How to Make A Disability Into Ability In The Classroom! But What About When It's YOU?

This last week I traveled to my hometown of Seattle.  It was the first trip home since beating thyroid cancer this year.  Most of my close friends and nearly all of my relatives still live in the area and I know that being 3000 miles away from people you care about and who care about you is difficult when you are sick.  There is a powerlessness that goes with it.  My mom had flown out to support me and my husband and we were thankful to have her here for that time.

So on this trip home, I got to see many people.  One of the frequent comments was about my voice.  As some of you may already know, I have vocal cord paralysis of my right cord- a byproduct of my treatment as well as the fist size tumor I had in my neck (You can hear me in May and July).  People who have known me all my life commented on the new sound- "It sounds like you, just softer." or "Wow, your voice is so sultry." They are right, there is a new quality to my voice and it is changing how I teach.

My vocal cord specialist Dr. Pitman (Check out this interview he did in May) told me that teachers have the second highest instance of vocal cord damage and disorders only after singers.  58% of teachers have a vocal cord disorder, according to the interview.  It is a staggering statistic.  I don't know about you, but I never thought twice about how I was using my voice prior to my cancer.  I am a English and Drama teacher.  I have a substantial amount of vocal training, more than the average person.  I understand how to support breath and project.  I never lost my voice when I was teaching but when I returned to school late in March and was barely audible, I was afraid.  I had a new disability and I was not sure what this would mean for my career.  My voice is a huge part of what I do as is true for most educators.  There would be no more raising of the voice in my classroom.

Teaching with a mic felt like this!

Thankfully, my school was able to provide a small amp with wireless mic for me to use.  It sat in the front of my classroom (that is on the large side for NYC Public Schools) and I would walk around, talking into my mic.  It became part of the culture of my classroom through out the spring.  I could not and would not yell and my students for the most part, listened.  For the more soft spoken kids, or even discussion leaders I put the mic into play using it to build community and student capacity it became a gift rather than a burden.

The long term prognosis is this: it will be a year before we know what my voice will finally be.  I continue to work with my speech therapist on regaining strength in my voice.  Some days are much more difficult that others and things that I used to take for granted, like yelling to my husband from the opposite end of the house, is something I miss being able to do.  My vocal cord may always be paralyzed but I can continue to improve my voice.  At this rate, half way though the summer it is looking like the mic will be a permanent fixture in my classroom next year.  I can't help but wonder though, what if all teachers had the same resources in their classroom- how would that change their instruction.

Do you have amplification in your classroom?  How does it impact your practice? How do you turn disability into ability?  

(Photo Credit via)

Teachers On The Front Lines: Respect and Compassion, Caitlyn Jenner and Dignity For All Students Act

Last night, like many, I watched much of the ESPY Awards.  There were a few moments I was looking forward to, but the highlight for me was Caitlyn Jenner's acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

Bruce Jenner was always part of my American landscape.  I was born a year after the triumphant Olympic showing.  Bruce was a symbol of athleticism and pop culture, even throughout the 80's always showing up on TV.  When "Keeping Up with The Kardashians" came to E! TV, new generations met Jenner.  I remember feeling bad for him, the batterebyd sidekick to a flock of women who bullied and belittled under the guise of love.

This spring, in the midst of a unit on Language and Gender for AP Language and Comp, we talked at length about gender, respect and language used to talk about gender and oppression.  At the time, Jenner was still being harassed relentlessly by the paparazzi, targeted on a daily basis, photos being published in places like People Magazine.  That same week Glee would be having the episode highlighting the storyline of Coach Beiest played by the incomparable Dot Jones, that would be featured in People as well. We spoke at length about what motivates sales, language used in mainstream media and who is a target and who is a hero.  My students came to some clear conclusions about media and money and how the same issues could be covered so differently with in the same source.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Yesterday I began the preparation homework for the Dignity For All Students (DASA)Workshop I will be taking on Saturday at Hunter College.  It is now a requirement for all new state teaching licenses.  I didn't have to take it prior to beginning teaching 8 years ago.  I am going back to school this fall, a new license on the horizon and I thought I would take care of the requirement this summer.
One of the articles I had to read was called "Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression:The Role of Allies as Agents of Change" by The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian.  Having studied Theatre of the Oppressed and the work of Boal, the thinking in this piece was not new to me, but I could see how it could be not only new but transformative for others. Ayvazian does an exceptional job that outlines what oppression is and how allies can be voices of change rather than of continued oppression.

As I listened to Caitlyn Jenner last night, reflecting on the very public year and a half she has had and thankful that she did not fold under the oppression forced on her, especially by the media.  I thought the quote below was telling:

(Photo Credit: Leverne Cox Facebook Page)

That's the rub though, isn't it?  Kids don't have the same tools 65 year old Jenner has.  As advocates and educators we are on the front lines of growing up and it is our responsibility to do two things. The first is to be agents of change in our own teaching and learning communities, providing safe space where students, no matter the obstacle or oppression they may face, to feel strong, supported and empowered.  The second, is to provide our kids with the knowledge and tools that bullying, harassment and oppression is not ok and that while we are all members of some group that is oppressed, we are all also allies to another oppressed group.  Students have the power to be allies and agents of change in their own lives and the lives of others.  It is our responsibility to support them as they rise to the occasion.

The Struggle With Staying Inside The Lines

Yesterday an article titled "Why Adults are Buying Colong Books (for Themselves)" by Adrienne Raphel in the New Yorker examined the phenomena of adults diving back into the coloring book market.  I am one of the many who are coloring for pleasure.  My first purchases were from Amazon,  My favorite: Adult Coloring Book: Stress Relieving Patterns  as well as a mandala coloring book (which I don't like as much) and one marketed for "stress-relief". They are time consuming and require focus, the idea being that you turn everything else off: no phone, TV, kids, spouses.  Just you and your coloring to zone out and see where the time takes you.  Unfortunately, my brain is not one that works that way and I like to do multiple things at once- usually one taking the majority of my focus (a gift and a curse) not unlike many of our students.  So in the evening, after dinner when we are catching up on the backlogged DVR, I color while we watch Mr. Robot.


Last Friday I was visiting a friend from grad school and fellow teacher upstate in Beacon, about 90 minutes north of NYC.  We stopped into one of the local shops on the main drag through town and I spent a few minutes looking at the books on the table and I saw this: Johanna Basford's Secret Garden that has now sold 2 million copies world wide. The shop owner told me the publisher reserves most of the copies for Amazon so it is difficult for the little guys to get stock in.  She went on to tell me she always sells out. I spent the extra few dollars to support my local independent bookseller and left with my new treasure.

On the train home from my visit I was thinking about what it would look like to have coloring books in my classroom. What would it offer my 11th grade AP students?  Plenty is the answer.

I had a A-ha! moment this spring. After spending more hours than I would care to mention here reading and writing feedback to students on papers they submitted I was looking in TurnItIn.com to see who had accessed the feedback and very few students had gone back in to see the comments.  It was frustrating for me on a couple of fronts.  1. Students are not looking at the feedback they are getting which means 2. They are not using the feedback to improve their work. (From me or a peer for that matter.) On some level I already knew this.  For some reason though, this time, the stakes felt higher.  This is Advanced Placement.  This is getting you ready to sit in a college classroom.  How do I do a better job of supporting my students with developing their own methods of critical reflection to support their own growth and learning? I suspected it had to do with grades but I wanted to hear from the kids.

One morning, thanks to yet another compulsory fire drill at our school, my class returned 60 minutes into our 80 minute period and because it was a wash, I decided to hear what they had to say about about it.  It was exactly what I expected. They are simply working for the next grade.  They see the number or letter on the paper or in the online grade book and that is enough for them.  If they did well, GREAT! (It helps my class average) and if they did poorly, it's Oh well, next time. (Crap, my parents are going to be pissed!)  We went on to have a longer conversation about what it would mean for them to not have to work towards a grade.  There were some great responses- challenging my thinking about what MBA can look like in my class room next year.

My school has already began to move towards Mastery Based Learning in this past school year. The more thinking I did about what was not working with feedback the clearer it became that I was going at this the wrong way.  I read Mark D. Barns' Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning and I was sold. I began following out the #TTOG on Twitter and looking more into schools using MBA.

These are my new questions: 

• When students relax, will they learn better/more/etc.?

• By removing the pressures of grades will the agency shift from teacher to student as the onus is put on them to master skills and ideas?

• What supports can I bring into the classroom to support students with building learning capacity?  

• Can multitasking in different ways- like coloring-help students do this?

Today, when I posted the New Yorker article on Facebook my former boss and brilliant theatrical milliner, Lynne Mackey posted,"But then you feel you need to stay w/in the lines.  How about a big page of blank paper.  No lines. No rules."  This is the comment that began this entire string of thinking today.  Throwing out grades is going to be like having a blank page of paper for my students.  Grades have become a crutch and my greatest goal has always been to model what passion for learning and thinking looks like and that my students go on to do that work on their own.

In February of 2006 I wrote to my high school English teacher, Tom Williams to tell him I was applying to grad programs to teach.  In an early exchange he said this to me: 

"...if you think you have to get students to think, you'll be putting more pressure on yourself than you'll ever be able to handle effectively.  Better to ask students to make meaning and the only way I know how to do that is to listen, and make meanings myself.  It's ok to share your meanings, but not necessary, or even generally appropriate.  Remember, the real subject in any classroom is each student. Learn them, and the rest becomes merely problematic, not impossible."

I come back to this periodically, a mantra.  I need to keep "learning kids" to support them with coloring inside or outside the lines.  I grow, they grow.  Needless to say, there will be coloring in AP Language and Composition next year.

25. Inspiration and Humility

When I started blogging about teaching in April I saw it an exercise to challenge me professionally, to think more critically about my work and to hopefully connect with other teachers.  Thanks to Chris Crouch, teacher leader, blogger and advocate who started the April Blog A Day Challenge.  It took my work to a new place. The writing in April also provided an opportunity for me to discover what is out there for teachers.  There was this community that I had been blind to, only because I was so focused on what was happening in my own classroom and school that I didn't make room to see and hear teacher's voices that would ultimately bring something new to my own work as educator and teacher leader in my community. 

When I started talking about the writing I was doing, the conversations I was having with teachers from around the country it was clear that this needed to be a permanent part of my professional work.  I was inspired by the work and thinking teachers and education professionals are doing.  I was humbled by the feedback I received as well as the learning I was doing.  

At my end of year conference with my principal, we had been asked to do some work prior to our meeting, completing prompts about our work for the year to serve as talking points for the conference.  As we sat down and began to go over the official end of year rating (done by a complicated algorithm reflected in a number) my boss asked me why I said I didn't think I had been successful as a mentor this year.  One of my responsibilities is mentoring first year teachers.  There were three that I was assigned, one ELA, one U.S. History and the other, Global history.  I was also teaching 16 periods a week plus advisory, an additional 30 minute period.  It was a heavy load.  Finding time to go into classroom or to even just sit and meet with three different teachers proved to be challenging and I often felt ineffective- not having a clear picture of strengths and struggles and wanting to be able to do more than what I had been.  I often watched the other teacher mentors working with the staff and doubting my ability to really support.  When I did get to spend time with my teachers, I tried to make the most of it, offering support, encouragement and ideas for actionable change aligned with the goals of our school.

When will I feel effective?  What is the balance between effective in my own practice as teacher while balancing my additional responsibilities?

As schools have become smaller here in NYC, teachers and staff are challenged to take on more responsibility than ever.  I remember at my first school right out of grad school, at my interview the Principal told me that teachers would be wearing many hats and that has never been more true than it is today.  The small teaching and learning communities can be highly effective but they can also be limiting for teachers, spreading ourselves so thin that we are not doing anything highly effectively but are developing or effective.  

Next year will be the first year that we are populating all 4 grades, 9-12.  I know there is at least one teacher we have hired that I will be mentoring but in reality, there are at least 2.  I want to make sure I am supporting their development and one of the ways that I want to support will be though guided reflection.  Not- "just reflect at the end of your lesson or unit" but questions that will prompt deeper thinking and questioning of the craft.  I believe the teacher narrative needs to be owned by the individual, not the omniscient narrator.