Reflection and Preparation for the New School Year

It's still summertime for a few more weeks, but like most of you, I'm starting to think about the new school year.  Before we know it, we'll be back in the swing of things. Ah, the smell of crayons and glues wafting through the air, sticky fingers grasping our pants accompanied by requests for another ketchup packet, the sound of the pencil sharpener whirring as we try to explain an important concept. These are the sights and sounds of an elementary school and I can't wait to see all of those little faces, freckled from the beach or too many hours outside, smiling up at me as they march down the hallway. While I've certainly enjoyed the time spent with my two little smiling faces at home, I've missed my other children oh so much and I can't wait to hear how their summers have been.

These smiley, precious faces are on their way back to school soon.  Are you ready?

As we contemplate those first few days back, we need to reflect on the lessons we learned last school year. We need to consider all of the professional developments we've attended this summer, all of the books we've read, and figure out what we can do to incorporate those important pieces into the puzzle that makes up our school year.  Going back to school is exciting because everything is new, we have the opportunity to make corrections and re-write who we are as instructors.  If we've always done things a certain way and it has left us feeling incomplete, we don't have to do it that way anymore.  There is no routine or procedure set in place--yet--we still have the opportunity to establish what that is going to look like for this set of children. While they are spending these last few fleeting days playing and enjoying the sunshine, we are constructing a framework that will determine so many crucial portions of their futures. It can't be taken lightly.  Our planning, our preparation, or lack there-of, sets the course for the rest of the school year and if we don't take it very seriously, our students' year could be misdirected because of the choices we make now.
That's heavy stuff!  Luckily, we are all professionals who take our jobs very seriously and we are willing to do whatever it takes to insure our students are successful.  So, let's take some time to reflect and really consider what we need to do differently, what can stay the same, and what we need to find out before we ever have one teeny-tiny foot cross the threshold into our classroom. The following is a set of questions designed to get you thinking about last year, reflecting on your teaching skills, and considering what you might need to change.
1) In thinking about the physical layout of my classroom, what really worked for me?  Were students desks placed in a good proximity from each other and the things they needed?  Was everyone able to utilize all of the materials available to them?  Was there ample access to the word wall and classroom library?
2) What about my classroom layout was confusing, messy, or chaotic?  Were there any pieces of furniture constantly in the way? Did students have trouble accessing anything they really needed?  Were students constantly asking for my help with certain items? How could I rearrange furniture or materials so that this isn't a problem anymore?
3) During what types of lessons were my students most often authentically engaged? Did they seem to prefer hands-on activities?  Did they really like technology?  How did they react to my style of direct-teach? When I begin planning for the upcoming school year, how can I incorporate more of these types of activities into my lesson plans? Did I plan ahead by writing higher-level-thinking questions into my lesson plans?  Did children leave my classroom with better knowledge of how to think and problem solve?
4) When did my students tend to check-out or act-up?  Was it during a particular type or types of lessons?  Did I "stand and deliver" too often?  Did my students tend to yell out because they were bored? Did I challenge my higher students often enough with independent studies, differentiated lessons, or projects? Did I make lessons too difficult for my lower students because I didn't differentiate? How can I be better prepared this year so that I can avoid teaching to a classroom of disengaged students? What strategies can I use to re-engage students once I've lost them or prevent those students on the brink from slipping away? What activities could I put in place to create a better sense of community within my classroom?
5) How did I meet the needs of all students through my small group instruction?  Did I do enough differentiation? Did I challenge my high students?  What resources did I do a good job of utilizing last year for small group instruction?  What other resources are available?  How can I insure that students are using their time in small group most effectively?
6) Did I do a good job of using my data to drive my instruction?  How often did I disaggregate data or study data that was disaggregated for me?  Did I have a firm grasp of what I was looking at and if not did I ask appropriate questions?  Do I understand why it is important to use my data to guide my instructional practices?  If not, who can I discuss this with?
7) What types of discussions did my team most often have during planning sessions?  How much time did we spend off-task, if any?  How many of our discussions were truly meaningful?  Did we talk more about the "what" or the "how" of teaching?  What can I do to contribute more to team planning?  What types of conversations would it be most beneficial to have?  What items could we bring to planning to help facilitate better discussion?
8) Did I utilize all of the resources that I had available to me during the last school year? Did I do a good job of asking my teammates for assistance when I needed it? Did I rely on my team leader to help me when I wasn't sure what to do? What kinds of conversations did I have with other staff members who also teach my students, such as special education teachers, dyslexia teachers, reading coaches?  Did I meet frequently with specialists, such as Academic Coaches or Master Teachers, to talk about my lessons and how I can improve my instructional practice? Did I discuss areas where I can grow with my administrator and ask for advice about workshops to attend or literature to read?
9) How was my communication with parents?  Was my newsletter effective or was it just something I checked-off on a list of "things-to-do"?  Did I call parents for good behavior as well as to discuss problems?  Were we able to work together to problem solve or were we often defensive?  What could I do differently to create stronger bonds with parents and work more effectively?
10) What steps did I take to create lasting relationships with my students? Did I greet them all warmly each morning? Did I take an interest in their lives outside of school?  Did I have meaningful conversations with them about non-academic subject matter? Did I instill morals and values in each of them? Did I teach them to love learning and to always strive to learn more? Would they say they had a great year and that they learned a lot or were they happy to be rid of me at the end of the year?  How can I work towards building better relationships with my students this year?
As you read over this extensive list of questions, there may have been one or two that really stood out to you.  Of course, you could take the time to sit and reflect on all of them, but that would be very time consuming.  If you noticed a question or a set of questions that really stuck out in your mind, chances are, there is some room for growth on this particular topic.  I suggest you actually take out a pencil and paper and write down your answers to these questions.  Taking the time to write out your answers will help you reflect in a more meaningful way then simply thinking about it.  Through reflection, we make discoveries about ourselves that lead us towards being even better at what we do.  If you don't have the answers, reflection can help you realize this as well, and it can guide you to the person or people who can help you find the right answers.  I think many teachers are under the impression that they have to be perfect and that's unfortunate because it's only through embracing our areas of difficulty that we can truly grow and become stronger, better teachers.  Take the time to reflect, to think, to plan, to build a strong foundation and framework. Those cute little smiling faces will thank you for it later.  They might have sticky hands, but they also have warm hugs, and warm hugs trump sticky hands any day.

What Does Last Year's Data Mean for This Year's Kids?

Yesterday, I spent about 3 hours working on disaggregating end of year data to give to our staff.  I'm placing students reading scores on a scatter graph and also charting the difference between the middle-of-year scores and end-of-year scores so that teachers can see movement.  I'm also giving them over-all data, like how many average points each student has changed, what their over-all class average was on this assessment, etc.  As I am working on it, I am thinking, "This is really important and could be critical to our students' learning for next year. I wonder if everyone will understand why."
Some teachers might think, "Oh, well, that's last year's stuff. Those kids are gone.  I don't need to look at that."  But you do--for lots of reasons--but here are the two main reasons.
1) This data tells you where your strengths and weaknesses are as a teacher.
2) The data on the students you will be getting tells you where you need to start with your new class.
Let's look at these reasons a little bit more closely.
As teachers--as humans--we all have areas where we need to grow.  If you see that the majority of your class seems to be struggling in one or two areas, that's probably more attributable to you as a teacher rather than all of them as individual students. We can even look at this in  broad areas, such as fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. If you have a classroom full of speedy readers, congrats, you are awesome at teaching fluency!  I would like to tap into your knowledge of teaching fluency and work with you to help others improve in that area!  However, if you notice most of your kiddos are struggling in the area of comprehension then we need to work on that.  Luckily, you are not alone, for I am here to help you with that! So is the rest of your team and your administrators.  Isn't that awesome?  Chances are you have some strengths that you can share with the rest of us as well.  This is where that amazing buzz-word "collaboration" comes in.  You see, we don't need an administrator to come in, look at your scores and say to you, "You have got to improve in your ability to teach comprehension. Here are a list of workshops you need to go to. I will come in and watch you 45 times in the next three weeks to make sure you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing," etc. (That is not how my administrators roll, by the way, but y'all know what I'm talking about!) If you know your data before anyone else does, then working toward correcting the areas where you are struggling is in your hands and no one else's.  It leaves you open to be the conversation starter.  You can approach your team and say, "How are y'all teaching comprehension?  What specific types of questions are you asking? Does anyone have a great lesson for main idea?" etc.  We could get a lot more specific and look at student expectations one by one and see exactly where we need to work harder, but for the sake of this post, I think you get the idea. If you are really looking at your own data, more so than anyone else, then you will always be prepared to answer any questions that may be thrown your way.  Better yet, you will constantly be improving in those areas if you recognize that you need to.  The bottom line is, when one or two kids don't get it, that may be their fault. When the whole class doesn't get it, point the finger back at yourself because there are some changes that need to be made (assuming there's nothing wrong with the test or the way the questions were asked, etc.)  You aren't alone though and I, for one, am always happy to help teachers find resources, people to observe, books to read, etc. that will help them grow in areas where it is needed.
Let's talk about the second reason  why you need to look at last year's data.  This data has some really specific information about your new students.  Do I really expect you to take the time to look through the scores of every single one of your new kiddos?  Absolutely! Do I realize how much time that might take?  Absolutely! I always--always--looked at whatever data was available to me and made it my mission to know as much about each student as possible before school even started.  The second I knew my class list, I was in the cumulative folder closet looking at those files. If we had portfolios, even better.  Why?  This is my starting point. I'm going to forego the argument that kids lose ground over summer.  Of course they do (so do I!) but I am looking at the potential starting point--where I know they should be--soon--so that I know where we need to work and where I can help them excel.  This is critical.  If you can't get your hands on last year's data, start asking everyone you can. Last year's teacher, an instructional specialist, admin, the school secretary, whomever may have that information because it is critical to you.  You don't want to find out two months into school that the shy boy in the back is actually reading three grade levels ahead because you've just wasted two months of his time.  Likewise, you don't want to find out that you have a potential special education student that no one told you about or that Johnny is supposed to be getting ESL services but no one told your or that Sally is at-risk because she repeated kindergarten.  Is someone supposed to tell you those things?  Sure!  Does it always happen? No!  Whose ultimately responsible for these kids?  You! So get in there and make it happen.
Here's a little story to go along with my point.  My third year as a teacher, I switched school districts to Cypress-Fairbanks ISD outside of Houston and I was teaching first grade at Owens Elementary school.  Lovely campus, wonderful staff.  I didn't know a single child on the campus and I knew it was critical that I knew my kids.  Cy-Fair schools put pictures of the students inside their cumulative folders.  As soon as the principal handed out the class lists, I went into the records room, memorized names and faces and any other information I could find out about these kiddos. On Meet the Teacher night, the parents were amazed.  I knew all of the kids as they walked in the room.  I greeted them by name, shook their hands, made them feel welcome right from the beginning.  They were all apprehensive because I was new there and they didn't know me at all from the year before. This set both the students and their parents at ease. The parents were amazed.  One mom said, "How did you know who my daughter was?"  I told her I had looked at their folders because I was so excited to meet them.  From that point on this mother, and many others, new their children were safe, they were going to learn a lot, and they were with a teacher who cared about them immensely  because I took the time to know them. Wouldn't that be an amazing way to start your year off as well?
Know your students and you will know exactly what they need to learn just in time.  Find out this information from last year's data. It's critical to making sure you are at your best as a teacher and that your students are at their best as well. Besides, who needs to sit on the beach and sip a nice cold drink when you can be pouring through data like me, right? Hello?  Anyone? Anyone?

So, This is Summer. . . .

Every year, on the first day of summer vacation, I wake up confused, look around, realize the sun is up, momentarily think I am late, remember that I'm not, and attempt to go back to sleep.  Just about the time I am finally successful, either a child or a dog jumps on my bed and reminds me that, even though it's summer vacation, there's still lots of work to be done.
So, what will you be doing with your summer vacation?
I still have a ton of data to disaggregate
A guided reading library to re-build
Summer training to write
Beginning of the year training to write
A little girl who needs to practice reading every day
And of course I am thinking about how to decorate my classroom this time around
That's a lot to do for someone who is "off" for a couple of months.
The thing is, lots of people think that teachers are so lucky because they have the whole summer off, but we don't really have very long off at all and most of that time we spend working. I have a professional development to attend this Thursday.  That's three days with the fam and  then back to work for 8 hours--for free, mind you.
I'm not complaining--I signed up to go because I want to go, not because I have to.  But, my point is, teachers are almost always working, even when we're by the pool. We're thinking about our kids, this year's, next year's, every year's. We're thinking about what we can do better next time and new things we want to try.  While it is nice that we don't have to drive in to work every day at the crack of dawn for a few weeks, we are not sitting around eating Bon Bon's and watching television (much!).  Most of us are still working, a lot of the time.  While I'm not exactly sure that anyone ever actually got three months off, we certainly don't get that off now.  It's already the second week of June and we go back the second week of August, so that's two months at best.  People who say we get three months off exaggerate a bit, I'm afraid.
But I'm fine with not getting three months off. I'm ready to go back after about three weeks.  Why?  Because I love my job. I miss the kids. I miss the adults.  I miss having responsibilities other than the normal household stuff I have to do year round anyway.  I love the challenge of the new school year. My principal mentioned the other day, we work in one of the only professions that has built-in "do-overs."  That's not exactly what she said, her take was more eloquent, but you get the picture.  Don't like the way something went last year, guess what?  You get to start all over in a couple of months and try again.  That's awesome.
Teaching is exciting and rewarding. It's challenging and exhausting and it's the only profession where you still get to have recess everyday. It may also be the only profession where you can run down the hall and grab a ketchup packet if you forget yours at lunch, but with the unusual and crazy comes the amazing wonder of seeing a child learn a concept for the first time.
The guy who said the three best things about teaching are June, July, and August got the August part right, that's for sure.
I will continue to post from time to time over the summer but if you are too busy enjoying your family, sleeping in, spending time at the beach, and watching the sunset to read, that's okay. I'll be here when we go back in the "fall."
Take care!