heathercphipps Community, Education, Gratitude, Positivity, School Closure, Teachers, Uncategorized

Rest

I’m tired.

I was on a Zoom this week (oh, how I am ready to stop saying that) when a friend and mentor said he was tired.  There was a visible shift on the faces of the people in the meeting.  It was permission.  To exhale.

March 12th seems like a lifetime ago.  The Thursday before Spring Break was intense.  That week the pandemic became real in our country.  The NCAA tournament ended abruptly prompting a string of major cancellations.  We started the week trying hard, based on the ever-changing information available, to maintain a sense of calm.  We tried to keep things as normal as possible as the world seemed to spin out of control.

By Thursday we canceled school on Friday.

And we never returned to our buildings.

But we did return to teaching after break.  We took a day to steady ourselves, to catch up on any needed training, and to prepare for what we now know would be 8 weeks of remote learning.  And boy did we nail it!

Now, it is time to rest.

Parents, you need a break.  Thank you for keeping your children safe and cared for and loved.  Thank you for sorting through all of those emails and making schedules and figuring out the math and the physics.  Please stop comparing your experience to anyone else’s.  Stop judging yourself when you see those Facebook posts of the moms teaching their children a new language or the dads baking cookies.  We never see the full story on social media.  We each had our own unique situation through this, and we all did the very best we could.  You rocked it!  Now rest.

Students, you need a break.  Thank you for not checking out.  Thank you for logging in and checking Classroom and posting to SeeSaw and showing up for stay-in-your car parades.  Thank you for caring about your learning and for stepping up in ways no other students have ever had to do.  Yesterday was graduation day!  Seniors, there aren’t enough words to say how sorry we are that you lost spring concerts and sports seasons and proms and, at least for now, an in-person graduation.  You have all shown strength and courage and grace like no one could have imagined.  You showed the world what this generation can do, and we are proud beyond measure of who you are!  You rocked it!  Now rest.

Finally, I am overwhelmed as I write this to our teachers and our administrators and our food service and our custodians and our support staff, all of whom stepped up in ways I could never have imagined.

More than 300,000 meals have been served.  Five days a week our food service staff has been providing curbside pick-up breakfast and lunch to support our students in this challenging time.

More creative and engaging Meet and Zoom sessions have been conducted than anyone could count.

Concerts were performed remotely.  Auditions and try-outs still happened.  There was a spring play.  Meetings with parents went on.  May Baskets were still delivered, and there was even a field day.

And my daughter, an SLP in one of our schools, taught preschool with her team through her computer.  Can you imagine?

To say you rocked it doesn’t do it justice.  You knocked it out of the park.  Ten weeks ago I blogged that “you’ve got this.”  I had no idea!  Never, ever, ever underestimate an educator!  Thank you!  Thank you for caring so much.  Thank you for never giving up on what we do.

Now rest.  You need a break.

 

 

 

heathercphipps Education, Grit, School Closure, Uncategorized

Honeymoons

When you try something new, there is almost always a honeymoon phase.  The first few weeks of a diet when you are excited to see those pounds fall off.  The first few weeks in a new house when painting and cleaning and organizing is fun.  The first few weeks of a new relationship before you have the inevitable fight.  The first few weeks, motivated, excited, ready to try anything.

And then it gets real.

Now these first few weeks have been anything but easy.  They have been hard.  They have been never done this before, don’t have the skills or knowledge to do this, trying to work and parent and redesign everything we know about quality instruction hard.

But there has also been a joy and an enthusiasm reminiscent of the first few weeks of a school year.  We are setting new routines.  Teachers are getting to know their students in this new environment.  Students want to be there.  The connection is welcome in a world that has felt so disconnected.  It feels a lot like August, the beginning of this new type of school year.

But September and October are probably coming,

There is a dip each year when the honeymoon ends and the real work begins.  Students lose some enthusiasm and other things start to take their focus,  Behaviors increase.  Learning gaps and access and equity issues become more evident.  We will not be immune to this.  The honeymoon will end.

But this is what I know.  Every year without fail, as students disengage and get a little naughty, as parents get tired of studying spelling lists or setting aside time for homework, as the content gets harder and the frustrations grow, teachers shine.  They use relationships to keep students motivated.  They scaffold and differentiate and make accommodations and provide interventions.  They build in days where students just reflect and have fun.  They excuse things and they give extra time and they allow for all of the special circumstances that are always there for our families.  Those special circumstances are certainly there now.

We are in emergency remote learning.  We are in triage.  This is not a normal year.  This is not blended learning or online learning as they are defined in a traditional year.  There is nothing traditional about any of this.  No one expects us to cover the same amount of material, to assess with the same level of rigor and accountability, or to perform at the same level of awesomeness that we normally do.

But awesome it has been.  Our students are engaging and working and learning.  Our parents are pushing themselves harder than anyone could’ve expected.  And our teachers are doing things no one has ever had to do before.  Please, please continue to show each other grace.  Please, please continue to show that grace to yourself…and to the big and little people living in your house.  We all need it right now.

Go outside this week.  Sit in the sun.  Pause and reflect.  You have done hard things well.  You’ve got this!

heathercphipps Education, Remote Learning

Settling In

 

This has been the single most amazing week of my professional career.  I have seen our schools parade through neighborhoods, so they could see the faces of their students.  I have seen Morning Meetings on Zoom.  I have seen high school science lessons teaching complex concepts.  I have seen art lessons on perspective and music lessons on rhythm.  I have seen math and reading and writing.  I’ve seen history teachers using this as a teachable moment.

Our educators are stepping up in ways no one dreamed possible.  So are our parents.  To say I am proud of the people in our district, and in districts across the nation and world, would be an understatement.  We are stepping up, and we are settling in.

One of the biggest challenges of the last three weeks has been the rate at which things have changed.  Consistency is one of the things people need the most in order to feel safe.  And we all need to feel safe right now.  Just as a leader would set a plan in place, things would change.  Just as a parent or a teacher or a counselor would explain things to a nervous child, things would change.  Change is hard for most of us under the best of circumstances, and these are anything but the best of circumstances.

We are not done with change.  The number of people being impacted is growing- exponentially. But we have settled into a new normal in many ways.  We have reconnected to our homes and to the people in them.  We have found new ways to “eat out.”  We have gotten creative in how we exercise and how we take dance class and how we do school.  It is far from perfect.  No one expects perfect right now.  We are just doing the best we can.

Each family right now is unique.  Some have two parents working in a hospital.  Some have two parents who have lost their jobs.  Some have children in multiple schools or multiple districts.  Some are working from home while they are trying to help a first grader with school.  Teachers are parenting.  Parents are teaching.  No one’s situation is ideal right now.

As we settle into this new normal, grace and understanding will continue to be the answer.

Thank you for trying.  Thank you for providing some measure of consistency for our students.  Thank you for showing the world that together we can do amazing things.

 

heathercphipps Education, Uncategorized

Why Is the Sky Blue?

I was on hold this week with an institution that works primarily with children.  The hold message was cute, all about those crazy questions that young children ask.  At the end of the message they said, “But we still haven’t figured out why the sky is blue,”

What?

We know why the sky is blue.  Scientists began answering this question in the 1800s.  Tyndall, Rayleigh, Einstein.   If you’d like a simple answer: NASA Spaceplace . If you’d like a more complex answer: Scientific America.

I know this wasn’t a science lesson; it was a marketing message.  But our messages matter, and our youngest learners are capable of far more than we think sometimes.

We walk a line with children.  The line between wonder and awe and knowledge and understanding.  Do we want our children to be inspired and mystified by a sunset?  Or do we want them to know why the sky burns red?

Yes.

We want them to do both.

As educators our job is to inspire and to inform and, best of all, to help curious learners discover things on their own.

Curiosity creates hungry learners who are engaged and interested in learning the why.  Wonder and awe has inspired some of our greatest knowledge and some of our most beautiful works of art and literature and music.

We know these are intertwined.  We know that students who study music are often better mathematicians.  We know that when students write about something or speak about something or draw something, they are more likely create greater understanding. It’s why we teach science and art, and science in art, and art in science.

We can, and must, both inspire and inform.  The best of us empower students to ask amazing and complex and difficult questions, and then help them develop the skills to find the answers.

Why is the sky blue?  Curious and engaged learners found the answer to this most challenging question.  What question will your students answer?

 

heathercphipps Gratitude, Uncategorized

Roots and Wings

I went home this week, not to my personal home but to my professional home. I got to spend a little time in the school where I started teaching and where I spent 18 of the most formative years of my life. I saw the principal who hired me and the assistant principal who was my supervisor for 9 years. I saw the teachers who helped me learn what it means to be student-first and how to engage sometimes fickle middle schoolers.

I had my children while I was there.

I learned who I was as an educator while I was there.

Going home was powerful. I was overwhelmed. I have been so blessed to know the most incredible people who care so deeply for children and for each other. It is a special place and leaving there was the hardest professional thing I have ever done.

But leaving taught me that there are amazing people who are doing incredible things everyday in all of our schools. I learned that I could start over with a new group of fantastic educators and continue to do good things for kids. I learned that I could have my roots and spread my wings. They are not mutually exclusive.

I got to see my past this week, but I also got to see my future. The principal who inspired and encouraged me to be an administrator was there too. I was able to relive my 13 years in the classroom, and I was able to relive my transition from the classroom to what I do now. We don’t take enough time to reflect on our roots or to celebrate our wings.

I am grateful for all of the people who helped me to be the person I am today. I am grateful for the very special school that shaped everything I know about education. And I am grateful for the time this week to hug them and reminisce with them and remember a good friend who changed all our lives.

Be grateful for your roots and your wings.

heathercphipps Education, Teachers, Uncategorized

It’s Our Job to Make Them Drink

It happened again this week.  Someone who was watching an amazing teacher doing incredible things in a classroom used my least favorite expression.  “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

I understand the intent.  For generations people have thrown this around to explain all manner of things…food not eaten, advice not taken, lessons not learned.  The idea is simple. We can provide even the best of something, but we cannot force anyone to consume it.  We cannot force a toddler to eat her food.  We cannot force a newlywed to heed the advice of his grandfather who has been married fifty years.  And we cannot force a student sitting in a classroom to learn.

I disagree.

No, we cannot make a horse drink water.  But we can certainly make the walk intriguing, and we can certainly make the water enticing.  The best teachers do it everyday.

They make the walk long.  They spend enough time to build background and provide the necessary scaffolding to help every student succeed.  They know that every child is in a different place with every lesson.  They assess what students know and fill in the gaps before they ever get to the activity.

They make the horse thirsty.  They understand that motivation and self efficacy are keys to the success of every lesson.  They supply the why for each activity.  They help students want to learn.  And they use the long walk to build a strong relationship, the most important thing our best teachers do.

And then they make the water irresistible.  They design engaging lessons that are impossible for students to resist.  They find stories and music and movie clips and speakers and field trips and projects that address multiple learning styles and allow each child to learn.

Our job as educators is not simply to design aligned curriculum and research-based instructional models.  Our job as educators is not simply to provide materials and experiences.  Our job as educators is not simply to provide a quality lesson and hope our students learn.  Our job as educators is to ensure, to guarantee as our mission so boldly states, that students learn.

It’s our job to make them drink.

I have been in many classrooms in the last month, and I have seen teacher after teacher doing this hard work.  It is happening everyday in our schools.  It is not easy, but it is our life’s work.  And I cannot imagine a more important job.

heathercphipps Education, Leadership, Teachers, Uncategorized

The Long Road

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I saw a former student this week.  He is one of those of those kids I will never forget.  There were three of them actually- Joe and Dalton and Jack.  They are forever connected in my memory.  Fun and full of life, they made each day an adventure.  I was on a half team that year, so I taught both English and reading and had a study hall.  Some of those students had me three times day- that was a lot of Mrs. Phipps.

Those three came back to visit sometimes when they were in high school and on one of those visits taught me one of my harshest lessons as teacher.  In an attempt to save precious instructional time, I would list each assignment on the board along with the last name of any students who did not have it turned in.  It made it faster and easier for me to remind them what they still needed to hand in.  Great system.  Well the boys came back to visit and there happened to be no assignments on the board.  They asked, “What happened to the Wall of Shame?”

So that happened.  Something I thought was a great system to save instructional time was actually a shaming experience for my students about whom I cared deeply.  Of course it was.  Seems so obvious now.

The road to Master Teacher is long and filled with moment after moment of hard-learned lessons. While I am not in the classroom anymore, I feel like I am still learning more and more about best instructional practices.

I regret the times I used word finds in class.  I regret the time my students spent making stuffed pigs and pig cakes as final projects for A Day No Pigs Would Day.  I regret the countless days spent typing “final copies” in the computer lab.  I want that instructional time back to do close reading and make actual meaning of language and vocabulary.  I want that time back to turn student loose on research questions of their own design about Shakers and agriculture and the Depression and family life.

When we know better, we do better.

Education is a reflective profession.  We are charged with a challenging, ever-changing job that matters deeply.  Our systems and our structures need to allow for data-based decisions, collaboration, common planning, Professional Learning Communities, and time for reflection.  Our leaders need the vision to make time where there seemingly is none.  Our teachers need the tools to plan, teach, reflect, change.  Our schools need the culture and climate to encourage risk and reflection.

As I look back on a lifetime in education, I really should not regret those lessons that failed, those projects that lacked purpose, or those systems that defeated my real purpose.  I learned so much from each of them.  When I knew better, I did better. I was blessed to have students who were honest about what worked and what didn’t.  I was lucky enough to work with colleagues who mentored me and who showed me a better way.  We learned together.  And I was privileged to have leaders who allowed me take risks and to fail at times in order to learn and to grow.

As the beginning of the year honeymoon comes to an end, and the real day-to-day work takes shape, I wish you all a year of risk and reflection.  I am overwhelmed everyday by the masterful work happening in classrooms all over our districts.  Our students are in good and caring hands!

heathercphipps Education, Uncategorized

The Struggle is the Best Part

Grit and perseverance - picture

This feels good.  Sitting at the computer, looking out at the surprisingly still green grass and the blooming flowers in my backyard.  Typing a new blog for a new year.  This feels good!

Don’t get me wrong, summer has been amazing.  Taking time to rest and sharpen the saw is important.  I have traveled and read and napped.  I have relaxed, and I have reflected.  I feel energized.  In fact, my favorite thing about our profession is the school year cycle.  Each year we get the chance to plan, to implement, to reflect, and to redesign. We get to start anew, and I for one am grateful for that chance.

This past week we welcomed our new teachers, and tomorrow we will welcome back our returning teachers.  I know some of you still have summer left, but we are all closing in on those first days for staff and students.  The excitement is palpable.  What is your hope for those teachers this year?  What is your hope for students?

For me this time of year is about energy.  It is about sharing a vision and generating the energy to make that vision come to life.  We get the unique opportunity to start over each year.  It is a gift not to be taken lightly.  Use this time well.

In our District, we have been focusing on college and career readiness skills.  Are we doing all we can to be sure our students have not just the content but the life skills necessary to be successful in this century?  Our superintendent asked our new teachers to not just teach but to model grit and perseverance for their students.  Easier said than done.

My sister is an amazing mother.  Already so much better at things than I was when I had a 3-year-old.  I am learning from her all the time.  This summer I learned something about creating this grit and perseverance…and about modeling it.

Like I said, her son is three.  And he is curious.  She recently posted the following video on Facebook.  Of course (because he is adorable), she got plenty of comments on how cute and clever he is.  My first thoughts though were different.  I thought, ‘He is going to break those blinds.’  I am sure that if that were my child, and I was the one holding the camera, I’d have told him to stop because he might damage the blinds.  I am sure that I would have gone over, taken the cords from him, and just showed him.  And while he might have learned how to open the blinds (the content), he would not have learned to stick with something until you figure it out (the life skill).  My sister is an excellent teacher.

My hope for this new school year is that our new teachers, and our returning teachers as well, are willing to risk damaging the blinds.  A neat and tidy and quiet classroom might look great from the outside, but it is usually the messier, louder work that results in the greatest learning.

Good luck to you all as you kick off your new school year.  Enjoy the gift of a new start.