Three Teachers Talk

“Integrity is who you are when no one is watching.”

I tell my students this until they gripe and groan at the sound of the first word, because they know the rest by heart.  I value integrity and honesty with such fervor, likely because I’ve seen the cancer dishonesty can become, spreading to affect many more lives than just the withholder or fabricator of information.  My students know this very early on, but I haven’t been entirely sure that the lesson was sticking with them.

Last Friday, I had a gaggle of former students come visit me.  They were on Christmas break from their various universities, and decided they had to come pay me a visit.  Honored and surprised, they quickly reverted back to laughing at me–never with me–as I jumped and squealed at the sight of them at my door.  I’m so glad my current students were occupied with food and reviews so I could grill these young men about their new lives.

I asked them questions about their classes, the various sports they played, and of course nosier questions like, What about a girlfriend?  Wait, what happened to your old girlfriend?  Are you happy with your life?  What do you eat?  Are you eating?  I’m going to send you some food.

After a series of questions, Carl said, “Mrs. Paxson, you know, you were right.”  I replied, “Of course I was!  About what?”

He explained, “You see, I thought I knew what it was to focus–that you’re on task when someone comes over to check on you.  But in college, nobody does that.  So it’s like focus is what you do when no one is around, just like integrity.”

They proceeded to laugh AT me, again, as tears welled up in my eyes.  I wish I were kidding.

As a teacher, this question often plagues my mind: Who are you when I’m not around?  

And the natural questions that follow:

How can I strengthen THAT person, and not just the one you present to me?

How can I provide a space where you can be the person you are when I’m not around, when I’m actually around?

Or, like Amy’s–Have I really taught you anything?

Just as integrity is what you do when no one is watching, I would argue that true growth and commitment to learning can be judged by the same criteria.

With this in mind, I’ve presented my students with some reading challenge ideas, to keep them engrossed in words over the break.  Here are a few ideas from my colleagues.  We ran out of time to make our own reading challenges this semester, but we will in the Spring.

I’ve also written down Carl, Enrique, Kobe and Tomi’s words in my notebook to look back when I’m feeling ineffective and voiceless.  What we do matters, and it matters everyday–even the days that they’re no longer in our presence.

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration, and is a victim of OCD–Obsessive Christmas Disorder. You can probably find her humming Christmas tunes over the sounds of her students’ pained groans, and sporting a gift bow in her hair for the last week of school.  Her students frequently describe her as “an annoyingly cheerful person who thinks all her students can change the world.”  Yep, pretty much.  

Please ignore my sad, disorganized bookcase.  Trust me.  I KNOW.

So, I guess I went gradeless this semester, but it was an accident.

I’m the luckiest teacher in our school because I get to be Yoda to the young-jedi-creative-writers of James Bowie High School.

Wait, let me re-write that, The luckiest teacher I am because Yoda I get to be… okay, I tried.

We have one section of Creative Writing at our school, and it’s my baby.  Don’t worry.  It’s not weird.

This semester was my third semester teaching this class, and I decided to go full-choice as an experiment.  You see, in prior semesters, my units were centered around modes of writing.  We worked on character development and dove into short stories, we focused on powerful connotation and tone and dove into spoken word poetry, we wrote personal stories that exposed our souls, shared them and became a family.  I watched as they supported each other, got to know each other, and tried to hide my excitement and shock when we could go from laughing to crying to intense work and focus.

However, the only thing missing was buy-in for every single mode of writing.  Even with choice of topic within the mode, it was inevitable that some students gravitated more intensely toward poetry, fiction, real-life writing, humor, etc.

At the beginning of the semester as I got to know my students, I asked them if they would rather our sections of writing be organized by mode or thematic topic.  Unanimously, they voted for topical organization.

Then, we brainstormed broad topics that would allow for a myriad of interpretations and modes of writing.  They came up with the following list:

• Power
• Turmoil
• Control
• Kindness
• Grudges
• Beauty
• Music
• Addiction
• Open-mindedness
• Fear

Within these topics, we found stimuli and mentor texts along the lines of the idea, talked, wrote, wrote, and talked.  I put together mini-lessons quite similar to those from my modes of writing approach.  What I found can be described in one sentence.

Free students result in free writing, and free writing is what will change our world.

This is along the lines of what Cornelius Minor said in the Heinemann Fellows session at NCTE: In order to have free students, we must have free teachers.

At first glance, freedom seems easy.  Of course we want to be free, who wouldn’t want to be free?!  But what I’ve learned is that freedom doesn’t mean the work, stress, and weight of it all goes away.  Actually, quite the opposite.  As a free teacher, I find myself still up at night because of the weight of it all.  If free writing will change our world, what’s the next step for me in supporting my writers in their freedom?

Here are a few of the amazing writings that resulted from this experience:

• Students wrote about addiction, and surprised me at their jarring use of sensory imagery that described addiction from every angle.  They wrote about addiction to a substance, addiction to a person, addiction to a feeling or a conception of oneself, but they were all rooted in that visceral, physical experience of being tied to something with such fervor.  They also decided that for read-arounds, we all needed to speak in a British accent.
• Alexis wrote about a blind person’s experience with beauty.  Here is a line from her piece:
• Maddie has written about 20,000 words over the course of our class, and is in the process of world-building for a future novel.
• Jerrell wrote a mega-creepy horror piece describing the relationship between a stalker and his victim through the mode of letters, social media, and other correspondence.
• Mecca draws with everything she writes.
• Terrianna finally worked up the courage to write her brother’s story, but more on that later.

I realized last week that my class was essentially gradeless.  Ironically, it was not a conscious decision, but simply a natural result of being so entrenched in the writing process that I forgot to grade!  There was also really no need.  This semester I’ve been in constant writing conferences, teaming up partners with strengths to match weaknesses, asking students to help me with my own writing struggles, etc.  To me, this is what an entirely engaged classroom looks like, and it also resulted in better writing.

Now, as I mentioned in my last post, all of my classes do not look like this, completely.

Here’s why letting go sometimes sounds easier than it actually is:

• Sometimes you don’t have all the answers.
• Sometimes things fail. (But shouldn’t we be showing our kids HOW to fail?)
• Sometimes students have not been conditioned to invest in learning as a process rather than a way to check boxes.  (But, I mean, that HAS to change, right?!)

Sometimes images are better than words:

Creative Writing gives me grounds and hope for experimentation, and helps me to be brave and think outside the box in my other preps as well.  I hope that more time, talk, and investment in the real work of allowing students to be seen translates more intensely to my other classes in the Spring!

Have you ever happened upon a Happy Accident in your classroom?  Tell us about it in the comments!

P.S. For more about going gradeless, talk to Amy, or visit The Paper Graders’ blog!  I will be visiting in the next few days, and would love to chat about it with anyone!

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration, and is overjoyed to be in a graduate program because that means she has access to a better library. Also, you can probably find her humming Christmas tunes over the sounds of her students’ pained groans.  They frequently describe her as “an annoyingly cheerful person who thinks all her students can change the world.”  Yep, pretty much.  

I feel like I overuse the word “mind-blown” in my everyday life, and people who know me well are unphased when I hand gesture and raise the volume of my voice to describe whatever happened that elicited such a response.

But trust me when I say, this time IT IS NOT A DRILL.

My first-ever experience with NCTE can only be described in one–though overused by me–word.  You guessed it.

MIND.  BLOWN.  Okay, wait.  Two words, with necessary periodic addition for dramatic effect.

In order to fully communicate this mind-blown state, I should tell you that my NCTE experience began with sitting in the airport and seeing Jason Reynolds walk right in front of me as I froze like a teenage girl.

Then, I redeemed myself by attending a panel with Jason Reynolds and getting a picture.  I also awkwardly told him, “Hey, I saw you yesterday, but I tripped on my way over to you and got embarrassed and then sat down.” Good story, Jess.  He said, “Oh, you should’ve said something!” He’s probably used to crazies.

Anyway, aside from my intense awkwardness and wondering whether or not I should walk up to people I know from Twitter and say “hello”–like the friends I feel we are–, attending NCTE for the first time was an invaluable experience for a few reasons.

First, it helped validate that I’m–we’re–fighting the good fight.  To be honest, our profession is so steeped in what Carol Jago calls “literacy activities,” I sometimes wonder if I’m the only teacher just letting her kids read and providing space for them to write.  Anyone else?  Feeling like The Lone Ranger can also cause me to question: If this is different than the way almost everyone is doing it, is there a chance I’m wrong?  That insecurity causes many issues, one of which results in the frequent depletion of my chocolate stash.  However, NCTE took all that wondering away, and reaffirmed the Workshop Crusade during every session:

Kelly Gallagher said, “I am a teacher of literaCY, not literaTURE.”

Jimmy Santiago Baca, “In working with students who hate education, we need to make it look a lot less like education.”

He also said, “Make your classroom as individual as you can to affirm your own spirit.”  And I would argue, we need to do so in order to affirm the spirits of our kids, as well.

Second, as a result of an amazing session led by Tricia Ebarvia (who is my bestie, but doesn’t know it yet), Anna Osborn (who I want to be when I grow up), and Kate Flowers (who is not afraid to tell the truth of data), I obtained a litmus test that will challenge me for the rest of my teaching career.

Kate Flowers’ Rule of Assessment: Do no harm.

As I really let this three-word, doozy of a sentence sink in, I started running a list of what I would deem “assessments” from the past three months.  I teach three very different classes: On-level Seniors, AP Lang Juniors, and All-level Creative Writing.  I can honestly say the only class I can say I’ve “done no harm” in terms of assessment is Creative Writing.  Do I know where they are?  Absolutely.  Do I know their strengths?  Interests?  What they had for breakfast this morning?  What they dream about for their futures?  Absolutely.  Do they love and support each other as classmates?  To a fault.

So, the tough question is, why do I run my other classes any differently?  Truth: Because of assessments.  Because of administrative checkpoints.  Because I feel as though I have to justify community-building and students being seen to align with state and district standards.  Finally, because I have not completely let go of control.

Kate asked, “Is this about your need to control?  Or are you serving your students’ need to grow?”

This question also made me think: How many times do our educational practices do more to breed liars than learners?

Those questions should keep me busy for awhile.

Do no harm.

Finally, NCTE made me even more angry at the conversations that permeate the teacher work rooms, the hallways, the classrooms with doors closed and hands thrown up in the air.

I constantly hear, “My kids can’t do this, and they can’t do that.  Why have they not been taught this before?”

Cornelius Minor said, “Your lack of understanding is not a symptom of something wrong.  It just means you’re in the right place.”

I am a teacher.  I’m not an assigner.  I’m not an assessor.  I don’t throw something against a wall, hope it sticks, and then blame the wall for not having been told to grab onto it because it will be useful in the future.

As I said in my portion of our Three Teachers’ talk, maybe kids have been told, but they haven’t been taught.

So, my current plight is trudging through the constant overwhelm of asking people to be open to change, trying something new, doing things differently.  My volleyball coach ALWAYS reminded us of the definition of insanity–but he called it “stupid,” instead.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  So I will continue to toss up the idea that we should let students show us who they are, and then plan a learning experience around that.  We might even set some learning in place that might help them discover a piece of themselves they didn’t know existed, or a person they were blind to before they knew their struggles were the same.

I remember what Tom Newkirk said, “Story is compelled by trouble.”  So maybe this is part of my story, maybe this is my trouble.  Maybe I was meant to push through the difficulty and the seemingly impossible–at least without a steady stream of caffeine and sarcasm–to get to what truly might save our world, beautiful words and the connections they fuse when we encounter them.

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration, and is overjoyed to be in a graduate program because that means she has access to a better library.  She is currently twiddling her thumbs as she waits for the next books from Sabaa Tahir, Sandhya Menon, and Jason Reynolds.  Also, you can probably find her humming Christmas tunes over the sounds of her students’ pained groans.

It’s 8 months later, and I still think about Amy’s post regarding mirrors, windows, and doors.  In fact, it permeates most of my conversations about education with colleagues, in graduate school, at the coffee shop–okay, kind of kidding on that last one.

But it’s the question at the end of her post that gets me:

How are we making learning matter to our students?

Learning doesn’t matter until students see themselves in the process.  The process of learning is transactional, much like the process of making meaning in general, according to Jerome Bruner.  This concept of transaction means that students need to be involved.  They have to act, rather than simply absorb.

Students must have choice.  They must see themselves in other people’s stories.  They must tell their own stories, not only for the sake of the “personal narrative,” but because good story is woven through all great writing.

We are heading to NCTE tomorrow.  What?!  Tomorrow?!  While it seems like it’s been the quickest semester on the face of the planet, I’m so glad our presentation regarding narrative has been in the back of my mind.  It has made me a better teacher, and caused me to consider how I’m allowing students to tell their stories, or craft a new one, in just about everything we do.

People often say, “For it is in giving that we receive.”  I find this to be increasingly true in writing for Three Teachers Talk.  It challenges my practice and encourages me to think of my classroom in a way that the progress we make can be transferred to other teachers’ classrooms and communities.

My story for this week includes a whole lot of writing, crossing out, scribbling, Googling, then writing again.  In my third year of teaching, I thought I would have fewer firsts.  But, alas, in this month alone, it is my first time speaking in front of non-teenagers, first time meeting my literacy idols, first time going to a conference that will hopefully change my life and my practice–or at least bolster the ideals I already hold.  I am beyond excited to learn alongside the community of literacy advocates whom I have grown to love over the past year.  Will we see you there?!

Three Teachers Talk at #NCTE17, session C.26, Friday at 12:30, room 274.

I’ll be wearing a blue dress, and probably a flushed face accompanied by some armpit stains.  Don’t worry, I’ll cover them up with a blazer.

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration.  Her husband keeps her sane with his good looks and even-keeled  nature.  She is currently coming off the high that is the Ember in the Ashes series, writing about real life and all it’s messiness (Jessica Jordana), and attempting to inspire students to be the best version of themselves.  You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @jessjordana to follow along with her many adventures!

The lesson was going great. Discussions were facilitating deep thinking, work was getting done, kids were talking about their reading without my prompting.  Then I saw him: Head down, possible drool pool hiding beneath the pillow he constructed out of his arms.  As I went to gently shake him awake, I thought, Shoot–how did I miss that?  I had been furiously conferencing with other students and must have been turned the other way.  Almost simultaneously, I heard a student–who generally favors the hyperbolic statement–say, It is so freezing in here.  I HATE THIS CLASS.  

And then it started to go.

Matthew Quick’s character, Bartholomew Neal, would call it the angry man in his stomach.

Oskar Schell would claim he was getting heavy boots again, and might pinch himself for his shortcomings.

Julia Cameron dismisses it as the Inner Critic.

The Bible would call them lies spun by the enemy.

Either way, the moment I hear a negative comment, see a student who has slipped through the cracks for five minutes, or stare at all the red in my grade book for hopeful graduating seniors, I can’t seem to quiet that voice–whatever you choose to call IT–no matter how many times I attempt to smother or extinguish the flame.

IT says: You’re the worst teacher on the planet.

What makes you think you can change the world, or even one class period, one student?

They say you’re doing a great job, but what does anyone really know?  Don’t they just see what you present to them?

And worst of all, God didn’t place you here, He probably just forgot for awhile, and this is where you ended up.

Amateur.  Inadequate.  Soft.  Never Enough.

Forget the fact that I know all these thoughts are false.  They plague my mind daily, hourly, sometimes even by the minute.  So what is it that allows me to take the few negatives as failures, even when juxtaposed with many more positives?

In response to one of my messages one day, my friend and trusted mentor, Amy, called it The Savior Complex.  We want to save all the students–ALL OF THEM.  And by save, I mean engage, facilitate growth in life and learning, help them to feel loved and valued, encourage their ambitions and challenge them each and every day.

Seems doable.  (Not that I set lofty goals or anything.)

It’s my goal in these last few weeks to focus on the positive and deal with the negative.  I don’t want one to replace the other.  I don’t want to only see the positive, because that would take away the growth.  I just want to give each one its due in contributing to what I speak to myself each day.

Just like I tell my students:  Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t dream of saying to someone else.

How do you deal with that Angry Man in your stomach or the Inner Critic?  Let me know in the comments!

P.S. (Can 11 weeks qualify as “a few?”)

Note: This post was originally published on Jessica Jordana.

Jessica Paxson is an English IV and Creative Writing teacher in Arlington, TX.  She frequently feels as though someone made a mistake in allowing her to hold the futures of over 100 teenagers in her jittery, over-caffeinated hands for the past two years.  If you enjoy watching her make a fool of herself by being unbearably vulnerable, you can catch more of that over at www.jessicajordana.com. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram @jessjordana.