A former student of ours, Lucas, who works for the Grafton police department, was shot several times in the chest serving an arrest warrant. I received an email from Lucas' father, Marcelo, who used to teach Spanish here and is the one the brightest people I've ever met. Marcelo was asking for prayers not just for his son but all police officers. Those prayers poured out from his former staff members and many other community members.

Luckily, Lucas was able to recover quickly and leave the hospital five days after the shooting. Now his long road of recovery begins, but his positive spirit and willingness to serve his community is what inspires me.

Tom Romano's memoir ZigZag: A Life of Reading and Writing, Teaching and Learning. For an English teacher, that subtitle says it all. Is there a better way to spend your teaching life? Nope.

I've loved Romano's work since I discovered him in graduate school (he was one of the originators of the multi-genre research paper and worked much of his career to popularize it). His text, Crafting Authentic Voice, is the best text for teaching composition since A Writer Teaches Writing by Donald Murray (who was a close friend of Romano's, by the way).

This memoir looks at Romano's life growing up in Ohio in the 1950's. His father owned a night club/bowling alley and Romano's family lived above it. Romano reflects on his father's death (he was killed in a head on car crash on the way to a bowling tournament) and how that changed the life of his family forever.

Romano also reflects on his high school education, being an unsure and hesitant college student, heading out into the field as a young English teacher, accepting a graduate assistantship at the University of New Hampshire where he would be part of Donald Murray's groundbreaking research in teaching writing to elementary students, and then finally Romano's decades as an English Education professor at Miami at Ohio where he taught English teachers.

Regardless of what you teach, there is a magic in seeing someone open their lives in print to our eyes. Perhaps, this is what I love most about teaching composition to my students.

Week #2 – September 14-18

Teaching Thought #5 – Think like a librarian

The amazing John Merrow offers some advice for how we can transform education right now. He offers four different ways we can choose to think about education.

He challenges us to think of education like a librarian:

Librarians do not have a captive audience. After all, no one is required to attend the library. To survive and prosper, librarians have had to identify their audiences and find ways to appeal to them, to draw them into their buildings or electronic networks. For the most part, they’ve succeeded, and without pandering.

With school buildings shuttered, students do not have to ‘attend’ anything. They can log on to classes to get credit for ‘being there,’ but there’s no way for the teachers to know who’s paying attention and who’s FaceTiming friends. And we know that more than 25% of students in Los Angeles, for example, aren’t even bothering to log on. Even parents who are monitoring their children’s efforts cannot be certain that the kids are paying attention.

So the adults must ask students the librarian’s questions:

What can I do to make material this appealing to you?

How can I persuade you to invest your energies in this subject?

What else are you interested in? (Because knowing that might allow you to teach this important material at the same time,)

For example, perhaps focusing on one subject for a month at a time might be more appealing than trying to study five subjects every day. The block schedule of 50-minute periods may work inside school buildings, but that doesn’t mean it can simply transfer to the home. What if we compressed the semester of American history into one month, American literature into another month, and so on? Would a series of deep dives be more engaging? For openers, try asking the students.

Teaching Thought #6 – Think like a swimming instructor

The amazing John Merrow offers some advice for how we can transform education right now. He offers four different ways we can choose to think about education.

He challenges us to think of education like a swimming instructor:

Swimming instructors are measured by results. If wannabe swimmers don’t learn to swim, the instructor cannot claim, “I taught them effectively, so it’s not my fault that they cannot swim.” No, he or she has to find new ways to teach swimming, because the instructor owns the failure. In my experience, many teachers already think the way competent swimming instructors do. But not enough! Every teacher and parent has to live by the mantra, “If they’re not learning, then I am not teaching.”

And I don’t mean waiting around for bubble test results at the end of the year (or later). Teachers need to assess frequently, take a clear-headed look at the results, and adapt accordingly. That means asking for help. That also means that leadership must abandon the all-too-prevalent “Gotcha” attitude toward teachers. The new thinking has to be: “Assess to improve,” and not “Test to punish.”

Teaching Thought #7 – Think like a highway engineer

The amazing John Merrow offers some advice for how we can transform education right now. He offers four different ways we can choose to think about education.

He challenges us to think of education like a highway engineer:

Highway engineers–the men and women who design our roads and streets–have one important goal in mind: to get us safely from Point A to Point B. Because their data and their own life experience tells them that drivers’ attention wanders and cars sometimes stray and weave, highway engineers build roads whose lanes are about one-third wider than the cars that travel on them. Without that extra room for predictable error, we’d have many more highway accidents. Instead, nearly all of us arrive at our destinations safely.

Apply that to teaching and learning, and we will have an education system that treats failure as nothing more than an opportunity to try again. Let me trot out the story of WD-40 one more time. If the chemical engineers who developed that ubiquitous product had been penalized for failing, work would have stopped after their first try, which they conveniently labelled “WD-1.” Instead, they tried and failed 38 more times before hitting on a formula that worked!

Plan your teaching with that in mind. Don’t take it personally when a student doesn’t get it the first time, or the fifth. Explore the reasoning behind the error, but not punitively. Celebrate wherever possible.

Teaching Thought #8 – Think like a gardener

The amazing John Merrow offers some advice for how we can transform education right now. He offers four different ways we can choose to think about education.

He challenges us to think of education like a gardener:

Gardeners understand that what they are involved in is a work in progress. And works in progress take time, faith, work, and love. The last thing a gardener would ever do is pull up the emerging plant or flower by the roots to see if it’s growing. Nurturing is essential. That’s true whether or not schools are open.

Gardeners know that roses demand one kind of attention, which is different from what green beans, tomatoes, and hydrangeas require. “One size fits all’ doesn’t apply to gardening or to teaching and learning. The educational equivalent of the gardener’s mind are the questions, “How is this child smart, what is she interested in, and what can I do to nurture her interests?”

What’s more, gardeners don’t hover over their seedlings; they pay the appropriate amount of attention and then walk away, leaving nature, the sun, the earth, and the seeds to do the work of growing.

To be like gardeners, teachers and parents cannot hover; they cannot expect students to be ‘on task’ all the time. In fact, in these awful times, play and free time have never been more important.

Teaching Thought #9 - Avoid the BCD

I stole this concept from the amazing Power 3 Podcast (Thanks for sharing Coach Mumm). The BCD is something we are all guilty of (or, at least I certainly am from time to time).

BCD stands for Blame, Complain, and Defend.

Oh, man. Have I been here. Ugh.

This tends to occur when culture suffers. BCD is the natural go-to for humans. We are lazy by nature. We aren’t hardwired to always work our hardest or give our best effort. If you coach, you know what I mean.

So it’s natural for us to blame (who me? I couldn’t possibly be responsible for screwing this up. If only Jeff would have held up his end of the bargain . . .). It’s natural for us to complain (I would have been so done so much better if our training hadn’t been so boring or if administration would have just supported us more I let us know a few more days ahead of time . . .). It’s natural for us to defend (Hey, I was late because I had to drop Cash off at daycare and then there was a train . . . Sure, I didn’t get up until 6:30 and I wasn’t organized . . . but I’m going to defend my excuses at all costs!)

The problem with BCD is that it’s cancerous. It will spread like wildfire. It’s so much easier to complain and rip on someone than it is to find someone who is doing a great job and complement them!

That’s why so few people ever do it. And if we end up BCDing all the time, what kind of an example are we setting for the students in our classroom?

I'm so proud of the LHS students of ours who go on to become teachers themselves. We've all played a part in instilling that love for kids, learning, and teaching that has drawn them to this amazing profession. Celebrate that every chance you get!

This podcast blew me away. Give it a listen if you have the time. It's absolutely worth it. In this podcast, host Jeff Utecht, a former fourth grade teacher, raises an excellent question that is so relevant for where we are today: Are we preparing students for their future or our past?

For many of us, we are teaching students who don't learn as we did. That's a huge challenge. We learned in a "Just in Case" world of education. You needed to learn this mathematic formula or this date in history or this format for a paper in English "just in case" you went to college, found a job where you needed that skill, or would need that skill later in school somewhere.

This was true for me when I took typing class in 1989. We all had to take it "just in case" we would be going to college or would get an office job. But we all had to go through it "just in case.' Of course, many of my peers knew they weren't going to go to college and, thus, never bought in to the class and just went through the motions. If you're a Gen Xer does that sound familiar?

Today's students, though, thanks to the best education tool in the history of the world, Youtube, can learn almost anything "just in time." So how can we make our curriculum appeal to them more?

Well, you have to listen to the podcast to find out.

What a powerful way to honor those who died in the line of duty on 9/11.

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.

If you want to see what your culture is really like in your room or if you want to get student feedback on how they feel about your class - and this is risky and relies a lot on the relationships you've forged with your students - then consider this -

Create a document in Google Driver or use a site like Padlet to create a blank document for students to leave anonymous and genuine feedback. Have students type in the words that best describe your teaching, the culture of the classroom, the assignments they liked the most, words of advice for the next group of students . . .

Then copy and paste their responses into a word cloud generator tool, such as Wordle, and have students type in the words that best describe your teaching, the culture of the classroom, the assignments they liked the most, words of advice for the next group of students . . .

Then hit generate. Wordle will automatically generate a word cloud containing the responses of the students. The more a word is repeated, the larger it will become in the word cloud.

This is a great visualizer for how kids feel in your class.

I know this is about coaching, but many of these easily relate to teaching. In fact, I believe they must relate to teaching as students want teachers to coach them more than ever instead of just standing up and lecturing at them all day.

A couple of my favorites -

1. Always have a purpose - I recall our former principal, Mr. Zutz, challenging us as teachers to not just lecture to open our classes. Why? Because lecturing about our subjects - which we know so much about - is easy. It doesn't require planning as most of us have taught our subjects for decades now. This is like breathing for us. He wanted us to rethink our standard approaches so we weren't just going through the motions.

In other words, he wanted us to re-evaluate our purposes for lecturing. Might there be a better way (or more engaging or inspiring or challenging) way to deliver the content?

2. Establish core values - Now this is where I live. Core values, remember, are NOT what you aspire to be. They are a reflection of what the best of us (or you or your students) are. Hold yourself to those values. If you don't have core values, you're just drifting.

5. Character wins - again, this is more important than ever. Teachers and schools are under siege more than ever before. We not only have to teach our content, but now more than ever we have to care for the basic needs of our students as the family unit has continued to disintegrate. This is what I mean when I tell my students that they should be excited to grow up and be an adult. It's the best thing ever. Yet no wonder few students are eager to grow up when most adults act like children or worship their glory days from when they were back in high school

15. You get what you emphasize - what a great lesson to teach our students. Success isn't blindly stumbled upon. What is the quote Coach Mumm talks about - success isn't achieved under the Friday night lights on a football field. Success is achieved in the weight room on the early mornings during the offseason. Well, the same is true for success in our lives! Success is the repetition of hard work over and over and over and over. If you get up and run just one mile every morning, you'll be in better shape after a month than almost every one you know. If you read 25 pages before bed every night, after a few months you'll be the best read person you know. Lean in to the grind!

Creating Comics in the Middle School and High School Classrooms.

Not only are comics an amazing tool of engagement, but when kids create their own, they can tap in to their creative sides and express themselves in new ways. The quality of the comic isn't what counts. That students are creating and sharing is what counts.

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
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