Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms.

A little birdie told me that February 6, 2013 is Digital Learning Day. Okay, it wasn’t a bird exactly; it was more like Twitter. I learned about Digital Learning Day while reading through my Twitter feed. (How savvy am I? Truth? Not super savvy for someone with a blog and an online column.)

Digital learning is hot. The education world is abuzz with talk of how iPads, virtual field trips, and connecting with schools on other continents via the Internet are going to change the face of classroom instruction as we know it. Watch out! Here comes technology!

Everywhere you look on the street, it seems like younger and younger children have smartphones and are plugged in in ways I could never have imagined. Just watching my two and a half year old navigate her way around an iPhone is alarming. (And thrilling. But mostly just alarming.)

And then I go into a typical classroom. In the corner of the room are three outdated desktops, two of which no longer work, and while the third works it isn’t hooked up to the printer (but the printer’s actually out of toner, so what difference does it make?).

Hi disconnect, nice to meet you.

As a result, I find myself intrigued by the idea of digital learning, but never consider seriously how it might impact my instruction. Sometimes, I’m intimidated by it—when am I going to find the time to learn how to use all of this cool new stuff? When will all of this cool new stuff be made available to me? What if I’m never as comfortable with all of this new technology as I am with a book and my Post-it notes? What’s wrong with a marker and chart paper anyway?

Sound familiar?

And then last week happened.

I went into a school piloting the use of iPads in the classroom. Every second grader had an iPad. Seriously, it was like a sea of iPads—I had to hold my hand up to my eyes to shade them from the glare of all those shiny, shiny screens. Once I stopped squealing, I got a little nervous. After all, without any warning about this major technological shift, I had to demonstrate a reading lesson in front of a bunch of kids reading on iPads and teachers who were ready to learn something new.

photo: Johan Larsson via photopin cc

Granted, I have an iPad and am comfortable with it for my own personal use (read: Words With Friends and checking my blog) but in front of these eager faces, I was afraid that I would screw up the lesson, that I would stumble too much and lose their attention, that I would come off as less knowledgeable. Needless to say, I was also sweating at this point, so there was that too.

But, as you well know, in the world of the elementary school, there isn’t a second to spare, so I had to put on my big girl panties, take my place on the rug and get started. The lesson flowed along nicely because fortunately I was focusing on an objective that transcended how students read. But, as I began to work one-on-one with children, modeling reading conferences with a gang of teachers behind me taking notes, my pulse quickened again.

In my first conference, a student and I discussed his thoughts and reactions to the text as he read. He was feeling frustrated by a character in his reading. He shared that he was frustrated with Junie B. Jones (which he was reading on iBooks) because she never seemed to learn her lesson and kept getting into trouble. After reading several books about Junie, this smart cookie was noticing a pattern in the behavior of the character. My instinct was to help this smarty to record his reactions by highlighting specific moments in the text and jotting his thinking. But how do you highlight again? And jotting? Could he handle jotting on the iPad? Could I?

I went for it and explained my idea and why I thought it would help him as a reader. And then I (gasp) admitted that I wasn’t completely sure how he would mark the text in the ways I had described. Unfazed, my friend said, “Oh, let me show you.” Then he modeled highlighting and note taking within the iBooks application. For me. He modeled for me. After shooting his teacher an impressed look, I quickly modeled right back, showing this young reader how to apply this bit of technological savvy in ways that would record and push his thinking as a reader.

You guys, we both learned something.

Later, his teacher reported back that this young man had then gone on to model for everyone not only how to highlight and record notes in iBooks, but how to use this strategy to record a reader’s reactions to specific lines of text.

And I die.

Bottom line? The technological capacity may not be in your classroom today, but it’s coming. And it means change, which is always a little scary. But if this moment was my glimpse into the power of digital learning, then I say game on.

Mrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.



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Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms.

Let me begin with a bit of a disclaimer…While you are reading this in the first moments of 2013, please know I am writing this just days after that tragic day at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT.

I want to make a joke or two followed by something I hope you find relevant to your daily lives as teachers. I want to say something a little saucy and slightly over the line to make you laugh at the end of a long day. But I just don’t have it in me right now.

I’m sure you understand. Everything feels heavy. Perhaps because this happened in an elementary school of all places, perhaps because I am a teacher and I know what six is, perhaps because this happened too close to home for me, or perhaps because I am a mommy.

Does it matter?

Each month I try to think about a topic from our everyday classroom experiences and look at it in a new light. I do this mostly for selfish reasons as I have a perverse need to constantly have a project, but I hope some of you are able to get something out of it too. Right now, all I can think about is those teachers who were and are heroes. I imagine what that day must have been like, the thoughts that raced through their heads, their instinct to protect and act quickly and selflessly.

Among other things, this event is a cry for us to rethink how we address mental health in our country and in our schools. It is time to provide the support and guidance teachers need to more successfully deal with what appears to be a growing number of children with particular social and emotional needs all while teaching a reading lesson.

photo: networkosaka via photopin

But, for the teachers out there who are currently working with children who have mental health issues, I want you to rethink “being a hero.” I am talking about “being a hero” in the sense that I know many of us out there are afraid to ask for help when we are truly struggling with controlling or reaching a student. Many of us think that we were given this class and take pride in being able to handle things on our own. Others are afraid to admit they want help because they work in a school culture where teachers feel like they have to “prove themselves.”

It is not a sign of your failure as a teacher if you are unable to provide the type of environment our students suffering from mental illness deserve. You were not prepared for this. You are a hero even if you ask for help (and maybe especially if you ask for help).

So gather your class around you. Share a book together. Share your favorite memories from the school year thus far. And share the load by asking for help and making it known that teachers need support and guidance when working with children who struggle socially or emotionally.

You are already a hero.

Mrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms.

Teaching is an emotional thing. There is the joy you feel when your students master a new concept, the frustration you feel when they look at you like you’re speaking in tongues, the nervousness you feel before the first day, and the relief you feel when their little fannies walk out the door on the day before a vacation. But you know the one emotion that doesn’t get enough attention as it relates to the lives of teachers?

Panic.

Yeah, I said it. Panic. Teachers feel panic. And you know what? I think a little panic makes us better teachers. A little panic never hurt anyone.

We have a huge responsibility as teachers. You know, we work to create thoughtful citizens, we instill a love of reading and help children curate an identity as readers, we expose children to new ideas, we encourage teamwork and inventive problem solving….all while holding our pee for eight solid hours and never sitting down. That is INTENSE!

I begin the year with energy, with plans, with enthusiasm, with ideas, with the calm that only comes from a few weeks spent on the beach. As the year progresses, and September becomes October, I feel accomplishment as my little friends are settled into our routines nicely and are shaping up to be a lovely group. As October slips into November and then December comes out of nowhere, the panic begins to set in. I have to get my students to hit what benchmark as readers? And why has that particular group of friends seemed to stall in their progress? What happened to my organized conferring notes? Where should I go to find new and exciting titles? And has anyone seen my To-Do list…I thought I put it right here…you can’t miss it—it’s five pages long and double sided.

photo: net_efekt via photopin cc

Panic.

Just yesterday, I sat with a group of teachers who were deep into their annual panic. They were hungry for new titles to share with their classes, for ideas to use to ramp up the effectiveness of their reading conferences, and for new tricks to better organize their mountains of notes and data. And that’s when I realized—the panic made each of these teachers better than they ever imagined they could be. The panic created a sense of urgency that did not consume these teachers; rather, it pushed them to work harder to see results and improve their own practice in significant ways.

So as the holidays approach and your own sense of personal and professional panic come to a jolly head, take a breath and recognize that this panic is making you a total rock star.

Mrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.



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