The Power of a Thought Partner

I woke up in a bad mood today. By the time I arrived at school I was annoyed and I wasn’t exactly sure why. It may have been because it’s a Monday. We all know those can be tough. It may have been because I went to bed a little too late. It may have been because I felt stressed about the end of the month. Tomorrow is October 1st and this year I’ve committed to sharing my monthly coaching schedule with the teachers I support at the start of each month. September’s schedule was planned and shared by the end of August and it was jam packed. In hindsight I didn’t give myself enough personal work time to prep and follow up from all of the coaching cycles, unit launches and Team Time meetings we had. I was beat and each day felt like I could have used a few more hours to get everything done. 

What makes October even trickier is that while September felt like I didn’t have enough time to get everything done, I still felt like I wasn’t doing “enough.” There are twelve English and Reading teachers at my school who I work with in some capacity. Seven of those twelve are in their first or second year of teaching and I want to prioritize working with them while not neglecting the others. Trying to craft a schedule where I could balance coaching cycles with teachers, work time for myself, planning and facilitating team meetings and curriculum internalization sessions left me feeling paralyzed. As I reflect on it now, I realize I was in a bad mood because I felt stuck, frozen in place with a dark cloud of a deadline hanging over me. 

So, for the first three periods of the day I was cranky and a bit down. And then, at the strike of noon, things started to turn around. What kickstarted the shift towards sunshine was a meeting with Michael. He’s our organization’s Director of Instructional Coaching and today we had a check-in. I knew I wanted to talk with him about this schedule dilemma I was facing. I shared that I was feeling stuck and he asked me about which teachers I wanted to prioritize. I named our first and second year teachers as those whose students I felt would benefit most from coaching cycles but the fact that they make up nearly 60% of the teachers I work with was daunting. Our organization’s group of coaches (we call ourselves The Coaches Crew) is reading Student-Centered Coaching and one of the structures they name is group coaching. Michael and I started to disuss the possibility of me coaching a group of ELA teachers who teach the same grade and as we did, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. Planning with a group of teachers for 55 minutes once a week as opposed to four separate 55-minute planning sessions felt a bit more manageable. I was beginning to see a sliver of light through the darkness. After my conversation with Michael I had grade-level meetings scheduled with our English teachers. It was the perfect opportunity to run the idea by them. I shared the rationale and structure and both sets of teachers agreed to try it out. As we discussed this new idea, some expressed concerns about not receiving the targeted support they may need but everyone was open to trying it out. Their willingness to be flexible and collaborative made my heart sing. 

At the end of the day I reflected on how much my energy and mood had shifted since the morning. I had gone from jaded to joyful and it all started because I had a thought partner. The work of coaching teachers is extremely complex and shouldn’t be done alone. Having colleagues to process and problem solve with makes this important effort not only easier, but far more sustainable. I’m curious to see how group coaching goes during October and I’m extremely grateful I’ll have an entire crew of thought-partners to process it with.

Crying on the First Day of School

Today is the first day of my 25th year in education. Feels wild to type those words but yes, I started my career as a middle school teacher in 1999 and twenty five years later I’m still here. I am now a Literacy Coach working at a middle school just two miles from where I started my career and on the first day of my 25th year in education, I cried at school. 

I didn’t cry because I was scared. I didn’t cry because I was embarrassed. I didn’t cry because I was frustrated. 

I cried because of what I witnessed in a first-year teacher’s classroom. 

I work in a traditionally hard-to-staff school in the community of Watts. More often than not, our students get newer, less experienced teachers. Three years ago the majority of our 6th graders didn’t have an English teacher for the first three months of school. When one finally arrived, she was brand new to the profession with no formal teacher training. It was a tough year and students didn’t get the education they deserved. Last year, as 7th graders, they had a similar experience and we were determined to ensure they didn’t have the same experience for their final year of middle school. 

Our school was able to hire a first year teacher who, through a residency program, spent last year teaching alongside a mentor teacher. She was part of a cohort of residents who had an intense year of mentorship, teaching, and learning which prepared her to take on a class of her own this year. I got to see this teacher on her first day and boy oh boy was she ready. 

When I walked into her class I saw what you might expect from a more experienced teacher. She unpacked learning targets with students so they knew what they were going to learn that day and what was expected of them. She broke down vocabulary that might have been confusing for students before they had to read it on their own. She set up structures for students to engage in small group conversations. She had students clap it up for themselves when they accomplished a task. She set high behavior and academic expectations for students. To support their fluency, she had them choral read and echo read small pieces of text. She had students make name tents so she could call them by their names. She circulated the class, looked at student work, and provided specific and actionable feedback. She crouched down to get to students’ levels when conferring with them. When a student showed enthusiasm for something, she celebrated and encouraged that enthusiasm. All of this on the first day of school. 

As I watched these magical moments from the back of the room, I started to tear up. 

I cried because I saw our students engage. They talked. They tried. They laughed. They wrote. They spoke. They smiled. One of them even said, to no one in particular, “I think I already like this class.” 

I cried because our students who deserve the best were finally getting the educational experiences they should have always had. I teared up as I watched K engage with his peers and the work. He was a student who I distinctly remember as eager and enthusiastic on his first days of 6th grade. As his days without a teacher turned into weeks and then into months, he began to disengage. As a 7th grader, I watched him become the class clown and struggle to turn in assignments, read grade level texts or produce coherent writing. But today, I saw something different. I saw him actually engage in the work. I listened to him have an academic conversation with his peers. I saw him write down his ideas about what it means to be respectful and responsible in an 8th grade English classroom. 

I saw all of this because he finally had a teacher who was prepared, committed, joyful, warm and demanding. He finally had the teacher all of our students deserve. And that brought me to tears. 

Building Relationships in a Virtual Setting

This is the second blog in a five-part series outlining the process a group of young folks and I took this summer to learn, reflect and work to become actively antiracist by reading and responding to the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. You can read the first blog post here.

Let’s start with the kids. 

I happen to have a large number of friends and family who had children 12 years ago. My sister gave birth to my first niece 12 years ago. I witnessed the home birth of the son of two dear friends 12 years ago. My best friend had her child 12 years ago. The list goes on and on. Essentially, seven friends of mine had kids going into 7th grade. And since middle schoolers are some of my favorite people on the planet, and I knew some of them were having a hard time with home quarantine and missing the social joys of school - and to be honest, I was too - I reached out to the kids and their families to see if they wanted to read Stamped together. Everyone agreed and some even invited friends. We had participants from Harlem, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and El Paso. Some of the kids knew each other and others knew no one. Over the course of seven weeks, we built relationships, shared our ideas and talents, and got closer. 

So, how did we build relationships across thousands of miles? 

First, we always used the first 30-40 minutes of our 90 minute sessions getting to know each other. We used a range of activities that included the following: 

• Quick introductions and check-ins - We started each book club with this as a way for the kids to remember each other’s names, locations and learn new things about each other. Our prompts included:

  • Share your name, your city, who is in your family, something you do for fun, 3 words to describe you, 2 talents you have

  • If you could meet anyone in the world, living or dead, who would you meet and why? 

  • One high and one low from your week

  • Choose a check-in question from this list to ask the person whose name is listed in the chat below yours

  • One rose and thorn from being in home quarantine

  • Where in the world would you like to travel? Who would you take with you on this trip? Why? 

  • If you really knew me, you’d know that I...

• Headed to the Moon - You’ve just found out that you and your family are headed to the moon for a year. All of your food and shelter will be taken care of and your family is coming with you. The shuttle takes off in three minutes and you can only bring five items with you. What will they be? Take three minutes now and gather those items before we blast off. Be ready to share your five items when the timer goes off!

• Our Commonalities - I love this activity. You put 3-5 people in a group and give them a set amount of time to find 5 things they have in common that are not obvious by looking at them. The kids came up with a ton of fun things like “We’re all athletic, like cold, slushy drinks, sushi, pizza, Hamilton and Black-ish.” 

• Life Maps - These are always one of my favorite things to do with students and a great way for students to learn about each other’s life experiences. On a sheet of paper, create a map of your life. Start with your birth and choose 5-7 life events that have had an impact on you. They can be whatever you’d like. Draw an image that connects to each event and connect them in some way. 

• Lights Out and Pose! - This is a game I learned from the awesome folks at the Freestyle Love Supreme Academy that works wonderfully in a virtual setting to get the energy up and incorporate some movement and fun. Someone chooses a word or phrase, like Beyonce, superhero, justice, Black Lives Matter, donut, or curious, and then says, “The word is justice. Lights out!” Everyone covers up their camera with their finger and the facilitator counts down, “3, 2, 1, pose!” Everyone uncovers their cameras and poses in a tableau that embodies that word or phrase. Participants get a few seconds to look around the screen and notice everyone’s pose and then a new word or phrase is chosen. It’s also fun to switch facilitators and get suggestions in the moment. 

• Dance Parties! - We also had 1-2 minute dance breaks where one of the participants would choose a song and we’d all get up and move our bodies for a few moments. It always brought the energy up and let us get to know a bit more about each other’s music preferences. 

Second, the young folks in the book club also facilitated some of our group building exercises. I gave each of them a quick Google Form survey at the end of each book club asking what worked and what didn’t for them that day. I also asked if any of them had suggestions or would be interested in facilitating a warm up or group building exercise. A few took me up  on that offer and facilitated the following:

• Two Truths and a Lie - Have each person share three statements that include two truths and one lie. The rest of the group gets to guess which statement is the lie and in the process we learn more about one another. Participants can also ask follow up questions based on each person’s statements to deepen their knowledge of their peers. 

• 10 Questions - One person thinks of a person, place or thing and the rest of the group gets to ask 10 yes or no questions to try and figure out what that person, place or thing is. We played four rounds switching facilitators and the group successfully guessed three of the four words. 

The young folks regularly shared that their favorite parts of the book club were these activities. They loved getting to know each other and having fun in the moment. 

Building relationships in a virtual setting can be hard. It’s so important that we ensure there is ample time for young folks to get to know each other and share who they are with their peers. This can be done in whole group, small groups, in pairs, using our voices, our writing, our images, and so many other things. Get creative with it and remember that the adult facilitators or teachers don’t have to come up with everything. Be sure to ask young folks for regular feedback and ideas and invite them to co-facilitate. Everyone will be better for it.

The next blog post in this series will share different ways that we engaged with and responded to the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi.

Being Vulnerable and Authentic with our Students

One of the best parts of my job as a Literacy Coach is seeing teachers and students in action across our school site. I have the distinct pleasure of being in classes to witness, support, and learn from teachers and students everyday. Today I was moved to tears as I sat in an afternoon leadership class of 7th and 8th graders. They were exploring identity as they read Tiffany Jewell’s This Book is Antiracist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work and were preparing to write their own “I Am From” poems. Their teacher shared her poem as an example. It was posted in their class course and she gave students a few minutes to read and process her piece. This teacher’s life has been one with a number of roadblocks and she shared some of those in her piece. 

I am from the pot of beans on the stove top

from gravel on the road and Los Angeles gutter water

I am from the vanilla scented candles

I am from the roses that grow in the cracks

The Cottonwood Tree whose roots are as shallow as my own.

Her poem went on to share about abuse, absent parents, blood and bruises and other parts of her life experience. 

After students read her poem she used a cascading chat where they had one minute to type questions about her poem in the chat and then all press enter at the same time. Kids asked a range of questions including: 

• What did you mean by “The Cottonwood Tree”, what was the meaning behind it? I also wonder how and what made vanilla candles meaningful to you?


• 
If you can answer this, How did all of that get you to who you are today?


• Since you grew up without a father does that mean that you had to take care of your siblings (if you have any) while your mom was at work
?

• 
Did you ever meet your dad?


• 
Did you really have a rough life
?

She answered each of the questions students asked. When she finished she told them that through sharing her poem she wanted to share a bit of who she was and model being vulnerable, reminding students that they could do the same. She also shared that students should write the poems they feel comfortable writing, poems that best represent who they are. 

Relationships between teachers and students are so precious. The laughs. The inside jokes. The shared experiences. The support. The love. It’s something I miss these days, as we work in a virtual school setting. This afternoon I was so grateful to bear witness to the building of those precious relationships. As I watched this teacher share a piece of her authentic self with students and then openly answer questions they had I knew I was witnessing the laying of the foundation of a strong class community and genuine student-teacher relationships. 

Today’s class reminded me of how important it is that we, as educators, are authentic, vulnerable and real with our students, especially in these times. Not each of us has to have a hard life story to share with students. That may not be our experience. But we do all have the opportunity to be honest and vulnerable with our kids, sharing a bit of who we are, the parts that bring joy, and the parts that feel prickly and rough. By doing so, we create a space for our students to do the same, a space that clearly states, “You are welcome here. All parts of you are welcome here.” This is a message that is always needed but especially today. Each and every one of our students needs to know they belong. Sharing who we are, asking students who they are, and then listening to and believing them is one way to begin.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You - A Virtual Summer Book Club with Rising 7th Graders

This summer I hosted a virtual book club with rising 7th graders to read, learn from and discuss the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. The book explores the history of racist ideas, how they’ve been perpetuated over time and introduces readers to people who have actively resisted racism. 

I have to say it was one of the highlights of my summer, for so many reasons. 

The kids. The text. The process. And the inspiration all of these things provided in such a trying time. 

This is the first of a five-part series outlining the process we took to learn, reflect and work to become actively antiracist. 

Future posts will highlight: 

• Building relationships in a virtual setting with participants in 5 different cities

• Engaging with the text

• Sharing our learning with one another

• Reflections from rising 7th graders

Be sure to follow along as we share our journey.