An amazing baseball coach (and "teacher") that my son works with says that winning teams often have a unifying slogan to represent their identity as a team.  They have things they always say to each other to remind them of their common goal.

To that end, our classroom theme is Darcy Detectives.  Last week, I filmed a set of clips to remind us what the Darcy Detectives are all about.  These habits will serve students well as readers and writers.  I can't wait to show them our video!

As I was reflecting on these habits, I realized that I should also be striving to be a detective-- investigating my work and how students respond to instruction.  However, in the bustle of getting through a reading block, that is far easier said than done.  I understand more clearly now why an observer can be better positioned to do detective work than the teacher, who is busy doing the instructional work. It is really challenging to be the "do-er" and the "watcher" at the same time.

Challenge yourself by inviting someone in to be the detective in your classroom.  We are blessed to have administrators and specialists who would jump to help you solve a problem.  These supporters could also arrange opportunities for another teacher to observe in your classroom with a specific goal in mind.

Detectives work together to figure things out!

After much inactivity, I plan to use this blog to reflect and share my experiences teaching third grade reading in 2016-2017.  I will still retain all of my Division Reading Specialist responsibilities, while working daily to create a demonstration classroom that strives toward student agency and achievement.

I teach in classrooms frequently as part of my job, but it was an entirely different experience to look into the faces of children whose reading outcomes I would own- for better or worse- at the end of the year.  I naturally felt overwhelmed figuring out where to start.  Starting the year with high hopes and more ideas than we can fit into a reading block is energizing.

What I've observed in too many cases, however, is that we often start the year by feeding our worst fears. Teachers scramble around to their students' former teachers trying to get the skinny on who is a troublemaker, who talks all the time, who is a helper, and who is a darling.  And most importantly who is LOW and who is HIGH.

Because my class was strategically arranged, I also "knew" a lot about my students before school started.  In my position, I've seen their data profiles across multiple years.  Most were children I knew on paper and from a few model lessons over years.  But I learned this week that I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

In the interest of building relationships from the start, I pieced together ideas from several places to create an interest interview.  My colleague Jen Brobjorg is using a similar tool with middle school students in her quest to match them with engaging books right away.

While my class was training toward independent reading and writing this week, I was able to conduct several one-on-one interviews with students, and these interviews allowed me to see my students beyond the numbers on the data spreadsheet.  One student loves to watch the news, and he cracked a joke in class about Donald Trump's wall that made me laugh out loud.  One of my quietest girls likes scary books and intense video games.  (I would have had her pegged for fairy literature.)  Another student listens to the same metal music that my son does, and another likes to design fashion with her mom.  These interviews are already teaching me how I might use student strengths and interests to build reading and writing proficiency.

Be willing to be surprised by your students and be open to learning who they are as people.  We can fight the anxiety that the numbers create by learning who these little people are beyond just LOW or HIGH.  Have a great year!