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4DX, PLC, Write6x6

Our PLC is Wizzy WIGging It With 4DX

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I have to be honest. When people started throwing around the term 4DX last year, I tuned them all out. After teaching for over 30 years, I think I’ve pretty much seen everything come and go over the years. It wasn’t that I’d planned to not participate. As I’ve said before, I’m a team player, so you want to play 4DX? I’ll play. I may not like it, but somebody somewhere thinks this is worthwhile. So I’ll play, but I’m going in blind.

So our department set up two professional learning communities (PLC), and apparently, we’re doing a good job of making and keeping our goals each week. Our team lead informs us that we are at 94% for making and keeping our goals. That’s good. Attendance is not so great, but seriously, I think we’ve all figured out that meeting once a week just to say you’ve done what you were supposed to do is a bit of a waste of time. That’s indicated by our 41% attendance last week. But overall, I get a sense that our team really wants to reach our goal.

What is our goal?

Well, apparently we have an overall college super goal and then 3 Battle WIGs. A WIG is a wildly important goal. Each departs chooses a WIG to align with any of the three institutional Battle WIGs. Below are our goals.

GCC SUPER GOAL: Increase completion with equity from 23% to 33% by Fall 2024.

  • Battle WIG #1- Increase headcount of the new-student fall cohort with equity from 3,395 to 3,500 by October 2022.
  • Battle WIG #2- Increase student successful course completion with equity from 62% to 65% by October 2022. <–WE ALIGNED TO THIS ONE
  • Battle WIG #3- Increase Fall-to-Fall retention with equity from 54% to 57% by Fall 2022.

Our Dept WIG: Because we value learning, we will increase student successful completion with equity from 67.3% to 70.3% averaged across all department course offerings by October 2022.

Each week we’ve come up with some really good interventions to help our students be successful in our courses, but I’m getting a sense that most of us are not seeing any changes in student success. All the things we are trying can’t help a student who is just over his or her head. I think many students have this unrealistic view of what it takes to be successful in college. Our students have jobs. They have families. They have a lot going on. And then they register for 3-4 college courses and think they have enough time to be successful. Well, we’re all learning that these students are not set up to succeed. We’re doing all this outreach only to discover that many of our students are never going to be successful because they are already behind the 8-ball.

We recruit them and tell them to register. It’s affordable. We have flexible courses. You can take online courses or live-online. What we should be telling students is how much time it takes to be successful in a course. They need to be told to map out their time on a calendar and see how much time they have left for a course. They need to be told about support on campus before they start a class and perhaps given some suggestions for how to ask for help and/or how to read the course syllabus. But the most important skill they need is how to motivate themselves to do their work.

With all the weekly interventions we’ve tried this semester, most are met with silence. Students don’t even reply. After just two weeks into the semester, I was ghosted by a number of students. And those who did reply had excuses and promises to submit the missing assignment which never did materialize. Those that I could get to talk to me said they just didn’t have enough time to do all the work and seemed surprised that they had so much to do in one class, which is the case when you register for an 8-week or even a 12-week class.

Sadly I think we’re wizzy WIGging to no avail. I think the best interventions are those that could happen before students register for their courses. I think it’s too late for most after the course has started. They can’t quit their job. They can’t quit their family. So what’s left? Not doing their coursework. Basically quitting school before they’ve actually started.

Write6x6

The keys to student success!

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The New Nursing Student 

Dr. Ingrid Simkins

A recipe for success:

Set your long term goals to a year of completion 2023-2024.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl add:

1 c. positive attitude: This may at times be on backorder, but if you search you will find it. 

1 tsp teamwork: Success tastes the same achieved all alone or in tandem with your peers.

1 TBSP motivation: Remembering why you are here and your dreams helps!

1 c. time management: An essential item in the nursing school/life process. Measure accurately!

1 oz of hope

Stir until well blended. Cover and set in a warm place allowing for Success to rise for 2 years. Bake and serve at pinning. Enjoy!

The new Graduate Nurse

Dr. Mary Resler

Congratulations! As a new graduate nurse you have successfully completed a nursing program and have completed your NCLEX exam. This may seem like the end of the road for education but it is not. Nurses are lifelong learners! Success is keeping current on evidence based practices. Success is participating in policy change. Success is improving your patient outcomes. Success is maintaining your license. Success looks different as a lifelong learner then it does for a nursing student. 

Many new graduate nurses measure success by completing a difficult patient assignment. They measure success by the years they have worked. They measure success by working on a specialty unit. They measure success by catching a medication error. They measure success by favorable patient satisfaction scores. True success as a lifelong learner or new graduate nurse is to never be complacent in your knowledge. Always push yourself to learn by asking questions and continuing in your education. Knowledge is of no use if you do not use it. 

The new Nurse Educator

Dr. Grace Paul

Students have jumped over hoops, taken several exams, sacrificed participating in several occasions, and spent several hours pondering and even working in a hospital environment to know if this is indeed what they want to do with the rest of their lives. They know what their career goal is, and now they are in our classrooms. 

HCC Henderson Association of Nursing Students - Home | Facebook

Once they are in our classroom, they are our responsibility. While there may be several factors connected to student success like age, gender, previous experiences, GPA, etc, these are all non-modifiable factors that we as educators, can do nothing about. What we have in our hands to help these students succeed are the modifiable factors – factors that we as educators can help make a difference in these students’ lives, and allow our students to be successful in their chosen careers. 

There are several modifiable factors that we can use to our advantage for student success. One such factor is responsiveness.  Responsiveness is responding to a student. This can be in the classroom during class. A slight nod, a smile, a positive gesture, direct eye contact or a positive note sent to the student are all ways by which the student feels safe and positive about themselves. Smiling eases the students and makes it easier for students to come forward with questions and be communicative. 

Cartoon boy with positive attitude N28 free image download

As the new nurse educator figures out how things work in the new environment, the curriculum, and the work culture, students are usually quick to recognize that the instructor is new. But the timely response, open communication, a smiling and respectful attitude, and humor in the classroom, makes a huge difference as to how the students accept and respond to the instructor. 

The responsiveness of the instructor makes the students feel loved and cared for, knowing that they are the priority for the instructor. Keep the classroom space non-judgmental, which helps students to focus on the learning. This creates a trusting relationship between the students and the teacher, contributing immensely to the success of the class as a whole and the individual student. 

Responsiveness is also important when corrections have to be made. When a student makes a mistake, and when the mistake is recognized and acknowledged,  use the situation as a learning opportunity. Do not make it punitive. If the student does not learn from the mistake, then it is an opportunity lost. It is important for the educator to provide resources to correct the mistake. 

Corequisite remediation showing signs of success in NC - EducationNC

Another important tool for responsiveness is remediation. Remediation is a powerful tool when it comes to improving test results. It is helpful for the instructor and the student to go through the test, and look for a pattern, and to understand the reasoning behind the right and wrong answers. It is helpful for the student to bring another student to these meetings, as students tend to learn better from their peers rather than from the instructor. 

To summarize, student success is a commitment from the student as well as the educator. There are modifiable and non-modifiable factors when it comes to student success. Responsiveness is one such tool that will help to promote trust, and therefore a positive relationship, which  will help promote student success. 

Boundaries, Write6x6

Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time

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Picture if you will: I’m wearing a pencil skirt and pumps, and I am dragging a luggage cart behind me. I’m bobbing and weaving through corridors to get to my destination. Am I a flight attendant? No, I am a first-year fourth-grade teacher circa 1986, and the luggage cart is full of books and papers. The destination? Home, where I will grade papers and write lesson plans. All weekend.

I wish I could say that so much has changed since then. But I constantly find myself needing to set time boundaries around my teaching. Case in point just a few years ago when I was teaching fully online for the first time: My husband would be stunned to come home to a completely dark house, save the beam of light from my home office door. Day would turn into night without me leaving my desk.

Maybe you’ve never had days like these. Maybe you have figured out the secret. Maybe it’s just me who has to remind myself to find work-life balance, but I don’t think so. Teachers are reporting increasingly higher levels of stress, and feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day is a definite stressor.

In the early years of our marriage, my husband would suggest that it was all a matter of “time management.” (It really is a miracle we’re still married.) But then years later when I was a professional development specialist, I encouraged a group of teachers to take two minutes out of the day periodically to breathe with their students. One teacher snapped back, “I don’t have two minutes to breathe!”

Yes, the words “time management” almost escaped my lips. But, it’s really not about time management, rather it’s boundary management. It’s deciding what I want my life to be like, and the structures that need to be in place in order for that life to happen. It’s reflecting on what is important and acknowledging that I can’t please everyone. It’s accepting that good is most often good enough.

One boundary I put up a few years ago is letting students know I am unavailable on nights and weekends. This is more of an issue with online students who have a vision that I’m chained to my computer at all hours, waiting for their burning questions. I make a big show of this in a regular Friday e-mail reminding students that I am unplugging for the weekend and perhaps sharing any fun activities I might have planned.

Not only does this put up the stiff-arm for weekend meetings, but I believe it is good modeling for students. After all, our students are watching us closely. What do I want them to see? Someone ever-available-but-frazzled or someone who practices healthy self-care? Even if I have to fake it sometimes, I choose the latter. And my students know and accept my boundaries. One of my stats students remarked in a mid-term survey this semester: “You seem to have a great work/life balance and an overall positive attitude and I really like that.” A student in another class wrote, “I enjoy the weekend reminders and hearing about how you are unplugging for the weekend.”

Beyond just telling students I don’t work on nights and weekends, I have to actually follow through with this plan. This is challenging because there is always something else that can be done to make my class run better. My work could eat up every hour of my day if I let it, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. So 6pm at night and the weekend are boundaries I set for work. Now, I do break a boundary occasionally, but  my boundaries serve a purpose of (mostly) keeping my over-work tendencies in check.

Because I have set boundaries for work, there are times when I make people wait. I disappoint people every now and then. I definitely don’t accomplish all that I want. I drop the many balls I’m juggling with regularity, but somehow the world keeps spinning and my students keep learning, and that’s what will keep me teaching.

The post Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time appeared first on My Love of Learning.

Boundaries, Write6x6

Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time

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Picture if you will: I’m wearing a pencil skirt and high heels, and I am dragging a luggage cart behind me. I’m bobbing and weaving through corridors to get to my destination. Am I a flight attendant? No, I am a first-year fourth-grade teacher circa 1986, and the luggage cart is full of books and papers. The destination? Home, where I will grade papers and write lesson plans. All weekend.

I wish I could say that so much has changed since then. But I constantly find myself needing to set time boundaries around my teaching. Case in point just a few years ago when I was teaching fully online for the first time: My husband would be stunned to come home to a completely dark house, save the beam of light from my home office door. Day would turn into night, and I wouldn’t have left the office to turn on the lights in the house.

Maybe you’ve never had days like those. Maybe you have figured out the secret. Maybe it’s just me who has to remind myself to find work-life balance, but I don’t think so. Teachers are reporting increasingly higher levels of stress, and feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day is a definite stressor.

In the early years of our marriage, my husband would suggest that it was all a matter of “time management.” (It really is a miracle we’re still married.) But then years later when I was a professional development specialist, I suggested to a group of teachers that they take two minutes out of the day periodically to breathe with their students. One teacher snapped back, “I don’t have two minutes to breathe!”

Yes, the words “time management” almost escaped my lips. But, it’s really not about time management, but rather it’s boundary management. It’s deciding what I want my life to be like, and the structures that need to be in place in order for that life to happen. It’s deciding what is important and acknowledging that I can’t please everyone. It’s accepting that good is most often good enough.

One boundary I put up a few years ago is letting students know I am unavailable on nights and weekends. This is more of an issue with online students who have a vision that I’m chained to my computer at all hours, waiting for their burning questions. I make a big show of this in a regular Friday e-mail reminding students that I am unplugging for the weekend and perhaps sharing any fun plans I might have.

Not only does that put up the stiff-arm for weekend meetings, but I believe it is good modeling for our students. After all, our students are watching us closely. What do I want them to see? Someone ever-available-but-frazzled or someone who practices healthy self-care? Even if I have to fake it sometimes, I choose the latter. And my students know and accept my boundaries. One of my stats students remarked in a mid-term survey this semester: “You seem to have a great work/life balance.” A student in another class wrote, “I enjoy the weekend reminders and hearing about how you are unplugging for the weekend.”

Beyond just telling students I don’t work on nights and weekends, I have to actually follow through with this plan. This is challenging because there is always something else that can be done to make my class run better. My work could eat up every hour of my day if I let it, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. So 6pm at night and the weekend is the boundary I set for work. Now, I do break that boundary occasionally, but it serves a purpose of mostly keeping my over-work tendencies in check.

Because I have set boundaries for work, there are times when I make people wait. I disappoint people every now and then. I definitely don’t accomplish all that I want. I drop the many balls I’m juggling with regularity, but somehow the world keeps spinning and my students keep learning, and that’s what will keep me teaching.

The post Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time appeared first on My Love of Learning.

Boundaries, Write6x6

Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time

Leave a comment

Picture if you will: I’m wearing a pencil skirt and pumps, and I am dragging a luggage cart behind me. I’m bobbing and weaving through corridors to get to my destination. Am I a flight attendant? No, I am a first-year fourth-grade teacher circa 1986, and the luggage cart is full of books and papers. The destination? Home, where I will grade papers and write lesson plans. All weekend.

I wish I could say that so much has changed since then. But I constantly find myself needing to set time boundaries around my teaching. Case in point just a few years ago when I was teaching fully online for the first time: My husband would be stunned to come home to a completely dark house, save the beam of light from my home office door. Day would turn into night without me leaving my desk.

Maybe you’ve never had days like these. Maybe you have figured out the secret. Maybe it’s just me who has to remind myself to find work-life balance, but I don’t think so. Teachers are reporting increasingly higher levels of stress, and feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day is a definite stressor.

In the early years of our marriage, my husband would suggest that it was all a matter of “time management.” (It really is a miracle we’re still married.) But then years later when I was a professional development specialist, I encouraged a group of teachers to take two minutes out of the day periodically to breathe with their students. One teacher snapped back, “I don’t have two minutes to breathe!”

Yes, the words “time management” almost escaped my lips. But, it’s really not about time management, rather it’s boundary management. It’s deciding what I want my life to be like, and the structures that need to be in place in order for that life to happen. It’s reflecting on what is important and acknowledging that I can’t please everyone. It’s accepting that good is most often good enough.

One boundary I put up a few years ago is letting students know I am unavailable on nights and weekends. This is more of an issue with online students who have a vision that I’m chained to my computer at all hours, waiting for their burning questions. I make a big show of this in a regular Friday e-mail reminding students that I am unplugging for the weekend and perhaps sharing any fun activities I might have planned.

Not only does this put up the stiff-arm for weekend meetings, but I believe it is good modeling for students. After all, our students are watching us closely. What do I want them to see? Someone ever-available-but-frazzled or someone who practices healthy self-care? Even if I have to fake it sometimes, I choose the latter. And my students know and accept my boundaries. One of my stats students remarked in a mid-term survey this semester: “You seem to have a great work/life balance and an overall positive attitude and I really like that.” A student in another class wrote, “I enjoy the weekend reminders and hearing about how you are unplugging for the weekend.”

Beyond just telling students I don’t work on nights and weekends, I have to actually follow through with this plan. This is challenging because there is always something else that can be done to make my class run better. My work could eat up every hour of my day if I let it, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. So 6pm at night and the weekend are boundaries I set for work. Now, I do break a boundary occasionally, but  my boundaries serve a purpose of (mostly) keeping my over-work tendencies in check.

Because I have set boundaries for work, there are times when I make people wait. I disappoint people every now and then. I definitely don’t accomplish all that I want. I drop the many balls I’m juggling with regularity, but somehow the world keeps spinning and my students keep learning, and that’s what will keep me teaching.

The post Teaching Boundaries, Part II – Time appeared first on My Love of Learning.

Write6x6

Embracing Diversity

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The New Nursing Student 

Dr. Ingrid Simkins

As we always discuss the first day of nursing school, your first responsibility is to know yourself! Recognize your biases and leave them at the door. If you can’t acknowledge each person for their unique self, other career options are available. You need to treat every person as if they are your most adored member of your family and care for them as you would wish them to be cared for. None of us will be a diversity expert or culturally competent across all cultures, but we all have the capacity to be sensitive to each individual and their needs.

My name is Diversity (a poem)

Dr. Grace Paul

My Name is Diversity

I come in various forms

I come in various shapes

With unique physical attributes

Doesn’t matter, accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

My gender is male, female, either, neither or fluid

I am a gay, lesbian, straight, bi, pan, or asexual

I am a veteran, differently abled, young or old

Doesn’t matter, accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

I come from one race, or a mixture of races

My ethnicity is varied, from any part of the world

Native to the land, or an immigrant

Doesn’t matter, accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

My culture, my food, my customs

My religion, my language, my rituals

Rich, poor, lower, middle, or upper class

Doesn’t matter, accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

Take the time to know me

I am awesome and beautiful

Just the way I am

With uniqueness abound!

Talk to me, listen to me

Look at me, and include me

Respect me for what I am

Because, I am who I am!

I may look and sound different to you

But we can learn from each other

I am not a statistic

To represent diversity

Or inclusion

But an individual no matter

With so much to offer

I matter! Accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

When you accept me for who I am

There is empathy in the world

Prejudices are removed

There is more tolerance

And therefore, less violence

Accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

There is peace, love and understanding

Inspiration, Motivation and Hope

Better decision making all around

A better world for all of us

Do accept me for who I am!

Because I am who I am!

I am understood

I am valued

I am cherished

I am embraced

Because

I am ubiquitous

Because I am who I am!

And my name is Diversity!

Write6x6

Just a Girl in Senior English

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I dreaded my College Composition course in the fall of 1981. Not because I hated writing, but rather because of the teacher I was assigned – Mr. Luther Stewart. Mr. Stewart had a reputation at Scottsdale High School which included failing my brother in Freshman English. He was not to be trifled with. (And yes, he would hate that dangling preposition.)

Rumor was that Mr. Stewart had, at one point, been a lawyer but left it all to become a teacher. He looked more teacherly than lawyerly, with a largish bald head and over-sized glasses that magnified his glaring eyes. He didn’t smile much.

My own knowledge of Mr. Stewart stretched back to the first day of sophomore Advanced English, and he was my assigned teacher then. During the previous year, I had been on a Rumspringa of sorts from my regular academic persona. I discovered boys and drinking. I almost failed Algebra. I got kicked out of a class once, and I made my family very nervous. “What happened to Mary?” they all asked.

On that first day of sophomore year, Mr. Stewart passed out a chunky list of required reading, which consisted of no less than 25 classic texts. My then-14-year-old self balked and quickly retreated to a “regular” English class for the rest of the year.

Fast-forward to senior year, and Mr. Stewart was again on my slate of classes. This time, there was nowhere to run, and I resigned myself to being in his class. I entered Mr. Stewart’s room with a great deal of shame and a definite lack of belief in myself.

The regular assignment in his class was a weekly essay, and he allowed us to choose topics that were personally meaningful. I remember one such essay I wrote: “A Girl Should Make Her Prom Dress Instead of Buying One.” Let’s unpack this title for a moment. I am a “girl” in the 80’s. My pressing topic is prom dresses, and above that I am hell-bent on sewing my own.

I was a pom-pom girl. My path set out by my parents was to become a wife and mother (in that exact order). Nobody took me seriously, and I didn’t either. Enter Mr. Stewart. Our College Composition class was full of lively discussion, although the boys in the class were most vocal. On more than one occasion, Mr. Stewart would stomp his foot, raise his hand in the air, and exclaim, “Form follows the function of a reasoning mind!” We had debates in class such as “What is truth?” He taught us the art and science of argumentation.

As each week progressed, Mr. Stewart would provide detailed feedback on my essays, and his red pen was all over my papers. But deep down, I knew that level of feedback meant he cared and that I had something to offer. I felt like more than just a girl to be cast aside. My voice mattered.

With each essay, his ice melted, his encouragement ramped up, and I started to look forward to the weekly challenge of impressing him. Towards the end of the school year, he wrote the following feedback on one of my essays: “Sounds like you – a high compliment!” Today, I have these words on a sticky note on my desk, and I believe that praise is why I love writing today. And, it’s why, as a teacher, I want to hear and honor the voices of all my students.

The post Just a Girl in Senior English appeared first on My Love of Learning.

Write6x6

Just a Girl in Senior English

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I dreaded my College Composition course in the fall of 1981. Not because I hated writing, but rather because of the teacher I was assigned – Mr. Luther Stewart. Mr. Stewart had a reputation at Scottsdale High School which included failing my brother in Freshman English. He was not to be trifled with. (And yes, he would hate that dangling preposition.)

Rumor was that Mr. Stewart had, at one point, been a lawyer but left it all to become a teacher. He looked more teacherly than lawyerly, with a largish bald head and over-sized glasses that magnified his glaring eyes. He didn’t smile much.

My own knowledge of Mr. Stewart stretched back to the first day of sophomore Advanced English, and he was my assigned teacher then. During the previous year, I had been on a Rumspringa of sorts from my regular academic persona. I discovered boys and drinking. I almost failed Algebra. I got kicked out of a class once, and I made my family very nervous. “What happened to Mary?” they all asked.

On that first day of sophomore year, Mr. Stewart passed out a chunky list of required reading, which consisted of no less than 25 classic texts. My then-14-year-old self balked and quickly retreated to a “regular” English class for the rest of the year.

Fast-forward to senior year, and Mr. Stewart was again on my slate of classes. This time, there was nowhere to run, and I resigned myself to being in his class. I entered Mr. Stewart’s room with a great deal of shame and a definite lack of belief in myself.

The regular assignment in his class was a weekly essay, and he allowed us to choose topics that were personally meaningful. I remember one such essay I wrote: “A Girl Should Make Her Prom Dress Instead of Buying One.” Let’s unpack this title for a moment. I am a “girl” in the 80’s. My pressing topic is prom dresses, and above that I am hell-bent on sewing my own.

I was a pom-pom girl. My path set out by my parents was to become a wife and mother (in that exact order). Nobody took me seriously, and I didn’t either. Enter Mr. Stewart. Our College Composition class was full of lively discussion, although the boys in the class were most vocal. On more than one occasion, Mr. Stewart would stomp his foot, raise his hand in the air, and exclaim, “Form follows the function of a reasoning mind!” We had debates in class such as “What is truth?” He taught us the art and science of argumentation.

As each week progressed, Mr. Stewart would provide detailed feedback on my essays, and his red pen was all over my papers. But deep down, I knew that level of feedback meant he cared and that I had something to offer. I felt like more than just a girl to be cast aside. My voice mattered.

With each essay, his ice melted, his encouragement ramped up, and I started to look forward to the weekly challenge of impressing him. Towards the end of the school year, he wrote the following feedback on one of my essays: “Sounds like you – a high compliment!” Today, I have these words on a sticky note on my desk, and I believe that praise is why I love writing today. And, it’s why, as a teacher, I want to hear and honor the voices of all my students.

The post Just a Girl in Senior English appeared first on My Love of Learning.

Write6x6

Just a Girl in Senior English

Leave a comment

I dreaded my College Composition course in the fall of 1981. Not because I hated writing, but rather because of the teacher I was assigned – Mr. Luther Stewart. Mr. Stewart had a reputation at Scottsdale High School which included failing my brother in Freshman English. He was not to be trifled with. (And yes, he would hate that dangling preposition.)

Rumor was that Mr. Stewart had, at one point, been a lawyer but left it all to become a teacher. He looked more teacherly than lawyerly, with a largish bald head and over-sized glasses that magnified his glaring eyes. He didn’t smile much.

My own knowledge of Mr. Stewart stretched back to the first day of sophomore Advanced English, and he was my assigned teacher then. During the previous year, I had been on a Rumspringa of sorts from my regular academic persona. I discovered boys and drinking. I almost failed Algebra. I got kicked out of a class once, and I made my family very nervous. “What happened to Mary?” they all asked.

On that first day of sophomore year, Mr. Stewart passed out a chunky list of required reading, which consisted of no less than 25 classic texts. My then-14-year-old self balked and quickly retreated to a “regular” English class for the rest of the year.

Fast-forward to senior year, and Mr. Stewart was again on my slate of classes. This time, there was nowhere to run, and I resigned myself to being in his class. I entered Mr. Stewart’s room with a great deal of shame and a definite lack of belief in myself.

The regular assignment in his class was a weekly essay, and he allowed us to choose topics that were personally meaningful. I remember one such essay I wrote: “A Girl Should Make Her Prom Dress Instead of Buying One.” Let’s unpack this title for a moment. I am a “girl” in the 80’s. My pressing topic is prom dresses, and above that I am hell-bent on sewing my own.

I was a pom-pom girl. My path set out by my parents was to become a wife and mother (in that exact order). Nobody took me seriously, and I didn’t either. Enter Mr. Stewart. Our College Composition class was full of lively discussion, although the boys in the class were most vocal. On more than one occasion, Mr. Stewart would stomp his foot, raise his hand in the air, and exclaim, “Form follows the function of a reasoning mind!” We had debates in class such as “What is truth?” He taught us the art and science of argumentation.

As each week progressed, Mr. Stewart would provide detailed feedback on my essays, and his red pen was all over my papers. But deep down, I knew that level of feedback meant he cared and that I had something to offer. I felt like more than just a girl to be cast aside. My voice mattered.

With each essay, his ice melted, his encouragement ramped up, and I started to look forward to the weekly challenge of impressing him. Towards the end of the school year, he wrote the following feedback on one of my essays: “Sounds like you – a high compliment!” Today, I have these words on a sticky note on my desk, and I believe that praise is why I love writing today. And, it’s why, as a teacher, I want to hear and honor the voices of all my students.

The post Just a Girl in Senior English appeared first on My Love of Learning.

empowerment, engaging students, evaluation, explain everything, faculty development, GCC, Glendale Community College, higher education, Living, Student Engagement, teachers, Teaching Ideas, We Matter, Write6x6

Can We Live Without Risks?

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A statement someone made recently jumped out at me. They said they rarely take risks. I was amazed. I consider myself a very careful person, but I often feel like my risks are the challenges I take on. Of course, I’m not talking about doing anything like this!

Perhaps it’s the definition of the word risk [enter student’s clichéd discovery of dictionary definition to make written assignment longer]. Wink

I see risk as a transition and an opportunity. Now, if the risk doesn’t have that element, I won’t do it. In some ways, we all take risks every day. There are certain risks I simply won’t consider, the consequences are just too costly.

Professionally, I was always taught to say ‘yes,’ if you want to work. People want to know that you will say ‘yes,’ when they ask. It saves time for those hiring. That’s a musician’s point of view. It’s the way you keep getting more opportunities – or, for those who prefer less formal constructs – How you get more gigs. Regrets, yes, certainly. I said ‘no’ to a really good opportunity, which was a risk, because I was just getting married (hence, already in the midst of a transition) and didn’t want to spend my honeymoon thinking about the project and risking the beginnings of our marriage… I’ll always think about where that job might have led. But see, once again, I keep going back to the positive-negative balance of risks.

And I’ll admit to some positive/negative possibilities. I’ve walked into a classroom and spoken completely ‘off the cuff,’ which is definitely a risk. It’s not that I hadn’t thought about it. I had. I know my subject deeply. Some of those have been my most inspired lectures, but occasionally, they have not. It’s a risk.

How about classroom management? I had a student who sat in the front row of class and never took a note. (This is a room that is set up as a lecture/recital hall, so down in front is noticeable.) In fact, he came in without anything – no books, no notebook, no pen/pencil or computer. Nothing. An instructor would assume he didn’t come prepared for class. And we’ve all had those students who obviously weren’t. Did I mention this was a long lecture format? The class was two hours and twenty minutes long. Should I say anything to him? He wasn’t disruptive, and he did well in the subject. One day he came in with a Rubik’s cube. I saw it, but chose not to say anything. As the lecture was finishing I just happened to look over at him. He subtly showed me his work by merely opening his hand. It was finished, and it was perfect. He hadn’t been disruptive to anyone, he didn’t show anyone else, I hadn’t been interrupted by what he was doing, but it allowed him to concentrate on what we were talking about. A risk, and a reward.

Deeper Risks

I could stop there, because it would be a great place to end – but I’m going to “risk” it and go heavy. As I mentioned earlier, we take risks every day. Driving, flying, walking down a set of stairs, saying something that you wish you hadn’t. I never discuss politics. I’ve gotten to where I rarely offer comments – especially to the entire world on any of those fronts.

But I’m going to include the world community and the risks people are facing today because we need to be talking about this in our classrooms. These are the ultimate risks because they are about basic human needs. This is not something that is happening somewhere else. It will ultimately affect us here. I was just reading an article about the fact that many Russians are also leaving their homeland, just as many Ukrainians are – except those who choose to fight. There is a general surge of people trying to survive with some semblance of their lives intact. In the article, the author referred to a family’s current residence, a shared room with three mattresses on the floor. The people had a roof, they had mattresses, a floor, running water, and they still had some money. They had been well-to-do so such living conditions would not have been acceptable in their previous life, but under the circumstances they knew they were lucky. They calculated the risk and felt they’d come out ahead considering the cost.

I first saw evidence of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s in Sweden. I ended up working with two Russian musicians as part of a Swedish quartet. There were interesting cultural flare-ups that surprised me. But like other recent mass emigrations, everyone was, and had been, fleeing for their lives. It’s amazing what we are willing to risk when we feel that we have little left to lose or too much to lose – our lives or our children’s lives.

A fountain with a person etched into it
Found at an Estonian Fountain commemorating lost lives

In Estonia, ten years after the last Russian troops slowly left, I moved there, and in my research I learned more of Stalin’s ’round up’ of people. Sometimes there were lists, sometimes just numbers. ‘Take this number of people. I don’t care who.’ They disappeared or went to gulags. Often, no one ever knew whether they were killed outright or just never seen again. How can you live with that threat? I was part of an interview team to determine whether a young Estonian man would study in the U.S. when he talked about the importance of the NATO alliance to his country. I knew about NATO. It also meant, in couched terms, the U.S., from where funding came for this prestigious scholarship. I occasionally thought about NATO – but not to the extent that this young man understood it because the Estonians had few defenses against the Russians on their shared border. We, as Americans, have the luxury of a different point of view.

Before I sign off, I want to mention that moving people, their craft, their professions, their influences, and their cultures affects everything. It affects the arts, music, the humanities, science, technology, engineering, people, and even education. Would you stay or would you go? Ultimately, when we talk about risks, these are the most critical risks to discuss. I truly believe as educators everything we do counts, but we are also lucky that we can talk about risks that are so relatively ordinary when others face risks that are so tremendously devastating.