Teaching Thoughts Week 21

Good morning!

I just started reading Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander’s book The Art of Possibility. I featured Benjamin a few newsletters ago when he was interviewed by the Entreleadership podcast.

The authors open their book with the following –

A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying,

SITUATION HOPELESS [STOP] NO ONE WEARS SHOES

The other writes back triumphantly,

GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY [STOP] THEY HAVE NO SHOES

This, I think, is also a key to education. Teaching is all about trying to see the possibilities inherent in each class period.

For one of these salesmen, it was a wasted trip. For the other, it most likely changed his life.

What can we take away from this? Just this week, I started my English 9R class for students who have struggled with reading and writing and, often, school in general in the past. Because I chose to see it as an opportunity to work with students I rarely get a chance to (the rest of my classes are college in the high school), I brought the same passion and zeal to it that I bring to those classes. And the students buy in.

One of my little guys was bragging to me how Mr. Lingen, who he has after my class, asked him who his favorite teacher was. He smiled and said, “I told him it was Mr. Reynolds!” 

Now this is a young man who I have only had in class for three days! Sure, there is plenty of time for him to change his mind about that. BUT that is the power of letting kids know that you enjoy having them in class, that you love what you do, and that what you will be doing with them is significant.

Just yesterday, I started reading a Gary Paulsen book to them. We spend maybe 15 minutes on it after our daily SSR. I just read the first chapter to them. Before they left, though, I had one young man come up to me and ask if he could get his own copy of it because he wanted to read ahead!

Every time I head into a class, I recall something Zander talked about in his book. He was about to head into a practice session (he is a conductor) when he mentioned to a colleague, “I hope this goes well.” It was at that moment that his colleague said, “Well, that’s entirely up to you.”

Now I think of that every time I head into my classroom. It might not go all that well, but it’s not going to be because of me and a lack of passion or an interesting assignment!

Inside this week’s Teaching Thoughts you’ll find –

An image I saw shared on Facebook that kind of broke my heart. It reads, “I haven’t even gone to bed yet and I already can’t wait to come home from work tomorrow.” This wasn’t shared, thankfully, by anyone in education, but I’m so blessed I never feel that way. Furthermore, that is my purpose for getting up and coming to work every day. I don’t want any of my students to feel that way about their future jobs.

Book review – The Art of Discussion-Based Teaching by John E. Henning. I’m envious of anyone who can have great discussions as the centerpiece of their classroom. That is one thing I always admired about Mr. Nordine, who, I think, did that better than anyone. And it’s something I’m working on improving, hence the reason for this book.

Teaching Thoughts – on thought #92, there is a link to this video if you need a little inspiration. And who doesn’t need a little inspiration? 

Podcast of the week – I return to The Spark of Creativity podcast. In this featured episode the author, Betsy Potash, who discusses how to use Snapchat to document student reading. I love this idea and want to use it as an alternative to my Sticky-Note book report.

Video of the week- Don’t miss this one. It’s amazing, and it is what we all should be doing with our students.

Tech Tool of the week – Anchor. Last semester I gave students an option to create podcasts for their final assignment for their second round of Sticky-Note book reports. Several took me up on it, and their podcasts were epic. I even had one student who had a few other students from class cameo on her podcasts! Anchor is one of several easy to use tools that allow students (or you) to create podcasts.

Where are They Now? This week I catch up with former student Sheena (Lee) Sheldon who is now a preschool teacher in Faribault, MN. Those little ones are so fortunate to have Mrs. Sheldon in their lives!

Below you will find the Teaching Thoughts for week 21! Make it a great week. Our work matters. Every day!