I love reading and writing and want to pass that love on to my students.
I want them to love reading and writing because when you love doing something – you do it better.
I want them to dive deep into pages
And lose themselves in colorful worlds
Created from black and white text.
They want me to make sure the assigned standards are covered on schedule.
I want them to read for fun and pleasure
But also to have their minds expanded,
To live other lives:
Other eras, other places, other people,
Real and imaginary
That will bring them back to their lives
A little wiser.
I want them to chose freely and without restriction
From all the books they might be interested in.
I want them to share books and stories and essays and poems
Together, too, though,
Because there is value and insight to be gleaned
From sharing our thoughts about what we read with each other.
I want them to know that reading is an interaction
Between reader and text,
That you should try hard to listen to the writer
But then you are free to question the writer,
To disagree with or argue with the writer –
Even if they are long dead.
I want them to ask questions and to discuss those questions
In a way that brings new insight and truth to their reading.
I want them to ask good questions about what they read.
I want reading to change their lives.
They want them to read and answer the questions
In the textbook or the assessment or the state test
And get the one right answer
That shows they can think
The way the corporation that wrote the questions
Wants them to think
About the limited, approved books and texts
They allow students to read.
I want my students to know they have things to say,
To feel in their bones and in their hands and minds the need to say them well.
I want them to know that the things they have to say matter – because they matter.
I want them to know that writing is more than compliance to a set of instructions,
That writing can be a way of finding out what you think,
Spelunking down into a cave of ideas not knowing what you’ll find
Waiting at the dark cool floor below,
But that writing can also be knowing what you want to say
And making a series of choices as a writer to say it well,
That writing means caring enough to mess around with your writing in a very untidy way,
Like a three-year-old filling up a page with finger paints.
Generating ideas from the rich soil of experience,
Growing images and metaphors,
Harvesting words.
Then making words soar
And finding the best way for them to flow in the air currents.
Trying to get it all just right.
No. To get it as good as you can,
Knowing you that since there is no one right way to write,
You might change your mind about what just right means
Later.
They want my students to write about things
They don’t care about
In order to make their performances measureable
On a 6 point or 8 point or 10 point or 12 point rubric
So that they can meet the demands of the writing test.
I want to give reading and writing
To be inquiry and exploration
About things that really matter:
Happiness, success, power,
Points of view and good character,
Voice and meaning and purpose.
I want what we do to matter to them in the now,
And in the future.
They want me to teach the way the textbook tells me to teach
And to address approved thematic topics
That don’t matter much to kids
But are just a gimmick that will supposedly engage them.
Oh, wait. This just in:
Thematic Units are out. Now we just teach genres.
Can’t have them thinking about Big Ideas too much.
I want them animated
Sitting together in clumps of kids
Discussing, debating, questioning, connecting.
They want them in neat rows in dead silence.
Do not look at another students test.
I will tell you when there are 10 minutes left.
I want to be a teacher they remember.
I want to be a teacher who makes a difference.
I want my classroom to be magical,
A place of growth and discussion and insight and joy.
I want to be creative and help my kids to be creative.
They want me do as I’m told,
Which involves me telling kids to do as they’re told.
I want to teach for life.
I want my classroom to be a laboratory
For thinking, reading, writing, and being,
For learning how to learn,
For trying to understand
How we understand
What we think we understand.
I want to create intellectually healthy people
Who think and question
And exhibit skepticism
Even about their own thoughts
Not just other people’s.
I want to help nurture
Expansive thinkers who can think in new ways
And think new thoughts,
Incite new insights,
And create and collaborate.
They want students who can think
In the proscribed ways the standards tell them to think,
And do not deviate from those ways of thinking,
Who can answer questions to please the algorithm
So that the data will look good
For the teachers, the school, the district, the state.
I want to help my students be vibrant human beings
Who are alive and aware,
Who can find their passions
And use them to create, not just into security for themselves,
But a better world.
They want to create compliant employees
And unthinking consumers with zero sales resistance
Who will keep the economy rumbling along.
They want to feed them to the machine.
I want to throw a wrench in it.