Writing Prompt [Which Freedom is most important to you?]

Don't ask me why, but I've been on a question prompt kick lately and I feel like this one (like last week's question) is one any student of any age could write about for any length of time. My example: (And yes, I time myself, allowing the same amount of time I give my students for warming up: 5 minutes.)

As an American who has experienced all of these freedoms for my entire existence, I do not know what it's like to be restricted academically, economically, politically, religiously or anything that pertains to my life. I've enjoyed the freedom to say and do what I desire, with very little restrictions. And for that, I'm immensely blessed! Initially, I was going to say academic freedom, but if I had the freedom to learn and learn and learn but restricted in all other areas of my life I feel like I might burst at the seams! I really don't care about my economic status (haha, I guess if I did care about that I would never have become a teacher), speech is important (especially if I keep using platforms such as this to express my thoughts on teaching), but the most important freedom to me is religious freedom. I am incredibly thankful that I am free to read my Bible whenever and wherever I want, I'm free to worship, I'm free to join others in worship, I'm free to live this life preparing for eternity with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All other else pales in comparison.

Writing Prompt [What bothers you most about growing old?]

This is a question any one of us could write on for any number of minutes. Am I right? Let's awaken those writing brain cells for a moment by tackling this difficult, inevitable event in our life: growing old.

What bothers me most about growing old is the possible loss of physical and mental abilities. We've all seen those losses in nursing homes, and yet there are always exceptions to that. I've seen eighty-year-olds doing CrossFit and running marathons, while someone their same age struggles with Alzheimer's Disease or Arthritis. We always hope that we're the exception, but the reality of the human plight is that we might struggle. The best I can do at this point is to take care of my body, giving it the sustenance and activity it needs, hoping that whatever I face, I have the strength to endure.

How can I do that? I believe that there are important "pillars" to a person's life: physical activity, mental growth, spiritual and emotional well-being.... All of these play an important role in overall health and can all be easily taken from you except one: spiritual. View yourself as a soul that needs to be nourished, fed truth, living with a specific purpose, and a set of foundational beliefs. It is this that can never be taken from you because it lies within; so how are you going to foster this in your life so that when you grow old, you are able to stand firm in the face of whatever storm attempts to overtake you?

Study Tools to Give a First Grader

First graders are like little sponges. They love memorizing rhymes and songs, reading and rereading their favorite books, recounting facts, and talking up a little storm about allllllll the amazing things they learn. This is the beginning stages of good studying. And my little first grader is learning to study well. Besides her innate desire to learn as much as she possibly can about polar bears, bats, pangolins, octopuses, Challenger Deep, anchors, and smoothies (all subjects she has chosen); I believe teaching her how to learn, is a key component in fostering that desire to learn. There are a few tools I'm giving her so that she thrives at independent study (which should be an end goal for any educator). And she is thriving! This is what I love about being a teacher-mom (which is the term I use  when people ask what I do for a living, lol).

With that said, what tools do I give my first grader to help her learn how to study?

First, I'm teaching her to observe the text. How do you know a text well? Read it over and over and over and over again. Each time she reads it I'm asking her to focus her attention on a few different things. This is teaching her how to observe the text. Here is an example of a daily lesson: "the first time you read it I want you to notice the punctuation. Now read it again and take note of repeated words. Let's reread this sentence and try to find the subject." etc. All of these things I'm teaching her about periods, question marks, quotation marks, nouns, verbs, I'm asking her to find them in a poem, song, or story we read one or two times a day, every day for five days in a row. At this point in her little life I'm NOT asking her to analyze why the author asked a question here, or what emotions the author meant to express in the sentence when he/she used an exclamation point, I'm asking her to locate them and remember how they are meant to be used. Analytical thinking comes later, I'm just wanting her to form habits. And the first habit I want to teach is the ability to focus and rereading. I would argue that the majority of study comes from reading and rereading a text; focusing on a specific thought, topic or idea. (Honestly, I thought she'd fight me with this but she actually enjoys it! The more she discovers the more excited she becomes.)

Secondly, I'm teaching her to use the dictionary (the app version and the book) to understand new words. (Note: I say both the app and the book because we live in a tech world. Not teaching how to use technology appropriately will actually be a disservice to your students.) Again, I'm teaching her how to use it. I'm teaching her guide words, table of contents, alphabetical order, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs... I'm showing her that this word is used as a verb to show what the subject did, which definition fits the way the author used it? Even that is a higher level of thinking that I wasn't sure if a first grader would be able to tackle, but her ability in this has surprised me. My purpose isn't to have her master finding the right definition just yet; remember, my purpose is to simply introduce her to the tools and how to use them!

Next, I'm teaching her to use her library. Einstein once said like, the only place we really really need to know is the location of the library. There is a wealth of free knowledge available to us there. We would be a fool not to use it and teach our children how to use it. Therefore, every week she must pick multiple books using the Dewey Decimal system. Sometimes I tell her it must relate to whatever subject we are learning, but most of the time I let her pick what she wants to learn because the likelihood of her picking that book up to actually read it on her own increases tenfold. After we pick a book I'm teaching her the text features: heading, subheading, table of contents, index, &etc. Those are invaluable to find exactly what you want to find, and the main idea of that section.

Another tool is the ability to write about what she's learned. Writing and discussing that new knowledge is an important step to helping it stick. The writing portion is the part of the learning process she dislikes the most, which is why I've gathered an armful of tools to make it fun (read this post on my personal blog for more on that: Top Ten Fun Writing Tools).

Finally, I'm teaching her to stop at points of confusion and ask questions. THIS is studying! When a learner doesn't know the answer to something or wants to know more of something - which presents the learner with a problem, perhaps even confusion - the first thing to do is ask questions!

• Don't know that word? That's okay, what tools do you have to help you understand? 
• Don't understand that sentence? That's okay, please ask. 
• Are you wondering about something in particular? Wonder away, kid. Wonder away. How can you find the answer?

The art of discovering anything new begins with a question and the desire to find the answer on their own. How can one do that well unless the tools are available in this discovery? But not just having the tools available, it's also knowing how to use them. We are only in the beginning stages, but with the end goal in mind: resulting in an independent life-long learner. I believe developing those habits begins now!

The point of all of this is to give my first grader tools upon which she can easily build. I want my child to become an analytical thinker, but I don't want her to become an analytical thinker without first having gathered basic knowledge and rules. I also want my child to grow from an analytical thinker to a critical writer and persuader. These tools are the beginning of such arts.

Writing Prompt [If You Had a Tail...?]

Question prompts are an easy way to get a student writing. When they are given open ended questions where an explanation is needed helps stretch those writing muscles. One of the key's to successful writing is making it a daily practice. Whether I write here, on my personal blog, my prayer journal, or simply captioning a picture on Instagram, I attempt to write something everyday. Still, it's not just the writing itself that is important, it is the application of those writing tools I've learned over the years. That's the key to creating good readers and writers, give them tools so they want to write and can write well on their own anywhere, anytime.

The Key to Successful Teaching

There are many key's to successful teaching, but in my experience, preparation is vital. If I go into the week unprepared, my students can tell and my lessons lack the enthusiasm and knowledge needed to be successful. Plus,

• How can I successfully motivate my students to learn the subject if I've failed to fully learn it myself? 
• How can I maintain high expectations of learning if I do not keep those expectations myself?
• How can I reach every student on a personal level, making learning relevant by connecting it to their own lives, if I do not spend the necessary time to learn their own personal interests and experiences?
• How can I encourage my learners to be life-long learners if I do not embrace that idea in my own life?

I know that I cannot inspire life-long learning if I do not embrace the power of learning in my own life. Just gathering enough to fulfill the standards or the class period is a laziness I do not want in my teaching; not for my sake, but for the sake of my students who depend on me! I do not want to give them worthless exercises that do nothing but fill time and I sure as heck do not want assessments that do not give an accurate depiction of what he/she does or does not know.

All of this requires preparation.

Knowing this to be true, I'm spending today in preparation for this coming week. And if I finish the prep for this coming week today with time to spare, then I'll begin prepping for the next week. And that has been the key to my teaching success. I spend so much time in prep that I over plan like crazy. I simply run out of time to share all that I've learned or planned for my students. And that's okay, because there are many times that a few students here and there need an extra push and if I'm prepared, I do not have to worry about whether or not I will have something for them. I want to know the concept or skill so well that I can teach it simply, or I can teach all the complexities.

Here are two major things I do to prepare:

1. I use up my local library and search for any possible book on the subject. Einstein once expressed his secret to learning was knowing the location of the library!
2. YouTube has so many wonderful videos full of amazing information with visuals to coincide. I subscribe to places like PBS, National Geographic, History Channel, &etc. The key here is to consider your source, do not just watch a random video in your classroom without first checking its facts!

Prepare, prepare, prepare! When you are passionate about a skill or concept, that will come through in how you teach, what questions you ask, and the success of reaching your students. This has proved true in my classroom as much as it has in my homeschooling a first grader. Too many times I have entered a week unprepared with my daughter and paid for my laziness. Thankfully this hard lesson is one I do not want to repeat and on those Saturday afternoons where I lack the motivation to follow my own advice, I'm reminded of those failed attempts that offer all the motivation I need to get up and get going! 

With that said, it's time to get moving because my first grader has been asking all kinds of questions about Polar Bears, the Arctic Ocean, and has randomly sparked an interest in pangolin's thanks to an Instagram post from National Geographic. Since she wants to learn I'm just going to spark that interest even more and that means I need to prepare for it. It's amazing that in my digging I can incorporate measurements (the Polar Bear has a huge paw), geography, ocean facts, amazing vocabulary, writing opportunities, reading, reading and more reading. Ah, the power of preparation. 

Although I haven't had a chance to dig into pangolin's; what I'm learning about Polar Bears is beyond cool! I cannot wait to share it with her! Excitement is contagious, so be prepared and get excited.

Weekly Writing Prompt [High School Dropout Advice]

Last week I wrote a short paragraph of the importance of warming up, I feel it's important enough to share again, but think of a daily writing warm up the same as a track and field warm up. We are encouraging our students to work specific muscles, so how important is it to get the juices flowing? With that, here's what I wrote last week: "One of the most important aspects of an ELA classroom is the daily warm-up. Spending at least five minutes on the task of free writing, where ideas are brainstormed, a brief story written, a list of words formulated as a result of seeing, reading, or thinking through a prompt are all valuable ways to help your students warm up. Teach them the skills, give them sentence starters if they have a brain slump day (cause we all have them), then allow them to use any one of the tools available to write without the "fear" of being graded. Beginning is the hardest part. It is our job to give them the tools to simply start...."

Giving students and understanding of the "why" behind a task will help them do it without a lot of complaint. They may not enjoy it, and they'll likely tell you so, but stand firm and put on repeat the reasons why you require what you require. Doing this helps you pick activities with a purpose and an end goal in mind, and if you share those two things with them, they are more likely to do it and less likely to grumble about it.

Today's prompt is another question for student's to ponder and write about what they'd advise on the topic of high school drop outs:

Professional Reading [The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy L. Sayers]

This forty-one page symposium on education inspired me to learn more about the classical approach to education. For one, as a student who went through this particular process, Sayers was especially persuasive, on point, concise, and obviously well educated herself. Overall I was impressed by her experience, ideas, and writing. Just that alone gave me the desire to dig deeper into these lost tools!

Aside from how it affected me, I do believe that this short (and yet deep, thick) read is a worthwhile endeavor for each and every educator. For her goal in education should be shared by every educator, "to teach men how to learn for themselves."

That short explanation of the purpose of education is worthy of remembering, but there was another quote I thought worth sharing (there are many, but I'll leave it at this for now...)

"For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects." p.18-19

I love that last statement! "... they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects." This book was published in 1947 and it's just as much true today as it was then! We are prey to our emotions and vomit words all over Facebook, Twitter, emails, &etc. - words that are emotionally impulsive, uninformed, and unkind. When we learn, we forget how we learned it and whether or not a source was credible. Reading this book was discouraging when I think of how we educate our young, and encouraging knowing that as an educator, I can do something about it. And doing something about it (even in a small group of young people) is better than learning and doing nothing. I cannot stand still after being filled with valuable tools such as this!