About a month ago, I read two books back to back: The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapp and Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. I read both of them in about a week and a half.

The Still Point of the Turning World is a poetic, literary, philosophical look at what it means to be a parent, to have a sick and dying baby, and our obsessions with expectations for everything. It was lovely, gripping, and made me think, think, think about my kids, my life, and how I need to continue my struggle to live in the present. Wave is a memoir of a woman who lost her two elementary-aged sons, her husband, and her parents from the tsunami of 2005; she was the only survivor from their Christmas vacation. It is a harrowing story of the struggle to make meaning of your one life–for years and years afterwards–when everything and everyone that defined you as you suddenly disappears. It made me ache.

I am a big fan of memoir as a genre, but the fact that I found, bought, and read these books one after the other was a strange coincidence.

Believe it or not, living the lives of these women through text for 10 intense days wasn’t all that bad. I found myself thinking, feeling, and pausing a lot more than normal–acts of meta-cognition I feel I can always use more of. But whenever I tried to talk about these books with coworkers, friends, or other parents at birthday parties NOBODY wanted to talk to me. I got confused looks, causal exits that said “Let me just move slowly away from that weird mom,” and quick ends to the conversation. I could not find many to engage with me in conversation. Only my friend Kat–who lost her husband at age 33, found out 2 weeks later she was pregnant, and now, 6 years later, has a 5 year old son–talked with me and expressed interest in reading the books. And my friend Judy, who is in her early 60′s. This would not surprise Emily Rapp, author of The Still Point of a Turning World.

The question most asked me was, “Why are you reading that?”  I thought, why would you NOT read them?

Emily Rapp explains the difficulty of talking to other parents about parenting when you have a terminally ill child. She says the mere existence of parents of dead or dying children is too clear of a mirror for the rest of us and that, “Nobody wants to know the truth about their children, about themselves: that none of this is forever” (p. 18).

When I first read this (and heard her speak of it on an NPR show and say something similar), I was offended. I thought, “No, some of us want to know. Some of us have already been through great loss, and we wonder how we’d ever survive what might be categorized (in my mind, at least) as  a loss even greater…” And then I began to realize why I read these books: I read them to know that people can survive. I know better than to believe that I can prepare for the worst, but I do read them to believe and to be told again and again that we–humans–are far more resilient than we could ever imagine. I have seen this again and again as I grow older and witness more struggle and victories and loss, but I don’t feel like I can hear it enough.

That said, Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala simply slayed me. Gutted me. I found myself teary many many times or having that feeling of not being able to get a deep breath, and, to reference the title of this post, one time while reading the book I actually threw up. A book has NEVER done that to me before; it made me feel so much emotion that I literally barfed into my mouth. It was Friday, and my two sweet kids were nestled down in front of the TV watching “The Little Mermaid” (Friday night they can watch a movie and eat dinner–sometimes I join them on the couch, sometimes I read/have a beer at the table and drink them in from afar) and the song “Under the Sea” came on. The stark contrast between my life and the life of the author, between my two kids watching this film about the sea and her children (and entire family) who were eaten alive by the sea, between the abundance of life that I have before me and her singular self navigating life–everything just reached an emotional height in my head that I had never before experienced via a text and I THREW UP.

Now that’s powerful.

I talk a lot about reading to my students. I told them about reading this book and how it made me throw up. They looked at me quizzically and asked, “Is that a good thing?” and, of course, I threw the question right back at them. “Is it?”

I just started reading Kylene Beers & Robert Probst’s new book Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading. I am a big fan of Beers’ book When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do and was very excited to hear about her new text. In the first chapter, the authors talk about reading, rigor, text complexity, independent mastery, and all the jargon that exists out there about reading instruction. But, they argue, the real essence of good reading is for the reader to read a text, notice something in the text that leads them deeper into it, and this depth of understanding/engagement helps the reader realize something about him/herself as well. They call this a textual transaction: there is a give and take between the reader and the text.

The textual transaction between myself and Wave happened page by page. Every page, I found myself falling deeper into this woman’s grief, not in a sad way but in a human way. As a mother, a wife, a daughter, a professional, a woman, a homemaker–so many elements of her life resonated in me. Reading that book was equivalent to washing the window to my life–suddenly I could see my kids, my husband,our small apartment, our smaller bank account, my job, my students, my grey hair, the 10 lbs I can’t seem to lose–clearly and with a deep appreciation. I must admit, I am usually in awe at my little life and very thankful on the daily, but this book gave me a depth of gratitude that felt a little desperate (as if it could all be whisked away by a wave) but also beautifully  profound.

I am constantly in search of books that can have this effect on my students; a just right book for each student that will crack them open and leave them vulnerable yet full. And I always feel lucky when I have found a book like that for myself.

AERA is a big conference for those of us who do anything that has to do with education research. The American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting is huge. In fact, this year I decided that it might be too huge for me, but it looks good on a CV and it is a good networking event. Of course, the fact that this year’s conference was in San Francisco didn’t hurt–that city is so lovely and I always look for an excuse to go to California.

I didn’t get a paper selected (boo!), but I reviewed proposals (a great learning experience) and I was offered the chance to be a discussant for a panel of paper presentations called “Adolescents and High School Problems.” The directions on how to be a discussant were VAGUE. They read:

Discussant Responsibilities

As Discussant for a session, you are responsible for commenting on papers and presentations to provide professional and constructive criticism and raise issues for broader consideration that connect to these works. Your responsibilities fall into the following two areas:

In Advance of the Session

• Download and read the papers for your session after the April 5^th author paper upload deadline, in order to prepare comments and organize your thoughts. (Instructions on how to access papers are at the bottom of this email.)
• Prepare appropriate analytical or critical commentaries on the significance and contribution of the papers presented in the session.
• Connect with the session chair, who should have contacted you by email, to review the shape of the session and time constraints on the length of discussion.

I try to tell my students this: That sometimes in academics/school you just have to wing it and hope for the best. You might make an ass of yourself, or you might just rock it. This was one of those cases. I had no idea how I was supposed to structure a response to four research presentations, qualitative and quantitative, from the U.S., Germany, & Austria, within a time limit of 15 minutes. At first 15 minutes seemed too long and then the time seemed too short. I emailed a friend who gave me more vague advice. I had no model texts/examples to draw from. The date grew closer and closer and I had nothing prepared. . .

And then, while lesson planning for peer review in my classroom the week before the conference, it came to me: I could use what I make my students do! Right?

This was a fascinating exercise. Of course, being a reading/writing/composition teacher, my students participate in peer review frequently. I scoured a binder I have of peer review techniques and decided to use the one that gives the most comprehensive feedback. The reviewer provides feedback to the writer by responding to these three categories:

1. What I heard your paper saying (so the author can know what points stood out to the reader).

2. What I liked/what resonated in me from your paper (a bit of praise because we all need it).

3. Where your paper still needs some work/revision/suggestions for improvement (the much needed critique).

And it worked! I wrote a 9 page response to the four presentations. I started with a general intro, did the above for all four presentations, and concluded with some overarching observations that connected the work together. The presenters were very thankful for my feedback, and one young graduate student met with me for 1/2 hour afterwards due to my critiques on her conclusions (Her conclusions were very anti-teacher, and you know I can’t tolerate that! And, perhaps more important than my teacher defensiveness is that her conclusions did not stem from her data at all.).

Going through the exercise that I force my students to engage in–and seeing that it was actually a good structure and helpful to the participants–was a exercise in affirmation that what I do in the classroom has purpose. The next time a student asked, “How am I ever going to use THIS in the real world?!” I will have the *perfect* response for him/her.

Oh, and by the way, I quoted Biggie Smalls in my feedback to a woman from Austria whose research was on society and self- stigmatization from dropping out of high school. I found her work fascinating, and on a run in between writing I was listening to “Juicy” and Biggie Smalls says, “Considered a fool cuz I dropped out of high school” = stigmatization from dropping out! I am sure she didn’t get it, but others did and I felt pretty bad ass. Hip hop pedagogy! That class with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson back in 1996 at UNC is still in me.

Let me set the stage: AERA was grossly underprepared for the large audience who wanted to hear Duncan. When I arrived at the rooms (three conjoined hotel conference rooms) this is what it looked like:

That wooden door you see on the left was where he was speaking. I couldn’t even look in because the doorway was crammed full of people and the gross feeling of warm air heated by hot bodies wafted out of what was normally an overly-air conditioned space. I am sure that heat was generated from everyone simmering over his words.

I wasn’t there when he approached the stage and was booed, but I did hear booing as he spoke. I didn’t boo, but mainly because he wouldn’t have heard me. But I would have booed had I been in the audience. Shamelessly. Instead I cursed quietly to myself and tweeted and facebook updated my rage.

As I stood far removed from the Secretary of Education himself and listened to his words via a circular speaker in the ceiling amid a grumbling crowd, I thought that the entire situation seemed a pretty apt metaphor for the distance between us. Me, a teacher who spent 11 years in failing schools here in New York City who now teaches community college. Him, a policy and government guy. There will always be rooms and crowds and grumbling to separate us. We will never talk face-to-face.

He made a lot of comments that caused me shake my head and roll my eyes with a group of folks from UCLA who crowded beneath the overhead speaker with me. But I found myself seething at one particular statement he said:

“Our high needs schools have yet to find the most talented teachers.”

Wow. Thanks, Arne.

I was (am) a talented teacher. I am not afraid to say that in print. I love teaching deeply. I work hard at it. I was a talented teacher in my high needs school, and I worked with MANY talented teachers. Yes, we had teacher attrition among our talented teachers. Many left to go work at schools with less “needs.” Many left from burnout. Many left because it’s hard to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary here in NYC. But many stayed. Many talented folks stayed. And of those talented teachers, many are still at my old high school today, right now as I type this, negotiating the end of beautiful spring day, short attention spans, skimpy spring clothing, and the upcoming Regents Exam stress.

I was infuriated by his statement. I posted it on Facebook, where, of course, my teacher friends all rallied around me. One friend, a composition teacher and scholar, said, “Sounds like he should have taken a writing class, in which one learns about understanding one’s audience.” I had a nice chuckle at that. Until I thought about it.

The thing is, he DID know his audience. Just two hours earlier, I had been the discussant on a panel presentation called “Adolescents and High School Problems.” Four researchers presented their work on homelessness, truancy, drop-out rates, and high-aggression students from high schools in the U.S. and Europe. As I stood to give them my feedback, I asked if anyone in the audience of about 30 people had ever taught high school. ONE hand went up. ONE HAND. onehandonehandonehand.

Only one.

I realized that Arne Duncan felt he could say something disparaging about teachers who work in high needs schools because, for the most part, they are not at AERA. They are in their classrooms on a Tuesday afternoon, TEACHING. And, just as there is a divide between myself and Arne Duncan, there is an equally as large divide (if not larger?) between the practicing educator and the world of educational research.

My take away from Arne Duncan’s talk was that he felt at liberty to say what he said because the audience at AERA is not filled with practicing pedagogues from the nation’s public K-12 schools; it is filled with academics, researchers, graduate students who want to be academics and researchers, and a few teachers. And while I find much of what Arne Duncan said problematic, I find the absence of teachers and those who have taught for sustained amounts of time (not the 2-years TFA “experience”) within the world of educational research equally as problematic. I feel that the folks that booed were perhaps booing for teachers and the state of public education today because teachers barely have a whisper in the world of policy, theory, research, and reform. I appreciate that spirit of collective anger–I do. Teachers and schools need people in their corner. And I would like to say that the teachers need to be the ones booing, the ones raising hell right now, but I also know from a professional standpoint that such a move is too risky for many.

Sigh.

I have no grand conclusions here, just wishes that there were more teachers at the tables of AERA, that more researchers spent time teaching the population that constitutes their data, that more policy makers took a year off here and there to teach in a high needs school, and that more booing came directly from those who have reason to boo the loudest: the teachers, administrators, parents, and students who are the high needs schools in our country.

What I didn’t write about is how damn stressful setting all this up was for me. That I had about 50 emails exchanged with the folks from World Book Night and Jean and the other faculty in my House 4 (we work in instructional teams). That managing both of these events literally almost put me over the edge, especially because both events happened to land one day after one another (April 23rd & 24th) and on April 25th I left my home and two little kids for a week to present at the Urban Sites Network Conference of the National Writing Project in Birmingham, Alabama and then on to be a discussant for a panel at the American Education Research Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Oh, and I squeezed in my cousin’s wedding in California, too.

It. was. exhausting. I am only now starting to feel some relief from it all.

And, in addition to the stress of organizing it all, I felt guilty about the students missing class. We cancelled classes for all of Tuesday afternoon on the 23rd for the House 4 faulty/staff to attend World Book Night and we cancelled the third class on Wednesday for Jean’s presentation. I felt bad about missing instructional time, especially because they weren’t missing MY classes but my colleagues’. Even though I offered my classes up for I was in California (and they were taken by my colleagues for make-up classes), I still felt a little dirty inside that I was putting both World Book Night and an author visit over instructional time.

That was, until we did both events.

Each event was transformative for the students and as educational as any classroom time might have been. I feel this so deeply.

During our winter term, I taught a class I had co-written called Arts in NYC. Each week, we visited a different museum. I watched the students grow as thinkers, speakers, and writers in crazy leaps–leaps that didn’t really make sense to me as an educator. Were they really developing those skills so quickly? What was causing such development? Weekly visits to museums and conversations with each other and me couldn’t foster such growth…or could it?

I am not sure, but as I mentioned in each post, I could feel the students learning and thinking and rearranging their preconceived ideas during the events of World Book Night and Jean Kwok’s visit. Both events necessitated that we cancel classes and use class time for learning in a different way.

It was so worthwhile.

I posted months ago about a young man reading our Composition I book in two nights here. This novel, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, was beloved by my students. It was one of those rare moments when reluctant readers ALL read an assigned class text and ENJOYED it. Many students confessed that it was the first novel they had read in years. Many said it was the only novel they have ever liked. One girl wrote me this touching email:

“Professor U. , I finished the book. I don’t read much. The last book I read was No Impact Man. The last book I read and enjoyed was Rule Of The Bone 4 years ago. I love this book so much, she inspires me to write my own book. She had so many struggles and she even had a baby and was a MED student and she was broke, if she can make it I know I can be a nurse even with a baby. Thank you for making me read this book now I feel like I have no excuse to not do what I want no matter how tired I am. I love this book I don’t mind reading it again for notes for my paper. Thank you.”

I was thrilled with the student response, but their writing about the book was even better.

For their first essay, the students had to interview someone who had immigrated and compare/contrast their immigration story to the protagonist of the novel, Kim. Ever the procrastinator, I put off grading until I HAD to, but when I started to read their essays I was so moved by their words that I found myself teary at times. Many, many students interviewed their own parents and their stories were painful, amazing, and terrifying. I felt the author should know what the students were writing. I thought, “If I ever write a book and students like it, I’d hope the teachers would tell me…” Like many authors, Jean Kwok had a Facebook profile so I liked her and messaged her this:

Teaching Girl in Translation again for a Freshman Composition class at a CUNY community college. They LOVE this book. One essay began with: “The book, Girl in Translation was one I did not look forward to reading. It is about a girl and her mother. Really, I was not interested. My mother took the book and began to read it. I found her in bed crying as she read one night and I was startled. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me how much she understood Ah-Kim and Mrs. Chang. I soon realized that something that could move my mother to tears had to be something for me to read!” Just wanted to share. Thanks for writing such a great novel!

And Jean Kwok immediately wrote back! One, I was surprised that she even wrote, but two, she was coming to NYC for other business and volunteered to come meet our students! I was ecstatic.

Logistics aside, the day came for her to visit. I taught both of my classes before her visit at 5pm, and we discussed what it meant to host an author and what it meant that she was coming to meet them because of the power of their words. We decorated the entire room with the students’ favorite quotes from her novel. They looked up “Welcome” in Chinese (I have no idea of it was in Mandarin or Cantonese…I just let them run with it) and tried to write it. We rearranged furniture, cleaned up the room, and brainstormed questions for her. It was an informal lesson on hosting and presentation of self.

And when she arrived, it was like God himself had landed. From the moment she walked into the room she was friendly, vivacious, and genuine. She immediately tossed her bags down, approached the students, and showed them a dance video on her phone. She asked girls about fashion. She talked with guys about smart phones. It was like we had all known her our whole lives.

I have worked with urban youth for my entire career, and I took them on field trips all the time. There are museums/theaters/spaces that know how to work with this student population (The Museum of the Moving Image is fabulous) and others who are a little *scared* of the student population I teach. Students can sense that quickly. Jean’s warmth–well, it warmed them all up. She had them at her entrance. When she began her official talk, you could have heard a pin drop in that room. When she took out her book to read, they all turned to that page eagerly. When she talked about her own struggles, you could sense the students leaning in. Oh my god. It was just beautiful to witness.

And her presentation seemed to have been perfectly written for our students. She spoke of her own immigration experience from Hong Kong, her family, and their struggles. She talked about what it means to be an author and a writer as a career. She then read certain passages from her book and talked about why she included them and what they meant to her as the author. She got personal. She was real. Lastly, she gave a quick pep talk on what she had learned from her own experiences in terms of school, work, and a life well lived.

Afterwards she took questions and laughed heartily when the students asked about her old boyfriends, and then she signed books and took photos with the group and each individual student so graciously. And she wasn’t faking it–again, you can tell that stuff.

She told me later, as we stood outside waiting for her car service, that there are two types of audiences she has spoken to after writing this book:  the audience for whom her book revealed a side of the world they had no idea existed and the audience who totally gets what she wrote about because their own lived experience is similar. She said that as she looked out into the faces of our students, she knew they got her because their lives–like a Venn Diagram–had a large quantity of overlap. She knew them, and they knew her. She was right.

Thank you so so much Jean. None of us will forget your kindness.

God, I love teaching.

Jean Kwok talks about her own family and her immigration experience.

Reading from her book. Note: the students are all reading along!

We love Girl in Translation! (about 2/3 of the audience had already left. Bummer.)

Simone (the student whose paragraph/essay started this entire process!) Note: the attempted Chinese writing behind her.

I mean, seriously, don’t they look like BFFs?

Me, geeking out and getting my book signed. I am rabid with joy.

Last week, on April 23rd (Shakespeare’s birth and death day), my students, colleagues, and I gave out 400 books for World Book Night. The mission of World Book Night is to get as many books as possible into the hands of light to non-readers on this evening. You apply on their website to be a giver (the application is simple–you have to state who you are, where you’d give, and why) and if you are approved they ship you books to a local bookstore and you go give them out at your designated location.

My student Asha and I collaborated and applied to give out books in the Rockaways, Queens, an area devastated by Hurricane Sandy this past fall. Many folks lost their homes, appliances, and furniture, but others items were lost as well, particularly people’s books. We applied to hand out books to people who lived in the Rockaways for this reason. Asha lives in Arverne, a neighborhood in the Rockaways. During the hurricane her and her family huddled on the second floor of their house as water flooded and filled the entire first floor. They sat up there and waited, wondering if they would die. The water receded, but their entire first floor was ruined. She schlepped to school every day–despite transportation challenges (which were immense as the A train subway line to the Rockaways went under water and was ruined)–and didn’t miss a day of class despite her situation. True resilience. We were all at a loss of how to help her. In some way, this service work was for her.

When approved to be givers for World Book Night, the faculty in House 4 were excited, but when I told the students about doing this House-wide service project the responses I got were appalling. Many students didn’t want to go to where “those people” lived because they believed they would get shot, killed, assaulted, etc. They didn’t want to go “out there” because “those people are crazy.” One student, as aspiring professional photographer, when asked if he would come and shoot our event, said, “No way I am bringing my camera out around those people.” The racism was shameless, vocal, and sickening.

I chided them on their racism. I was pretty disgusted. I told them that most of “my” people (read white middle-upper class professionals) consider ALL of my students “those people” and isn’t that WRONG?! I explained how I have to work tirelessly to convince my peers that my students–despite their “scary” urban exteriors–are just people. With this in mind, how could the students so easily claim that people who lived in a certain neighborhood were all violent, ignorant, and criminals? Unbelievable.

In the end, my chiding and cheerleading for the event didn’t change anyone’s mind, but it didn’t matter. About 25 students who wanted to come (of the 70 in our House) came out for the event. We decided to give out books at the Rockaway Blvd A train station to hit the maximum number of people. There is a triangular island of concrete that houses the bus stops for the two buses that now travel to the Rockaways (as the A train is still being reconstructed). Upon seeing this triangular piece of concrete, several students joked that it was a prime place to get shot (as it’s out in the open and wedged between three large roads), but then they just grabbed boxes of books, signs for World Book Night, and set off.

We gave out 400 books in ONE HOUR. ONE. HOUR.

IT WAS AMAZING.

The students walked all over, engaged everyone they met, and gave out books. I felt like I was witnessing a tiny metamorphosis of sorts right in front of me. I could tell they were astounded that 1. People WANTED books, 2. They could talk about books to people as college students, and 3. That doing this made them feel great.

The next day in class I shared the photos shot by our amazing Student Success Advocate for House 4, Ramon, with the entire class with the particular intention of rubbing our great time in the faces of those who were too racist to attend. The students who had given out books couldn’t hold back their enthusiasm. “When can we do something like this again?” they asked. “Can’t we go do a big service project somewhere?” one asked. “I can’t believe people actually wanted books!” another exclaimed.

Even writing this I get all warm and happy inside.

I was so damn proud of them and I told them so.

Here are some pictures from the event. For more, feel free to look on the public Dropbox site. Rock on, House 4.

Asha, Bianca, & Shantelle model the books.

Hillary, Dakota, Jason, and Daquan (elevated train on the left)

She couldn’t wait to start reading her book!

Group photo as we all got started. My daughter is the one is the crazy colors.

Danny catches a young high school man on his way home.

We gave out The Alchemist, La Casa en Mango Street, The Lightening Thief, and Favorite American Poems

So many folks starting reading immediately. JOY!

Kadeem gives out books!

On my To Do list today? A million other things. Not on my To Do list? A letter of recommendation.

But I did it.

And she was thrilled and sent me this photograph of us from last year’s graduation:

Which made me feel this (billboard in the Bronx in memorial of Beastie Boy MCA, Adam Yauch):

Sometimes the payoffs of teaching are crystal clear.

Comic Sans is very overused by teachers. I understand why someone who teaches K-3 might use it. After that, it should be banned. Exiled. Banished (pronounced like in Romeo & Juliet = banish-Ed). It makes you look stupid, and god knows in this anti-teacher climate nobody needs one more reason to call a teacher stupid.

My last Assistant Principal loved both Comic Sans and clip art. Yes, you read that correctly: the double kiss of death when trying to make anything look professional. In my opinion, if you want to look like a total moron use Comic Sans and clip art on your memos. Then everyone will be sure to ignore you and mock you behind your back (or to your face, if you’re lucky).

Yes, I am a snob, but I am not alone. I am part of a large community of people who hate this font. Just play around on Google awhile.

Educators! Yes you, people of my tribe:  STOP USING COMIC SANS!

In community college, there are often professors who struggle with classroom management. Many of our students struggled in high school, therefore they have certain behaviors that they employ to mask their academic weaknesses. I have found in community college these behaviors mostly include talking, texting, and getting up to use the bathroom a lot. I can shut those behaviors down fairly easily compared to the high school behaviors of cursing, fighting, Turrets-like outbursts, getting confrontational with the teacher, and sleeping. But to professors who have taught in different environments, specifically 4-year or graduate schools, a room full of students who don’t shut up is challenging.

One thing I suggest to professors struggling is to match your lessons/teaching strategies to energy of the class. If they are chatty, have them engage in activities that allow them to talk/debate/discuss material from class in small groups. If they are high energy, allow them to move. Don’t fight them! Think of your students as a big wave. You are in the ocean and a big wave is coming towards you–what do you do? You certainly don’t stand there and think that if you stand tall and strong that you can conquer the wave. That’s silly. You dive into it. Your turn around and body surf. You ENGAGE it. That’s necessary in the classroom as well.

Wednesday we needed to wrap up the novel Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. I did this through a Silent Wall Conversation Activity. Although with my students–in the excitement of being reunited and general chattiness–it was a Not-so-Silent Wall Conversation Activity.

Here’s what you do:

1. Break students into groups of 4-5

2. I gave each group a topic we had discussed in relation to the novel (History of Immigration in the United States, Assimilation Theories, The “Model Minority” Stereotype, Racism/Discrimination, & Wild Card–Choose your favorite quote). They had to find a quote from the novel that related to their assigned topic. They wrote the quote on chart paper.

3. Each student gets one marker. If possible, all different colors, but that’s hard when there are 25 students. The key is that the student should be able to be identified by his/her color marker.

4. Students get up, walk around the room, and respond to the quote and/or their peers’ responses to the quote. They can agree, disagree, write their thoughts, opinions, comments–whatever.  They are to keep their language academic. They are supposed to be in conversation with the quote and each other on the chart paper and through their writing.

5. After all students have commented on all the quotes, each group goes back to their chart paper/quote and reads the feedback they received. They circle the comments that stood out to them and discuss why.

6. Each group shares out what feedback stood out to them and why to the class. This proved to be a great way to defend the quote they selected, explain further how they read it, or engage their peers in conversation. There are some small heated debates from this part of the activity!

Overall, it was a great way to wrap up the book. It was not at all silent, but I was okay with that because they did the activity well and took it seriously. Below are some photographs of their charts from class.

Early Childhood Education is very hot right now. President Barack Obama even mentioned it in his inauguration address. Every talking head in the world of education is blah blah blah-ing about how an early start to reading, writing, math, and school habits is what determines future academic success and often success in life overall. I don’t disagree. I am not at all versed (academically) in early childhood education literature, policies, or practices (except from my own experiences of a mother of two small children currently aged 3 and 5), but this is what I don’t understand.

In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, a very well-off spot, pre-kindergarten classes are being cut left and right. Of the four most sought after elementary schools, three have cut ALL of their pre-k classes.

For those of you who don’t understand the NYC Department of Education, pre-kindergarten is optional–for both schools and parents. There is discussion of making it compulsory, but again, that’s a just a bunch of hot air coming out of politician’s mouths, because right as they say those words schools are cutting programs. Thankfully, for us, our elementary school is the ONE school left that will have TWO classes (the classes are capped at 18), but, like I said, we are lucky.

Yet another coffee cup (venti sized) of hypocrisy brewing…

Came across this great infographic on the benefits of early childhood education. Thought it was worth reading.

Please Include Attribution to EducationNews.org With This Graphic