This year’s PTA Reflections topic proved to be a bit of a challenge for Laura, and as she began brainstorming about the different ways she could “make a difference”, a familiar brand of dread began to wash over me. Parents and teachers know this feeling all too well. I call it the “I’ve been standing on my feet talking and thinking all day and I really don’t want to patiently coach you through your own thought process right now thankyouverymuch” feeling. But I did. I poured myself a nice tall glass of caffeine, and we sat down to brainstorm.

“How can you make a difference, Laura? Let’s start there,” I said.

“I know! I can recycle!”

I smiled. Of course she could.

“Or, maybe I could go door to door and raise money for cancer research,” she suggested.

Um………no.

“What if I picked up litter?” she asked quietly, peering out the window while I contemplated adding something from our liquor cabinet to my glass. She was at a loss.

I tried a different approach.

“Laura, when you think back over the last few years of your life, were there any experiences that really stood out as challenges to you?” I asked, tilting my head and looking hard at her. I knew what she was going to say.

“Grandma and Grandpa died.” And suddenly, she began to really think about the birthplace of service. We give because someone has given to us, often. And we serve because we remember how, at one time, we were in need of service ourselves.

Three years ago this January, my otherwise healthy father-in-law was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, and within five months of his diagnosis, he was gone. Laura is one of seventeen grandchildren in the Stockman family. My husband is the youngest of seven. Watching my brothers and sisters-in-law attend to their father, witness his death, and go through the motions of planning a funeral was absolutely the most heartbreaking and inspiring thing I have ever experienced.

One month later, when my mother-in-law passed away suddenly, I came to appreciate the fact that there are things people should never feel well-practiced at. Planning a funeral is one of them. Grief is another. Watching my daughter lose both of these people within the space of one summer was quite a bit to bear. There was nothing that I could do to help her make sense of this or feel better.

Time heals all wounds, though, and we’ve all recovered rather well from that awful summer. Laura still sleeps with her Grandpa’s picture next to her bed each night, and at least once a week, when I tuck her in, she will mention how much she misses him. She misses her Grandmother too. But Al was her favorite grandparent, hands-down. He was larger than life in that little girl’s eyes. And in death, ironically, he looms even larger in her mind.

Asking children to write about things that really matter to them is, in my opinion, the single most important thing that we can be doing as educators. We’ve been fortunate in that our girls have always been provided tremendous choice as learners. Their teachers, for the most part, have always encouraged them to choose their own writing topics, to select their own books…to engage in a workshop model where they have been allowed to thrive. I’m pretty vocal about the fact that I have loved the teachers my children have had. But I know that my experience is the exception, not the rule. Particularly when it comes to using technology.

Laura began her blog rather spontaneously. She decided that she could make a difference by living the example her grandfather set for her…by doing “small things with great love” as her Aunt Barb so aptly reminded us. And she wanted to blog about it. Because she loves to blog. Truth be told, I don’t particularly love her blogging (especially this week, actually–because the kid TYPES SLOWER THAN MUD). But I appreciate her enthusiasm, and I know that if she’s going to learn how to use the net safely, I am going to have to play a role in making that happen.

I did not expect to be speaking to PR people, proofreading press releases, granting phone interviews or sending thank you messages for matching fund offers. This is not what I anticipated when Laura said, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s start a blog!”

In the last four days, I have marvelled over the fact that Laura is able to visibly trace the ripple effect that she so desperately wanted to create. And the more momentum she creates, the more people want in. Everyone likes a few extra hits on their own blogs. It’s a win-win situation that we are happy to be a part of. I am stunned by the traffic that is moving through her site, and I am humbled by the fact that not a single comment or email we have received has been inappropriate in any way. As a mom, I am excited for her…but I can’t help standing back and observing, as a teacher, exactly how the internet has provided her a voice, reinforced the good, and driven a REAL audience to her work…that she cares VERY MUCH about impressing appropriately as a writer.

It doesn’t get any more engaging or authentic than this.

And here’s something that I know. I know that a good majority of the passages on the New York State English Language Arts Assessments have actually been pieces of electronic text. Mock ups of web pages and Wikipedia entries and emails and ….blogs.

I like getting MY kid “ready for the test” THIS way.

Yes, I really do.

We are so OVER the practice test. How about using a blog as a formative assessment? I know it can be done, and I can’t wait to start seeing that happen. We educate in exciting times.

So, back to the start: I’m doing Laura’s challenge too. I’ll be doing one good deed a day, anonymously and quietly, for twenty five different teachers I know in the region. I haven’t decided who they will be yet….but I have a lot of great teachers to choose from.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to listen to him speak at the closing session of the Western New York BOCES High School’s New Face Conference in Ellicottville. Truth be told, I was not looking forward to this. Having spent three days having every last brain cell that I possessed pushed to its absolute limit, I was more than ready to hop in the car and head for home, where the most cerebral thing I planned to do was order a pizza and celebrate the fact that my children survived three days at home alone with their father (a situation that might have forced me to go completely postal).

I’m glad I stuck around.

Peters’s message was a simple one: in order to teach your students, you must first come to know them…deeply. Having accomplished that task, you can then go about the business of inspiring them to learn. Sounds simple, right?

Um…………maybe not so much. Of course, we all strive to do exactly what Peters spent an hour motivating our group to do yesterday. Contrary to what some people may believe, most of the teachers that I work with each year have the best of intentions. I know very few who seem to be in the field simply because they would like their summers off.

Schools can be toxic places. Not only for students, but for the teachers that work in them as well. Ask any teacher at the secondary level what a typical work day requires of them, and they will mention the realities of full class loads that amount to 140+ students per day. They will tell you about class periods that might last as little as 35 minutes—on a day free of assemblies. They will reflect upon the weeks of instruction lost to test prep that they feel pressured to fit in. They will tell you about the students they can’t reach, the parents who don’t care and the ones who care more about their child’s “self esteem” than they do about holding the little darling accountable for anything. There are teachers who will tell you that they have to fight to secure necessary resources for their classrooms. I have a friend who teaches at the elementary level who has spent the last fifteen years of her career purchasing toilet paper for the restroom in her wing.

The reality is this: teaching demands so much more of a person than the effective construction and execution of a lesson plan. Teaching requires confronting all of the issues above…and many more. And it requires doing so in isolation, much of the time. Teachers spend their days in classrooms, fighting the good fight, alone.

Yesterday, Stephen Peters asked a room full of educators to recall who their favorite teacher was and to remember exactly what it was about that teacher that made them so memorable. We all had the same story to tell, and I’m sure you can guess what was shared. Our favorite teachers were the ones that made us feel like we mattered. Our favorite teachers engaged us, and they were able to do so because they knew us. And they came to know us because they genuinely respected us. Even when we didn’t bring the very best of ourselves into the classroom each day. Even when we refused to pay attention, forgot our homework, or responded to a finely crafted lesson with supreme apathy. Our favorite teachers kept right on trying, in the face of that.  They knew it was part of the job. Some of them even knew that it was the best part of the job: turning kids on to learning, in the face of all of that negativity.

Our favorite teachers let us be human, with all of our flaws, and they inspired us to want to do better. It wasn’t about meeting their agenda, so that they could feel like teacher of the year. It was about inviting us to the table, and making us feel included, no matter who we were or where we came from. It was about making us feel like we COULD do it. It was about respecting us for trying our best, even when we didn’t perform as well as we wanted to. Because doing our absolute best was and still remains the highest standard in this standards-based world we teach and learn in today.

Above all, it was the absence of judgment, shame, and perfectionism. It was the absence of fear.

Peters’s message and his personal story resonated with all of us in the room. But one piece of that message meant a great deal to me as a former teacher and as someone who spends her time training teachers today. And I’ve been wondering this: How much more effective could teachers be if those in positions of leadership in their buildings and districts and regions and states left their assumptions about teachers aside and truly took the time to inspire them? To respect them? How much more effective could teachers be if they entered their classrooms each day knowing that they were not going to be judged, shamed, or subjected to perfectionistic standards? How does one do their best to inspire teachers? How do we go about inviting teachers back to the table that so many of them have walked away from?

I think that these are important questions that people in positions like mine need to grapple with. Because the fact of the matter is this: our favorite teachers treated us like worthwhile human beings. It was that simple, and it was that complex. For a brief but very important moment yesterday, Stephen Peters suggested that educational leaders at all levels might begin to treat teachers in the same way. My guess is that this has always been their intention all along. My guess is that they would appreciate being humanized themselves.

I began this blog as a participant in Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s cohort at the High School’s New Face conference. I honestly haven’t given a whole lot of thought as to how I might use it as a tool for teachers, for staff developers, or anyone else who might be reading. But my hope is that I can create a tiny space here in this ocean of information that might be of service to educators out there who are thoughtful and interested in improving their practice. A place for all of our favorite teachers and those who are striving each day to become that teacher for the students they work with every day.

So…welcome! I am excited about growing this blog into something useful.

Angela Stockman