What makes a great school?

Last week I took advantage of my chronic insomnia and used those bonus hours between 3 and 6 am to write a letter to the CEO of my children's school district. Prince George's Public Schools is "one of the nation's 25 largest school districts, having 204 schools, approximately 124,000 students and nearly 18,000 employees." It is enormous. It's unwieldy.

So far, however, I have been pleasantly impressed by the district. Despite the fact that I am one parent among thousands, when my children's kindergarten classes were too big I sent emails and within a week there was an extra aide on staff. When I spoke at the School Board meeting about enrichment programs I was approached by several board members afterwards, and when the CEO (think "superintendent") visited my children's school, he inquired about my comments. They are listening. I am now working on the premise that most of the responsible adults involved are interested in seeking innovative solutions for serving so many children and supporting so many schools in such a diverse system.

So how do we do that?

A high quality education should not be for the lucky and the wealthy, it should be for every last child in our county. This is what the "No Child Left Behind Act" purported to do, to set the expectation that all children could achieve at the same level, irregardless of income, race, native language or learning disability. It is a noble goal. I am skeptical about the ability of each child to reach the same level of achievement (just look at the diversity of learning styles and outcomes in your own family to realize the great variation that exists within the human race), but I do think it is reasonable to demand that each child receive the same quality of education. The basic recipe for a high quality school is not complicated:

1) Intelligent, well-trained, hard working teachers and support staff
2) Small class sizes
3) Safe school buildings with access to open spaces, books and current technology
4) Research based curricula that holds students and teachers to high standards
5) Enrichment opportunities (project based learning, arts, foreign language instruction)

On top of this you can add nuts and chocolate, go vegan or low-fat, whatever suits your community.

Yes, assessment plays a part, and we should know what kids know and track how are schools are doing by monitoring their scores. However, we should also be looking closely at the school experience of each child. Do children have access to similar benefits, whether they are in a charter or a traditional public school, whether they go to school in DC or Prince George's County?

No one can dispute that the answer is a resounding NO. Schools are vastly dissimilar, from state to state, across counties, even within towns. Everyone can think of an example of a great school and a mediocre or bad school "just down the road."

In the PG County school district we have magnet schools. As their name suggests they are designed to attract better students, so slots on their rosters are highly coveted. Some are language immersion programs and produce students with the highest test scores in the county. Others have speciality programs, like the Montessori school which only accepts children into kindergarten and then limits class size after that. Most are TAG schools (Talented And Gifted) which were formed on the premise that TAG students (meaning those students who come from a literate, English-speaking household and do not have learning disabilities) need and deserve access to rigorous classes, foreign language instruction, and more enrichment opportunities. The schools are better than most of the neighborhood schools. I despise them for this.

My late-night letter to the CEO argues that the decision to invest so many resources in these magnet schools is both unjust and unwise. If our school district is going to be great, the place to invest is in the neighborhood schools. Strong neighborhood schools will both attract better students and make better students.

The letter is in his mailbox now, and in the mailboxes of school board members, and my county council member, waiting to be opened after a vacation of reflection and resolutions. I ask for small class sizes, an art teacher and a Spanish teacher. A modest and manageable request, I think. My vision is much grander, it is a county of nothing but great schools, but this is a start. And if I receive no response? Maybe it's time to start looking at charter schools.

Why Teachers Might Not Write (or at least Why I Don’t): An Apology

It is Monday, December 23^rd and technically the first day of vacation. It is the first opportunity I have had to sit down and string together sentences since October. I resolved five months ago to write “regularly,” with the noble fantasy of waking up an hour early or devoting the last thirty minutes of each day to reflection and cataloguing and trying to make sense of what is going on in the messy petri dish of my classroom. To be fair, each morning I wake up and go to bed THINKING about thinking about my classroom. But I don’t take the time to write. There is plenty to write. There is no time.

I often wonder (certainly daily, sometimes hourly) if there is something wrong with me. I see other teachers coasting into their orderly classrooms a few minutes before 8 am each morning, and scooting out the door just after 4. I read facebook posts about their tv shows and hobbies and weekends away. I observe colleagues volunteering to run committees, delivering home baked cookies to the teacher’s lounge, hanging out in the office having casual conversations about the news and their daily lives. From my perspective just about everyone else has figured out how to make teaching a sustainable career capable of achieving equilibrium. I have not. My days go like this:

After waking up my kids, making lunches, getting everyone dressed and in the car and dropped off at school, I drive through traffic and park so I can jog to school where I squeak in the door at 8:00, 7:45 if I am lucky, and then I print up my schedule, copy any worksheets for the day, check for any last minute email changes, after which I take the stairs two at a time to my classroom, unstack the chairs, write the Morning Message on the white board, pick up and sharpen pencils and wipe down tables, try to bring order to my desk which is usually covered with a collection of completed work, notes from parents, confiscated items and randomly acquired markers, just in time for the students to arrive at 8:15 whom ideally I meet at the door where I check in on behavior goals for the day, ask if they have gotten enough sleep and eaten breakfast, try to make a positive touch point before a long day of disciplining, remind them to turn in homework and sharpen two pencils, until finally it is 8:30 and we all gather for Morning Meeting on the rug where I collect their first math problems of the day, take attendance, lead them in a greeting, a share, a game, a time to set our intentions for the day, until 9 am when it is time to transition to Literacy and I read a short piece of text and model my thinking on chart paper, and dismiss them to a “menu” of independent activities, making sure the list is not too long to be overwhelming and not too short to leave them any time to fool around, making sure each child has reading material that is both accessible and challenging, so I can pull small groups, sometimes one or two at a time working on decoding (sounding out) multi-syllable words, sometimes in groups as large as six who are reading novels like A Wrinkle in Time and working on determining character motivation, trying to stay focused on the needs of each group and relying on my assistant teacher to manage the kids who want to chat, who refuse to read, who are taking scissors and systematically removing all of the erasers off of all of the pencils, but still there is the inevitable student who needs to talk to  me, to ask about an assignment, a concern, a question that only I can answer, so I remind them that I am not to be interrupted, and remind the assistant to address their concerns, until it is time for snack, at which point we must feed all of the children lest they start arguing and crying before lunch time, and remember that Nate needs his rest to mitigate his physical disability, and remember that Jane needs all materials loaded onto her iPad to mitigate her visual impairment, and remember that Darcy and William need their sensory break to mitigate their inattention, and Cory and Tom need a movement break to mitigate their hyperactivity, after which there are demands of water, requests for the rest room, messes to be dealt with, before it is time for them to line up and leave the room for the blessed “Special,” music, art, drama, PE, Spanish, when once a day they leave and I am awarded 45 minutes to get something done, which is the point when I must start running again, to the copier, to the meeting, to make the chart for the lesson, to check-out the computers for math practice, to set up the materials for the demonstration, before it is time for them to return and start math, when they break into groups according to what they know and what they need to learn, rotating between independent work which is catered to their individual needs, and fact practice on the computers which has been selected for the skill, and instruction with me or another teacher on the rug or at the back table where we pose problems, share solutions, walk through strategies, trying to ensure that each child feels both challenged and successful, before it is time for lunch which must be distributed, monitored, mediated, after which there are crumbs to be swept, spills to be absorbed, trash to be removed, before spelling when there are 500 pieces of paper with spelling words sorted onto desks and pasted into books, or writing which is the best time of day, because there is silence and because they are pouring their souls into their journals, and the worst time because so many hate to think about their own lives, followed by recess when I must check-in the homework from last night and hand out the homework for tonight and prepare for the last lesson of the day, until finally Expedition with its small groups and deep questions and problem based learning when the children are the least focused and most tired and more likely to drag their feet, refuse to work, become distracted, engage in conflicts, but we implore them to give us one last hour until it is finally, thankfully 3:00, when homework must be written down and tucked into folders, when chairs must be stacked and pencils picked up and stray markers put into supply bins (or tossed onto my desk), when parents must be greeted and small details discussed, like who misbehaved, or who didn’t have a lunch, or who needs to review X or Y or Z before the quiz next Monday, until finally, thankfully they leave, one by one, and there is quiet, and I can use the bathroom, and there is a moment to sit and sip my tea which has been waiting in its thermos before I turn to the work to be graded, the lessons to be planned, the emails to be written about the meeting that needs to be held about the child who is not progressing as we would expect given the circumstances or the field study that we would like to hold next month or the pencils that need to be ordered, all before it is time to race out the door at 5 pm, not to an exercise class but to pick up my children and shepherd them home for dinner and homework and books and songs and a kiss and bed, when I might take a moment to ask my husband about his day before turning once again to the tests to be graded, the essays to be read, the emails to be sent, until I can’t keep my eyes open and I let myself fall asleep, because in a few hours I will wake up and begin again.

So I don’t write.

There is a rhythm and reason to this apparent cacophony. The days have a level of predictability. After ten years in the classroom I have systems that run themselves, and many responsibilities are assumed by my assistant, without whom I could not survive.  But this is the first year that I have begun to feel that “I am too old for this.”   I need to find a way to lubricate the weeks so that I move through them without so much friction. So that there is energy left at the end of the day for myself and my family.

So I can write.

Talking about Talking

On Friday afternoons my classroom is used for a computer game design class. It's more of a club, really, because as far as I can tell there is little or no instruction, which seems appropriate for a Friday afternoon. The students gather by the door, ecstatic with anticipation. An adult roles a cart of laptops in and sets them up. The kids pour in, sit down at a computer, and they are off into a blissful hour of roaming around some sort of world with multiple dimensions where they magically create "lava fields," "portals," and "creatures." They are working independently the entire time.

And they are talking. All of them.

Yesterday I was most impressed by how continuous and unanimous the talking was. There were only 15 or so children in the room, ages 6 to 10, and most of them weren't speaking to anyone in particular, so the talking was not loud. There was an even, bubbling murmur in the room as each child narrated what he or she was doing ("Now I am going to make the lava field."), called out exclamations when there was some sort of milestone achieved ("I killed my dragon!"), made sound effects, or just sang. They were all completely invested in the task at hand and working away. No one got up for any reason. It was an hour of happy activity. And talking.

I spend much of my day trying to get kids to stop talking.

My students, fourth graders, love to talk. They are brimming with ideas, jokes, fears, questions, and they want to share them with someone, anyone. It is an instinct, a primal need. They speak to be heard, and they speak just to hear the sound of their own voice. They speak over each other, beside each other, despite each other. I teach many small groups a day and even when I have only three or four students in front of me they have difficulty waiting for their chance to speak. Whenever I stand off to the side for a moment to complete a task, there pops up another child, who has undoubtedly been watching carefully all morning for this rare opportunity, to tell me something. A tooth has been lost. A new dog acquired. A question raised about when the next fire drill will be.

If it were not trained out of them, I believe my students would talk all the time. True, as with anything, there is a spectrum of talkers. I have a few quiet ones who speak only when spoken to and whom I need to encourage to share their ideas. Some years are more talkative than others, and I have had classes that were relatively easy to "keep quiet," who were content to dwell inside their own minds unless invited to do otherwise. But there are always a few chatty ones. This class is down right verbose.

Most of my students have the ability to control their talking, and they are expected to work silently while they practice reading, work out math problems, and write. If they are talking out of turn it is generally off task and there are consequences. Students need to take a break, change their seating, conference with me at the start of recess. These are quick fixes.

But I have a few students who verbalize continuously throughout the day, almost without stop. We have tools to help them curb this instinct, for the sake of all of our sanity. They set goals for number of silent minutes of work and monitor this goal with a chart. They use whisper phones (pieces of PVC joints put together to form a little tube so they can speak into their own ear without projecting their voice) and chewing gum and other tools to provide the sensory input they are seeking. They jot their ideas on sticky notes and in special notebooks so their most important ideas won't be lost. But still they talk, to themselves, to their neighbors, to me. I think it is safe to say that my classroom is almost never silent.

After watching the video game design club yesterday I was reminded: They are talking because they need to.

Talking is not bad. It is one of the characteristics that defines us a humans. Part of our school's mission is to raise responsible citizens by teaching them "complex communication," which includes talking. I hold this truth at the back of my head during lessons and try to build in lots of opportunities for students to talk about their ideas and work collaboratively. Most of my students, especially the verbose ones, use these opportunities productively. When I ask them to "turn and talk to a partner" about a learning target or question, they whip around to their neighbor and launch into a detailed description of their ideas, rarely pausing to listen to their partner. Some kids still use these invitations as a chance to check-in about recess or joke around, having stifled this desire to chat for the past ten minutes, but the majority are just happy to talk about ANYTHING, even if it is making inferences about wordless text.

My classroom has never been quiet. I have always regarded other classrooms with awe when I pass by the glass doors first thing in the morning and the students are sitting silently at their desks and reading. At my last position I was fired partially on the premise that my classroom was not silent and therefor not productive. It is a common belief, and you may be thinking it while reading this, that the sign of a good teacher is her ability to make a classroom of students be silent. I will admit, part of me believes this, and I have spent ten years trying to figure out how to make children be silent.

There is the chime. The hand clap. The "One, two, three, eyes on me." The lights off. The tallies on the board for silent minutes. The extra recess. The promise of a pajama party. The threats. The confiscated recess. Our school uses the call and response, "Ago!... Ame!" to get the attention (and silence) of students. I know for a fact that this works less than 10% of the time (if the goal is to achieve silence) because we spent two weeks gathering data. I said "Ago!" about 20 times a day. It took them more than two weeks to follow "Ame!" with silence twenty times. And then I rewarded them with a day of chewing gum. It is an uphill battle.

Both research and intuition tells us that talking is beneficial. When we talk out our troubles we are less worried. When we talk out our ideas we are more clear. When we talk to others we are less isolated. When I return to my classroom next week I want to acknowledge the importance of talking to my students. I want to give them more opportunities to do it, find time for them to do it recreationally, and teach them how to do it productively. I want to honor their ideas, jokes, fears and questions.

I want them to talk. I want to listen.

And when I get home at the end of the day I will listen to the ideas, jokes, fears and questions of my own children, ages six and eight, who also need to be talk and be heard... not to mention my husband who is also human. Until finally it is eleven o'clock, and I can turn out the light and close my eyes. In silence.

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. I am 39 years old. And I am not the Center of the World.

Ten years ago I was the Center of the Solar System. I should have been old enough to know better, but it was my first year of teaching and I had the impression that my classroom would be my kingdom and the students my subjects. I would make the rules, and they would follow them or risk banishment. Before I went into education I contemplated a career in the performing arts, but lacking talent or the ego to carry such a profession, teaching seemed like the perfect alternative. I would take center stage every day and have a captive audience.

That first year my students knew well in advance that my birthday (their reigning sovereign's birthday) was approaching. I brought in a cake for the celebration. They made cards. We took time to sing. My co-teacher (who was also a first year teacher) organized the children to make me a birthday hat. It seemed right that I should be the recipient of such reverence. I hadn't had such a big party since I was in grade school. It was great.

In truth the only thing my students had reverence for was sugar and the possibility of avoiding work. In the dark months of a northern Vermont winter what little light there had been in my classroom quickly faded. Some days it felt like I was defending myself against an inevitable coup. That year I gained a new appreciation for despotism as I struggled to control the will and actions of 22 sixth graders. By the end of the year my idealized dominion had dissolved into a state of near anarchy. The only reason I was not fired was because I was blessed to have the most incompetent principal in the state of Vermont who continued to believe that if I showed up to work every day I couldn't be that bad.

This year there was no cake, no cards, no singing. In my morning message to my students I told them they were forbidden to mention my birthday. I was just trying to use the vocabulary word, and had not been serious, but they honored my request and we spent a blissful day of ignoring the fact that I am one notch closer to 40, which is simply too mature (another vocabulary word) for comfort.

I still enjoy being the center of attention. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from making a whole carpet full of children laugh or clamber to offer their ideas or (less often) be silent. But ten years in I have come to understand that the annual cycle and progression is absolutely not about me.

The recent education movement has made a push to place teachers back as the essential coefficient of the equation. If you are a "good" teacher you will achieve results. The "bad" ones need to be exchanged, like broken parts, for newer models. If schools can just upgrade their staff, they will reach AYP (adequate yearly progress). While I appreciate the acknowledgement that teachers are pivotal in a child's educational experience, I know that the fate of each child is not in my hands alone. It is essential that my students understand this. I am just a guide, an assistant, a coach in their development, working with a large team of other professionals who are on the team. The kids are the ones in the center. The more I step to the side, the more they are able to shine.

To Develop

One of my students’ first vocabulary words this term was “develop.” The definitions listed included: to grow or cause to grow, to become more advanced, and to add chemicals to a photograph in order to reveal the image. (After a brief discussion about “the olden days” I did not require that they learn this final anachronism.)

To grow. To become more advanced.

Throughout my career I have tried to do just that, and for the majority of years it has felt like an uphill trudge. Early on I was responsible for seeking out opportunities, enrolling in programs, applying for funding, and then praying that my students did something productive with an unknown substitute teacher while I was gone. I have attended courses on language-based learning disabilities, classes on classroom management, workshops on implementing Writing Workshop. All of these Professional Development opportunities had three things in common: First, after each one I left with a curious sensation of feeling simultaneously inspired and defeated. Second, they were all lead by former teachers who had suspiciously left the teaching profession for this obviously easier job. And third, they all started with a continental breakfast including Jelly Danish. I usually picked up a few good tools or tricks that I would apply for a few weeks back in my classroom with varying fidelity, but inevitably the crisp binders with power point print outs and complimentary note paper I acquired at each one gathered dust on my crowded PD bookshelf. Any advancement I managed to achieve was through sweat and experience in the classroom, and not from sitting in a cold hotel conference room with my feet propped up.

All schools acknowledge the need for Professional Development and work it into the calendar year. If you are a parent of a child in public school, as I am, you have inevitably confronted those enigmatic “PD Days” when there is no school despite the lack of a holiday, and you have cursed under your breath, as I have, while scrambling for daycare and hoping the teachers were doing something really useful, goddamnit. 

The charter school where I now work made a brilliant decision before it opened its doors. It would inconvenience families upfront and often by sending students home at 1:30 every Wednesday. The staff stays until 5 pm and participates in mandatory, synchronized Professional Development sessions. In addition, there are a few days a year when our students stay at home, and we become the students. We have a leadership team of two principals, three vice principals, two instructional coaches, and a Director of Special Education, among others, who spend a good part of each week designing these experiences for us. It is understood as fact that the role of our administration is to guide and support us as educators, which takes a lot of time and effort. From my perspective, it’s worth it.

Each PD session begins with reciting our mission and our instructional focus for the year. While chanting in unison with my colleagues, I feel like I am in church, or participating in a massive brain washing exercise. But either way it is a comfortable feeling of relief. I am not alone. There is a master plan. I do not have to figure this out for myself.

 Today was one of those confounded, blessed PD days. There was no continental breakfast, all of our instructors are still working actively in our classrooms, and I left feeling optimistic and invigorated. We learned about how to support our English Language Learners in the classroom, participated in a literacy lesson about making inferences, and were given time to plan with our grade level teams. I barely made a dent in my long list of things to accomplish on this day off, but on Tuesday, after this long weekend, I think I may be one baby step closer to “advanced.”

The Lynchpin

Every year there is one.

That child who seems to have been born to challenge you, as if she were placed on earth by a mischievous higher power for the express purpose of teaching you patience and humility. The one who makes you feel like if you haven't completely lost your mind or committed a heinous crime or quit in a given week you have been successful. If you don't figure out how to connect and compel this child you will lose countless hours of sleep and instruction on her behalf.

My first year of teaching, she was a sixth grader named Jasmine.

I was fresh out of my Masters program at Smith College, and a recent transplant to Vermont. While my training program was affordable and well-intentioned, I only spent nine months student teaching in a lab school while taking a full course load before I was deemed "qualified" to teach. The Burlington area was flooded with young, inexpensive teachers, and I could hardly get an interview not to mention a job. However, in mid-August, about two weeks before the start of school, I found Middle Elementary. A school of about 1,200 students in grades pre-k - 6th grade, the behemoth institution served the two largest trailer parks in the state. The principal hardly looked me in the eye during the interview and asked very few questions, but by the time I unlocked my car in the parking lot I had a message on my phone with a job offer. I would be teaching 6th grade, in two weeks, come hell or high water.

I was completely unprepared for the 22 12-year-olds who entered my classroom on that first day in late August. My bulletin boards were all set, name-tags created, library organized, pencils sharpened, but I think it is safe to say that there wasn't one minute of that first year that I was actually ready. My husband still likes to remind me how I cried every day.

In a way, every kid in that class was a misfit of some sort. I was the new, unknown teacher in a district that honored parent requests. The only kids in my class were the ones whose parents did not care to request a more experienced veteran. But above all the others, there was one. Jasmine.

Jasmine was a force. A chubby, tow-headed girl who, at the fragile age of 12, held enough anger in her short, taught body to power Manhattan. She came in mad and left pissed off every day. She refused to do any work, could not (or would not) read, spent much of her time destroying classroom materials, and defied my every request. She carved obscenities (always misspelled) into the bathroom stalls, and left disturbing marks on her own body. She hated me. At our nadir she screamed at me, while I spoke with her mother on the phone, "I am going to fucking kill you!" And I almost believed her.

I wish I could say I did something for that angry, hurt, terrified child, but I am sure I did nothing. She pushed every button I didn't know I had. I dug my heels in and tried to discipline her, or alternately passed her off to other, more experienced specialists. I often wonder if I had the opportunity to work with her now, would I be able to scratch the surface? Would I understand that she needed my love, my time and attention, my trust, and my devotion? Would it have made a difference? If I had cracked the code, won her over, would I have been able to look back on that year and say I had actually accomplished anything? I am not sure.

This year I have a lynchpin of a different color altogether. Diane.

Three years ago I migrated south with my family to Maryland (via six years in New Hampshire). I am currently working in a public charter school that is infused with the innovation and optimism of a small start-up. I am teaching 25 students with two full-time aides in my classroom. I have a decade of instruction under my belt. I should be able to say, "I got this."

But I so do not have this.

Diane is a model student compared to Jasmine. She is kind, enthusiastic, and earnest. She can read, write, and participates actively in most lessons. But Diane is on the autism spectrum. She has a sensory integration disorder that causes her to touch other things and people constantly throughout the day. She falls into other students in line. She talks constantly all day long. She responds with yelling, whining, crying even when nothing is wrong. She is prone to rocking and spinning, but in a way that looks voluntary and intentional to the bystander. She steps on and falls over her peers repeatedly, rarely with an acknowledgement or apology. She most often does not look me in the eye. She usually ignores our redirections. In short, she is driving adults and children nuts. This week I literally bribed one of her classmates to not yell at her. I couldn't punish him for getting mad because it was such an understandable reaction, given that she had taken his book and all of his papers and thrown them on the floor.

As has most often been the case, I have a diverse class of needy kids this year. One student is in a wheelchair for part of each day. Another student cannot see without adaptive technology. I have another student on the autism spectrum, five with diagnosed learning disabilities, two with severe ADHD, one girl who is currently homeless, and the usual array of emotionally fragile kids. They all require thought and work, but Diane is my biggest question mark. If we can't figure out how to get her to follow, the flock is lost.

We have implemented a behavior chart with incentives and consequences. She gets routine "sensory breaks" throughout the day. She is allowed to chew gum, uses a textured seat cushion, and wears noise eliminating headphones during independent work. There are stretches of the day when it seems like we have made progress, when she is focused and quiet and happy. But for much of the day we are on Diane's roller coaster. When she comes crashing down, she takes the lot of us with her.

Tomorrow I called a "Team Diana Meeting." Unlike that first year of teaching, I am not surviving on an island. I have learned that it is not my job to have all the answers. I have learned that "failing" to reach a student doesn't mean I am inept, it means it's time to get someone else's input. As long as we are working towards a solution, we are not failing.

And in the meantime, until I can figure out how to solve this central quandary in my classroom, when she is yelling or spinning or driving us mad, when I am feeling most confounded and frustrated, I take her into my arms. I breathe. And I just keep trying.

I wish I had done as much with Jasmine.

This is my tenth year of teaching.

When I first decided to spend my career in an elementary classroom I knew it would a consuming profession. I anticipated late nights, work on the weekends, days on my feet struggling with the emotions and wills of children just beyond my sphere of influence. But I think I imagined it would get easier with time. I could visualize a day when my systems were in place, my lessons long since written, and I could relax into expertise, turning my focus to my own family. I thought I would put in a few good years of sweat, and then become one of those teachers who is sustained by her reputation, for whom teaching is just one part of what she does and she does it well enough.

Ten years later, teaching has not gotten any easier for me. But it is so much better.

In this blog I will reflect on my decade in the classroom. I have worked in five public schools and one public charter, both rural and urban, in elementary schools with student bodies as large as 1,200 and as small as 80. I have taught sixth grade, fourth grade, third grade, fifth grade, third grade, second grade, third grade, and fourth grade, in that order (only once have I taught the same grade in the same school two years in a row). I have had six different principals and taught with eleven different grade level colleagues. And not for a minute have I had the chance to catch my breath and reflect. I've been too damn busy.

I have always been skeptical about teacher blogs, believing that if someone has time to be blogging, they probably aren't working hard enough. However, writing is an exercise for myself and my practice. For this year, I will make it a habit and a priority.

After ten years and more than 10,000 hours in the classroom I wish I could say I am an expert, but I am not. I am not one of those teachers who is featured in texts and on videos. I rarely have the confidence to tell anyone else "how to do it." My classroom is a continual work in progress. I still flounder and regard most of my colleagues in awe, all of whom seem to be having an easier time of things than I am.

But after ten years I have learned that if I do anything well, I teach from the heart. I love what I do, and it has taken me a decade to realize that this alone is worth a lot. In this blog I hope to shed some light on the trials of our public education system, but mostly to just communicate the pure Joy of Teaching.