On the Necessity of Non-Linear Reading Habits

This past spring, small house finches pulled at the cords that hold up the two-liter bottles in which my tomato plants (cherry, sun gold) bore fruit. I watched the birds pull the small strings, ever cautious to stop, pivot, and fly off. They were building a nest up in our apple tree (Golden Delicious) and were gathering both the detritus of modern human living and the necessary twigs and grasses.

When a chef considers new recipes, he/she might sit down, allow for the following considerations: seasonal ingredients,  accessibility, cost, preparation time, customer demand, previously popular dishes, texture, and presentation. Peaches, for example, are just-so ripe and available for such a short time that the timing of their eating is almost a sacrament. And the elusive black trumpet mushroom, hiding in the dim cover of tanoaks and redwoods, is a found treasure. Thus, the "special" is not just special; well done, it is an integration of multiple elements, some controllable and some not, to include earth and air, labor, time, and the more literal limits of price.

And how do you choose where to live? Money, of course, but there are other factors, the foremost question is who are you? Do you need quiet? City life? What is your relationship status, and do you have children? What climate suits you? How many rooms, and how about the neighbors? The variables are a litter of voices vying for consideration, all in the key of decide.

Nothing is as cursory as it seems. Which has its pros, its cons. Which is why, as I pivot towards back-to-work mode in August, my reading list continues to be a mixture of whim, errata, and stops and starts. Here, for example, are my most recent reads:

1) Consumer Reports magazine, current issue
2) Land's End catalogue
3) Yeats's Ghosts, a biography by Brenda Maddox, in which, among other aspects of his life (which unfortunately I am less in admiration of, his admiration of fascism and Mussolini, as well as his easy susceptibility to mediums, though it must be underscored that this was not uncommon to his era) his writing process is described. He revised frequently, worked on poems for months.
4) Smithsonian Gem, a Definitive Visual Guide, which is a large book with pictures, to include photos of intricately faceted Bulgari watches, minerals (and I did not know sea shells were considered minerals!), colored stones to include Bornite (peacock ore, a beauty). My daughter has been reading these to me in the evenings as we gasp at the colors, sizes, and demanding cuts of brilliant pressures. I would not give this up, I would not.
5) Costco Magazine. Sometimes the recipes inspire, and often I take flights of fancy into other lives via their lawn furniture advertisements, or travel packages.

Bird, chef, home purchase; gems and clothes and Yeats. Somewhere there is a Nautilus scuttling through water, adding to its spiraling shell.

And there are times when productivity and its pressures are not only, well, counterproductive, but unnecessary. At times - and perhaps at this one - a reading "goal" other than pleasure, other than want, is not needed at all.

Your Core Teaching Beliefs and Why They Matter

Every boat must have an anchor, every tree has roots. Without these deep, unseen elements to ground them, the structures are unmoored and subject to fall. So, too, with teaching. As teachers, our actions must be grounded in carefully considered questions about our practice.  Thinking about and developing a personal set of pedagogically sound beliefs roots us in purpose and integrity. Here, then, are a few questions to help you reflect on your core beliefs about students, teaching, and our profession:

1) Why am I a teacher?

This question may seem very basic, and it is. But it is by no means simple. This question asks you to reflect on the experiences and beliefs you bring to the work. What motivates you? What has brought you to this place at this time? What do you hope to achieve by teaching? Deeply considering these questions will help you find your voice and motivations for teaching. On those difficult-to-wake-up days, that can be a helpful reminder.

2) Who are my students, and what do I believe about them?

This question is essential. Are my students 6 or 16? What do I know about their developmental needs? And who are they as people? What do I believe about their capabilities and potential? How will this knowledge impact lesson design? We often speak of classroom management as if it were simply a list of rules or procedures. These are important elements, to be sure, but without a relationship of genuine caring and trust, management devolves into power struggles and coercion. The classroom may be controlled, but is not a community. Vanessa Rodriguez, in The Teaching Brain, points out that effective teachers not only present information, but that they plan for interactions based on both their knowledge of students and the content. Having an in-depth understanding of student needs, interests, and humanity will more effectively guide instructional decisions and provide opportunities for a richer intellectual and emotional exchange of ideas.

3) What do I believe about schools and school systems?

This is a big one. We consistently hear messages about the failures of schools. Recent news such as the one describing an Alabama Teacher of the Year leaving the profession, or about overreacting school administrators, or violence towards students, can discourage us. Schools – whether public or private, religious or secular – have a history and context. To be most our most effective, it benefits us to know what those histories are so we can better sort what we can or cannot support. What is the story of your school? Your district?

4) What practices will sustain my long-term engagement with the profession?

As a teacher, it is at times hard to be an optimist. Colleagues may resist change; district initiatives come and go; political candidates make negative or reactive statements. These, combined with the repetitious, sometimes tedious elements of attendance-taking, grading, and assessments can work to dampen enthusiasm for the job.  Optimism and hope, though, are essential elements of long-term engagement with our work. As you look around your work place, who has maintained their zest for teaching? Is there a person whose practice you admire? How have they sustained their long-term commitment to students? The quiet resolve of a less-popular colleague might surprise you. Conversely, the showmanship of a well-known faculty member might be exhausting. Finding your own voice, your preferred research-based methods, and your own teaching pace in the midst of political and site-based power struggles is essential. And conferences, national organizations, membership in content area projects – participation in any of these can keep our practice current, provide new strategies, and offer opportunities to befriend like-minded colleagues.

These four questions move from the immediate, personal perspective to a longer-term, outward-looking vision. We start with ourselves and look up. As with classroom practice, an effective teacher continually shifts from the micro to the macro lens, and considers the ways in which core beliefs impact planning. In moving that lens outward, remembering what we can or cannot control will help us prioritize the most effective tasks. Elena Aguilar, in The Art of Coaching, writes, “Here’s the thing about beliefs: we all have them and they drive our actions.”

What beliefs drive your actions? Where are your own teaching roots?

·      

Snow Flower, Daughter, First Cup: An Invitation

It is summer, and that means reading.

Lo, the stacks at the local library. They beckon me with their non-electronic spines. Lo, the luxury, binge-quality indulgences of quantity, wandering, and unaccountable time. These piles, they free me from domesticity, repetition, and my kid's tweener eye rolls. They free me from aimlessness and duty, the two end stops of my summer to-do tire swing.

Sheer pleasure to choose and just wonder. And such a chance at serendipity, courtesy of the Free Book Exchange, arrived last week in the form of Lisa See's book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. In the world of first person narratives, seven-year-old Lily speaks in the tone I imagine a melancholy (not mourning) dove might: truthfully, in minor key, and with keen vision. She will break hearts, this one.

The story takes place in nineteenth-century China, and opens in the voice of an elderly Lily, a widow who recalls the painful lessons of footbinding, the language of nu shu ("secret-code writing used by women in a remote area of southern Hunan Province"), and the purpose of her narrative. She is resigned but not defeated. And though the love she longed for in her life was never felt, she comes to see that it may have been her inability to know, to feel this love, that was her greatest impediment. And it sets the stage for the story to become the path for reclaiming the deep-heart love not rendered.

I have just started the book and am only into the second chapter, entitled "Milk Years." And I love Lily.Yet I hate the world she is born into, a world where women's feet are broken, where marriage is akin to property exchange, where work boils over, where obligation and tradition freeze girls' lives into numb obedience.

And I tell my daughter some of these things. Not all, but some. She balks at footbinding. She resists family hierarchy. She goes back to her Sailor Moon graphic novel and sips her box juice.

I go back to my book, touch the sturdy binding, and turn the page. I invite you to join me here, to respond, to write and to sit in warm company at this electric table.

With a toast of the coffee cup and more to come,

Jo