SlICE OF LIFE #3/31- I LOST THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL

I lost the instruction manual. You know, the one the hand you when you have kids (or in my case, adopt kids), with a chapter on what you should expect at each age. What problems you might encounter. How you should respond.

I used the manual when I needed to talk to little league football coaches. Because even though I am a really strong, capable woman, talking to male coaches kind of feels like a dad job. But we don't have a dad at our house. So I consulted the manual and I did ok.

I used it when the boys started middle school. Such a weird age. Kids growing into themselves. Struggling to fit their new bodies. Trying on new personalities. Preying on each other. Sometimes being just plain mean. I used my manual those days when I picked up my guys, and their shoulders were slumping, and I could tell that the world of tweendom had been just a bit much. The chapter on listening helped a lot then.

I used the manual when the boys were ready for driver's permits. I drove them to drivers' ed, handed over my keys so they could spend the day on the road course, and smiled bravely as I said, "Have a good day, sweetie." I consulted the manual again in those first days when I was driving with them. And did the best I could be quiet and let them steer their way toward independence. The chapter on keeping your mouth shut and letting kids learn from their mistakes was really good.

But now, in these last couple of months, I seem to have lost the manual. Teen #1 hates school, spends most of his time in his bedroom, seems to have lost his passion for the things he has always loved most. Teen #2 has had a girlfriend for fourteen months, a delightful young woman that I adore. When he is not with her, he plays video games online with friends. The boys talk to each other and to their friends, but not to me.

And I wish I would find that manual. I need the chapter on how to advise your fifteen year old about his girlfriend, who now has his last name as hers on his facebook page. And the one that tells you what to do to support your teenager as he prepares for his senior year and leaving home. And the one that tells you how to talk to them when they respond with little more than monosyllables and grunts. I really need that manual. Because I miss my guys.

SLICE OF LIFE #2/31

It's March 2nd, Dr. Seuss' birthday. We didn't celebrate at my school this year- too busy with another "special event." Other years, though, I have been at schools where we have done it up big- every class decorated their door like their favorite Dr. Seuss book, people from the community came to read, big kids read to little kids, Dr. Seuss art projects and readers' theaters. At one school, every class came to the cafeteria for birthday cake. Not sure how much it actually did toward helping kids become better readers, but it was definitely big fun…

Dr. Seuss holds a special place in my heart, because HOP ON POP is the first book I can ever remember being able to read. Do you remember the last page? The one with the big yellow circle and the streams of words in red letters? I remember, so clearly, laying on my stomach on my bed, in my pink bedroom on Chelton Road, and being able, all of a sudden, to pick out the individual words in that circle. And taking it to my mom and showing her that I could read. I had other favorite Dr. Seuss books- GO DOG GO (Do you like my hat?), GREEN EGGS AND HAM (I do not like them Sam I Am!), ARE YOU MY MOTHER, HORTON HEARS A WHO, and THE SNEETCHES, but HOP ON POP will always hold a special place in my heart.

I began teaching in the days when teachers spent hours and hours and hours putting up bulletin boards. The summer before I started teaching first and second grade at Boston Primary School, I spent the entire summer, I think, coloring a gigantic Pat sitting on a cactus (No, Pat, no, don't sit on that!), the Sneetches, Sam I Am, and the Cat in the Hat. The first day, we made Cat in the Hat puppets, and little booklets from the "No, Pat, No!" section of HOP ON POP. The second day, I think, we cooked green eggs and ham.

Now, almost 30 years later, I've taught hundred and hundred of kids. I've fallen in love with thousands of authors. I've probably read a million books aloud to kids. This fall, I spent a lot of time in a first grade class, with a teacher that I'm mentoring. And I read those six-year-olds HOP ON POP and GO DOG GO and GREEN EGGS AND HAM. We made Cat in the Hat puppets and did readers' theater. We cooked green eggs and ham. Because some books should be rites of childhood.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

WRITE BESIDE THEM

Penny Kittle is a high school teacher from New Hampshire. 

She writes. With her students. Every single day.

She is a mom.

And she has written four books- INSIDE WRITING (with Don Graves), THE GREATEST CATCH, and PUBLIC TEACHING. 

I'm just finishing Kittle's newest book, WRITE BESIDE THEM, and it's terrific. Kittle takes us right into her classroom at Kennett High School. She shares vignettes. She shares mini-lessons. She shares her writing. She shares kids' writing. She shares the forms she uses with kids. This book is so, so helpful. And so, so readable. And so, so inspiring. And there's a DVD that goes with it.

Kittle believes that writers need to write lots and to be expected to produce high quality finished products. They need to do this in classrooms where the teacher is also writing, struggling and learning, and producing high quality finished products. Kittle believes, adamantly, that writers need feedback that is both supportive and challenging.  Kittle believes that kids need to be allowed to work on a piece until they believe it the very best it can be, until they believe it is finished.

Most of all, Kittle believes, that teachers and kids must write for real reasons and purposes. She closes her book by telling the story of Gary Millen, teacher and football coach at Kennet High School, who has a heart attack and dies one Friday afternoon after school. Kittle uses writing to help her students work through this experience. She helps kids write stories to share with Millen's family and at the memorial services. A crowd of 1500 attend his memorial, which is held in the gymnasium at the high school. Kittle closes her book with these lines:

What is writing for? What do we teach and why? It can't be only for next year-- or college-- or the April test. Sometimes it is for now: a path through dark days. We teach life writing, not school writing, life writing in all its complexities: the tools for the tasks we can't anticipate. It is about this day-- this lesson-- what students can reach for that will matter-- for the lives stretched out before them peppered with joy and loss.

What power-- what importance-- lies in the blank lines of an open notebook.

Go and fill yours.

Then share.

Penny Kittle is an amazing teacher- someone who obviously cares hugely about kids and writing. Penny Kittle is a brilliant writer and storyteller- passionate, serious, also very funny.

I wish I taught next door to Penny Kittle. I wish I was in a writing group with her. I wish she was my best friend. Penny Kittle is definitely one of my heroes.