New Terrain

Three weeks ago during our three-day Teach For America orientation for first-year teachers, all program directors gave presentations on Personal-Professional Alignment (PPA). The purpose of the session was to acknowledge that teaching is time-consuming and will lead to stress at certain times (a lot of times). Our responsibilities as adults is to recognize signs of stress, realize what we need to do to maintain balance in our own lives, and what to do when common stress relievers don't work. Throughout the session on PPA, we gave suggestions like planning ahead and not leaving things to the last minute, making sure you maintain a healthy diet, taking time to exercise, get enough sleep, and sometimes, just knowing when to stop working.

I thought these were very obvious, but very useful ideas. Teachers need those reminders.I felt like I was imparting pearls of wisdom to these eager first-year teachers. Surely after two years of teaching, I was expert enough in avoiding and dealing with stress. After all, I was in charge of delivering a session on it.

So of course, it only makes sense that I haven't worked out in six weeks, had a meal at home (other than cereal and take-out) for five weeks, and calculated 95 hours of work last week. After week four of that lifestyle (a few days after the PPA session), I had an inkling that I was stressed out. But I kept going, because my work was my responsibility and I accepted and believed in it. I didn't bother heeding the advice I imparted on the teachers of eating properly, working out or stopping after a certain hour. I kept going, because I figured I could.

Until I was forced to stop and remember what PPA means. It means work-life balance. It means taking care of yourself. It means taking care of those around you.

On Wednesday, I booked a ticket to fly back that afternoon to Maryland to take care of my mother who is ill. Despite facing another round of projects to complete, documents to prepare, and helping teachers who start teaching on Monday, my mother being sick jolted me into remembering that my dedication to the work I love only goes as far as it allows me to dedicate myself to the people I adore.

The alignment of our personal and professional lives is a conversation I think we should continue to address monthly. What are some aspects of PPA readers would be interested in exploring?

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

When I entered my classroom two years ago as a new teacher, I had some very big goals for my students. Not only would they grow by two grade levels in math and reading, they would read 2,490 books and reach all of their IEP goals.

Now, after two years of teaching more than 3 dozens students with IEPs and having spent the past few weeks helping train almost a hundred new teachers how to write meaningful big goals for their classrooms, I reflect back on those first goals I wrote (and heavily advertised throughout the year). They make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me wonder what in the world I was thinking throwing in general growth goals that would have potentially contradicted IEP goals. And 2,490 books??? What was I thinking?? I didn't even realize my students didn't know their vowels at that time!

But what crushes me the most in hindsight is that I set those ridiculously arbitrary and misfitting numerical goals with very little thought and purpose behind it. I knew I wanted to change their lives, but I didn't know what it would look like and how the numerical goals would be a proxy in measuring the real learning I needed to facilitate.

As I lament my failure to spend time crafting a meaningful, life changing goal for my students, I am inspired by the work of the new teachers I am working with. Each person is in the process of designing and articulating what they want their students to be able to do by the end of the year.

And so that is a question I must ask everyone: What is your class vision? What do you want your students to achieve by the end of the course? How will that change their lives?

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This blog entry is dedicated to planning. Or rather, it's dedicated to my lack of planning.

This week, my colleagues and I in the Rio Grande Valley are facilitating the learning of our first-year teachers' on the foundational skills of teaching. They are already proficient in the act of teaching; now we're working on the deep understandings behind it. Among the many skills we're working on this week are developing their class vision and goals by internalizing their standards, determining their course assessments, and starting to long-term plan for their school year. These are critical pieces to teaching, but as anyone knows, it's a lot.

UPDATED 8/11: (Two lessons of the week: Facilitating to adults is NOT like teaching kids. It's almost kind of funny to compare the way I teach to the way I facilitate. It's hard. I'm kind of miserable at it. I'm pretty sure I said the same thing two years ago as I began teaching. Also, these teachers are doing an incredible job. It's pretty cool to watch how the achievement gap gets closed. They're not just unpacking standards; they're developing visions for their classrooms, they're making plans on how to get there, and they're excited about doing it. It's, well, exciting.)

But as I re-emphasize to our teachers the need to plan, I don't follow my own advice. Even though I knew this was going to be a rough week, I didn't plan a blog entry ahead of time. Instead, I'm reminded once again how critical it is to plan, plan and plan...

And so for today, I'm leaving you all with a couple interesting news articles that have been passed along by colleagues and friends. I will be updating once again this weekend, but in the meantime, read on.

Do you talk with your hands? Do you find yourself gesturing as you teach? Or maybe you gesture as you learn something new. You may be on to something neuroscientists, psychologists and educators are trying to figure out. What impact does hand gesturing have on our learning?

We must have known that this was too good to be true... A new study finds that baby video products such as "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" may do more harm than good, and may delay language development in toddlers.

Lastly, here's an older, but good one for those of you who haven't been keeping up too closely with the news: Summer school isn't just about catching up on missed credits-- Maryland schools are giving under-resourced students an edge by offering school in July. This is an effort to close the achievement gap before it has a chance to open or grow wider when the school year rolls around.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)