Well-Versed In Books

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Note: This post was originally written for teachers, but applies to parents of middle school kids as well. 

I have an amazing talent for stating an obvious fact, one that everyone already knows, way after everyone has already talked about it. What’s worse is that I somehow fool myself into believing that this universal well-known idea was hatched in my brain and so it must also be deeply profound.

You have been warned. There is nothing new in this post. Nothing any English teacher, librarian or committed reader doesn’t already know, but what I am about to share with you has been an epiphany of sorts for me. It has sparked a thirst for books that I seem powerless to quench. Ya’ ready?

Read the books your students are reading.

Wow, I am actually a bit embarrassed when I see it written out like that. Let me explain. I have been teaching Middle School English  for over ten years. My name is Jabiz and I am a book snob. Until last week, I rarely if ever read any Young Adult literature. At any given time I could be found saying things like, “I found the writing mediocre at best, the characters shallow, the themes trite and the stories plot heavy.” I almost threw a copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go across the room, after the the protagonist was nearly caught for the 100th time!

I couldn’t be bothered to read YA Lit, because that genre didn’t scratch the intellectual itches I enjoy. How could I tear myself away from David Foster Wallace, or my new love– James Baldwin, to read whatever dystopian garbage the kids might be reading?

But here’s the thing, I have only just recently realized– My intellectual and literary needs should not always come first. I owe it to the kids I teach to be well-versed in both the books they love and the books that I can find for them to love. As their English teacher, I should be the main resource for what is good, bad, exciting, at their level, too hard, and a bit simple but fun. I should be able to tell a kid who just liked Wonder that Eleanor and Park is a bit darker but about similar themes.

What sparked this epiphanal moment, you might ask? It was a series of things I suppose– years of incurring guilt for my ignorance about YA Lit, news that we have been approved for classroom libraries (150 titles per room!), and my becoming tired of recommending the same books over and over.  We are currently in an eight-week reading unit, where we explored a shared class novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  After practicing a series of skills, we allowed the students to choose a novel of their choice to show transference of  skills. Like most text hungry teen-agers, they were looks for suggestions.

I began to realize that I couldn’t recommend many of the authors or books I love, because the content is not quite appropriate or interesting to fourteen year olds. As great as Jonathan Franzen may be, I am pretty sure no middle school student cares about mid-life crisises in the suburbs. So I did what I have always done. I recommended the books I know: Of Mice and Men, Lord of The Flies, and Catcher in the Rye. Don’t get me wrong. I love these books, and I have been blown away by the exploration and analysis of these texts by my current students. But I knew there had to be better titles. Better matches. I knew that I was short-changing my students for not helping them find the just-right book for each of them. And the only way to do that is to read more YA Lit– plot-heavy dystopian adventures be damned!

Guess what happened? I felt totally empowered after reading just four books. After each title, I could name several kids who would love that book. Or I knew that this book was just right for one or two more mature and advanced readers. I start every class now, pushing books. I tell them about what I am reading. I can sell these books with confidence. I am even emailing specific kids and saying, hey you! This book is perfect for you. What will be great is when I have a library of 150 titles, I know and love, so I can literally just grab the right book and hand it to the right kid.

My enthusiasm in class has already led to one girl asking if I have read Angel’s Fury, to which I said no. The next day she brought me her copy, which I am reading at the moment. I have put up a physical list for suggestions.  There is something magical about empowering students to feel like experts. Allowing them to feel that they can influence their teacher with their love of books.

I feel that by reading more YA Lit, English teachers are creating and fostering a more authentic community of readers. Hey parents, I did not forget about you! If you want to foster a love of reading, then read some of these YA titles as well. We cannot continue to discredit books that were written for young adults, while promoting an antiquated list of books that they “should” be reading.  There will always be a place for the classics we love, or the stretch books from our own libraries that might fit a few students, but we owe it to our students to be well-versed in books that they can access and explore and love. I would love to hear about some of your favorite YA titles, or about some of the strategies you have chosen to excite your students about books.

As for my intellectual itches? I have decided to read five YA titles for everyone of my own choices. Although, I have already checked out a few books that will put me past five. My collection of Foster Wallace essays can wait, I need to read Holes, so I can talk about the narrative perspective with my struggling readers, and maybe The House of Scorpions might be the book that gets Billy to “get” reading.

Schools Can Be

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A few years ago I was scared of my thoughts. More accurately, I was afraid of how people would react to my thoughts, my ideas, my values. Maybe it was because I was living in a conservative country and working at a conservative school. Or maybe it was because my values, at the time, were still forged in anger and seeped in rage. I was driven by an obstinate defiance. I was always pushing back against existing hypocrisies, instead of standing for anything on its own merits. There was little wisdom to my beliefs. Even less understanding. Whatever, the case I was constantly anxious about what I said, what I shared and what I wrote. I was scared of my thoughts.

But recently, things feel different. Not only do I not feel scared, I feel that my ideas are valued and even celebrated. This acceptance and sharing of diverse thinking is a testament to a healthy learning environment. The fact that all members of our community feel valued enough to share their ideas no matter how different from the status quo is what makes UWCSEA East such an amazing place to work.

Let me tell you a bit about my last few days. Last week, I was part of a Share Your Beliefs session with our current grade elevens, as part of their TOK (Theory of Knowledge) exploration of faith. It looked a bit like this:

Your role is in session 1; when you be based in a single classroom and you will have three sets of some 13 students come your way; one set at 8.30am, one at 9.00am and one at 9.30am.  The students are all mixing up for each session, so all will hear from you and two different people; in all cases students hear from an atheist and two people of different faiths.  We have several speakers from outside school coming too.

The aim is for you to share with students your beliefs, and to have a short discussion/debate with them. This will then form a solid platform for later analysis and comparison.

The following faiths were represented:

Christianity
Sikhism
Buddhism
Reikei
Baha’i
Hinduism
Atheism

This is the second year in a row that I have been able to talk about my unique melange of  Zen inspired spiritual atheism with a group of young people. I spoke about how my Buddhist principals have shaped my ethical and moral choices when it comes to teaching, parenting, and being an active and thoughtful member of the human race. I pulled no punches and spoke about my animosity and disdain for organized religion based on the effects of Islam on my country of birth, Iran. I spoke about how a belief in a patriarchal omniscient deity just doesn’t jive with how I view the natural world.

In short, I was able to have a very open and frank conversation with a group of young people about who I am and what I believe, without fear of reprisal from an angry community member, because by making this sharing of ideas possible, UWCSEA is telling students and parents that we value a range of ideas. We are saying that no one idea is correct or carries any more weight then any other. We are free to hold our unique beliefs, but we must be open to the idea that others may disagree. This melting pot of ideas may seem obvious to anyone who has studied or worked in a progressive environment, but I think we all know that open-minded is not always the case especially when it comes to religious matters.

Second story– My daughter is in grade two and their current unit of study is about food and where it comes from. They were recently visited by Cowboy James, who spoke to them about his experience on a dairy farm and growing up in rural Canada. (BTW Cowboy James is our head of school) Kaia was curious and excited to hear about this process. At home we began to talk about my current decision to become vegan. Our entire family is vegetarian, but the vegan thing is new. It was great to watch Kaia negotiate her understanding of our family’s choices in the light of Cowboy Jame’s message and what I was telling her about food choices.

After our family chat, we thought that it would be great for Kaia her share some of her thoughts from our conversation with her class. So today, Kaia and I gave a 25 minute presentation, which we prepared yesterday, to her class about why our family chooses not to eat animals. It was great. She helped brainstorm the slides, find the pictures and got up in front of her class and shared her thoughts, with just a little help from me.

“We simply love all animals like our pets and don’t want to eat any of them.”

If you are keeping score– Atheist, Vegan, long haired, bearded and tattooed! It may not seem like much to you, but this is the first time in my career where I feel at home where I work. The first time I feel I can be my compete self. I think a school with such freedom of ideas should be celebrated and upheld as a model for effective learning communities everywhere. I cannot imagine having opportunities like the ones I just described in too many American schools. It is precisely because of  this celebrated diversity that I work internationally. I also love the cross pollination of ideas between ages groups and school divisions.

Third Story– Some students in my grade seven BTC (Be The Change) class are working on an action project about labor rights and treatment of migrant workers here in Singapore. As luck would have it, our grade nines recently did extensive work on the topic with TWC2. So they were perfect mentors for my middle school kids. I quickly sent an email to former students and all week, I have had several grade nine students work with the grade seven students as secondary sources and sounding boards. It has been a fantastic opportunity for both groups.

In closing, I wanted to share my gratitude to finally work at a school that puts its money where its mouth is. The examples I shared are just a few episodes that happened to me this week. I am sure there are many such expereinces happening everyday, everywhere in our school. So often we get so lost in the bureaucracy of school administration that we forget how powerful a school should be.

UWCSEA is a special place not only because I can share my quirky liberal values, but because I am sure that my daughter is the recipient of a plethora of conflicting ideas as well.

Final note– I am excited because I can write about my ideas without the fear that an administrator might “find me out.” Instead, I will email this post to our leadership team confident that they too will be proud of the community we are building here at East.

How does your school work? Do you have open channels for an exchange of ideas? Are you doing anything to promote cross-divisional sharing and learning? If so what are you doing? What are some frustrations that you face being yourself?

Nice To Just Be Outdoors

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I have been thinking and writing a lot about nature and the outdoors lately. As I slumber through a post-trip funk, I just returned from Chiang Mai after six days of caving, trekking and rafting with kids, I can’t help but continue to reflect on how valuable those times outdoor are to learners and teachers. I have a mammoth post brewing about my recent trip, but I wanted to scratch out a quick post about a simple experiment from yesterday.

I was teaching my grade 7 BTC (Be The Change Class) and I had planned for students to share memorable experiences they have had in the outdoors. Trying to get the kids to realize that it is difficult to care about anything or to take any action if they don’t have actual experience with it, I wanted them to mine their own experiences for times when nature meant something. Armed with Sam Sherratt’s recent post, I wanted a way to build a bit of awe and wonder.

So often, we allow ourselves to over-think how to get kids to shift their perspective and feel curious. I realized that I did not have to plan some huge trip, or create an immense experience to show kids that we are surrounded by wonder. All we have to do is notice it, move amongst it by changing where we work and think and learn. I needed something quick and easy and different.

We have a small patch of green space on our campus (not enough for sure) but it is what we have so I worked with it. I took my class down to the grass and we shared our natural experiences beneath the shade of the trees, the floating clouds and the slightly damp and muddy ground.

Nothing earth-shattering, I know. But you should have see the excitement and ease with which the kids adjusted to this new environment. Read for yourself the affect of such a tiny shift of going outside to learn can have on a student’s day.

I think that going downstairs into the grassy area was not really something we normally do at school, so it was a different experience, but also really fun. It was exciting and surprising to hear everybody else’s stories about interacting with nature and also to share my stories too. A lot of people had stories where they had done similar things that i had done in the past and it was interesting to relate to them with my own experiences (such as interacting with dolphins, whale watching, drinking out of streams, snorkeling etc.) . Additionally it was really nice to just be outdoors and get a bit muddy, relax and just hang out with friends instead of being in the air con all day and working on our laptops like we usually are.

Today was a very different class because we went outside into nature and talk about our outdoor experiences.  I really liked it because I am more of an outdoor person and we got to talk and reflect about how we take nature for granted sometimes.  I found today’s lesson very relaxing, and was fun at the end when we got to chill and play tag. It really taught me how much fun you can have without our expensive things and how we should all help conserve the small amount of nature we still have.

Today in BTC we went outside to a green area, close to the gate where the buses go out. We sat in a circle in the grass, and talked about our experiences with nature, whether it was wildlife or not. I learned that a lot of us had really interesting encounters with nature especially in regard to wildlife. Several people had gotten close up to manta rays, others with lions, and even more to turtles. I recounted when my family and cousins went to Hawaii for a vacation when I was 5, and we were swimming in the ocean when my cousin spotted a green sea turtle. my cousin, brother, and I went over to the turtle and just started swimming along beside it. The turtle didn’t go away and we spent over an hour just swimming next to it. It was an amazing experience. We also talked about how living in an Urban area can cut off our connections to nature and how our senses get dull over a while if we don’t connect with nature. We also talked about how we don’t need aircon all the time, or the environment around us doesn’t have to be clean all the time.

We ended with a short lay in the sun and a quick game of tag. Next time you want to get kids excited about being outside, all you have to do is take them there. It is amazing what a little breeze, some mud, grass and a few clouds can do for a kid. Now I am left thinking about how can I authentically incorporate more experiences like this into what we do on a regular basis. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

Ubiquitous Exposure

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It is the marriage of the soul with Nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination.

Thoreau

It is that time of year again. My favorite part of the year actually. Tomorrow, I will travel to Chiang Mai, Thailand to meet my mentor group for five days of camping, caving, trekking, and rafting in the jungle. Like most years, I am ready for a week of disconnecting and really connecting with the kids I teach. I always look forward to getting my nature fix and spending time in my own head, free from the noise of everyday life and routines.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the power of nature and the affect it has on learning when I criticized a Toys R Us commercial. And I have been thinking about the “ubiquitous exposure” to nature ever since. We have spent countless time and energy making sure that every kid who needs access to technology can have it. Through the implementations of 1-1 programs world wide, many students, like their adult counterparts, now use technology without even thinking about it. It has become part of what we do. And this is (can be) great.

What bothers me, however, is that we still are not thinking about a “Nature 1-1 program.” These types of outdoor trips are still an extension of what we do in schools. Even at a school like UWCSEA, where we are committed to the five elements of our learner profile

And Outdoor Education is valued equally with academics, it still feels like a trip like this, one that only happens once a year is only part of our student experience here at school. So how can we change that? Even as I write this, I am keenly aware that our school gives students so many opportunities to go on trips and participate in hands-on-activities. We are luckier than most. I also realize that I need to speak with our outdoor team and learn more about their curricular links to what the kids do on a daily basis. But I cannot help but think about how can people living in urban, technology rich environments make sure that our students are influenced by nature and the outdoors everyday? I am thinking of school gardens, maybe even chicken coups, or outdoor classrooms, regular camping trips closer to home, or weekend hikes to local parks. A school greenhouse or animal center. And how can we make all of these things a reality for all the students–  as part of what they do, instead of an opportunity for some kids who choose to take them on.

From my last post many teachers shared amazing stories of schools in Europe and other places committed to the concept of learning outside, and I love that idea. But how do we transform our schools to function in that way? How do we create schools that give students that ubiquitous exposure to nature? I know that my students will learn so much from the ten days they are in Chiang Mai. We will trek and suffer and feel discomfort, but I also know that we will grow in nearly every aspect of our profile. I just hope that we can continue those conversations and experience when we get back to the urban jungle and back to the daily grind of school.

I guess these are the kinds of things I will think about tomorrow as I feel my feet sink into the mud and the sun shine on my back. Or maybe not, maybe I will just enjoy the river and the fires and the conversations and the kids and our learning as we sleep beneath the stars and be grateful that at least we can go into the jungle once a year.

There Is Always Room For Improvement. Right?

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Yesterday, we had our parent teacher conferences. And while like most teachers I find the exercise exhausting, yes sometimes even commiserating with other teachers in the spirit of camaraderie, I actually like the process. For the most part I enjoy meeting parents and telling them how great their kids are. I like to see my students with their parents to get a sense of what kinds of relationships they have with each other. Are they nervous, or timid, or funny, or courageous around their parents? A teacher can learn a lot about a kid by how they act around their parents. I like to watch moms and dads and the banter and tensions they bring to the table.

After every marathon stretch, eight hours yesterday, I am always left thinking about learning. And school. And grades. And a whole slew of other thoughts I can’t seem to capture at the moment. After last night, I haven’t been able to get over a certain phrase.

Yes, I know she is doing fine, but there is always room for improvement. Right? What else can she do? How can she do better?

I must have heard these words from the mouths of every parent I met. Irregardless of their grades or their skills. Didn’t matter if they were high pressure parents or easy going ones, they all wanted to know how their child could do better. This got me thinking.

Our students, for the most part, work hard. Really hard! I am often in awe that these twelve to fourteen year olds sit in class all day, do homework, participate in services an activities, and hang-out with their friends. They are engaged with the school material, they ask about  rubrics and articulate their learning. They reflect, make portfolios, and ask for help. They are simply amazing young people. They do all of this all whilst dealing with hormones, growing up, balancing countless relationships with their friends, teachers and yes parents. They are online and offline and everywhere in between.

So what must it feel like, to work this hard, to do the best you can for twelve years and to constantly be told, no matter how or what you do that there is always room for improvement! It must be devastating. By the end of the night, I was no longer hearing how can my child do better, but I was hearing how can my child be better. I could read it on the face of every kid while they listen to their parents praise their work and talk about how proud they were, only to hear that big but at the end of the conference.  I could see them smile and sit up straight and beam with pride and confidence only to watch them deflate, when after the praise every parent ended with, “But how can she do better? How can she improve?”

Is this what we want? A learning environment where feedback and growth and improvement have trumped simply saying, “Job well done! I am proud of you. Now take a break! Enjoy your learning.” Are we so fixated on our kids “succeeding” and remaining competitive, that we cannot simply let them bask in the glow of their accomplishments with out constantly raising the bar? How can kids feel successful if every time they do, we tell them to do better?

I want to formally challenge the notion of constant improvement as a motivator for learning. So many parents also told me that their kid is working under potential. “He is actually really talented, but he just needs a push. He won’t do much unless you force him to do it.” Am I wrong in thinking that this doesn’t sound like learning?

I would hope that when a child is self-motivated and passionate and self-aware of their needs and strengths and weakness, that they can and will push themselves to improve. And if they don’t perhaps they are not ready to commit to their learning. This same kid, also should know that sometimes they just need a time-out. A break.  Constant growth and improvement is not sustainable and should not be the perpetual expectation.

Parents, if you are reading this–  I get it. I am a parent too. Every time I see my daughter slacking off or not working to her potential, or not achieving some unrealistic expectation of mine, I too want to remind her that she should work harder, slower, smarter. Even when she does well, I too catch myself saying, “How can this be better?” It must be natural to want our kids to be their (the) best. I too want to tell her teacher not to let her lose focus, but I think I could honor her independence more and feed her confidence more, if I were to sometimes just let what she does be enough.

I want to say to her, “I am proud of you honey. I cannot believe how hard you worked and how much you have grown. I am so impressed by how much you have learned. You really seem be aware of what you are doing. I trust you and know that you are doing your best. Take some time to relax and enjoy what you have done and all that you have learned. Thank you for being such a great learner.”

Nothing more! I keep the, “There is always room for improvement,” and the “What could you do better,” to myself this time. I am curious how this would affect our kids. I am willing to bet that kids would leave parent teacher night a bit more confident. A bit more proud. They would nod their heads knowingly and smile, because they know that their parents do not expect any more from them. At least for now?

What do you think? How can we find ways to talk to kids in way that motivates them to want to improve, while honoring the work they have done? How do we move away from this trap of demanding never-ending improvement?”