students – Peaceful Reader

What a week!

School is back in session! And I’m exhausted! Physically tired but also happy tired. It was wonderful to see my students again and to realize once again why I teach.

This weekend I had the time to really relax. I’ve taken two naps, read two books, and ordered take-out. I slept in and had hot chocolate with a friend. I brought my mother lunch and visited with her for a couple of hours. I have to be ready for the week ahead; the classes and the days are going to be longer. I have to be mentally prepared for that.

Many students remembered why I was gone for part of last year and kindly asked about my surgery. I had a few students who just simply said “I’m glad you’re back.” It feels great to be safely back at school although it feels a little strange to be all together and not wearing masks. Two years in a row we’ve begun the year with masks on and while it feels great to be able to see and hear students it also feels a bit unhealthy. I know the virus is still around us and I wonder if we’ll have a surge in cases as everyone bundles together over the next few weeks.

I binge watched two shows this weekend while I was resting. The Lincoln Lawyer and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, both on Netflix, and both riveting to watch. Attorney Woo has subtitles so you have to be ready to pay attention but her character keeps you watching as a first year lawyer with autism.

Taylor Jenkins Reid, one of my favorite authors, has a book about to be released and I finished it recently thanks to an early reader copy on NetGalley. Carrie Soto is Back is a fantastic book about sports, competition, and tennis but even if you’re not into sports or tennis this book will keep you reading because Carrie Soto is a fascinating character. You can pre-order it anywhere right now.

August is one of my favorite months because I love the heat of summer but it also ushers in school. One of the joys of living so close to school is that I can walk or bike to work giving me time outside so I come into school feeling refreshed. This year my husband helped me out by buying me a retro-looking electric bike! So while summer is winding down I’m tooling to school in style.

Reasons for happiness

{NPR-Source}

On Monday we will start back to school with everyone masked up again and I couldn’t be happier! I really dislike wearing a mask; it makes it hard to hear students and hard for me to read books aloud to students. You miss the emotions, the smiles, the glee. You can see joy in their eyes but I miss my students faces; all 650+ of them! On the other hand it will keep us safe from the virus (and other germs) which is important because we have young students who don’t have the opportunity to get vaccinated. We have kindergarten students missing school because of positive Covid tests or due to exposure. I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want our students to get sick or miss school either. I know there will be complaints but bear with us. This too shall pass-eventually!

I recently had a chat with another teacher during a staff breakfast and she relayed that she was going to be away from school for over a week for surgery. She leaned in and asked me if I’d read any good books lately? Why of course I have! I love the start of a good book conversation and she took my two book recommendations with a smile on her face. I’m sure her foot surgery won’t be fun but I do know she’ll be set up with good reading material. What did I recommend? Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly And Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women.

Over the weekend I’ve had a chance to really relax with nothing major on my agenda. I had a good talk with my mother-in-law. My husband and I strolled through our local Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning, I read Six of Crows in my bright orange hammock for over an hour while listening to the chickens cluck around me. I watched a little Netflix after the sun went down. I did an hour’s worth of yoga. Today I’m about to embark on a long walk with my dogs. I feel like some weekends we go non-stop but this kind of weekend really helps me settle. What’s on your agenda?

Hello Fresh and other news

Out of curiosity I used a coupon card and signed up for meals from Hello Fresh; one of the many subscription food services out in the world. And I found that like many things it is filled with false promises and inaccurate advertising. It was a lot of fun to look through the week’s menus and pick and choose what to look forward to for the week. The meals look delicious online and honestly when you cook them up out of their handy brown paper bag they tasted good. So the flavor and ease were a hit but there was so much waste with tiny packaging for sauces and herbs that as an eco-conscience person it was not a good fit. Also the advertising on their page is like “ten free meals…” which is just not true. You get a big discount on your first week’s order but the price goes up significantly after that. I was happy to give it a fun try at a time when it was just the two of us to cook for and we needed a mental health boost as we were trying to desperately leave winter behind. I will use the recipe cards again and again because the flavors were good – I’ll just plan to use my own pantry items here on out.

It’s National Poetry Month and I’ve worked this in to my lesson plans for some spring fun. I read a few excerpts from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I loved that many students knew many of the poems in this book and even had specific requests for me to read aloud. I had this book as a child and love Shel’s first poem inside. It’s still a great message for today.

Invitation

If you are a dreamer, come in.

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer,

If you’re a magic bean buyer, come sit by the fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin,

Come in!

I discovered a series of videos with Kwame Alexander sharing his experiences with writing that are engaging and short so perfect for students. He has kids chanting after him when he repeats his “blue black, blue black, black black” and they are amazed at how his words flow. Enjoy the week and embrace the Spring weather that is hopefully here to stay. I know I need the sunshine on my face.

Year of the woman

For February and March I’ve shared important women and POC like Bessie Coleman, Harriet Tubman, Mae Jamison, and Rosa Parks with all my library students. We’ve read books like The Oldest Student; How Mary Walker learned to read by Rita Lorraine Hubbard and Oge Mora and Counting on Katherine; how Katherine Johnson saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker. We’ve discussed men such as Thurgood Marshall, George Washington Carver, John Lewis, Sammy Lee, and Henry “Box” Brown.

Invariably one of my older students will ask why isn’t there a men’s month? My answer sounds something like … Well we live in a a patriarchal system and white males predominate in every field available except perhaps education and you’ve studied American history from a white lens. You learned about our white “founding fathers”, explorers, scientists, and inventors in school using a text book that generally gives an age old slice of approved information and it’s up to you to seek out a more well-rounded view on everything. And it’s my job to help you see things in new ways through research and exploration.

It’s hard to know how far to take it; I don’t want to overwhelm my students yet I want to push them enough to look outside their predominantly white community at the larger world and see others with compassion, as humans.

Other resources to explore: The Black History Channel and the History.com’s Women’s History

With our first female vice president it is more important than every to help all our students understand how important these achievements are and we need to keep pushing for more.

More on being anti-racist…

I am continuing my journey to better understanding by watching and I want to share the most interesting with you. We should keep learning and pushing ourselves while we actually work to dismantle the racist systems in place that keep people of color from succeeding at life. We need to push our schools, banks, city councils, police departments, landlords, and neighbors to do better. If you work in an area that should help more get your people on board. If you are a parent, teacher or administrator you need to push for real change in what and how we teach. This video shares how students in the South were explicitly taught to respect the Confederate flag, and it’s so-called “heritage”.

Also I read this great article, When black people are in pain white people just join book clubs, by Tre Johnson in The Washington Post about how easily white people dismiss the struggle. I feel like I’m stuck in this myself by how much information I’m taking in yet in order to be a better ally and teacher I have to understand how and what to say. I was asked to be on our district’s equity committee, which I understand has been in place for years w/out getting much done, so we are still dealing with a lot of old/same hurt, outrage, and anger.

Teaching Hard History in K-5 is a webinar I watched from the Teaching Tolerance website, which is filled with valuable resources. This webinar already took place but if you register they will send you a link to it within a few minutes. I’m going to keep an eye on other webinars they may host as I would like to be part of the real-time Q/A

This video with Emmanuel Acho is helpful and he has several others to watch. I either stumbled upon this one or someone shared it on their FB feed. It’s shocking that people still don’t understand the mental trauma and racist systems that Black people have experienced. This is one of many areas where the race has not been fair for generations. I encourage you to subscribe and take a look at each of his videos.

And one last one that I found on our list of resources for the school equity committee about micro aggressions. I love the dialogue that happens in this particular classroom. My head cannot wrap around things that people say out loud; like stop people and think before you speak and also how about a little mind-you-own-business! What would it look like to be more welcoming and accepting of people who don’t look just like you.

Be kind out there and seriously do better. There are many ways to get involved and help even if just by donating or making phone calls. 8 can’t wait is a great tool to help you. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are still out there and here is a good article talking about this. And Elijah McClain in Colorado. We need to stop this before the list continues to grow…
Thank you for continuing on this journey with me…

An education for all…

(stock photo – 1970)

To be a teacher today you have to be a psychologist, play therapist, mediator, mother/father figure, and humorist all rolled into one. It’s not the easy job it once was; not to belittle teachers of the past but I think of the teachers I had growing up and they didn’t need to have quite the skill set we do now. I’ve interviewed some retired teachers to check my thinking on this and they agree. Teaching has changed; the pay has not. We work damn hard for our money and leave exhausted every day. Many of us work an hour (and sometimes more) at the end of the day to be ready for the next day and many of us spend weekend afternoons to plan for the week. It’s a lot of planning to keep kids interested in what we teach. We have to figure out ways to integrate technology but not too much. I don’t want to give kids the perception that everything fun happens on a screen. I stress books, reading, board games, and lots of time outside and that is true for in school and out. I want students I work with to enjoy school both in the library and in their classroom.

(image – JennyXYoung)

My daughter – Groovy Girl – is in high school now, a senior! When I started this blog she was just beginning elementary school, which she loved! She adored many of her teachers and was excited for the variety of activities they did. She hates school now and it crushes me. She loves learning and watches a lot of cool educational documentaries for fun. She is opinionated and understands a great deal about the world around her. So why do we squeeze the fun out of school at the middle and high school level?

She is sleepy every morning as she trudges off to school. She is tired from dance the night before and often stays up to midnight to finish homework. As a parent I’ve questioned why are we still doing dance when it leaves very little time for homework yet it is her absolute JOY. How can I take that away from her? I can’t. So we struggle through and she worries about if she’ll make it in college based on her high school experience. She gets little help from school counselors and her teachers. She’s smart, yet has to work hard, and she questions her ability all the time. Sometimes when she takes a test (1-4 performance-based grade) and doesn’t do well she has nowhere to turn. The class just moves on except technically they are supposed to reteach if kids are struggling. I want her to be able to retake a test to help her learn more. I want her teachers to reach out and see her even if she is the only one struggling with concepts. Our system at least in high school fails in this. She feels horrible when she doesn’t succeed and while I know the real world is often dog eat dog most jobs you learn as you go and you keep moving forward. We should allow failures to blossom into growth in all levels of education.

I am aware in all this that technology plays a role in her life and is often a HUGE hindrance in getting things accomplished. She can access homework on her phone and uses it for flashcards and learning apps like Quizlet but often that leads to checking IG, watching SnapChat videos from friends, the list is endless. After a recent conversation she deleted some of her time-wasting apps, which made her happy; to be pro-active but then said she filled that time with dancing around the house instead of more homework! I wish I had the answer or magical words to help. I don’t. Do you?

Teachers and students of today have a mixed bag of trouble and triumph. I hope she (and I) can make it through this year and that she will flourish in college. I want to enjoy this last year with her not spend every day helping her work out her frustrations and encouraging confidence in herself.

School Bells are ringing…

My seniors!

As August draws to a close I’m celebrating not only the beautiful summer I had but the new school year that is upon us. The happy small faces filled our clean hallways last week on Backpack Night and you could feel their excitement. Hugs were tossed about like confetti, hellos and high fives passed up and down. They were ready to be back in their routines. Students were happy to announce all the books they read and I had about five former students stop by to say hi and get a quick hug.

Now we’ve had a full week back and it’s been the same excitement level as that first night. Students were thrilled to be in the library, checking out books, and seeing some changes. I purchased a large colorful story carpet from Scholastic, I’ve created a puzzle corner, and added an iPod/iPad corner so students can listen to podcasts. Our TedTalk Wednesdays will begin again next week. Lots to look forward to in the year. There’s a lot of fun mixed with important messages. Our school theme is “Adventure Awaits!” And my library theme is manners. We’ve already had one very telling conversation about cell phone use and how hard it is to get a parents’ attention away from their phone. We’re going to delve into all this deeper as we go about our regular library business.

Our 5th and 6th graders are soon to begin a collaborative graphic novel project between the library and the art room. We are super excited to start this first time project and the students have no idea yet! Our graphic novel section is popular and I’m thrilled to be able to introduce this project to them.

What has you excited for the coming year?

Life is filled with surprises

Here is my life changing moment.

One day last Spring I received a message on FB’s messenger, it just happened to pop up on my phone while I was sitting at my desk. The message stunned me and I cried right there at my desk.

It said: “Hey Mrs Holt! Do you remember me?”

Anton was a student of mine in North Little Rock, AR at Seventh Street Elementary. He’d been searching online for 6 years for me. 10 years ago we left Little Rock and moved back to Iowa. It’s not much to go on when you’ve only ever called someone “Mrs. Holt” but eventually I showed up on FB for him. Miracle.

We communicated for over a year back and forth from Iowa to Texas and eventually his situation changed and we made the family decision to bring him here to Iowa-on the bus. It took 3 days. He’d never travelled that far on his own. He was so proud of himself for being willing to go far from home.

He wants to go to school, he wants to work, and live life like others do. He just needs a leg up. He is the first in his family to graduate from high school and he wants more out of life than what he has seen. I knew he was worth it way back in 5th grade when I helped him frequently at home and at school. He is adjusting to Iowa, the cold, and being part of our family again.

Every day teachers make connections with students. We are teaching young human beings how to be human; how to think, create, and navigate the bigger world around them. It is seriously important work.

Most often we make a daily brief impression (make it kind) but every once in a while you make a life-changing affect on a person and that is monumental for both. It might make you cry at your desk at some point. That Anton would look for me for 6 years brings me such joy; knowing that as a 5th grader he was paying attention to everything we did together. I wish he could have found me sooner but it worked out when it did. I’m grateful for our time together now.

Even librarians make mistakes…

You know it’s easy to lose a book in a house full of books even when you are a librarian! My friend Tina and I have often joked how we are terrible examples of library book care as we’ve both had to pay not only overdue fines but for lost books as well.

Today I opened up several boxes from Scholastic that I ordered using our book fair $$. Inside one of the boxes was a copy of The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson and I cringed a little. My school library had a copy of this book when I started the year off-mind you this IS my very 1st year here-and I was reading it at school as my “I’m reading” example book (loosely translated to the book I read a page or two out of to demonstrate to students what a good reader looks like as they read near me; trust me it works). I’d gotten to the half way point in the book and was pretty engaged so that Friday I stuck it in my backpack and carted it home with high hopes to finish it that weekend.

Saturday (way back in November) I toted The False Prince with me in my little “31” bag as I went off to work our church Christmas bazaar, where I am in charge of the used book sale. When we finished setting up I set it on the counter because I thought for sure during a lull that I would be able to read a chapter or at the very least a few ~~pages~~ paragraphs. That lull never came and at the end of the bazaar after Teri and I counted the money and closed up shop I went to pick up my book (more accurately my library’s book) and lo and behold all heck broke loose because it was GONE! Now I must be completely honest here and admit that the table I had set this book on was also the table where we exhanged money for books and bagged sold books up for happy buyers. Really, really a poor choice on my part.

So when I pulled this new copy of The False Prince out of the Scholastic box I felt sad that I’d lost the first copy. This is why when students come to us with the crazy excuses they have for losing a book I have to look at them with total empathy. I’ve walked in their shoes.

Somewhere out there is a copy of The False Prince sitting in the bottom of someone’s Target bag of books, waiting to be found. Maybe someday it will be returned to our church or to our school as it is stamped inside. Maybe it will even be returned with my book mark sticking out. Who knows? More than likely the book buyer will just shrug their shoulders and think “I don’t remember buying this one but it looks good!” and they’ll proceed to move the book mark back to the beginning.

Maybe every year I could lose a book to remind myself to stay humble and remember how tough it is for most kids to come in and admit that their new puppy chewed their chapter book to cardboard bits.
And I still need to finish the rest of Jennifer Nielson’s excellent book.

Back-To-School Story Ideas

I’ve been back to school for two days now, attending meetings, planning with teachers, and cleaning up the library. On Monday I was exhausted by 10 am and ready for a nap. No kidding. Even though I’ve worked in my house over the summer somehow back-to-school wore me out.

How do you think the kids are going to feel those first few days? Worn out. Ready for a nap. Itching for their handheld electronics or endless amounts of television viewing. Teachers have to have their game on as kids enter their classrooms. Kids might come in thrilled for the new year yet it won’t take much to lose them if we aren’t centered and focused.

Here’s a short list of books that I think are perfect for the first few days of school.

1. First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg: I love this story as it has a bit of a twist that will make kids smile, maybe even giggle and the conversation after reading it is always enlightening. Sharing this book will show your students that YOU, the teacher, has a sense of humor. Busy Teacher’s Cafe has activities for this book-click their name to pull up website. And if you want a digital tie-in here is a video clip. The video ends just short of the surprise ending which leaves a window for students to make predictions. Find more teaching resources for this book at Unique Teaching Resources.

Pete the Cat; Rocking in my school shoes by Eric Litwin and James Dean: This jazzy title gives a quick and fun rundown of what the school days will be like and shares a quick trip around the school. It does not matter what your school shoes look like because once I introduced Pete the Cat last year and I plan to keep him rocking this year as well. The positive message won’t be forgotten. Video to share:

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn: This one is nearly a classic to teachers and children alike. Every year though I’m surprised by students who’ve never, ever heard the story. This is especially appropriate for pre-k, kinder, and first grade students who may have trouble letting parents go on the first days of
school. In my home copy I was lucky enough to have a page of heart stickers inside the book so every time I read it with my own kids I could grace their palm with a sticker. Make Learning Fun has activities to compliment this title. Share this collection of videos.

I hope everyone has a cheerful school beginning-we all deserve that, teachers and students alike. As teachers we have the ability to lift our students up and bring a positive message to their education.