Celebrate a Pile of Notebooks

This is my Saturday morning. Reading writers' notebooks and doing laundry. I much prefer reading the notebooks over laundry.

Reading student notebooks over tea and toast while laundry taunts me from the right

Despite this looming pile, I really do love reading my students' notebooks. It helps me get to know them better and also see those treasured nuggets of wisdom that are often revealed when they embrace the mantra that "writing is thinking."

So I'm going to cut today's celebration post short. I have lots of notebooks to read and writers to nurture.

Celebrate This Week was established by Ruth Ayres

Finding comfort in a time of sorrow from the pages of a book

Last week I received the devastating news of the unexpected death of a former student. He was 18 years old. Headed to college. He had a bright future ahead of him.

This news shook me to my very soul. All of our students touch our lives in some way, but he was one of those kids who sticks out so vividly in my memory. He had a great sense of humor, but he also could be really thoughtful and profound and he always made me smile. The phrase "with a heavy heart" was not figurative for me upon hearing the news. I literally felt a weight of sadness in my chest for a good 24 hours afterwards.

Yesterday I attended this young man's funeral visitation and to say it was hard was an understatement. I didn't know what to say to his family, friends, and my former students other than to give them hugs and say I wish I were seeing them under better circumstances. I will never forget the feeling of hugging one particular student yesterday. I had just seen her at 8th grade graduation back in June. She had just graduated from high school and was glowing. Her hug only a few weeks ago was quick, light, and joyful. It was full of all of the excitement and promise of what the world had in store for her. Yesterday's hug on the other hand, was heavy, lingering, and full of sorrow. There were no words spoken between us. Our embrace said everything.

Somehow, through it all, I managed to keep myself together, even when hugging his younger brother, who was also a student of mine and who made me smile, laugh, and ponder in equal measure. For someone who cries at the drop of a hat, this behavior was unusual for me. But as I tried to make sense of a life gone too soon, I found myself taking comfort in a book. I started to think about Matt Miller, the main character in The Boy in the Black Suit and how working in a funeral home and constantly being in the presence of grief helped him process his own. So as I sat in the church, I immediately went into observation mode. My way of coping and keeping it together was to almost step outside myself and take comfort in knowing that others were trying to make sense of it all, too. That we were not alone in our sadness and questioning as to why this had to happen. So I am grateful to Jason Reynolds for Matthew Miller, a young man whose poise and wisdom belies his years. It just goes to show you that books can sometimes touch us and give us comfort us in ways we least expect.

Slice of Life is brought to you by Two Writing Teachers

Thinking about my role with students and social media

Katerine Sokolowski's recent blog post about world colliding as a parent and teacher continues to get me to think about my role in helping students navigate this brave new world of social media.

Most teachers did not grow up with social media and so our initial reaction has been to steer clear. Don't friend students. Don't put yourself "out there" for students to find us. That advice, in a way, has been somewhat faulty. Kids often make mistakes - it's a part of growing up. When we were growing up those mistakes were just mistakes. We'd dust ourselves off, maybe get grounded, and that was that. Today mistakes are made public and permanent by the things they post online and we're letting kids function in the Wild West without a sheriff. Bottom line: We need to be role models of good digital citizenship so our students don't lose out on college admissions opportunities, possible jobs, or even their future freedom if something they post on social media could possibly incriminate them. But what this post really helped me to see is that we shouldn't just be lecturing to students about this. We should also be living it.

Many of my students follow me on Instagram. I could have chosen the moment when students started following me to panic and set my account to private. But in the end, I decided that this was an opportunity for me as their teacher to show them what it is to be a good digital citizen. So my students follow me, and as a result, I pander to that audience. I post book recommendations, I share with them my reading life, and I also give them a glimpse into my daily life as well: posting pictures of favorite recipes I've made, my journey with buying my new piano last year, and pictures of my dogs. As a result, I think it has helped get students to trust me more. To see that I'm just a regular person who does regular things. If they were looking for something scandalous by following me, they ain't gonna find it here. So they came for the scandal but stayed for regular old boring Mrs. Shaum (well, some of them stayed. I think some of them un-followed me after they realized they weren't going to find anything gossip-worthy on my Instagram feed).

A letter to my students

I wrote this letter on the second day of the 2014 Eastern Michigan Writing Project. We went on a writing marathon to various locations in the area and this piece came out of our first stop, which was at Whole Foods of all places. Now that I'm coming back into the classroom in the fall, I felt the need to let my students know just how much they mean to me. I don't think this is the final version, but I do want to read this to them on the first week of school.


To my students:

I want you to know that I believe in you. There are innumerable messages coming at you these days from people telling you that you CAN'T:

These students can't even identify what a verb is.
These students can't write.
These students just can't learn.

But through the sea of voices telling you what you can't do, I want you to listen for my voice across the din and hear me saying that you can. Let me be your beacon, a respite from the storm because you, too, serve as my guidepost, a constant reminder for why I continue to weather this storm. I hear the same discouraging messages, telling me that I'm not doing enough to make you "college and career ready." While you are being called "these students" I am being called "you people" and in one reductive swoop, informed that I want too much despite never doing enough.

But to me, you are enough. You keep me passionate and excited to come to work everyday even when all the other noise that surrounds me (testing, teacher evaluation, politicians, scripted curricula...) is telling me I want to quit. I did, in fact, quit for a year. But do you know what ultimately called me back? Each and every one of you. 

You make me happy.
You make me fullfilled.
You matter.
I believe in you.