Stand up and Teach [1 ed.] 9781551389325, 9781551383316

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For David Booth, teacher, mentor, and friend

© 2018 Pembroke Publishers 538 Hood Road Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 3K9 www.pembrokepublishers.com Distributed in the U.S. by Stenhouse Publishers www.stenhouse.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, scanning, recording, or any information, storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts from this publication may be reproduced under licence from Access Copyright, or with the express written permission of Pembroke Publishers Limited, or as permitted by law. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for permission to reproduce borrowed material. The publishers apologize for any such omissions and will be pleased to rectify them in subsequent reprints of the book.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Lundy, Kathleen Gould, author   Stand up and teach / Kathleen Gould Lundy.   Includes index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55138-932-5 (PDF)     1. Effective teaching. 2. Classroom environment. I. Title. LB1025.3.L84 2018  371.102 C2018-903297-9 C2018-903298-7  Editor: Kate Revington Cover Design: John Zehethofer Typesetting: Jay Tee Graphics Ltd. Printed and bound in Canada 987654321

Contents Introduction: Towards Your Teaching Self 5 Striving for Teaching That Stands Out 6 A Provocation to Teach Well 7 A Difficult Thing Made Simpler 7 Open to the Teaching Process 8 Chapter 1: A Classroom of Your Own: How to Begin 9 Big Questions for a Big Role 9 Getting Ready 10 From Space to Place 13 Giving of Yourself 15 The Most Important Thing 18 Chapter 2: How to Help Students Learn Best — Relationships, Reciprocity, Respect 19 Allowing Students to See Themselves 19 Relationships — A Sense of Self 21 Be Attuned to Student Voices 22 Ways to Build Community in the Classroom 24 Why We Need to Know Our Students 34 Chapter 3: Planning for Surprise: Lessons and Units 35 Let Your Lessons Evolve 35 Lesson Planning — 4-5-6-7 37 Addressing the Lesson Plan Puzzle 42 Engage, Explore, Extend 44 Twenty Strategies to Promote Learning 46 Unit Planning: Negotiating the Way 54 The Dichotomy of Teaching 57

Chapter 4: Classroom Management for Student Engagement 59 Navigating the Fragile Teaching/Learning Dynamic 59 The Strategic Use of Space 62 Each Day a Story 63 Be Mindful of What You Say and Do 64 Groups at Work in the Classroom 65 Thirty Classroom Management Ideas 67 Chapter 5: Working with the Best: Mentors 75 What Early Mentors Taught Me 76 Hang Around Good People 77 Building the Mentoring Relationship 79 Mentoring through Love 87 Chapter 6: The Difference That You Can Make 91 Working at Resilience 91 Supportive Ways to Think about Your Teaching 95 Contributing Your Strengths 99 Moments for Transformation 101 Hands-on Tips and Tools 103 Recommended Resources 117 Bibliography 119 Index 121

Introduction: Towards Your Teaching Self

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everal years ago, I was invited to observe one of my students teaching in a busy school in downtown Toronto. It was the second week of her teaching practicum and I was her practicum supervisor. We met in the school office. As we walked to the classroom, the student teacher described the things she was hoping to accomplish in her lesson that day. I wasn’t surprised that her plan was to teach them something she knew quite a bit about — she had decided to stay in her comfort zone. What did surprise me, however, was that she began to teach the lesson sitting down and she remained seated for the entire 70-minute period. The students were incredibly polite. They listened quietly. They answered her questions. They conformed to the rules of the classroom. The overall impression was one of compliance. When the student teacher and I met to talk about the lesson afterwards, I asked her why she had not stood up. She seemed surprised by the question. She told me that she did not feel she needed to. Because everyone was so well behaved, she did not think standing up was necessary. The students had answered all her questions. They had not been disruptive. At the end of the lesson, they had filled out exit cards and handed them in. All seemed good. It was at this moment I realized I had to write this book. I had to write about teaching as something very different than an experience where the teacher talks and the students listen. I wanted to write about teaching as a dynamic, authentic, interactive, messy, reciprocal, uncertain, responsive, challenging, exciting process — where the unexpected fuels discussion and debate and promotes different kinds of learning. I wanted to write about what it means to be the best teacher you can be no matter  5

your circumstances. Indeed, I hope that I can inspire newly minted and student teachers to be the kind of teacher that makes a difference in ­students’ lives not only because of how they teach but because of who they are. I have taught for many years. I know the thrill of teaching and the excitement that authentic learning can bring. So, I want to encourage teacher candidates and new teachers to recognize teaching as the creative endeavor it is — an endeavor full of risk, intuition, chance, and serendipity. I want to advocate for the kind of teaching that stands out, where established relationships and interactions between teachers and learners allow them to work together to develop mutual interest in the topic at hand. I want to help you find ways to teach so that the sparks of meaning making eventually evolve into flames of understanding.

Striving for Teaching That Stands Out It takes courage to teach like this — to stand out as a teacher who is passionate, aware, energized, inclusive, and effective. And, let me be clear: I know that we cannot expect our teaching to stand out all the time. Sometimes we lose confidence in the process of student-centred, inquiry-based learning and decide that teaching in more traditional ways is easier. At other times, we may feel pressure from our peers, leaders, and students’ parents to conform to the way that we were once taught. We look around and see others who are teaching in less complicated ways. We begin to wonder if we shouldn’t adopt rigid lesson plans and have strict expectations. Perhaps we should just barrel through despite a lack of response from some of our students. Our energy and enthusiasm wane . . . Sometimes we don’t take the risk to try something new — we feel as if we have enough challenges to deal with in our classrooms already. At other times, we realize that we don’t know enough and need to search for ideas, resources, and support to continue doing what we love to do. So, I am not advocating that every single lesson we teach must sparkle and electrify; I am, however, asserting that there needs to be purpose, strength, fluidity, improvisation, engagement, and interest on the part of all people involved in the dynamics of teaching and learning — students and teachers alike. I am encouraging all of us to stand up and teach. Teaching is . . . complicated. It needs to be purposeful for everyone. It needs to be responsive. It needs to be relevant. It needs to evolve. In other words, you need to know what to teach, but you also need to know who you are teaching so that you connect the content of the curriculum to the hearts and minds of the learners in your classroom. Relationships are the key to making everything work: your relationship with your students, their relationships to you and one another, and everyone’s relationship to the curriculum. 6  

As you move forward in your teaching career, focus in on the process of teaching and keep learning about it. One of the first things I tell my student teachers is that they can’t possibly know all there is to know about teaching when they begin. It takes a long time to understand how complicated teaching is — how layered, unpredictable, and challenging the whole experience is. Every class is different. What you try with one class might not work with another. As you gain more experience, as you fill your toolbox with more inventive strategies, as you learn to be patient and to listen more, you will find your teaching self.

A Provocation to Teach Well For more information on All ‘I’s on Education, see aioe.ca.

In 2016, I was principal investigator of a major research project, All ‘I’s on Education: Imagination, Integration, Innovation. Thirty Ontario teachers from 10 district school boards and seven researchers were involved in discovering how math, science, and the arts could be taught in innovative and integrated ways with the support of technology. The researchers asked the teachers to find as many ways as they could to “make their teaching visible.” The project allowed teachers to take risks and to work with the researchers, students, and ideas in new ways. Their reflections and insights were inspirational, heartfelt, and true. At the culmination of the project, these teachers literally stood up and taught us about what they had learned of the complexity, the joy, the challenges, and the rewards of teaching. In the performance called “Voices of Innovative Practitioners,” they stood up and spoke in front of an audience of education leaders, including the assistant deputy minister of the Ontario Ministry of Education. Through their words, they advocated for the permission to teach in innovative ways. They asked us to listen to their stories of how they grew every day in their understanding of what it means to teach well. They spoke of finding the “right fit” with the curriculum, with their colleagues, and with their students. They told stories of how they came to be the teachers they are today — about the mistakes they made, the lessons they learned, the challenges they still face, the mentors they value, the love they have for the work, and the places that have shaped their feelings about teaching, about themselves, about their students, and about the communities in which they live. The teacher performance was a provocation for all of us to stand up and teach.

A Difficult Thing Made Simpler I hope that this book will prove helpful to teachers in the early stages of their careers and teachers whose flagging energies deter them from standing up and carrying on. I have tried to make it simple, although I know in my heart and in my head how difficult it is to teach. There is nothing simple about it.  7

In Chapter 1, I make suggestions about how to begin. Think of this chapter as the basics: what to wear, how to greet your students, how to keep on top of all that you are facing in the first few weeks of teaching. Chapter 2 is all about establishing an inclusive, respectful, and culturally responsive classroom where your students will feel safe and supported. You will find some beginning games and exercises to help you get to know your students — their identities, personalities, and learning styles. Chapter 3 focuses on planning lessons and the role of planning in the creative endeavor of teaching. I have provided the 4-5-6-7 approach, which I use myself. It offers a number of thinking-about-teaching frameworks. I recommend using all four components. Featured, too, are 20 teaching strategies you may find useful. Classroom management is all part and parcel of teaching and learning, but it has its own place in Chapter 4. I have outlined 30 classroom management strategies of special interest to the beginning teacher. Feel free to write in the margin and add more ideas as you come to know your teaching context better. Chapter 5 concerns mentorship, its value, and how to build mentor– mentee relationships. It pays particular attention to the value of teachers witnessing and sharing their school and teaching stories. Finally, in Chapter 6, I do my best to give encouragement and practical, common-sense advice on how to become resilient enough to meet the challenges of teaching. I also invite you to explore ways to draw on your strengths to benefit your students, your school community, and yourself.

Open to the Teaching Process Maxine Greene (1978, 54) reminds us that education is a process. We need to open ourselves up to the teaching process, be curious and notice things, forgive ourselves when we make mistakes, learn from them, and keep going: Education at its best is a process of teaching people to explore ideas about themselves and the world in which they live, to ask questions about the experience called living and to embrace ambiguity, to notice the unusual without fear and to look upon the ordinary with new eyes.

Teaching and learning are intertwined in the way we live our lives. Often our students take us into uncharted waters, and together we must discover a way through them — researching, asking, and answering questions that are new to us. As we do this, we are teaching each other about how the world works. I believe that, if we are open to making the whole process dynamic, reciprocal, responsive, and relevant, we are bound to be excited when we enter our classrooms, and if we are, we will attract and hold our students’ attention. It will be time for us to begin. 8  

1 “Relax, Miss. You are not going to last very long if you are this nervous.” — Stewart Lush, Grade 9 student Miss Gould’s English Class, Malvern Collegiate Institute, 1975

A Classroom of Your Own: How to Begin

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am sure that I was like all beginning and new teachers, nervous and fearful as well as excited and hopeful. What I did not know then and do know now is that I would fall in love with teaching and would teach for a very long time. I could not have imagined how big a role teaching would play in my life and how it would become a huge part of my identity. There were other things I did not know then, too: who I was, where I came from, and how the way I was taught and the way I learned would affect how I teach. I remember vividly the day I received the letter in the post from the Toronto Board of Education offering me a full-time teaching job. I went to the privacy of my bedroom and opened the envelope. It took a while for the news to sink in. I was going to be a teacher! I was going to have my very own classroom and my very own students. I would be part of a profession that had the potential to change the world. The responsibility of it all affected me deeply. I was excited but anxious.

Big Questions for a Big Role I had wanted to have my own classroom for a long time but now that my job prospects had become a reality, the idea daunted me more than I had ever imagined. The job meant a move to a different city. It also meant I had to make a number of other personal decisions. It began to dawn on me that my choice to become a teacher was just as personal as it was professional. I thought I was ready, but no one could have really prepared me for all that was awaiting me.  9

As I wrapped my mind around my teaching role and packed up my bags, I considered these big questions: ✲ How will I begin? ✲ What will my students be like? ✲ Will they like me? ✲ What if they don’t? ✲ How should I set up the classroom space? ✲ What am I going to do and say during those first few classes? ✲ How will I know what to teach? when to teach it? how to teach it? ✲ How can I use the little bit I know about teaching to make an impact? ✲ Will I be any good at this? In this chapter, I will share some ways in which you might begin to teach. These are words of advice I wish I had been given when I began teaching more than 40 years ago. My advice is meant to make the road a little easier for you as you begin the challenging work of teaching day after day. Some of these ideas might make sense to you. Others might not. Feel free to adapt them as you get to know your students and the teaching context in which you find yourself. Every classroom is different, and there will be multiple answers to the questions you wonder about.

Getting Ready Here are some ideas that may help you get ready for the role you are about to play and the work you are about to do. They will help you set personal and professional parameters. Take a breath First, take a breath before it all begins. Teaching is a lifelong journey and you are going to be thrown into its hectic pace very soon. Understand that your life will change considerably as the demands of a teaching life make their impact. You will begin to understand that you wear your profession in public. There is a pressure to live up to what it means to be a teacher. Appreciate that teaching is not a 9 to 5 job. It requires much personal time both before and after school as you plan your lessons, provide constructive feedback to students, coach sports teams, provide your expertise in extracurricular activities, meet with parents, and engage in professional learning with your colleagues or on your own. Prepare for school life Over the years, I have found that being organized is a major key to success and peace of mind. When you teach, you have a lot on your mind. Invest some money in a journal or an app that will help you organize your life. Find one that gives you an overview of the month and the 10  

year ahead so that you can more easily prepare for important events and times. School years have certain events that shape the way in which teachers’ time works. For instance, your first parent night will probably occur during the first six weeks of school. You will need to prepare for that. There will be interim report cards due early in the first term and other assessment dates you need to be aware of, as well. Culminating events such as holiday concerts and final report cards require a lot of time. You may want to plan some field trips to support the work in the classroom. Field trips also take much time to organize so you will have to set aside planning time for that, too. Looking at the year ahead helps. Put personal and professional documents in their place We may live in a “paperless” society, but you will have a great many documents to keep track of — your own and your students’. First, have a place where you keep all your personal documents, such as your teaching certificate, your teaching contracts, and your applications for interesting professional learning courses and workshops. These should be kept at your personal residence, not in the school. Second, keep student documents in a locked space somewhere in the school. Make sure that anecdotal notes about students, attendance records, report cards, and pieces of special information about students are safely stored in files to which you have easy access. Find a tool to help keep you organized Over the years, I have experimented with various kinds of organizational tools in an effort to keep myself on track. I have always had a calendar, which is now on my computer and my phone. Beyond that, I keep a large notebook that contains all sorts of things: lists, teaching ideas, quotes, notes about conversations, books and articles to read, contacts, and so on. I often augment this book with photographs and poetry. For me, it helps that the journal is beautiful as well as functional. I start off each day with a list of essential things to do. I have done this now for more than 40 years, and it works for me. Find an approach that works for you. Take a trial run to the school Once you know the name of the school where you will be teaching, look up its location. Figure out how long it will take you to get to the school under various traffic conditions. Do a trial run. You might drive to the school on the weekend to see how far away it is from where you are living. While in the school’s vicinity, take in the neighborhood. Go and have a cup of tea in the nearest shop. Get the feel of the area — the stores, the buildings, the signage, the restaurants, and so on. It will give you a sense of the community where the school is located.

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Dress up, not down My advice is to dress business casual — dress pants or skirt, dress shirt, belt, and comfortable, appropriate shoes. You might see some of the staff wearing jeans and other rather casual attire, but for the first little while, dress up, not down. You goal is not to be glamorous but to look as if teaching matters to you. Students “read” you in so many ways and how you dress says a lot about you. I might be “old school,” but if students see that you have taken the time to iron your shirt, it sends a strong message that they matter. Students are worth dressing up for! Show up on time One thing you will learn very quickly is to be on time. If school begins at 8:45 a.m., it is probably best to be there by about 8 a.m. There is a lot to do to get ready to teach. If you leave yourself enough time, then you can greet your colleagues, set up the room for learning, and meet with any students who arrive early. My late husband, a brilliant teacher and a mentor to me, had a great saying: “Teachers show up.” It’s true. They show up regardless of the effort it took to get there, in snowstorms, and in the midst of other disruptions. At times the whole world will seem to come to a standstill. Traffic is a huge issue in most cities and in the suburbs. Weather and road conditions affect travel time, especially in rural areas. Nonetheless, the expectation is that you will actively consider the traffic and weather and be on time. If you are late, a great many things are affected. Students cannot be left on their own, so the administration will have to ask your colleagues to step in. For the first few times, this will not be an issue, but if your tardiness continues, you will not be popular with your students, their parents, or the other teachers in the school. If you expect your students to be on time, you must be on time, too. Make time for yourself Your personal life needs attention. Try not to let your professional and personal lives bleed into each other. If you have a partner or a family, be sure to take their needs into account and pay attention to them. Sleeping and eating properly, and spending time with people you love, will also help you feel renewed. Organization is the key to all this. In my first years of teaching I worked all the time — at night, on the weekends, and on my commute. I then began to feel resentment towards the job I loved. When I married, my husband, also a teacher, taught me the importance of taking time off. He helped me work smarter rather than harder. I took Saturdays off and spent Sunday mornings getting ready for the week ahead. Having some personal time helped me enjoy teaching better.

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From Space to Place Here are a few approaches to thinking about how to make your classroom a welcoming place where a supportive community will evolve and learning will occur. Imagine yourself in the space Part of being a good teacher is imagining forward. Before you even enter the classroom, picture what you think it might be like. Ask yourself: What will my classroom look like? sound like? feel like? For me, the teaching space must be a place where there is a focus on learning about things that matter. From the moment students enter the space, they should feel acknowledged and think of the space as a “place of learning.” When you greet your students for the first time, talk about the kinds of things you hope will happen. Introduce the idea that they will be collaborating on projects and learning from each other. There will be lots of action and interaction. Every voice will matter. Students will learn to get along with each other and come to appreciate one another’s strengths.

Of Ribbon Swaths and Mellow Lighting Once, when given a space in a school to conduct a series of professional arts learning sessions with teachers, I was devastated by how cold and uninspired the space was. It was hardly somewhere for students to come to learn from arts experts while teachers observed the work and learned how to do it themselves. I appealed to an artist friend who suggested that I find big swaths of wide ribbons and frame the windows to give the room a color and a sense of coziness. I brought in three lamps that shed a softer kind of light that gave the room different kinds of spaces for learning. Someone donated a carpet which I had cleaned. I made that space a place where we would all assemble when we first met and where we could negotiate the way forward.

Co-create an appealing learning environment Ask yourself what kind of feeling you want your students to have as they enter the space. How can they and you create an environment where they feel welcomed, safe, and inspired to learn? How will you use light, color, and sound? How will you ensure that the space is special? What physical and psychic qualities need to be brought to the fore so that creative processes and interactions are encouraged? Instead of applying your own answers to such questions, plan to co-create the feeling in the room by eliciting ideas from your students. I have found that music and lighting effects can enhance the experience of learning for students. Often, they find the changed atmosphere  13

magical; the different mood alters their perceptions of the environment and of themselves as learners. They become more generous with one another, more relaxed, and more willing to imagine and dream together. New thoughts happen in new spaces. First encounter: Take the pulse of your class I remember my first teaching day very well. I was terribly nervous, and the administration had asked that my students fill out forms for a school transportation survey. I hadn’t planned on doing this on my first day, so the request threw me off. One of my students, noticing how shaky I was, called out from the back row: “Relax, Miss! You are not going to last very long if you are this nervous.” (I always smile when I think of that moment. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I see how concerned he was that I would make it to the finish line intact!)

When you meet your students on the first day of the school year, remember that you are entering into a relationship — into a formal contract — where rules are negotiated, routines are set, and respect is established. As you continue to teach, you will define the contract further: recognizing differences, offering helpful feedback, honoring various identities, adjusting your planning to meet different learning needs, and implementing strategies you have learned along the way. During those first days, it is important to take the pulse of your class, to assess how well students are looking forward to the new year. Most of the students will be excited, but some of them might have had a difficult vacation. Some of them might have lost their confidence by the time you meet them. Some of them might be wary of you and the school. For various reasons students might not hold out much hope about their future or about their year in your classroom. You need to be there for them. You need to realize that the way in which you treat them will affect not only the teaching and learning climate for the next 10 months, but also the way your students think about themselves as learners and as citizens for years to come. Promote the feeling that all students are vital group members Make sure that everyone in the classroom is acknowledged and heard. It is important for your students to know that getting along with one another is a priority. Somehow you also need to convey that each of them is essential to the group. As much as possible, try to limit competition by addressing the strengths of the whole group. Don’t single out individual students as “good” or “bad.” Work towards calm but spirited engagement in the learning process. Remember: Find first words that matter Think about how you will welcome everyone to the space. What will your first words be to the class? Often, distracted by all the little details, we forget to say “good morning” to ensure that there is a positive spin to the day. There are various ways of greeting your students. You might decide to stand outside the classroom and greet them one by one as they enter. This approach allows for an informality that might work for you. You might say hello to the students as a large group and then begin the class. You might have everyone come to the carpet or sit in a circle. I like

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circles because they are democratic spaces where everyone can be seen and be acknowledged. Once again, you will find what works for you. Share how you feel Whatever you do, decide where you are going to stand in relationship to your students. Give them your name and tell them how you like to be addressed, for example, Mrs. or Ms. If appropriate, write your name on the board. If your name is difficult to pronounce, have the class practise saying it. You may decide that an abbreviation would be more accessible to everyone. Do what feels right for you. Tell your students a little about yourself and how you are feeling about school. Students often don’t know that teachers have first day jitters, too! How you come across during those first few minutes has an impact. Students are sizing you up. Is he going to be fair? Will she understand me? Will this be a good year for me? You will soon find out that teaching is reciprocal. Sharing your honest feelings about being in the room and how you feel hopeful about the year of learning together is good to do.

Giving of Yourself “When I give, I give myself.” — Walt Whitman

Part of how to begin teaching is learning how to watch out for your students, treating peers with respect, sharing personal passions with your students, and earning a good name in the local community. Look out for your students When I was in Armstrong, Ontario, I worked with a first-year teacher, Aaron Arndt, involved in the All ‘I’s on Education research project. He said he felt overwhelmed at times by all he did not know about teaching but was learning much as he taught. He felt that building relationships with his students must be his first priority. He worked hard to make sure that he acknowledged every student and built a community of respect in his classroom. The researcher and I interviewed some of his Grade 5 students during the project. One student admitted he had not wanted to come to school the year before. The bus ride between the school and his home took an hour and a half each way, and he had dreaded being in the school because he felt ignored, misunderstood, but also bullied by many classmates. This year was different, he said, because of “Mr. A.” The student told us that he now came to school because of the kindness of his teacher — someone who cared for his well-being and made him feel safe and valued. This teacher made sure that the students in his class understood the boy and looked after him. Everything had changed for the better.

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Treat colleagues and staff with respect It is also important to get to know your teaching colleagues as well as the other members of the staff, such as custodians, secretaries, and hall monitors. The best schools are the ones where people look after one another with generosity and kindness. The relationships that are nurtured affect the learning environment. Roland Barth (2006, 8) tells us this: One incontrovertible finding emerges from my career spent working in and around schools: The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else. If the relationships between administrators and teachers are trusting, generous, helpful, and cooperative, then the relationships between teachers and students, between students and students, and between teachers and parents are likely to be trusting, generous, helpful, and cooperative. If, on the other hand, relationships between administrators and teachers are fearful, competitive, suspicious, and corrosive, then these qualities will disseminate throughout the school community.   In short, the relationships among the educators in a school define all relationships within that school’s culture. Teachers and administrators demonstrate all too well a capacity to either enrich or diminish one another’s lives and thereby enrich or diminish their schools.

So, go out of your way to help people. Reach out, and you will be rewarded a hundredfold in big and small ways. Share what matters to you Students respond to teachers who are passionate about their subject or who are passionate about learning. I remember watching one of my student teachers, Andrew Siu, teach a secondary music class. His love of music was infectious. At the beginning of the lesson, he said, “This is just a great piece of music and I want you to hear it.” The students listened to the composition and then he spoke about music in a way that made everyone stop and take heed. The students were inspired not only by what he knew but by how he felt. Don’t be afraid to show the students who you are and what you know and love to do. Play an instrument; sing a song; thread a fishing line; teach them chess. The students will remember who you are and what you are passionate about as much as they remember what you formally taught them. Earn the trust and regard of your community You are a role model. Your students will notice how you conduct yourself professionally and what importance you put on behaviors such as arriving on time, showing courtesy to your colleagues and students’ parents, and being thoughtful about the caretaking staff and other people in the 16  

school. Students watch you and take in how you are representing yourself. Your reputation is growing, and it matters. Michele Coneybeare spoke about the importance of reputation in the “Voices of Innovative Practitioners” performance, which was part of the All ‘I’s on Education project.

Reputation Matters My first teaching position was in a rural community of about 350 people. During those last weeks of August when I was excitedly in the school preparing for the start-up of the school year, I met at least 349 of those community members. Uncle This, Grandma That, Auntie Who, and, of course, little Johnny and his older sister popped in to “check out” the new teacher. That’s when it hit me . . . this teaching gig really comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. All of these people were eager to have ME in their lives and the lives of their young learners; therefore, I needed to bring something BIG to the table, something REALLY big. But what was that “something,” and how was I to live up to the expectations of my new “teaching” family? I put “my everything” into the school and the community, from clubs to coaching to lunch meetings with parents to special events, such as Winter Olympics, to community events and to Saturday bake sales to raise funds for new soccer balls. But most important, in those early days, I learned that giving families and children my ears and a deep sense of caring was what was creating and building the deeper connections causing me to grow as a teacher. For example, I sat with parents and helped them to understand and accept that learning to read is an immensely complex process and that their child was struggling. These kinds of intimate conversations and moments build trusting relationships. I quickly discovered I really didn’t know much about the fine details of the role of a teacher. And at this point, it didn’t matter. I knew I had a lot to learn, but as families watched me immerse myself in their daily lives and their community with hard work, long hours, and a dedication to them as important people in my life, I knew I had what it would take to make an impact in this profession. Parents, children, families, and community members wanted and continue to want a human connection: they want to be valued and respected. I remember that when I was 13 or 14 years old, my parents would guide me about what others “might” think and about the importance of reputation. I used to think: Oh, brother. We’re just having fun and hanging out. What’s all the fuss?

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Now, after many years of teaching, reputation means something so different. For me, it is the most important piece of the job. I need and want my school and my community to know that I work hard and long hours, that I care deeply for their children and for them, and that the relationships we form will build and define who we are in the future. So, for me as a seasoned teacher, reputation is defined as what others think about me. Reputation is knowing that others can trust and depend on me as a person in their lives.

The Most Important Thing The journey to imaginative teaching and joyful learning is full of interruptions, tentative discoveries, negative attitudes, lack of resources, and unanswerable questions. I believe, however, that all the work is worth the disappointments, self-doubt, and worry. Initially, your rewards will be small — the glimmer of understanding, the child who speaks for the first time, the thankful parent phone call; however, these encouraging signs will be followed by greater rewards, perhaps students’ excitement about their learning projects and their triumphs in understanding, perhaps a general feeling that you are making a difference in the lives of your students. The most important thing is to keep learning and growing. Attend district-sponsored professional learning sessions. Invite people into your classroom. Visit other classrooms to see what is going on. Ask questions and be open (and critical) about the answers. Seek out advice from people whom you admire. Find a buddy or a mentor — someone whom you trust to be honest and kind as he or she steers you into new uncharted waters of teaching. Take some risks.

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2 “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” — Carl Jung

How to Help Students Learn Best: Relationships, Reciprocity, Respect

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stablishing an inclusive, respectful environment in your classroom where every student feels valued is essential if your students are going to learn and be successful. Doing this is a crucial piece of teaching that all teachers need to focus on from the very beginning. A successful classroom sits on a bedrock of caring relationships, reciprocity, and respect. Culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy allows students to “see themselves” in the curriculum and engage with it in contextualized, critical, inclusive, respectful, and creative ways. This chapter will give you some ideas about how to implement inclusive education practices that honor each student’s location, identity, background, and learning style(s). These teaching ideas are designed to help you affirm the life experiences of your students as you all get to know one another better.

Allowing Students to See Themselves Building a classroom community takes time, but the benefits are huge. Teaching and learning — A mutual affair Once you undertake to build a community, you will discover that you are not alone: that you have a classroom of younger people who can support you as you teach. The teaching/learning dynamic is reciprocal. If you ask for their help, students will often surprise you with their generosity.

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It is also crucial for teachers and students to look out for inequality, bias, and discrimination. Students can learn to critically assess cultural norms, values, and institutions through that perspective. They will become aware of any unfairness at work. This effort is all part of recognizing the importance of culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy.

When I first began teaching, I felt I had to know all the answers; however, as I gained experience, I realized that I could let my guard down and be more vulnerable. My students began to understand that I needed them to help make lessons work. Not only did I need them to listen to me, I needed to listen to them — to hear their questions, to value their responses, and to work their ideas into my lessons. As I began to teach in a more reciprocal way, my students became aware of their responsibilities as learners and as co-constructors of learning. This reciprocity became a crucial element of all our successes together as we negotiated the way forward. Because our schools and classrooms are so diverse, it is important that we become responsive to everyone in the room — recognizing and valuing our differences. As we get to know one another better, we expand our cultural consciousness and competence. We can understand, communicate with, and interact well with people from a range of backgrounds — race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion among them. As teachers we want to introduce curriculum materials that reflect and validate the students we teach. A forum for everyone’s voices

A Joint Effort I want all my students to know that I am confident that they will succeed and that I am there to help them. I tend to speak directly to the class, encouraging all members to feel that they can do the work and learn as they go. I acknowledge with them that we all learn differently but that, with effort and persistence, we can achieve our goals.

As I taught, I realized that students learn best in classrooms where they are acknowledged for who they are and where they are from; in other words, I came to understand that, as their teacher, I should draw on their cultural identities and backgrounds so that they would learn what was most meaningful to them. To help achieve this, I take the time to get to know my students and to help them get to know one another. That effort ensures that our time together is safe, authentic, and respectful. Through the activities I plan, I can establish an ethic of hearing everyone’s voice. I pay special attention to those students who, for whatever reason, feel on the outside of things. I bring them in, and I ask others to be patient as these students learn to connect with others. Some students are fearful of being diminished; as a result, we need to work hard to make our classrooms places of possibility — where the shy, the silent, and the shunned are seen and heard. Others may be reluctant learners, students who have lost confidence, are discouraged about school, and are angry about failure. They are easily overwhelmed. They tend to give up. In the activities I structure and in my private discussions with them, I help them imagine a different future. A sense of belonging founded on respect As teachers, we have power and we must use it wisely to help students acquire durable self-respect. Students need to know that they can approach us, that we are trustworthy, and that we will not abandon or trick them. They need to understand that while our expectations will remain constant, the pathways to meeting them will change as we work

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“Culturally responsive pedagogy starts with the premise that race and class matter, and that some schools fail to send diverse students signals that they belong. To make sure all students feel valued, the theory goes, teachers need to be aware of their own biases, work deeply to understand their individual students, find ways to bring students’ heritage and community into the classroom, and hold all students to a high academic standard.” — Sophie Quentin, “Good Teachers Embrace Their Students’ Cultural Backgrounds”

our way through to their success. How we treat them builds their selfrespect and resilience. Students will develop a sense of belonging. Respect is a key component of culturally responsive classrooms — classrooms where students are valued for who they are and where they are from. If students have self-respect, establishing respect between all members in the classroom will be easier. Contemporary classrooms are filled with students from various backgrounds, identities, races, religions, socio-economic statuses, genders, sexual orientation, and so on. How we bring everyone together to be part of the experience is important. Don’t underestimate the power of belonging. Know that, in the end, respectful relationships will be the centre of the learning experience for you and your students. Students will feel that they can take risks, speak their truths, and share their ideas with one another. They will understand that they are part of a supportive learning community. The right fit As we all get to know one another, I begin to see what kinds of things my students might be interested in. I gain ideas about ways to approach lessons as I see the kinds of learners who are with me. If my students love to talk, I set up lots of discussion groups. If my students love to move, I find ways of making that happen. I also work hard to draw connections between their personal lives and what they are learning so that the work becomes more relevant and engaging. I look for materials that reflect their backgrounds in terms of culture, race, gender, and community. If my students “see” themselves in the materials, they become more engaged. I find ways to explore the various locations of my students — their identities, backgrounds, stories, experiences, and intelligences — so that they can help me plan teaching/learning encounters in culturally relevant and responsive ways.

Relationships — A Sense of Self For students to be successful in school, three major things must be in place: the teacher’s sense of the students, the students’ sense of themselves, and the teacher’s sense of self, which, I believe, encompasses selfawareness, self-worth, and self-actualization. Education demands alertness, responsiveness, and flexibility from both teachers and students. Students need to have teachers who understand their backgrounds, identities, learning styles, dreams, and potential. They need teachers who have that uncanny sense of knowing what is required at a given time — when to push, when to wait, when to challenge, when to comfort, when to create more difficult tasks, when to lay off, when to smile, when to cajole, when to walk away, and when to come back. Teachers’ knowledge and skills are important, but even

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I tell my teacher candidates they must become “susceptible to voice,” aware of which students are dominating discussions, which students remain silent, and which students seem unsure.

“Each time we give a student a voice we work towards a better reality. Each time we comfort a student in the midst of pain, each time we encourage a student to struggle through difficult work, each time we give students an opportunity to discover their passions, we nurture our faith that we can meet the true goals of education. Our schools can produce resilient, creative, and passionate learners who will improve our world.” — Kyle Schwartz, I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids (p. 219)

more important are the relationships that they form with their students: relationships based on mutual respect. Fostering the students’ sense of self is important. Every student needs to experience a sense of place, of honor, and of hope in every classroom in every school. Students need teachers who are there for them in their cheering section, believing in them even if they have lost faith in themselves. Erin Walsh, a teacher and instructional coach, uses the metaphor of setting a table for her students. She teaches in a way that says, “I will set a place for you — a place where you will be nurtured, acknowledged, and loved.” As you teach, become aware of whose voices you are hearing and who is silent most of the time. Students might be quiet because that is the way they like to be. Others might not speak out of fear or because they feel that they are different from everyone else. Perhaps they have an illness that they want to keep private so they shut down and withdraw. Rather than ignoring these students, do your best to get to know them on an individual basis. Greet them as they enter the classroom. Ask them about their weekend. Use their name as you speak to them so that they know that you are aware of their presence even if they speak little in class. Look for their hidden gifts. Unless you have the awareness, compassion, and subtle ability to bring these students into the circle, their voices will be lost. Underlying all this work is the teacher’s sense of self as someone who is skilled enough, vulnerable enough, and aware enough to change direction when communication with students about curriculum that matters breaks down. It takes a while to have the courage to teach, and part of that courage is facing up honestly to what isn’t working in the classroom without taking the issue personally. Once you recognize you need to improve something, you can ask for guidance, attend professional learning sessions, seek out a mentor, do some reading, and begin again. If you have a positive sense of self, you will know that you can deal with these difficulties. The important thing is to keep moving forward so that you are learning, rethinking, and trying new things.

Be Attuned to Student Voices A school is not just a physical entity but also a social one. It is a space where relationships are built and nurtured. People have strong emotional attachments to places in their lives. They remember the feel of a room, the colors of book spines in a bookcase, the way sunlight falls through skylights above a hallway. Some of their memories will be good; some will not. Erin Walsh tells a story of a place that was designed to be welcoming but ended up being something entirely different. Her cautionary tale points to the need to look at the school environment from students’ perspectives. 22  

Voices from the Locker Bay “A fishbowl of horrors” is what she called it. I listened as a good friend and former student of the high school described the large communal locker bay space. A 1970s vision of togetherness manifested in a giant square of lockers around the perimeter, rows of lockers at attention filling in the middle, all repeated on the second floor above. The design highlight: a large balcony overlooking all below. Lockers painted green as grass, shining metal doors. Six-digit locked vignettes of teen life. There were many things the architects of this locker bay could not foresee. How the seniors would rise to the top level, their voices and muscles flexed from floor two, intimidating those below. How the Grade 10 and 11 students would compete in popularity contests to land an invitation to the sacred second floor, or at least to secure an outer-ring locker on the ground floor. There is safety in perimeters. The Grade 9 students would fill in the lower middle of the fishbowl, each movement and wardrobe choice visible. The architects could not see that on a Monday morning after a weekend party got a little out of control, a Grade 9 girl would be forced into the spaces and faces of those waiting to torment her further. They could not see the Grade 10 boy coming purposely late, sometimes avoiding his own locker altogether, to sidestep a violent encounter. There were good times and much laughter in this space, too — of course, there were. For all students though? For some? Although this particular setup provided a pressure-cooker effect, these spaces and issues exist in every school. Do you see them? Do you know how to look for them? So, what do we as educators do with a space like this? We talk a lot in education about creating safe spaces. What do we really mean by this? How do we measure it? What are we missing? Whose voices are not being heard? Who is still whispering at the lockers? Who is still shouting from the balcony? Who has long left the building? These were the questions driving me as I welcomed a new opportunity to help plan an equity conference for educators. It needed to be different. It needed to be as visceral as my friend’s retelling of her experiences in the locker bay all those years ago. My slight naiveté in the role of teacher-leader and conference planner gave me wings and no real sense that I was about to ask others to leap into flight with me. The conference would become more of an “un-conference.” The equity and anti-oppression related conversations would respond to the very real needs and realities of the students and families we served. The day would be infused with visual art, dance, and spoken word. It would be situated within the rows of green metal lockers. Most important, it would be grounded in student voices from

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across the system, finally doing the work of reclaiming that locker-bay space, giving voice where once there was silence. Through intentional student focus groups and conversations, questions were asked and quotes were gathered. Student experiences with exclusion, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia were listened to, their narratives affirmed. They knew what they shared about their experiences in our schools would be read by people who had the power and the responsibility to create change. A chance to unlock the lockers and address whatever rolled out. Student voice quotes were written onto speech bubbles and attached to lockers throughout the locker bay. Educators were instructed to travel silently, up and down the rows, listening to the voices. They were asked to stay in a place of discomfort and dissonance, holding both the notion that, while we claim to be creating safe and welcoming spaces, the kids were telling us we definitely weren’t there yet. Go to the locker bay. Lean in and listen. The lockers have stories they are tired of holding.

Welcome the voices of newcomers

First Impressions If you are new to a school, you can’t know for sure, but you may want to consider these questions about school culture: ✲ Does everyone have a sense of belonging or only some? ✲ How are newcomers treated when they come to the school? ✲ Who is privileged? Who is not? ✲ What are the consequences for those left out?

As you work with your students, think about what you hope they will remember about their year with you and their peers in the space you all call the classroom. What will they observe, feel, and experience that will help them learn something new? What persons and events will have a positive impact on their learning lives? What can you do to help them feel comfortable within the broader school community? If you understand that a student is new to the school or class, be sure to acknowledge how delicate this time is for that person. In transitional moments, voices often get lost in the crossing over. What can you and the rest of the class do or say, that will make a newcomer feel welcome? How can the classroom space become safer and more welcoming? As you build the community in the classroom, ask the students to be aware of what they might do or say when a new person comes into the class in the middle of the school year. Have them anticipate this and imagine how that person might feel. Have them brainstorm what they could do to ensure that this person is welcomed into the class. The students might decide to create a class brochure, including a description and picture of everyone in the classroom, a map of the school, a list of rules and responsibilities, detail on people to know about, and important dates. The point is to have the students understand that community is created for the benefit of all, including those entering it for the first time.

Ways to Build Community in the Classroom As a drama teacher, I have often been involved in what is called “ensemble-based learning,” where the group’s ability to communicate and create 24  

together is paramount. This work has allowed me to think of classrooms as places full of risk and adventure, of creativity, and of care. However, before these kinds of experiences and feelings can happen in the classroom, community needs to be built and supported. Part of this, I find, involves discovering as much as you can about students’ interests and strengths so that you can draw invisible lines of acceptance between class members. In an early class meeting, you may want to ask your students these questions: ✲ Why do you think it is important for us to get to know one another? ✲ What can we do or what can we say (or not say) that will make the classroom comfortable and inviting for everyone? ✲ How can we work towards respect for each other, for me, for you, for the work, and for the curriculum at hand? ✲ How are we all going to live together here over the next little while and make it a special place full of learning and adventure? I spend a fair bit of time discussing these questions before and after students play some getting-to-know-you games (see below). The questions also work well after some active work: students may feel ready to talk about why building relationships is important. Here are various ways to get to know your students and build a classroom community. I have divided the activities into three specific groups: (1) Name games, (2) Getting-to-know-you games, and (3) Identity stories. Mix and match these in whatever way works best for you and your students. You can stagger these activities and rework them throughout the year. Feel free to adapt the activities to meet the needs of your group of students. Name games Name games allow you to learn your students’ names and how to pronounce those names. They also let you find out little things about your students in subtle ways. You can see who is shy or confident. You can get an idea of who knows whom and who is new to the school. You can quickly hear who is likely an English language learner; then, you can support this student in ways that will make a difference. Watch how your students interact, how they listen to you and to each other, and how willing they are to become engaged. As mentioned above, find ways of connecting them to one another by drawing invisible lines between them. After you have played some of the games, invite the students to talk about the similarities they have with one another. Ask: “How are we the same? How are we different? How important is it to hear these stories and understand how we have been shaped by where we are from? How is our diversity our strength?”

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Stomp It, Name It, Clap It: I always begin with this game. ✲ Stomp It: Ask the students to stand in a circle. One person begins to stomp with both feet (left and then right). The person to his or her right does the same thing, and the “stomp” is passed around the circle. Have the students pass the stomp more quickly and then with their eyes closed. Have them pass the stomp in the opposite direction too. Encourage them to go faster if they can. ✲ Name It: First, the students say their names once as they go around the circle. The next time they say their names, the rest of the class repeats the name out loud. The students then each say their name and do a simple action. The rest of the students repeat the name aloud and copy the action. The next person then takes a turn. ✲ Clap It: Have students remain standing in the circle and join the circle yourself. Make eye contact with the person to your left. Clap your hands. That person responds to the clap by clapping back, turns to the person on her or his left, establishes eye contact, and claps once. That person claps back and then “passes the applause” to the person on the left. The applause is passed around the circle until it comes back to you. Name and Motion: Invite the students to stand in a circle. Prompt each student to say his or her name, one after the other; then, tell each student to say the name again and have the class repeat it as in call and response. Next, have the students each give their name and perform an action. Tell the students not to worry or plan the action, but rather, to do it as spontaneously as possible. The other students repeat each name and action. Continue around the circle until everyone has had a turn. Play the game again but vary it. Prompt individual students to say their names and perform an action that is squiggly, straight, robot-like, exaggerated, and so on. Then, have them say their names loudly, in a whisper, in a singsong voice, or in whatever way they wish. The rest of the class copies the qualities of the physical action or the vocal twist while saying the person’s name. Say Hello: Invite students to stand in a circle and say hello in their first language. They say their greeting and the rest of the class repeats it. If the students’ home language is English, they can say hello in different ways, for example, hi, how ya doing?, or hey, there. The main point is to have the rest of the class repeat the greeting. Students can help each other with pronunciation. Class members can guess what language is spoken or the student can let them know before teaching the word for hello. Name Switch Now: Students stand in a circle, with one volunteer as “It.” “It” establishes eye contact with someone across the circle. “It” then says his or her name and the name of the person with whom “It” has made eye contact. “It” begins to walk towards this person. This individual establishes eye contact with another person, says his or her name along 26  

with the name of the first person, and begins walking towards the person in focus. They switch places. The game should be played quickly, and everyone should have a turn. Back to Back/Face to Face: Have the students find a partner and stand back to back just far enough away not to be touching each other. Have them change their position as you call out different commands such as “Face to face,” “Side to side,” “Shoulder to shoulder,” “Elbow to elbow,” and “Elbow to shoulder.” When you say, “Change partners,” the students find another partner, and the commands begin again. Encourage students to find as many partners as possible and to learn their names in the split second of meeting. The Seat on My Right Is Free: Students sit on chairs in a circle. Ensure that there is one empty chair. The person to the left of the chair says: “The seat on my right is free. I would like to invite [someone in the class] to sit beside me.” The person who is invited crosses the circle, which frees up a chair beside somebody else. The game continues as the person to the left of the empty chair repeats, “The seat on my right is free. I would like [name of classmate] to sit beside me.” Establish the rule that everyone should receive an invitation and that no person can be invited more than once. Extension: Working with different language registers and commands can help students, especially English language learners, to express themselves: ✲ The seat on my left is free . . . I would be so happy if Stephen came and sat beside me. ✲ The seat on my right is free . . . Daniella, would you be so kind as to come and sit beside me? ✲ The seat on my left is free . . . Saadia, please come here right now and sit beside me! ✲ The seat on my right is free . . . Inez, it would be such a pleasure if you would consider crossing the circle to sit beside me. Getting-to-know-you games Getting-to-know-you games are just that: quick, fun, fast ways for students to get a snapshot of their peers in terms of interests and realities. Keep the pace as fast as you can. Allow for lots of laughter and fun. Step into the Circle: Have students stand in circle formation. On various prompts, ask them to step into the circle and say, “That’s me!” As you call out the next prompt, have them step back. Step into the circle if you ✲ know at least one person in the room ✲ walked to school today ✲ have a birthday in November  27

A good way to end the game is to have everyone step into the circle. The last prompt here acknowledges that “we are all in this together,” both literally and figuratively.

✲ have a first name that starts with M ✲ have a middle name ✲ own a pet ✲ are wearing running shoes ✲ took the bus to school ✲ have a brother or a sister in the school ✲ are in this class Atom: Prompt students to walk to the empty spaces in the room without bumping into one another. Have them walk quickly, change direction, walk on tiptoes, walk backwards, walk sideways, and so on. On a signal such as a tambourine tap or a drumbeat, have them freeze in time and motion. Congratulate them and then tell them to relax. Advise them that they are going to repeat the activity but this time when you say, “Atom 3,” they will act as if they are atoms and join up with the students closest to them to form a group of three. They must learn one another’s names quickly. They will then walk throughout the room again. If you say, “Atom 5,” they form a group of five. If anyone is left over, the group is to hide those people in the constellation. Go around and check to see the “extra” people hidden in the group. Keep the groups moving and changing until everyone has been jumbled up and can give the names of five people new to them. Birthday Line: Have the students arrange themselves in two equal lines facing each other. One line is Team X and the other is Team Y. Members of each team are to work together without talking as quickly as they can. On your signal have them arrange themselves in order of height, from tallest to shortest. Next, tell the students they are going to arrange themselves in birthday order. They will say their birthday month and day out loud one at a time as you walk down the middle of the lines. Prompt all students in both lines to pay attention as their peers speak. Once everyone has shared when their birthday is, ask the students if they heard any birthdays they can relate to in some way. (Examples: “My sister has the same birthday as Janet.” “Ahmed and I have the same birthday and we never even knew that all last year!”) Finally, prompt the students to line up in alphabetical order by first name. Have them say their name out loud so that the class can hear their names and the way the names should be pronounced. Correct pronunciation is important. Names are a big part of our identities, and we all like to have them pronounced the way they were meant to be!

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Identity stories “Identity is shaped, reaffirmed, and nurtured by relational interactions with everything and everyone that we meet along our life’s journey: people, places, relationships, culture, beliefs, language, artwork, texts, and so on. Identity is fluid and culturally assertive. As such, there can never be only one interpretation of who we are because our identities change in response to the different situations and contexts in which we find ourselves.” — Kathleen Gould Lundy, Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World (p. 48)

Signature Pieces is also part of an activity whereby teachers explore their pedagogical signatures. See Chapter 5, pages 82–83. A line master related to Signature Pieces appears on page 106.

Identity stories encourage students to tell us something important about themselves and their experiences. The following exercises invite students to reflect on different aspects of their identities as they share information about themselves and the world in which they live. Ample time is needed for these activities because the stories and then the conversations that ensue require active listening and sensitive responses. These exercises allow participants to find out what they have in common, how they differ from each other, and how a sense of belonging and feeling of acceptance are motivators for learning. Signature Pieces: This activity works well with older students, working in pairs. Hand out a blank index card to each student. Ask students to sign the card as if signing a passport application. Have them fold the card so that the signature is hidden. Direct them to pass the card to their partner. The partner opens the card and interprets the signature. What does the signature say about the person? What does the partner see in the signature? Students can consider whether their partner might be creative, organized, perky, friendly, or whatever. They might ask: “Is this interpretation true? What does your signature reveal about you? What does it hide?” Let the Masks Speak: Teachers from the Bluewater District School Board, Ontario, facilitated this activity during the All ‘I’s on Education project. Working with a local artist, students created beautiful and powerful masks that portrayed their outside and inside identities. The outside of the masks represented how the students believed people in the community, their friends, and their families saw them. The inside of the masks revealed how the students saw themselves. The sharing of the masks allowed students to understand one another better.

Inside and Outside Identities

Name Stories: Everyone has a name. Behind every name is a story. To establish deeper relationships, invite students to share a story about their  29

A line master related to Name Stories appears on page 107.

I have done Name Stories with students of all kinds. They love listening to one another and sharing memories.

name. To begin, students can turn to one or two friends to tell a story about their name. The following questions can be used to guide the ­discussion: ✲ What is their name? ✲ What do they like about their name? ✲ What don’t they like about their name? ✲ Why was this name chosen for them? ✲ What does their name mean? ✲ If they have a nickname, what does it mean? ✲ Do they know their name in another language? ✲ If they had a chance to choose another name, what would that be? Why? ✲ Do they have more than one name? If so, are they willing to share their other given names? Have students tell their name story to a partner. Have the partner listen and then tell his or her name story. Prompt students to talk about any common characteristics and differences in their name stories, as well as any connections they made. You may want to have a class discussion about the importance of names and the stories connected to them, too. Personal Artifacts: On various days, have students bring in artifacts of themselves and invite them to share these with the class. These artifacts could include favorite pieces of music, favorite keepsakes, favorite toys from childhood, photographs of favorite places, photographs of significant people in their lives, a piece of art, even a quotation. You may want to devote some time every day to hearing about these things. This activity can be done individually, in partners, in small groups, or as a class. You may want to limit the time for the Personal Artifacts activity or use a certain time of day, such as after lunch, to ensure that students have an initial focus for the afternoon. You could bring in an artifact yourself. Another idea is to have students tell you privately what they plan to bring in. In that way, you can find out a bit about them by asking questions and guide them in making choices. Since you will not want this activity to become competitive, you will need to find ways of drawing connections between students and their artifacts. For example, you might say, “I think it’s interesting that both Gerard and Cailey like the same kind of music.”

I Am From . . . and its successor, We Are From . . . are two of the most successful identity story activities I use.

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I Am From . . .: By means of various prompts, students are given an opportunity to examine the kinds of places, signposts, symbols, people, relationships, choices, words, images, food, celebrations, beliefs, sayings, and experiences that have shaped who they are and who and what they are becoming. The prompts used will vary from class to class. I hand out a lined index card to each student, directing the students to sit by themselves. I tell them that the exercise they are about to do will help them reflect on the experiences and encounters that have shaped

A line master related to I Am From appears on page 108.

I have done this exercise in many ways with many different groups: elementary and secondary students, students from the Beijing Institute of Education, adult ESL students, teacher candidates, all sorts of teachers from all kinds of schools and school districts; and teachers involved in the All I’s on Education project. No matter who participates in it, I Am From . . . is always a meaningful and engaging activity whereby people can discover things about each other in a safe way.

their identities. I tell them that they will work independently at first and then with a partner. I encourage them to let their memories and imaginations run at full speed and not worry about what to write — the writing can always be revised. If they wish, they can also experiment with new ideas and forms of writing. I ask the students to write “I am from . . .” at the top of the index cards. Then, modeling the kinds of things I would write about myself, I invite them to record answers to the prompts I give them, for example: ✲ Write down your favorite thing to eat. Describe some of its characteristics if you can. (I am from macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on top, fresh out of the oven.) ✲ Think about your journey to school every day. Record the stores, parks, or landmarks you pass on the way to school. (I am from the coffee shop on the corner of Elm and Princess streets.) ✲ Write down a favorite family saying. [Sayings can be written in the student’s first language.] ✲ Describe an old toy or keepsake that you will never throw away (a photograph, a concert ticket stub). ✲ Name the place you wish you could return to when you have more time and money (my great-grandmother’s home in Northern Ireland). ✲ Think about holiday food, songs, and traditions. Describe them. (I am from tourtière on New Year’s Eve.) ✲ Think about your favorite time or season. (I am from cherry blossoms in spring.) ✲ Write about daily happenings. (I am from an alarm clock that rings on the dot of 6 a.m.) Next, students find a partner and share their “I am from . . .” responses. I usually give students 10 to 15 minutes to share what each of their responses means. You will find that they have lots to tell one another!

Prompt Ideas for I Am From . . . I encourage everyone to think of their own unique prompts; however, here are some special ones you may choose to give your students: I am from . . . the place where I create my art. I am from . . . people who were there for me when I needed help. I am from . . . the kindest gesture anyone ever showed me. I am from . . . a relationship that has shaped me into the person I am now. I am from . . . an incident that made me rethink who I am and what I need to become. I am from . . . words that matter. I am from . . . the nicest thing a teacher ever said to me. I am from . . . what my parents expect me to accomplish in the future.

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We Are From . . . : Building on I Am From . . ., I then invite students to combine their responses so that their voices and the words, images, and meanings work together to make a “We are from . . .” poem. I encourage them to change words, delete lines, add more poetic language, or repeat images. They are also invited to add lines and words that provide more information in artistic ways. I then prompt them to find ways to read their lines. They may decide to present the poem chorally and to layer sounds or sound effects. I ask them to pay attention to the silences in the poem, as well, and to learn how to pause for effect. They find a way to move their bodies to reflect the words that they have created. Finally, I ask students to share the favorite lines that they have created together. Some share entire poems. From first year teachers . . . We are from . . . A concrete path through an ever-changing prairie, grass waving in the breeze Lox on a bagel and spicy lentil dahl scooped up with warm garlic naan “Use more elbow grease and you can talk to me until the cows come home” A scattered family moving from province to province, town to town . . . Every birthday card I was ever given, and my great-great-grandmother’s blue eyes captured in a ring Steadfast and strong-willed feisty courage with a vision for Justice The well-worn path of spiritual roots and cultural richness Family, a good bar, and the rhythm of the beach that dances with abandon From Intermediate students Rebecka and Mohogany . . . We are from . . . Broken roads littered with last night’s mistakes Warm and sweet-sweet potato pie made with love — the heritage of my grandmother “Don’t let someone have enough power over you so that they can alter or manipulate you” “You have become everything that I always wanted to become” Abandonment of a drug addict and unconditional love of the world’s greatest grandparents Making a better life for myself than the closed-door childhood I was given The beautiful green rolling hills of Ireland filled with the whispering winds of my ancestors and the sandy beaches of the Caribbean We are from broken roads littered with last night’s mistakes. A line master related to Gallery Walk appears on page 110.

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Gallery Walk into Understanding: Students walk around the room alone, in pairs, or in triads, examining items such as displays, pictures, quotations, and artifacts displayed on the classroom walls. They each identify the picture, artifact, quotation, or display that interests them, disturbs them, inspires them, or connects with them the most. Students

stand by their choice and discuss it with the others who made the same choice. They share their responses and talk about their own interpretations. Each small group reports the key points of its discussion to the class.

The Quotation That Resonates In a Gallery Walk with Grade 6 students, I used quotations, beginning with a class discussion of this one by Nelson Mandela: Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.

I read the quotation out loud to the class and then asked students to read it with me in unison. Then I asked which word, phrase, or sentence in the quotation appealed to them. There were various answers. I asked if they believed that Mandela was right: that sport laughs in the face of discrimination. Some students were unsure. I said that being unsure or disagreeing was part of the exercise. I then asked the students to take a Gallery Walk and stand by the quotation that most resonated with them: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan “Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.” — Martina Navratilova “Friendships first, competition second.” — Yao Ming “Aim high and don’t sell yourself short. Know that you’re capable. Understand that a lot of people battle with a lot of things — depression, body image or whatever else — so know that it’s not just you. You’re not alone.” — Holly Holm “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” — Wayne Gretzky “I train so hard to make sure failure doesn’t happen. If I do everything I can, and run as fast as I possibly can and someone still beats me, I don’t think of that as failure.” — Marion Jones  33

“In the end, it’s extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more than that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness, and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don’t win, how can you lose?” — Jesse Owens “You can’t always control circumstances. However, you can always control your attitude, approach, and response. Your options are to complain or to look ahead and figure out how to make the situation better.” — Tony Dung “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” — Gary Player

If you do this activity and others like them with your students, you will begin to understand them more. This information will give you an idea of how they might respond to the curriculum and what their learning needs are. Through activities such as these, you will gain a sense of their motivation, perseverance, and resilience.

Why We Need to Know Our Students I sometimes find I am alone in doing this kind of work. I look around me and see students in other classrooms at solitary desks, working independently and listening to the teacher at the front of the room. I used to worry and wonder whether I was wasting time when I sought to discover my students’ interests and make the space a safe, dynamic, negotiated place. One day, a colleague challenged me on my approach. She said that, as far as she was concerned, “Students just need to buckle down and do the work.” Part of what she said is true, but not the most critical part. I agree that we need to set up a strict work ethic in our classrooms. We need to have high expectations for students and to support them as they learn. I also agree that students must become responsible for their own ­learning. However, I believe, too, that we should begin where students are at and weave their knowledge, interests, stories, and ideas into the teaching/ learning dynamic. I can’t do this unless I know my students — their strengths, interests, skill sets, challenges, and life stories. So, I do this kind of work — work that helps me get to know them — so I can introduce material in such a way that it matters to them. What I would say to my colleague is that this is a part of “the work,” and it needs to be done. In Chapter 3, I write about how to design lessons that connect students’ personal lives to the curriculum at hand. Stay tuned. 34  

3 “My mind is filled with ‘what if’ questions. The wonderings of how to create a classroom filled with curious, engaged learners flood my thoughts. They challenge me to ensure I meet the needs of all students. Reflective practice keeps me sharp, secondguessing, and accountable. “I’ve come to realize more and more that the role of education is to pose the right questions. A good question is an invitation to think. It is an opportunity to learn, to feel more deeply, to change. My ‘what if’ questions focus on the possibilities within myself and my students. They allow me to create and imagine new ways of teaching and being.” — Wendy Coward, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board

Planning for Surprise: Lessons and Units

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lanning a lesson is something that becomes easier over time. At first, it might seem daunting. You might, like many of my student teachers, choose to search the Internet for effective lessons; however, authentic lessons must be custom-designed and carefully constructed to meet the needs of your students at the moment and in the context you find yourself. You can get ideas and templates from other people, but the planning of the lesson for the specific group of students you teach must address factors of all different sorts — number of students; their prior knowledge; their varying interests, abilities, and locations; space and time; and so on. Lesson planning must be done by you — in your place and in your time. There is no quick fix.

Let Your Lessons Evolve When I first began teaching, I would work for hours on a lesson and then find out in the classroom that what I had planned was over before I knew it. I would look at my notes in despair — I didn’t know how to fill in the remaining time. I felt helpless. As I gained experience, I learned patience and I willed myself not to rush through my lessons even when my confidence was waning. I began to have the courage to wait for student responses and found a way to truly listen to them; this enabled me to move the lesson forward with them rather than for them. I came to realize that I was anticipating student responses — looking for the answers I wanted — rather than leaving the lesson open-ended and paying attention to the responses  35

“Maps are not territories.” — Richard Courtney, Play, Drama, and Thought (p. 13)

Beyond the PowerPoint Plan Not long ago, I taught a week-long course for Kindergarten teachers in Beijing. The Beijing Institute of Education required me to submit all five days of lesson plans a month in advance. I did so but was not surprised that the course evolved differently.   I was thrilled by the creative ideas that the teachers brought to our work and incorporated them into my plan. The lessons looked different than what was on the PowerPoint. Eventually we all agreed that this is what good teaching, what responsive teaching is all about — working with the ideas that are in the room, being open to change, being willing to give up the plan so that learning can happen.

A lesson plan template appears on pages 104 and 105. It is just a suggestion. Your district school board may have a required template so follow that instead. Use the lesson plan as a means of reflection — as a way to create as well as think about teaching. Try to think about what will happen when . . . , what will happen if . . . , what will happen as . . . , and what will happen after . . .

that students gave me. I began to work on my questioning skills to create further room for divergent thinking; I also began to rely on my students’ questions rather than just my own. As I learned to relax, I let the lesson evolve, often surprised by the outcome because it was different than what I expected. Surprise is a big part of teaching, and, as I began to embrace the challenge that surprise brought to me, my lessons became more exciting both for me and for my students. I did not know what was going to happen. Neither did they. As a result, there was a certain pleasurable intensity in the work. I have also learned that “maps are not territories” and that lesson plans can change once I encounter my students. Often, I need to switch gears and think quickly to make things work. I tinker with the lesson to make it go more smoothly even as I am teaching. Afterwards I find myself saying, “These parts went well, but if I were to teach this lesson again, I would remember to . . .” As you gain more experience, you will understand all this much better. Scan the plan One of my major pieces of advice is to have your plan in front of you, on your screen or on paper. Have the plan sketched out so that you can refer to it. It does not have to be rigid, but it does need to be scaffolded so that you can see the path forward. Teaching can be a whirlwind event with lots of interruptions, distractions, and surprises: without your plan, you may forget things as students begin to interact with you and one another. After the lesson, you can go back and write notes on your plan, describing what worked and what didn’t. Think of the plan as a script that will be adjusted over time. I also recommend that you let your students know a bit about your plan. Give them an overall idea of what the lesson will involve, what you are hoping to achieve, and what your expectations are. You can do this orally or by projecting an agenda if you wish. Let them ask questions or provide input. Negotiate. Other times you will want to begin the lesson with a surprise or a bit of intrigue. In that case, keep the plan hidden. As always, you must feel your way. Remember: Words aren’t cheap As you teach, be aware of how to make your words count. I work on the words I will say and how I will say them. When I first began teaching, I would write out by hand in full sentences the words I desired to say in the classroom. I knew that these words were important. I wanted to attract and hold the attention of my students, and I wanted my words to be heard and acknowledged. I ask for this kind of respect always, and I wait for it. I often tell my student teachers that I abide by the maxim “Words aren’t cheap.” Words need to be used intentionally, effectively, and fairly.

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Lesson Planning — 4-5-6-7 When I work with teacher candidates, I teach them how to create lesson plans. I encourage them to design plans that provoke the interest of students. They need to take stock of the multiple personalities, histories, learning styles, locations, and narratives of their students so that they can envision the learning and teaching from the students’ perspectives (Hattie 2009, 199). They work carefully to find ways to harness the needs, interests, and imaginations of their students so that the projects have real-world meaning, authenticity, and plenty of momentum. I encourage them to develop success criteria for the projects, scaffolding appropriate teaching strategies in inventive ways. Often the assessment for and of learning relies heavily on oral feedback with the students working independently, in small groups, and as a class. I use a simple frame to think about lesson planning. I call it 4-5-6-7: there are four tenets, five questions to ask yourself, the Six Es of Effective Teaching, and seven key steps to lesson planning. The four tenets Here are four things to actively consider when you teach: ✲ content: What is taught? ✲ pedagogy: How is it taught? ✲ access: To whom is it taught? ✲ context: Under what conditions is it taught? Content: Provincial or state guidelines tell us what to teach. Often these guidelines are set out grade by grade and have a logical sequence. I think of content as “potential learnings” and am inclined to consider it in two ways: as knowledge (facts) and as processes of learning (e.g., thinking about thinking, problem-solving, and communicating in various ways). Pedagogy: Curriculum content is affected by pedagogy — the teaching strategies we use and the way we scaffold them so that students are engaged and move towards understanding. There are limitless ways to teach content, and as you teach, you will develop a toolbox of strategies to draw on. Remember, however, that what works with one group of students may have to be adjusted for another. Access: The array of learning needs in any classroom requires us to differentiate the instruction. When we plan lessons, it is important to take everyone into account. If we are intent on making sure that all students are successful, we are encouraging equity of access. Planning involves imagining forward. You need to figure out who needs accommodations, what kinds of modifications to make, and how to group the students fairly, anticipating how some of the students will react. You then plan accordingly. You also need to check yourself for bias and unfair judgment of students.  37

Context: Consider the students’ prior knowledge, their interest in the topic, the space in which you are working, the time available, and the materials on hand. Context matters. Thinking about it ahead of time can change the teaching/learning dynamic in all sorts of ways.

The five basic questions about teaching

Learning Snapshot You may choose to project an image, quotation, or statement that is connected to what you are about to teach. If, for example, you show an image, ask the students to work in pairs and discuss what they see in the image, what it reminds them of, and what they wonder about. Later, prompt them to share the essence of their discussions with the class. As you listen to them, you will gain an idea of how much some of them know about the topic, theme, or concept you are introducing. A related line master appears on page 109.

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Consider the following five questions about your teaching. 1. Who are your students? You want your students to connect to the curriculum and find meaning in the learning goals that are set out for them. You want them to fall in love with learning and be excited and interested in what you have planned. I am delighted when I hear teachers say, “My kids love this lesson!” If you have spent time getting to know your students, you will have an idea of the kinds of things that will interest them. What often works best is if the project is connected to their lives in some way. Many people call this “real-world learning.” Be aware of learning challenges that face some of them. What will you need to change or modify so that these students can succeed at the tasks you have planned? 2. What do the students need to learn? Look at the provincial or state curriculum documents for the grade levels you are teaching so that you know what needs to be taught. What are the skills, knowledge, and values that your students are expected to learn? In your imaginings, think about the kinds of things your students may be interested in. To determine what your students need to learn, you will have to assess what they already know. You might begin with an activity that gives you a snapshot of your students’ prior knowledge and understandings. Once you have done that, you can figure out the logical next step in their learning. 3. How do the students need to learn? The next big thing is figuring out how the expectations can be met. This is the essence of lesson planning. You need to connect the curriculum dots to make the learning happen in integrated ways. Finding the threads that will bring learning together is a skill that develops over time. 4. Why do the students need to learn this? Be clear on why you are teaching the material to students. Why is it important for them to know? What skills, knowledge, attitudes, and new understandings are they required to have at this time? 5. What can I do to persuade the students that they need to learn this? The curriculum guidelines tell us what to teach; it is then up to us, as teachers, to find a way to help students find the personal meaning in the work we are doing. In my experience, creating a context for learning matters. I help my teacher candidates find compelling narratives and ask probing, open-ended questions so that they can give their

students authentic reasons to learn. Students become motivated when they find that they have authentic reasons for doing the hard work in school. It all comes down to having the strategies to intrigue them, entice them, and teach them. The Six Es of Effective Teaching What I call the “Six Es of Effective Teaching” provide another framework in which you can anchor your efforts to teach effectively and innovatively. 1. Expect much of all students; further to that, be sure to provide them with lots of support to achieve those expectations. 2. Establish inclusive, culturally responsive, and respectful classrooms. 3. Engage learners in ways that help them become intrigued about the learning that lies ahead. 4. Explore material in inventive ways that honor all learning styles. 5. Extend the learning beyond superficial understandings. Consider how you can help your students look below the surface to gain new insights about the way the world works. 6. Evaluate fairly. Evidence-based learning will foster fair assessment of the data collected. The seven steps in lesson planning 1. Assess what the students already know and then keep checking. This is where asking the questions that give you a snapshot of the students’ prior knowledge comes in handy. To help you keep on track, use the three frames of assessment: for learning, as learning, and of learning. You can also use strategies such as Role on the Wall and Four Corners to see and hear how much students know (see pages 46 to 53). These activities will provide you with information about your students’ current thinking. As you teach, set up activities that will let you in on what your students are beginning to understand. Have them do critical interviews so that you can gain a snapshot of what they still need to know. What do you want students to know and do at the end of the lesson? How will you understand whether they have learned what you planned? Called “assessment of learning,” this is a synthesis of what the students have gained from the lesson. If you have students write from inner and outer perspectives, you can find out information crucial for your subsequent lesson planning. 2. Differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all the students. Some students might need help with writing. Others might need more time to complete the task that you have designed. A few students might benefit from being paired with someone who can support their reading. Modify the activities so that students with different kinds of challenges can be part of everything.

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3. Determine a beginning, a middle, and an end for the lesson to shape and sequence it. How will you move the students into learning? Determine how many students are in the room. Doing so will help you plan group activities and have the right number of resources for the planned activities. Sketch the lesson out on paper or on your computer so that you know how you are going to begin and what activities will follow. You need to imagine where you will be when the lesson begins and where you hope to be when it ends. At the beginning, will you be at the front of the room with students at their desks or will you all be part of a circle? Perhaps you will ask students to get into small groups and then begin. Many of my student teachers begin their lessons with a leading question, something that they have seen their teachers do; doing so can be a really good idea if you don’t know the answer yourself.  In Asking Better Questions, third edition, authors Juliana Saxton, Carole Miller, Linda Laidlaw, and Joanne O’Mara help us understand the way questions work in lessons. Here is the basic framework: ✲  Before the lesson, ask questions that draw upon prior knowledge. ✲  During the lesson, ask questions that shape understanding. ✲  After the lesson, ask questions that press for reflection.   What are you going to say and do that will help everyone make a good start? You could welcome everyone back from yesterday and ask them what moment they remember best. You might want to dim the lights so that a certain kind of mood pervades the class. Ask yourself: What do I have to do to get the students on the same page — excited, intrigued, and motivated to learn?   Once the lesson is under way, have students do an activity that will allow you to check for understanding — this is where the teaching becomes personal. You can see by the way students are working (individually, in partners, or in small groups) who is grasping the information. Don’t be afraid to go back and clarify if you need to. You can adjust — cutting out activities or things you were going to say and do that don’t make sense, would weigh the lesson down, or are ­inappropriate.   Find a way to bring everyone together at the end so that you can synthesize and summarize what has been accomplished. Get feedback on what has been learned and where you need to begin next time you meet. Checking in at the end is essential to moving forward. 4. Transition smoothly. There is an art to moving from what came before with what comes next, and it takes a while to find a way of transitioning seamlessly between chunks of a lesson. For years, I didn’t think transitioning was important; I would roughly tell students to stop and then we would move on to something else. Now I try to find a way to move students artfully from one activity to another. Example: “Once you have listened to the video together on the carpet, I want you to quietly pick up your sketchbook, go back to your desk, and respond to what you have seen. Please don’t talk to anyone as you do this.” 40  

Don’t be so intent on finishing the lesson or covering the curriculum that you fail to check in to what the students need to learn. So much of teaching is intuitive and communicative. As you gain experience and confidence, you will slow down or speed up accordingly.

5. Pay attention to timing. Make sure that there is enough time for each task and adjust the time frames when necessary. Sometimes, you just have to teach the lesson in order to understand its timing. Since I tend to rush, I try very hard to take the time needed for students to do the work that is necessary.   You need to anticipate, read the group, and move on to the next activity when you see that students are “almost” ready to do so. If you wait too long, you lose the group’s interest. I have seen lessons that were really humming lose momentum because the activity went on too long. When I have students to talk in partners, I go around quietly and ask a few couples whether they are ready to move on. This informal survey gives me an idea of what to do. Sometimes, I will repeat directions or reread an excerpt so that the students will understand better what they are supposed to do or what they are hearing. 6. Organize your materials before, during, and after the lesson. It helps to have all the materials organized before the lesson. Doing so means being aware of the number of students present so that you have enough materials for all. If there is a lot to manage, invite your students to help distribute the materials at the appropriate moment. Ask for everyone’s co-operation.   If you plan to take in work that has been generated, establish a way to do this effectively. Perhaps you will set up a bin for students to place their finished work. Or, it might work better for you if students send their work electronically; you will, however, need to acknowledge and keep track of these online submissions. (Chapter 4 addresses this matter further.) 7. Reflect on what is being learned, using assessments. Use various assessments throughout the lesson to give you proof of your students’ learning. It is vital to identify what you want to know about your students’ learning before, during, and after the lesson. What will you have students do at the end of the lesson that will help you understand what they have learned? How will you assess how well the learning expectations have been met? What will achievement look like? How will you make sure that your students have some input into the process and clearly understand the assessment practices? You may use many different forms of assessment, such as rubrics, checklists, anecdotal notes, tests, exit cards, and interviews. You may complete the assessment yourself, have the students self-evaluate, or organize some form of peer evaluation.   Students have a big role to play in the assessment process. Involving them in assessment causes assessment to become a form of instruction. Students need to monitor their own progress by setting goals and understanding the processes they can use to attain those goals. They need to understand ✲  what they are doing ✲  why they are doing it ✲  how to tell if they are doing it well ✲  what they can do to achieve further success at the task  41

Assessment Task Considerations Once you know what you want your students to do, you can determine how they might show you they can do it. Here is a summary of assessment task types, loosely based on Bloom’s taxonomy. ✲ If you want students to demonstrate what they know, have them identify, underline, match, label, name, or find. ✲ If you want students to analyze what they are learning, have them compare, contrast, classify, take apart, chart, or survey. ✲ If you want students to give you a sense of what they comprehend, have them retell, give examples, paraphrase, summarize, infer, or interpret. ✲ If you want students to apply what they are learning, have them use, demonstrate, report, dramatize, put together, or collect. ✲ If you want students to evaluate critically what they are learning, have them recommend or debate. ✲ If you want students to synthesize all the information, have them predict, build, imagine, invent, modify, or suppose.

Addressing the Lesson Plan Puzzle I asked Christine Kinghorn, one of my teacher candidates at York University, to write about lesson planning. Throughout her two practicums, she had great success in lesson and unit planning.

Begin with the Big Ideas and Backward Design

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Unit and lesson planning can be daunting for a beginning teacher. Sometimes there are so many pieces to think about that it can be tough to fit the puzzle together. Very quickly, I learned that starting with the big ideas is a way to break the puzzle into manageable pieces that will eventually assemble into a cohesive unit. This means thinking about what you want your product to be. What culminating task would you like your students to work towards? What are the big themes, concepts, or learning objectives that your students need to understand? By using backward design and beginning at the end, you will be able to scaffold your lesson, leading up to it appropriately because you know the desired end and the pieces that need to be in place in order for that next lesson to be successful. I often find that referencing curriculum documents from the start will help ensure that the material I am covering is in line with expectations, and I can create clear learning goals for my students throughout my lesson or unit.

More ideas on lesson or unit themes, backward design, and source material appear below.

My favorite part of planning any lesson is collecting my source material. I gather everything I want for a whole lesson or a whole unit at once, so I can make sure I’m introducing each piece at an appropriate time. This is sometimes the most time-consuming because I want my sources to fit perfectly with my needs. It might mean taking the time to do research, making several trips to the library, or spending time writing something myself if I haven’t found exactly what I wanted. Source material can be anything that you are going to use to deepen the learning: poems, quotes, text, and so on. The right source material will create opportunities that will allow your students to fully explore a subject in new and interesting ways. I sometimes get frustrated if a lesson I am planning is not as strong as I had imagined, or I worry that the main learning objective is not as clear as I would like it to be. These are the times when I go back to the text to see if there are any nuggets of information or threads I can pull to lead me in a new direction. As the pieces begin to fall into place, assembling a lesson or unit can take some time, but when done with care the effort will pay off beautifully. Over time and with practice, I have discovered it gets easier to find ways to scaffold these lessons and find the threads. Once I get into the classroom to implement my lessons, I improve every time. Don’t get hung up on perfection when you are just beginning. You will see what students need, and you will adjust. You will get a brilliant idea mid-lesson and change it for next time. The implementation is part of the learning process as a new teacher. Take the time to note what worked and what didn’t, and the puzzle of lesson planning will become easier every time.

Thinking big Working with what some educators call “big ideas” or an overall concept or theme allows you to connect various disciplines together in an integrated lesson or unit. It allows your students to steadily develop their thinking about important ideas. Here are some themes I have worked with in classrooms in the last several years: journeys, lost time, home, perspectives, resistance, bridges, abandonment, oppression, disappearance, vulnerability, imprisonment, cyberbullying, and going green — environmental sustainability. Beginning at the end Backward design helps you work with the end in mind. You can pull all the learning threads of a unit or lesson together and enable students to demonstrate their learning through a culminating task. Culminating events can encompass the following: devising of artifacts for a museum display; an interactive blog; a court scene such as a trial; a debate; a science experiment; a video with voice-over; a photo essay; a  43

panel ­discussion; an anthology of writings; a radio or TV interview; a poster with a brochure; a newspaper editorial, advertisement, or article; a creative journal; a Prezi or PowerPoint presentation; a mural; a dramatic scene or dance; and a presentation to parents or the community. Knowing what must be produced at the end will provide you with a frame for the learning stages. When you have the culminating task in mind, it allows you to scaffold your lessons. This process requires time management and a fair amount of negotiating with students. As you get feedback from your students, you might have to tweak things along the way. If you give your students some choice and say in their work, they will become excited about their learning and see personal relevance in it. Source materials to deepen the learning As Christine Kinghorn comments in the feature shared above, sources have much to contribute to lesson planning. I, too, am always on the lookout for source material to use in my classroom — something to introduce at the beginning, middle, or end of a lesson. I use these sources in various ways depending on the timing: to intrigue students, connect to what they are learning, allow them to wonder, encourage them to think in new ways, and thrust them into that delightful place where they want to know more and won’t be content until they do. Here is a list of potential sources: ✲ documents in the original handwriting or language, for example, journals, letters, and diaries ✲ cartoons ✲ picture books, stories, novel excerpts, poetry, and quotations ✲ recipes ✲ lists and statistics ✲ pictures, paintings, and photographs ✲ old postcards ✲ video clips and YouTube resources ✲ interviews and oral histories ✲ music ✲ audio recordings of famous speeches ✲ personal testimonials ✲ primary source documents, such as census data, land surveys, maps, ordinances, blueprints, architectural drawings, and transcripts ✲ objects and artifacts

Engage, Explore, Extend Lesson planning and delivery are dynamic processes that require imagination, a developed sense of timing, an understanding of students’ prior knowledge, information about how to make accommodations and modifications for those students who need them, careful consideration 44  

of space, experience in transitioning from one activity to the next, and creative management of materials; they also require an excitement about the path ahead and a flexibility to change gears before and during the lesson to make learning experiences as powerful and transformational as possible. Successful teachers know that if they plan carefully and think things through not only from their vantage point but from the perspective of their students, they will be able to manage time, people, information, and resources effectively so that the learning experience is enjoyable, thought provoking, and memorable. Then, again, there are teachable moments. Seizing the moment Teachable moments come along quite frequently and in surprising ways. You can’t plan for them. You must be open to them, listen for them, and celebrate them. Sometimes the moment comes from something students say that strikes you as not quite right. They might give a comment or ask a question that makes you realize that you need to stop and give the students a bigger picture of the world. Their misunderstandings are great fodder for teachable moments. You don’t want to diminish students for not knowing something, but you can take the moment to expand their horizons. I remember a teachable moment where a student entered my classroom very upset because someone had ripped her poppy off her coat on her way to school. The girl was angry when she spoke about the incident. Another student said, “I don’t know why people even wear these stupid flowers in November anyway.” I paused. I looked at what I had planned to do and then decided to switch gears. This was an opportunity for us to talk about the poppy’s significance to Remembrance Day. I asked my students if they wanted to take the time to do some research about the poppy. I assigned five different research groups: an art group, a photography group, a poetry group, a horticulture group, and a veterans’ affairs group. The groups went away and did some research and then reassembled as a class to report on their findings. Teachable moments will find their way into your teaching life. Sometimes you can react immediately as I just described or as did a colleague of mine who got the question: “What was the Berlin Wall?” Other times, you might have to do some thinking and planning first. Take the time and then go in the next day with your response. You might start off by saying: “Remember yesterday when somebody said . . .?” Planning the three-part lesson Teaching a lesson in three parts can be an effective frame to use. The three parts can be summed up by these questions: 1. How do you engage the students?  45

2. How do you explore the material? 3. How do you extend the learning? Engaging, exploring, and extending are part of the 6 Es of Effective Teaching, outlined on page 39. First, here are some ways to engage the students in a lesson: ✲ Bring in artifacts. ✲ Hold a class discussion. ✲ Ask a provocative question. ✲ Include an audio, visual, or technological presentation. ✲ Make and work with lists. ✲ Read out loud. ✲ Tell a personal story. ✲ Let students respond technologically through clickers. ✲ Play a game. Second, here are some ways in which students could explore the lesson’s material and ideas. They could ✲ read and jot notes ✲ work in groups to create a response ✲ interview a partner ✲ do Walk around Reading (outlined on page 53) ✲ make a word wall, such as Role on the Wall (outlined on page 52) Third, here are some ways to have the students extend the learning that happens in the lesson: ✲ Invite guest speakers such as artists and experts in certain fields into the classroom. ✲ Go on field trips that you and your students plan together to underscore the learning happening in the classroom. ✲ Analyze documentaries or YouTube videos that are connected to the work. ✲ Use technology in interesting ways, such as clickers for student response. ✲ Communicate with another class through letters, email, or Twitter.

Twenty Strategies to Promote Learning These 20 recommended strategies can be used in all three key parts of a lesson. Their intent is to help students engage in, explore, and extend their learning. They also serve to deepen student response and reflection. 1.  Active, responsive listening using a note or sketch book Students listen to you read out loud, watch a video, or listen to an audio recording. They jot down ideas and questions that immediately come to 46  

mind or they sketch their responses. If you give them a text to accompany the reading, encourage them to underline or circle words or phrases they don’t understand and can research later. Everyone’s responses and ideas can be discussed in small or large groups. This strategy allows students to experience an informal, personal reaction to what they are hearing, reading, and watching. Students’ ideas and initial responses count. As they share their personal reactions or sketches, they gain an understanding of the complexity of what they have heard or seen and understand that it is open to various interpretations. 2.  Artifacts as touchstones Artifacts can be introduced as “touchstones, ” encouraging students to pause and think, wonder, and ask questions. Students touch the materials, pass them around a circle in small groups, wonder about their use or origin, link them to the inquiry work they are doing, and perhaps use them in oral presentations to the rest of the class. Antique keys, a collection of old letters tied up with ribbon, various scarves, old buttons, medals, antique photographs of people or landscapes, or even a collar of a dress or a soldier’s medals can propel students into discussions about characters, their histories, and their motivations. Students can find common connections as they answer questions like these: ✲ What hidden secrets do these letters contain? ✲ What doors did the character open with these keys? ✲ What doors would not budge? Why? ✲ If the people in the photograph could speak, what would they say? ✲ What stories can we imagine? ✲ These medals saw the battle as it was. If they had the power to speak, what images would they describe? Both teachers and students can bring artifacts to class to deepen discussion and engagement. 3.  Visual interpretation: I see, I remember, I imagine . . . Students examine an image related to the theme or issue they are learning about. They consider what it reveals about the characters and the situation or event depicted. They begin by simply decoding the picture (I see . . .). They then have an opportunity to access their prior knowledge (I remember . . .). Finally, they make inferences about the image (I imagine . . .). They also consider the context, the artist’s purpose, and the artist’s interpretation of the subject. 4.  Playing ball with words and phrases Students choose a slip of paper from an envelope that contains a word or phrase from what they have been studying. The word or phrase that they  47

select will be their word or phrase. They need to “own” it and memorize it. Students stand in a circle. One person is handed a ball and tosses it to someone else in the circle, who calls out their word or phrase. The game continues until everyone has received the ball, said the selected word or phrase, and thrown the ball to someone else. The activity is repeated, and students are asked to add an emotional dimension to the word or phrase. 5. Brainstorming Brainstorming is an opportunity for students to share their wealth of knowledge and experience. Groups of five or six can work well with one student recording the ideas generated by the group over a set time. Initially, all ideas are accepted. Brainstorming allows groups of students to generate a pool of ideas, examples, and questions without fear of criticism or editing. Later, groups will work with the material to explore a topic or idea in greater depth. They can expand on one another’s ideas, ask questions, debate an idea’s worth, and suggest alternatives. Brainstorming is also an effective listening exercise because it requires students to “work off” each other’s ideas. Everyone’s voice is heard. 6.  Choral reading If the meaning of the poem is obscure, this activity will, at least, allow students to read the words out loud together in various ways and talk about what the text might mean.

One way to begin this activity is to have students read the text as in Walk around Reading, which is strategy #20. A related line master appears on page 111.

Sentence Starters What if . . . ? Is it possible that . . .? How could . . . ? Why would . . . ? Initially, we did not understand . . . After talking together, we grew to understand that . . . A related line master appears on page 112.

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Students explore the meaning of challenging texts by the ways in which they read them aloud. You can use excerpts from novels or soliloquies from plays. Poetry lends itself to this activity too. Students experiment with tempo, tone, pace, repetition, volume, emotion, and different kinds of groupings such as solo, duet, trio, and whole class. They focus their attention on words, language patterns, and punctuation. In the time spent on finding meaning and powerful dramatic effect, students revisit the text many times and read the words in different ways. They help each other interpret the text as they share ideas. Because they are blending their voices with students who may be more fluent, struggling readers gain confidence in oral language response and in reading out loud. 7.   Collaborative writing Students work with a partner or in a small group to write a paragraph in response to a question, idea, image, or text. You can group the stronger writers with ones that need guidance, skill development, or inspiration. The point of the exercise is to help students take risks in their writing and feel supported by one another. Students might use a sentence starter as a prompt. Once the students have written their paragraphs, they share their creations with another group or with the class. This strategy allows students to talk themselves into understanding as they work together on their paragraphs and to explore the meaning of what they are learning.

8.  Corridor of Voices Students examine from various perspectives a difficult decision a historical or story character is facing. The class forms two lines, with students facing one another. They stand about two metres apart, creating a corridor wide enough for a person to walk through. A student volunteer takes on the role of the character who must make a major decision. This volunteer needs to understand that he or she is expected to listen carefully to what will be said and later answer questions. As the character walks down the corridor slowly, students on either side voice the conflicting thoughts, feelings, memories, and regrets in the character’s mind. The class then interviews the character to find out what decision he or she will make based on the voices heard. This strategy is also referred to as Conscience Alley. 9.  Critical viewing Students watch a video, jotting down any critical questions that come to mind. They then discuss these questions with a partner, in small groups, or with the whole class. Their questions might have multiple answers. Students analyze how the video has been constructed artistically to gain insight into what the film means and what the director might have intended. Prompt students to be aware of sound effects, props, landscapes, cutaways, voice-over, long shots, close-up shots, music, facial expressions, silence, the placing of lines in other scenes, the juxtaposition of scenes, and so on. Prompt students, too, to watch for who is silent or diminished in the scene, to note surprising interpretations, and to be aware of other dramatic devices. Through critical viewing, students can deconstruct the film and the film-maker’s intentions, thus gaining a deeper understanding of its meaning. 10.  Four Corners A line master related to Four Corners appears on page 113.

Have the students stand by their chairs in the classroom. Call out a statement to the class. The students consider how well they agree with the statement and then convey their choice by moving into one of the four labeled corners of the room: “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Disagree,” or “Strongly Disagree.” Groups can discuss the reasons for their choices. The activity is then repeated with a new statement or quotation. Four Corners encourages everyone to form an opinion and then share divergent ideas first, in a small group, and then, as a whole class. 11.  Hot Seating A student volunteers to be put on the “hot seat” in front of the class or a large group, taking on the role of a character who is facing a personal  49

dilemma or critical decision or must justify a decision already taken. The volunteer responds to questions about the character’s motives, relationships, decisions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. This strategy helps everyone (both interviewers and hot seaters) think out loud about the character and discover new insights. Students can be hot-seated individually or in small groups (playing various characters) in front of the whole class. The purpose of Hot Seating is to press for reflection and debate. Students improvise answers to questions, and both hot seaters and questioners wonder aloud about characters, relationships, incidents, feelings, actions, and consequences. Inventive questions and answers are fodder for debate and discussion. 12.  Inner/Outer Circle Students read a story or an opinion piece that has various perspectives. They can then take sides as in a debate and write from at least two different perspectives. Those who have written from one perspective sit in a circle, their writing in hand. The other students stand behind them, holding their writing. When you tap a student on the shoulder (one either sitting or standing), the student begins reading writing aloud. As soon as you tap another person, that person begins to read aloud and the other stops. The same student can read more than once. Students can be given the choice of starting from the beginning or continuing from where they left off. In this way, the class creates a personalized “reading” of a character’s predicament, a strained relationship, or a decision that was difficult to make. Go around the circle, prompting students to read an excerpt of their writing and, as you do so, orchestrate a mingling of voices, ideas, and perspectives. The effect can be quite powerful as multiple perspectives and opposing views are heard in a kind of back-and-forth continuum. 13.  Analytical interviews Having student partners interview each other in role is another way for students to connect with their classmates and with the curriculum. You can set up interviews in a variety of ways. Groups of students can interview one person as an authority on a specific topic that has been assigned in class. The expert makes sure that he or she understands the topic; the group creates questions beforehand and sets up an authentic interview situation. Characters from novels can also be interviewed by students in role as reporters, psychologists, police officers, social workers, or others. The interviewers question their motives, values, and beliefs, and seek information. It is always important to ask the interviewers to share any new information gleaned with the class so that the understanding about the topic, character, or relationship under consideration is expanded. 50  

You can also use transactional texts. Students read the information in groups of six. Two members of the group volunteer to become experts. The interviewers then create questions based on the text. The experts make sure that they reread the text and talk about it. In a structured interview, the experts answer the questions that are based on what everyone (both interviewers and experts) has understood and interpreted from the text. The class then discusses how the interviews went. This activity offers a way for you to assess how well students have understood the material. It is an engaging way for students to learn! 14.  Jot notes Students can “jot the gist” of information that they are previewing, skimming, and reading. Jot notes help students collect information without copying it out from reference material. To make the notes, students need to learn how to organize their search: to zero in on what is important and relevant, and disregard what is not. First, have them find key words; then, have them find four subtopics. Have them jot notes — not sentences — using the key words under the subtopic headings. This activity can be a pen-and-paper task or be done on a tablet or another electronic device. 15.  Readers Theatre The goal of Readers Theatre is to convey meaning through an interpretive reading performance. Readers Theatre engages students in exploring, interpreting, rehearsing, and presenting a text. The script can be read solo, as a duet, or in small or large groups. The groups should be made up of readers of different abilities. Often reluctant readers are drawn into the work, speaking in unison with others, making sound effects with their voices, repeating words or phrases, or saying the lines of a solo character. Students are not expected to memorize their parts, and Readers Theatre does not usually involve costumes, sets, or movement. The readers generally stand while reading, using their voices to bring the scene to life in the imaginations of their audience. Readers Theatre . . . ✲ gives students an authentic reason to engage in repeated reading of texts ✲ benefits readers who are unsure of their reading ✲ helps students attend to the meaning in the text they are reading ✲ involves students in a positive, interactive, social reading activity in which risk-taking, experimentation, modeling, instruction, and feedback are natural rehearsal components

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16.  Role on the Wall The line master related to Role on the Wall appears on page 114.

A student volunteers to draw a large abstract figure of a character on the chalkboard or interactive whiteboard. The figure should be large enough so that on the inside students can write descriptive words and phrases that describe that character’s psychological, emotional, and physical characteristics. Invite them to do so. In the space surrounding the figure, students write words that describe the difficulties the character is encountering. Around the outline of the figure, students record the names of people or things that are supporting the character. Interview the students, asking them why they chose the words they did. This strategy allows students to juxtapose ideas and concepts, and to create a visual “snapshot” of a character to examine. An option is to create multiple figures so that students can compare characters. 17.  Soundscape creation

Soundscape Examples ✲ A Grade 7 class studying early Canadian history created a soundscape of the hold of the ship that carried les filles du roi to New France to be married. ✲ A Grade 1 class worked with the picture book, Barefoot, as a source. The students created forest sounds that fugitive slaves journeying at night towards freedom might have heard.

Students work in small groups imagining the essence of a landscape in a painting, novel, or other source material. They then begin to explore different ways to create that environment through sounds — using voice, body percussion, found objects, or simple instruments. They improvise and experiment with volume, pace, tone, tempo, repetition, emotion, and timing to find the most effective combination of sounds that will represent the environment. Either they or the teacher can orchestrate the soundscape as other students listen. 18. Tableaux Groups of students use their bodies to create frozen pictures of a key moment, idea, or theme. This strategy requires students to discuss, collaborate, and decide on the image they want to communicate or represent. Tableaux are shared in complete stillness and silence; however, narration or a reading of text is sometimes added. In creating their tableaux, students can experiment with ✲ different levels — high, medium, low — so that the image is varied in form ✲ various body shapes — open, closed — to make sure that the important elements in the tableau can be seen by the rest of the class when it is shared ✲ the physical distance between the characters in the tableau as a way of showing their relationships ✲ the focus of the tableau for the audience when the tableau is presented and analyzed ✲ different kinds of emotions, body language, and facial expression Movement transitions are often used to connect a series of tableaux. Students walk into their tableau space in a neutral position and then freeze. Alternatively, the teacher can take a Gallery Walk as students

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create tableaux throughout the classroom. When the teacher stands by a group, they form their tableau; when the teacher moves away, the group relaxes into a neutral position. 19.  Walk around Reading Students read an assigned text as they walk about the room and overhear other people reading as they walk (the teacher can stagger the readings by touching students on the shoulder). On an agreed-upon signal, everyone stops reading and stands quietly. Students are asked to find a line, phrase, or word that meets a certain criterion, such as their favorite, the most powerful, the most effective. When touched on the shoulder, students say their line, phrase, or word out loud. It is all right if different students make the same choices — repetitive lines can be quite effective. In this way, students create a new poetry reading by hearing their lines said out loud by different voices in different ways. Students can later share the reasons for their choices, new understandings, and responses with the rest of the class. 20.  Questions for critical inquiry A related line master appears on page 115.

Students engage in critical inquiry by asking questions of themselves, the text, and others. The texts they work with encompass stories, transactional texts, scripts, interviews, and transcripts. They work on their own, in groups, and with the whole class. They begin by thinking about these questions: ✲ What do we know? Students determine their own interpretation of the text and connect its language and ideas to their own lives. They look at the text with a partner or in a small group. They work from their place of understanding to list all that they feel they have grasped about the text. ✲ What do we want to know? Students think independently, deeply, and critically about the text, subtexts, and meaning. They ask critical questions about what they want to know. Prompt the students to brainstorm what these questions might be. Sometimes I ask for 5 to 10 questions. Each group appoints a recorder who writes the questions down on big pieces of chart paper. I then ask the groups to determine what their most pressing question is. The whole class listens to each group’s question. ✲ Who can answer our questions? Students brainstorm a list of all the possible people who could answer their questions. Some students volunteer to play various appropriate roles and improvise answers to the questions. The class is encouraged to ask open-ended questions to which there are multiple answers.

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Unit Planning: Negotiating the Way

“Assessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there.” — Assessment Reform Group, Assessment for Learning: 10 Principles (p. 2)

Culminating tasks permit peer and teacher evaluation of learning. To evaluate is the sixth E of effective teaching, outlined under the 4-56-7 approach to lesson planning discussed earlier in this chapter.

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Lesson planning is one thing, but how does one go about creating a longterm integrated unit? What are the steps along the way? Here is a summary of what to consider. 1. Think carefully about all the students you teach. Determine their strengths and challenges by considering who is in the room, their interests, all their learning styles, and their intelligences. Ask yourself: What can I design to interest and challenge everyone? How can I ensure that the students will enjoy the experience, find the ideas and concepts personally relevant, become engaged, and be motivated to ask questions to guide the project? 2. When you are working with your colleagues on an integrated unit, you can expect to ✲  design a rich task ✲  anticipate student response ✲  monitor the work being done ✲  change things around, if necessary Think about standards and expectations. Find the theme or topic that will be large enough and important enough for rich integration to take place. Ask yourself: How many subjects can I integrate without forcing the connections? 3. Finding a way to connect what students need to know to what they want to know comes next. Ask yourself: What can I design to allow students to become creative, critical, and independent learners? What kinds of human stories or stories about the world can I find to engage students? 4. Be clear about what students must know and be able to do by the end of the unit. Achieving this involves backward design. Create a performance, or culminating, task designed to capture the imagination of your students. Doing this is important because it will ensure that the students keep working towards a learning goal that matters and excites them. Strive to give a choice of culminating tasks. Let the students know what is expected of them. Co-design a rubric. Brainstorm a checklist of tasks and timelines. Ask yourself: How will I measure their learning? Have I given thought to student ownership of the assessment process? Ask your students: “What will your success look like at the end of this unit? How will we be able to see your learning? How can you demonstrate that to me? How will I be able to evaluate your process and the final product?” 5. Check that you are conscious of what’s feasible in terms of time. If needed, seek permission to restructure the schedule and timetable so that you and the team of teachers you are working with can all find the time to plan together.

Finding the right fit Alana Valcanoff-Parsons, a teacher in the Greater Essex County District School Board and part of the All ‘I’s on Education project, had this to say about planning an inquiry unit.

Living in the Questions It’s all about the right fit . . . the right fit with your colleagues; the right fit with your kids; the right fit with the curriculum. And the truth is that you can’t set anything in stone at the beginning. When we began the project, we knew that it would take time to do it well. We had this and this and this, and, at the beginning, we were not sure of how the subjects, the students’ interests, and the questions they would ask would all fit together. We knew we had to wait and see. We had a million questions, too. We were not sure how to frame the project. We knew that we wanted to have the students take their iPads on a community walk, but we weren’t sure how to frame the experience. Should we say “think math,” “think science,” “think appearance or disappearance,” or should we just let them go? We didn’t know. That is the hard part of doing this kind of inquiry work. But . . . it kind of ties in with the way that I work with my kids. I always say to them: “This is what I am thinking. Tell me what you are thinking.” We negotiate, and we work together. That’s just how I teach. For me, teaching is a journey full of questions, full of negotiation, full of wonder. It is all about living in the questions until we find some of the answers.

Fresh Eyes on Curriculum In the All ‘I’s on Education project, the teachers and researchers focused on inquiry connected to the math, arts, and science curricula. Doing this meant spending a few hours poring over the documents together and finding connections. Someone usually took notes, either digitally or on chart paper, to keep track of the discussion about Ministry expectations, possible themes, and ways that student work might be assessed and evaluated. Everyone worked together to find relationships among the subject areas. Although this work was rigorous, it was also inspiring. Many teachers found hidden gems in the curricula, noticing things they had not seen before. Key to this work was the permission they felt in the project to look at the documents with fresh eyes. New possibilities emerged. Source: Kathleen Gould Lundy and Netta Kornberg. 2016. Imagine, Integrate, Innovate: A Professional Inquiry Guide for 3i Educators. Toronto: Council of Ontario Directors of Education and the Ontario Ministry of Education (p. 22).

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Example of an integrated inquiry unit: Seeing with New Eyes Text on the inquiry unit Seeing with New Eyes is based on Imagine, Integrate, Innovate: A Professional Inquiry Guide for 3i Educators, page 39.

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Inquiry Question: Comment peut-on réduire l’énergie consommer par les humaines? [How might humans reduce the amount of energy they consume?] Project description: Wassila Tounes Taleb, a Grade 1 teacher, and Sandra Wood-Mokri, a Grade 4/5 teacher, both at École élémentaire La Fontaine and supported by Marquise Lamarche, the integrated arts teacher, co-created an inquiry project in which their students conducted research into the effects of pollution and the extraction of minerals on human and natural environments. The Grade 1 students took on the role of inventors, while the Grade 4/5 students acted as scientists. The project drew on the students’ knowledge in math, science, drama, visual arts, and language arts. Throughout the inquiry process, the two classes communicated, in role, via iPads. The culminating activity was a cross-grade role play in which scientific ideas were debated and exchanged. The Culminating Activity: The Grade 1 inventors presented these findings to the Grade 4/5 scientists in a culminating activity where both classes were in role at a conference on climate change. The Grade 4/5 students asked probing questions in role to which the Grade 1 students improvised answers. Three aspects of the students’ work are outlined in some detail below. Working in Role as Inventors and Scientists: Students imagined forward to a time where the world might be affected negatively by pollution that occurs when humans extract minerals from the earth. They created imaginary characters such as professors and scientists and sustained these roles over a long time. They researched, wrote, sketched, and interacted in role at both grade levels. The students in both the primary and junior classes spent a fair bit of time imagining and then creating their characters — on paper and in oral presentations. Because of this intense preparation, they were able to maintain and sustain these roles as they communicated both virtually and in person during the project. All the Grade 4/5 students adopted a character and created a curriculum vitae that named the institution at which they worked. They made sure that they had a specific title (e.g., doctor, professor) and cited cities and universities around the world in which they had lived and worked. The Grade 1 students went into role as inventors. It was understood that when they donned their inventor glasses, they were working on the inquiry project. They sketched their ideas and wrote about their wonderings — all the time getting ready for the final meeting with the scientists. Marking Creative Thinking through Inventor Glasses: The Grade 1 students were each given an inventor kit, which included inventor glasses, a sketchbook, and a pencil with eraser. Taking on the role of inventors, they were told to illustrate their ideas for new inventions that would help the environment. The teachers made it clear that the students should put on their inventor glasses whenever they had a creative idea. Whenever they wore their glasses, it was understood that they were in role and could dream and create. This creative time could happen at any

time. The inventor glasses freed the students to act on their imagination whenever they needed to. Using iPads for Cross-Class Communication: The teachers decided to have the younger students present their findings to the older students, rather than the other way around. In this way the younger students were given the power of knowing, of having to inform the older students about what they were discovering. Using the iPads, Grade 1 students, in role as inventors, sent their questions about the environment to students in the Grade 4/5 class who were in role as scientists living in cities across the globe. The Grade 4/5 students conducted research to find the answers to the questions and responded via iPads. Finally, the two classes met face to face and shared their knowledge. This was their culminating task.

The Dichotomy of Teaching Lesson and unit planning introduce you to the dichotomy of teaching. On the one hand, you need to have a solid plan in front of you; on the other hand, you have to be prepared for the unexpected so that you can change course on the spot. You need to design lessons and units using backward design — having the end in mind so that you can work towards some sort of culminating task — but you also want to begin in powerful ways, capturing the attention of your students so that they are engaged and want to learn. You need to imagine how a lesson plan will unfold and be excited by the possibilities, but you must also be practical in terms of time, space, content, materials, differentiated learning, and student response. Sometimes it all works; sometimes it partially works; sometimes what we have planned needs to be rethought and re-imagined. The important thing is to keep going. No one ever sets out to deliberately fail. Things happen. Classrooms are complicated places where little things can trigger different kinds of response. Classrooms are also ever-evolving places where teaching can work and learning can happen. Chapter 4 gives you some ideas about how to manage a classroom so that your lesson and unit planning and implementation can happen more smoothly.

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4 “I have learned that not everyone learns the way that I do. I need to find a way to engage them so that they want to learn what I want to teach them!” — Hanna Yakymova, OISE student in her teaching practicum, November 2017

Classroom Management for Student Engagement

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e all have taught lessons that fall apart or fall flat: lessons we wish we could teach again in a new way. I, for one, well know how it feels when a lesson goes horribly wrong, and I have taught long enough to know the exact moment when that happens. I might have said something that triggers a negative reaction from one or more students and that instantly changes the dynamic. I might have misplaced a crucial resource that would have let us move into another realm at just the right time. Or, I might have lost my confidence when I couldn’t see where I was going. Whatever the cause, my heart sinks. I become stressed, disappointed, and then fearful of the learning landscape. I worry about losing control of the class. After the lesson is over, I make myself look back to determine or confirm where and when I made one or more errors. Did I make it there . . . ? Why did I not think that part through? What made me say that? I should have realized . . . These are some of the thoughts that run through my mind. The errors and omissions come into clear focus.

Navigating the Fragile Teaching/Learning Dynamic Sometimes I talk about the flawed lesson with one of my colleagues or friends. They help me see the mistakes for what they are — a chance to learn even more about teaching and the fragility of the teaching/learning dynamic. Over the years, I have learned to embrace these errors and to realize that these experiences, these failures, are great teachers. You kind

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of look them in the eye, wrestle them to the ground, and figure out what you did wrong so the next day you can stand up and teach. Recognize the chance to deepen your learning Don’t be tempted to “blame the audience” if a lesson fails to go well. If students are not engaged, ask yourself what you could do to change this. Of course, there are times when things aren’t totally your fault, but usually, I find, things don’t go well because I haven’t responded in the right way to the context and to the students there with me. Accept uncertainty People are surprised that I am always nervous when I teach. They assume that because I have been teaching for a long time, nothing can go wrong; however, as I have just indicated, nothing could be further from the truth. Because teaching is based on a reciprocal relationship with a group of students, one never knows how a lesson will go. I accept this uncertainty as a good thing — it keeps me on my toes. Because I don’t know what is going to happen, I am more open to unexpected paths, to divergent voices in my classroom, and to students not initially engaged. See vulnerability as a strength I am also more vulnerable. In fact, my vulnerability is one of my strengths because it allows me to connect with students in authentic ways. Students often sense your vulnerability, but it does not have to make you weak. You can gain their trust and support if you are honest about your teaching. Sometimes I tell my students I am floundering and ask for their help. Doing this often surprises them because many of them see teachers as all-knowing and in control of just about everything. If you tell students that you need their help, they are usually more than willing to assist you. I have countless stories of the kindness of students. For example, in a school where I taught in downtown Toronto, I remember them saying things like, “Maybe tomorrow you might try . . .,” “We were confused by your directions, so you need to be a bit clearer,” or “We didn’t see the purpose of the activity.” Be willing to change things around I remember one boy, who had been nominated by the class, coming to explain to me why the class was so difficult to handle. He spoke about how frightened the students were when I introduced a mask unit. He said he was sent to tell me that the students did not want to hide their faces. When he told me this, I realized that this particular group of students relied on banter and joking to relate to one another. The masks, by hiding their faces, would take that all away and make them feel 60  

extremely vulnerable. As a result, I changed things around and began the unit differently, using clown noses in introductory activities instead. Share power carefully “Knowledge is bound up more with power than with truth.” — Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge

Teaching and classroom management are intertwined. How we set up our classrooms and then manage the people, materials, space, and technology is all part of the teaching/learning dynamic and is connected to student success. Classroom management is not separate from teaching, but part of the same experience. How you negotiate for power and control with your students will have a lasting effect. If power is given slowly to the students, they will begin to think of the work in the classroom as their own. They will set their own learning goals and learn to ask for what they need. If you negotiate with your students, power struggles within a classroom can be minimized. You will want to work towards students being self-aware and engaged in self-directed learning. Establish clear expectations for your classroom Students need to know what is expected of them and to accept responsibility for their actions. That makes establishing or demystifying classroom rules and responsibilities one key thing to do at the beginning. Often students make mistakes, not because they intended to be disrespectful, but because they just didn’t know what was expected of them. All students yearn to belong and be accepted, and to have their uncertainties put to rest. Letting them know that your classroom will be guided by clear expectations is essential. You may want to begin by assuring your students of the following: ✲ Everyone will succeed. ✲ Everyone (including you as the teacher) will learn to take responsibility for their actions. ✲ Everyone will be respected as they learn to work together. I suggest putting these words up on the board: Think  Feel   Speak  Act Have the students look at them for a moment. What connections can they see? You may want to ask some questions to prompt them.

Students often tell me that they do not want to be judged by what others have said about them in the past. They want a chance to start fresh on a positive note.

✲ Think: What are your thoughts about being here in this classroom? How can negative thoughts be turned into positive ones? ✲ Feel: How do you want to feel in this classroom every single day? How do you want others to feel? What do we need to do or say to make sure that this is a safe place for all of us to learn? ✲ Speak: What should the rules of speaking be? Why are words important? How should we work out our problems using words?  61

✲ Act: How should we act towards one another? What are some things to consider? If something goes wrong between us in the classroom, what should we do? In my experience, students are very clear that no one should be humiliated in front of the class. If issues arise, they would rather have them worked out privately between those involved. Be sure to listen to your students’ suggestions.

The Strategic Use of Space You also need to decide how to set up the room so that students have time to work independently as well as collaboratively. I encourage my student teachers to work towards creating an open classroom, in other words, a space that is used differently for different kinds of learning situations and is constantly re-imagined. The expectation is that the learning will be co-constructed and negotiated in a flexible space. Doing so requires a certain amount of trust and generosity on the part of all participants. I like to begin with a circle of chairs and then go from there. Independent desks can work for the first little while, too, but gradually I change configurations as I get to know my students better. There will be times when everyone will need to sit in a circle; at other times they will work independently. How you get students to move into groups effortlessly and with minimal noise needs be worked out as well. Here are a few options: (1) numbering students off 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and then having all students of the same number work together; (2) asking students to turn to the people closest to them and work with them; or (3) posting student names by group and having students cross to their designated spots. Once group membership is set, you could use a signal to prompt students to form their groups quietly. Be sure to tell them what to bring with them before they move. The classroom should have a flow about it — and moving lots of students around for maximum learning needs to be carefully thought out so that it does not overwhelm you and them. As students learn that they will be expected to work in many different configurations — alone, with various partners, in small groups, as a large class — they can help you decide how to do it quickly and efficiently. You may choose to discuss these questions with them: ✲ How can we make the space work today? ✲ How can we share and collaborate? ✲ How can we diminish the noise level so that our brains can be creative? ✲ How can we work in the space effectively?

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Students don’t want to waste time either, especially if there is something interesting to learn. Arrange seating to suit groupings How flexible can the seating arrangement be? Every day is different. Some days students will be at their individual desks because they are working on something that requires their undivided attention. In those cases, have them move their desks away from other desks so that they can concentrate on the task at hand. On other days, group work will require that the desks be put together. There also might be many times when you push the desks aside and begin in a circle. I encourage my pre-service teacher candidates to think about space carefully when planning their lessons. I ask them to consider how to use space efficiently so that disruptions are minimized and students can focus on their work. If the task is co-operative, then the students should face one another; if the students are to respond individually, then they should be isolated from one another so that they are not tempted to talk and can concentrate on their own work. Here are a few ways to address this last concern: ✲ Each student sits back to back with a partner. ✲ The students move their desks so that they are on their own. ✲ The students find their own spaces in the room away from the other students.

Each Day a Story

The full contribution by Alana Valcanoff-Parsons, titled “Living in the Questions,” appears in Chapter 3 on page 55.

Think of each day in the classroom as a story. How will it begin? What will happen in the middle that is significant for all participants? How can the end of the day propel everyone forward into a new chapter for tomorrow? Begin by having the class sum up what happened during the previous day or class: Let’s see what we remember from yesterday. How did it all end? What did you think about after it was all over? What could we have done differently? As Alana Valcanoff-Parsons, of the Greater Essex County District School Board, emphasizes, listening to students is important. “I always say to them [my students]: ‘This is what I am thinking. Tell me what you are thinking.’ We negotiate and we work together. That’s just how I teach. For me, teaching is a journey full of questions, full of negotiation, full of wonder. It is all about living in the questions until we find some of the answers.” Engage the students in planning the new day with you. You may want to ask them to talk to a partner and then to the rest of the class about some of these questions. What are the objectives of the day?  63

How are we going to work to accomplish all this? What do we need to do independently? What do we need to do with our partners? What can we do in small groups? What do we need to do as a whole class? What do I have to do? What do you have to do? At the end of the day together, what do we want to have accomplished? What can we leave for tomorrow? If you have the kind of relationship with your students that I have recommended, you can, indeed, have these kinds of negotiated conversations with quite young children. There is no need to belabor all this. Just spend five minutes or so checking in with your class, getting their input, and then move on. Student responsibilities in the classroom In addition to discussing and negotiating how the day might unfold, students benefit from opportunities to contribute to the running of the classroom. They might take on monitoring roles for attendance, handouts, door use, lighting, and pet care. Clearly articulated expectations will allow them to fulfill their roles well. Make sure that you give everyone an opportunity to take on a leadership role; if you think that some students might need support, have them work in partners. From week to week, students can play a variety of classroom roles, developing a sense of pride and ownership.

Be Mindful of What You Say and Think You may want to read Dweck’s influential book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, second edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 2016) or find her TED Talk online.

Carol Dweck, a researcher on motivation, encourages us to consider how we talk about success in the classroom. She asks us to be mindful of how our words shape what students think of themselves as learners. Her idea of “the power of yet” is empowering for all of us as we learn to learn. Believing in our students’ potential as well as helping them believe in themselves is all bound up in managing a classroom. We need to be mindful of our power. Part of that power lies in the words we speak and the care we take in crafting them. Common responses to avoid ✲ You have to work harder . . . You are saying that the task is about effort, not about understanding or skill. Try saying, “You might want to look at another way of tackling this task. Let’s see what is going on and I will help you.” ✲ If you’re late [handing something in], you get a zero. If you say that, you are then the gatekeeper and the punisher. Try to negotiate,

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instead. Look at the conditions that students are in and go from there. Ask: “How reasonable is it for you to get this done by the end of the day? What do we need to do for this to happen?” ✲ Just wait till you get into the real world. For students, this is their real world. The challenges that they are facing in school are very real to them because school is a big part of their world. School is meant to get them ready for what awaits them. ✲ Because . . . I am the teacher. Students already know that, and if you have to remind them of your power, then things are definitely off track. It might be better to say, “because this is what we agreed upon when we began.” Check your attitudes and perceptions You need to check yourself. There might be one or two students in your class that other teachers have deemed to be troublemakers. Try not to listen to these people. Make up your own mind, and do not judge students before you get to know them. You never know . . . You might be the teacher who makes the difference in the lives of those students. Indeed, sometimes you are the teacher who re-teaches students their loveliness. You metaphorically put a hand on their brow and help them re-bloom from within and believe in themselves.

Groups at Work in the Classroom I am someone who often works with the whole class, the ensemble, so I am interested in ways to encourage collaboration in the classroom. I use open-ended questions to gain the commitment of the group to the activities that I have planned. I don’t tell my students what we are going to do; instead, I ask for their involvement by using these kinds of questions or approaches: ✲ How could we . . .? ✲ Would it be all right if . . . ? ✲ What would happen if . . . ? ✲ Do you think it might be more effective if . . . ✲ Let’s imagine . . . ✲ Looking back, what enabled us to be successful? Keep tabs on your students as individuals Part of managing a classroom is to be actively aware of your students as individuals. You will want to have a full picture of each student — not just an academic profile but things you have noticed, talked about, and learned from the student. You might make little notes about conversations you have had and insights you have gleaned.

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You will need to find your own system — one that works for you. Choices include a file folder for each student, index cards, online templates, pictures of work that impressed you, and portfolios. Be sure to ask your colleagues for suggestions. Group students for success

Whether it is for a lab that involves preparing or presenting group work or for an out-of-class rehearsal or work session, I make sure that each group member has shared contact information. I insist that if a group member must miss a group meeting or cannot arrive on time, that member must give fellow group members and me adequate notice.

I am very aware of each group member’s efforts during the process, so there are no surprises. When I see that a student is letting others do work that that student ought to do, I challenge the student about his or her work ethic. The students know that I know what is going on.

There are many ways to work in the classroom: individually, with a partner, in threes, in small groups, and as a whole class. I try to group students in ways that promote success. I consider the students’ energy, sense of humor, sense of people, commitment, skill level, leadership capacity, sense of diplomacy, work ethic, and more. I like to have my students work in groups of five. I sit in on group discussions and help members listen to one another, reach consensus, work through difficulties, and communicate. I make sure that in every group there is one leader, three workers, and one follower. The three workers should have different kinds of strengths — for example, writing, researching, and creating. The follower is someone who can be affected positively by the others in many ways. The follower is part of a group that will be successful. There is a momentum and a focus on the task. There is also the expectation that everyone will contribute and do their fair share. By being part of all this and noting what the others say, do, agree upon, discuss, bring in, report, and negotiate, the follower is affected by the strong work ethic of everyone involved. One purpose of group work is to allow relationships among students to grow. That means varying the constellations in the groups. If you begin the year with short group activities that put little stress on the relationships, you will be surprised by the friendships fostered. The most important thing is to state clearly that you expect everyone to work with everyone else throughout the year and that students should reach out to those not yet their friends. Beyond promoting relationships and honoring choice, ensure that the English language learners (ELL) are spread evenly around the room. Doing so will help nurture language acquisition and cultural awareness. I tend to distribute strong leaders throughout the various groups, too, so that more groups benefit from their presence. I try not to put two strong leaders together because sometimes power struggles ensue. Be sure to monitor and give extra support to socially challenged students. I spend a lot of time composing groups that will be successful. If I get the right mix, the groups tend to support themselves so that the work can proceed. Getting ready for group presentations Sometimes students are asked to make small-group presentations. Once they have had time to talk about the subject under discussion, have them appoint a spokesperson who will summarize the essence of what the

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group said and present these ideas to the rest of the class. For the spokespersons to speak with confidence, the group members need to make sure that they understand the topic and can summarize the main points discussed. The group members become the spokesperson’s supporters by helping the spokesperson prepare what to say and decide how to say it publicly. They encourage the spokesperson to “have a go” and listen for ways to improve the presentation. They need to show kindness to one another and help shy students or students who are learning English to gain the courage to speak publicly.

Thirty Classroom Management Ideas Here are 30 simple classroom management strategies I have gleaned from my teaching. All reflect the need to anchor three desired classroom attributes: (1) safety, (2) affirmation, and (3) communication. Note that the classroom needs to be safe emotionally as well as physically. I address both kinds of safety. I have also suggested ideas for helping everyone feel included and affirmed in the classroom. Ways to communicate more effectively with your students and help them communicate better with each other are addressed, as well.  1. Begin with high expectations for everyone in the room. Because I enter a classroom knowing that my lesson will change as soon as I meet the students, I strive to remain hopeful and exuberant. By my manner, I let students know that I have high expectations for myself and that I expect their full attention to our task.

Providing Students with Curriculum Documents In one school in the All ‘I’s on Education project, Brian Bartlett, Alana Valcanoff-Parsons, and Stephanie Molena made the Mathematics, Science, and Arts curriculum documents available to their students throughout the inquiry process. In this way, students were able to discover and discuss curriculum expectations. During the process the students used the vocabulary that they found in the curriculum documents to identify their learning goals and needs. The students were empowered to reflect on their learning. This process also allowed the teachers and students to establish and share a common teaching/learning vocabulary. Their frequent interaction with the guidelines made them aware of the kinds of feedback to expect as they were learning.

 2. Allow for spontaneity and offer choice. Treat your agenda as flexible and be poised to make spontaneous shifts in direction. Be prepared to negotiate. If the students see you as rigid and unwilling to discuss  67

options and choices in the task before them, they sometimes shut down and get discouraged. You don’t need to give up everything, but do be willing to listen to their suggestions.  3. Check how inclusive you are. Are you asking for the same volunteers to answer questions or help you with work? Are you always asking the boys to speak rather than the girls? Make sure that you look around the room and find the student with whom you have not connected in a while. Be sure to ask that person to help you.  4. Try not to take negative student responses personally. Students do not set out to ruin a lesson. Sometimes, things are going on in their lives that sap them of energy just when you need it. Quietly (without drawing attention to them) ask if they have time to see you after class for a short conversation. That will allow you to assess whether they need more support — academic or otherwise.  5. Share your plan with the students. Give them an overview. Offer them some choice. Show them that you know what you are doing. Letting students in on the plan and providing an array of choices is often the best way to get them on your side. As you talk about the task or the project, show your enthusiasm and display your belief in their ability to do well. You also might decide to have a daily agenda where you ask, “What do we all need to know about today?”  6. Keep students at the centre. Try as much as possible to work with what students are giving you. Work from where they are — with their prior knowledge, with their capacity to work together, and with their enthusiasm for certain topics and ideas. Allow their questions to guide the lesson. To do this, you will have to pay full attention to them, look them in the eye, listen hard, think on your feet, and change direction when needed.   Note whom you pay attention to. The quieter student who does not appear to be remarkable is your best ally. Often such students are somehow ignored and keep a low profile. If you are the teacher who does notice and you let that student know that he or she is valued, the benefits are huge.  7. Be aware of students’ developmental needs. Some things are just not going to work; some tasks are beyond your students’ developmental stage. Revisit some of the literature on child and adolescent development. Perhaps the task you have set is too abstract; perhaps the requirements need to be adjusted.  8. Make rewards intrinsic. When some students are openly rewarded for good work, others feel disappointed and incompetent. If only some students receive tangible rewards, such as candy or an invitation to the pizza lunch, resentment from others in the class will fester and lead to dysfunction. The reward should be the work itself. If you want to reward the collective effort of all the students at the end of a project, seek their advice on what they would consider to be a true reward: “Should we all have a pizza lunch? Could we take some time and plan a class party?” 68  

 9. Limit competition. Praise the group publicly, but praise individuals and give them positive reinforcement privately. I find it works best to pull students aside and tell them how wonderful their work was rather than say it publicly. The same practice applies to criticism. 10. Begin your lessons on time. I used to wait for everyone to settle and pay attention to me, but now I don’t. I focus on crafting as interesting a beginning to my lesson as possible so that students are sometimes intrigued, other times surprised, and will immediately settle down to listen and work. 11. Vary the composition and size of your groupings. Mix up the groups as much as you can so that students have opportunities to work with everyone in the room. Make sure that you do individual, partner, small-group, and large-group work. 12. Distribute materials after you give the directions. If students are receiving materials, they are not listening. Talk first to get everyone’s attention. When you feel that students have a sense of what you are asking them to do or wanting them to know, hand out the materials they will need. There is always a flurry of activity. You may not have enough handouts, or the handouts may get mixed up as they go around the classroom. So, distribute after you speak. 13. Listen carefully all the time. You need to determine who is on task, who is involved, who is dominating the discussion, and who has withdrawn from the conversation. Furthermore, insist that your students listen to you. Establish this simple, basic rule at the beginning of the year: “When I talk, you don’t. When someone else talks, we don’t.” 14. Establish signals. You can dim the lights, hit a drum, use a chant, or clap your hands. There are many possible signals. Having a signal that establishes silence quickly is crucial for group work where students are talking and moving. Ask for advice from your students about how to make the signals work effectively. 15. Use the phrase “When I say go . . .” You say the phrase and then add the appropriate direction — you may pick up your pens, get into groups, hand out the materials, talk with one another. This simple phrase allows everyone to be ready to do what is expected of them when required. It also reinforces that the teacher is in charge and keeps everyone safe and on task. 16. Face the space, that is, organize the classroom seating. If students need to move desks aside to gain space to be active, negotiate with them ahead of time: “I am worried about the noise that we might make when we move the furniture. I don’t want to disrupt other classes. Do you think that we could lift the desks and chairs to make the least amount of noise? It would also help if we did not talk as we move about. How else might we do this quickly, with minimal disruption?” 17. Make smooth transitions from one activity to another. If you have worked hard to establish a mood in the classroom by reading a story,  69

you won’t want to disrupt this mood by getting the students into groups. A better idea is to get the students into groups before you read the story. If you are concerned that they won’t pay attention, then insist that they sit facing only you; when the reading is finished, they can easily turn to their group members or partners. Moving from one activity to another is an important aspect of teaching.   Finding a way to do this thoughtfully and artfully can sometimes be a challenge. You might say: ✲  In five minutes . . . ✲  When the music begins . . . ✲  When you see me standing under the middle window . . . ✲  When I stand by your cluster of desks . . . 18. Work the room. Once you have set the students their task, spend time with each group, listening in on what they are saying, planning, and negotiating. Initially, you might take a few minutes to let them get on with what they are supposed to do, but your job is to be there for them — not overpowering them, but making suggestions, listening for and supporting their ideas, and monitoring the group process. Take the pulse of each group and then make sure that connections are being made among the students and their ideas. Spend time with the groups that need you. Give them suggestions. Prompt them to try an idea and then come back and see what happened. 19. Modulate your voice. When we read aloud to students, we vary the tone, pitch, and volume of our voices to engage the listeners. The same principle applies to directions. Sometimes, to get students’ attention, it works to speak softly; other times, to emphasize the importance of what they are learning, you may use a louder, more dramatic voice. Your voice can imbue the task with significance. 20. Take time to wait for responses. I watch my student teachers make a great effort to master this as they learn how to teach. I struggle with this important classroom management skill, too, often moving on to another activity before I should. I must stress, however, that when I have deliberately waited for students to think and compose their thoughts before they answer, the effort has paid off. Timing is everything in teaching — go quickly sometimes, more slowly at other times. 21. Chunk information — this classroom management strategy is really important. We often give students too much information at one time. If we chunk it, students can digest the bits, act on them, and wait for more directions. Here is an example of a teacher chunking information:   1 Make sure that you each have a pencil or a highlighter.   2 Get into your groups from yesterday and settle around a table.   3 In a few minutes, I am going to hand out a text that I would like you to read silently.   4 I am going to distribute it now and put it in front of you upside down. 70  

  5 When I say “Go,” turn over the text and begin to read.   6 When you have finished reading the selection, underline the words and phrases that you found interesting and want to know more about.   7 In your groups, discuss the words and phrases together; then, consider these questions . . .   8 Appoint a spokesperson to make jot notes on what you are saying.   9 In a few minutes, we will have a group discussion. Make sure that your spokesperson has heard all your ideas and can summarize your group discussion. 10 Let’s begin our class discussion. 22. When you want students to retrieve their work from a place in the classroom, go group by group by group. I have a vivid memory of watching one of my student teachers with a Grade 4 class. The students had painted magnificent snow scenes that were piled carefully in a corner of the classroom. Not having gauged the excitement of the class, the student teacher told them to go and pick up their paintings. The students ran to the paintings and began grabbing some and accidentally tearing others. The host teacher intervened, but my student teacher was devastated by the chaos. She learned a valuable lesson, though: go group by group. 23. Stand beside the student who is seeking attention. I am often asked, “What do you do about the kid who seems to be deliberately sabotaging the lesson?” It seems simple, but an effective strategy that nearly always works is to stand beside the student. Often, such a student is seeking attention. By standing beside the student as you give instructions, you take away some of the student’s power in the classroom. Sometimes I put my hand on the back of the chair, too. My proximity to the student seems to have a calming influence and makes the student feel that I am paying attention to him or her even if my focus is elsewhere. 24. Let students talk to partners — a strategy that many educators refer to as “Think-Pair-Share.” Many years ago, I watched R. H. T ­ homson conduct a workshop on Shakespeare with a Grade 11 class in an auditorium in a Toronto high school. He was working with another actor demonstrating techniques for uncovering the meaning in texts. The students were mesmerized by what he was doing and saying, but whenever he asked the whole class a question, there would be silence and embarrassment. On a break, the famous Canadian actor asked for my advice on how to involve the students more, so I suggested my well-tested strategy — continuing to ask the questions, but having students talk to partners about the answers first. When the students have a chance to try their ideas out loud in this way, they gain more confidence about speaking in front of a group. Thomson adopted this approach, and the class became far more involved.

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  I also use this strategy when I have a class full of students with their hands up, all wanting to contribute to the discussion. I stop and invite the students to talk to partners. They gain an opportunity to be heard, and their frustration level diminishes. We then proceed to have a full-class discussion. 25. Give thought to the handling of homework. Teachers are wary of assigning too much or too little homework. They are often expected to follow a board- or school-developed homework policy. Be sure not to assign homework as punishment. Make sure that the homework you do assign is something the student can handle, is fair in terms of time, and is directly related to the learning happening in the classroom. You might want students to generate questions about a topic and then assign each of them a question to answer at home. Or, you might consider adopting a flipped classroom approach where students do the research at home, and you set up teaching strategies that help them share what they are learning with their peers. 26. Give all your students a break. Recess is an important part of everyone’s day and should not be denied to those who have misbehaved. Often, the student who needs recess the most — to run off steam, to reconnect with friends, to have fun — loses it for bad behavior; however, a recess break might make the student feel better and allow him or her to return to class refreshed. 27. Negotiate cellphone use with your class. Cellphones are part of our lives, and we need to find ways to work with them in the classroom. A cellphone can be a helpful tool, but it also can distract students from learning. My best advice is to work with your class to set ground rules for how to use cellphones in the classroom. What conditions and rules will allow everyone to get on with learning? What is fair for individuals and for the class as a whole? What can the students and you agree on? What should you do if these agreements break down? 28. Involve students in creating classroom order and doing cleanup. C­lassrooms can sometimes be messy, confusing, and unhappy places. Students can feel when things are unhinged and disorderly. You don’t have to be a neat freak, but you do need to establish order in your classroom. Ask for the students’ help, and make sure that everyone contributes to the cleanup effort. Insert yourself in the process of cleaning up, and, as everyone helps, thank students ­individually. ✲ “Thanks, Tao. You always give your best.” ✲ “Thanks, Allie. I know you are tired after your big game yesterday, but this is going to make the classroom better for tomorrow.” ✲ “Jamil and Tess. Thanks for working together. Both of you are so strong, and those chairs are heavy.”   Where can we put things? Another idea is to challenge each student to put 15 things away. Have them count the items and remember where they put them. Give suggestions about where the items can 72  

Your support of everything in the classroom matters. Everything you do together either brings people towards one another or pushes them away from each other. Be sure to thank your students for their work.

be placed: wastebasket, recycling bin, library, works bins, cubbies, hooks, knapsacks, other classrooms, with other students, and so on. If you feel that doing so would motivate your students, you may want to set a time for this activity.   At the end, you could tally the responses, but the most important thing to do is to praise everyone for a job well done. Invite your students to find their space in the room and then thank the whole class for their efforts to make the space clean and beautiful again. 29. Address classroom management tasks to help you get ready to end lessons with artistry. There is never enough time to teach — but there should always be artistry to it. Not only should beginnings be intriguing, but endings should be uplifting. To make them so, you will need to plan carefully and be organized. You might keep notes near you (as I do) to remind you of all the organizational tasks to be done by the end of the lesson. These tasks might include getting two volunteers to collect the response sheets, leaving 10 minutes at the end to put away the art materials and rearrange the desks for the next class, and reviewing the assignment due next week and answering any questions that the students have. Get the organizational things done — and leave time to reassemble the class as a group. 30. Use lesson endings to help build a community of learners. Give your students a collective pat on the back, nurture a vision of what lies ahead, and create excitement about what is to come. You can summarize what the students have done so far, praise them for their efforts, or remind them of how to apply new learning to the next task. You could also read the class a poem or a quotation that sends students on their way feeling good about themselves as learners. I find if I plan for closure that is unhurried and uplifting, the students will remember what was said, and we can start from there when we meet again. Not all these ideas will work all of the time, but they are worth implementing. As you stand up to teach, your classroom management strategies will expand, and along with careful, but flexible planning, you will be better able to help your students learn in effective ways.

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5 “When mentors are well-selected, well-trained and given the time to work intensively with new teachers, they not only help average teachers become good, but good teachers become great.” — Dara Barlin, “Better Mentoring, Better Teachers”

Both of you will benefit from being connected to a larger community of peers and colleagues who meet regularly to network and support the whole endeavor.

Working with the Best: Mentors

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ou learn to teach by teaching. Much of teaching is a self-discovery — an uncovering of who you are in relationship to your students, your subject, and your life. You learn to teach by getting to know yourself, reflecting on your own practice, understanding how you are implicated in the work that you do — that your teaching is intrinsic to your identity and life purpose — and learning from others who take an interest in your journey.

If you are lucky enough to have teaching mentors, learn from them, watch them, ask them as many questions as time will allow, and be grateful for the gifts they are giving you. Mentors will help you ✲ understand and recognize the characteristics of good teaching ✲ deal with the basics of classroom management ✲ find current literature both practical and theoretical that can support you in your work ✲ gain the courage to try new things and meet new people ✲ identify useful workshops and seminars to attend and feel encouraged to join local, national, and international teaching associations ✲ understand multiple intelligences, learning styles, co-operative learning, experiential learning, constructivism, inquiry-based learning, differentiated instruction, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, growth mindset, and the role that creativity and imagination play in the teaching/learning dynamic ✲ understand some common teaching techniques, including brainstorming, questioning, scaffolding, debriefing, side coaching, guided

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imagery, warm-ups, Four Corners, Think-Pair-Share, and Role on the Wall Benefit from all the teaching experience you gain and from all the knowledge and insight your mentors share with you; then, when the time comes, become a mentor to someone else.

What Early Mentors Taught Me Teacher mentors have been there for me at various stages of my career. My first mentors were my associate teachers when I was at teachers’ ­college. Lorraine Bergman taught me to start where students are at and to cherish each student’s gifts. She taught in a school with students who had a variety of physical and intellectual challenges. She helped me to see the importance of connecting with every student on an individual basis and how to respond to student interest. Clement Tranchemontagne was my second mentor. He taught English in a French high school in eastern Ontario. He taught me how to bring my personal story into the classroom. His Grade 12 English students were reading Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan. When he found out that I had grown up in Montreal and had known MacLennan, he said his students needed to hear from me, an English Canadian who could give his French-Canadian students insight about my background and history. He asked me to link what I knew, who I was, and what I remembered of growing up in Montreal to the themes of the novel: the division between the two languages and cultures. This idea of using personal story was new to me and I was unsure about how to do it. I wasn’t convinced that his students would be engaged. I wasn’t much older than the Grade 12 students, and I was nervous about revealing too much about myself. I began the lesson by showing the students the pictures of the three houses in which I had lived as a youngster in Quebec. One of them was in the same town that MacLennan had lived in. The photographs depicted my parents, my siblings, and me doing various kinds of activities — skiing, opening Christmas presents, wearing my school uniform at the same age as the students were. I even read them parts of my Grade 9 report card — the comments from my teachers weren’t all that complimentary. Instantly, the students were hooked. They had so many probing questions and were genuinely interested in hearing my story of living in Quebec during the October crisis and about how the tensions affected me as a young schoolgirl. Then we began to talk about the characters in the novel and MacLennan’s uncanny sense of foreshadowing. I don’t remember the specifics of that lesson taught more than 40 years ago, but I do remember the February light coming in the windows, the way the 76  

classroom looked and felt, and how engaged the students were in hearing my story and relating it to their own lives and the novel they were ­reading. The lesson was a success — I was amazed by the whole thing. I knew so little about teaching, but Tranchemontagne’s ideas and encouragement have influenced my teaching ever since that day. He had taught me that to be honest, authentic, and true was an essential part of teaching. He also taught me to take risks and see what happens. Precious time with a mentor My most constant mentor was my husband, a brilliant teacher, who sat with me at the kitchen table when I got home and listened to me as I told the story of my teaching day and of the interactions, lessons, ideas, and experiences that I had had. Chuck was a fantastic listener and had the ability to ask just the right questions to help me think through what had worked and what had not. He also helped me talk about teaching in a way which made it easier for me to make sense of what I was trying to do for and with students. Never making me feel that I was a failure, he would give such good advice! He helped me see the good that had happened in a lesson as well as the things I must change. My time with him made me the teacher I am today.

Hang Around Good People Teaching and learning are not naturally creative: the dynamic has to be processed by teachers and learners. So, to whom do you go when you need to find out how to be the best you can be? David Booth, professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, provides an answer in What Is a ‘Good’ Teacher?, co-authored with Richard E. Coles. When asked about how to get good at teaching, he says, “You hang around good people.” For me, David has been one of these people throughout the years. His influence on me is immeasurable, mainly because he is interested in what I am doing, has a lot of teaching experience to draw on, doesn’t judge me when I fail, and is always there to help me see critically, clearly, and simply about the way forward. In other words, I still need a mentor, and being a mentor can be a long-term commitment. Hanging around good people is the way to go. Where might you find these people? Perhaps they will be in the classroom next to you or in workshops or at education conferences that you attend after school or on weekends. One teacher in the All ‘I’s on Education project, Jessica Boticelli, spoke about how a mentor teacher helped her to believe in herself again and to see her strengths amid the turmoil of learning how to teach. She met this career-sustaining mentor at her first practicum.

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“Give Me Seven Weeks”

See pages 45 to 46 for more on the three-part lesson.

On my first practicum day at Madonna — an all girls’ secondary school at Keele and Hwy 401 — I watched George Kekesi teach. He was the science/technology department head. He was wearing a black vest with a chemistry tie tucked inside his vest. The day came and went. I was supposed to observe, but my heart was not into it. I had had a rough time at my first placement and had lost my confidence. I was a chemistry major. I knew my stuff and I wanted to teach, but I needed some help. Finally, at the end of the day, George told me where to put my stuff in the office. He gave me a spare key. He made me feel welcome. He said, “Okay, let’s go back to the class and talk.” So we did . . . George asked, “How comfortable are you with teaching Grade 10 applied science and Grade 11 chemistry?” I replied, in tears: “Listen, I’m pretty much done with this whole teaching thing. I don’t think I even want to finish. My mom told me I’ve paid $32,000 US to be here, so I might as well finish, but I . . . I just don’t think I’m very good at it. My last school was a disaster. I needed guidance, and I didn’t know if I was doing anything properly. I want to be taught how to teach. I love chemistry, but . . . maybe . . . I don’t know.” George said: “How about you give me seven weeks to see if we can turn this around? If, after seven weeks, you feel the same way and want to give up, well, at least you’ve tried and I’ll leave you alone.” Well, George didn’t give up on me. He stayed after school, until 7 p.m. most nights. He was the most dedicated teacher I have ever known. He taught me how to read curriculum documents. He taught me about the three-part lesson. He reignited the passion for chemistry and for teaching that was in me all along. If it hadn’t been for George, I wouldn’t be doing what I love — teaching chemistry to young girls striving for excellence at Madonna Catholic Secondary School. How lucky I was to find this mentor teacher who changed my life!

Formal mentor and mentee matches Most district school boards have formal mentoring programs that are meant to help build and strengthen a professional culture of collegiality, collaboration, and learning. These programs are designed to support beginning teachers as they deal with the practical aspects of classroom life and develop professional habits of mind that lead to a sense of efficacy, agency, and love of their work. In some places, such as Ontario, with its New Teacher Induction Program, useful mentoring programs for teachers are the norm. Mentors are carefully chosen to work with new teachers. Mentors should be there to challenge and support their mentees, but if they are to do so, mentors and mentees need to know and trust one another. Time 78  

A Mentor-Like Model

“He was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil. He gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice.” — Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

should be set aside for mentors and mentees to get to know one another — sharing stories, revealing their personalities, discussing where they are from and what their dreams and hopes are. They can talk about their emerging pedagogical signatures (how they see themselves as teachers and what they do to ensure that they fulfill this image). They can discuss the art of teaching well. They may even form mentor–mentee teams that work together devising teaching projects. As mentors and mentees engage with one another, their relationships of mutual trust, delight, and collaboration will grow. Mentorship program basics Mentorship programs are all different in scope, but they depend upon four things: (1) the relationships that are established between the mentors and the mentees, (2) the time and effort spent understanding how teaching is connected to context, (3) the effort to work towards culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, and (4) the desire to take risks and teach the curriculum in new and exciting ways. At the end of the chapter (page 90), you will find a line master addressing these four aspects through reflective questions intended for both mentors and mentees.

Building the Mentoring Relationship To gain the most from mentoring experiences, you need to feel comfortable engaging in open and honest dialogue about your successes and challenges in the classroom. You should be able to talk without concern that this sharing will factor into any performance appraisal. (Some ways of achieving this ease are discussed further in the chapter.) Your mentors will likely give you as much advice as they can, answer your questions, and provide resources and guidance; however, they will probably let you go ahead and try things on your own. If they have an opportunity to watch and witness what happens when you teach, then they will provide you with feedback. Make sure that you listen with an open mind to the critique of your teaching. Write down what a mentor tells you. Think about it. Try out the mentor’s suggestions. Ask more questions. Try to remain receptive to what your mentor is telling you. Ask yourself: How can I open my mind to new learning about teaching? How can I move away from what I think teaching is to what it could be? As you answer these questions, you become committed to learning how to teach one step at a time. Teachers work all day giving to their students. When they take on a mentorship role, they give even more of themselves. As a mentee, be aware of how precious their time is and work accordingly. Negotiate the time frame for the meetings you have together. Ask for what you need. Work as hard as your mentors. And, as noted already, once the teaching session is over, try what they suggest and then listen to their honest  79

f­ eedback. Generous acts by mentor educators help new teachers avoid some of the pitfalls of early teaching. Expectations of mutual giving and receiving The expectations of the relationship should be clear from the beginning. The mentor’s role is to foster resilience in the new teacher and help the mentee to achieve a sense of agency. It also involves helping the mentee recognize the personal, emotional, pedagogical, and professional challenges inherent in teaching and becoming a model, critiquing his or her own beliefs, values, and practices. As the experienced teacher engages with the new teacher, the mentor needs to find supportive ways of giving honest feedback and advice. Mentoring includes helping mentees gain perspective on their work. I strive to do that with my student teachers. After I watch them teach, I ask how they felt the session went first. Usually, they are aware of things that went wrong, but they need help to see the positive things that happened, too. Sometimes they didn’t hear or see good things happening in the classroom and are relieved to be told about these aspects before hearing more critical feedback. Mentoring relationships depend on a certain reciprocity that is hard to describe. True mentorship is more than helping a new teacher access resources, network with other professionals, and answer questions about classroom management, teaching across multiple grades, parental involvement, lesson ideas, and unit planning. The relationship depends, in large part, on the acknowledgment that both partners have different strengths and skills, and that time spent together both face to face and online will enable the mentor partners to co-construct practical teaching ideas and learn together. Support goes both ways in terms of extending professional learning. As mentors speak about teaching and explain their ideas and philosophies, they make their work visible not only to their mentees but to themselves. They deepen their understanding of self in regard to their teaching practice, an experience they may find empowering. Mentors can see their work in a new light. Ask mentors about their teaching lives Mentor–mentee relationships, like other relationships, need to be nurtured throughout the year. Time is precious for both of you so agreements of when to meet, where, and for how long need to be adhered to. It helps to have an agenda — so that you focus on pertinent questions and concerns. It also helps if you get to know a bit about one another. I encourage my student teachers to find out as much as they can about the teaching lives of their mentors. I am always interested to hear how talking about their teaching journeys brings them together. Here are some of their questions and requests: 80  

✲ How did you end up here doing this kind of work with these students? ✲ What were pivotal moments in your teaching career? ✲ How has your teaching been shaped by where you are from and how you were taught? ✲ Tell me about your current classroom, program, and teaching approach. ✲ Tell me about your students. ✲ What dreams do you have for your students and for yourself as their teacher?

Critical Questions for Mentors Beyond getting to know their mentors and find out about their teaching experiences, my student teachers at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) ask their mentors hundreds of questions about teaching. I have identified several below. ✲ How do you ensure that you maintain appropriate emotional, social, and physical boundaries with your students? ✲ What strategies do you use to create an inclusive and accepting environment not only in your classroom but throughout the school and among all groups of students? ✲ How do you encourage students to see the intrinsic value in learning? What specific things do you do, say, or teach that help students shift their focus from marks to learning? ✲ How do you plan for and approach controversial topics in the classroom where everyone feels validated and safe so that new understandings emerge? ✲ How do you think teachers become aware of their own biases regarding student identity so that their students are honored for who they really are in terms of their character, personality, interests, intelligences, and so on? ✲ What do you do to become aware of your students’ authentic selves? How might you use this knowledge to affect your students’ educational experiences in the classroom? What might your questions be?

Mother Knows Best Don’t talk about your troubles. No one loves a sad face. Oh, Mom, the truth is Cheer isolates Humor defends Competence intimidates Control separates And sadness, Sadness opens us each to the other. — In The Healing of the Mind by Bill Moyers (p. 319)

Invite mentors to share stories of school challenges Mentees benefit from hearing stories of struggle from their mentors, as well as stories of success. It helps everyone to hear how challenging it is to teach well and how facing personal and systemic barriers is common. When I work in professional learning sessions with mentors, I encourage them to tell their stories of struggle so that their mentees can understand that, just as teaching is often filled with joy, it can be fraught with difficulties, as well as emotional, intellectual, and physical challenges, for  81

The performance of “Voices of Innovative Practitioners,” referred to several times in this resource, was one of the first public occasions where teachers told their stories of struggle.

everyone. Talking about teaching in terms of both its problems and its rewards can bring teachers closer together. Teachers usually believe that they must look strong and knowledgeable to their peers and school leaders, so it can be difficult for them to admit worry and confusion. Given the right context and support, though, their stories of resilience and insight matter. These tales cannot be lost to the profession. Here is one strategy I use to encourage teacher mentors to tell their stories of struggle at school — I see, I remember, I hope. You can adapt it to use with your own mentors, one on one. I see . . . Ask your mentors to think of a challenging time they had in education. It could have been with a difficult student, a teaching dilemma, or a conflict about teaching. Tell them not to name the people or the school but to simply describe that time — how they got to school, how they felt in the classroom, what they looked like, how they think others looked at them. I remember . . . Then, ask them to remember the feelings, thoughts, and questions they had about the problem facing them. To whom did they turn for support and guidance? Did they listen to this advice? What research did they do about the problem? What helpful articles or books might they recommend? I hope . . . Invite your mentors to find a hopeful message in what they experienced. How did it all turn out? What did they learn about teaching? What did they change and how were they changed because of this experience? What advice would they offer you and others who might be faced with the same dilemma? Determine your pedagogical signature

Pedagogical Signature begins much like Signature Pieces, which is found in Chapter 2.

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Here is a formal way in which you, as a student teacher or new teacher, might get to know your mentor and begin to talk about the art of ­teaching. Sit with your partner back to back so that neither of you can see what the other is writing. Each partner has a blank index card and signs the card as if signing a passport application. Partners each fold the card so that the signature is hidden and then exchange cards. Each partner opens up the card and interprets the signature. Mentor and mentee take a few minutes to analyze each other’s signature, trying to figure out what the signature says about the other individual. Once you both gain a sense of each other’s possible qualities, share opinions and find out whether your interpretations are accurate. What does the signature reveal? What does it hide? This exercise is light and enjoyable.

Just as Carole Dweck encourages students to say that they are not there “yet” in their learning, I think that teachers should feel comfortable saying the same about their professional growth.

The next step is for you and your mentor to think broadly about your pedagogical signatures — what you believe and care about. Determining a pedagogical signature is a way for teachers to acknowledge where they are at; that, in turn, encourages a sense of agency and promotes a feeling of confidence in the learning journey. When I help mentors and mentees determine and share their pedagogical signatures, I convey what I mean by this by sharing my own pedagogical signature. I have found that, over time, this evolves — some things become less important and others come to the fore. Here is some of my thinking about my current pedagogical signature: a desire for a more open-ended way of teaching — to not know the outcome of my lessons and to incorporate students’ ideas and responses into my teaching a fascination about how students learn a belief that most students can become engaged in learning if we know more about them — where they are from, what they know already, what they want to know, and so on an insistence that students’ work be connected to real-world challenges a sense of artistry a desire to be fair in my teaching — to step back and be critical of what I am doing, to listen for the voices of those who are not always heard

“We don’t learn to teach. Rather, we learn from our teaching. It is through the professional relationships and conversations that you will have with colleagues, which will expand your knowledge, and through applying and adapting information and strategies within the context of your own classroom, that you will continue to refine your expertise as a teacher.” — Ontario Ministry of Education, New Teacher Induction Program (p. 2)

So, you may want to use this as a model and spend some time thinking about what is at the heart of your work as a teacher. Once you zero in on what is at the centre of your teaching life, you will be able to see where you need to go to learn more about how to become an even more effective teacher. Here are some pertinent questions for you and your partner to ask each other: ✲ Why did you go into the teaching profession? ✲ What are the non-negotiables in teaching? ✲ What are your essential beliefs about your work as a teacher? ✲ What do you find the most rewarding about teaching? ✲ What is the most challenging aspect of it? ✲ What do you feel you must stand up and say about effective teaching? Consider your personal school stories The teacher candidates I interact with bring not only fresh ideas and insights to the teaching and learning process, but also their memories of school. I encourage them to tell their personal stories so that these narratives can inform their teacher stories. I ask them these questions (and invite you to consider them, too): ✲ What do you know? ✲ Where have you been? ✲ Where are you from?  83

✲ What skills do you have? ✲ What stories can you tell us about what has brought you here? ✲ How do you think sharing these stories about your identities and experiences will help all of us learn how to teach? ✲ How can you tap into your many strengths and gifts to help you teach? I then encourage the teacher candidates to remember their years in school. We spend time thinking about what made school “work” for them. What was it about the school culture, the teaching, the teachers, the curriculum, the co-curricular activities, and the school leadership that allowed them to succeed? How would you answer that question? We also talk about the barriers to learning. What happened when the teaching/learning dynamic shut down? Why did that happen? What could have been done to prevent it? What is your experience of such matters? Mapping the way from past to present learning contexts Creating a context for learning matters. All teachers regardless of experience benefit from connecting their past learning to their present learning. When mentors and mentees do this exercise together, they will learn from each other, and in this sharing, they will begin to make connections to the classrooms where they are now teaching. I encourage you to do this mapping together. Creating a context involves teachers in revisiting their memories of the school contexts they experienced as children or as young adolescents. Just as you might proceed with a mentor, I typically give each partner an index card, blank on one side, lined on the other. On the blank side, each partner sketches a map of the way to their elementary school, labeling landmarks, roads, and so on. How they got to school doesn’t matter. From there, partners turn their cards over, each drawing a square. I then ask these questions: “Once your journey was over and you entered the school building, what was the experience? Did you feel included or excluded? honored or dishonored? welcomed or shunned? anonymous or famous? ordinary? bullied? satisfied? challenged? excited? disillusioned? supported? well taught?” Each partner writes words inside the square to describe the feelings and experiences of being in that school. I then ask: “What were the conditions that allowed you to have this experience in school? Why do you think that you had this kind of experience?” Partners reflect and, on the outside of the square, record why they might have had the experience they did. Once the partners have done their independent work, they face each other and share how they got to school, how they felt when they got there, what kinds of experiences they had in the school, and what kinds

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of conditions allowed them to have those experiences. They share their contexts for learning; we then meet as a large group. This exercise helps teachers focus on the conditions that need to be in place in their classrooms and schools. It opens up discussion of these two questions: ✲ How can we take what we have learned about the good things and try to emulate them in our teaching worlds? ✲ How can we learn from the bad experiences that we had and make sure that these are not replicated in our work? Working together on a project The best mentor–mentee relationships are those where both partners work together on a project. The All ‘I’s on Education project represented this kind of relationship on a grand scale. In terms of professional learning, the All ‘I’s on Education project was a dream come true for me. As principal investigator, working with my research assistant, Netta Kornberg, and six researchers, I was able to set up a process of teacher and researcher learning that was co-constructed, acknowledged teachers’ stories as powerful sources of pedagogical insights, and aimed to have an impact on students’ education. The project asked teachers to establish key principles, plan together, discover ways to document their pedagogy, explore a process of implementation, and find a way to artistically represent their new understandings. There were 30 teachers involved, working in teams of three. I was careful to encourage teachers to see that their professional learning was connected to their own context and location. The biggest resource we gave to the schools was the gift of time. We provided release time for the teachers to meet with one another, to meet with the researchers in the schools, and to visit York University at the beginning and end of the project. The mentor–mentee relationship was reciprocal. The researchers — the mentors — knew some things: they pointed the teachers in the direction of current research, validated the teachers’ experiences, asked questions, and supported the teachers as they found the answers. The teachers — the mentees — knew other things: they knew the school community, the students, the curriculum, and what they wanted to accomplish. Our relationships grew as we spent more time together. We became open to each other’s strengths. The researchers spent at least four days in each school. In the first two visits, we did open-ended group interviews with the teachers as we co-planned the inquiry projects. On the third and fourth visits, we continued to plan as well as observe teachers implementing the project with their students. In some of the schools, I co-taught with teachers. Teachers documented the planning and teaching of their inquiry projects. They also selected which pieces of documentation to submit to the research team to tell the story of what occurred in their school. The project took a  85

broader view of pedagogical documentation, encouraging the teachers to document in-the-moment decisions about what they were teaching and learning. The enabling role of the principal: A different kind of mentor The permission to try new things was an essential part of the All ‘I’s on Education project. I believe that it is a crucial element to have in place in every school if teachers are to become really good at what they do. That permission can come from board and ministry personnel, but the most important person in the whole endeavor is the principal. Count yourself fortunate if you teach in a school where the principal encourages innovation and backs you up as you try new things. During “Voices of Innovative Practitioners,” the project’s culminating event, Adam Finkbeiner spoke of the pivotal importance of his principal’s support for his work in the classroom during the research project. His principal, Merrill Mathews, was a kind of invisible mentor.

The Freedom of Permission Permission. It’s a word that is often used in the most formal of ways. But what if you worked in a place where permission was simply part of the way you work? where your wildest ideas are nurtured and your leadership team actually encouraged ingenuity? What “tangents” would you follow? How would your discussions with your colleagues be different? How would your interactions with students and families be different? In my case, permission never has to be granted because it is always implied. I do not feel as though I need to check in before embarking on a mission of discovery and inquiry. Our school climate has been very purposely built to evoke the freedom of discussion and empower our staff. It is no mistake that I feel this way, and it all comes back to one thing: leadership and the permission to dig beyond the pages of our written curriculum. By owning that feeling of permission I, in turn, pass this along to my students. This is why, in my class, I didn’t feel like we needed “to run it by anyone” when my class began a two-day journey of inquiry following a student’s question, “What was the Berlin Wall?” Or how earlier this year, our class became enthralled for an hour one morning with the anniversary of the O. J. Simpson verdict. Being able to pass on this permission to my students is possible only because of the support and permission I feel within my school culture. The greatest gift that I get to witness is when I see my students pass on this permission to their peers as well as to the younger students in our school community. It’s an

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incredible sight to see them empowered in such a way that they feel ownership over their learning, over their school community, and over their actions outside of school as well. When we give permission to students to think more critically about the world around them and then step back and give them the supportive space and time to reflect, remarkable things happen. And you should see the work our students produce! Their creativity is never stifled, their conversations are never curbed, and their minds are always open to possibilities. Self-discovery as well as pushing the social boundaries is part of growing up, especially in Grade 8 . . . believe me! But never have I met a group of students that are more empowered to ask the difficult questions, to wonder about themselves, and to challenge the status quo. How is this possible? Permission.

Mentoring through Love “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything

Helen Vlachoyannacos is a wonderful teacher and mentor to young teachers. To me it seems fitting to end this chapter with a sharing of some of the insights she has gleaned and how she has come to apply them over the years.

“We Teach Students, Not Curriculum” When I first began teaching, I remember being obsessed with my curriculum documents and trying to find ways to skillfully integrate the expectations to create meaningful and engaging lessons. I spent all summer going to workshops, reading ideas online, getting into the latest professional resources, all for the sake of creating just the right mix of lessons for the wonderful students I would be spending the year with. During those first few years, my lack of knowledge of the various topics in the content areas, as well as my need to understand how to teach the skills of numeracy and literacy, led me to spend my time in Additional Qualification courses, at after-school workshops, and with my grade team partners and colleagues, talking about curriculum. One day, at one of the workshops, a masterful teacher said something that changed my life — “we teach students, not curriculum.” It was in this moment I realized one vital component of my practice: my students. During my third year of teaching, just before hearing the statement above, I had moved schools and had a “difficult” class. “Difficult” because these children had been stigmatized, labeled, and judged because of where they lived and who they were. They were tired of this negativity and struggled to trust newcomers because they felt this treatment would continue.

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After hearing the teacher’s comment in the workshop, I went back to the class with a different outlook. What my lessons looked like wasn’t the only thing that mattered. Instead, I understood that establishing a relationship with my students so that they felt safe and honored within our space was critical. It was this class that allowed me to see that the students had to be at the centre of my practice, not my curriculum documents. It was in this moment that my practice changed. This comment allowed me to see that my students must guide my practice and those very lessons that I was busy planning, without even knowing who was in front of me, were secondary. This class helped me solidify my educational philosophy to one word: love. I had to love the community I worked in, the students I worked with, and the lessons I was working on. Looking at that equation, something still felt missing . . . What about the love of the staff I worked with? I was working tirelessly to build strong, healthy relationships with my students and their families, but what about the relationships with my colleagues? Relationships. What do relationships have to do with teaching? Is there a place for them, outside of the students who sit in front of us, and the parents/guardians that raise them? In a time where pressures in education loom from every direction, with the myriad of curriculum expectations in front of us, the different accommodations and modifications needed for our students, and the pressures from administration, parents, superintendents, school board, ministry, society, latest trends, latest strategies, and latest foci, why worry about building relationships with the “others” in our profession — the staff around us? We don’t have time for that. Why bother? We need to make time, and we need to bother. Our own mental health and well-being depend on it. In teaching, we fall into the trap of working alone, in our teaching context, and forget that we have a network of intelligent, thoughtful, and caring individuals around us to help and lean on. As my career continued, I was privileged to become a mentor for many beginning teachers and for a couple of years, I held the position of Literacy Coach in my board. These roles opened my eyes to the realization that it was these exact relationships I needed to foster before helping with any teaching content, strategies, or ideas. Many teachers were weary of who I was and what I wanted to impose on them. They were so tired and frustrated with all the pressures that I felt like just another pressure added to their lives. I really had to think about my role and my place in their space. How could I collaborate without adding stress to their lives? Essentially, how could I build this relationship with each of them? I quickly realized that I was a secondary character in our relationship. I needed to spend the time putting their needs before mine, especially in the beginning. During this first phase, I needed to listen attentively, with

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love, to paraphrase, to validate, to empower, to think, to reflect. The last thing I needed to do at that moment was to talk or to share. Through this first phase, I needed to foster a space for them to see that they matter, that their thoughts matter, and that their feelings matter. Many teachers have a hard time seeing this of themselves. We DO matter. Our identities matter. Our history matters. Our experiences matter. Our perspective matters. Our journey matters . . . During my time collaborating with different staff, I realized that we need to honor these many components of each other. My needs became intertwined with my colleagues’ needs as we worked together to make sense of our world. In a time where work around equity and well-being is at the forefront of education, we need to think about the issues and perspectives of our colleagues. We need to take the time to interpret each of these different components together. During professional development sessions, we need to spend time listening to each other, as much as listening to the presenter. We need to spend time to develop ideas together rather than having them pushed down on us. We are told what to do and how to do it so many times that it negates what we bring into the space, our knowledge and expertise devalued. There is a lot to learn and many ways to grow, but we cannot negate what each of us can contribute while on this journey of learning and growing. Through listening attentively and making the time for one another, we can strengthen ourselves and our practice. We can help each other through professional matters and personal experiences, whether making time in the staff room to socialize or making time after school to closely explore issues. Like our students and their families, we are worth it. And we need to make the time to support one another and show each other just this. Without judgment, but rather, with love and acceptance.

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Mentorship: Four Key Aspects Relationships How can we move towards trusting each other with our professional questions? How can we make sure that we both can talk about our teaching dilemmas without feeling that we are being judged? How can we ensure that there is consistent support for one another? What actions can we take to help each other grow as teachers?

Connection to Context How do we value the effect that our personal lives have had on our teaching lives? What stories do we need to tell so that we begin to understand how our view of teaching and learning has been shaped by past experiences? What questions can we ask patiently but persistently to disrupt some of our ideas about schools and schooling so that we move into new realms of effective and equitable teaching? What risks can we take in our teaching so that we get better at teaching?

Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy How can we support each other as we critically think about the young people whom we teach and the challenges they face in the world in which they live? How do we engage with ourselves and others in difficult conversations about equity and inclusive curriculum? How can we remain honest as we challenge the social norms and societal barriers that affect some of our students? What professional learning opportunities can we take advantage of together to learn more? How can we teach taking these ideas into account? What can we do together to help make success available to all our students?

Curriculum How can we be more creative with the curriculum? What links can we make? What project can we design to challenge us to do something new and exciting with what we have to teach? How will we share our new knowledge about our teaching with our colleagues?

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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6 “Resilience appears as beginning teachers develop confidence that they will attain qualified teacher status, and feel that they have a sense of agency in their role as teacher and feel supported in the challenging task of becoming a teacher. Importantly this resilience is not an innate psychological quality, but a capacity which is socially constructed and recognises that learning to teach is complex, demanding and as teaching is an interactive profession, it is also unpredictable.” — Christopher Day, Anne Edwards, Amanda Griffiths, and Qing Gu, Beyond Survival: Teachers and Resilience (p. 9)

The Difference That You Can Make

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remember the slogan on the delivery trucks from a major board of education: “Toronto Board of Education teachers make the difference.” They did. They do. You do. You make a difference every day by the way you enter the classroom, the words you speak, the activities you organize for your students, the care that you have for them, the teaching that you do, the assessment strategies that you implement, and the way that you respond to every student and their parents and guardians. You need to know that your words and your actions matter. Remember this. It will help you continue to work effectively in the years to come. There is really nothing like teaching, and I, for one, know that I am lucky to have entered this profession. I have had unforgettable moments, made deep friendships and lasting relationships, listened to powerful stories, witnessed some exceptional teaching, and experienced tremendous joys. All these things have enriched my life. It takes time to become a really good teacher, but the journey can be exciting and fulfilling.

Working at Resilience But what if you become overwhelmed or discouraged? It may well happen. The main thing I would say to you is this: keep going. I know how difficult it is to teach well, and I know how much harder it is when you lose confidence in yourself as a teacher. Wake up in the morning and get to school. Once you are there, get to work. And when you have time, seek  91

someone to talk to — someone who will give you good advice. You must trust this person and like his or her teaching style. Be honest about your feelings and ask for help. A caveat: Don’t let this person do the work for you. Listen to what your colleague says, consider whether you think it is worthwhile, and then go forward. Find your own way

Jigsaw I learned this activity at a professional learning session.   The class is divided into small groups. Each group is assigned one aspect of a topic. The members of each small group master that part of the topic. When everyone is ready, the groups are reorganized so that students find themselves in a group where they need to teach what they have learned to the group and then learn from each of the other members. In this way the many aspects of the topic are learned by all involved.

In my first year of teaching, I appealed to one of my colleagues for help. He was the head of Science, quite a bit older than me. He was adored by his students, had tons of experience, and had made a huge impact on hundreds of people — staff and students alike. With good intentions, he met with one of my classes. He appealed to them to be more considerate. Unfortunately, this approach backfired. The students became even more dismissive of me and my teaching. I realized that I had to appeal to them myself: by how I taught, how I conducted myself, what I said, what I planned, and how I interacted with them. Instead of just standing at the front of the class, I decided to arrange the classroom desks in a horseshoe formation. Doing this changed the “me versus them” kind of feeling in the room, something that made us all feel uncomfortable. I looked critically at my lessons and realized that I needed to give my students more choices about what we were studying. I consulted with the English department head. He gave me suggestions about available books that could be used in small groups. Then, I began to organize more group interactions, such as a jigsaw activity that helped me hear from the students who tended to speak less than some of the others. Eventually, the focus of the classroom was less on me and more on my students. These changes to the classroom space, the emphasis on group interaction, the use of varied source material, and greater student choice helped quite a bit. Because of what I had learned, I began the next year with more understanding and better planning. Just as the Internet cannot offer you authentic lesson plans, other teachers cannot teach for you. You must find your own way, as difficult as it is. Journal your journey

“Each school is a unique organism comprised of the collective struggles, history and hopes of the community it serves. There is no sweeping ‘fix’ for education just as there’s no curriculum that’ll work for all students. The only ‘fix’ is getting knee-deep in the humanity of it all.” — Tweet by Amy Fast @fastcrayon

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Studies have shown that teachers are particularly vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression. Teachers often ask me: “How do I keep the passion for teaching alive? How do I keep going?” Hanging in when you feel exhausted, inadequate, and dismissed is difficult, but there are creative ways of persevering. When I became discouraged after my third year of teaching, I decided to keep a journal of my thoughts and ideas. I spent a fair bit of money on the journal and bought a fountain pen that I liked to write with. I then made the journal into a kind of art project. I cut out images that I liked

and glued them into the journal. I copied out inspiring quotations. I kept notes on my thinking about teaching and what it meant to me. I pasted in thank-you cards from colleagues, parents, and students. I sketched. Slowly the journal evolved into something I was proud of. I began to read from it. I added to it. Then I began to share it with my closest colleagues. The journal became a way for me to reflect on where I was so that I could reach where I wanted to go. I still journal my thoughts.

Remember why you chose to teach If you feel down or worried, remember why you went into the teaching profession. Keep track of your teaching stories — those stories that convey significant moments in your evolution as a teacher — and tell them to people willing to listen. As you weave a tapestry for the stories, full of color and texture, citing both good times and bad, try to find the meaning in what you do, your encounters with others, and the help you have given students and their families. Connect it to what you want to achieve for your students and for yourself.  93

The world of teaching is not only intellectual and physical — it is also emotional. Indigenous ways of knowing have helped us understand the link between the heart and the head. Teaching is connected to our feelings. Don’t deny your feelings of inadequacy or fear — they are quite normal. At some point, we have all felt alone in the classroom and fearful of what lies ahead. There are many hearts yearning for inspiration in the classroom, and one of them is yours.

Falling in Love with Teaching (Again) As we worked on the All ‘I’s on Education research and co-planned the individual inquiry projects, we found out more about the teachers’ philosophies of teaching. We began to understand that teaching is connected to emotional ways of knowing and being, to a purpose that goes beyond something tangible, such as teaching contracts and curriculum documents. Nous sommes impliquées. One teacher, Wassila Tounes Taleb, spoke about feeling implicated in the work that she does every day in her classroom. She was aware that teaching was intrinsic to her identity and purpose in life. Another teacher, Tyler Boyle, said that the project helped him “fall in love with teaching again.” This statement made us stop to consider how teaching often comes from the heart — from a desire that is felt in some way, to make change, to affect minds, to bring the joy of learning into the lives of young people. We wondered if, in order to have students fall in love with learning, teachers might just have to fall in love with the profession, as well — to feel its significance and to work from that emotional connection. Source: Based on Kathleen Gould Lundy. 2016. Research Findings and Recommendations for All ‘I’s on Education: Imagination, Integration, Innovation. Toronto: Council of Ontario Directors of Education and the Ontario Ministry of Education (p. 35).

Think critically and be ready to act It may help you to consider how your students interpret you and what you are trying to do. Be aware of how you come across. Can your students trust you to look after them and be fair? Do they see your desire to help them learn? Think about your teaching — what is working and what is not. Seek help from reliable research and mentors. Be critical of what you are doing, work towards having agency, and change direction by taking different teaching approaches and finding more relevant teaching materials. In my experience, it takes a while to assess your teaching accurately and how you might address it. You might get part of it right but find there is another part you will have to work on. For instance, you might 94  

have a strategy down pat, but the timing of it needs to be improved. Or, you might have a very creative idea, but it should be tweaked to work effectively with your current class or in the space in which you find yourself. Developing confidence that you can deal with teaching’s complexities will make you resilient in the face of challenges.

Supportive Ways to Think about Your Teaching There are a number of ways to think about teaching that can support you, give you distance from worries and tensions, make you laugh, and rediscover the joy of teaching and learning if and when you find it has faded. Seek insight from authorities you value

“Teachers must be actively committed to a process of selfactualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students.” — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (p. 15)

When I need support, I turn not only to colleagues and friends to talk things through but also to the books and articles that have supported me in the past. Dorothy Heathcote, Charles Lundy, Patrick Palmer, Howard Gardner, Elliot Eisner, David Booth, bell hooks, and others give me the words I long for. Sometimes I find comfort in what these experts say. At other times, their challenges to me about teaching overwhelm me. I have to turn away. Teaching well feels almost impossible. Eventually, I return and let their words provoke me to redefine who I am as a teacher. Their words give me insight into what I need to do, how I need to act, to whom I need to pay attention, and where I need to go. For instance, in “The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching,” Patrick J. Palmer writes: Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror, and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge — and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.

For an expansion of these ideas, read Parker’s The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997).

This is heady and heavy stuff, but Palmer’s words inspire me to look inward as I have encouraged you to do in this book. His words help me work towards self-actualization and, as I do, I become a more authentic and effective teacher: a teacher who is more responsive, vulnerable, reflective, and aware.

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Relax and enjoy Although teaching is a serious undertaking, try not to take yourself too seriously. Having a sense of humor and lightening up can help restore your joy in teaching. Sometimes there is a place for irony and fun. One of my students, Hanna Yakymova, wrote the piece below as an entry in a teaching journal that my class assembled at the end of their year at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. This parody seemed to lighten the load of all that was expected of the teacher candidates. It was not meant to diminish the work we had done together, but rather, to help us relax and enjoy the work from a different vantage point. Teacher with Employable Skills & Pine Nuts Hanna Yakymova INGREDIENTS 1 whole student teacher fresh out of undergraduate studies A Mentored Inquiry in Teaching (MIT) investigation 2 practicums 1 cup of social skills (like empathy, supportiveness, and team orientation) Half a cup of subject mastery 2 tablespoons of understanding of sociological foundations of education 2 tablespoons of understanding of psychological foundations of education 1 tablespoon of Indigenous ways of learning and knowing 1 tablespoon of equity 1 tablespoon of lesson-planning A dash of your choice of “teacher-talk” (We recommend trying differentiated instruction, scaffolding, and extrinsic motivation.) Half a cup of pine nuts (optional) DIRECTIONS Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse student teacher and pat dry. Leave the skin on. Season with social skills, subject mastery, an understanding of psychological and sociological foundations of education and Indigenous ways of learning and knowing.   Cook in the oven until June 20. In a large skillet, melt the equity and lesson-planning and pan-fry the MIT investigation and 2 practicums until lightly browned. Cover and let cook over low heat until the student teacher is done. On June 20, mix everything in a bowl. Sprinkle with “teachertalk” and pine nuts.

Reflect on essentials For several years, I have worked with my student teachers to help them find a way to artistically reflect on the experience of learning to teach. They have sketched their responses, composed music and scores, danced their understandings, written poetry from various prompts, and created scenes for us to witness. 96  

In one case, I read aloud The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. My students used the same format as the picture book to create responses about teacher resilience, lesson planning, relationships, and identity. Fiona Ross wrote the following: The important thing about identity is that it is yours. It can shift and change, depending on the moment, situation or time. It can be put on you, but embraced as you choose. It can be used as an insult, absorbed or bristled against. It can be a point of pride, beauty and fulfillment. It can create communities of resistance, outrage and courage. But the important thing about identity is that it is yours.

Affirm to yourself that you can make a difference My drama students at the Faculty of Education, York University, created an anthology of their new understandings. I dictated the opening lines from Dennis Foon’s play Skin and asked each of them to respond to one line. The class then worked together to compose this poem which they performed as part of the drama anthology. I Am Five Foot Six Inches Tall I am five foot six inches tall and always Always Always Measuring up to someone. I am a teacher candidate who is exhausted and frustrated, but persevering. I have two arms, and only two, to reach out and embrace the life that I have chosen. Two legs to run with wild abandon on adventures with my kids. Two feet to step forward with my students, one foot after the next. Two ears to listen to the chatter of the classroom coming to life. Two eyes to make sure nothing goes unnoticed. One nose to sniff out success. One mouth to give voice to my thoughts, worries, and cares. Ten fingers to grip the chalk and watch my students’ ideas come to life. Ten toes to leave footprints for my students to follow. I can see the unspoken words of the silent student. I can hear my frustration creeping in as the bell always interrupts my l­essons. I can smell success in the air. I can touch the lives of my students, if they’ll let me. My blood is red because I have a heart made of flesh not metal. My blood is red and it pulses with every beat of my heart. My blood is red and makes my head feel clear and strong. My blood is red and it runs through my veins with a passion for change. I breathe in moments of uncertainty and struggle. I think I am in the right place.  97

Contributors: Jennifer Addeso, Nicole Amaral, Alison Blair, Michaela Chiarelli, Kimberly Chin, Kimberly Cumming, Dana Daniels, Sheleah Haughton, Heffat ­Hussaini, Christine Kinghorn, Emily Kocheff, Joshua Mete, Alessia Picarelli, Fiona Ross, Hailey Steeves

I feel I can make a difference. I feel my heart growing when I hear my students engage in important conversations. I feel I am uncertain whether or not I’ve made the right decision. I feel like maybe Maybe Maybe Maybe This might all be worth it.

Learn to be humble — You don’t have to know everything Amy Satterthwaite, once one of my student teachers, recently wrote to me. Now an experienced teacher, she shared these reflections on her teaching.

Called to Learn, Facilitate, and Explore I felt the urge to teach as a kid. Later, as a young adult finishing my undergraduate degree, I didn’t feel I knew enough to call myself a teacher though the vocation still called to me. At 28, I was still pretty sure I didn’t know enough to teach anyone much of anything, but I could no longer ignore the calling. So, it was when I was almost 30 that I started out as a new teacher. What I remember about beginning teaching is this: I realized very quickly that the motley assortment of 36 Grade 7 and 8 students I was working with collectively had more life experience, knowledge, and insight than I ever would. It was a very humbling realization, and immediately challenged all that I formerly held to be true and dear about teaching, on a fundamental level. Let me emphasize that what accompanied my excitement, anxiety, and enthusiasm at the beginning of my career was a deeply felt grief. That grief was connected to my letting go of romanticized ideas about teaching that were more like Dead Poets Society scenes seen through tearful eyes than anything that might transpire in my 21st century classroom. What emerged from that grief was the humility I needed to be a better teacher. As such, the word teacher has all but become redundant for me, replaced instead by learner. I’m a facilitator, coach, mentor, and co-learner, and gradually shifting to that identity as an educator all but saved me when I was close to burning out in that first year because I thought I had to know it all. Having taught adolescents for most of my career — an age group that is arguably the most talented at sniffing out inauthenticity — I was forced early on to be real with my kids. It took me some time, but eventually I was 98  

able to say to myself: relax, you are not the knower of all things, nor do you need to be. You are, like your students, the knower of some things. Get to know what your students know (and like!), and let them know some things about you, too. Show them that you are curious and that you love to learn. So, I would describe my career to date as being rooted in exploring ways of honoring my students’ lives, knowledge, and experiences by getting to know them. I still do this with whomever I work. I check what people teach me about themselves against the assumptions I make about them and push myself to face the biases it turns out I have. Becoming aware of my biases, and choosing to actively challenge my biases, has been and continues to be the most humbling and meaningful learning of my career. From this has grown my awareness of privilege, power, and the fundamental importance of equity in this system we are all simultaneously upholding and dismantling each day. It turned out that being an educator, for me, wasn’t going to be about knowing a lot of information and being really skilled at “delivering” it to kids; it was going to be about working in partnership with real people, as a dynamic team, to make meaning out of life by learning together. It is a privilege to get to do that with young people.

Contributing Your Strengths Good teachers are not good at everything, but they do have strengths that shine through and become valued. As we teach, we begin to hone our skills in a particular area. One teacher might be good at working with technology. That person might become the resource that the staff turns to when things go awry. Another teacher might excel at dealing with difficult issues and become known in the school as a sage and mentor. Among the teaching staff there might be an artist, an amazing coach, a great photographer, a chess player, an early childhood specialist . . . All can find unique opportunities to contribute. Find your niche We all have unique interests and have learned a lot over the years. Some of us love music; others know a lot about a certain sport, language, or art form. This knowledge is a gift for our students, and we must be sure to find ways to share it. So, don’t be afraid to reveal your expertise and your passion about it. People — both staff and students — will be delighted to learn from you. Your reputation will grow, and you will understand more clearly how to contribute to the school culture, to the students, and to the community to which they belong. You will become valued for what you know, and people will begin to depend on you, to turn to you for help.

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Seek camaraderie and a common purpose It is easy to feel isolated in a school, but you can overcome that by reaching out to your colleagues and working on projects together. Once, as the drama teacher, I asked for my colleagues’ help and was amazed at how keen they were to support the students in the work we were doing. They loved the extracurricular plays, and we all loved working together. We would meet at my apartment, share food, and have a blast figuring things out. There was something wonderful about being with my colleagues planning something exciting for our students. I wasn’t alone, and all of us were thrilled to be with one another. We talked about teaching as we planned together, and I began to see how important it was to be with colleagues I admired. I steered away from colleagues who were less excited about teaching than I was. One colleague used to tell me to calm down when I entered the staff room. He didn’t like my energy, he told me. I took him seriously at first. I became quiet and subdued among my colleagues. Thankfully, I began to see the advice for what it was and became myself again. Say yes to professional opportunities If your principal or others ask you to become involved in something, say yes. You might feel anxious or unprepared, but you will be stretched by the experience and will learn about yourself and teaching in the process. When I was in my second year of teaching, I was asked to be part of a provincial writing team. I did not think I knew enough to do the work, but my vice-principal encouraged me to accept the offer. I worked in the summer with experts in my field and learned so much from them. One of them — seeing that I did not, in fact, know very much — suggested that I take charge of the project’s annotated bibliography. So, I read professional books and summarized them. Only later did I realize what a mentor Micki Clemens was. She quietly supported me and helped me strengthen my knowledge of teaching by reading and writing about it. Embrace the necessity of risk As you gain more experience in teaching, you will begin to improvise, incorporate new ideas and strategies into your lessons, and take some risks. You will invent on the spot and work the strategies around what the students are giving you. Your lessons will become more innovative, complicated, and open-ended. While involved in “Voices of Innovative Practitioners,” the culminating event of the All ‘I’s on Education project, one teacher candidate, Angela Corapi, shared these observations pertaining to the 30 Ontario teachers engaged in the project.

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Realizations As a teacher candidate only a few months away from graduation, I stood in that studio observing these passionate educators and realized that I was about to take the next step towards a life full of risks. I realized that in a couple years from now, I may have my own stories to tell, similar to those of these teachers. I realized that teaching is my vocation, and my goal is to inspire my students to look beyond their textbooks when learning about the world. Finally, I realized that no matter how the world of education may progress in the years to come, I know that I must take risks both inside and outside of the classroom, as these teachers did, in order to better the world for the future.

At the end of “Voices of Innovative Practitioners,” the teacher-­ performers and the audience all turned to a large projection screen that filled the back of the stage. They watched a brief slideshow projecting the faces of many of the students from the 10 schools involved in the All ‘I’s on Education project. The effect was emotional and empowering as it reminded all those present that they were there to serve students — to look after them as well as to teach them — so that the students would be inspired to live privately happy and publicly useful lives, changing the world for the better. Rarely do teachers have such an opportunity to share their teaching stories in the public way that the 30 educators involved in the All ‘I’s on Education project did, but all teachers benefit from actively remembering that they are there, in their classrooms, amid all kinds of uncertainties and challenges, to serve their students.

Moments for Transformation “You have a life project, a way of being in the world through which and by means of which you define yourself as a person. The project is teaching, and if you are like me, it is a life long quest, a life long project. Like artists, teachers are always in process, always exploring our texts, our raw materials, always seeking ways of reaching others, and moving others to come alive, to think about their thinking, to create meanings, to transform their lived worlds.” — Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar (p. 70)

I have taught for a very long time. I have had some triumphs and many defeats. Numerous times I have stepped back and looked at my teaching critically so that I could change direction, move beyond the superficial, and be kinder, fairer, and more inclusive. I have learned how very much my choice of words matters, and I regret the times when my words have been misunderstood. I know it is essential to watch what I say and do — to be intentional about everything. I am aware of how students are “reading” me and my teaching. I also know how precious every teachable moment is. As a consultant and faculty adviser who supervises practicums, I have seen teachable moments — those fleeting opportunities to provide insight — disappear due to a lack of belief that students could learn something complicated. Teaching marked by superficiality, lack of depth, an unwillingness to take risks, and merely short-term fun will not have an impact on the minds and emotions of our students. We are called to do much more.  101

“The difficult I’ll do right now; the impossible will take a while.” — Billy Holiday

As we dig deep into the work, we need to remain flexible enough to recognize teachable moments and their capacity to transform our classrooms into places where learning happens in surprising ways. I know that when we work really hard with and for our students, when we challenge both ourselves and them to be involved in learning that is thoughtful, critical, and difficult, we all emerge from the experience transformed in some significant way, full of awareness, knowledge, empathy, and strength. Finding joy I wrote this book to celebrate what teaching is and to look critically and with compassion at the difficulties inherent in the work we do every day. I hope that I have been able to provide you with some insight, comfort, guidance, and inspiration to do the hard work demanded of you. Teaching has been one of the most joyful aspects of my life — and I am confident that it will bring you joy. You may find the beginning years challenging, but you will also experience moments of delight and inspiration. Staying the course will enable you to make a real, positive difference in the lives of your students — and, indeed, the world. So, I encourage you . . . Take a deep breath. Stand up. Teach.

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Hands-on Tips and Tools A few tips and tools to get you started . . .   The following pages have been designed for easy use in your classroom. Some of them give helpful tips that you can share with your students. Others offer ways to get your students involved in an activity independently, with a partner, or as a whole class.   As you work with the reproducible pages, feel free to adapt them. The lesson plan template is simply a suggestion to get you started. The student pages have been effective in my teaching, but you will want to adapt them for your needs. Each class and each student will respond differently so keep notes about what happens when you do any of these activities. That will help you make them your own. All the ideas in this book will be affected by your teacherly “touch” and will evolve as you gain more experience and take more risks. Lesson Plan Template (Teacher)  104 Signature Pieces  106 Name Story  107 I Am From . . .  108 Learning Snapshot  109 Gallery Walk  110 Choral Reading  111 Sentence Starters  112 Four Corners  113 Role(s) on the Wall  114 Questions for Critical Inquiry  115

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Lesson Plan Template 1. Lesson Plan Information Subject/Course:

Name:

Grade Level:

Date:        Time:

Topic:

Length of Period:

2. Expectation(s) Expectation(s) (From provincial or state guidelines):

Learning Skills: 3. Content What do I want my students to know and/or be able to do by the end of the lesson?

4. Assessment/Evaluation How will I know that my students have learned what I planned for them to learn? How will I record these data? (Examples: anecdotal records, checklist, rating scale, rubric, success criteria) 5. Learning Context A. Instructional Considerations 1. What prior experiences, knowledge, and skills do my students bring with them to this learning experience? 2. How will I differentiate the instruction (content, process, and/or product) to ensure the inclusion of all of my students? 3. What are the specific accommodations and/or modifications for the students who have been identified for individual education plans? 4. How will I check for understanding? B. Learning Environment How will I set up the space so that it is conducive to learning? Where will I be as the students learn? How will my students work? Individually, in partners, in small groups, or as a whole class?

C. Resources/Materials What materials do I need to have ready before I begin the lesson? When should I introduce the materials? Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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6. Teaching/Learning Strategies ENGAGEMENT How will I engage my students?

How will I activate prior knowledge?

EXPLORATION What will I have my students do?

EXTENSION How can I extend and deepen the learning?

ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION How will I check for understanding?

What will my students do to demonstrate their learning?

CONCLUSION How will I conclude the lesson?

7. My Reflections on the Lesson What do I need to do to become more effective as a teacher in supporting learning?

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Signature Pieces 1. Find a partner and sit back to back. Sign your name as if you were signing an important document such as a passport application. Signature:



Now, fold the top part of the paper so that your signature is hidden.



On a signal from your teacher, pass the paper to your partner. You will receive your partner’s signature in turn.

2. How do you interpret your partner’s signature? Is your partner creative, organized, perky, friendly, athletic? Based on what you see, what adjectives can you think of?

Interpretation of my partner’s signature:

3. On a signal from your teacher, turn and face your partner. Talk about your interpretation of each signature.

Ask each other:  Are these interpretations true? Yes    No    Partially



What does each signature reveal?



What does each signature hide?

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Name Story What is your name? What do you like about your name?

What don’t you like about your name?

Why was this name chosen for you?

What does your name mean? If you have a nickname, what is it and what does it mean? How did your nickname come to be?

Do you know your name in another language? What is it? If you had a chance to choose another name, what would that be? Why? Do you have more than one name? If so, are you willing to share your other given names? What are they?

With thanks to Belarie Zatzman and Larry Swartz Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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I Am From . . . This is but one list of possible prompts on which to base a reflective poem. Write down your favorite thing to eat. Try to describe some of its characteristics.

I am from . . .

Think about your journey to school every day. Record the stores, parks, or landmarks you pass on the way to school.

I am from . . .

Write down a favorite family saying. (You can write this in your first language.)

I am from . . .

Describe an old toy or keepsake you will never throw away.

I am from . . .

Name and describe the place you wish you could return to when you have more time and money.

I am from . . .

Think about holiday food, songs, and traditions. Describe them.

I am from . . .

Think about your favorite time or season.

I am from . . .

Write about a choice that either you made or was made for you — something that changed your life in some way.

I am from . . .

With a partner, share what you have written and then find a way of combining your ideas using the frame “We are from . . .”

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Learning Snapshot Students work in pairs for this activity, which is based on I see, I am reminded of, and I wonder. I see . . .

My partner saw . . .

I am reminded of . . .

My partner was reminded of . . .

I wonder . . .

My partner wondered . . .

Our questions, ideas, and thoughts . . .

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Gallery Walk 1. Walk around the classroom looking at the images, reading the texts, touching the artifacts, or watching short videos. Make sure that you take the time to look at all the displays. 2. Determine which display most speaks to you in some way. 3. Stand by that display and jot down some reactions to it. 4. Notice other people who have chosen to stand near you. 5. With other students near you, engage in a conversation about your personal reactions, referring to your notes. You may be asked to

•  answer specific questions posed by your teacher



•  develop a list of questions as a group



•  speak about why you chose to stand where you did and compare your    reactions or interpretations with others near you

6. Appoint two spokespeople from your group. The first spokesperson will describe the display or read the text. The second spokesperson will summarize the group discussion for the rest of the class. 7. Hold a whole class discussion.

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Choral Reading Play with the language in the text even if you do not fully understand the words. Play with the beat and rhythm of the text. Read the text in different ways and in different combinations. Experiment with your voices. Take risks. Support one another, and listen to everyone’s suggestions. Have fun!

Volume Try varying the volume from loud to soft and then from soft to loud. Try reading the beginning in whispers. Try reading the ending, shouting the words as loudly as you can.

Tempo Vary the tempo, going from fast to slow and then from slow to fast. Use body percussion — hand clapping, finger snapping, foot stomping, and more.

Emotion Seek the meaning behind the words by reading the text with different emotions, anger, sadness, disappointment, exhaustion, and happiness among them.

Sounds and Silence Experiment with repeating words or even overlaying some of them. Add sound effects as appropriate, perhaps wind, crickets, or car horns. Try using silence. Leave words or phrases out to see what effect this has on the meaning.

Voice Experiment with combinations of voices, such as solo, duet, trio, and whole class in unison. Begin with a few voices and gradually increase the number of voices. Intermingle low voices with higher voices.

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Sentence Starters Sentence starters may be used in collaborative writing.

One of the most compelling questions we have is . . . How could . . .? Why would . . .? What if . . .? What should . . .? Is it possible that . . .? Is it true that . . .? I would add that . . . I would like to share a different point of view . . . Something I noticed was . . .

What our group finally realized was that . . . Our first reaction to the image was . . . We were confused by . . . Initially we did not understand . . . After talking together, we grew to understand that . . . If we could go back in time . . . In the future . . . Finally, we would like to say . . . We have one question that we would like to pose. It is simply this . . . Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Four Corners

Corner 1

Corner 3

Strongly AGREE

AGREE

Students should feel free to move from one corner to another as they gain more understanding. Prompting Questioning Sharing DON’T KNOW

CONFUSED Debating Analyzing Synthesizing Ideas

Corner 2

Corner 4

Strongly DISAGREE

DISAGREE

Pembroke Publishers © 2018 Stand Up and Teach by Kathleen Gould Lundy ISBN 978-1-55138-331-6

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Role(s) on the Wall

ignorance

hatred

prou d

bitter

ry

ed min

s irnes unfa

ice d u j pre

DAD

ang

er det

anx ious

ul hopef

er Moth ble a

nt Fat me her e c r t o f RUBY r l n i a t e tle sm ice pol scared fear

hero War

ried

MOM

Char l brav es B e

conv

prou d

s. Henr y Mr strong

strong

wor

clear- d e head s trong ng inci

experience

violence

discrimi nation

Drawings of civil rights activist Ruby Bridges as a child and her parents: Note that on the outside of the figures, the 1960s environment in New Orleans is described. Words such as prejudice and violence appear. Words outside the figures but close to Ruby, in the centre, identify people who support the young girl (e.g., Mrs. Henry). Words within each figure are either adjectives describing how each character feels (e.g., hopeful for the mother) or character traits (e.g., brave for Ruby). These studentgenerated words are based on the graphic novel In a Class of Her Own.

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Questions for Critical Inquiry What do we know for sure?

What do we want to know?

Who could give us more information?

Five Critical Questions Our Group Has Designed 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Recommended Resources

Anderson, Mike. 2010. The Well-Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane inside the Classroom and out. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Beane, James A. 1993. A Middle School Curriculum: From Rhetoric to Reality. 2nd ed. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association. Booth, David W. 2017. What Is a ‘Good’ Teacher? Markham, ON: Pembroke. Gear, Adrienne. 2018. Powerful Understanding: Helping Students Explore, Question and Transform Their Thinking about . . . Themselves and the World around Them. Markham, ON: Pembroke. Goleman, Daniel. 2014. Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury. Greene, Ross W. 2014. Lost at School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges Are Falling through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them. New York: Scribner. Johnson, David W., and Frank P. Johnson. 2017. Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. New York: Pearson. Lundy, Kathleen Gould, and Larry Swartz. 2011. Creating Caring Classrooms: How to Encourage Students to Communicate, Create and Be Compassionate of Others. Markham, ON: Pembroke. Lundy, Kathleen Gould. 2015. Conquering the Crowded Curriculum. Markham, ON: Pembroke. Mandel, Joey. 2017. Keep Growing. Markham, ON: Pembroke. Schwartz, Kyle. 2016. I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids. Boston: Da Capo Lifelong Books. Swartz, Larry. 2014. Dramathemes. 3rd ed. Markham, ON: Pembroke.

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Tough, Paul. 2014. How Children Succeed: Confidence, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. London: Arrow Books. Yuill, Amanda. 2016. Substitute Teaching? Everything You Need to Get the Students on Your Side and Teach Them Too! Ready-to-Use Tools, Tips, and Lesson Ideas for Every Grade from K–8. Markham, ON: Pembroke.

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Bibliography Assessment Reform Group. 2002. Assessment for Learning: 10 Principles: Research-Based Principles of Assessment for Learning to Guide Classroom Practice. London: Nuffield Foundation. Barlin, Dara. 2010. “Better Mentoring, Better Teachers: Three Factors That Help Ensure Better Programs. Education Week, March 25. Barth, Roland S. 2006. “Improving Relationships within the Schoolhouse.” Improving Professional Practice 63 (6): 8–13. Booth, David, and Richard E. Coles. 2017. What Is a ‘Good’ Teacher? Markham, ON: Pembroke. Courtney, Richard. 1989. Play, Drama and Thought: The Intellectual Background to Dramatic Education. Toronto: Simon & Pierre. Day, Christopher, Anne Edwards, Amanda Griffiths, and Qing Gu. 2011. Beyond Survival: Teachers and Resilience: Key Messages from an ESRCFunded Seminar Series. Nottingham, UK: Nottingham University. Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. Edited by Colin Gordon. Translated by Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper. New York: Pantheon Books. Greene, Maxine. 1978. Landscapes of Learning. New York: Teachers College Press. ———. 2001. Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetics Education. New York: Teachers College Press. Hattie, John. 2009. Visible Learning. London: Routledge. hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress. New York: Taylor & Francis. Lundy, Kathleen Gould. 2009. Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World. Markham, ON: Pembroke. ———. 2016. Research Findings and Recommendations for All ‘I’s on Education: Imagination, Integration, Innovation. Toronto: Council  119

of Ontario Directors of Education and the Ontario Ministry of Education. Lundy, Kathleen Gould, and Netta Kornberg. 2016. Imagine, Integrate, Innovate: A Professional Inquiry Guide for 3i Educators. Toronto: Council of Ontario Directors of Education and the Ontario Ministry of Education. Moyers, Bill D. 1995. Healing and the Mind. Edited by Betty Sue Flowers. New York: Broadway Books. Ontario Ministry of Education. 2010. New Teacher Induction Program: Induction Elements Manual. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teacher/ induction.html Quinton, Sophie. 2013. “Good Teachers Embrace Their Students’ Cultural Backgrounds.” The Atlantic (November 11). https://www. theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/good-teachers-embracetheir-students-cultural-backgrounds/281337/ Saxton, Juliana, Carole Miller, Linda Laidlaw, and Joanne O’Mara. 2018. Asking Better Questions. 3rd ed. Markham, ON: Pembroke. Schwartz, Kyle. 2016. I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids. Boston: Da Capo Lifelong Books.

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Index access, 37 active listening, 46–47 All ‘I’s on Education, 7, 15, 17, 29, 55, 67, 77, 85, 86, 94, 100, 101 analytical interviews, 50–51 artifacts, 47 assessment, 39, 41, 42 attitudes, 65 backward design, 42–44 belonging, 21 big ideas, 42–43 blaming the audience, 60 brainstorming, 48 camaraderie, 100 cellphones, 72 choice, 67–68 choral reading, 48, 111 chunking information, 70–71 classroom acknowledging students, 14 cleaning, 72–73 co-creating the learning environment, 13–14 color and lighting, 13 first words, 14–15 groups at work, 65–67 imagining the space, 13 order, 72–73 seating arrangements, 63 sharing feelings, 15

story, 63–64 strategic use of space, 62–63 student responsibilities, 64 taking students’ pulse, 14 classroom community belonging and respect, 20–21 building, 24–34 finding the fit, 21 forum for students’ voices, 20 getting-to-know-you games, 27–28 identity stories, 29–34 name games, 25–27 questions, 25 teaching/learning dynamic, 19–20 classroom management attitudes and perceptions, 65 common responses to avoid, 64–65 deepening learning, 60 establishing clear expectations, 61–62 group work, 65–67 power sharing, 61 seating arrangement, 63 story, 63–64 strategic use of space, 62–63 strategies, 67–73 student responsibilities, 64 tasks, 73 teaching/learning dynamic, 59–62 uncertainty, 60 vulnerability, 60 willingness to change, 60–61  121

working the room, 70 collaborative writing, 48 colleagues, 16, 100 common responses to avoid, 64–65 competition, 69 content, 37 context, 38 Corridor of Voices, 49 critical inquiry, 53 critical thinking, 94–95 critical viewing, 49 culture, 20 curriculum documents, 67 differentiated instruction, 39 documents, 11 dress, 12 effective teaching, 39 engaging students, 46 ensemble-based learning, 24–25 expectations, 61–62, 67 exploring lessons, 46 extending learning, 46 feelings, 15 field trips, 11 finding joy, 102 first impressions, 24 first words, 14–15 Four Corners, 49, 113 getting-to-know-you games Atom, 28 Birthday Line, 28 described, 27 Step into the Circle, 27–28 giving of yourself earning community’s trust, 16–17 looking out for students, 15 respecting colleagues and staff, 16 sharing what matters, 16 groups/grouping arranging seating, 63 classroom work, 65–67 English language learners, 66 monitoring individuals, 65–66 presentations, 66–67 purpose, 66 questions, 65 retrieving work, 71 122  

success, 66 suggestions, 62 varying, 69 Hands-on Tips and Tools, 103 Choral Reading, 111 Four Corners, 113 Gallery Walk, 110 I Am From . . . , 108 Lesson Plan Template, 104–5 Learning Snapshot, 109 Name Story, 107 Questions for Critical Inquiry, 115 Role(s) on the Wall, 114 Sentence Starters, 112 Signature Pieces, 106 homework, 72 Hot Seating, 49–50 humor, 96 I see …, I remember …, I hope …, 82 identity stories described, 29 Gallery Walk into Understanding, 32–34, 110 I Am From …, 30–31, 108 Let the Masks Speak, 29 Name Stories, 29–30, 107 Personal Artifacts, 30 Signature Pieces, 29, 82, 106 We Are From …, 32, 108 inclusiveness, 68 Inner/Outer Circle, 50 intrinsic rewards, 68 Jigsaw, 92 jot notes, 51 journaling, 92–93 learning environment, 13–14 lesson endings, 73 lesson plan/planning backward design, 42–44 big ideas, 42–43 delivery, 44–45 dichotomy of teaching, 57 evolution of, 35–36 five basic questions about teaching, 38 four tenets, 37–38 framework, 37–38 material organization, 41 promoting learning, 46–53

scaffolding, 36 scanning, 36 seven steps in lesson planning, 39–41 shaping and sequence, 40 six Es of effective teaching, 39 source materials, 44 teachable moments, 45 template, 36, 104–5 three-part lessons, 45–46 words and value, 36 learning snapshot, 38, 109 lighting, 13 listening, 69 material distribution, 69 mentors/mentoring benefits, 75–76 building the relationship, 79–86 critical questions, 81 examples, 76–77, 78 expectations, 80 formal matches, 78–79 four key aspects, 90 good people, 77–79 learning contexts, 84–85 pedagogical signature, 78, 82–83 permission, 86–87 personal school stories, 83–84 principal, 86 program basics, 79 reciprocity, 80 sharing stories of school challenges, 81–82 teaching lives, 80–81 teaching students, not curriculum, 87–89 working together, 85–86 music, 13 name games Back to Back/Face to Face, 27 described, 25 extension, 27 Name and Motion, 26 Name Switch Now, 26–27 Say Hello, 26 The Seat on My Right Is Free, 27 Stomp It, Name It, Clap It, 26 New Teacher Induction Program, 78 newcomers, 24 niche, 99 notebooks/sketchbooks, 46–47

organization, 11 partner talk, 71–72 pedagogical signatures, 78, 82–83 pedagogy, 19, 37 perceptions, 65 permission, 86–87 personal documents, 11 personal time, 10, 12 playing ball with words/phrases, 47–48 poetry, 48 “power of yet,” 64 power sharing, 61 PowerPoint plan, 36 preparation arrival, 12 documents, 11 dress, 12 organization, 11 personal time, 10, 12 school life, 10–11 take a breath, 10 trial run to school, 11 principal (as mentor), 86 professional opportunities, 100 pulse of class, 14, 70 punctuality, 12, 69 purpose, 100 questions, 9–10, 40, 115 Readers Theatre, 51 realizations, 101 recess, 72 relationships, 21–22 reputation, 17–18 resilience critical thinking, 94–95 described, 91–92 falling in love with teaching, 94 finding your way, 92 journaling, 92–93 teaching stories, 93–94 respect, 16, 20–21 responses, 64–65 risk, 18, 100–101 role model, 16 Role on the Wall, 52, 114 school life, 10–11

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seating arrangements, 63, 69 sense of self, 21–22 sentence starters, 48, 112 sharing, 16 signals, 69 soundscape creation, 52 source materials, 44 spontaneity, 67–68 strengths camaraderie, 100 common purpose, 100 contributing, 99–101 necessity of risk, 100–101 niche, 99 professional opportunities, 100 student documents, 11 students acknowledging, 14 attention seeking, 71 attuning to voices of, 22–24 classroom responsibilities, 64 cleaning and ordering classroom, 72–73 developmental needs, 68 engaging, 46 exploring lessons, 46 extending learning, 46 fitting, 21 focusing on, 68 forum for, 20 getting to know, 25, 34 grouping, 62, 63, 69 listening to, 63–64 negative responses, 68 new, 24 partner talk, 71–72 protecting, 15 recess break, 72 retrieving work, 71 self-awareness, 21–22 sharing plan with, 68 teachers’ sense of, 21–22 supporting your teaching affirmation, 97–98 authoritative insight, 95 essentials, 96–97 humility, 98–99 humor, 96

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tableaux, 52–53 teachable moments, 45, 101–2 teaching dichotomy of, 57 falling in love with, 94 five basic questions, 38–39 innovative, 7 learning and growing, 18 process, 5–6 six Es of effective teaching, 39 standing out, 6–7, 8 supportive ways to think about, 95–99 teaching/learning dynamic accepting uncertainty, 60 classroom community, 19–20 deepening learning, 60 establishing clear expectations, 61–62 navigating, 59–62 sharing power, 61 vulnerability as strength, 60 willingness to change, 60–61 Think-Pair-Share, 71–72 three-part lessons, 45–46 timing, 41, 69 touchstones, artifacts as, 47 transactional texts, 51 transformation, 101–2 transitioning, 40, 69–70 uncertainty, 60 unit planning described, 54 dichotomy of teaching, 57 example, 56–57 finding the right fit, 55 fresh eyes, 55 visual interpretation, 47 voice modulation, 70 vulnerability, 60 waiting for response, 70 Walk around Reading, 53 “When I say go …,” 69 willingness to change, 60–61

What do you need for a well-run classroom full of engaged students? Kathy Lundy takes you step-by-step through the nitty-gritty details of creating a classroom that works for you and your students. It offers the basic information you need to get started; from what to wear to greeting students to keeping on top of what’s happening. A selection of hands-on tips and tools will help you involve your students as they work independently, with a partner, or as a whole class. Based on extensive classroom experience, Stand Up and Teach introduces you to the essentials of teaching and shows you how to • • • • •

establish a safe, inclusive, respectful, and culturally responsive classroom plan instruction around 4 useful frameworks that include 20 teaching strategies manage your classroom with 30 strategies for beginning teachers take advantage of the power of mentor relationships become resilient enough to meet the inevitable challenges of teaching

Kathleen Gould Lundy has been involved in teaching and the arts for more than 30 years. A popular speaker and education leader, Kathy is committed to inventive, inclusive teaching that impacts student achievement. Involved in the development of curriculum documents and instruction videos on many aspects of learning, she teaches at the faculty of education at York University, in the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and at OISEUniversity of Toronto. Kathy’s books for teachers include Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World, Creating Caring Classrooms, and Conquering the Crowded Curriculum.

Front Cover Photo: skynesher / Getty Images

Photo credit – Jim Curran

This highly readable book is committed to helping teachers be the kind of teacher that makes a difference in students’ lives. It captures the thrill of teaching that is dynamic, authentic, interactive, messy, reciprocal, uncertain, responsive, challenging, and exciting — where the unexpected fuels discussion and debate and promotes different kinds of learning. Stand Up and Teach is an ideal resource for those who are learning to teach, and it will inspire those who want to keep growing in their teaching practice.