What will school look like? How do I prepare?

I’m not sure whether I feel more like the Ghost of School Year Past or the Ghost of School Future. When US colleagues are relieved to be finished with the Covid-19-affected school year, I'm still living it. On the other hand, when they wonder what it will be like to start a new year in distance learning, I've already done that. And I've lived several variations of "returning." 

I’m at an international Christian school in Japan which operates on the Japanese school year. That means we tried online school for the closing weeks of the past academic year at the beginning of March. Then in late March, just as US schools were moving to distance learning, we ended the school year. We’d hoped to begin the new school year in mid-April in person, but that was not to be. We’ve been through a variety of plans and permutations of plans. After 6 weeks of distance learning (technically 7, but one was mostly holidays for Japanese Golden Week), we began inching back to the physical classroom—but then stalled out at all students present (masked) for 35-minute shortened periods (allowing a late start to miss crowded commuter trains). 

Every time there is a shift, I feel myself begin to worry—How will this affect my planning and student learning? Everything feels up in the air all over again. I feel that same worry from other educators on social media wondering what school will look like in the fall and how they can prepare.

Then I breath deeply and ask myself, “What are the big rocks that have to happen in my class?” They are not particular works of literature or particular assignments. They are not even, when push comes to shove, the standards and benchmarks. On the biggest level, they are this: “Are students learning to read, write, think, listen, and speak?” Then my blood pressure comes down and I think, “Yes. Yes, they are learning that.” 

We drop one short story in order to preserve independent reading time—because among other things, this is setting them up for a habit of reading when the summer holidays start, and the expectation of reading whatever the fall may bring (see here). We may have missed a grammar lesson or two to preserve time for writing, because right now, I can see them writing in real time, and I can conference with them about their writing. Right now I know I have 35 minutes 5 times a week with them. At least for today, for this week, probably for next week, too. What learning do I most want to cement from the past and set them up for in the future? That’s what I will do for the next week, and that’s what I will put in my exam the following week. 

How will I plan over the summer? I’ll think about how to help my students continue to grow as readers, writers, thinkers, listeners, and speakers. I’ll review my standards. I’ll learn a little more about what technology is available to me by reading Jennifer Gonzales's The Teacher’s Guide to Tech 2020. I’ll learn more about what content is available by further exploring CommonLit. I’ll revisit resources about specific teaching strategies like teaching grammar in context (Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson), reading/writing workshop (180 Days by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle), and writing (Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher and They Say/I Say by Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff). I’ll keep reading middle grade books to have more recommendations for my students (see here and here). I’ll think about the big rocks of what I want my students to be able to know, understand, and be able to do: read, write, think, listen, and speak. And I’ll think about assessments that will allow students to demonstrate that growth. The actual strategies and lesson plans—those can wait until I know whether we’ll be in person or online, with 35-minute periods or 45-minute periods. 

We can do this. Remember the big rocks. Check out Jennifer Gonzales's recent refresher on Backward Design: The Basics. What is your vision for your students?

Forming Reading Identities

My grandkids are forming their reading identity early!

Yesterday I didn’t follow my lesson plan. It called for deviating from the pattern of starting class with 10 minutes of independent reading as we had the first 4 days of this first week with all students at school, masked, for shortened 35-minute periods. But when I looked over the room 2 minutes before starting time and all but 1 or 2 students were deeply settled into their books already, well, who wants to disrupt a beautiful thing like that? We’ll do 10 extra minutes of grammar next week.

What have 6th and 7th graders been reading? They’ve been reading about a variety of people, like and unlike them: a modern Black American boy (New Kid), a Chinese-American boy (American Born Chinese), young people in Meiji-era and World War 2 Japan (Samurai Shortstop and Grenade), and a boy with severe facial deformities (Wonder). They’ve been reading not only about identity, but also about perseverance (Hatchet), empathy (Because of Winn-Dixie), making choices (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), working together (The Mysterious Benedict Society), and growing up (Pay Attention, Carter Jones).  And most of those stories address multiple significant topics. 

Why is reading so important? For many academic reasons including expanded vocabulary, improved writing, and better college preparedness. And right now, reading is important because as a human being, I am physically limited to one experience of the world. But reading expands that possibility. Currently, it is helping me see a perspective of the world shared by many of my fellow citizens—Black Americans. In the last year 2 books that did this were The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz. In the last month, I’ve been reading Stamped from the Beginning. 

There are still many voices for me to listen to, many experiences to hear. My identity as a reader has allowed me access to those voices and stories. My goal as students develop their own identity as readers, is that they also will find, now and throughout their lives, that reading provides access to the stories of all their neighbors who they need to love, and to what doing justice and loving mercy for those neighbors looks like. 

Pausing to Reflect before the Rush to Normal

Normal! What a lovely ring those words have! The busy buzz of students in the halls. No smiling faces--they're hidden behind masks--but still, this is the type of teaching I've honed over the last 30 years.

This week my school has been making the transition from distance learning to in-person—35-minute periods with half the class every on alternating days. Next week we’ll have everyone together for the short periods (to allow for a late start so students can avoid crowded commuter trains). While the shift back to working live with students in the same physical space is exciting, I want to pause to consider the blessings of the distanced time we’ve had, and what I want to remember or keep doing as life returns to a more familiar track. Here are a few things that come to mind:

People—including each student in my virtual or physical classroom—are so amazingly varied in their strengths, interests, and ways of learning and contributing. I'm reminded of this every new year, but now, in this transition, in a new way. One student who was a powerful voice in online discussion turns out to be a quiet one in the physical classroom. Another student who engaged little online filled a quarter sheet of paper with writing in a 2-minute bell-ringer activity back in the physical classroom. I want to remember the aspects of students I’ve discovered online, work on ways to keep accessing those sides in the classroom, and keep searching for gifts I haven’t yet seen.

I discovered some amazing free online resources, like CommonLit. It was a lifesaver when we went online with a wealth not only of literature—short stories, memoirs, nonfiction, poetry—but also of resources. These include suggested text sets; links to TED talks and author interviews; and multiple choice, short answer, and discussion questions, available both digitally for tracking of reading comprehension and as pdfs for return to the classroom. (The 6th grade distance learning unit on failure and success was a life-saver! It has 2 pieces of fiction, one of nonfiction, and one poem; a set of vocabulary exercises; and a writing assignment with graphic organizer.) The library is sortable by genre, reading level, topic, and unit. I’ve found some wonderful pieces already, and will be exploring this resource in greater depth this summer!

The power of regular conversation. I started giving my dad just a brief 10-minute phone call every morning before I went to school because he had little personal interaction—living alone in a retirement community on lockdown. Even as US state restrictions begin to lift, that is a habit I want to continue. And my husband and I started checking in with each other on a list of date night questions every Friday. This, too is a habit I want to continue.

The awareness of the racism that persists in American society. May our attention to this, too, never return to “normal.” I am encouraged by the number of teachers asking, "What texts about Black American experience can I incorporate into my classroom?" 

How about you? In the rush back to the familiar, what are some things you don’t want to leave behind? 

Reading Books to See and Love Our Neighbors

“I want to get texts about African-American experience in my classroom, and I’m in a conservative Christian school. Any appropriate recommendations?” In the last week I’ve seen this plea in my English teacher social media groups multiple times. My expertise is limited, having garnered my 30 years of teaching experience in international Christian schools in Japan, working to diversify my library in terms of national representation (see this blog on reading about Japan). Still, I do have a few answers, and I’m always glad to gather more. (I received some great suggestions after my recent blog about making the transition from high school into middle school.) So, here are a few excellent books, new and old, for middle and high school readers.

Middle School, New

• New Kid by Jerry Craft—Graphic novel about Jordan Banks, a 7th grader, navigating his first year at a largely white school.  
• The Crossover (Newberry Medal) and Booked by Kwame Alexander. Novels in verse about basketball and soccer respectively, as well as about life.
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds (National Book Award finalist). Four friends on an elite middle school track team.
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. Memoir in verse.

Middle School, Classic

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (Newberry Medal) Farming family in Mississippi in the Depression.
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. (Newberry Honor) A family from Michigan visits their grandma in Alabama in the fateful summer of 1963. 
• Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis: (Newberry Award) during the depression, an orphan boy runs away from an abusive foster home to search for a home

High School, New

• Piecing Me Together by Angela Watson. Fiction. 
• March by John Lewis. Graphic novel 3-volume history of the Civil Rights movement as it intersected with John Lewis’s life.
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Nonfiction.
• Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals. Memior of one of the students who integrated the Little Rock high school.
• Monster by Walter Dean Myer. Fiction.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Nonfiction.
• Life Is So Good by George Dawson. Autobiography.
• The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore.

High School, Classic

• Narrative of the Life of Frederik Douglass. An 11th grade Japanese student once demanded passionately of me, “Why did nobody make us read this earlier?”
• “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) 
• A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Drama.

Books have been called both mirrors and windows—mirrors where we learn more about ourselves, and windows that give us a glimpse into the lives of others. That second bit can play a huge role in our obedience to Jesus’ second greatest commandment. It helps us really see and understand the neighbors we are to love. As Frederick Beuchner said in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith, “If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces, but the life within and behind their faces” (27).

When we see that life and it involves pain, we can no longer be indifferent. Elie Wiesel, concentration camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. The Bible records that when Job’s friends—even the ones who later turned out to be horrible comforters—saw his suffering, they sat with him, speechless, for 7 days. These books can help us sit with our suffering fellow humans—image bearers of God every one.

Another great book, not American but South African, a book I have taught many times, ends with these words of impatient hope: “The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why that is a secret” (Alan Paton. Cry, the Beloved Country, 312).

Bring on the dawn.