Feel Good About Appreciating Your Kids' Teachers

Pinterest has made end-of-year gratitude into a three ring circus.  Why is everyone filling Pinterest boards with a thousand different ways to stuff M&M's into a mason jar for your teacher.  It's starting to feel, just disingenuous.  As a teacher myself, I feel the pressure to give something even more meaningful to my son's teachers.

Luckily, I had forgotten about the issue completely as I have a few more final exams to proctor.  As we were all sitting down to an early morning of number two pencils, a girl came up and dropped an envelope on my desk.  In it was a handwritten note thanking me for the year.  In the note, she used the grammar skills I taught her and included funny pictures of a husky with glasses and a book (Hey!  I have a husky...and glasses...and lots of books!).  The letter lifted my spirits in a way I couldn't have anticipated.  And, of course, inspired this blog post!

So here is it, folks, this years BEST teacher appreciation gift: a handwritten, heartfelt, note.

Feel Good About Having the Summer Off

The title of this entry seems to be a no-brainer.  Who WOULDN’T feel good about having the summer off?   Well, if you are a teacher, do a simple Google search of “teacher summers off” and prepare to be hated. 

When I first started teaching ten years ago, I felt euphoric right around Memorial Day.   Memorial Day weekend was the light at the end of my tunnel.  It was a light that rescued me from the brink of insanity, and from the career change that I considered many times during those first arduous years.   During the past few years though, the light at the end of that tunnel has become a train filled with tired and cynical people who believe teachers are overpaid and shouldn’t have the summers off.  Some of those passengers are my own friends and family members who don’t want to hear about my summer plans unless they include curriculum writing or teaching summer school.   Around Memorial Day, guilt overcomes my once euphoric state, and I’m sick of it.   

I’ve gotten so much flack from some friends and family members here in Wisconsin during the past few summers that sometimes I would actually prefer some version of year-round school just to avoid confrontations.  Like the time my father-in-law chuckled at my husband’s and my Tuesday plans to take our son to the zoo.   “Must be nice, but some of us actually work for a living.” 

It’s that “must be nice” that gets me every time.  If it’s SO nice, then why didn’t they go into teaching?  Is it because they were turned off by a teacher’s starting salary?  Did they want more than 23 minutes to eat their lunch?  Was the idea of not being able to visit the bathroom whenever the urge struck them unappealing?  Did they want to avoid being on stage every morning at 8:25 prepared to hold 25 students’ interest for 45 straight minutes?  Or maybe they wanted to leave their work AT work and avoid grading barely legible essays for ten hours on a beautiful weekend. 

The list goes on.  But – if it “must be nice”—then I wish they would go back to school, become a teacher and stop giving me an undeserved guilt trip.  In most other developed countries, six weeks’ vacation is standard issue, no matter what your profession.   It’s not the fault of teachers that our country believes two weeks out of 52 is plenty for a tired worker to rest and reboot.  When I return to school in August, I am confident I will be the energetic and enthusiastic teacher I’ve always been.  If I didn’t have my summers off, I would have changed careers a long time ago. I physically and mentally reach my limit by the end of May.   Because contrary to my father-in-law’s opinion, I do indeed work for a living.

And despite his and so many other Wisconsinites’ opinions of me and my colleagues, I refuse to feel anything but good about having the summers off.  My husband, a guidance counselor, recently pointed out to me that we will have the equivalent of roughly four extra years to spend with our son while he’s growing up.   All the criticism in the world won’t take that away.   We know how fortunate we are, and this knowledge makes us work harder and more effectively throughout the school year.  And we feel great about that.  J    

Feel Good About Summer Reading

It's summer and if you are anything like me, you're desperate to get your nose into a non-curriculum book. So I'm not going to dump a pile of textbooks on you that will help you improve instruction, tighten classroom management, erase the marker board more completely. Nope, I'm going to make a few suggestions of books that will make you fall in love with humanity again. Books that will make you Feel Good About life.

The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

This book is a classic, but in case you haven't read it, it's a short, inspiring story about a boy on journey from Spain to Egypt to find fulfillment. He finds it exactly where you'd expect: the journey itself. This is a quick read, but immensely satisfying and perfect for boating or beaching. It's also a great family read-aloud.

*if you love The Alchemist, you must read The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Another classic.", another boy, another journey, another family read-aloud much more fanciful. The Little Prince asks its readers to appreciate the value of that which cannot be seen. A lovely story to share.

Habibi by Craig Thompson

Not for the young'uns, not for your classroom library, just for you. This story is a graphic novel and it is luxuriously long (though I tore through it in an evening). It is, first, a love story but it cuts to the soul of what love is.  What does it mean to love, to be loved, to be a lover?  It tries to define womanhood and masculinity in complex and interesting ways. It demands the reader rethink what it means to be a family.  But more than anything, this book shows us the healing power of one another as characters get lost and found in strange places with strange and loving people. I promise, if you stick with this book, you will find it a deeply rewarding read.

*if you enjoy Habibi, read Craig Thompson's other behemoth, Blankets. Again, not for young'uns, but a lovely story told as intricately with pictures as with words. It follows a brief love between two high school misfits and their strange and troubling lives. Ultimately its reader comes to understand the connecting threads among us all that give meaning and joy to life.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
I read this book last summer and finished it more quickly than I had planned to.  It is a story about two women whose lives intersect in traumatic and touching ways.  Little Bee in an immigrant from West Africa to England, seeking asylum as a refugee from incredible violence, violence that her co-protagonist witnessed and yet is oddly disconnected from.  The story is an island of peace amid violence and reminds its readers of the great power we have to do good in one another’s lives.

*if you enjoy Little Bee, spend another afternoon reading I Am Nujood: Age Ten and Divorced.  Unlike Little Bee, which is fiction inspired by current events, I am Nujood is a work of non-fiction.  It is written by Nujood herself, and it linguistically simple.  It opens a window into Yemeni culture that reveals the simple and beautiful as well as the terrible and unjust.  But, it is intensely redeeming and empowering. 

True Grit by Charles Portis
This is an American story, truly, read it over the Fourth of July. It's set in Oklahoma, back when it was simply "the Indian territories" and follows a young girl seeking revenge but finding something better. It is a love story to the American West and will having you laughing the entire time. When you finish it, watch the movie -the new one, with Jeff Bridges.

*If you like True Grit, think about reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's set in the present day on a frantic road trip through Illinois and Wisconsin. The characters are a ragtag group of old-world gods brought to America in the hearts and minds of immigrants struggling to be remembered, much less, worshiped  There's a love story, a journey, history, myth and magic, something for everyone.  The end is spectacular and if there was one book I would want amnesia for, this is it.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
I know it's a movie and if you haven't already read the book, you've seen the film or had some jerk tell you the ending. But the thing is, the book is better -I know, I know, that's what everyone says. But this time it's really true. And if you've seen how glorious the movie is, you'll understand what a big promise I'm making. The author's not (which you must read) promises the reader a story that will make you believe in god -and it does. Pi Patel is a teenager, is a child, is a married man in his forties (the timeline is a bit flexible). But throughout, he is a soul in search of a meaningful relationship with god. It comes when everything else has been stripped away. The scenes omitted from the movie are rich and meaningful and the insipid love story in the movie is thankfully nowhere to be found in the book. This is a book you'll be anxious to talk about, so get a friend to read it with you!

*If you enjoy Life of Pi ... Well, good. It's one of a kind.

Ten tips to help you feel good about calling home

Murphy’s Law for teachers: If you are on a mission to Feel Good About Teaching, you will get an email from an angry parent.  It’s easy to let those calls ruin your day, but it’s much healthier to use those emails and calls as an opportunity to build a relationship with the parent or guardian to establish mutual support and understanding.  Here are ten things you can do to transform your communications with students’ families.

1) Be proactive, not reactive.  Establish a communication routine  by creating an email or text message list for your students and families that you can use to send reminders about homework, grade updates, tests, projects and events.  You may not feel like you are personally contacting each parent frequently, but they will feel like you are!  Keep a positive, chipper tone in your group mailings and that will be your reputation going into any individual communications.

 

2) Deposit before you withdraw.   This is another proactive step; if you get a sense early on that one of your students is a bit squirrely, get in touch with the parents right away, and keep it positive “Johnny is just so energetic, having him in my first hour class really helps me start the day with a lot of spirit.” This way, if you have to call next week because Johnny is bouncing off the walls, his parents are more likely to be open to your concerns.

3) Make positive calls.  End each day with a couple of phone calls that are purely positive –even if you just leave a voicemail.  “I just graded subject-verb agreement worksheets, and I wanted to let you know that Max aced his; I’ll send it home tomorrow for you to hang on the fridge!”  or “Thought you’d appreciate knowing that Abby was on fire in our discussion today; she had great insights into the character!” 

4) Pick up the phone.  Unless you have an established email relationship with a particular parent or guardian, pick up the phone for your first contact.  And always broach difficult conversations over the phone, not in email.

5) Prepare ahead of time.  Before initiating or responding to messages, go over your notes, your gradebook, and other documentation so that you can answer parent questions without having to put the parent on hold while you run to get your gradebook. Often, I also like to touch base with the student to make sure he or she hasn’t forgotten to give me something.  It’s ok to take 24 hours to get your ducks in a row.  Since I have my school email forwarded to my iPhone, sometimes I will reply with “Thank you for your email, I will check on the details tomorrow during my planning period and get back to you by 3pm.”

6) Let it go to voicemail.  Don’t feel pressure to pick up the phone and answer parent concerns immediately.  Upset parents don’t always wait until they are level-headed to pick up the phone.  Allow them time to leave a message, and cool down.  This will give you time to learn what their concern is, embrace your own emotional reaction –privately- and gather any documents you may need for the follow up call.

7) Keep your eye on the big picture.  Go into the call knowing what information you want to gather or convey and encourage the parent to articulate his or her goals early too.  Make a little list of the points you want to cover and check them off as you come to a satisfactory conclusion.  If the parent wants to rehash a point you’ve already put to rest, remind them of the solution and move onto a different concern.  Sometimes the parent is just frustrated, they don’t want your logic or rational solutions, so ask “What resolution can we come to so that we can walk away feeling good about this call?” and work from there.  If there really is nothing that anyone can do to make things better, agree to end the call, give it some thought and reconnect in a week.

8) Agree whenever you can.  Actually say “I totally agree” when parents say something you can get behind. “Drew is really interested in the Romeo and Juliet unit” “I agree, He’s always the first to volunteer to read!”  In fact, it will go a long way toward building (or repairing) that relationship if you frame disagreements in this way.  “Jennifer worked really hard on this essay” “I agree that Jennifer is very motivated to get a good grade on this essay; maybe she’d like to stick around after school so I can show her how to properly format her quotations.” 

9) End unhealthy calls.  If a parent uses an aggressive tone or shouts at you, end the call.  If the parent uses profanity, end the call.  If the parent insults you personally, end the call.  If the parent makes inappropriate advances, end the call.  If the parent is manipulating you and making you feel trapped, end the call.  My metric is this: If a man treated me this way, what would my girlfriends say?  Your dignity is no less valuable in professional relationships than it is in romantic relationships.  How do I end the call?  “I’m very sorry but, I have to end this call right now, I will get in touch in the next day or so.” Then hang up.  You can reattempt the call later with support, or pass it off to a department chair, dean or counselor.  Always follow up with your department chair or principal if you have to end a call.

10) Document.  Keep a log of notes from your parent calls –even if you just get a busy signal.  You never know when you’ll need to reference prior conversations, or lack thereof.  A plain spiral notebook is a great starting point; I staple on any detention slips or other loose documentation.

Extra Credit) Whenever I leave a voicemail for a parent, I preface my message with “There is no emergency, I’d just like to…” because parents worry and seeing a voicemail from the school may fill their minds with terrible fears and anxiety about their children’s safety.

Feel Good About Teaching

To our friends on the outside, the end of the school year might seem like the strangest time to start a teaching blog.  But to our fellow educators, you know all too well that now is the first time any of us has had a chance to breathe, let alone type up something other than a report card comment or final exam review! 

In this era of high stakes testing and bizarre evaluation metrics we need to remember what we love about this job, and what makes us exceptionally good at it.  Like many of you, I have a great job teaching High School English.  I also have a family, a mortgage, and far too many pets, so I can’t afford to walk away from my job just because I’m frustrated.  Instead, I choose to focus on the areas in which I am empowered to teach well and connect with colleagues to make quality learning experiences the core of what we do (pun intended). 

This blog will be a wealth of tips, tricks, strategies, affirmations and printables for teachers of all levels.  I’ll also include lesson plans and literature units geared toward middle and high school age students. 

Leave a comment to let us know you're out there and tell us what makes you Feel Good About Teaching!