What the Kittens Teach Me

  I lost my long time, super sweet cat about six months ago, and I knew I would eventually get

The kittens: Lady Bug and Lila

another cat. When the Humane Society had their special "adopt a cat" deal, I thought,  This is a sign. So I went early one day, and I was happy to see a crowd there adopting cats and kittens.  Most of the cats were sleeping or huddled into the corners of their tiny metallic cages. These two?  They were playing, chasing their tails, chasing each other, and even playing in the litter box.  They seemed to have no idea the miserable situation they were in. Lesson One:  Play. No matter what life throws at you, play.  I am happy to say they are still playing. I'm trying to play more, too.
   Lady Bug and Lila think I'm their mom since I feed them, pet them, and talk sweetly to them.  So it's no big deal to them to wake me in the middle of the night, crawl onto my chest, and begin purring.  They need some attention and affection (and probably want more food).  Lesson Two:  Patience.  It's so hard to get mad at a purring kitten in the middle of the night.  
   

Papi and Lady Bug

The kittens are blending in to the family quite well.  They have a dog to contend with, Papi.  They seem to be co-existing splendidly; in fact, Lady Bug really likes Papi and will rub up against him, purring. She'll even lie next to him.  Lesson Three: Be friendly to everyone.  Lesson Four: Cuddle.
   

In Between

     I heard one time that people go through one major change every ten years.  The idea is proving true for me.  The most recent change I experienced (and am experiencing) was leaving a job I had for 23 years to come to GCC. To say that I was rooted in that location, tied to the people, traditions, and processes would be an understatement.  I started and grew my career there, and I involved myself in as many parts of campus and district life as I could, from sponsoring clubs and coaching sports to helping teachers experiencing discipline and being an officer in the teachers' association.  To come to GCC meant leaving the familiar and comfortable for something different, something new.

     Being in that state of unfamiliarity is a strange place to be.  It sparked reflection about the big questions in life.  It jostled my confidence a time or two.  Sometimes those things happen and cause a change.  In this case, the change provoked what I can only call growth.

     By far the biggest assistance I've had in this change has been through my colleagues, the opportunities I've experienced, and our students.  My colleagues have accepted me with the friendliness of a thousand Quokkas.

I've attended conferences that have allowed me to stretch my classroom practices. Finally, teaching is teaching, and while students are students, the ones at GCC are particularly friendly, eager to meet their goals, and, though a little concerned, generally optimistic about their futures.  I'm optimistic, too.

Jin Xiang

Teaching vs. Learning: Something I Learned

      I can't recall the particular moment that I learned this.  More than likely the discovery came over time and, like most things we learn, once we learn it, there's no unlearning or going back.  What did I learn?  That just because I taught it, it doesn't mean they learned it.  You might be thinking Duh. Believe me, I wish I could have learned this very early in my career, but teaching has really changed over the last 25 years because students and our world have changed.  And I never learned this in my education classes when I was in college.  This was something I learned out of experience and probably a change in state standards, but it did take awhile to sink in.  When it did, my practice changed.
     Now, I teach composition, so there is a significant skill based component to that course.  It's built for teach, formative assess, reteach and clarify, formative assess, remediate with a few students, assess.  It's built for returning to concepts, so that the competencies are revisited and revisited, and by the end of the course, students can really bring research and synthesis and citation and format all together to create something of which they can be proud.
     "I taught that" was replaced with "my students learned ______."

Professional Development Potpourri

     There are so many ways to get professional development, and I make use of as many of them as possible.  For the very literal, there is the popular conference.  Conferences can be found all over the globe and on myriad topics from The University of Hertfordshire's Open Graves, Open Minds: "The Company of Wolves': Sociality, Animality, and Subjectivity in Literary and Cultural Narratives--Werewolves, Shapeshifters, and Feral Humans to "WIRED & INSPIRED: The Intelligent Use of Technology in Higher Education" to the University of Roehampton's single day "Daughter of Fangdom: A Conference of Women and the Television Vampire."  I just finished attending the second one in my list, and my brain is overflowing with ideas. I sat in structured sessions, took notes, and brainstormed ideas.  I will take back my learning and slowly begin to implement some of the ideas.
     I also enjoy the professional development that takes place between colleagues who work on studying/learning something together.  For example, I once participated in a year long book group where we read books about the Millennials because we wanted to understand our students better. Books we read and discussed included Nurture Shock and Generation Me.  Our discussions included ways our lessons may/may not be working for this generation's students.  This professional development was small group, and we created the focus based on what our interests were and where our struggles existed.  The conversations were thoughtful and paced to our needs.  My attitudes toward my students changed, and I adapted my lessons to my audience.
     Then, for me, there is another valuable method of gaining professional development: independent reading and studying.  This can range from really good short articles to books on both pedagogy and content.  I find a lot of these readings from Twitter where I follow people/organizations who tweet about education, composition, or literature.  The best education ones I follow include Higher Ed Chat, Mark Barnes, Diane Ravitch, and Edudemic.  For research and citation, I follow Easybib.  For my literature interests, particularly gothic literature, I follow Bernice Murphy, Linnie Blake, Gothic MMU, Xavier Aldana Reyes, and Irish Gothic Journal.  These readings happen at times when I have a spare few minutes--enough time to read a linked article.  I try to immediately make a connection to something I'm doing in class.  Many times Twitter provides a breathtaking synchronicity with what I'm working on or a quick idea for new ways to start class.
     I have a lot I could say about planned or spontaneous conversations with colleagues.  I find myself listening to their words long after we've parted and reflecting on my practice in light of a single tidbit or two they have generously shared with me.
     I believe professional development is learning, and learning can take place in many ways.

Tapping in to Social Media

     I remember when I first started using Twitter.  I was hesitant.  I was still unsure what the hashtags were for.  I had a hard time reading tweets that seemed filled with random bits of information and came across as disjointed.  Okay, I still have problems with those.  But I started using it primarily as a classroom tool and as a way to get my students interested in all things Englishy and to see that there are many ways to use Twitter and ethical ways to behave on Twitter.  So when I mentioned using the OED in the classroom, I also shared that the OED tweets a Word of the Day. When I taught colons, I challenged my students to tweet a sentence with a colon in it and tag me.

@MsEyres I only like to read books that involve the muder of my favorite characters: Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Book Thief.
— Inquisitor Nicole 

@MsEyres gosh darn it, I knew I mispelled something!! I meant to type "murder". Whoops...
— Inquisitor Nicole  

What I love about that one besides her reading list is that she goes back to correct an error unrelated to the colon, prompting discussions about editing and not hitting "post" quite so rapidly and maybe also learning how to forgive ourselves for making silly errors.

     Now that I'm at GCC, I'm testing the waters with how I can continue to use Twitter for both research possibilities and engagement.  I started simply by having them tweet on paper one thing they had learned in class that day and include any hashtags they wanted. Here is one I got from a student who doesn't even have a Twitter account:

"'OMG' Dude, proper summarizing has never been simpler. Equation for summaries: Context + Introduce sources/give credentials + main points = BA summary. #Propersummary"

I love this one because he applied the learning to another subject, and now I have a math equation I can use to show how to properly integrate a summary into student writing.  Here's what I think happens when using Twitter (or maybe any other social media) with students: We speak a common language, and that creates connections and engagement.

The Inverse Power of Praise

     I decided to share this concept with some of my students because I remember how powerfully it struck me.  Praising kids can have a negative effect on their intellectual performance and motivation as they grow older.  Why did this strike such a reaction in me?  As a teacher I thought of all the times I had simply said "good job" or something similar on a task as if the task were over, and there was no more learning to be gained.  I wondered if I had inadvertently fed into what my students already believed about themselves--that they were either smart or dumb, and that was it.  I started reflecting on what I thought about learning.  I started changing how I responded to my students, mostly honors classes at the time.  These were students who had most likely had been told they were really smart for most of their lives.  I started praising their efforts, the small victories they made, particularly in their writing instead of making general comments of praise that weren't really helpful and did not refer to the process of learning.  I tried to shift the focus in my classroom to the process instead of just the outcome.  I can't really know what sort of difference it might have made.  I can only hope that it helped in a small way.  I am grateful to have read Po Bronson's book, Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, in which "The Inverse Power of Praise" is a chapter.  At the very least it got me thinking, and at its best, it made me a better teacher.
   For my students I was hoping they would reflect on their own upbringings or consider how they speak to their own children or younger siblings or other relatives.  And reading the article did cause a lot of reflection.  A side benefit was that many of them realized how important their words can be, a definite win in an English class.

Week of Accountability '15 Teaching Tip: What just happened?

     At the beginning of most class periods, I had out a small sheet of scrap paper to every student.  It's about 1/4 of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.  At the beginning of the semester they always ask, "What's this for?"  As we get farther on, they stop asking, they might groan, or if I do not give them one that day, they may ask for one!  In the last few minutes of class, I always ask students to write something for me:

1.  something they learned

2.  something that is not clear

3.  a question

4.  the topic they are writing on

5.  a working thesis

6.  the title of a good source they found

7.  a short rhetorical analysis

    This could be anything, and it can serve several purposes: to keep them engaged for what's coming up, as formative assessment, as communication between us (often I respond and pass it back the next class period). Students who do not like to raise a hand in class feel heard and get questions answered.  It's a quick way for me to see what they get, the direction in which they are going, and to know which students may need extra visiting during the next class.