Trying to keep my focus and attention on school is harder and harder these days, but I try to keep myself grounded here in the classroom while I am physically here at school so that I can be completely present with my husband at home.
To that end, keeping up with the blogs and articles I usually read has been an easy way to keep myself thinking about school when my mind is quick to wander. I don’t have to interact with people, I don’t have to sit through a seminar or professional development, I can read at my leisure and put pieces of what I find into my practice as I am able.
Jennifer Gonzalez at Cult of Pedagogy is one of my go-to blogs for an easy but very informative read that nearly always delivers with some nugget of useful ideas or philosophy that changes my instructional practices.
The most recent interview she did, with Marcus Luther, was focused on an affirmation-based poetry walk with his students. While his students are much older than mine, his activity and the purpose behind it made me realize how important it is to give kids of all ages the opportunities to affirm each other.
If you have a moment, I highly recommend reading or listening to the interview with Marcus. Perhaps, like me, you will take in the power of his lesson and find that beyond writing poetry, his students learned how to spread kindness, and that kindness multiplied and lit people up on the inside in ways that is all too rare nowadays. Don’t we all wish, after all, for just a simple note telling us that someone was moved by our words? Don’t we all long for a connection with someone that came from something we said or did? And if that’s true for all of us, how much more true must it be for our students.
I’m already looking ahead in my lesson plans for ways that I can incorporate more opportunities for such sharing in my classroom. This needs to not just be a once and done activity, but a regular practice where we lift each other up and we take time to thoughtfully celebrate all the things we are getting right.
Teaching at 3am 