Thoughts From the West

Eleven years ago I left the elementary classroom for the college classroom.  There are things to love about each setting.  I knew that there would be unique aspects to teaching at the college level.  What I didn't anticipate was the similarities as the first day of school approaches.  I still get butterflies the night before classes begin.  I hope I always will.  I still can't wait to meet my students and to learn about them and their goals.  I still feel like the luckiest person in the world that first moment when class begins in the fall. What I'm noticing more this year is a struggle that plagued me when I taught at the elementary level.  I'm wrestling with making sure that I'm including purposeful writing balanced within my course.  I want my students to experience meaningful writing activities that they can replicate in their own classrooms.  I am thinking very hard about how that will look in every single class with more scrutiny...

Being a Literacy teacher, I often joke that math is hard.  I saw a t-shirt in the airport on my recent travels that read "Math is hard.  So is Life.  Get over it."  That trip was a return from an incredible week of observing live teaching of fifth graders as it unfolded in real time and pre-briefing and de-briefing and contemplating and puzzling over the act and art of teaching- and how very difficult it can be to hone our craft. The week I spent observing was focused on math instruction and math foundational understanding.  Working with content is challenging.  The teacher must be in command of the foundational understandings they hope to teach. Teachers must be aware of where these skills fall along a continuum of skills.  Teachers must learn a variety of strategies for teaching all types of learners.  Teachers must be keen observers aware of what students can do and aware of how to build from what they can do.  Teachers must plan lessons...