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Volume VII, Issue No.8
In This Issue: Teachers as Learners
By Lisa Barber and Lori Davis As we walked down the hallway of Shalom Nursing Home, in Bronxville, New York, butterflies stirred in our stomachs, questions ran through our heads, and excitement battled with fatigue. We turned the corner and peeked through the crowd of other eager teachers also waiting to be paired with an elder resident. There sat Lena Anne Fenick. Her raised eyebrows, bright eyes, high cheekbones above her joyful smile, and hands that seemed to talk drew us to her. Lena projected spirited enthusiasm and eased every uncertainty with which we had struggled. She spotted Lisa in the crowd, raised both arms in a welcoming gesture and said, "Hey! You look like my niece." We sat down and began our first of many conversations with Lena. We had come to Shalom as part of the Expeditionary Learning summit called Writing Elders’ Life Stories. Summits are week-long professional development opportunities that are designed to take educators through the experience of a learning expedition. We were both excited and apprehensive about being students again. As teachers at Grass Valley Charter School in Northern California, we are used to being in control, being the planners, and knowing what lies ahead. We realized that this must be how students feel all the time. "What are they going to put us through?" Being a student requires a lot of trust. This summit, like all expeditions, began with guiding questions to drive our learning, which we revisited throughout the expedition: How does service set high expectations for students’ intellectual and character development? How can passing on a life story be an act of service? Our project during the summit was to write a biography of an elder and, at the end of the week, present the elder with a finished book and portrait. To complete the biography, we conducted interviews, listened to the tapes, and edited. We wrote draft after draft and guzzled caffeinated beverages late into the night. During the day, visiting experts pushed us beyond our own expectations. An editor from Norton & Company advised us to find a hook for our biographies that would grab the reader. A professor of oral history from New York University encouraged us to ask our elders the hard questions. A writer provided us with examples of how to "show, not tell" in our writing. These experts provided us with a sense of confidence and strengthened our desire to go beyond our perceived writing abilities. Every morning we met as a group in a community circle and talked about the design principles we had experienced the day before. A few of the principles had special meaning for each of us. Lori experienced the design principle Primacy of Self-Discovery when we were asked to draw a portrait of our elder. She felt this was something she could never do, and she panicked. How often are students placed in this uncomfortable situation of being asked to do something they feel that they have no talent for? The very first night, we were plopped down in front of mirrors and asked to draw ourselves. Lori looked for the nearest exit and planned her escape, but she quickly realized that there was no getting out of it. She was truly afraid of embarrassment, so she decided to give it her best effort. She struggled through this first attempt, but when she finished the drawing, she was surprised. She thought it looked a little bit like her. She felt brief success, but realized she had a long way to go. Sara Hilby, an art and third-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary School in Dubuque, Iowa, gently taught us portraiture and the art of observation, and slowly we all improved. Lori was thrilled with her final portrait of Lena. She discovered that she could draw. She found something in herself she didn’t know she had. Using the design principles, Collaboration and Competition, and Service and Compassion throughout the summit transformed Lisa as a person and as a teacher. At first the biography project seemed like an impossible task^recording someone’s life history in a matter of a week. As we sat with the other groups, reading through our first drafts, and critiquing each other’s stories, competition set in. We noticed the high quality and creativity in others’ work and felt anxious to revise and make ours better. We also felt compelled to provide Lena, an incredibly wise woman, with our best work. Her life was so interesting; our story had to be also. Being in a safe, supportive environment allowed us to push ourselves. Such conditions helped illustrate how students can also learn to thrive off competition, not fear it. Lisa came home with a much stronger conviction to have her students revise many times, and include peer critique in the process, until quality is achieved. Towards the close of our summit, we met in circle and reflected on our week. We talked about the fear we had at the beginning of the summit, and about our concerns of leaving Lena behind after just a week of visits. We wondered what was it that had pushed us so hard? Why had we stayed up night after night, revising and editing? How had this experience bound us together? How was Lena going to react? "I hope we got the facts right about her brother. You know Lena will correct us if it’s wrong. It just can’t be wrong." Could the answers to all these questions be tied to service? Finally, the time came to present our biography to Lena. As we sat with her at the presentation party, we read the story of her life. Lena laughed and cried. "Oh yeah, that’s right," she said, "I remember that. Santa brought me a little tea set. It had a cup and saucer. Oh, it was so much fun. The dishes were white, with a delicate pink rose on them." She looked at us and smiled. Together we continued reading through her book. We realized she would read through it daily and relive all of her fond moments over again and again. We were giving her a gift she would cherish forever. "This has been fun for me. I think I’ve had an interesting life! I don’t just sit in the back and say I wish I could do that, I wish I could do that. I learn. I try to go with people that I know. You stay with them a little while and you learn." We realized that we had done just that. We had stayed with Lena for a while and we learned. What we had learned became even clearer when we returned to our school. For Lisa, going from this summit directly into the school year stirred in her a deeper desire to teach using the Expeditionary Learning core practices and design principles. Actually experiencing an expedition, with all the components, the daily rituals, and the reflection was the element she needed to internalize it all. Now the design principles have a whole new meaning for her. She made sure she started the school year with two days of community building geared around the design principles. She finds herself referring to the design principles, stapled to the walls in the front of my classroom, for conflict management issues, positive resolution, reflection, and active learning experiences. She uses them to encourage her students to push themselves to their ultimate best, and discover their unique gifts. And finally, these principles illustrate ways students can use their gifts to give back to others in a meaningful way. This summit gave her an incredible foundation on which to build. The summit helped Lori realize how an act of service can push you beyond your own expectations. Our book had to be perfect, because it was for Lena. This could be true with any service project, however the task must be real and important to the students. Since the summit, Lori has revised the current expedition she planned for the year and made service a much larger component. Her class will create a walk-through herb garden complete with native trees, trails, signs, field guide, and park bench in a neighborhood park, recently clear-cut of trees. It will require a lot of work. At times it will seem impossible. But when we finish, we will be giving a gift to our community and to the earth that will last. We will learn a great deal along the way, lessons that will last a lifetime.
By Eva Rannestad
I was wedged in a kayak, paddling over the unusually placid waters of Lake Superior. The night before had been illuminated by meteor showers. Today was sunny and calm. It was strange to think that here I was, a sixth-grade science teacher from New York City floating in the middle of a Great Lake, and yet I was learning so much about my classroom. I teach at the New York City Lab School, and two summers ago, I attended my first Outward Bound wilderness course. I went rafting down the Green River in Colorado and Utah because it was something I had never done before. This summer, I decided to confront my fear of kayaking by taking a course with the Voyageur Outward Bound School. I also went because I know now that these experiences in the wilderness change how I teach. Being in naturally secluded environments enables me to develop skills and challenge my physical self. Having to contend with setting up camp and cooking in the rain, not to mention flipping a kayak intentionally, was bracing and stimulating (regardless of water temperature). There is nothing like the outdoors to humble a sophisticate and quickly put a teacher into students, shoes. On an Outward Bound course, as on a learning expedition, people work in groups. You determine your individual challenges, such as deciding whether to kayak alone or with a partner on the longest day, but ultimately you rely on your team. Flipping over in a kayak the first time reinforced this. When you flip, you need to position your body forward to exit, but first you must bang on the kayak,s hull to alert others. Being upside down, locked into the kayak, unsure of this first exit, embeds an automatic peripheral attention to the surrounding crafts for the rest of the journey. Seeing colleagues nearby absolutely heartens the soggy teacher. I have tried to strengthen this sense of interreliance among my students. Individuals may provide individual outcomes, but an assignment,s success rests upon all group members performing their jobs. In my class, students are expected to consciously work as a body, with students taking on different responsibilities at different times: hands (recorder); feet (messenger/materials); ears (relayer of instructions); and mouth (speaker). This coordination requires that all members are alert, in synch, and attentive to the needs of the class. The experience kayaking in Minnesota put each participating teacher in the sometimes uncomfortable position of not being the leader or final decision-maker. Leaders emerged at different times, related to our varied strengths. Sitting in the twilight on a rock on the shore of Lake Superior our first night together as a group, each person voiced a different type of emotional, physical, or professional anxiety. As the week progressed, each individual demonstrated his or her strengths in problem-solving situations^such as paddling, navigating, or recognizing unspoken hurt feelings^that served as models for others, weaknesses. A similar process takes place in my weekly advisory sessions in school. Students express their feelings, concerns, or questions, but they also offer support and ideas from their own experiences to problem-solve their peers, issues on everything from managing homework to family crises. Rituals played an important part of our kayaking course. We met in community circles and debriefed events, but one night, our kayak group skipped a ritual. We started eating without circling up and sharing a reading, but dinner actually felt empty until we recognized and resolved its absence. When an activity in my classroom has been ritualized and then neglected, the students, dispositions often change. For example, I ask students to prepare for dismissal with a unified table gesture of their choice. If we are rushed, I may dismiss them en masse, but often I will hear a complaint as they go. I personally enjoy their laughter and the novelty of groups doing silent, seated YMCA, Macarena, and head-tapping, belly rubbing gestures, and they need it. The instructors on the course modeled a very attentive and patient way of teaching. While in the kayak, learning different rescue procedures, the instructors, goals were clear: get each individual to flip over, evacuate the boat safely, and reenter the vessel. To do this the instructor needed to assess not only our boating skill levels, but also our comfort levels to decide on an approach. Dragging out each novice kayaker, they had to convince the reluctant that going upside-down, attached by tensile bands on a spray skirt to a big yellow fiberglass hull was good. Sometimes the process was simple. The instructor would say, "Either I can have you do some other activities which will raise your comfort level slowly but you may become impatient, or you can just do it." For some participants, that did the trick, and boom, they flipped. For others, there was a prolonged process with the instructor giving suggestions and saying "You,re going to be OK," for about 15 minutes. Patience, something that I need also in my classroom, played a very important role, as did an acute understanding of content and skills. It inspires so much trust when students have faith in their teacher,s mastery of the material. It took time for me to learn the skills of kayaking, and until I did, it seemed daunting. The first few times the kayak flipped over, I was new to the wet suit, the boat, and the Midwest experience. I felt a sense of vulnerability, skill deficits, and the need for peer support. Experiencing these feelings refreshed my sensitivity to the feelings of children used to pond versus ocean- size environments. Later on, as I became more proficient, I found gliding past undeveloped areas of Lake Superior exciting and engrossing. Thoughts of New York were subsumed by the craggy cliffs and rocking water. I hope that my students also can become proficient and confident enough in my class to dive completely into what we study. My progress over the week of kayaking reminded me of what my rafting instructor had told me the summer before. He gave the analogy of his role in our rafting group by drawing a circle in the sand and a point inside it. "This is where we begin. I am in the center, helping you learn the skills you need for this trip. By the end of the week I should be here." He then drew a point outside the circle. "You will eventually do it all without needing me, though I will still be here." This happened both summers. We gained the knowledge to manage on our own with his assistance, and then were able to operate with the security of knowing that intervention or support was available if truly needed. By picking totally unfamiliar activities like rafting and kayaking, I learned from scratch. I was the student, uncomfortable, scared, excited, and anxious. It helped me be a better teacher.
Christina Patterson and Joseph Zaremba, both middle-school teachers at the Harbor School in Boston, Massachusetts, led a summit for expeditionary learning teachers this past summer. The summit, called Children,s Books, was based on a learning expedition Patterson and Zaremba guided their seventh-grade students on the American Revolution. In this excerpt of a talk, presented as a Harvard Outward Bound Project Roundtable at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the teachers talk about what it was like to go from teaching students to teaching teachers.
Christina Patterson: The topic of our summit was children,s picture books about the American Revolution. The students, who were Expeditionary Learning teachers, had to create a full-color cover, the full text of the book, and the storyboard, which is the layout for their story. They had to do all of this in a week, as well as master content about the American Revolution. It was very intense Joseph Zaremba: What we did with the teachers at the summit was exactly what we had done with our seventh-grade students during the year. We gave them the same criteria. Our students had to read books, research their topics, find historical references, and write their texts. They had to do a storyboard, then produce a dummy book, then push it to one more level and finish it. By the end of the whole process, they really understood how to create a children,s book. We took that same process and adapted it to the summit. Our goal with the summit was to give teachers something that they could bring back to the classroom. We wanted to give them the skills they needed to make a book. We wanted them to have something that they could finish themselves. We thought if the teachers could do one cover drawing, if they could write a nonfiction or a fiction story, and if they knew how to create a children,s book through using a story board, they could take all that work and understanding of the process back to their classrooms. We also wanted to get rid of those fears that come when you have never drawn before or the only thing you like to write is a letter to your grandmother. Patterson: When the summit began, some people said, "I know nothing about the American Revolution." So we started the first two days with fieldwork. We went to Paul Revere,s house and Old South Church, and we walked the Freedom Trail. Expeditionary Learning encourages having real historians^real people in the profession^come in, so we asked historian Bob Allison to work with us at the summit. It soon turned into a challenge to try to stump Bob. There were only five instances throughout the whole week when people asked Bob a question that he didn,t know the answer to. Having someone who knows the content that concretely was a great resource and a great model. We tried to immerse people in the history by walking around Boston, by showing videos, going on fieldwork, listening to lectures, and reading. Having people so deeply involved in what they,re doing made the ideas come to the fore: what was it that stuck with you that you want to follow through with? The teachers could choose their own topics for the books, and this made them care about their books so much more. Once they had researched their topics, they started asking really specific, focused questions. When Bob, the historian, came back and they had a chance to read their drafts with him, people would ask things like, "What stores would have been on that street that would seem realistic?" When we went to the Old North Church, one teacher said her character was a member, and she wanted to see whose names were written on the wall so she could include real parishioners in her book. When you have that level of investment, then your quest for information becomes very, very intense. And that,s what you want for students. We thought it was important to encourage people to work toward things they felt they couldn,t do. Throughout the summit, people said to me, "I don,t know how to write really well. I,m not a good writer." They would say to Joe, "I can,t draw, so I,m not going to be able to do the cover." Some people were actually thinking that they would just do the part they were good at; "I,ll write the book and somebody else will do the cover drawing." When they realized that, despite whatever their strengths were, they had to do both, some said, "Umm, I can,t do that." Throughout the whole process, when people would say, "I can,t draw," I would say, "Yet." We talked about how there,s nothing you can,t learn how to do. You may not do it like a master, but you can learn how to do it on a level higher than where you started. We talked about models and standards and what we were looking for both in teachers and students: "If your student said this, what would you do? Would you think that was okay?" Some people tried to get by with content that clearly was non-historical, or with work that just didn,t meet the standard. I would say, "If your student turned this in at the end of a unit about the American Revolution, and you had to assess them, did they learn the content? Would they pass?" Zaremba: One day, I saw one of the teachers tracing a picture that she was going to glue onto the cover. I asked her, "Why are you doing that?" "Because I don,t know how to draw it," she said. "Let me show you how to do it." I showed her how to do the drawing, and she said, "I can,t do that." I said, "Well, you now have the skills. You can do that, I,ve shown you how. You make the decision." I walked away from her, and when I looked back, she decided to do what we had done. So she took one step forward. That,s the kind of thing that we do with our students. There were a lot of similarities that we saw between teachers and students that amazed me. For instance, there were teachers who could not comprehend what they had to do. That reminded me that the process of teaching is the same; it doesn,t matter whether you,re 6 or 80. The process of getting that information across is equal all the way through, and it depends upon the level of the student or the teacher that you have. Patterson: We asked our students to present at the summit to share their work as models of quality for the teachers. They presented their books and drawings. They told the teachers how hard it is to make a book, and what the steps are, and how it is done. When I took them home in the car, I asked, "Do you think the teachers can write a book in a week?" "No, probably not ^ how late can they stay up?" I said, "Well, they don,t have to do all the parts you did." They got to see teachers learning. Zaremba: It empowered the students, because it brought what they did outside the classroom to another audience. Not only did they complete the book, but they took it to another level and presented it. The key to getting students to produce high-quality work is having people who can guide them to that quality. At the summit, we wanted the teachers to feel confident in themselves, to know that they can bring their students up to that level, even though some teachers really believe that they can,t draw or write. That,s where the weak part is in the teachers. If they feel that they can,t draw, the minute they say, "We,re going to do a children,s book," they don,t really believe they can do it. To break that barrier, you have to give strength to the teachers so that they believe that they can do it.
Patterson: I think the heart of the summit was teachers experiencing what it,s like to be a student. That included the whole joy of learning and the pain of learning, and going into that discomfort and trying to figure it out by doing it.
By Heather Tom
As a Language Arts teacher at Middle River Middle School in Baltimore, I thought the Poetry Summit in New York City could help me conquer my fear of teaching poetry. This fear had accumulated over years of miseducation that caused the first thing to come to my mind when I thought about poetry to be OEiambic pentameter, (meter is important, but it shouldn,t be the first thought). This was one of my main reasons for going, but after the summit began, I discovered even more significant reasons for having chosen the Poetry Summit. At the start of the summit, our co-leader Meg Campbell suggested that each of us had come to the Poetry Summit because we had a poem that we wanted to write. That insight reminded me that when I entered college my major had been Writing Seminars, and that the dream of being a writer was one I had somehow lost along the way on my journey to being a teacher. Meg,s insight continued to ring true when I began drafting poems for the summit,s final project^the publication and public reading of an original poem at a weekly poetry reading called the Saturn Series. The poem I originally thought I would complete for the reading was a celebration of New York City. The other poem I began and, with Meg,s support, kept working on was the one I went to the summit to write^about the two miscarriages I,ve had within a year. During one late night, as I sat with drafts of both poems spread out in front of me, the two poems began to come together. On the final day we had for writing, my poem flowed non-stop onto the paper all afternoon in a way I had never experienced as a writer. That inspiration came from the series of experiences we had during the Poetry Summit. Meg Campbell and Bill Duke, the summit,s two leaders, planned a superb learning expedition. We began with an evening of poetry reading by poet Sekou Sundiata, held at our workspace in the Teacher,s and Writer,s Collaborative in Union Square. With shelves of books on either side of the narrow room, the wood flooring, and the lighting,s soft glow, I felt as if we were sitting in a quaint library as we listened to Sekou,s poetry and picked his brain for his thoughts about writing poetry. The next morning, we arose before 5 a.m. to meet school teacher Sam Swope in Central Park. Sam led us in reading poetry by fifth-graders and writing about the natural wonders in a seemingly quiet, yet vibrant pond. From Central Park, we went to the New York Public Library. There, we enjoyed a by-appointment-only exhibit, "Hand of the Poet," that featured actual drafts and revisions of writers such as J.D. Salinger, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and Amiri Baraka. All these New York experiences became essential raw material for our poems. During one of our Community Circles, Djuna Dudek from Conway, Arkansas asked, "Can a person be a poet any place other than New York City?" I hadn,t been able to devise my response until I was writing the first draft of this article while riding the train homeward to Baltimore. In order to become a poet, I needed to get into, observe, and then try to sort out the confusion that is New York City. In my opinion, it is tremendously helpful for people to go to New York to find out whether they are poets, but the best place to be a poet is home. As Georgia Heard tells us in her book Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way, the place we choose to be home is the best place for observation and reflection, since it is the safest place for us. I am trying to figure out whether I can be a poet at home; I certainly hope so. Like good learning expeditions, the summit included opportunities for meaningful service. For one of our projects, we each memorized and performed a children,s poem for a group of children at the University Settlement in Lower Manhattan. We had expected approximately 40 children to attend. Our actual audience was closer to 140^all children from nearby neighborhoods who sat on the floor or on folding chairs at one end of a large, hot room for an hour of their summer watching and listening to teachers. I will not forget their smiles. In the spirit of Outward Bound, the Poetry Summit also included a variety of opportunities for us to go beyond the limits we had perceived for ourselves. Our first activity, begun just after our first Community Circle, was to go out on the streets of New York, walk up to a stranger, and ask a Socratic question. We chose "What do you value most in life?" Along with the ongoing physical challenges of walking all over Manhattan, many participants completed the arduous Vertical Tour of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for a view of Manhattan. The final seemingly impossible challenge came at the end of the week with our culminating project. To complete the final project of our poetry reading, we all got up in front of a group of people and read our original work into a microphone with a video tape running and a promise that the video tape would be shown on cable television in New York. Having decided that they should at least do what they had asked of their crews, Meg and Bill participated in the reading with a poem they had written together in an obscure form. One of the reasons we could face the challenges of the week was because we had built a strong sense of community. Every day we gathered for Community Circles. By the end of the summit, hearing, "Let,s circle up," from Meg had gone from causing an increase in my anxiety to being a direction I eagerly awaited. In our Community Circles, we shared readings, laughter while writing a poem together, ideas, our writing, and pieces of ourselves. Just as I take pride in the success of the group, I take pride in my own accomplishments as well. I am proud of: challenging myself by going to the summit; having the optimism to take almost all of it in; getting overwhelmed by New York; overcoming my fear of heights to climb halfway up the Vertical Tour at St. John the Divine; and writing the poem I went to the summit to write. After all I learned as a writer, I must ask myself as a teacher this question: What do I plan to do with everything I,ve gained from the summit? At this time, the best response I can offer is this: I hope to give many gifts, and perhaps the most important gifts are the ones I hope to give to my students more generously than I have before. I will give them: w required activities in reading and writing every day until they,re eager to read and write on their own w learning expeditions carefully designed through collaboration to give them opportunities to grow and help them realize when they are growing w the intuition to tell them just enough of what they need to hear when they need to hear it so that they have the freedom to develop understanding on their own. That idea came from Meg Campbell, who said with a smile when I presented her an early draft of a poem that can best be described as stinky, "Let,s set this aside." I offer these gifts because I received them from the Poetry Summit. If you see a summit description that fits your criteria and makes you want to take the plunge of attendance, dive right on in and enjoy it. You,ll realize truths about yourself and the world around you that you would have only imagined before.
By Heather Tom
The following is an excerpt from a poem written by Heather Tom, a teacher at Middle River Middle School in Baltimore, at the Poetry Summit this summer.
I perceive at this moment, As we sit in this Manhattan Mall Food Court With all there is around us, Silence. Despite the distance we have come from Union Square Park, Gandhi has not yet said a word. All this time, I,ve been assuming I knew his every need. Now, he sees mine. The words he speaks Are the exact ones I seek. "A child is the most glorious miracle there can be." We have made our connection- This Truly Great Man And a blossoming poet Who begins to open herself up to hoping That she is also A mother-to-be.
These links and resources come from Poetry Central.Com Poetry on the Internet
Academy of American Poets: www.poets.org Children,s Haiku Garden: www.tecnet.or.jp/~haiku/ Edcitement: www.edsitement.neh.gov Favorite Poem Projects: www.favoritepoem.org Poetry Cafe: www.poetrycafe.com/ Poets House: www.poetshouse.org Poets and Writers Inc.: www.pw.org Rhyming Dictionary: www.link.cs.cmu.edu/dougb/rhyme-doc.html Sonnet Central: www.sonnets.org Teachers & Writers Collaborative: www.twc.org Writer,s Guide to the World Wide Web: www.auburn.edu/~fostecd/docs/writerswww.html
By Sara Sprister
This journal entry is an excerpt from a children's book by Sara Sprister from Arbor Vitae Woodruff Elementary in Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin. Her book illustrated a colonial seamstress,s diary during the beginning of the revolution.
There is terrible news! Young Christopher Seider, a 12 year old boy, was shot and killed this Thursday past. From the pulpit the Reverend related the details to the congregation. He related that Ebenezer Richardson shot into a large crowd of schoolboys and apprentices who were out pickeeting the shop of Theophilus Lilly who had refused to support the boycott. When he led us in prayer for the soul of this dear departed boy, women in the gallery seated near us sniffled into their handkerchiefs, The funeral is to be held tomorrow and Mr. Richardson is being held in jail. We wonder what will come of Boston when an innocent lad is taken from us over a quarrel about taxes. Samuel Adams is writing for the Boston Gazette and will make much out of this to warn about the danger of corruption and tyranny upon the colonies. He never misses an opportunity to promote the cause of liberty. Anne and I fear what danger we have placed ourselves in by violating the anti-import resolutions. Perhaps it is time for me to place my stubbornness aside. What am I to do?
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