Teachers Leave Lasting Impressions

Miss Mt. Pleasant. Even her name was magic. Soothing. Safe. Something about the idea of a mountain of pleasant, of being a resident of that mountain was captivating for me. I loved my 2nd grade teacher very much. It was a new school, having moved to the east side in October, transferred into a new neighborhood, social structure, new friendships to forge, new territory to cross.

My journey to school had been two city blocks since kindergarten. Now it was 1.5 miles. Miss Mt. Pleasant, whose face I can barely imagine anymore, was welcoming and showed the smile of encouragement. It was the year of oral polio vaccinations at school, the introduction to Brownies, the first year of school fluoride treatments and hearing tests, the year of school savings accounts and little orange milk containers to collect change for Unicef as we trick-or-treated to help children less fortunate than ourselves. Everything was new. Everything was discovery. The first year of my family's own home, liberated from the apartment we had outgrown. The year before I started writing.

Miss Mt. Pleasant probably fueled that urge. Every day after lunch, when we returned from the playground or cafeteria if weather was dreadful, we started our afternoon's work with story time. Miss Mt. Pleasant opened to the next chapter of the book we were experiencing and filled us in on what happened next. She started with Charlotte's Web. She read Stuart Little. She read several other "classic" children's chapter books, one chapter per day, opening whole worlds to us of magical animals and puzzling circumstances. This is how I knew I wanted to be a reader - being a listener first.

One day, when it was dark early, I had to stay after school to write I will not talk in class  on the board 100 times in dusty white chalk. I don't remember what our how this came about exactly but I paid my penance. I was more concerned with the fact that I had disappointed my dear teacher, my school mommy, and that it had grown to be night outside by the time I finished.

At the end of the year, Miss Mt. Pleasant announced that she was not returning to Ed Smith in the fall. She was getting married. I was crestfallen. Knowing that I would not see her in the hall was crushing. The fact that she would become a Mrs. seemed like every girl's dream but, for me, it was sadness. She would no longer be She Who Dwells in the Pleasant Mountain. She would abandon her name, her identity, everything was subject to change in the act of marriage. Already, I understood that. 

And I knew I would miss her, I would endure another of a long stream of losses. But the books would always be waiting on the library shelf. The sound of the words would ever echo her voice from behind the heavy oak desk in front of the window that opened to Lancaster Avenue and the blue sky beyond. 

Teachers Foster the Future

When I was a child, I knew I wanted to write and I wanted to be a teacher. Little did I know the convoluted journey my life would become and the unconventional ways I would meet both of these aspirations. 

I did not pursue the traditional teacher’s route but worked in any different aspects of business throughout my 20s and 30s, elements of which I have applied throughout my career since. Being involved in business from the bottom up, including being part of a team that built and managed an arts-in-education nonprofit agency, has taught me a great deal of the nuts and bolts of an organization and building a constituency, as well as serving those people who benefit.

As an independent artist educator for the past 12 years, I have been in countless classrooms at every grade level. Over the past 6 years, I have been writer-in-residence in the Middletown Extended Central School District in Orange County, NY, serving two elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school as an element of their district-wide literacy initiative. In addition, I have been in residence in two to five other districts annually for nearly 10 years. I have averaged a teaching practice of nearly 2,000 students and 70 teachers and teaching assistants in K-12 environments annually since 2006. I have also been active in designing and implementing school day and after school programming, as well as a considerable amount of professional development for educators, both within the duties with my agency as a program director and as an independent consultant to school districts and community-based organizations.

I have been listening to teachers copiously. Teachers are the key to student success but now teachers are expected to perform many duties well beyond their expectation when they graduate from a school of education. The climate is challenging and the demands are tremendous. But teachers are passionate about their students and the process of learning. Teachers also model life-long learning.

If we are expecting our students to succeed, we need to fully support their teachers with the resources and tools to meet that expectation. Quality workshops, comprehensive accessibility to new methods, media innovations, peer mentoring, a way to gauge and assess one’s own practice and learn from others are all essential. Additionally, the way a teacher develops his/her teaching practice is best supported by the mentoring of those with experience and demonstrated success of their own. The seasoned teacher shares and supports those new to the field and the new teachers bring an enthusiasm that can be a “booster shot” for the educator with many years in the classroom, along with new developments in the field.

We are also faced with a change of the classroom environment that is the result of the technological/digital evolution of the past 10 – 15 years. Proficiency in core content is necessary but how we deliver the lessons has changed in many ways. The need to train and support teachers, even those who are fully confident with all aspects of digital media, so that teachers are able to guide and prepare our youth for the world they encounter on the other side of the wall is vital to success as well.

In addition, with the current rhetoric in community and the political arena, community engagement in our schools has never been more crucial. Funding sources beyond the local, state, and federal funding for schools must be identified and maximized. Allies among the citizens of our communities must be fostered to protect our schools and their purpose, which is to develop our children into competent, informed, critical thinkers, citizens who will steer our communities in the years ahead, who will build and this nation as we move forward. It is more than the scope and sequence of learning, it is the wonder of discovery that teachers seed in their students. We need to also support that wonder and thirst in our teachers so they have the fuel they need to continue entering their classrooms with the enthusiasm than is transmitted to the young ones before them daily. The future sits in those desks. The future deserves the best and teachers deserve the ability to realize their own full capability as the foundation for that future.

Our nation needs to return to trusting that teachers are actually the best gauges of learning in their classrooms and that they are trained professionals who deserve respect for their career choices. Teachers know how to teach and are successful when consistently supported with adequate funding, resources, environments, and professional development. Changing the rules every few years, imposing testing schedules that seriously limit instruction time, and limiting creative inquiry in the classroom create tension in both students and teachers, which I believe is at the heart of the perceived failure of our schools, not the tenure process. It is short-sighted to think that the current national movement is an adequate solution to the problem and that teachers are the cause. Not enough of the decision makers in public education or the politicians have the experience of teaching within the constraints they create and legislate, nor do they understand the pressures in today's classrooms and/or what a child at any age may bring in with them from the home and the outer world. We must provide teachers the scaffold they need to shine and, in turn, for their students to do so. It takes each and every one of us to accomplish this lofty goal but I believe it is possible.

Here it is...the cover of "Our Difficult Sunlight"

As Quraysh and I approach the tangible joy of holding our book in our hands in the near future, here is a quick peek at the cover, with the gorgeous cover image by Joyce Owens. Thanks Joyce and thanks Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Just 2 weeks to the Chicago book launch! The tip of the iceberg in presenting this project to the world. We appreciate all who helped us get to this magnificent moment. More soon!

D-U-N and the Universe Is Captured in a Video!

Good morning on the first Saturday of my transition from my teaching year to the rest of being a poet for the spring and summer. Yesterday I completed the K-12 teaching schedule for 2009-2010 and I am ready to unpack my suitcases and travel totes for a few months.

I noticed, when I logged in, that I have received 1400 hits to the site since I put in the counter (Thanks Linda E. for still another resource!). Although I have no idea how visitors get to me, other than those of you I know, I am delighted. Thanks. I would be very grateful if you passed on the link to my thoughts if you know anyone who may be interested. 

This year is has been the second year of my independent status as a teaching poet. Although the past 5 months of my concentrated teaching time has been demanding, I now have the freedom in life to attend to some of the aspects of being a poet that I have had to deny for many years of working a day job:

Reading: Between meeting the time demands of working a more traditional job, even if it is in a more creative field, and the amount of reading nearly any job I have worked has required, I find that pleasure reading slipped into an oblivion for a long time. This is regrettable because reading is so intrinsic to growing as a writer. Now I recognize that part of my "job" is to read...anything...everything. If I sit with a book for a morning, I have to remind myself that I am working.

Gardening: When I was a young poet, the last time I remember seeing my materal grandfather, Cleveland McConnell, at a family reunion, he took me for a short stroll away from everyone for a few moments. It is one of two times that I remember speaking one on one with my grandfather about who I am as a human. That day, on the shore of Oneida Lake in upstate New York, he told me, his first grandchild who yearned to be a poet, "Georgia Ann, if you want to be a poet, you need to do two things in your life: live in the country and grow a garden." He explained that the lessons of these two experiences at some point in the writer's life will contribute to a greater sense of the craft. After 10 years of living in my home, my first garden of my own, I enter this 11th growing season with a calmness but eager to pull weeds, mulch, balance my rocks, redefine the patterns, feel the sun on my back and hands.

Journaling: I go in spurts but it is easy to get busy and neglect the pen and the purity of the next page waiting to be filled. I wonder if journaling is a cure for arthritis? It is good for my hands and my soul. I cannot possibly capture everything daily that causes me to wonder, marvel, or freak out. But I find peace in the process and sometimes I get too busy.

Being Still in Meditation and Observation: Nuff said there. I will strive for more. The world is a beautiful moment. I must deepen this connection more regularly as I move through my existential development, cherishing this quiet Saturday morning more and more because, in truth, it is all any of us has. Now if I could just learn how to sleep soundly again. I lost that capacity years ago.

I wish you all peace, power, and poetry. I will write more of the miracles of my school year and all the incredible moments with students I experienced soon. Right now, I am going to be quiet for a few and let this new morning sink in a bit, knowing that I will not be anywhere but home on Monday morning. I urge you to do the same. 

P.S. To assist you on the transition to quiet, take a moment to view this YouTube video from the Hayden Planetarium! It is humbling and beautiful. Michael Wiggins, the daily blogger for the Association of Teaching Artists, posted the link and now I share the wonder with you. Thanks to the Planetarium for creating it and to Michael for sharing! Go now...into space...with this short film, The Known Universe from the American Museum of Natural History:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U&feature=player_embedded