While I have enjoyed reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, I am having a difficult time relating most of what she says to how I might teach my future students about writing. Maybe I’m not thinking abstractly enough, I don’t know. Maybe during a second read through I will suddenly have an epiphany and it will all make sense.
Maybe.
Could happen.
Finally, right before the end of this week’s chapters, a quote did stick to me “like Velcro”.
“I was waiting for the kind of solution where God reaches down and touches you with his magic wand and all of a sudden I would be fixed, like a broken toaster oven. Instead, I got better one angstrom unit better, day by day.” (page 127)
I’ve heard something mentioned over and over again as one of the reasons why teachers want to teach; it’s that moment when their students finally GET IT. Sometimes I think that I do want (and wait for) that “AHA!” moment, too. I want to see when someone finally gets it, whatever IT is.
But I think it’s also important to remember that a lot of small moments can eventually lead up to a great thing, a great change. We need to remember that we might not always see when the “GET IT” happens, but we need to remember that it is a journey, not a moment of teleportation (yet another Star Trek reference, I know…sorry). It’s hearing a recording of your son’s voice that was recorded one short year ago, and then he walks in the room and you suddenly realize that his voice has dropped an octave. When did that happen? One tiny Angstrom unit at a time.
And look how far we have come since March? One tiny Angstrom unit at a time.
This all reminds me how important it will be to keep a running record of my student’s learning. Why the measure of what they are learning can never be recorded by a grade on test. And why it is so very important that I make sure that my students SEE how far they have come, and not just take my word for it.
It's interesting.. in my Dyad (or triad) the teacher spoke to the students about the report cards before he sent them home. He explained what certain numbers meant or what certain comments may mean. He spent about 20 minutes explaining the report card! I left that day thinking, "wow, that a lot of time on just explaining a report card"
ReplyDeleteThe next day, he said they were having a whole class share and gave a child a Kooshball to hold, meaning that only that child could speak and would then hand it over to the next student when finished. The teacher then said, "How did you feel about your report card?" I was shocked! Again, we are taking class time to talk about "feelings"?
But, as the Kooshball went around, students commented that they felt they did deserve the grade they got, or that I understood the comment you made, etc...
I quickly understood the idea of what was happening. The teacher was making sure that the student "got it" and understood that they were on the course of learning. That they understood their grades and were left with I have made progress and the grade doesn't necessarily mean they should think of their learning as a "3" or a "4". The teacher stressed that if you had a lower number, then you had the opportunity to improve. If you had some 4's, then that meant you had to continue working hard, if not better, to maintain that grade.
But basically the teacher was showing them, through an open class discussion that a test grade or a grade on a paper is only part of what is happening. That the grade is really based on their learning progress, and that a report card and the discussion is his way of letting them SEE how far they have come.