Wednesday, November 25, 2020

NCTE 2020 -- So Much to Celebrate!

 


Janet Wong, recipient of the 2021 Excellence in Poetry for Children Award


I Am Every Good Thing, winner of the 2021 Charlotte Huck Award 
for Outstanding Fiction for Children (along with all of the honor and recommended books)


Above the Rim: How Elgin Baylor Changed Basketball, winner of the 2021 Orbis Pictus Award
for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children (along with all of the honor and recommended books)


Good thing conference attendees have 60 days to continue to access the archives! What are some sessions that were too fabulous to miss?


Thursday, November 19, 2020

Poetry Friday -- Messages From the Universe

 This morning, between this page (which I've already seen) in my Everyday Offerings book...


...and this page (which I've already seen)...


I found this new message for the day:



And I flipped over the next card in my meditation deck...


WOW. 
I looked up, and the vase of flowers on my table said this:


Wednesday night, listening to the Scholastic Independent Reading Panel, I heard Peter H. Reynolds say this:

a gentle rebel
leans outside the box
as far as they can

(without being fired)


Earlier on Wednesday, one of my students shot an observation straight into my heart: "This is so hard. This way of learning." What she was missing the most were the times of collaboration and conversation students have while working side by side in a physical classroom. Our remote learning independent work times are solitary, and my learners have been isolated during these work times.

The words of Peter H. Reynolds nudged me to reconsider our daily schedule. Could I make time for my students to virtually sit side by side, working together, helping each other (and certainly chatting a bit)? 

Yes. And when I previewed our new schedule with the class, they were SO appreciative that I'd listened and responded. 

The Scholastic Independent Reading Panel speakers helped me to reimagine my daily message to my students about their 30 minute independent reading time:
  • How are the books you’re choosing helping you to become the person you want to be?
  • How are the books you’re choosing helping you to understand the lives and feelings of others?
  • How are the books you’re reading bringing you joy?
  • How are the books you’re reading helping you to understand your own identity?
  • How are the books you’re reading helping you to understand the way the world works so that you can make it a better place for everyone?
And those first messages in my Everyday Offerings book? They have helped me lean further out of my box than I ever thought possible as I plan for a study of what happens in a democracy AFTER an election. About the work regular citizens do to keep our nation running.

we make some noise
we split open and sparkle
then put the pieces together
become a magnet for miracles
and bloom with wild abandon

Thank you, Universe.

Happy Friday, friends! Happy Poetry Friday!

Linda B. has graciously rescued this week's Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance. 2020 strikes again!



Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative









Today, the book Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative by Cathy Fleischer and Antero Garcia is available! This is an important book for all educators who want to work to change the narrative about literacy and education. This is a must-read for educators. It would be a great book to read with a group of colleagues--local or beyond--to think about how you can make a difference as part of your everyday work.

We had the chance to ask Cathy and Antero some questions about their book and the ideas behind it. We hope you learn from all they have to say and the resources they share. 

Franki: Why do you think it is important for teachers to have advocacy skills?

Cathy and Antero: The public narrative surrounding teachers is too often dismissive, demeaning, and just plain wrong--based on “what it was like when I went to school” or on years of one-dimensional media depictions of either the hero teacher (who works 80 hours a week to save kids) or the uncaring teacher who doesn’t take the work seriously. Neither of these depictions fit the teachers we know, the teachers who are committed to professional learning and thoughtful curriculum development, who care deeply about students, who continually work to improve their own teaching, and who make meaningful decisions about what to teach and what not to teach.

But sadly, so many decisions about how and what we teach have been taken away from teachers and placed in the hands of people who are not regularly in schools and who quite simply don’t have the knowledge or expertise to decide how and what we should teach.

This is why teachers need advocacy skills--to share their voices, their stories, their expertise in order to shift the public narrative around teaching in order to help others (colleagues, administrators, legislators and community members) see teachers and teaching differently.

Franki: You’ve really worked to redefine advocacy for educators and to broaden the ways in which we, as teachers can see ourselves doing this work. I imagine that has been very intentional. Can you talk about that journey?

Cathy: For me it began twenty years ago when my husband (an environmental advocate) and I would talk over the dinner table about our work, and I learned how he uses advocacy measures to create campaigns on specific environmental issues. His super-smart thinking on things like cutting an issue, identifying decision-makers, and finding allies led me to start studying community organizing and advocacy, interviewing organizers in multiple fields, and thinking hard about how what they do could be adapted for teachers. I began writing about what I was learning and then offering workshops for teachers so I see how they thought advocacy might work for them, how it could be a part of their already overly busy lives rather than an add-on. This led to co-creating the Everyday Advocacy website with former NCTE Communications Director Jenna Fournel, which features hands-on approaches to advocacy and teacher stories from these workshops. Truly, every single day I learn more and more from the amazing teachers who do this work: how they continue to advocate for ways of teaching and learning they know are important in their specific contexts.

Antero: Before learning about Everyday Advocacy from Cathy and her work with Jenna, my work with teachers tended to focus on what we refer to in the book as “big A” Advocacy. My scholarship and my experiences in classrooms often emphasized activist stances toward justice that, admittedly, can get in the way of some teachers seeing themselves as advocates. Part of what’s appealed to me about the work that Cathy leads is that every teacher can see themselves in this work, it builds on what they know, it encourages them to center student learning needs, and it is focused on results for the here and now. I think getting every teacher to see themselves as an advocate and building capacity with this skill set is an imperative for classroom teachers right now; that it still connects to bigger issues around democracy, labor, and freedom is an added bonus.

Franki: Can you talk about the importance of the word “everyday” in your title and idea about advocacy?

Cathy and Antero: Advocacy seems like a big scary word—it’s what those paid community organizers or lobbyists do to get bills passed or to organize marches with thousands of people in the street. But there are a ton of examples in the world of folks who use their voices and tell their stories as part of their day to day lives—and that’s what we mean when we use the term everyday advocacy--part-of rather than add-on.

The word also reminds us that the regularity of advocacy in the lives of teachers makes it feel less scary. Like going to the gym (in the times when it was safe to do so!), advocacy is a muscle that develops or atrophies through everyday use.

Franki: Everyone has ideas about education and it seems that teachers are no longer the people trusted when it comes to decision-making. But you have a strong belief in teachers and you have ideas about how we can change the narrative. What can teachers do locally and beyond to change that?

Cathy and Antero: It’s true--we do believe in teachers! As we say in the introduction to the book, “We believe in their power to inspire, challenge, support, and care for the students with whom they work--day-in and day-out, in often challenging circumstances, and with intelligence and grace. Teachers, we know, are contemporary superheroes, and we believe they should be honored as such, each and every day.”

But teachers are not always trusted to make decisions about curriculum and pedagogy and assessment and a host of other issues. And the narrative that we mentioned above--one that is too often dismissive and demeaning--has become even stronger during this pandemic. We’ve been amazed at the ways some people are dismissing the herculean effort that teachers are putting forth and disheartened that teacher voices were too often absent from discussions of how to do school this year.

We believe that teachers can change that narrative and bring their voices into the discussion--and the book is filled with ideas about how to do that. Specifically, teachers can focus on a particular issue that impacts them in their local setting, learn as much as they can about that issue (by carefully observing students in their own classrooms, working to understand the context of their own communities, and immersing themselves in what others have written and said about the issue); seek like-minded colleagues and community members to become allies; and set out a plan to help others understand the issue differently. It’s not always easy, but as the examples in the book show, teachers are doing this work in all kinds of ways.

Franki: With limited time, what are some quick tips for how teachers might do move advocacy work?

Cathy and Antero: We think working proactively is the first big step. What can you do as a teacher to help other teachers, administrators, parents, and community members understand why you teach in the ways you do? You can host a parent night in which you ask these adults to share memories of reading and writing in their lives and then connect their memories to why you use choice reading and writing workshops. Or you might begin a children’s or young adult book club for students and parents that focuses on diverse books so parents can both up their own knowledge and watch how their students respond. Or you might share student work regularly with your families and administrators so they can see the great work that emerges when you teach in a particular way.

This proactive advocacy leads to you developing more allies as others understand your thinking and your teaching. And once they understand, we’ve found they are more willing to have your back if questions or concerns arise down the road.

Franki: Who are some people (other than the authors in your book) who educators can follow as models for their own advocacy work?

Cathy and Antero: We love the blog Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care as an example of how you can write for the public. Check out their Tips for Writing for Parents as one resource.

We also love Jessyca Matthew’s articles for Teaching Tolerance and her interview for NEA’s Social Justice Advocate of the Year.

The ELATE Commission on Social Justice has a ton of useful resources on their easy to remember site: https://justice.education/

As a professional learning community, the Marginal Syllabus project has been a years-running effort to bridge the theories described in NCTE journals into dialogue and practice; the ideas and connections here are useful and rejuvenating.

Lastly, getting to read about the big and small forms of advocacy happening in the lives of teachers and teacher educators is always illuminating. Literacy scholar Betina Hsieh and math teacher Jose Vilson’s blogs are both wonderful.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Poetry Friday: Haiku Diary

 I got way behind posting my daily haiku on Twitter with #haikudiary and #poeticdiversion, but I kept at it in my notebook. Here are the week's snippets:


Friday, 11/6

Poetry Friday
digital, virtual
still magical


Saturday, 11/7


everywhere I look
red and blue harmonize
naturally


Sunday, 11/8

unseasonable heat
restacking the woodpile


Monday, 11/9

midday walk at the farm
no blue birds, but a monarch
don't dawdle


Tuesday, 11/10

rollercoaster
almost tears at lunchtime
almost


Wednesday, 11/11

Oh, to go fishing --
rippling water, leaping trout --
instead...more work.


Thursday, 11/12

Where do you want to visit?
Dreaming our futures.



Robyn Hood Black (Queen of the Haiku) has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Life on the Deckle Edge


Friday, November 06, 2020

Poetry Friday: "A Portable Paradise"

 


On Wednesday, I received the best gift of all -- the right poem at the right time.

I'm still grieving the loss of The Slowdown podcast, and haven't brought myself to listen to the final episode. Maybe today.

Luckily, I have a backlog of Poetry Unbound episodes, and luckily, I picked the one from Monday. Pádraig Ó Tuama reads and comments on Roger Robinson's poem "A Portable Paradise."

"And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath."

What a lovely thought -- keeping my Paradise close at hand to give me comfort in times of stress. Yes.
 
But without Pádraig Ó Tuama's commentary, I would have missed the shift of the pronouns in the sixth line. Before that, the pronouns are "I." In line six comes "they." After line six, the pronouns are "you" and "your."

Ó Tuama suggests that this shift allows us to read "ethically," moving from a self-centered reading to a consideration of all the times when we've been the ones to steal another's paradise. 

Oof. I had to sit with that idea for the rest of the drive to school. Yet another example of all the ways we need to do our own internal work before we'll be ready to fully engage in the big work that the world is giving us right now.

Big work, indeed. As I've been saying to myself and my students all week, no matter what the outcome of the election, we need to stay focused on the three metaphors I chose for me/us: the big umbrella that welcomes all into its shelter, the lightbulb of truth and learning, and the bridge that spans divides. Our focus is on positive activism -- using our voices and our actions to lead the world in a positive direction.

Happy Poetry Friday! Thanks to the technological marvel of breakout rooms in Google Meet and the great good gift of Amy LV's online poetry archives, today we will attempt Poetry Friday they way I did it when we were in the classroom together and I could send students to my poetry shelves for a book: pick a poem, practice reading it aloud, perform it for the whole class. 

Susan has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Soul Blossom Living.


Thursday, October 29, 2020

Poetry Friday -- Space is a Word

Back on September 3, Laura Purdie Salas shared a poem written using a wordplay form that was the challenge Nikki Grimes offered up at Today's Little Ditty back in 2015. She featured this form in her October newsletter, "Salas Snippets."

I forwarded Laura's newsletter to my school email and luckily it surfaced right when I needed it.

We had finished our big Life Science unit, and covered our Space Science standards. Rather than giving a traditional test, I wanted my students to interact with the information in a creative way. "___ is a Word" poems were perfect! 

After studying Laura's examples, we noticed that this kind of poem always has a description of the chosen word in the first line, and it tells more about the word or the shape of the word in the poem.

Here's the poem we wrote together:


And here are a few of the poems my 5th graders wrote (click on the images to enlarge them):

Moon is a Word by J.



Pluto is a Word by A.



Planet is a Word by Z.



Orbit is a Word by S.



Pluto is a Word by A.


Linda B. has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at TeacherDance.


Friday, October 23, 2020

Poetry Friday -- Autumn Acrostic

a tree in our neighborhood

 

At first, it goes
Unnoticed.
Then it is
Undeniable. Almost like
Magic, summer is gone.
No more shorts and swimsuits.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020 (with input from students on the last line)


My original last like was "naked trees," but "naked" is still a squirmy word for fifth graders (which I LOVE), so I gladly accepted this perfectly child-centric alternative last line.

We have been blessed with a glorious autumn, but my heart goes out to those who have had drought and fires, hurricanes and flooding. 

Jama's serving up warm cider and donuts with an autumn poem which, like mine last week, features an apple orchard. It's all kinds of perfect. Head over to the Poetry Friday Roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup and check it out.



Friday, October 16, 2020

Poetry Friday: "I am overtired"




AFTER APPLE PICKING
by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.


I know I've been perky and positive in the past about my remote teaching gig, and all of the positives are still there. But I'm here today to tell you the other part of the truth: teaching remotely is hard. So so so very hard. Sit at the kitchen table completely stuck saying over and over again, "I don't know how to do this" hard. Long hours hard. Just longing to hand out a worksheet instead of making everything hard. How can I possibly reach every child hard. Overwhelmingly exhausted hard.

So even though this poem is about apple picking, it is about teaching remotely. How it takes over every waking and sleeping minute. And just at this moment, on a Friday after a late night of conferences on Wednesday and another this morning (and I still have to get ready for math), 

"For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired."


Janice has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at Salt City Verse.

Friday, October 02, 2020

Poetry Friday -- Letting Go and Holding On

Being a Remote Learning Academy teacher is a non-stop life lesson in letting go of what's not important right now, or what's overwhelming right now, or what just won't work through a screen. On the flipside, it is also a non-stop life lesson in holding tightly to all the things that are most important.

Read aloud is one of those most important things for sure. The workshop model, too. I'm kinda sorta making workshop work. Word Game Wednesday is alive and thriving. And I've managed to bring back Poetry Friday. 

I gave my students a slide show filled with some of my photos for inspiration. We started with 15 Words or Less and Haiku. Five students have poems they're willing to share today. I copied their slides into a Poetry Friday slide show, and today after we share, I'll offer a new challenge: write a Nonet.

Here is the Nonet I wrote as their mentor text:



Puff
of wish,
globe of stars,
summer snowflake,
granny in the grass.
Some say you are a weed,
but to me you are magic.
Even though I blow you to bits,
you never hold a grudge -- you spread joy.


Mary Lee Hahn, 2020




(Hat tip to Amy LV for the inspiration for the line "granny in the grass.")


Tabatha has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Anthropomorphized Monkeys and Racist Stereotypes in Children's Books

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows that I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Farmer and the Clown by Marla Frazee from the minute it was published. I am a HUGE Marla Frazee fan and love all of her work. Walk On! and The Farmer and the Clown are definitely two of my favorite picture books.

So I was VERY excited to read that this wordless book, The Farmer and the Clown, was going to grow into a trilogy! What a treat!  I couldn't wait to get a copy.

Then, I saw the title of the second book and I worried: The Farmer and the Monkey.

I have only recently started to pay attention to monkeys in children's literature. Edith Campbell led a Highlights Foundation workshop that I attended last year where she shared the problems with anthropomorphized monkeys in children's literature. She writes a bit about it here. The idea was new to me then (which in itself is a problem I take full responsibility for) and although I still don't completely understand it to the extent that I should, I can now see it as a huge problem.

If this is something you need to learn more about, Elisa Gall at Reading While White also wrote about this over 2 years ago in the post Knowing Better, Doing Better.

I am still continuing to learn more about this, but as I do, I am looking at children's books with monkeys with a more critical lens. I've recently realized this is something I've been missing all these years. When I revisit and learn more about Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Voices in the Park and others, I missed so much as I continued to share these books with children and teachers for so long.

So, back to The Farmer and the Monkey, the sequel to The Farmer and the Clown.

I ordered the book the day it came out. Even though I knew the issues with anthropomorphized monkeys in children's literature, I was hopeful.  Very hopeful. I trusted that maybe since this was about a circus, it would be okay. As I said, I LOVED The Farmer and the Clown and I really wanted to LOVE this one too.

My hope disappeared after reading just a few pages of this new book.  This adorable monkey caused trouble the minute he entered the farmer's house.  It was clear from the visuals early on that this monkey was a troublemaker and misbehaved often.  This thread of this character as "troublesome" and "behavior problem" works through the whole book.  When I thought about this as related to Edith Campbell's work, I couldn't help but see how this was a problem. The racist stereotype of Black children as troublemakers is something that this book amplifies. 

I was compelled to dig a bit more.  I went page by page in the book and here are some problematic things I noticed:

  • The monkey appears to me to be sneaky. Before he even enters the farmer's home, he is sneaking around, climbing on the roof, peeking in windows.
  • The monkey is only in the farmer's house for a few minutes before the farmer sends him away--kicks him out of the house in the dark night. Alone.
  • The monkey is left alone in the night and is buried in snow while the farmer presumably sleeps peacefully, not checking on the monkey through the night.
  • The next morning, the farmer sees the monkey in the snow, (seemingly waiting to be saved), feels sorry for the monkey and brings him in and cares for him. but the monkey still causes immense trouble on the farm and although the farmer doesn't seem to enjoy the monkey, he is more patient with him. 
  • The farmer sends the monkey off on his own to meet the train/his circus family, with a full picnic basket strapped to his back so that finally the farmer can rest peacefully on a haystack. The ending shows that the farmer's life is much better after he sends the monkey away.
Even after noticing these things, I was still a tiny bit hopeful. I remembered the clown in the first book being troublesome too, so I went back and compared the books, page by page, assuming I might see that the clown had been similar in character but that I forgot.  Here is what I noticed:

  • The clown visibly presents as a white child.
  • When the farmer sees the clown all alone, he immediately takes him in and cares for him, holding his hand as they walk to the farmer's house. The clown seems compliant and happy to have the farmer as a friend almost immediately. This is a huge contrast from the monkey, sneaking in and causing trouble immediately and the farmer becoming flustered.
  • In the home, the little clown is sweet and compliant. He does everything the farmer does.
  • The farmer is so loving toward the clown that the clown sleeps in the farmer's bed while the farmer stays awake making sure the clown is comfortable. In contrast, the farmer sleeps in his own bed while the monkey sleeps on the floor in a small picnic basket, or even stays awake at night while the farmer sleeps.
  • The clown was NEVER kicked out of the farmer's home. Instead the farmer did everything he could to help the clown feel welcome and to be comfortable.
  • The farmer works hard to entertain the clown and to make sure he is happy. The clown also appears to be VERY helpful with chores on the farm. 
  • In the first book, the farmer and the clown go on a fabulous picnic using a full picnic basket as they wait for the circus train. They eat together under a tree. When the train arrives, the farmer holds the clown's hand and waits until the family comes out and greets him. The farmer and the clown have an emotional goodbye that is filled with hugs and love. The farmer seems to keep the clown's hat to remember him.
  •  In contrast, the monkey is sent on his own, loaded down with a heavy picnic basket that they packed with food. Instead of hugs and love, the farmer shakes the monkey's hand and sends him off, without enjoying the meal together, never making sure he gets where he is going.
  • The farmer appears relieved when the monkey is gone as he rests on the haystack.

After learning from Edith Campbell and others, this is the first time that I have actually SEEN for myself -- without someone else pointing them out -- the racist stereotypes and the problems with anthropomorphized monkeys in a children's book. When I look at these two characters critically, I now see a sweet white child and a troublesome monkey. I see too many anti-Black messages in this book to look away. I am not the only one who has concerns about this book. Michelle Knott also mentioned her concerns in a recent blog post.

As I said earlier, this understanding about anthropomorphized monkeys in children's literature is new to me and I imagine it is new to many educators, authors, parents and publishers. I hope that we can all do better now that this information about the problems with anthropomorphized monkeys is readily available for us.

It is not my intent for this post to end up starting a conversation about this specific book, but instead for it to act as a call for all of us who work with children and children's books to commit to learning, understanding and critically analyzing books with monkeys and to understand the problematic history of these images.

I will continue to be a huge Marla Frazee fan even if I cannot be a supporter of this book.  I am hoping that that authors and publishers take this issue of monkeys in picture books more seriously in the future.

If you'd like to learn more, here are a few things I've read:




Edith Campbell reminds us in her post about Grumpy Monkey, "Regardless of the creator’s intent, there are social, cultural and political forces that shape the messages we find in books. Hundreds of years of equating blacks with simians cannot help but be seen in anthropomorphic pictures books"