Can I help?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. E v e r y t h i n g feels so stressful and so big right now that it kind of renders me into paralysis. I’m not certain what would be helpful at times, because so many things seem to be in demand.

I never have all the materials I need, because our middle school teachers are moving from room to room while the kids stay in pods. This is embarrassing to admit, but I inevitably forget something. Every. Single. Day. Trivial things, like a pen. Monumental things, like a book. I’m carrying around a bag the size of Siberia, but instead of being prepared I just wind up with a ridiculous muscle knot in my shoulder. I can never find the freaking scotch tape in any room I’m in. Like a student, I at times forget to charge my chromebook.

My colleagues and I are upending instructional delivery and reaching kids who are mega stressed/disengaged/traumatized from a pandemic/nutty from sitting still all day/typical tweens that need love and guidance. Since every space of our building is being used, we no longer have individual workspaces. Our grade level shares one room, and although this has come with bonuses (support, team bonding, witty banter, etc) it’s not the most efficient work set up.

Now-let me say that there is a lot that I’m proud of from this school year. I wholeheartedly love my job. I laugh every day. I have student success stories. But, I’ve also got struggle stories. And last week was a week where I just plain felt more of the struggle than the success. I happen to wear my brain right on my face; so when my colleague asked if I was okay, I couldn’t even really respond. I was just tired and depleted. I hit a wall…but walls hold up a room. When we hit a wall, we should let it hold us up, too.

…but walls hold up a room. When we hit a wall, we should let it hold us up, too.

Yes, I hit a wall. And it was great. I went home, took a walk outside, watched my kids play, changed into sweatpants, ordered takeout for dinner, and read a book. I was asleep by 9:15 and slept until 7. I could have chosen to do more school work, more housework, been more attentive to my family, etc. But, guess what? Everyone survived! The world still turned!

When we hit walls, it’s a message from the universe. And that message is, “Lean on the freaking wall, because you can’t stand up on your own right now because you are teaching in a pandemic. You need to be held up, and the wall is here for it”. This year undeniably requires more mental and spinal fortitude. We’re hitting walls because we are running fast while trying to keep up and not exactly sure where we are going or what we need. But it is ever important that when we do hit them, we stop. We do not keep going. We rest against that wall, and we take what we need for all the moments we need to be there.

Many astronauts have shared that when they view the image of Earth from space, it creates a feeling of interconnectedness.

If all teachers felt this way, imagine our strength. It would be grace and nourishment for us, in this profession so very different than how many of us imagined it would be.

It would help us to remember:

there are no bad kids,

there are no hard kids,

they are all our kids.

Let’s look after them together.

Whether your teacher squad is the one next door, your entire grade level, someone across the building, across the street, or states away via Instagram and Twitter, let us find interconnectedness and commit to kids together. We are the company we keep. And we are stronger together.

I have had an increasing amount of ideas and questions about Social Studies instruction over the past few years. I have wondered how to teach kids without giving them the content information, how to teach them without lecture and notes, and most of all, wondering what tethers the entire class together when they are allowed to explore resources on their own. If reading and rereading Mosaic of Thought, 2nd Edition by Susan Zimmerman and Ellen Oliver Keene has taught me anything it is that ¨Questions are the glue of engagement¨ (2007). Knowing that idea and pairing it with the workshop approach has been the bedrock of my teaching as of late. Being immersed in the Reading and Writing workshop structure and Teachers College Units of Study over the past few years has helped me chip away and sculpt my nebulous ideas into more a shape. I have seen firsthand that when teachers use a workshop model in ELA, students walk away with a large amount of content information. Why not apply that to Social Studies? (Or any class, for that matter).

Quick Recap: Two gracious colleagues of mine have let me adopt their classrooms for their current Social Studies units so that I could try some things out. While it has been messy it has also provided opportunities for me to fail forward and learn a lot. My biggest lightbulb moment this week is that the more questions the kids have about the topic, the more dialed in they are. I have felt grossly uncomfortable letting the kids take the reins, only because I was unsure if it was the right move. While the kids were watching videos and reading articles on their explorers I was fretting. I was wondering, ¨But should I give them names, places, dates? Should I give them a map? Should I tell them the effects of exploration?¨ The short answer is no-let them wonder. Let them find the places. Let them find their own map. Let them read about the effects of exploration. Not without supervision-be there to coach in and conference and talk as they explore. But encourage independence and resilience when they hit a brick wall. This is real life, this is real social studies. As a citizen, they are going to need to know how to access information, delineate real information from fake news, and find what impassions them. My teaching points have been about using precise details, exploring many sources, teaching others using our writing, examining Primary Source Documents, and how to share research; feel free to check them out here.

The kids not only felt proud that they could answer their own questions, but they felt proud they were able to access the information and find it on their own. I had provided a text set for them to use-they were not freely canvassing Google. Once they found their information, they were excited to share with myself and their teacher, and talk about it with their peers.

I have had an increasing amount of ideas about Social Studies instruction over the past few years. All of my wonders have been the glue of my engagement, the motivation to keep going when this journey gets tough. Wonder leads me to my answers, and wonder is the answer for my students.

1. I think we can all agree that the face of Social Studies needs to change. There is simply too much to teach if we continue teaching it the way we were taught; pen in hand, poised above the spiral notebook, copying notes from the blackboard or power point, listening to our teacher(The Sole Source of Knowledge). If we continue to teach this way, we will drone on and spout words in and out of ears of our students. Or frantically cram in as much information as we can possibly jam into the brains of our students. I know I had a difficult time remembering everything in 2001 when I graduated high school. It’s unrealistic, and unfair, to expect students to add nearly 20 years worth of more events.

So, what’s the answer?

Less is more.

I am not teaching specific dates, names, places. I am teaching concepts, and more importantly, how to access those details. In an age where so many people are device ridden, it seems like a waste of time to teach, or retell, mundane details when they can be looked up  in mere seconds.

Take the 4th grade class I’ve adopted, for instance. On the first day of our European Exploration Unit I gave the class a “MiniLecture” (1o minutes). They received the handout I read aloud from, and took notes from it. The way they took notes? The way that made sense to them. They have been taught in Reading Workshop how to write about their reading, and they transferred the knowledge to Social Studies. I gave them some reminders and tips that are especially helpful for historians to consider when taking notes. The next day, we spent class using “talking prompts” and they created a Seed Entry in their notebook (a seed entry meaning, they will return to it and grow it into something better through revision later on). The next day, we explored several resources (videos/text) on explorers. Hopefully by tomorrow they will be able to choose one to focus on. Our Learning Target today was, “Today we will explore many resources, So we can choose one topic to become an expert on and use precise details”. This is another hybrid of ELA. This is also bringing my social studies philosophy into more clear focus. I think it’s paramount to expose kids to all of our history, but I think it’s even more important to let them choose what to become an expert on. When I was a new mom, someone said to me, “You can’t do it all and do it all well”. This definitely applies to teaching Social Studies. Instead, let’s adopt a “less is more” approach, where we allow kids to survey topics, and choose one to dive deeply into. We’ll undoubtedly empower future citizens this way.

It is becoming increasingly more important for me to ask students what they think about a topic we’re studying. After all, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”(Thank you, George Santayana). You don’t know history if you don’t think about it. And you won’t know history if you’re forced to try to memorize all of it.

For most of my teaching career I have been seeking to strike a balance between literacy and content. I taught Social Studies for 7 years, and I was never the ¨chalk and talk¨ type. I have always wanted to kids to experience the same joy I did when opened up a book and read about places, people, and events of the past. Only then will they be inspired to talk about how to preserve excellence and prevent atrocities-and put their ideas and thoughts into action. This means every social studies (any content, for that matter) teacher must be a teacher of reading and writing. And I don´t mean reading the blue words, and I don´t mean a cookie cutter five-paragraph essay.

In the Name of Keeping Things Real, I confess that 13 years in…I´m still in the middle of a mess. It can be really hard and frustrating when I see talented teachers, professionals, and researchers all on the cutting edge of their work…and   I´m still here, meekly figuring it out. In the middle of a mess.

I recently went to the Teachers College 94th Saturday Reunion (see the previous blog post!) where I had the awesome privilege of attending a session entitled ¨Authoring Different Genres to Engage Student in Social Studies Content¨. The session was inspiring and downright helpful, but one phrase especially has changed my approach.

The writing process is the same in all content areas.

Duh, right? Sheepish lightbulb moment if there ever was one.

TC Staff Developer Tim Steffan was the workshop presenter, and I believe he was quoting The Lovely and Talented Mary Ehrenworth. My notes are scraggly from the fast and furious scrawling. Anyway-this statement makes total sense, and it has alleviated a lot of my struggle.

I tried a Social Studies unit in December with a 5th grade class where the classroom teacher and I took an If/Then Writing Unit of Study and paired it with our 5th grade social studies curriculum. TOUGH STUFF. It was not perfect, and there are a lot of things I would do differently. So…I´m trying again. We are now using our US Government unit, and thinking about the Information writing type, with the writing process really guiding our instruction. We will be using the same teaching points from both Information Reading and Writing Units of Study, and echoing the note-taking ways students already know from Reading Units of Study. US Government content is guiding us and anchoring the lessons. The writing process is truly my north star. Each time I doctor up the curriculum map or lesson plan I am keeping in mind that students during the beginning of the unit are researching and collecting information, and as they progress they will be drafting and revising those seed entries. By the end of the unit, hopefully, they will be publishing ¨Presidential Papers¨, where they will explain the branches of government and foundation for The Constitution. I have no idea if this will work. Fingers crossed, salt over the left shoulder, and prayers prayed. I´ll be steadily updating progress here on the blog.

On the back burner, I´m cooking up a ¨Research Clubs inspired¨ 4th Grade Social Studies unit on Explorers. Stay tuned. Lots of mess in the works. This is just the beginning; the middle will come shortly, and in the end, we will be smarter about our craft of blending content and literacy. And honestly, I´ll be lucky if it is that clear-cut. I think the middle will extend for quite a while! One could say I´ve been in the middle for a long time already, and this is just the beginning of the unit.

But arguably, I´m a step closer.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant or event where there´s a buffet only to end up getting paralyzed by the amount of choice? This happened to me lately in the educational realm when I went to The Teachers College 94th Saturday Reunion. Teachers, I ask you: When is the last time you went to a PD event and felt like you couldn´t decide which session to attend because the offerings were all so great, PLUS they were offered by rockstars? If you never been to a Teachers College Reunion Day (or Institute), you HAVE to place it on your professional bucket list. The quality of PD is immeasurable. I always leave feeling 10x smarter than when I arrived and I am able to get a ton of mileage out of it. What is even better though, is that I always feel as if I am a valued member of their community. There is something about spending the day with some of the brightest minds in education on a private, Ivy League institution that is a time-honored center of research; somehow the air quality better, I swear. Always good for a professional to be a scholar and to feel as if they are a part of something ¨bigger¨.

This time I went with several colleagues and administrators from our district which heightened the experience even more. We haven´t had a formalized district debrief yet (that is in the works) but in the meantime, we are connecting and contacting each other during plan periods to touch base on sessions we attended. Not to sound all peace, love, and granola, but this has been great bonding for us.  We rarely get that gift of connecting outside the classroom with our colleagues. We run so raggedly during the school day that most of our energy is siphoned off by 3pm…when we muster up enough more to bring some home to our families. The TC Reunion Day was jeweled because I was with colleagues who believe with their whole heart that we can make a change. Every single person I traveled with really believes that they can take the work we learned about, apply it, and make a difference. Actually, not only apply the work-but is excited to apply the work. When we connect during the school day for PLCs, there is often a  naysayer. What made the experience so elite was having colleagues by my side to share in the thinking, conversation, and application in the week and coming weeks after.  Not only were neural pathways about literacy and education created- but also a sense of belonging. Last year I shared a phrase with many of the ELA teachers I work with, a phrase that I use during times of adversity ¨I can, and I will¨. I´m thinking that it is now better used as ¨We can, and we will¨.

You can´t pour from an empty cup. Seek out PD from a place where you get a palpating vibe of energy, thinking and learning…and bring a colleague who shares your belief and will to make a difference in the lives of kids.