Questions for an Administrator

Are you a process person or a product person or both? 
Are you organized?
Is skimming the surface and getting good test scores more important to you than digging deep?
Do you prefer top down, bottom up, or a push in both directions?
Do you ask for the story from all sides before making up your mind?
Do you address the individual who needs your attention or do you make everyone listen to the issue even if they have nothing to do with it?
Do you like children?
Do you spend time in classrooms?
Will you be present when events happen before or after school?
Are you available?
Do you know how to cultivate a good relationship with parents?
Are you able to tell parents no if need be?
Are you a reader...writer...?
Learning can be messy...are you okay with that?
Are you brave enough to address a teaching problem in your building?
Are you able to accept an honest discussion without feeling threatened?
Are you a mathematician...scientist?
Will you write a grant to help your school financially?
Can you stick to a time-line...follow your calendar...and give people a timely heads up if things have to change?
Do you talk about teachers to other teachers?
Do you show favoritism?
Do you see your job as a 8-4 job or are you willing to work nights and weekends like your teachers?
Will children see you on the playground, in the halls, cafeteria, and in the classrooms?
Will you know the kid's names...not just the naughty ones but the well-behaved too?
Will you help me grow as a teacher with your guidance, best practice knowledge, and support?

Not Everyone Shares My Passion

Yesterday I was so disappointed. Our system met as a K-2 team to look at a set of rubrics for scoring writing. These rubrics were written by professionals. They have been used across the country with success. They are detailed and yet generic enough to use for any type of writing (although many of the teachers in the room could not see that). They are not perfect but they are better than anything we have ever created. The rubrics were rejected.
The rejection of the rubric was not what upset me. The reasons for the rejection were very upsetting. The reasons make me wonder, how many of these people write with their kids each day? How many of these people are writer's themselves? How many of these people have educated themselves in latest research, techniques, and author craft? They think writing is formulaic. They want to score with something short, concise, and requiring little thought. They want black and white...child can/child cannot. They think as long as the writing has the components of the formula, it is writing. They think ideas and conventions are the most important. How can one not reflect upon word choice or organization or voice? They think that the kids should be able to score their own writing. I agree but not with a teacher's rubric that should dig deep looking for the next teaching moment. If I limit my conferences to "I Can" statements that children understand, I am limiting my teaching. I am looking for basics...teaching to the test  I am not thinking about stretching and opening my student's minds. I am not stretching and opening my mind to the many ways writers can touch their audience.
When I read all of your posts, I am in awe of the creativity, the effective use of breaking conventions, word choice, and structure. I CAN write following a rubric to get a 4 or I CAN write from the heart and reach an audience much larger than one scoring teacher. I wonder if Hemingway or Fitzgerald had all their success because they were taught to write with I CAN statements. I wonder if they got 4's on their writing prompts. I wonder if their teacher's focus on upper and lower case letters, periods, or starting a sentence with a capital is what they thought about when they sat down to write their masterpieces. We are losing creativity to black and white simplistic thinking.

I Am Awake

Tick...tock...tick...tock goes the mantel clock from its perch on the piano. It is 3:12 and I am writing because I cannot go back to sleep. I have been trying since 1:45. This happens to me periodically. There seems to be no pattern, no predictability. Sometimes I just wake up and cannot go back to sleep.

Tonight a dream woke me up. I think I have already had that dream and it left me uneasy. Remembering the dream lead me to thinking about school which lead to reminding myself not to forget to stop at the store to buy carnations for a science experiment. That lead me to think about our upcoming professional development day on Friday and how was I going to recreate our math tests on my computer so they look professional. Can I scan and edit them in PDF? 

Once my mind starts up there seems to be no stopping it. I flit from one subject to another all the while telling myself I am trying to go back to sleep. I wonder...do I have a migraine on the way? There was an aura today on the playground but no pain. I think there have been other sleepless nights associated with migraines. Now I worry, there is are no migraine meds in the cupboard. I ran out and when I looked in the grocery store, there were none. That is okay...I will stop and get some when I buy the carnations...and oh yes...I need food coloring too.

Tick...tock...tick...tock goes the mantel clock.

Our Class Leader

 I have a student who is on screech most of the time. He is loud, full throttled, and constantly interrupting. He is also very smart,  compassionate, and friendly...a really good person. Today he was my class leader. Today I saw a change as he lead his classmates down the hall...here are some of my observations.

Shoulders thrown back (my he is getting tall)
Eyes straight ahead (focused on his destination)
Walking in rhythmic gate (slow and steady)
Lips sealed shut (like they were glued together)
Feet on the floor (no wings attached to those feet)
Arms to his side (causing harm to no one)
Ears alert (stopping when his classmates were loud)
Following hall traffic laws (looked both ways at intersections)

He showed leadership potential today. I am glad I got to observe him at his finest.

Alarming

Yesterday, I went to school for just a few minutes to drop a few things off. I try to stay away on the weekends choosing to take my work home with me rather than return. One of the reasons I stay away is because my school is armed with an alarm and I am not good with alarms (In a previous school the police chief knew me well). Earlier this year I set the alarm off and could not remember the secret password. The password was so secret that no matter who I called no one knew what it was. It was not a nice day.

I used my key less entry to let myself in...put the code into the humming alarm ####...and all went quiet. I opened my classroom door and went back out to my car to get the things I needed to drop off. I entered the door again...waiting for the alarm to begin to blare...nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief only to begin to worry I had to arm the thing before I left. What if I did it wrong?

When it was time to leave...I punched my code on the number pad and quickly exited the building, car keys in hand. I listened as I walked ten paces to my car...nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief while yanking my car door open with keys and a plant in hand. OOO-WEE, OOO-WEE! My heart stopped. My stomach jumped. OOO-WEE, OOO-WEE. No...No...I couldn't have set that alarm off. I was so careful. A checklist went off in my mind...#### into the keypad, out the door, door shut, what did I do wrong?

Then I listened...the sound was not coming from the building but from my car. I looked down at the keys in my hand and started to laugh. I quickly punched the colored button on my key less entry. The alarm was coming from my car, not the school. When I opened my car door with keys in hand, I had squeezed the panic button on my key less.

Reading Posts

Yesterday I  told you I am a creature of habit and yet I am going to dispel that thought today or am I? This is my third year participating in the Slice of Life Challenge. Each year, I have written more, read more, and commented more. Each year the number of participants has grown. I find I can no longer read all of the posts daily so I have to pick and choose what to read. I want to be loyal to my "old favorites" but I also want to be welcoming to those of you who are joining our blog community for the first time. How to choose? Well, without realizing what I was doing, I fell into a pattern...sometimes starting at the top and working my way down until I had no more steam. Other times starting at the bottom and working my way up. Yesterday in order to be fair, I started in the middle (Kevin) and worked my way one up, one down, another up, another down. Do you have a system? Do you have a favorite writer you gravitate to first? Do the comments with the link inspire you to open it up? Does one's title speak to you, begging you to come in for a visit? The reading of other posts gives me inspiration for my own. It really does not matter in what direction I read, just that I read...learning from others as I go along.

My Writing Place

I am prone to habitual behaviors. I get stuck on certain foods to eat, a specific sport or exercise, and yes even favorite writing habits.
Right now, in the early morning hours, I am sitting in the kitchen rocking chair, laptop resting on my legs. I look out the big bow window to the northeastern dawn quietly spreading its light south. My rocking chair glides to and fro keeping rhythm with my beating fingers...tap, tap, tap. This is my favorite place to write in the morning. I find inspiration in the sunrise, the movement of the river, and the gnarly wind beaten trees that loom over the water. When warm enough, I open a window to get sound inspiration. This morning a lonely goose calls out across the water in search of company. A titmouse chirps while hopping between feeder and suet. Gray squirrels leave their high nests and and scratch their way down tree trunks in search of breakfast.
 The clouds are the color of sherbert...orange, lemon, raspberry. Faint blue sky peaks through giving promise to another beautiful winter day. Yes winter is still here though signs of its presence are scarce. The snow is gone, the ice is out, spring bulbs have poked through the no longer frozen ground. Inspiration abounds from my favorite perch...