A Couple of Tasks Lighter and More on the Way

     It is certainly a relief when some thing finally get completed and become a new responsibility for someone else.  Such was the case late yesterday when I finally was able to mail off the application materials for the NCTA/TEA seminar in Boulder, Colorado this Summer.  I hope to land a place in the "Japan's Olympic Challenges" course which would be very insightful and helpful in the broadening of my perspective on Japan in order to provide a more in-depth treatment of it with my students.  I also finally finished all of the writing needed for the Teachers for Global Classrooms initiative, which I hope to be a part of next academic year.  It concentrates, as the name suggests, on cultivating a global perspective in our classrooms and with our students, to the benefit of all.  This is one of my passions, and the other one is to provide equitable educational opportunities for students of color in poverty, whether they be in urban or rural environments.  I am looking again at H. Richard Milner's "Start Where You Are, But Don't Stay There" as a potential source for professional development for district or state teachers.  I will pitch a design to some important players locally perhaps later this week (if given the chance in our meetings).  It remains to be seen.
     These past few days have been a bit difficult for me to muddle through because I have experienced a series of betrayals that I had been trying not to face head on, but they have finally crystallized to a point where they are no longer able to be denied.  It is a very sad end to what I had believed to be a familial tie which had grown into a friendship.  To add to the betrayals, I have not been quite able to share them with anyone, which has put me out of sorts more than I would like to admit.  I am trying to refrain from sharing any of the details of the betrayals, so as not to dampen anyone else's spirits because I am not one who believes that misery loves company...I try to avoid partaking in someone else's misery unless it affects someone that I love.  So, I am certain that no one would care to become involved in my own misery at the moment.
     Testing for my students has wrapped up completely as well, which is a relief rarely savored as much as this year.  Testing was much more time-consuming and tedious than in years past, and I hope this was only due to the new format.  I am crossing my fingers that next year will be handled much better (on my own part) and can be done more easily.  I am pretty confident that I know where the pitfalls were and can avoid them in the future.
     On a cheerier note, vacation from school is coming up from March 25-April 3.  I am looking forward to all of the days to catch up on outside projects, although my original plan to take my sons to Korea was not able to be done.  I have high hopes for getting it done pretty soon, though.  Before we go off to vacation, however, I still have St. Patrick's Day and Easter to deal with, with students who have no earthly idea why Americans celebrate in the ways that we do.  Today, I began with a lesson on where the traditions came from, and passed around a globe to my first grade students, who were so fascinated to actually be able to touch it.  I guess I take too many things for granted.  That six-year-olds would have had a balloon in their home at one time or another, and that everyone is as geography and history-oriented as myself.  Unfortunately, I need to stop and pay attention to my own assumptions because they are so basic for me, but are definitely not so for many of my students.  I can unpack many of my presuppositions normally, but it still takes me by surprise when a child says that they cannot understand a page in a story where a balloon floats in mid-air after it is a day or two old...because she has never had a balloon.  And when we took a poll afterwards, there were several more students who had never had a balloon.
     I was euphemistically called a bleeding heart a while ago, which is definitely not the first time I had been referred to by that moniker, but it hit me hard because I strive every single day, in the face of a significant amount of criticism and resistance, to enlighten each of my students to who and what is holding him or her back in school, in society and in life.  I talk to them about self-fulfilling negative mindsets and provide them with challenging and interesting work.  I believe that teaching skills and material which engages students will lead to the expansion of those skills and knowledge of other material because of that engagement.  If I teach a fascinating piece of literature, scaffolding it for my students, they will seek out another piece of literature on their own.  I have seen it happen time and time again.  But we have to find LITERATURE that is awesome, not fan-fiction or the like which is pandering to their immature selves, rather than raising them up to their best selves.  Of course, teaching teen fiction is a lot easier than teaching Shakespeare, but the rewards are also far greater for me, as an educator, and for them, as human beings who see the true level of their own abilities.
     Did you know that often it takes one truly invested teacher to change the course of a child's future, that one who sees everything that child can be, even when his or her parents, grandparents, neighbors, friends and pastor cannot or will not?  Maybe it is not a teacher, maybe it is you...that one person who can allow that child to see his elevated self.  Can you be that to one child?  Even when it is difficult, even when he or she is at the bottom rung of the ladder?  I challenge myself to do it with each child I teach, but I challenge you to just do it for one child who is having trouble visualizing his or her best self.  The true beneficiary of that involvement will be you when you see that child become more than he or she had ever thought possible.
   

Wrapping Up and Gearing Up

     ACCESS for ELLs testing will wrap up for my students across the district tomorrow or early Tuesday, depending on how well the first session goes.  I have my fingers crossed to wrap up Monday so that I can get back to my actual job....helping students to access the material presented to them in a language that they do not understand.  It may still take the balance of Tuesday to re-imagine and implement a drastically different schedule so that I can dedicate more time to a very English-language deficient group of students.  If I manage it, I will be giving some of my course load back to my colleague.  Of course, these students were not part of my original course load, but I have been doing my best to challenge and engage them in the pursuit of acquiring the English language.

     So, so much for wrapping up.  I am also gearing up for another review of my action research work that I will be presenting at the GLOBELT Conference in Antalya, Turkey, in a few weeks' time.  The final manuscript is due after the presentation, but I would rather get it off my plate.  The stress of travel in the final week of two different courses is a bit much, so I will also need to work ahead and complete final projects for both prior to traveling.  That is quite a tall order, considering that I am barely keeping my head above water with all of my obligations in the first place.  Tomorrow will be the new beginning of after-school tutoring again until 5:30 p.m. for any of my students across the district who choose to attend.

     In addition to upcoming international travel and tutoring, The TESOL International Conference in Baltimore is also on the horizon.  I wish that I were traveling a bit to the southwest rather than to the northeast this time around, but no such luck at the moment.  Even better, would be to the Far East, but that is also on a back burner for the moment as well.

     I have just finished and submitted an application for a Hope Street Group Fellowship, which concentrates on legislative advocacy in education, and a Bridge Fellowship, which specifically concentrates on developing strategies and programs to reach Latino and African American male students in high poverty and low-resourced schools.  The Bridge Fellowship is my ideal project, so I have my fingers crossed for that while I am finalizing a Teachers for Global Classrooms packet and a NCTA/TEA summer seminar packet as well.  Last year I attended the NCTA/TEA Korea into the 21st Century seminar in Boulder, and I am really hoping to be able to attend their Japan's Olympic Challenges seminar this upcoming Summer.  The seminar on Korea was immensely enriching and allowed me to bring a great deal more depth to my teaching this academic year, and I would expect no less from the material on Japan.  Speaking of East Asia, there is also a final curriculum unit project due in a few days for a book group called "Reading the Mao Years" which, by the way, was fascinating.

     Sometimes I think I have way too much on my plate, but it is a sure way to not become bored.  With Spring Break coming up, nothing will be dull, that is for sure!