Month: January 2014

13 Quotes For A Happy New Year
– Chuck Sandy

 

I’ve long been a collector of quotes, and ever since finding a copy of From The Margins of A Grey Notebook by the poet and archivist Eric Sackhiem, I’ve always meant to keep a notebook full to the margins with them, just like he did.

Doing that is one of my resolutions for this year. Meanwhile, as I’m also a fan of acrostics and in awe of Jeffery Doonan’s recent An Acrostic For Professionalism on the iTDi Blog, I thought I’d try to pull together quotes I’ve collected on scraps of paper and turn them into an acrostic of my own for A Happy New Year.

All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it”, wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince. He wasn’t, but very well could have been, writing to the teachers of young learners and all others, reminding them to remember what it’s like to learn in joyful ways and be full of awe about the world and its wonders. Think back. Take yourself there. Remember. Now, teach that way.

 

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives says Annie Dillard, and I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to spend my entire life as a learner and my entire adult life as a teacher.  Now that I’m 55 with days no longer structured by class schedules and curricula, I realize even more how much each moment matters, how days add up, and then that’s it. How best to spend the days? It’s up to you to decide. Thank you for using this moment to read this post. When you finish, what will you do next, and why? What does it matter? What will you learn? How is that going to move you forward or enrich your now? Pause. Ponder. Do.

 

Always do what you are afraid to do, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in one of his essays, and though doing what scares us is never easy, it’s always worth doing. I tell myself this again and again. So often it’s fear that’s held me back from trying something new, making a change, taking a stand, and doing what’s right. But then, after leaping through a fear, I usually wind up amazed that I’ve neither fallen too far or too hard. When I have fallen far and hard, it’s been what I needed to do in order to stand up again in a new way. This year, take a risk. Step through fear. Leap.

 

Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity wrote Maria Popova recently on Brainpickings on a day when I was offering a teacher advice on classroom management – a term I’ve never liked very much.  The Popova quote helped me see that the greatest teachers I’ve had or observed are the ones who are wholly present for their students. They have no classroom management problems because in the classroom they are entirely there. How do they do that? I’m sure you know teachers like this. Ask them. When I’ve asked, I’ve found most have a learnable strategy for becoming and staying present in the classroom. Find one of these teachers, model their strategies, and then adapt and make them your own.

 

People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds, wrote the psychologist Carl Rodgers in On Becoming A Person, and as I read that again I thought, “well, of course” but then cringed remembering how often I’ve worked to change people in various ways, not understanding that I was actually working to change myself through them. Being a teacher means accepting others as they are, while offering up tools that can take them farther, then as Rogers says, stepping back to watch in awe as they unfold to become even more who they are.

 

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes, writes Rumi and the poem goes on to say “If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings” and this is the best quote I know about the giving and receiving that is teaching and learning.

 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” said Margaret Mead and when we define world as one person, one classroom, or one community, we begin to realize the power we have as teachers to make a difference – especially when we band together though initiatives like iTDi to encourage and support each other.

 

Everybody is a genius, said Albert Einstein “but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid,” so stop doing that. If it’s in you, take a stand against standardized testing. If you’re in the US, speak out about the Common Core. In every classroom, let people shine in the ways they do.

 

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” wrote Anais Nin which goes to explain how our view of the same classroom over time changes as we change. It’s good to remember that what we see is just a reflection of who we are.

 

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go... wrote Dr. Suess, so just remember that.

 

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books” wrote John Lubbock in a book that’s aptly titled The Pleasures Of Life and is available in digital form free. Just click the link, but before you do, go outside and have a look around.  See what you can see and learn what you can learn.

 

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it wrote Roald Dahl in The Minpins, and this is an important thing to remember whether or not you’re a teacher, but especially if you are.

 

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something, says H. Jackson Brown Jr. in Life’s Little Instruction Book, and this is a good thing to remember whenever you wonder why the people in your classrooms and all around you act the way they do and do the things they do. It’s because they’re people, just like you.  My parents gave me Life’s Little Instruction Book one Christmas 30 years ago, and on that day I underlined this quote. Then, I put the book away and forgot about it.  I would have been a better teacher as well as a better person all these years if I’d done a better job of remembering this simple truth: everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.  Still, it’s not too late, is it? There’s a whole year ahead, still a lot to learn, and though those 13 add up to A Happy New Year, there’s a postscript:

 

PS: The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there writes L.P. Hartley in The Go Between. It’s like T.S. Elliot says in Little Gidding: For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. If there’s any looking back, it’s in silent gratitude. A year’s end marks a moment in the ineffable journey thru eternity, and not yet fluent in the language, all we can do is breathe in & breathe out grateful thanks as we speed past, and renew our commitment to becoming more fluent in kindness, more patient in our learning, more gentle in our teaching, and more able to be a conduit of the light that is love.

Let’s do that.  I’ll be trying my wavery best.

 

Connect Chuck and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron.
Your support makes a difference.

A Needs Assessment of 2013 – Josette LeBlanc

As language teachers, when you see the term “needs assessment” you might think of taking the time to learn more about your learners’ language needs. Kathleen Graves (2000) defines needs assessment as,

“…a systematic and ongoing process of gathering information about students’ needs and preferences, interpreting the information, and then making course decisions based on the interpretation in order to meet the needs.”

I’d like to propose a different type of needs assessment. It is more celebratory and reflective, than it is systematic and ongoing. This assessment involves looking back on your year and considering what universal needs you and your learners have fulfilled. My thought is that by doing this needs assessment, you might step into 2014’s classrooms with a bit more joy and gratitude in your heart. After having written this list of 13 met needs in 2013, I know that’s how I’m moving into the new year.

1. Rejuvenation

At the beginning of each semester of our teacher-training program, we always ask the teachers why they signed up for our course. The majority of them say it’s because they need a break. They need time away from all the demands of being an English teacher in Korea. They need time to remember what it means to be a teacher. They also need time to work on their English skills. In some cases, they just need time to remember who the are. As you read on, I think you’ll see how these teachers had their need for rejuvenation fulfilled.

2. Joy

In relation to remembering who they are, one of the teachers this semester shared her thoughts in one of her course reflections:

“I think, through this course, I can find different “myself” instead of “teacher myself.” (…) It may sound a little too much, but I think I am getting to know who I am and what I am capable of. Without this course and various activities, I could never know I can make the fancy storybook (see below). (…) Once again, I feel very lucky to have an opportunity to join this teachers’ training course.”

As you can imagine, reading this brought me great joy.

3. Accomplishment

This picture represents the culmination of 6 weeks of collaborative work done to create the storybook you see the teacher holding up on the right. This is a picture of them telling their story during the book release party. In addition to this group, five other teams not only shared their own storybooks, but also their sense of accomplishment.

 

4. Play!

Most teachers start off feeling worried about having to do practice teaching in front of their peers. They have to plan and teach lessons where their colleagues become their students. However, once the lesson is finally underway, it seems like all those worries melt away: it’s time to play! Let’s learn how to cook! What fun!

5. Autonomy

I usually give the teachers homework: read an article of your choosing, and report back by giving me your thoughts on parts of the reading that struck you. After a few weeks of this, one brave teacher told me she didn’t understand why she had to do homework she wasn’t interested in. I completely understood. I’ve always questioned homework, but kept up with it probably mostly due to old held beliefs. The next week I asked them to tell me what type of after class studies they would like to do. They had the choice to do what they wanted, or do nothing at all. I was impressed. Everyone chose tasks that met their unique needs and that also fit their schedule. I’ll definitely be trying this again.

6. Support

An important part of the writing curriculum that I’ve created for this program is the peer review component. When I first introduced it four years ago, I was apprehensive because I wasn’t sure how the teachers would feel about me taking a backseat. Anyone who grew up in the Korean education system is used to the teacher being front and center. However, each semester I ask the teachers how they feel about the peer review process. This year, the answer was the same: they said they got the support they needed to write the story/essay they really wanted. This is why peer reviews are still in the curriculum. My apprehension is subsiding.

7. Growth

It’s no secret that most Korean teachers of English use a form of the grammar translation method to teach their students. There are many reasons for this. However, these teachers also know it’s not the best way to help their students learn how to use the language. During our course they experience being learners and teachers. They get to feel what their students must feel, and they also have the chance to teach lessons based on methods beyond grammar translation. Our program is a place for experimentation and as a result, a lot of growth happens.

8. Collaboration

Can you see how this need has been fulfilled so far? J

9. Confidence

Confidence is one of the most important needs that I aim to fulfill during this course. Teachers often come with very low-self confidence and with deep-rooted beliefs that their English isn’t good enough. I can only imagine how hard it is to feel this way when you have to stand in front of class of 35 students everyday. Although they may not leave the course feeling 100%, through all the experiences I described above, I know the teachers who have left and are leaving this program are little more confident about their language and teaching skills.

10 & 11 Grieving and celebration

Before the end of last semester, my colleague had a fabulous idea to help the teachers look back the course and also look forward on how it would influence them. Thinking of what we had learned and experienced, we wrote a hope we had for ourselves, and attached it to a balloon filled with helium. Then we all headed outdoors. On the count of three, we let go of our balloons, letting our hopes find their own destination. Although we were celebrating our time together, and all the learning that we had done, there definitely was some grief. During this time we balanced our honor for grief and celebration.

12. Love

13. Community

Each teacher comes to the program from different schools in the area, alone and perhaps unsure. But when the program ends, they leave connected to a group that holds great friendship and knowledge.  They leave with memories of negotiations, compromise, reconciliations, experimentations, listening, laughter, and sharing. They leave with a community of learning.

I had to stop myself at 13. The needs assessment produced more results, but I’ll just have to save those for 2014. What about you? How long is your list? No matter how long it is, may it bring you joy. And may the new year bring you and your students great fulfillment.

Graves, Kathleen. Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. Boston: Thomson Heinle, 2000.

 

Connect Josette and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron.
Your support makes a difference.

13 Things I Heard or Read That Made a Difference / 13 Community Wisdoms  –   Ann Loseva

 

Before sitting down to write this post, I checked the post I wrote for this blog a year ago, on what I learnt in 2012. It is full of adjectives describing how I changed over the course of the year. I was entering 2013 aspiring to continue becoming a better me, without actually knowing how I would make that happen. Here’s the story of how it all turned out.

This year has been a very different year for me and brought some new realities to my eyes. What I’m struggling to express is the fact that I’ve become much more aware of the people around me and what they have to tell me. All I’ve learnt about myself and people, about life and making choices, about teaching and learning this year has become possible through the people in my community reaching out to share themselves with me. So I’m passing on these 13 lines of what struck me as wisdom throughout the year. These are sometimes direct quotes torn out of the contexts of online chats and real-time conversations, or words I caught and noted during the sessions I attended at conferences. There are two lines from my students, and one excerpt lifted from a magazine. My humble explanations—as well as a very amateur analysis—follow. The order of points that made a difference to me makes no difference in and of itself, and the numbers are I can say confidently, purely incidental.

1. Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ.

The phrase was intended to be a joke in a chat, or at most a piece of localised wisdom. However, it sank deep into my mind and I decided to share it with my students the next day. At first, the students had some difficulty translating it, and then some of them began to take it really seriously. They were gazing into the distance, or looking down into their notebooks, or staring right through me. I had merely wanted them to appreciate how beautifully the language worked in this particular case of seeming opposition. A bit of wisdom for me: students are trained to dig for something behind the words. Even if they cannot do it, they feel like they must try. So I probably should work harder on helping them notice the shape and beauty of the language right there in front of them.

2. What we hear and what others say is different.

This is taken from my Breaking Rules course notebook and may not be a direct quote, but it is highlighted. Such a simple truth and yet so powerful, like maybe all real wisdoms are. Originally it was used in regards to a lesson reflection process.  It was meant to remind me that transcribing a chunk of a lesson can prove revolutionary by allowing me to notice what a lesson actually is, and move beyond the prism of my own inward perceptions. I’ve done this type of transcribing only once, and it really was a revolution in seeing my own teaching and my students’ learning. The wisdom in this phrase speaks for itself.  I’d like to set it as a goal for the next year, a reminder to repeat the experience more than once, and ignite the flames of my personal revolution again.

3. Sorry of my gramar.

This grammar test was a revelation to me. This line on the bottom of the page, so sincere in its apology, bravely accepting (and embracing) inaccuracy, reaching out for a teacher’s help, struck me. I just want to be a better teacher for this student, and for others, who don’t leave this note on their grammar tests. A bite of wisdom says that it’s high time I did something more to teach grammar.

4. Don’t let the negative attitude influence you.

It doesn’t matter much which dialogue this phrase was part of, as it, in my opinion, can influence our whole view of life. As a person and especially as a teacher working in staff rooms of all kinds, it’s quintessential to keep this in mind if we want to live a happy life. And I do want to, so I walk out of my house each morning reminding myself that letting the negative effect me is a choice. Now I’m passing it over to you, hopeful that it will make a world of difference for you, too.

5. My lesson is not really only mine, students are also there, so they need to take responsibility as well.

As the year went on and my awareness grew, I realized that the ideas that resonate with my understanding of what’s right rub off on me with a longer lasting impact. They become the ideas that make me tick.  Such is the case with this piece of wisdom from one of the sessions I attended at iSTEK Conference. I strongly believe students should feel as if they are the rightful owners of their learning and bear responsibility for actions we take together in class. It’s not an easy process to make them feel this way.  But I have seen how a shift to this kind of attitude impacts the kinds of results students can see in their own learning process.

6. Have you made your students bored?

This is one of the two quotes on this list that come from plenaries I’ve been to this year. A lesson during which neither my students nor I get bored is the one ace lesson I aim for every day of my teaching. And thanks to this question and the answers explored in the plenary, I know that the human brain reacts to relevant content and to getting emotionally involved.  It’s nice to know that tapping into this responsible-for-pleasure part of the brain not only seems logical and right, but is backed up by science.  It felt good to have my vision of an ace lesson proven valid by neuroscientists and Herbert Puchta.

7. We’ve all understood that you have a perfect sense of humour. But we won’t be able to write this quiz in 13 minutes.

Oftentimes what makes a palpable difference is downright bitter. It takes a leap of faith to see through the haze of this bitter feeling and recognize the underlying reasoning behind a seemingly casual comment made by a student. I’ve written a post about this and one more similar remark on my blog (http://annloseva.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/too-much-of-a-good-thing-teacher/). Having written this, I now realize that I should have paid more attention to #2 on this list. Changing my behaviour in class might involve major personality changes on my part.  To be honest, I’m not sure just what those changes would be.  So, if I’m going to be honest, I should admit that this wisdom is not easily acquired.

8.  I don’t remember you. But I remember what you taught us.

Some of you might have stumbled on this idea on other ELT blogs lately (for example, here http://theotherthingsmatter.blogspot.ru/2013/11/a-whisper-of-gratitude-jalt-2013.html, from Kevin Stein, in Part IV and a bit more in the comments). This is what a student said to her teacher having met her again after several years. I have an itch to write a long commentary on this but I’ll choose to hold back for now and make vague observations. Much as I can’t quite agree with the wisdom here, I do know that a teacher’s ego can be a bothersome thing. This quote had me thinking of my place in a class.  And it also caused me more than a bit of worry (see #7). The right balance between putting myself out front and disappearing into the background is so difficult to find and I struggle with it in almost each and every lesson.

9. Professional development IS a career.

Most of my real life friends, as well as my family, have nothing to do with education. They work in industries of different kinds.  They are working hard, doing overtime to climb those career ladders. Once our conversations touch on the career ladder issue, my story is always the shortest. In my university, no matter how many conferences I attend and present at, I’ll be working as an English language teacher for all my life. While talking about what role the ladder of success seems to play in our careers as a teacher, a very important and wise person from my PLN gave this sharp reply: professional development is a career. This dialogue I will not forget very soon. Because professional development is a career and I am aware of it now.

10.  You’re inexperienced but very natural, real.

I’m surely set on commenting on the inexperienced part of this quote. I think it states the truth very bluntly, and that’s what I like about it. Being inexperienced seems a very natural thing to be as a teacher at my age. I’m almost happy to be finding myself ignorant and rushing to try and fix it. The lessons pass and so do terms, and hopefully what I’m learning from my own reflections and the ELT community will help me build a firm base for the years of teaching to come. At the same time, I wish to hold onto my current emotional understanding of my job, the beliefs about it that I have now.

11. There’s a word we have in Japanese for that – omotenashi.

This is a quote from outside teaching, but maybe still about the people in teaching I’ve met this year. Visiting Japan for JALT Conference has changed my life, my routine, my life plans, my outlook in several ways. When in Japan, I was startled at how kind, friendly and helpful people were to me. The dictionary search tells me omotenashi means “hospitality, entertainment, service”. My wonderful Japanese teacher friend used this word to describe the kind of willingness of the Japanese to be of help. This is one of the features of Japanese culture that keeps luring me back, because everybody likes to be treated nicely.

12.  One should read more, as everything that can possibly be happening within the human soul has been described a good many times, especially so in Russian literature.

This is not an eye-opener. In fact, its obviousness is exactly the reason why I like this statement from Psychologies mag so much. With my love for reading, it seems inexplicable why I fail to integrate reading into my classes in a way I find satisfactory. I love to notice minute details and fleeting impressions as much as I love a good story, so it looks almost a paradox to me that my teaching line is devoid of a chance for students to pay attention to detail or let a story unfold. More wisdom to keep in mind in the year ahead is connected with getting back to Russian literature. I think I’m now ready to do that.

13. I didn’t like myself, now I like myself a little bit.

That is it. Having a look back at the year 2013, I find that I’ve come to like myself a little bit more. Thanks to the people I’ve met, both online and offline, I’ve found myself in the best of places in this community. The community that has shaped itself into a cosy corner where I can feel comfortable saying what I want to say, where I can be sure I’ll receive comforting pats on the back when I’m having a difficult time. The community that is generously sharing their wisdoms with me so that there is always a chance for me to grow and develop as a teacher and as a person.

 

I would like to thank Malu Sciamarelli, Barbara Sakamoto, Willy Cardoso, Herbert Puchta, Hiroshi Oki, Penny Ur, Michael Griffin, Steven Herder, Naoko Araki Amano, John Fanselow, my students Gosha and Dima, and a glossy mag Psychologies for providing food for thought and a wisdom to hold on to. I would like to stretch my arms in gratitude to so many, and I hope you feel it.

 

Connect with Ann and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron.
Your support makes a difference.