I HAET Myself Sometimes

Over the last year, I have spent a bit of every Sunday writting a blog. I've looved it. It's alloweed a lot of self-reflection and general thinking about teaching. It's alos been fun to reach out to an audience, knowing that what I'm writing is at least hitting 70 sets of eyes a week and sometimes much more than that.

So, it really brothers me to know end when I have spelling errors. And it seems that I always dew. AND I even re-reed what I write. I do that I ask my students to do--and their are still errors. AND I'm an English techer in town. Mostly, my few readers are those who live hear in our area, so having there junior-level English teacher making simple mistakes is embarrassing. It doesn't lock good.

But then, I just have to let my hare down and realize exactly what I'm doing here. I have to forgave myself the way I tri to forgive my students. I aks them to have a voice in the community, to dare to make they're work available to others because it makes them work harder in the end.

And I'll take that kind of vulnerability annytime over doing things just write, but never reaching out.

Let Them Play! Let Them Play!

Growing up, I loved that scene in The Bad News Bears when the crowd at the Astrodome cheered on that makeshift team with, "Let them play! Let them play!" I loved it because the kids refused to stop doing what they were having fun doing. I loved it because the adults cheered them on--cheered them on to play a sport that they loved so much.

Though the chant is a little different, this is the kind of energy that I'm seeing in my classroom. The new chant? Let them create! Let them create! But I'm cheering them on with the fervor of the Astrodome and they are working because their work has real value. The students' work on early American literature is being passed down to younger students within our district and even shared with my educational networks.

Some are using the early literature as a metaphor (a tree whose roots are in the native myths, whose trunk is the early settlers, and whose buds are the pieces of literature surrounding the revolutionary war). Some are using early literature to make author trading cards. And some are making digital books.

The learning, when genuine (that is, when the students are really pushing themselves), is powerful and widespread. Students (and I'm not even sure they realize this) are going back to their notes and back to the literature and even digging in to new research in order to make something meaningful for our younger students and thereby meaningful to them.

LET THEM CREATE! LET THEM CREATE!

Let US Write a Book!

Over the past few months, we in the Tri-Cities Area (Ferrysburg, Fruitport, Grand Haven, and Spring Lake) have had some great conversations about empathy and kindness--and, yes, bullying, too. Not too long ago, the Grand Haven Tribune highlighted our community's work by pointing out the importance of the conversations happening through Rachel's Challenge at Spring Lake Middle School and book studies in Grand Haven Schools and throughout the community. The thing that seems to come out of these conversations is that we can do our best work if it stays on the brain, if it the topic stays on our lips. So how do we do that?

Let's write a book together--about empathy. I'm happy to be the editor, but you are all the authors. 

Why a book? Well, I suppose, it has a lot to do with me being an English teacher. It's simple; I love books. And as an English educator, empathy has always played an important role in books, whether we stand in the shoes of Boo Radley and Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird or see through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. But I'm not alone in this idea that stories matter. This fall, through Emily Bazelon's book Sticks and Stones, over 200 community members of all ages and backgrounds had some great discussion surrounding the topic. But it was Bazelon's stories (and her incredible research) that made up this powerful book. Through the three stories in her book, we were able to understand multiple perspectives. That's what stories allow us. They allow us to see from other people's perspectives. They provide us with opportunities for empathy.

For this book (the working title is Elevate Empathy: One Community's Effort to Raise the Social Benefit of Kindness), I want us to focus on the positive. If we can change the social benefit to weigh more heavily for kindness by being upstanders instead of bystanders, then we're doing something right. The truth is that negativity will not leave us. Just look in the comments section of any online newspaper or listen closely in our school halls. Negativity is there. But that negativity "works" because it's given social clout (i.e., people pay attention). Now, it's time to give some social clout to the positive by telling our own stories of empathy. Whether to/from peers, parents, teachers/coaches, or total strangers, take this time to tell your story (and possibly get published), all with the purpose to ELEVATE EMPATHY in our community and others.

Follow this link when you're ready to submit your story. 
Story of Empathy Submission Form

Some details

• We're looking for writers of all ages with a variety of stories. 
• You do NOT have to be from the Tri-Cities to write. 
• A book publisher is already lined up; we just need your stories. 
• There are no promises that your submitted story will be used in the print version.
• All names in the story may be changed (Authors can use pen names).
• A group of editors will look for grammar errors, but please do your best to make your copy as clean as possible.
• Deadline for submissions: April 1, 2014.
• I will NOT accept profit from this printed book. Any profits from the printed book will go to a local fund to help elevate empathy in our community.
• Contact: davidtheune@gmail.com

Finally, this: Don't see yourself as an author? That's the expectation. This isn't about being an author. This is about having a story. Just focus on that. TELL THE STORY.

One Resolution: BE BRAVE

As the calendar turns to 2014, it's inevitable that I think about myself as an educator. Really, after husband and father, I most identify myself as an educator. So, it's natural on this, the last day of 2013, to be thinking about school and my role in it.

I have just one resolution: Be Brave.

The older I get, the more daring I've become in my teaching. That daring has led to some significant changes in the classroom and I'm so happy. When change is made, I feel refreshed and I'm quite confident that rubs off on my students.

But I'm still scared of one thing and I'm determined to get over it.

In 2014, I will submit a piece of writing for publication. I don't know if it will be an article or a poem or a short story, but I will put my name on something, call it complete, and send it in to a publisher.

It might not be selected, but it definitely won't if I don't send it in. The willingness to fail allows for greatness to enter.

Happy New Year!

DARE GREATLY.
ENGAGE OFTEN.
BE BRAVE.

Captain John Smith is 'Melo

So, let's turn early American literary figures into NBA superstars.  Or early American literary figures into musical instruments.

Those are my instructions for my students. Let's face it, The General History of Virginia by John Smith and Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford are just plain HARD to read and understand. So, we must find ways to make it interesting.

My recommendation? Blend what we don't know with what we DO know very well.

Turn John Smith into Carmelo Anthony. By using third person and talking about his own heroics in the face adversity, John Smith transforms into the New York Knicks' superstar: he's selfish. I mean, 'Melo doesn't have the assist stats or the rebound stats that LeBron has. AND--his shooting percentage proves that there isn't a shot he doesn't like.

Not a hoops fan? Find the musical instruments. The early native myths are the winds, connecting the natural beauty and Olaudah Equiano is the percussion segment, pounding at the heart of the human soul.

This is the challenge to my students and to me. Let's work hard to make this difficult literature interesting by connecting it to the things we already love.

Then--and only then--can we really love the literature.

An IB State of Mind

For the past four days, I've been taking my first real swim in the International Baccalaureate pool. Previously, through a visit to an IB school and some discussion with colleagues and administrators, I've just dipped in my toe. This time, though, it was a full cannonball as I traveled to St. Pete Beach for my Category 1 training.

On the first day of training, I found myself in awe of the IB. Their mission statement echoes so much of what I believe about education, stating it, "...aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world..." as well as "encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate, and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right." When I look at that, I just see empathy and global connectedness. I couldn't be more excited.

We also examined some motifs that appear throughout the IB curriculum:

• Students should be agents of their own learning--students must guide their own understanding with my assistance; they must be actively engaged
• Everything is an argument--students need to make claims and support them with details because truth is so often determined by the individual's personal experience which means there is rarely, if ever, a single truth
• Knowledge is a negotiation--students must derive meaning from all they read, see, and do, making knowledge a negotiation between what is presented and what is received

The IB waters were refreshing, indeed. But, come day two, it got a bit chilly.

While the IB claims ten different learner profiles, highlighting risk-taking and communicating and caring among many others, we started to dig into the assessments--all of which are fine; I mean, any company can use any assessment it likes. But I didn't initially see the ways that the students could use their learner profiles within the papers, oral commentaries, and exams. After day two, I was concerned that the ideals of the first day didn't mesh with the realities of the second.

But then, after leaving the pool a bit cold, I wrapped up in the warm blanket of the third day. 

On the last day of training, I started seeing my own students in the work. It brought me some calm, some warmth. I became convinced that, though they'll be pushed, they'll be successful because there is an incredible amount of choice within the IB curriculum. Yes, students have to write an essay, but they decide on the question and approach. Yes, students have an oral commentary, but they get to determine the direction in which it will go.

Our day-to-day class will be about negotiating our knowledge, about arguing with support, about being engaged in the learning. It will lead us to become more careful thinkers and, finally, to a world where we understand multiple versions of the truth because each individual's experiences are so different throughout the world. 

With IB, empathy is a desired trait.

And that is a pool I can swim in any day.

(I can't write this post without recognizing and thanking my district for sending me to this training. It's so rare for teachers to go on business trips, but this one was worth it. It was a great place to be and, for that, I'm thankful.)

New Group, New Inspiration

As I continue on this great journey to become the best teacher that I can, I realize that so much of my job is inspiring students to learn. They have the power and they have (or have had) the curiosity. I just need to inspire them, to let them see value in learning, to allow them to create.

Because I'm in English guy, a words guy, I often find my inspiration in quotes, poems, sayings.

Tomorrow, I get a new group of students and I'm thinking of bombarding them with words that move me--and I hope move them.

Here are just a few I'm considering, but I need your help! Besides, I think it could be quite powerful to know that others are paying attention to their actions, that others care that these students do a good job, too. So, reply. Whether it's Twitter or Facebook or right on this blog, get me your favorite words! And I'll put them on my board tomorrow as we start a new trimester.

"Only engagement can produce mastery."--Daniel Pink, Drive

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."--Shakespeare

"I have no special talents; I am only passionately curious."--Albert Einstein via @delta_dc

"Ask a different question. How are you intelligent? Instead of the classic: How intelligent are you?"--Sir Ken Robinson

Keep the words coming! INSPIRE MY STUDENTS!!!