Books on my teacher shelf

Although I've reserved the waning moments of the night for fiction (please, let it be more than a sleep inducer), I've put a number of texts on teaching on my shelf hopefully to fight the madness of periods and bells and of grade-driven students. It is so easy to follow the traditional routine in lock-step and continue the vicious cycle that keeps public education irrelevant in the minds of many students. What's this worth if students find no meaning in it? I hear the challenges in the back of my mind as I write this. Yes, there is the horse-to-water analogy trotting in. I understand. I have been on the losing end of the classroom battle for resistant minds many times before. Yes, I have no control of the student's will. Yes, a teacher can only go so far before s/he has reached the realm bordering on co-dependency. But I am always learning what it means to be a better teacher. This means questioning my own practices regularly. Routines may be comfortable and may help me through a schedule that is impossible to handle for any teacher. Survival is one thing, recalcitrance is another.

So, here is the short list:

Understanding by Design (Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe)
Going With the Flow (Michael Smith & Jeffrey Wilhelm)
The Elements of Language Curriculum (James Dean Brown)

The list will surely expand throughout the year. To be continued.

The keys to the car

I can't help but compare today's experience to one I experienced the day I passed my driving test at the DMV. It's that one test that offers very tangible rewards upon receiving a passing score. I felt like screaming with elation on the drive home. It was my first ride as a legal driver, one I could have managed solo if I were inclined to do so (if I really, really needed to!). Today I finally received the keys to my first classroom. I have been teaching in some fashion for nearly seven years--the elementary and junior high schools in Japan, the ESL adult classes for HBAS, and, of course, the many subbing jobs around Southern California. Always a temporary location, though, the teaching felt all-too-permanent. Now I have been granted the freedom to create my own learning environment as I see fit. I've always believed that where one learns has as much an effect on the process as how one learns. If I cannot control the world outside and all of the distractions that come with it (but should a teacher really strive to do so?), then this corner of the world can be reserved for creation, expression, work, work, work.

With the keys comes obligation to manage the space, not necessarily for my own comfort as it is so often used, but to create an engaging environment for learners. More than stimuli--this can often be random firings which evoke random results. What covers the walls needs to be relevant to what we are learning in class, and, by chance that it all may bleed into the backdrop of white noise, needs to be renewed regularly. A scenery change for each unit? Is this a lofty goal? Will I be overwhelmed with the curriculum itself, the phone calls home, the IEP meetings, the assignments to grade? Perhaps.