Week 11: "Just Keep Writing"

Week 11:
March 15-21


This week, the week before SPRING BREAK, I am finding my energy drained and my efforts spread thin. In addition to teaching full time I am taking an online graduate school course and as much as I love it, there are times when I feel it more as a burden than a blessing. Every week we must write a commentary expressing our thoughts and reactions to the week's assigned readings. I genuinely love doing this. We share our thoughts and then respond to one another and engage in an online dialogue about matters of education near and dear to our heart. Usually our commentary pieces are thoughtful reflections. Very seldom do we argue or disagree with one another. Earlier in the course, our professor had made us read some articles by a literary theorists that just rubbed us all the wrong way. We were united in our respectful disagreement with his ideas and concepts. 

Sometimes I feel as though my graduate school cohort may be too supportive. I love my peers deeply and genuinely see them all as friends, in addition to partners in learning, but shouldn't a learning environment contain a bit of controversy and push-back? I do not wish to be in a hostile learning environment, but a little healthy debate and disagreement is what, for me, makes learning so fun! 

So for this week's blog post, I am taking the easy way out and rather than coming up with a new or original piece of writing, I am going to be copying and pasting my graduate school commentary. I spend approximately 45 minutes to an hour composing my commentaries. Sometimes the words flow easily and other times, I find myself struggling to articulate my thoughts. Fortunately my professor doesn't much care about our writing style, so long as it is authentic! Sometimes I write in a very free and stream-of-consciousness style of writing and sometimes I strive to be more "academic". 

As much as I love having this blog as a place to publish my thoughts and hold myself accountable to my discipline of writing I do feel pressure to keep it up and maintain my weekly commitment to posting. 

Writing is a discipline. Even the best writers in the world must force themselves down and put fingertips to keypad, or pen to paper. Inspiration is fleeting. Sometimes we just have to be our own kick in the ass. 

The readings for the past few weeks have confirmed for me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am a literature teacher through and through. I love writing, but like my yoga practice, writing is something I do privately, for me. Sure, I’ve had fantasies about publishing a book of my poems or travel experiences, but my love for classic literature stops me from making that dream into a reality. I don’t consider my writing to be worthy enough to be placed on bookshelves alongside the works of Plath, Chatwin, Thoreau or Emerson (four of my favorite writers who I draw tremendous inspiration from in my “personal” writing). However, when I walk through bookstores today and pick up copies of the newest and shiniest bestsellers, self-help texts and memoirs, I cannot help but think, “Ok, I can write better than this person”.

Like Peter Elbow, I love that I was trained in classical literature. I love that I had older male professors who walked through the hallowed stone hallways of Wellesley with their beaten leather briefcases full of spindly handwritten lecture notes on texts they knew inside and out. I hung on their every word and considered insights on literature from them to be gold. My literary education definitely felt like a religion at times. These professors were the high priests who knew how to access the secrets of the Gods – Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Plath, Bishop.  I was a lowly servile nun, furiously pouring through scripture looking for the “key”, the secrets that I knew lay beneath the words, if only I was smart or dedicated enough to find them.

But this kind of attitude is completely lost on most of my students. Most of them want to go to college to escape their parents, make money or take steps towards forging a successful career. In many ways, I admire them, they are much more practical than I was in high school. I applied to the best liberal arts schools in the country and honestly, if I had unlimited funds, I would happily just stay in school forever. Learning in and of itself was the gift for me. This may be one of the reasons why I push so hard against the current trends in education to make learning more “skills” oriented. Our learning coordinator (curriculum police, as I quietly refer to her) repeats in all of our planning means, “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t assess it”.

So much of Elbow’s article resonated with me. I have numerous notes that I wrote down in the margins of his paper that I wanted to share with you all, but I want to challenge myself to write about something that makes me slightly uncomfortable: getting kids to read.

Gerald Graffs’ article was a perfect piece to read this week as I have just begun tutoring a sixth grade boy who is a classic “reluctant reader”. His reading teacher has shared with me that he reads at fourth grade reading level and that he likely has undiagnosed ADHD. His father won’t hear of it – he’s a military man who just wants to see his son “buckle down” and start improving his reading scores. “Go hard on him”, he’s told me. “Just hit him with the tough stuff”. Oh boy. What have I gotten myself into, right? Truth be told, I know that I am probably not the best person to be tutoring this child, but I am a friend of the family and none of the other teachers really want to deal with this father any more. So here I am, tutoring a twelve year old four times a week in basic reading skills.

I must admit, I was hoping that Graff’s piece would give me more answers. After all, he too admitted to being a “reluctant reader”. Now the big difference between Graff and my tutee, J, is that J is so much younger than Graff. J is just in 6^th grade, while Graff describes his struggles with reading through high school and college. Most of Graff’s struggle with literature stemmed from his insecurities about not being able to grasp the “critical vocabulary” of literary analysis. J, however, doesn’t have to do literary criticism in sixth grade. In fact, from what I’ve observed, the educational system in middle school is actually perfect for reluctant readers. The sixth grade English team uses book clubs and literary circles to engage kids in reading – that is the social component Graff (and Appleman, last week) mentioned is so necessary to fostering a love of reading. Yet, J still doesn’t like to read. In sixth grades, the kids get to pick their own books – free choice! Another strategy I thought would help foster a love of reading in a reluctant reader. Nope. He just passively picks the books he sees other kids reading and says, “this is good”, but he doesn’t actually care. He doesn’t know what he likes to read and furthermore, it doesn’t even bother him all that much.

I became frustrated. While I appreciate Graff’s points about how literature teachers teach more criticism than actual literature, this information wasn’t helping me get through to my little reluctant reader. Though I must admit, I liked when he wrote “…students who do well in school and college are those who learn to talk more or less like their teachers, who learn to produce something resembling intellectualspeak” (47). I couldn’t help but smile as I recalled the fruitful discussions I had with my students last semester when I taught 1984. Teaching 1984 in Saudi Arabia had to have been one of the more enjoyable experiences of my teaching career. If the Saudi authorities had heard some of our discussions, I am sure I would have been exported in a hot second.

But back to J. How am I going to help this kid not only improve his reading skills but actually come to enjoy reading? I don’t think it is possible to improve reading skills without actually buying in to the process of reading (right guys?). So how do I pull him out of his reluctance to accept reading? 

Graff writes, “reading books with comprehension, making arguments, writing papers, and making comments in a class discussion are social activities….the social conversation that reading, writing and arguing must be part of in order to become personally meaningful”.

J will read if he thinks that reading is meaningful. But right now social activities aren’t doing it for him. So what is missing?

The answer was in front of me the entire time. His father. Two nights ago I was at their house for a few hours tutoring J and when the father came home from work I looked over and saw him relaxing on the couch. What was he doing? Playing on the iPad.

I realized that if I am to get J to read and see reading as an important life activity, I am going to have to get the father to read. I’m a little scared to bring this up to him, he is an intimidating person after all, but I think that this is the key. For the most part, we mimic the behaviors of the people we look up to and respect. Growing up, that was my parents. I loved them and looked up to them. Whenever they got home from work, what did I see them doing? Reading. They were always reading.

This week I finally realized that teaching really is impossible. Because we cannot confine our learning to mere classrooms. If we are to truly master the art of teaching, we must also get into the homes and work directly with parents.  I know that parenting is a tough job. I am sure that most parents at the end of hard working days do not want to sit and do homework with their kids or read books with them. I don’t have kids, but I get it, I really do. But it has to be done.

Cover Photo from Stephen King's inspirational memoir, On Writing.

After reading this book, I finally began to understand that great writers
aren't born, they are made. Writing is hard work, it requires tremendous
discipline and above all, a thick skin. King was rejected hundreds upon
hundreds of times. Yet he kept writing. He writes that he must force himself
to write for a few hours every day and that it is crucial for writers to have an
isolated, quiet space that is only used for writing. 

Week 10: March 7 - 14

Week 10:
March 7 - 14


This week I had a paper due for my online graduate school course. I spent the majority of this week writing sections of the paper and not taking much time for informal, creative or journal writing. Therefore this blog post will be a collection of extracts from my paper. 

The "paper" I had to write, wasn't really even that much of a paper at all in the traditional sense. It is a self-audit: a type of analytical essay that allows for my professor to see how I assess, process and reflect upon my work as a writer. Being a "writer" is an unspoken requirement of our course. We are encouraged to engage in a Daily Discipline of Writing, meaning we must write something every day. It could be poetry, short stories, journal entries, blog posts, screenplays, rants....any form of written expression is allowed (and encouraged). While there are days where this feels like a tedious obligation, for the most part I engage in my Daily Discipline of Writing quite willingly. Sometimes I even find it necessary to preserving my sanity. 

So here are several excerpts from my self-audit, an essay I wrote as a means of assessing and reflecting upon myself as a writer:

This semester I am experimenting a great deal more with my writing style, technique, approach, form and needs. While in Cairo several weeks ago I bought a beautiful hand-bound cloth notebook that I have chosen to use exclusively for creative writing. I have filled approximately thirty pages in it with random creative passages, incomplete story-lines, partially composed poems, detached dialogue and other attempts at honing my skills as a creative writer. I must admit, the impulse to write creatively does not come naturally to me, but I am finding it to be a surprisingly comforting and engaging act. I have also, of course, continued to maintain my usual personal narrative writing practice in the form of journaling. Since January 19th I have filled approximately 40 handwritten pages in my large moleskine notebook (my notebook of choice). This is a typical amount for me. I wrote slightly less during the days I was committed to writing creative fiction, however, I always strived to “return to my roots” and write freely in my journal whenever possible. My journal entries are also accompanied by scraps of images from postcards, magazines and newspapers. I love juxtaposing text with image as I find it inspires and enhances my journal writing. 

At the beginning of the new year I made a commitment to myself to more regularly maintain my blog as a means of holding myself more accountable with regards to writing on a consistent basis (as opposed to writing on impulse, which had been my previous practice). My other motivation for maintaining an updated blog was to keep my parents and family members, without access to or interest in social media, apprised of my life. Since January 1st I have written one blog post a week and I plan to continue this habit throughout the year.  My blog entries range in length from approximately 500-2000 words. They are almost always accompanied by photographs. The writing style of my blog is semi-formal narrative nonfiction. The majority of these blog posts are travel narratives, however, occasionally I will write and reflect upon various ideas and themes that I think about on a consistent basis. Thematic trends in my writing are: independence, self-preservation, defining my life purpose, gratitude, self-acceptance.

I wanted to use this cycle of the DDW to really challenge myself and step outside of my comfort zone as a writer. I can’t just write in journals forever. I have ambitions of publishing a memoir or collection of my travel essays someday. Though I do not believe I have a future as a fiction writer, I found the act of writing stories to be surprisingly rewarding. I relished the opportunity to just make things up and use overly descriptive words in an attempt to paint more vivid pictures through words. I committed to writing creative short stories for the first two and a half weeks of February. Every single day after school I would engage in what I called the “30-30-30”. 30 minutes of running, followed by 30 minutes of yoga, followed by 30 minutes of writing. Creating a timed routine helped hold me accountable and it forced me to maximize my time and write with a sense of urgency and passion. It also prevented me from over-thinking it or judging my own efforts. While it may not be the most appreciative approach to writing, just sitting down and “getting it done” was the attitude I found I needed to adopt in order to most effectively complete my DDW.

After a delightful, but grueling hour of mind-releasing fitness (intense running followed by slow and deliberate yoga is the perfect combination of physical exercises to work my body and calm my mind), I would sit down at my desk and set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes and just write. I would not even give myself time to think, I just put pen to page and let the words drift away. I began writing with a singular image in mind; sometimes it would be a single word or sentence and from there I would let my imagination run away into forming descriptions of people, places or objects. I challenged myself to describe the settings and moments in my stories with as much sensory imagery as possible. I noticed that the majority of my stories contained Arab characters, places and experiences. This make sense. I have always been drawn to the beauty of the Arab world and because I have lived in it for the majority of my life. Even in my nonfiction writing, I feel as though I find a constant source of inspiration in the sights, sounds, smells and flavors of the Arab world.

Interestingly, for all the time I devoted to faithfully sitting down and writing creative fiction,I was never actually able to finish one of my creative short stories. In fact, I was never able to even go back and re-work an aspect of a piece I had already started. I had a narrow, forward-looking lens as I wrote. I would just write continuously, adding in more details and descriptions to the storyline I was pursuing, but I never had any sense of plot. I felt like an artist merely experimenting with color and technique. I would blend various words and phrases together and see what they looked like, and I marveled at the beautiful ways words can work together to capture a feeling or experience, but in the end, my canvas was just a smattering of colors, lines, shapes and sketches, there was no “bigger picture” or masterpiece to be seen in my creative writing practice. As a result of practicing this form of writing, I have developed an even greater sense of appreciation for famous fiction writers like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. How they can work tirelessly year after year on the same story, with the same characters over and over again and juggling all these intersecting plot-lines in their heads at once is beyond me. While I plan to continue writing creative fiction from time to time, I think I will just stick to short stories and narrative essays for now.

I turn to writing as a source of empowerment, as a way to express myself and listen to my own voice. I am too easily influenced by the ideas and opinions of others, but when writing, I truly feel as though I am “the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”. I noticed this same sense of strength and control in the journals of Sylvia Plath as well. She too felt disenfranchised and at a loss of control over her life. Though we differ in that she struggled with depression and the loss of her father, we align in our approaches to writing because we share a fiercely competitive internal compulsion to be the best and impress everyone we meet. Plath discovered her voice through writing in a journal for the majority of her life. True, her prose is much simpler and “to the point” than that of her verse, but I find it to be even more beautiful for its simplicity.

As I look forward to the weeks and months ahead I cannot help but think about all the upcoming changes that are preparing to happen. I am going to be re-build a life for myself in New York City. I will moving to a new city, a new apartment, a new school and a new way of life all on my own. In my younger years I never thought much about companionship. I was always a fiercely independent young girl who relished the opportunity to be a trailblazer and step out into the unknown alone and unhindered. Yet as I’ve grown older and watched my friends and colleagues get married and start building families I cannot help but wonder if I am missing out on something. Most people envy my life. After all, when viewed on paper one cannot help but notice that I have so much in my life to be thankful for: I am free, I am single, I am financially independent, I am young, I am healthy, I am intelligent, I am employed. Yet, I am also alone. Though I describe the benefits of writing to my students, their parents and my colleagues as a way of honing critical thinking skills and engaging in constructive self-reflection, the truth is, we write to feel less alone. Writing is a form of communication and when I pour my heart out onto a blank piece of paper, I cannot help but feel comforted. Though a piece of paper cannot hold me in a warm embrace or provide me with any advice or words of comfort, writing gives me the power to be that source of love for myself.

Week 4: "Educational Inspiration and Professional Irritation"

Week 4: January 20th - January 27th 


"Educational Inspiration"

I am a graduate student again! It feels so good to take a few hours out of my day to be a student. Though I am still a full time teacher and don't have the beautiful luxury of being able to dedicate every second of my attention to my graduate school work, it is still so wonderful knowing that I am back in an intellectually stimulating community. 

I poured over this week's assigned reading with gusto! Printing off the pages upon pages of scholarly material and attacked it with my highlighters and pens. I relished in the art of annotation and carefully composed my reflective commentary to share with my peers. It felt so good to type out my thoughts and "publish" them to a forum of readers that I knew would read them. Though my words were merely my own thoughts and musings, it made me feel good to think that my peers were reading them and possibly gaining insight from my reflections and ideas. I know it is egotistical but I like to think that my writing is impactful. I hope that my words are able to reach and influence others. I see it happening more and more with my students, yet I am beginning to fear that my students almost trust me too much at times and are beginning to value my thoughts and ideas over their own. I certainly did this in high school and in university. I wrote down every single word my teachers' said and looked to them for insight and clarity. What I am learning now in my Master's program is that truth, especially literary interpretation, must come from within and we must steer clear of consulting "experts" on matters of interpretation. Only individuals can extract meaning from texts or works of art. Though we can look to experts to reveal more information and facts about a text or work of art, discovering meaning is a purely personal act. While our experiences, relationships and knowledge may influence our judgements, we must accept that all ideas and opinions are valid. 

Getting back into the reading of academic texts was a struggle at first. I found myself worrying about whether or not I was reading deeply enough into the articles and I had to read and re-read passages over again several times before I felt like "I got it". Yet I enjoyed the challenge and reminded myself, as I always remind my students, that reading is a struggle. If it was easy, it would be pointless. The fact that I had to stop to look up words and re-read passages and write down questions in the margins made the act of reading more meaningful and therefore, more valuable. 

It felt so great to post my reflections on this week's reading materials and watch our online classroom start to blossom with replies and additional commentary responses. I feel so fortunate to be a part of this intellectual community. I am so inspired by each and every single one of my peers. We all have unique personal and educational backgrounds and we are all teaching in very different types of schools, but what unites us is our humility and our fierce desires to be better and to question the educational system in the United States. We notice, wonder and connect our ideas to our readings and our experiences and to one another. It is a beautiful collaborative process and one I feel privileged to be a part of. I get to work and think alongside some of the most interesting and innovative minds in America! 

My one complaint is that we are all learning and collaborating virtually....which is not terrible, but I crave the personal stimulus of face-to-face interactions and dialogue. I can "see" my peers in their distinctive writing voices on our online learning platform (Moodle), yet it is no replacement for seeing them in person. We had such a wonderful time together this summer and I miss that carefree, warm and driven environment we had created for ourselves in the hallowed Teacher's College halls.

Oh how I wish I could be in graduate school full time forever.... 


"Professional Irritation"


This weekend, January 22-24, I joined approximately sixty of my colleagues for a professional development conference in Manama, Bahrain. As the days of the week bore on, my colleagues and I squirmed with excitement at the prospect of doing work over glasses of wine in a more liberal Arab nation! Truth be told, we were really all more interested in the social aspect of this weekend's conference over that of the actual professional development. Yet I think we all thought that the conference would be able to provide us with some "take aways" to help us all strengthen our teaching practices and work together as a team. I have always loved professional development conferences. Even though I find most of what is being talked about to be redundant I can usually find at least some good in everything.

That was not the case this weekend.

The keynote speaker of the conference was boring and the subject of her talks concerned information that I already knew about. This surprised me considering that I am only a fifth year teacher and by no means consider myself an educational expert. Yet as I dispassionately stared at her powerpoint presentation I couldn't help but think, I could be giving this speech. I do not say this often, as I pride myself on being a nerd with the belief that everyone has something to teach, but I was utterly bored out of my mind.

My saving grace was the fact that I was attending this conference with my amazing, bright, inspiring, intelligent and interesting colleagues. We call ourselves "The Dream Team" and I do not exaggerate when I say that working alongside these people I can easily call friends as well as co-workers, is indeed a dream. We all ignored the speaker and made the most of our weekend by working together on our own lessons and units. We were actually quite productive when left to our own devices. Something that never ceases to frustrate me about teaching conferences and workshops is the amount of micromanaging that goes on. I am a teacher, I know how to focus and get to work, I don't need to be shuffled from room to room and reminded of the task or to be given "five minute warnings" -- I'm a grown woman, I have a watch, I'll get there. The people who run teacher trainings treat us like children. I resent the fact that I must be told what to do and when to do it. I am a good teacher and I genuinely love my job. You don't need to tell someone to do something when they love to do it. I know I am unique in this regard. There are many teachers who do not find inspiration in what they do (and unfortunately these are probably the ones going off and getting their PhD's and torturing me with their speeches and expensive conferences). 

I do not mean to insult those hard working educators who do get their PhDs and publish studies and findings and books about "best practices" and "strategies for teaching success" but I am somewhat disdainful of the fact that I am spoken at like I am not a good educator. What really boils my blood is to think that these types of professional development "master" speakers probably (most definitely) get paid THOUSANDS of dollars to spew off their theories. 

I typed the following remarks to my graduate school online forum during the conference while in the throes of irritation:

" Its mind-blowing to me. I am in a conference center with hundreds of other teachers in great international schools in the Middle East, all of whom I am sure have great ideas and innovative ways of approaching learning, and yet we must all now sit silently and listen to a PhD (no offense Adam) published educational curriculum theorist talk AT us about what we should be doing in our classrooms. 

I apologize for my disdainful and snarky remarks. We are all tired and exhausted (from nights of poisoning our livers to days of poisoning our spirits). I just find it incredibly frustrating when people who have not stepped foot in a classroom in DECADES tell me how to teach. A teacher friend of mine from Australia said that in her school district there principals can only be principals for five years at a time and then they must go back to a classroom for a year or two and then can go back to being an administrator. I love that! Don't get me wrong, I am a nerd and I love reading articles and would get several PhDs for fun, if I could, but the people that should be making the most money and should be the ones standing up and telling their stories and theories are teachers. Hard working, red-ink stained finger-tipped, bags under the eyes, young, old, white, black, experienced, inexperienced classroom teachers. 

I admit I was a little "heated" and I was writing from a place of frustration, but my general sentiments still feel true to me.

I work in one of the greatest schools in the world alongside the greatest teachers in the world. I have learned more about teaching after working here during the past two years than I feel I could have ever learned in a non-teaching graduate school classroom. To become a better teacher you must teach. You must stand up in front of other students and through trial and error you will find your rhythm and very quickly discover what works and what doesn't. 

While my experiences at this teaching conference this weekend frustrated me, I have learned from them. 

I have learned that those who can't do, teach and those who can't teach, teach teachers. 

But I, alongside my inspiring cohort of Master's candidates at Teacher's College at Columbia, am going to change all that!

Week 3: "Bright Lights and a Renewed Sense of Hope"

Week 3: January 12th - 20th

I need to be much more dutiful about maintaining my writing practice. Yet I don't want to feel so obliged to my writing that I start churning out forced robotic responses about mundane issues and reflections, but I also don't want to let myself get lazy or too comfortable either. 

My graduate school online course is about to begin and I honestly couldn't be more excited to get back into the swing of things and start reading intellectually-stimulating and challenging journal articles. I look forward to engaging in dialogue with my amazing cohort of like-minded educators who continually inspire me to think more deeply and live more authentically.

Speaking of living authentically, this week I celebrated two very special AIS-R events. The first was something new: the AIS-R Foundation Gala: an expensive evening of fundraising for the school. Celebrated at the beautiful home of our high school principal, the evening felt positively star-studded. Big bulbed bright lights strung haphazardly among the trees of the sunken garden illuminated the cleanly scrubbed and made-up faces of AIS-R parents, faculty and supporters. Everyone was dressed to the nines (where does that expression come from exactly?) and looked phenomenal. The dinner was catered by the Four Seasons and I thought it was absolutely delicious. My favorite dishes were the mushroom soup - rich, aromatic and earthy - and the smoked salmon appetizer. Three people at my table didn't like smoked salmon so I was able to fill myself with three helpings of it! That and my numerous glasses of sweet red wine in the company of my dear friends made for a very joyful, if not hedonistic evening. 

I had spent the few hours leading up to the gala getting ready with my "gals". We did our hair and make up and talked frivolously. It felt like being back in high school again. 

I don't know how much money the gala raised but I am assuming it was quite a hefty load. It got me thinking about the value of an education and how so many people do not see education as an investment. I know that I currently live in an incredibly affluent part of the world and that the parents of my students are able to afford to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on their children's education, but it is more than just money, it is about priorities. The parents of my students could just as easily spend their money on private tutors but they clearly prioritize the educational needs of their children and value the American educational system. All of my students' parents want and expect their children to attend American universities because "they are the best". Wanting the best for your child is not just an American concept. My students' parents come from all over the world. Their businesses and homes and livelihoods have been shaped outside of the United States, which finds me wondering, why do they value an American education so much? 

When I look at American public schools  today I see a wide variety of educational experiences. Some US public schools are phenomenal places of learning that value teachers by paying them well and supporting their professional growth. These schools value their parents and above all, their students. These school's commit to learning and provide safe, caring and supportive environments for all to thrive. Other schools do not. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are those US public schools that intimidate their teachers, belittle students and criticize parents. This is particularly true in impoverished school districts - namely, the ones who need the most support and encouragement. 

Why is this? Why does this happen? What is to account for the severe gap between the privileged and underprivileged? Is it really just money? Or is it something else? 

....I feel myself slipping into a discussion about socioeconomic inequalities in the United States and while I do consider this to be a worthy topic of reflection, I feel as though it is rather heavy and detracting from the original intention I had for this post. So I apologize socioeconomic gap but you are just going to have to wait. 

Fast forward to January 20th. 

One of my most favorite AIS-R days of the year....

The Terry Fox Run! 

Earlier this year I made a commitment to myself to get into better shape through running. I have started off slowly and over the past few weeks have been making better progress with my speed and distance. The Terry Fox run at our school was a short run, just a little over 2 miles. The real Terry Fox ran approximately a marathon a day! His goal was to run from the Eastern coast of Canada to the Western coast. He dipped his foot into the Atlantic and set running off for the Pacific. He was just barely 21 years old. His story is heartbreaking, but I never tire of hearing it. Diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 18 Terry Fox's life as a normal and ordinary Canadian teenager was changed for ever. He came up with the idea of running across Canada as a way to garner attention for cancer research. Cancer in the late 80s didn't have the tremendous support or attention that it has today. Nowadays there are numerous walks, runs, marathons, events and fundraisers for cancer research, but back in Terry's time, it was still quite a hush hush issue. He made his illness and the struggle to find a cure for cancer public and inspired a generation of kids to stand up for causes he believed in. 

I tear up almost every Terry Fox day thinking about him and his story. He never got to finish his run across Canada. He died a few hundred miles before reaching the finish line. Though he did manage to run the equivalent distance of Miami to Seattle (which shockingly is only just slightly more than halfway across Canada). 

Every year the Terry Fox run reminds me to stop complaining. To step up and take action. To quit whining. To feel more grateful. I had lots of students coming up to me telling me they couldn't run because "they were sick", "they had bad shoes", "they were tired"....I smiled and half-jokingly looked at them and said, "Terry Fox had progressive cancer and only one leg and he ran about a marathon a day, what's your excuse again?". 

But Terry Fox didn't run across Canada on one leg to make others feel guilty about not running. He ran because that is all he knew how to do. He wasn't the smartest, best looking or most creative person, but he had a passion and a vision of a better world and he did what he could. We don't have to be perfect. We don't even have to succeed, but we do have to try and we do have to give it everything we've got. 

Adventures in Coaching

This past weekend (5 days total, actually) I travelled to Kuwait with my JV Girls Volleyball team. Fortunately, I was not by myself! I had my good friend, Liz, by my side (she is the coach of the JV Boys) and the two Varsity volleyball coaches as well. We all looked out for each other and supported one another during a very challenging, but very "educational" tournament. I say educational because I think we all learned a great deal, not only about volleyball but about life, competition and our selves. 

The tournament was exhausting. I was responsible for the well-being and care and safety of 8 teenage girls all under the age of 16. We were staying in a hotel in Kuwait city and traveling to the school daily as well as venturing to two shopping malls. I felt like a parent. I was constantly on alert and always moving and looking around to count my babies and ensure that they all looked happy and safe.

At first I was nervous about our tournament. I did not have four of my starting players and I was nervous that the players I did have with me weren't experienced enough to make it through a grueling three day tournament. Yet my girls worked their hearts out and came through to win third place. An incredible feat considering that the competition was at a much higher level than they are used to here in Riyadh. Though we had secured a gold metal for ourselves during our local Riyadh schools tournament, I honestly went to Kuwait hoping for fifth place! 

Every single day my players improved. They grew so much as a team and as individual players in just three days. I was so proud of them and they worked hard to earn that third place medal. The two teams that got 1st and 2nd place were definitely more experienced than my girls, so I didn't feel bad seeing them advance to the finals. I have very high hopes for the girls next year...

Though it severely breaks my heart to know that I won't be the one pushing them through to victory next year...

Some Coaching Musings/Reflections Inspired by the Trip:

* Children need constant support, affirmation, attention and encouragement. Boys and girls. No matter how young or old. Children come off as "needy" for a reason, because as they are growing and coming to shape their identities and purposes in the world, they need to feel supported in their journey to self-discovery. The best teaching/coaching advice my father ever gave me was if a child is begging for your attention, give it to them! 

* Boys often need more attention and love than girls do. Girls can cry openly and express their emotions more freely without fear of being labelled as a "sissy" or any other undermining term. As a result, boys bottle a lot of their emotions up over time and during stressful or emotional events, like competitive sports tournaments, they need to be shown affection and support or else they will crack. 

* As an international school teacher in Saudi Arabia, I feel as though usual teacher-student boundaries don't apply to me or my colleagues. My students know where I live, they see me at the gym, they see me lounging around the pool, they see me buying groceries...due to the fact that Westerners are confined to private compounds and complexes, our bubble is quite small and students and teachers know a lot more about what is going on in one another's lives than anywhere else in the world, I suspect. My students look up to me as more than just a teacher -- I serve as a mentor, a guide, a coach, a counsellor, a mom, a sister, a friend even to many of the children at this school. While almost all teaching manuals and guides warn teachers against being "friends" with their students, I cannot help but feel as though it is inevitable in a place like this. Though I don't consider my students to be my friends (because friends are people I hang out with casually, on purpose, outside of school) , I have heard many students refer to me as "their friend". We have been forced to think a lot about setting stronger boundaries with our students here - mainly in light of the Jakarta International School sexual assault scandal, but I cannot help but feel as though being friendly and open with our students is the only way to get through to them and help them engage in learning while living in such a harsh and socially restrictive country. 

This had made me think: is it such a wrong thing to have your students see you as a complete and whole person? To see your strengths as well as your weaknesses? To see you at your best and at your worst? Doesn't it promote a sense of trust and open-ness for teachers and students to be honest with one another? 

Is it possible for a teacher to remain an authority figure while also showing her vulnerable side? 

I believe the answer to all of these questions is yes. I am a good teacher because my students trust me and the reason they trust me is because I don't hide anything from them. I am honest with them and serve as an authority in their lives by acting as a role model as opposed to a dictator. However, I must admit, that I feel alone in this at times. My idea of a perfect teacher is not that of an "authority" but rather, as a collaborator or guide. 

Me and my JV Volleyball Girls after winning GOLD at our local Riyadh tournament

Me and my girls after winning BRONZE in Kuwait tournament

Happy Boys. Celebrating third place win and a birthday

My mini-me. This little girl just throws her heart and soul into everything.

One of Liz's players turned 15 on the trip. We bought him a cake....

Regretfully....because all the girls ended up getting caked....

Caked Coaches...

Our last day in Kuwait....enjoy the sunshine and chance to relax....

Teacher Post: Proud Writing Moment

Though it has been over 3 months since I was immersed in graduate school work at Columbia University Teacher's College, I have remained invigorated by the methods and ideas I learned about this past summer. The last course I took as a part of my Master's program was called "The Teaching of Writing" and it was, without a doubt,  the most challenging course of the summer, but also the most rewarding and beneficial to me as a teacher. 

Reading and writing is a significant weakness among many of my students at the international school I work at here in Riyadh. While I have a handful of rock stars and a fair share of "solid" students in all of my classes, I have many students who struggle with basic literacy skills. As a high school literature teacher, it is technically not my job to teach reading comprehension or foundational language skills, however I find myself deviating from my prescribed lesson plans often in order to address some of these more pressing issues. 

One of my biggest challenges as an English teacher is getting students to articulate their thinking through writing. One of the most rewarding parts of my education this summer was using the online blended learning platform, Moodle, as a way to further intellectual discourse. I was thrilled about this because we use Moodle in our school as a supplement to our classroom teaching, so while in class this summer I begin thinking, why not try this kind of learning with my students? 

My fear was that by asking my students to write free-form "commentaries" (a partially analytical, partially personalized piece of writing about a text: in my case, Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes) they would either not take the assignment seriously or they would plagiarize off one another and write really superficial statements. Yet that is not what happened. When I asked my students to respond to a piece of poetry in an authentic and personal manner by commenting on the things they "noticed, wondered and connected to", I received a remarkable number of sincere and interesting responses.  

*The "notice/wonder/connect" directive for analyzing literature comes directly from the course I took at the Lincoln Center Institute as part of my Masters Program at Teachers College. 

In addition to having my students write commentaries, I also required that they "reply" to at least one commentary written by a peer. I asked them to be considerate and ensure that every student receives at least one reply. I even told them that I would award bonus points if they replied to more than one commentary. 

The following morning when I sat down to check their work, I was astounded by the number of replies each student wrote to one another, the depth and personal connections made in their commentaries and the types of encouraging remarks they wrote to one another in their replies. Students who are usually more reserved and held back made incredible strides in revealing personal thoughts and connections to the text. 

I've copied/pasted one particularly interesting commentary along with the 6 replies this student received. I have removed the names of the students to protect their privacy, but hopefully the substance of the information will prove to be just as meaningful anonymously. The original post commentary was written by one of my lowest students. She works incredibly hard but she is just lacking in some essential reading, writing, and analytical thinking skills. She is, interestingly enough, one of the only native English speakers in the class however. 

Here is the work I am so proud of my students for producing: 

Upon re-reading the extract below I realize that this work may not seem like an incredibly inspiring or interesting piece of student writing, but I am still so proud of it nonetheless. This is one of my lowest classes and yet here they are -- proudly proclaiming their thoughts and reactions to a complicated text and supporting one another in their writing and thinking. To me there is nothing more beautiful or gratifying than having students support and encourage one another in their learning. 

Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by M - Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 7:55 PM

In the poem “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, I noticed there was a lot of imagery and similes used throughout the poem. Hughes uses “sags like a heavy load”, “crust and sugar over - - like a syrupy sweet” and a lot more phrases like that to help us picture what a put off dream might look like. When I picture these things I get bad, horrible, nasty, and gross pictures in my head.

     What I wonder about this poem is, did he write this based on something that happened, either to him or someone else, in real life? Why is this topic important to him? Did he write this to show people what could happen if they put off a dream? This made me wonder more about the importance of dreams. These questions also made me think if I had put off a dream.

     I can connect this poem with my own life, Escape from Camp 14, and the book/movie The Maze Runner. I can connect the poem to my life because I have dreams about what I want to do later in life which I might or might not do. Everybody has dreams of what they want to do later on in life, so I guess everyone can connect to this poem. This poem connects to Escape From Camp 14 because Shin had a dream of living in the U.S. the rest of his life but that didn’t happen. In The Maze Runner the main characters want to remember what their lives were like before being sent into “the maze” but they can’t remember major stuff.

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by - Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 8:08 PM

I like the way you connected the poem not only to yourself, but also to other books such as Escape from Camp 14, and the book/movie The Maze Runner. I especially like that way you asked questions pertaining to to reasons for the publication of this poem and if it had anything to do with Hughes' personal life. Great Job!

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by - Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 9:00 PM

What I liked the most in M's analysis is her last paragraph especially when she connected the thoughts in Hughes's poem to Escape from Camp 14, the book which we have already read. Her connection is really great, and I did not expect to read such a connection in any of my classmates' analyses.  

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by - Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 10:30 PM

I really agree with you about the necessity to know the background of this poem to fully understand Hughes' motivation to write this poem. There are many ways of interpreting this poem, which all are reasonable, but it is difficult for readers to understand the writer's reason of writing this piece. I found your connection to different novels and movies interesting, compared to most of our connections to lives of students. I'll definitely have to try out the Maze Runner :)

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 10:41 PM

i really liked the way that you concentrated a lot on how the poem relates to you on a personal level. i also like the fact that you included many questions in your commentary about the things you wonder about. I would suggest that you add a little more analysis on the literary devices.

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by  - Thursday, 23 October 2014, 8:59 AM

 I like how you made several connections and how you added your only personal thoughts and questions. I would say you need to add more to your analyzes on literally devices. 

Re: Dream Deferred - M's Commentary

by Thursday, 23 October 2014, 9:59 AM

I agree with the analysis of the poem and how people connect their life with the poem but I don't agree that Shin, the storyteller of "Escape From Camp 14" is related to this poem because he did what he has to do but he just thought South Korea would be better than America. (He didn't defer what he had to do)