You can never go wrong with a book from one of the Heath brothers (either Chip or, in this case, Dan). What I love about this book, Upstream, is that Dan researches the best way to truly solve problems. The key is not addressing the symptoms of a problem but training yourself to seek out the source of the problem.

The heart of the book is built around this parable, two men are having a picnic along the river. Suddenly, they hear a shout from the river. There is a child drowning. You and your friend jump in and save the child. Just as you get the first one to safety, you hear a second child thrashing and screaming in the water. Back in you go to save her. Just as you get the second child to safety, you hear TWO children crying for help in the river. So back in you and your friend go to save these two. Now you have four children on the bank and then you hear more screams and cries for help.

This time as you are about to jump in to save the next batch of kids, you notice your friend starting running away. What?

"Where are you going?" You yell. "I need you. I can't do this all by myself!"

That's when your friend says, "The heck with this. I'm going upstream to stop the guy who keeps throwing the children in the water!"

Point driven home.

Sometimes we - especially in education - just work on fixing the immediate problem instead of looking upstream to see what the source of the problem is.

I'm convinced if we could get our students (not to mention our colleagues and admin) to keep looking upstream for the sources of the problems, we could get so much more done so much more efficiently.

Week #4 – September 28 – October 2

Teaching Thought #15 - It’s okay to still have fun, part 2 - Take the students out for coffee or lunch.

Maybe this is just a natural fit for me as an English teacher, but I will ask administration if I can take a class once a quarter or so to The Wired Bean for a free reading day. And you know what? It’s a day the kids will never forget. How often can we say that about any of our classes?

A few years ago, Mr. Zutz allowed me to do this with my College Comp II class. When my regular English 12 class heard about this, they wanted to go to the Wired Bean too. Well, I wasn’t sure this would fly, so I talked to one student who wanted to go there the most, and I had him write an email to Mr. Zutz explaining his rationale for why they should be allowed to go to the Wired Bean too.

And it worked! Talk about a real-life skill right there! The kid was beaming all day long. I was so proud of him.

Another way to do this is simply to clear it with parents first. Then have students bring in permission slips for being gone.

I’ve gotten some flack about having kids drive to the Wired Bean - as opposed I don’t know doing something stupid like getting a van or reserving a bus - but I don’t see how I can’t do this when our kids drive on their own for Prowler Pride activities, Sports Boosters, or any number of other activities outside of the class.

Teaching Thought #16 - Talk shop in the hallways and in the teacher’s lounge

Never miss a chance to improve your craft. This is one thing I loved about student teaching. I would do hall duty and visit with Lisa Semanko, my cooperating teacher, and Loiell Dyrud, whose room was next to ours.

I learned more in those sessions than I did in many of my education courses at BSU.

That is also one reason I used to eat lunch down in the staff room. I could always count on Mike Nordine and Tom Powers to bounce some ideas off of and just to talk education policies and best practices.

I recall early on when Shane Zutz was our principal, we had a new staff member being added. But Shane wasn’t sure where to put his room. He could have put it down on the 57 wing where the teacher he was replacing used to have a room, but Shane decided to put the new teacher up in the English wing, right next to me.

Why?

“If he is down in the ‘57 wing, I know the new teacher will spend most of his time talking about sports, but if I put him next to you, I know you’ll spend a lot of time talking about teaching.”

And we had some amazing conversations on just that topic. I’m a better teacher because of those conversations.

Teaching Thought #17 - Traits of a Good Teacher

I stole this one from Donald Graves’ book Teaching Day by Day. Graves talks about the importance of devising a list of traits that good teachers have. Then cross reference your own skill set versus those. What traits are your strengths? What ones do you lack?

My favorite bit of advice offered by Grave is this: Choose your favorite colleague, and then make two lists. What makes this person a good colleague? What would be on the list this colleague makes about you?

Teaching Thought #18 - Have a (Worthy) Rival

This comes from a chapter toward the end of Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game. Sports is littered with great teams and players who had strong rivalries with other teams and players. Why? Because it helps make them better. Or at least it should.

Sinek writes, “Regardless of who they are or where we find them, the main point is that they do something (or many things) as well as or better than us . . . We simply acknowledge that they have strengths and abilities from which we could learn a thing or two.”

When I read that, I couldn’t help but think back to my student teaching and then my very first year teaching. The person I looked up most to was Loiell Dyrud. He was a legend. He taught almost all of the advanced classes. He had the best students. He taught the best literature. He was so interesting and just know so damn much.

I spent hours after school talking shop with him. It was an education. Now, I will be the first to state that even after 22 years of teaching, on my very best days I could maybe just tie Loiell’s shoes let alone ever hope to fill them, but the point was that I saw someone who was far greater than I was. Even more important, I began working to close the gap.

Sinek also states, “We choose them to be our Worthy Rivals because there is something about them that reveals to us our weaknesses and pushes us to constantly improve . . . which is essential if we want to be strong enough to stay in the game.”

And this is just what Loiell did for me. I saw how vast his reading was, so I began to devour books. I saw how he was a master storyteller, so I worked on my craft. I saw how he was always curious and asking questions, so I began to try and adopt that same mindset.

I would not be the teacher I am today had I not had such a worthy rival.

Who are your worthy rivals? I’d love to hear!

Teaching Thought #19 - Work right

We only have so much time in a school day. And if you are like me, your prep period flies by. I could use a full prep day at least once a week to get all the grading, organizing, copying, designing curriculum, and lesson planning out of the way.

But that’s not happening.

So the key is to work right. Look at the things you spend most of your time on. How can you better manage those tasks? How can you better design them so they are more effective? How can you streamline them to free up more of your time?

I recall a former colleague of mine who had his students keep journals for a volunteer project he had them do. Then he would spend hours copiously going over their journals, editing them for their grammar errors.

I think he Thought I’d be impressed. And I was. To an extent. What I told him though was this: “You’re crazy. I guarantee you that none of your students ever go back and fix those grammatical errors.”

I believe he wasted all of those hours painstakingly correcting their errors (mostly punctuation) because he felt either that he was “teaching them” or that it was his “duty” as a teacher to do it.

I think he was doing neither of those things.

As I think about it, he could have streamlined that assignment to make it both more meaningful for his kids and less time consuming for him.

He could have had them create a blog chronicling their experiences and share it with the class, their parents, and the people for whom they volunteered. This wider range of an audience would have possibly made the students care more about their grammar. I mean outside of a true English teacher, who even proof reads their journals?

He could have explained to them early on that part of their grade would be grammatically correctness and given students time to revise their journals.

He could have simply resigned himself to the fact that journals aren’t necessarily meant for a wider audience; thus, a few grammatical issues are fine. And he could have decided to grade on the content more than the errors: what did the kids learn? How did it impact their lives?

He could have had students create a multi-media presentation of their volunteer experience and then share it with the class. Again, this could have made them more diligent about revising their work.

If all the teacher wanted to do was drive home grammatical issues, I could have spent 30 an hour in his class and refreshed them on it too.

Any of those would have lessened the workload and freed him up to do more work that matters. What can you revise to allow for more free time to do work that matters?

Hearing my students rave about all the other great teachers we have at LHS.

"Glow" is the premier episode of American Shadows from the podcast company Grim and Mild, which is produced by Aaron Mahnke from Lore fame.

This podcast explores the darker corners of American history. Pretty fitting for the start of October. This episode focuses on a dark chapter on the early 20th century history: The Radium Girls.

Sometimes history is indeed stranger and more frightening than fiction. In light of COVID and all the misinformation and falsehoods being shared, this episode is not only more relevant than ever but it also shows how little we have changed over a century.

As I'm writing this, which is August 21, I don't know what school is going to look like a month in. We might still be hybrid; we might be back one to one, or we might be distance learning. I don't know.

But I do know that whatever happens, we have to keep the faith (good lord, I sound like a bad Bon Jovi song) and stay positive. If this kid can get this hyped up to ride a bike, how can't we get hyped up to teach kids?

Twitter is the best PD I've ever had. I learn more in half an hour on Twitter than I did in my first decade of school sponsored PD.

TED Ed is amazing. It's one of the few apps or websites that I wouldn't want to teach without.

In short, TED Ed allows you to build a lesson (replete with assignments, discussion, and a quiz) around any video on Youtube, not just TED Talks.

This is perfect for distance and hybrid learning. It's also great for subs as students show up, log on, watch the video, complete the assignments, and then submit it. Best of all, TED Ed grades the quizzes and logs all the information for you.

Below is an example of a TED Ed lesson I created based around one of my favorite videos: Success in the New Economy.

It's supposed to be about preparing your children and our students for the road of life NOT about preparing the road of life for your children and our students. Let them struggle.

George Curous offers some interesting ways to rethink teaching. A lot of great ideas and linkss.

I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.

We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. And now we have been blessed with five grandchildren!

I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.

I am in my 23rd year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in Red Lake Falls in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.

I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.

I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.

I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Christensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."

In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.

Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney).

In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, Laura Brickson, Loren Leake, Katie Hahn, Melora Burgee, and new members all the time. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.

Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.

Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
Location: 101 South Knight Aver Thief River Falls MN 56701
Phone: 218-686-7395
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kurt.reynolds.5?ref=bookmarks
Twitter: @teacherscribe