Ying Yang: Winter's Help in Appreciating Spring

After countless dreary winter days with white gray skies and little sunlight, I was taken aback by the beautiful sunset last night.  The sun illuminated the sky and the clouds and created spectacular blues, pinks, and yellows.  Driving on the highway, my jaw dropped in awe and I realized that it had been a really long time since I had experienced a sunset like this.  Pulling into my driveway, I left my groceries in my car, ran inside to grab my camera, and quickly began taking pictures.  

I loved the wonderful colors in the sky as a backdrop for the dark silhouettes of the trees.

 

I also loved the striped effect of the sky behind the trees.

And another one...

The brilliant colors of the sunset against the dark buildings was also striking.

This picture reminded me of a similar picture that I had taken of a summer sunset in July.

While snapping pictures, I thought about how yesterday's sunset looked like the summer sunset-- another reminder that once again, spring would come.  And I thought to myself, "Hopefully sooner rather than later!"

I also thought that the level of my appreciation had been heightened by its contrast to the dismal, colorless sunsets of late.  In the summer I had gotten used to these types of sunsets.  In June and the beginning of July, I had eagerly grabbed my camera to take pictures and by the end of August, it didn't occur to me to take pictures anymore.  Now, it was as if I was seeing the sunset for the first time after a long, long sleep.  I started thinking about other aspects of spring that I am enthusiastically awaiting:)   I think that these happy thoughts helped to melt a little bit more snow and ice from the ground.
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To readers of my blog:   What aspects of spring are you looking forward to?  I invite all readers, especially new readers to this blog, to leave a comment.  Let's create a list from multiple readers to help us get through this last month of winter.

The Mystery of the Ice on the Branches

Several times this winter, my friend Grace and I have stood by the window in her classroom that overlooks the baseball field with trees lining the farther perimeter.  We have commented on how beautiful the ice looks on the bare branches of the trees.  Both of us have, unsuccessfully, tried to capture this image on film.  The ice on the branches is elusive-- existing in our range of vision but unwilling to be recorded and preserved.  It leaves us wondering if it really exists.

Driving to school this morning, I noticed how the snow highlighted the branches, shimmering in the sunlight and creating a magical effect.  I eagerly captured the contrast of the snow against the dark branches.  Taking pictures this morning before school went a long way in helping me to rediscover and appreciate the beauty of winter, especially since Snowmegedon 2011 has crushed much of that magical spirit for me.

While snapping pictures this morning, I easily captured the snow and the branches on film.

I began wondering if the ice on the branches really did exist or if it was just an illusion, a trick of sunlight that caused Grace and I to think that there was ice.  What I realized this morning was that it doesn't matter....

Sometimes just breathing in the magic and the beauty of winter is enough.  It doesn't matter if it can always be captured on film and if the ice on the branches exists.  It can remain a mystery.
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To readers of my blog....I'm curious about the mysteries of nature that you wonder about...I invite you to leave a comment and share.

Life Lessons Through Photography

Today I was outside taking pictures for only five minutes.  However, in that short amount of time I realized two important things about photography that can also be applied to life in general.

1.  You can't always plan on moments of greatness happening but you can prepare for them so that you are ready to seize the opportunity when they present themselves.

This afternoon, I was driving home from an incredible acapella concert, featuring the Yale Whiffenpoofs who will soon appear on NBC's The Sing Off.  The corner of my eye caught a tree whose leaves were illuminated by the late afternoon sun.  (Apparently the tree must not have gotten the same message as the other trees lining the street-- time for your leaves to fall!)  Luckily, I had my camera with me so I pulled my car over to the side of the street and was able to capture this afternoon sunlight on film.  Had I not had my camera, this moment would have passed, sans pictures.

 

2.  Changing perspectives can make the picture look entirely different, just as looking at a situation from a different vantage point can entirely change one's view of a situation.

Taking the same tree, I simply snapped several pictures but from different directions.  This completely changed the way that the light illuminated the leaves, affecting the composition and mood of the pictures.  Some of the vantage points created a neat effect.  In this picture, the silhouette of the house, nicely frames the tree.

In this picture, the angle of the sunlight indicates that the sun is going to be setting soon.  For me, the picture triggers what I feel when the sun sets early on a late fall afternoon.

The perspectives of all three of the above pictures are effective.  Although the pictures are of the same tree, the compositions and moods of the picture change depending on the vantage point.  Not all of the perspectives that I attempted this afternoon were effective. 

For example, in the following photograph, there was too much light and the picture looked overexposed.

This last picture was taken at a perspective where the sunlight created a glare on the windows of the houses lining the street.  The effect that this had on the photographs was that the light reflected from the windows detracts the viewer's attention from the subject of the picture, the tree. 

Questions to Ponder

1.  How can you make sure that you are prepared to seize the opportunity when moments of greatness occur?
2.  When has changing your perspective affected the way that you've viewed a situation?

The Healing Powers of Photography

 With the exception of a few highlights, this past week has been uninspiring and discouraging due to dreary weather, allergic/asthmatic flare-ups, and situations at work.  I had a feeling that taking my camera outside, on the first bright sunny day in over a week, would help to change my outlook.  And indeed it did!

My day started off with decreased breathing capacities and feelings of frustration that my asthma has been impacting recent activities.  Feeling annoyed and somewhat stubborn, rather than hide from Mother Nature, I decided to confront her head on, walking right outside in the midst of trees, grass, and leaves.  I hoped that taking pictures and appreciating the beauty of Fall would act as a peace offering.

For the first ten minutes or so, my shots were pretty uninspired.  Taking pictures head on, the angles were not particularly interesting, I wasn't satisfied with how I was capturing light on film, and the compositions were pretty boring.  And then suddenly, my eyes noticed light hitting the bright yellow leaves on the top of a tree in front of me.  Craning my neck upward, I realized that from this vantage point, the light hit the leaves in a completely different way, creating a very interesting effect.

Looking upward, I also became intrigued by the way that branches of different trees appeared to make patterns in the sky-- connecting with each other in interesting ways.  I thought back to several pictures that I have taken from this perspective.  This photograph came to mind first.

My friend Grace commented that she loved the connectedness of this shot.  I realized that what is interesting about photographs with connected compositions is that your eye keeps moving around the picture.  You brain is engaged in thinking about ways that the parts of the picture interact, inspiring multiple thoughts about the photograph.

Thinking back to this past week, I realized that in multiple ways, I had been feeling very disconnected from activities I love (photography due to the drab weather), from my body (due to my erratic breathing), and at times from my job (due to some discouraging situations).  When feeling disconnected, it is very difficult to feel inspired, to find things interesting, to be engaged.  Same holds true when there is no feeling of connectedness in a photograph-- it can be uninteresting, uninspiring, not engaging. 

Realizing that I had begun taking more connected shots (not by going to a different place) but by changing my vantage point, I decided to try to flip my perspective on my past week.  In my head, I zoomed in on some highlights (student successes, great stories at parent teacher conferences, listening to new acappella songs, and taking great photographs in the present).  I started thinking about all of the highlights in a more connected way, thinking about what they had in common-- how they had made me feel, and why I enjoyed them.  This helped me to start feeling better about the past week.

The problems had not disappeared but my feelings of connectedness were returning.  Feeling connected with Mother Nature and the moment, I started feeling more engaged with the pictures I was taking and as a result became more creative with my photography (the angles, how to best capture the light, how to frame subjects in interesting ways).  The quality of my photographs improved.

In this picture, I zoomed in on the rocky shore along the river...

I took many pictures of what appeared to be a cornfield in the middle of New England until I found an interesting angle...

Just like looking at a "connected" photograph, when I am feeling connected with the moment, fully engaged with what I am doing, I can almost feel the neurons firing rapidly in my brain-- creating new ideas, being creative, approaching situations in new ways.  It is exciting, invigorating, and stimulating.

When I uploaded my pictures on my computer, I releashed my energy once again into cropping my photos to highlight the most interesting and engaging parts of the photographs.  In this picture, I cropped out the dock that I was standing on in order to make the blue of the water and the sky really pop!

In this picture, I thought it was really cool how the tree was reflected in the puddle of water, even though it was more than several feet away from the tree.  In order to highlight this part of the scene, I cropped out many leaves that were scattered in front of the water.

Today, for me, healing meant replenishing my creative energy, bringing back my inspiration, and engaging in a stimulating activity to help me feel more connected.


Questions to Ponder:

1.  What activities are healing for you?
2.  How do those activities help you to heal?
3.  What does healing mean to you?

Breakthrough Moments: One of the Rewards of Teaching

One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching for me is that moment when I finally feel like I've gotten through to a student-- possibly making a difference in their life by helping them to feel good about themselves.  Such a moment happened to me on Friday...

As teachers, we've all had those students who've tested us, to try to figure out our limits and to push our buttons.  For me this year, that student is Sam.  Sam enjoys making off topic comments to make his peers laugh and laughing at inappropriate times.  Then he has difficulty getting back to task.  At first I tried talking with Sam, explaining why his behavior was problematic.  He seemed to understand.  I asked Sam what he could do differently to change his behavior the next time.  Although he always seemed to have the right answers and even apologized, inevitably, the behavior remained the same.  When asked why he was acting that way, he would reply, "I don't know."

After talking with Sam's classroom teacher, the three of us sat down together, to talk with Sam about how he would be held to the same expectations by all teachers.  That didn't work.  Since the classroom teacher had had Sam in third grade as well, she had already established a close working relationship with his mom.  Sam's mom was very supportive when the teacher called her and then she had a long talk with Sam.  Still the behavior continued.  A few days later, I called Sam's mom.  Once again, she was very supportive and asked me what I thought we should do.  I explained that I thought it was very important for Sam to know that we are all on the same page, that we are all in communication with one another.  Although this was a crucial part of our conversation, it wasn't what interested me the most....

As a dyslexic student, I work with Sam on both reading and writing, especially in elaborating upon his thoughts.  In third grade, he was not very expressive in his writing.  So at the beginning of the year, I was thrilled to witness Sam's voice shining through, loud and clear on a piece of paper, whatever form it came in.  Sam's class had been required to write what Lucy Calkin's calls a small moment, taking an individual event and writing about it descriptively so the reader can picture what happened in their mind.  When I read Sam's piece it wasn't written in this style, however, it was a good piece of writing.

Not wanting to squash Sam's enthusiasm for this piece, I borrowed a technique that I had learned about this summer from reading Katherine Bomer's book (Hidden Gems: Naming and Teaching from the Brilliance in Every Student's Writing)  In her book she talks about providing students first with feedback about what they are doing well in their writing before giving constructive criticism.  Sam was using a technique that Bomer discusses that good writers use-- modeling their writing after a style that a good writer uses.  Sam had written his paragraph in the style of Jeff Kinney, author of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  Sam's small moment was funny, filled with commentary and a huge dose of his voice.

After complimenting Sam on his writing style, his body seemed to swell with pride-- he sat up straighter and a smile spread across his face.  Afterward, I had to explain to him that in fourth grade, he needed to practice the more descriptive style of writing in school.  But outside of his assignments, he should continue to practice writing in Jeff Kinney's style.  Although Sam was disappointed, he seemed to understand.  However, for some weeks later, I did not see that same spark or enthusiasm in Sam, or in his writing.

In talking with Sam's mom, I mentioned to her his first piece of writing.  Unbeknownst to me, that very afternoon, he had shared it with his mom.  Sam's mom, proud of him, sent a copy of his piece to his grandparents.  She told me that he had been very excited about it.  This story inspired my second piece of advice to his mom about what would be helpful for Sam-- providing him with plenty of positive reinforcement about what he is doing well.

The next day, Sam came into school, completely turned around.  He was attentive, polite, dutiful in focusing upon and completing his work, and even resisted his peers' attempts to engage in inappropriate behavior.  Usually one to complain about having to write and to ask how much more until he was done, that day, Sam wrote an entire small moment paragraph.  His voice appeared back within the lines of the page, but this time, also included the descriptive style required of fourth grade students.  Sam enjoyed my praise of his piece, responded well to constructive criticism, and even thanked me at one point in the session.  He asked if he could begin a second small moment and was excited to hear that he could. 

In my ninth year of teaching, I'm not naive enough to think that Sam's fooling around behavior and testing of limits will never again rear its ugly head.  In fact, I am confident that it will resurface from time to time.  What I do know is that my opinion of Sam changed that day.  I saw a student in front of me who could control his behavior and genuinely did want to do well, as all students do.

At the end of the session, I called Sam into the hallway.  I told him that I had talked with his mom the day before and she had told me about sending a copy of his story to his grandparents.  Sam's body once again swelled with pride and he looked up at me, smiling, his eyes wide open as I explained to him that we were going to xerox a copy of his most recent small moment so he could go home and share it with his mom.

About 45 minutes after the last bus pulled away from school that afternoon, I called Sam's mom to thank her for talking with him and that whatever she had said to him had worked.  She was glad to hear it and thankful for my phone call.  When I mentioned that we had xeroxed his newest great piece of writing to bring home, she told me that it was already hanging up on the refrigerator.


Questions to Ponder-- Choose one or both of these to think about.

1.  What is a breakthrough moment that you've had with a student?
2.  How do you use positive reinforcement to help students feel good about what they are doing in the classroom?

Being Mindful: Snowgeese Moments

Standing outside today with a group of enthusiastic fourth grade students, I was reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver called Snow Geese, which is featured at the end of this blog entry.

Gathered around a tree adorned with brightly colored fall leaves, I watched as a fourth grade class set up their new project:  "Library Under the Tree Tops".  Based on the world's only natural library in Slovenia, the library at my school was created for all students to enjoy outside during their recess.  Underneath the tree, the students worked together to display books like in a bookshop, with some books in the crates and others featured prominently on top, an invitation to be read.  Soft blankets were laid out on the grass for students to sit or lie on as they enjoyed the library.

Looking up toward the clear blue sky, I spotted a flock of birds, flying towards us in a perfect "V" formation.  As I watched the birds, mesmerized by their synchronicity, one enthusiastic boy called out, "Look up.  It's snow geese!"  Several students began chanting, "Snow geese!  Snow geese! Snow geese!"  We all stood still in that moment of time, staring at the snow geese in wonder.  It's moments like this where I am completely absorbed, and mindful of the moment.  Experiencing this, it made me hope for a snow geese type of moment everyday. 

In fact, one occurred merely fifteen minutes later...

The best aspect of the "Library Under the Tree Tops" was the surprise element: this one fourth grade class were the only kids in the school who knew the library would appear.  As soon as the first set of students descended onto the playground for recess, the fourth graders eagerly stood peering outside of the windows lining the wall of their classroom on the third floor of the building.  The students stood, mesmerized, as they watched kindergarteners, first graders, second graders, exploring their library, taking a book, and sitting or sprawling on the blankets.  It was quite a moment, witnessing these fourth graders exclaiming joyfully about students at the school discovering their library, picking up a book, and reading.

Questions to Ponder:

1.  What kinds of "snow geese moments" have you experienced recently?
2.  How do "snow geese moments" make you feel?
3.  How can you incorporate more "snow geese moments" in your life?
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Snow Geese
by Mary Oliver

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
    What a task
         to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,
     and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

One fall day I heard
     above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound
I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

a flock of snow geese, winging it
     faster than the ones we usually see,
and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

so they were, in part at least, golden.  I

held my breath
as we do

sometimes
to stop time
when something wonderful
has touched us

as with a match
which is lit, and bright,
but does not hurt
in the common way,
but delightfully,
as if delight
were the most serious thing
you ever felt.

The geese
flew on.
I have never
seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
Maybe I won’t.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters
is that, when I saw them.
I saw them
as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.
 

Building Community at School: One Lunch at a Time

It is important for teachers to feel a sense of community at school in order to work together and communicate with each other effectively.  There is a tradition that I participate in each day that helps me to feel like I am a part of a larger school community:  lunch.

Ever since the staff of my school moved into a new building five years ago, some of my colleagues and I have gathered together in a classroom to eat lunch together.  There are several things, particularly this year, that make this a very special time each day.

1.  The lunch is conducted like an Open Circle lesson.  We start out as a group eating lunch and anyone is welcome to come and join us, any day, any time.

2.  The group consists of people who hold various jobs throughout the school including classroom teachers, special education teachers, specialists, and most recently, teachers from different grade levels.

3.  Although school subjects are discussed, lunch is often used as a time to get to know each other better, on a more personal level.  One teacher has commented that what makes the lunch so special is the kinds of conversations that occur.  This inspired her to invite a teacher from another grade level to join.

4.  Lunch is a time to relax and talk with other adults since the majority of the school day is spent working with kids.

5.  A group of teachers make lunch for each other on a rotating basis.  This way, each teacher is only responsible for making and bringing in lunch one day a week.  Teachers have commented that since lunch is their least favorite meal to prepare, they enjoy only having to make lunch once a week and being pleasantly surprised the other four days.  It has also been a great way to introduce and share recipes.

6.  During our lunch time we eat on real plates and use real utensils.  Teachers have commented that this makes them feel like real professionals eating lunch together, rather than eating out of lunchboxes.

Eating lunch with this group of colleagues has become a special tradition for me-- making me feel like a part of my school community on a daily basis.  I enjoy this time as a true break from the hecticness of the school day.  Getting to know my colleagues on a more personal level has also been a very enjoyable experience for me.


Questions to Ponder:

1.  Where/when do you feel a sense of community in your school?
2.  How can you create more opportunities for community building in your school?

Joyfulness in the Classroom:)

In talking about standards for education, politicians often discuss curriculum frameworks and standardized testing such as the MCAS, the Massachusetts Curriculum Assessment System.  During the Courage to Teach Institute I participated in this summer, it was very refreshing to see a new kind of standard that was presented to us:  a standard for joyfulness!  The following is an early draft toward a standard for joyfulness in school and classroom for Hillcrest School in Turner Falls, Massachusetts, October 2008.

"The importance of a successful start is well recognized.  What is too often overlooked, however, is that a successful start involves more than just skills and socialization.  It involves instilling in students that learning is a joyful experience and schools can be a place of joy."  Robert Balfanz.  What Your Community Can Do to End Its Drop-out Crisis:  Learning from Research and Practice, John Hopkins.  May 9, 2007.

Joyfuness is important because it fosters lifelong learning.  A joyful learning experience should help children feel empowered by:
*Engaging them in meaningful activities.
*Making them feel comfortable with their surroundings built upon trust and validation.
*Having pleasurable interactions with peers, adults, and materials.
*Having a school communitywhich is predictive and focused on each other's strengths.
*Participating daily in free exploration of learning opportunities.
*Starting and ending the day positively.

As a teacher who often works with students who struggle with learning, it is especially rewarding to witness these students having joyful learning experiences.   When I first read this standard this summer, two memories immediately popped into my head.

1.  One of the many concepts that I teach fifth grade students who are working on dividing long words into syllables is the schwa sound.  The schwa sound is an unaccented syllable in a longer word that is often pronounced "uh".  One day, Amy, a fifth grade student with long blond hair, bounced excitedly into the Learning Center to tell me what had occurred in her classroom.  She told me that another student had looked up a word in the dictionary, came across an upside down "e", and her teacher asked the class if anyone knew what it meant.  Amy's hand shot up-- she explained that the upside down "e" represented the "schwa" sound and told the class what that meant.  Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm as she described how impressed her teacher had been.  Seeing the joy and pride in Amy-- in her eyes, the way she related her story, the way she carried herself-- was truly a great experience.

2.  Another memory involves a group of fourth grade boys preparing for the statewide MCAS test.  It was our last session before they were to take the Long Composition portion which requires them to write a narrative essay (about five paragraphs)-- rough draft and final copy in the same day.  It was unbelievable to see a dry and boring topic (reviewing what to look for when proofreading a piece of writing) turn into a joyful learning experience!  I taught the kids how to write acronyms to help them remember what they need to look for when proofreading.  This sport-loving group of boys decided to write acronyms based on the four major Boston sports teams:  Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.  Other acronyms were created as well and the students reveled in creating acronyms of real words and sports teams, incorporating the information they needed to remember.  As a teacher, what was really cool was seeing some of these students actually write down and use the acronyms on the day of the MCAS! ( http://thoreau.colonial.net/Teachers/Kalikstein/Writing-- Fourth Grade Revision/ Editing Checklists)

I think that a school system that places such a high value on joyfulness, such as Turner Falls, must be a really exciting place to work.  Not only do students learn and retain more information when they are engaged, but learning is also more fun when it is joyful!

Questions to Ponder:

*What does joyful learning look like in your classroom?
*Think of a time when a student or group of students were joyful-- Why were they joyful and how did they exhibit their joyfulness?
*As a teacher, when do you feel joyful in the classroom?
*As a learner, when have you felt joyful in a learning experience?


ADDENDUM
One of my favorite features of blogs is their interactive nature.  After receiving several responses, both on the blog itself and in separate emails, the wheels in my head started turning once again...And so I add this addendum to the original entry.

Joyful learning environments can be created in a classroom when the adults have a joyful time in  planning instruction and in presenting the material.  That's one of the things that I love about co-teaching with my colleague, Brenda--  the fun, joy, and excitement that goes into planning lessons.  That energy then gets conveyed to the students, resulting in a joyful learning experience:)

One such joyful learning experience involves a crazy professor....

In Massachusetts, fourth grade students are required to take a standardized test in English Language Arts.  On this test, they are required to read fiction and nonfiction passages, and answer multiple-choice and open response questions.  Some of the topics of these passages are not always captivating in the minds of nine and ten year olds.

In order to help combat this situation, Brenda and I modeled a strategy called the Crazy Professor which brings a lot of energy and excitement to what could otherwise be a dry topic.  In short, one person takes on the role of the Crazy Professor and the other, the role of the student.  The Crazy Professor reads a passage with a lot of emotion and excitment to the student.  There are various stages to the process where the passage is read multiple times with different things occuring during each step including telling the story excitedly using gestures, telling the story from memory, the student asking the professor questions, etc.  The culminating step of the activity involves the Crazy Professor enthusiastically retelling the passage from memory while the student frequently repeats some of the information, exclaiming how interesting it is.

As Brenda and I modeled this strategy for the students, our joy, laughter, and enthusiasm spread throughout the classroom like wildfire, igniting the students' energy.   When it became their turn to try out the strategy, all of the students were fully engaged, animatedly being both professors and students themselves.  That day was definitely one of the most fun and joyful teaching and learning experiences that I have ever had.  And the topping on the cake...a few days later, many of the students could still retell and remember the information from the passage!

Managing the Frustrations of the Creative Process: The “Michelangelo” Approach

Writing can be a very liberating and exciting experience when the inspiration is abundant and the ideas are flowing.  On the other hand, it can be very challenging when it is difficult to think of ideas or the ideas are there but not quite connecting in the right way.  In the past, becoming “stuck” in my writing was a very frustrating experience, especially when I had already committed many ideas and words to the page.  Even more exasperating was when several sections of a piece of writing had been written well but for some reason or another did not connect, affecting the entire flow and overall meaning. For a school assignment, this might mean completely starting over and when writing a short story or a poem for fun, it might mean abandoning the piece and not pursuing a writing activity for quite a time afterward.

This summer, my friend Grace’s comment on my blog entry, “The Power of Cropping and Mentors” inspired me to think about the act of writing in a new way—revolutionizing the way that I have approached and thought about the revision process.  She compared the act of cropping photographs to the act of writing. “With photography, it can be analogous to writing -- what are the important parts of your story. The same for photographs, what is the important feature of your photo?” 

This started the wheels in my head turning, and I wrote this in response:  “I really like this idea of comparing writing to photography. Interesting to think about revising in a different way. Instead of taking away the "bad parts" or what does not work, revision can be thought of as taking away words to enhance or highlight the most important parts. This way, the reader can focus on the most interesting parts of the writing. In reading your comment, I immediately thought of what Michaelangelo said when asked how he made his statue of David. "I just chipped away the stone that didn't look like David."

This new philosophy about revision has really come in handy the past few days.  Wanting to write and post a blog entry for the past week, I was excited when an idea began percolating in my head, inspired by a comment that once again, Grace had made.  She spoke of enjoying having people to “bounce” with as she teaches.   Suddenly, a flurry of neurons were fired in my brain, furiously brainstorming the different ways that the word bounce can be used:  “bounce” or body with hair, “bouncing” with the ball chairs in the classroom, ideas “bouncing” rapidly in someone’s head like pinballs in a pinball machine, and “bouncing” ideas off of someone as a sounding board or in collaborating on ideas.  Using these various definitions of the word “bounce” I began thinking about how they are related to Parker Palmer’s idea of holding the tension of paradoxes in the classroom, especially that a teaching and learning space should be both bounded and open.

When I started my piece, I thought I was really onto something and in fact, many of the points that I made in my still unfinished blog entry are interesting and thought provoking.  Unfortunately, the paragraphs read better separately paragraphs than as one united piece.  Finally, I decided that as a blog entry, it was just not working.  In the past, I would have become completely frustrated, giving up on writing the piece and writing altogether for a period of time. 

However, now I am thinking that I may have created pieces of what will eventually become parts of different masterpieces, presenting themselves to me at some later point in the future.  I also feel better because I no longer feel disappointed about not writing a blog post.  Realizing that this blog is about teaching, learning, and the creative process—I realized that it is just as worthwhile to write about the challenges of the artistic process, as it is the successes.  Having accomplished my goal of writing a blog entry, I am now once again motivated and inspired to keep on writing.


Questions to Ponder:
How do you deal with the frustrations and challenges of the artistic process?  How do you help your students manage their frustrations? 

Experimenting and Taking Risks: Keeping Our Craft Fresh

In photography, just like in teaching, some of our best work comes about when we experiment and take risks.  Trying different techniques and new ideas keeps us on our toes and our craft fresh.  Often our minds are more open to new ideas when we are playful and these are the times that we are often at our most creative.

When I take pictures, I like to experiment with light.  I love to see the different ways that light can affect photographs.

1.  Light can have very striking effects on clouds, creating textured pictures in the sky, such as in the picture below:

2.  Light can also highlight the underside of clouds, creating a three-dimensional effect.

3.  Taking pictures at different times of day can affect the lighting in the sky, especially at sunset.  This can result in some very pretty colors that contrast well with dark objects, such as the buildings in this picture:

4.   Light can accentuate a silhouette, highlighting its shape.

5.  Light can also give a picture a dramatic effect, especially the role that it plays with clouds before or after a storm.  The lighting can affect the entire mood of a scene.  In this case, it creates a sense of impending doom that a storm is coming or one of hope that it is leaving.

6.  Light can give a photograph a magical effect when it streams through an object, such as in the picture below:

Light can also create a luminescent effect in a picture:

When the sun hits an object or a scene at a certain angle, shadows are created.  I've also enjoyed experimenting with the role that shadows play in my pictures.



1.  Shadows can add depth to a picture, making it more interesting.

2.  Shadows can become the subject of a picture, especially when they have shapes that engage the viewer.  Look carefully at this picture.  It looks like the shadow on the left of the tree is trying to sneak up on the one on the ground!  Both look kind of scary.

3.  Shadows can also be funny.  (Just think about using your hands to make animal shapes with the light of an overhead projector.)  In this picture, I captured my shadow taking a picture.  For some reason, it looks like I have the head of a clown!

4.  Last, shadows can create striking patterns, giving a photograph texture.  I like how the shadow of the banister creates stripes that look like a flag.

In experimenting with the role of light and shadows in my pictures, I have taken risks with the ways that I frame subjects, the angles at which I shoot pictures, and how I crop my photographs.  Continuing to play around with my techniques keeps my ideas fresh.  Since the environment, the lighting, and the weather are different every time I go outside to take pictures, it is helpful to have a repertoire of different techniques to use.  Similarly, in our classrooms, the environment is different each year-- shaped by our new crop of students.  Having a wide range of techniques and strategies to experiment with helps us to reach the variety of learners in our classrooms and to keep our teaching new and fresh each year.

Questions to Ponder:  How can you take risks and experiment with your art?   How can you tweek a technique that you've been using in your art or in your classsroom to make it different this year-- to make an old idea new?   What risks will you take in your teaching this year?  With what techniques or ideas will you experiment?

Fueling the Flame of Teaching: Reflecting on Great Teachers Who Inspire Us

Teaching is an art.  As we all know, teachers can affect our love or hatred of a subject.  A great teacher can instill within us a love of learning, a thirst for knowledge, and can encourage us to pursue areas of interest, take risks, and ask questions.  For most teachers, at some point, a teacher touched our lives in some way and inspired us to become life-long learners, and possibly even teachers ourselves.  Reflecting on what made these teachers of ours so great fuels the flame of our own teaching, reconnecting us with why we were inspired to teach in the first place.

For me, two of my high school teachers vividly stick out in my mind.  Although they have very different teaching styles, in their own ways, they both instilled within me a love of learning and created models for me of what it means to be a great teacher.

One of the toughest teachers I've ever had, Mrs. G held high expectations for all students in her 10th grade honors English class.  If you achieved a "B" or below on one of your papers, you were expected to revise it.  Revisions were optional for additional credit with a "B+".   Although frustrating when revisions needed to be made, I always wanted to achieve an "A" and for Mrs. G to be proud of my work.  She kept me motivated by first commenting on what I had done well in my papers.  By remarking on my strengths from paper to paper, she reinforced them for me-- making me continue to do them well.

When required to revise, Mrs. G gave constructive criticism that was specific, so I knew exactly what I needed to do.  My papers were always scored with a rubric, so I knew what I had done well, and for revisions, I could clearly see what changes needed to be made.  Mrs. G never expected us to perform a skill that we didn't know how to do and provided us with an appropriate amount of scaffolding.  For example, when she realized that the majority of the class was having difficulty writing transitional sentences between paragraphs in our essays, she displayed models on the overhead projector.  Mrs. G showed us various techniques on how to connect ideas from one paragraph to the next.  Then she expected us to try out these techniques when we went back to revise our own papers.

Mrs. G taught us how to be life-long learners, teaching us skills, strategies, and ways of thinking that we would be able to apply to our work in 11th grade, 12 grade, college, and beyond.  She taught us how to think, how to dig deeper  into character motivations, symbolism, and quotations.  Mrs. G gave us tools for organization-- she taught us how to use outlines and notecards to organize a ten page research project, tools that I continued to use throughout college and graduate school.  She taught us the power of reflecting on our work by having us create a portfolio at the end of the year, having us choose a written piece from each of the following categories and then writing about why we chose it.  (Important Piece,  Satisfying Piece,  Unsatisfying Piece, and Free Pick)

Mrs. G's influence did not stop at her classroom door.  As the faculty advisor of The ROAR, the art-literary magazine of which I was Co-Editor in-Chief during my senior year, Mrs. G supported our interests outside of the classroom as well.  Giving us pointers on how to select literary and art work, and giving us advice on effective layouts, she guided us through the process of putting together an art-lterary magazine.  Mrs. G showed us that she cared by supporting our endeavors and sharing her expertise and her time.

Mr. O was a different kind of teacher all together.  He had the superb ability of turning history on its head, in his American History AP class, in the best way possible!  Mr. O could bring even the most seemingly boring topics to life by developing creative assignments that were engaging and required us to really think, analyze, synthesize, and apply the material. Studying the process of how a bill becomes a law could have been dull and boring in the hands of a less capable teacher.  In Mr. O's class, we were each required to research a topic that we would want passed into a law and write a paper.  Then our classroom was transformed into the different branches of government, as our bills went through the process of becoming or not becoming laws.  While the process was pretty well replicated, the outcomes were not!  Within just one class session, we had banned animal testing for cosmetic purposes and legalized both prostitution and marijuana!

Mr. O also inspired us to analyze and think outside of the box by presenting assignments in unexpected ways.  For instance, for one assignment we were required to write about why the American Revolution was unjustified.  Another assignment became a murder mystery.  "Pretend Grover Cleveland was assassinated.  Make a chart that lists the prime suspects and their motivations.  Who do you think most likely did it?  Write a paper explaining why you chose the suspect and explain their motivations."

What was truly incredible was the effectiveness of Mr. O's teaching practices.  He told us at the beginning of the year that he did not believe in teaching to the AP test.  As a result, since I felt like I hadn't been preparing for the test all year, I decided not to study much for it.  I was pleasantly surprised on the day of the test on how well prepared I felt, being able to write quite knowledgeably about content we hadn't covered since October.   But the way that we had covered it, made the material stick in my brain.

What I have found to be most admirable about Mr. O was that after that year he decided not to teach the AP class anymore.  He decided that all students deserved high quality teachers, not just the honors students.  Instead, Mr. O decided to teach classes of students for whom school was more of a struggle, where learning was more challenging.  

Reflecting back on both Mrs. G and Mr. O, there are so many of their teaching practices that I try to use with my own students:

1.  Pointing out and reinforcing my students' strengths
2.  Having high expectations for all students
3.  Scaffolding assignments appropriately
4.  Using models
5.  Giving specific constructive criticism
6.  Teaching my students skills and strategies to help them become life-long learners
7.  Having my students reflect upon their work
8.  Supporting my students' interests and teaching to them when I can such as with calligraphy classes
9.  Making learning fun, while challenging at the same time

Working with students with a variety of different learning profiles and learning styles, I am constantly trying to find new ways and approaches of teaching information, skills, and strategies to students.  By presenting information in multiple ways, my goal is for all students to be able to access the information and engage with it meaningfully in their own way.  My hope is that when students engage with material in a variety of ways it will help make the learning stick for them, just like it did for me in Mr. O's class!  I also hope that they will continue to use the skills and strategies that they learn throughout their educational careers, as they become lifelong learners.


Questions to Ponder:  Who have been the great teachers in your life?   Why were they important to you?  What made them good teachers?  How have they influenced who you are as a teacher today?

Photography as an Exercise in Mindfulness

Mindfulness is all about being fully present in the moment. When we live mindfully we are more fully aware of our experiences and surroundings, inquisitive about the world around us, and attentive to the people with whom we interact. Many mindfulness practices involve exercises and activities that help us to focus in on and pay attention to our senses in the present moment.

I enjoy using photography as an exercise in mindfulness. For me, the process of taking pictures allows me to be fully present in the moment-- choosing the subject of my picture, determining what I want the composition to look like, what aspects of the scene I want to make sure to include, and from what angle I want to take the picture. In making these decisions, I try to create pictures that are interesting and thought provoking. I hope that people will engage with my photographs by stopping to think about them and asking questions.

According to Marcel Proust, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." I try to capture images that inspire people to see the the ordinary world in a new way. I believe that seeing things from different perspectives causes us to be present in the moment, pay attention, ask questions, and be curious-- the cornerstones of mindfulness.

In taking photographs, there are several ways that I play around with the perspective to hopefully make them more interesting, thought provoking, and engaging. One aspect that I enjoy experimenting with is the orientation of my pictures. Instead of always taking pictures straight on, at times, I've taken pictures diagonally to highlight a specific feature of the scene, such as in the picture below:

                                                       


In this picture, the diagonal orientation makes it more interesting-- emphasizing the curve of the path, bringing some movement into the picture.  Looking at it, I think about what it would feel like riding a bike around the curve.  Examining the scene from this angle makes me engage with the picture-- I wonder what objects are causing which shadows.

Another way that I play around with the orientation of a picture is by rotating it in iphoto after I have downloaded the image onto my computer.   Simply rotating the photograph 90 or 180 degrees can change the way viewers interact with it.  The picture below was rotated 90 degrees from the original photograph.

                                            
My friend Grace commented, "Really interesting-- I love the darkness of the branch contrasting with the green."  I was glad that Grace's attention was drawn to the branch and the contrast.  The original photograph looked too ordinary, with the branch simply hanging downward.  As a result, the eye did not immediately focus on these aspects of the picture.  However, by rotating the picture, the viewer does not settle easily into the picture and needs to figure out exactly what he or she is looking at.   This forces the viewer to pay more attention to the details, making it more likely that the viewer will be more mindful of specifics and not glance right over them.

Another way that I like to experiment with the perspective of a picture is by playing around with the zoom feature on my camera and the cropping function on iphoto.  Zooming in on a particular subject makes myself and the viewer more mindful of specific details-- causing us to pay more attention to them and ask questions.  Looking at an object close up can also evoke an emotional response, such as with this picture below.

This picture was cropped from the original so that the stick and the cracking ice became the focal point of the composition.  The image is grabbing-- evoking very emotional responses from viewers.  My friend Caroline commented, "It has a violent feeling about it, yet it's so natural and innocuous at the same time.  Cool concept."  My friend Brenda responded, "It looks a little scary to me, as if the ice is cracking, but it's very artistic."  The viewers are interacting with the photograph, being mindful in the moment about their feelings.

Zooming in on a subject can also make the viewer ask questions about the scene, such as with the picture below.

Looking at this picture, I wonder what happened to the pumpkin?  How was it smashed?  How long has it been lying here?  Why was it smashed?  What was the emotion behind the smashing?  Was it a prank or was someone really upset, knocking the pumpkin down in an angry rage?

Last, zooming in on a subject can make the viewer mindful of details and patterns within the picture.  Look closely at the picture of the frog below.

Take a minute to examine what Grace noticed, "the markings on the frog and how it blends in with the green."  What else do you notice?

I enjoy using photography to help me engage more mindfully with the world around me.  To capture images that are hopefully interesting and thought provoking for my viewers, I use photographic techniques such as experimenting with the orientation of pictures, rotating pictures, zooming in closely, and cropping pictures.  Hopefully my photographs can get my viewers to see the ordinary world in a new way, causing them to think about things from a different perspective and to engage in the world mindfully by asking questions.


Questions to Ponder:  How can you use art (photography, drawing, painting, poetry, sculpting) to be more mindful of the world around you?  How can you engage your senses to be fully present in the moment?  What kinds of things are you curious about?  What activities and interests do you engage in that are thought provoking for you and cause you to ask questions?

Conquering Fear Through Poetry (Or at Least Diminishing It!)

Sometimes writing can help us conquer or at least diminish our fears.  By placing the object of fear at the center of a piece of writing, a healthy distance is often created.  This way, the writer can explore the fear in a safe manner.  I wrote such a poem back in October 2009-- about an animal that had left me in a panicked state five months earlier.

My fear developed one warm spring evening in May 2010.  Sitting at my dining room table, I heard a soft whooshing sound.  Turning my head, I saw a black-winged creature fly past my ear.  For the next minute, this creature flew in large figure eights, back and forth, between the dining room and the living room.  Opening the front door, I hoped that it would fly out of my house.  At the same time, I was nervous that another one would fly in.

Unsure about the identity of this black-winged creature (a bird or a bat?), I called my landlords (Connie and Joe) who conveniently lived upstairs on the second floor.  Armed with brooms, they spent the next half hour assessing the situation.  Tapping on cupboards, looking between blinds, bending over to look underneath furniture, and opening cabinets, there was no black creature in sight.  "Call us if you see it again," they told me as they exited my apartment.

Standing in the middle of the dining room, I thought to myself, "It must be a bird.  It didn't look like a bat.   Hopefully it will turn up tomorrow and I'll be able to get it to fly outside."  With this line of reasoning, two hours of solid sleep ensued.

Around one o'clock in the morning, I awoke and walked around my apartment for a few minutes.  Nestling back underneath the covers, I was about to close my eyes when I spotted the black-winged bird circling above me.   I grabbed my pillow and blanket and ran out of my bedroom, slamming the wooden door behind me.  Although startled, my worries were now put to rest, at least for the night, since it was securely shut in my room.  Placing my pillow and blanket on the dark blue couch in the living room, I made myself comfortable, eager to get some sleep, or so I thought...

My nerves, still slightly rattled, I decided to sleep with the living room light on.  Resting my head on the pillow, I glanced out in front of me and glimpsed an image that still haunts me to this day.  Perched on the tips of its outstretched wings on the light wooden floor of my hallway, two piercing eyes stared right out at me.  "Oh my God, it's a bat," my heart whispered as my breath was trapped in my stomach.

Jumping straight out off the couch like a jack-in-the-box, I flew through the kitchen and out the back door.  Fear gripped my body as I stood stiffly, shivering and shaking on my back porch, in shock.  As a cool breeze brushed against my legs, it dawned on me that I was standing outside of my house, barefoot, in my pajamas, at 1:30 in the morning, without a key.  I was locked out.  But that was the least of my worries...there was a bat in my house!

Tears streaming down my face, body trembling, the outdoor lights came on over the driveway as I carefully walked to the front door, making sure not to step on any pebbles or other sharp objects.  Regulating my breathing was difficult as I stood, hand poised over Connie and Joe's doorbell, debating whether or not I should wake them up in the middle of the night.

Suddenly a light turned on as I heard heavy footsteps quickly creak down the steps from the second floor.  Connie swung open the front door, took one look at my red blotchy face and said, "Are you OK?  Did it come back?  I heard you downstairs."  Giving me a hug, she motioned me into the house and said, "Come inside.  We'll take care of this."  Dressed in their pajamas, Connie and Joe sat down with me on their couch and asked me what happened.  After recounting the story over a cup of hot mint tea, they informed me that they were going downstairs to take care of the bat and that I was welcome to rest on their couch.  More than several minutes passed when I heard the chimes of their grandfather clock signal 2:00 in the morning and thumping noises coming from my apartment.  It wasn't until Connie and Joe came back upstairs that I found out what had occurred....

When Connie and Joe first entered my apartment, they once again searched for the bat and didn't find anything.  So they shut off the lights, sat on my couch, and waited for the darkness to entice it out of its hiding spot.  After a few minutes, they spotted the bat flying in circles overhead in the living room.  Turning on the lights, the bat soon became disoriented and they tapped the ceiling with their broomsticks, hoping that the bat would fall to the ground.  Eventually it did and it curled up, folding its wings underneath itself.  Seizing the opportunity, Connie threw a towel over the bat and proceeded to stomp on it, repeatedly, until she was sure that it was dead.  As my landlords walked back into their apartment, Connie greeted me, holding a wrapped up towel in her arms.  Reaching out toward me she said, "It's dead.  We took care of it.  Do you want to see it?"

"No!  I don't want to see it!" I replied in horror.

Still shaken up from the incident, my landlords thankfully allowed me to sleep on their couch that night.  For several weeks afterward, falling asleep was difficult since I envisioned a bat flying into my room or hanging inside my closet.  At the time, I was reading a book at school with my students called, "Owl in the Shower".  For some reason, when the visions of the bat came into my head, I pictured an owl sweeping in and eating the bat.  It wasn't until a few days later that I learned that owls are indeed predators of bats.

Owls became my protectors and as a gesture of support, my good friend (I'll call her Brenda), gave me a stuffed owl that hoots when its stomach is pressed.  Resting on my night table, this owl comforted me for the next few weeks when I looked at it before I went to sleep.  Owls soon started to hold a special place in my heart.

Fast forward five months later to when a poet, whose speciality is Chinese poetry, came to my school to lead a workshop with the fourth grade students.  Participating in the activity with them, I had brought in a special object as each of the students had.  Placing my stuffed owl on the table, I followed the directions of the poet as he told us to look at our object, listen to a special sound that he would make by running a wooden stick along the inside of a bowl, and to let our imaginations go.  And that is how the poem featured below was created.


Metamorphosis

Cowering in shadows
Huddled in corners
Shielding against onslaught
of ferocious, teeth baring bats.

Arms outstretched
Lying atop wings of owl

Soaring, gliding, whisking
through mountain landscape
Arctic air rushes past ears

Majestic snow-capped mountains
dotted by dark green pine trees
Ice piercing wind
makes every tip of my body sing

Head ducks
beneath stalactites and stalagmites
Guarding cavernous opening
Dark black envelopes me

As high-pitched shrieking, teeth baring bats
zoom toward me
Mouth opens wide
Bats fly through my lungs, arms, legs
Bats become me.
I become the bats.


Riding on the wings of the owl in the poem helped me to fly right into my fear, the bats, eventually becoming them and making me feel more empowered.

Questions to ponder:  What are you scared of?  How can you use poetry, writing, or some other art form to help conquer or diminish a fear?  Have you ever done this before?  How did that make you feel?   
 

The Power of Cropping and Mentors

The first few times I took nature photographs I was lucky.  Due to just the right lighting and having the extraordinary luck of being in the right place at the right time, I was fortunate to capture some magical moments on film such as the picture featured in the first blog entry (Extraordinary Within the Ordinary) and the picture below that I took by a field outside my school one morning.

However, once I started venturing outside with the specific purpose of taking pictures, I was frustrated that my photographs did not all contain that magical quality.  "Beginner's luck" I thought to myself, until I learned a new way of thinking about taking pictures....cropping.

A good friend, (I'll call her Grace), introduced me to the power of cropping.  An avid photographer with a flare for nature photography, she frequently posts series of her pictures on Facebook.  Then a few hours or sometimes a day or two later, she adds several more pictures to her album.  These pictures are versions of original photos that Grace has manipulated in some way-- either by changing a color picture to black and white, adjusting the lighting, rotating the orientation, or cropping a section of a picture.  I always appreciate how the manipulated version highlights a specific aspect of the original picture that particularly catches her interest such as texture, composition, lighting, subject matter, contrast, etc.

Impressed by Grace's photography skills and eye for visual detail, I asked her to help me, to become my photography mentor.  "Look at my pictures-- let me know what works and what I can do to make them better."  Over the past year, Grace's comments, critiques, and suggestions have helped form my inner photography critic.  They have helped me to start determining when a picture works, when and what part of a picture needs to be cropped, and why.  In studying Grace's photographs to figure out what makes them so striking, I have been inspired to take pictures, try her techniques, and develop criteria of what makes a good nature photograph.

Below is one of my pictures that Grace helped me to crop.  She commented on the picture:  "Interesting colors on the left and at the shore -- would be interesting if you cropped the background and just kept the foreground."

The cropped version of this picture, below, draws more attention to the colors on the left and on the shore, as well as to the textures of the bush and the mud.  Cropping the picture allows the eye to focus on these interesting details, whereas in the original picture, the eye keeps jumping around because there are too many details to look at.

After trying out Grace's suggestions on several of my photographs, I began experimenting with cropping.  I particularly like the Monet-esque quality of the picture below, which was obtained by zooming in on a particular section of a photograph.

Believe it or not, I created this image from the photograph below.

By cropping the reflection of the house in the water and rotating it 180 degrees, I was able to achieve the desired effect.  Once again, Grace's influence inspired me to take a series of pictures of the reflection of this house in the water, as her pictures often capture particularly interesting colors, textures, and patterns in water reflections.

I attribute a large part of my developing photography skills to Grace.  By sharing her natural talent of photography, giving constructive criticism, and suggesting specific things to try, she has inspired me to experiment and take risks with my photographs.  Grace has also taught me that there is no need to feel frustrated with the way a shot originally comes out.  Now I know how to look closer, find an aspect of the picture that I like, and highlight it using powerful techniques such as cropping.


Questions to Ponder:  What natural talents and passions do you have to share with the world?  How can you share them in a way that would inspire others to try their hand at them and take risks?  Are there Graces in your life who have inspired you to pursue an area of interest?  How can you thank the mentors in your life?