Teaching Thoughts for Week 22

And just like that January is over. Here at LHS this week marks Sno-fest. Once this is over, we might as well get ready for prom!

The nation (if not the world) was rocked by the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and several others last Saturday. This week, social media has been flooded with tributes and take aways from his life. It reminds me of one of coach Mumm’s mantras: what is your legacy?

I saw a tweet this morning that quotes Bryant on his legendary practice habits: “It’s not the number of hours you practice, it’s the number of hours your mind is present during the practice.” As soon as I read that, I couldn’t help but think about our poor Gen Z students who rarely get the chance to have their minds presents because they are addicted to their phones. This doesn’t simply apply to Gen Z either. I see plenty of Gen Xers staring at their phones during meetings or even when I walk down the hall. When do we ever take time to put the phones down and just think or be with each other?

Speaking of being disconnected, in this weeks thoughts from Twitter, I feature a Tweet from a teacher who implores the parents of his students to stop texting them during class! I fully agree. In fact, I had a student last week who was on her phone (snapchat). I asked her to put it away, which she did, but not before remarking, “Oh it was a snap from my mom. She has to snap me because I don’t answer her texts.”

As soon as she said that some thoughts raced through my mind. First, what is her mom doing bothering her at school? Second, what is so important that she has to contact her child during school? If you are a Gen Xer like me, how would you have reacted if your mother or father called you all the time and you had to go to the office each time to communicate? Third, if this mom is at work, what is she doing on her phone snapping her child? Fourth, what kind of damage are we inflicting on our students by our constant need to be in contact with them?

Let me know if you have any solutions or just want to share horror stories with me!

Inside this week’s teaching thoughts, you’ll find –

The world is a world is a fine place and worth fighting for – meet the six year old who is painting miniature clay koalas and selling them to raise money to help wildlife harmed from the Australian wildfires.

Book of the Week – The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. This is an incredible read and just what I needed. One of my favorite parts is from a chapter called “Giving an A.” In this chapter Benjamin talks about the music classes he teaches where he allows students to give themselves A’s. He talks about how Michelangelo would look at a piece of stone and talk about how the statue is inside the stone, it’s his job as a sculptor to bring it to life and reveal it piece by piece. Now Zander asks what if we thought about each of our students like that? I know, sometimes you have to really look deep to see the artwork within and lord know you have to work extra hard to bring it out, but I just love that metaphor.

Teaching Thoughts – in this round I talk about the importance of noticing. What I mean by that is noticing things about our students. It might be noticing ways to make their days or noticing cool little things they do. All of that stuff is just as important as our learning targets and standards! In this piece I look at two stellar former students, Shelby Norlin and Sam Olson. 

Thoughts from Twitter – one of my favorites of all time comes from @EmilyMcgowin: “Student, crying in my office: ‘I just feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Like I’m just making it up as I go along.’ Me, leaning forward: ‘I’m going to tell you a secret & I need you to share it far & wide: We are ALL making it up as we go along. All of us.’” Have truer words ever been spoken? The key to this is to be transparent and clue the kids in on this.

Where are they now: I catch up with a former College Comp student Alyssa (Peterson) Walter. She just graduated from UND with her master’s in reading. I think that’s amazing. Just like Mrs. Walter.

Bonus content – This one has been shared before, but it’s just too good not to share again. It’s a link to a story a teacher wrote when she got the okay to spend two days in her own school shadowing her students to get the feel for what it’s really like to be a student today. Amazing.

Below are the Teaching Thoughts for the first week of February.  Keep pushing. Our kids are worth it.