IRD: Are You a Real Teacher? Or Do You Just Homeschool?

Last year, teaching for the Institute for Reading Development was all-encompassing.
This year, it is part of what I'm doing. There are other parts as well.

The work itself has become more interesting because I understand the curriculum enough now to modify it (slightly) as needed to fit the real people seated in front of me. And this means that I have begun to think about individual students more, and try to figure out what makes them tick--at least as far as their reading goes. For example, is that middle school kid who is trying to outcool everyone a problem-child? Or is he sorely lacking in confidence in his abilities?

Whereas last year, I was struggling mightily to just master the curriculum, so that I only had time for a few fleeting thoughts about students, this year as I sat down to write my Book Level Assessments (pre-Reading through Grade 5), and my Book Level Recommendations (Grade 6 - Adult), I enjoyed being able to summon the face of each student (with help from my seating chart) and with it a sense of the reader and the person.

There are still some things that I am still surprised and nonplussed by when I encounter them. For example, people parading into class late week after week, even though they have paid tuition for the course, and even more puzzling, people who pay and then don't show up. Period. Strange.

Adults these days!

And then there are the parents who walk in with a chip on their shoulder. Despite my string of degrees, I will never be good enough to teach their Johnny or Suzy, the one going into honors English, you know. They demand: "Are you a real teacher?!"

I am always tempted to say, "Why, no! I'm a holographic teacher. You know, like the doctor on Star Trek Voyager." But then, I would hope that most people who love Star Trek would not be that dismissive and disrespectful. There are quite a few parents I have encountered who don't have their manners very solidly pinned on.

This year, I had a parent overhear my conversation with two homeschooled students about how I homeschooled my own son. She didn't talk to me. She didn't clarify her notions. She called the company and complained that I obviously "couldn't handle the class" because I was a "homeschooled teacher." Of course I couldn't, but it would have been great to walk up to her and talk about Abigail Adams, one of the most intellectually astute women in American history, who was also a "homeschool teacher."

By the way, the two homeschooled kids in that class, the ones deprived of "real" teaching? They are among the best readers in the class. Figures.

I have no idea what the IRD teacher support staff think about complaints like this one. My teacher supervisor asked me directly: "Are you a homeschool teacher?" Well, yes, but like most homeschool moms, or like moms in general, that's not all I have done my whole life.

It is at these kinds of moments that I have to repress that part of my that wants to list all of my degrees, honors, publications, and my annual income. But it would be dishonorable of me to play that kind of "one-up the Joneses" game. So I just smile and say, "Yes, I'm a real teacher. Yes, I did homeschool my son. And I still miss it."

And that is true.
I still miss it very much.

Oh, My Aching Feet! IRD Reprise

I wasn't going to teach reading this summer.



Last year gave me much "rich experience" and it also meant that I had no summer weekends, and aching feet. My arthritis--part of a larger medical condition--means that standing for hours on the concrete-based floors of classrooms is murder on my feet. After two full days of teaching last summer, I'd come home limping and almost lame. I'd lose whole days off sitting with my feet up. Teaching requires lots of standing, bending, twisting, and walking. Only in the Jewish context is it done sitting at a table with students.

I loved the teaching, but I hated the pain. And the weekends away from my family. And the lost Sabbaths.



So, when the company, the Institute of Reading Development, sent out the re-application paperwork, I studiously ignored it. I filed it in the recycle bin and promptly emptied it.

Not this summer. I was planning a summer of working on my dissertation proposal and getting the guest room/library (formerly the Chem Geek Princess's room) organized. THAT would be enough.



Sigh. I am an accomodating midwesterner transplanted to manana land. It's very difficult to say "no" and stick to it when they e-mail me saying how much they want me. Especially when I believe in the program and know it works for students. And extra-especially when I get such a charge out spending time with kids of all ages and books. It's addictive.



I tried. I e-mailed back to my last summer's teaching supervisor, saying that I liked the work, but that I was unwilling to teach on Saturdays. She e-mailed back saying that, unfortunately, they had already split classes for the first five weeks on Saturday afternoon, BUT that they would work very hard to accomodate my need during the second five weeks.



The next gambit: I would like to teach, but it would need to be part time. By return e-mail, IRD said they needed a half-time teacher in New Mexico, as they had already hired a full-time person.



I caved, glutton for feet-punishment that I am.

It is almost three quarter's time this first term, and I have almost every level of course IRD offers. That's exciting.

I got out the wool socks to cushion my feet. (I know it's summer, but they help). I went through re-training--which was a much more pleasant experience than the marathon first training.



I started Saturday afternoon. I have had full classes with great kids, ranging from the sweet eagerness of pre-K to mid-school age, ones who are shy or social, resistant and/or thoughtful. And now that I understand the IRD scope and sequence, I find that I can focus on them and their issues in ways I could not last year. I feel the flow of the class sequence, and I can enjoy the process with the students, quickly able to ascertain which ones need to move (two so far), which ones need a firm hand, and which ones need to be encouraged to talk.



I am beginning to feel like an experienced IRD teacher.



But, Oh! My aching feet. And this year, Oh! My aching knees.
(RA has the nasty habit of progressing).

The lifting of heavy boxes, the crouching by a table to encourage a little one to speak up, the twisting between desks to listen to a second-grader lisp through an Easy Reader passage: these all take their toll.

Teaching is for young people.

And those who wear Z-Coils.

I am about to be among the latter. The volunteer choir coordinator at our synagogue (and her husband) both swear by them. They say that they can go through a whole day standing and still go dancing that night.



I have been thinking about Z-Coils for a while anyway.

But I have resisted. I don't want to wear "old lady shoes" when I am not yet (quite) fifty.

Never mind that I have already outlived the lifespan of a pioneer woman, and have yet to develop wrinkles! (I keep my fair Eastern European complexion out of the high-elevation New Mexico sun. I have always envied the brown beauty of the easy-tanning complexions. But, alas, I did not choose my ancestors).



But Z-Coils have gone from one or two utilitarian styles, to a range of colors and styles--from sandals, to hiking boots, to walking shoes! I went on line this morning, and saw several possibilities.



So, I'm soon off to Z-Coil. I've got to get me some of these . . .



My grandma never wore shoes like this.
But then, sensible at fifty, she never hiked Sedillo Canyon with two dogs in tow, either!

An Aspie Approach to an Unending Controversy

I think the flag of the United States is beautiful.
Upon returning to the US from foreign lands, I enjoy most hearing "Welcome home," when I go through the passport check, and the sight of Old Glory, bright and bold, gracing the skies of my homeland. There is a place in my heart that swells with love and pride when I see it, waving in the wind. It is the love of the ideals upon which this country was founded that moves me, as well as pride for the genius of the founders who crafted this intentionally oppositional system of government in order to safeguard my liberty.

And at the same time, I have never considered that flag to be more than a symbol of something else. "It's a flag," I think, "It's not a god, it's not the Constitution, and it's not the nation itself." I think about this every time a new flap about the flag or the pledge of allegiance to the flag in reported in the news.

It is not that I want this symbol of liberty to be treated with contempt. I get it when a fellow teacher who served in battle for the United States Army says, "I risked my life for what that flag symbolizes, and it angers me to see it treated with disdain."
But what I do not get is that disagreements about the flag and the pledge of allegiance can cause otherwise peaceful neighborhoods to go at each other's throats with an insane amount of venom. The Aspie in me wonders how in the world either "side" could be that important.

Today, I opened my Sunday Albuquerque Journal to the Dimension section to read about a Vermont school where this has happened. Neighbors are up in arms.
"Wouldn't it be more productive if you all spent your Tuesday evenings strategizing the remodel of your bathrooms and kitchens?" I want to ask.

Sometimes, I wonder if my study of the behavioral neuropsychology of ASD is really about psychopathology; this story seems more fraught with psychopathology than does the inability to lie effectively seen in AS.

In my years as a teacher in New Mexico, I had a wide variety of experiences concerning the use of "the Pledge" as we called it. Although it is part of the New Mexico Code (i.e. state law) that the pledge of allegiance will be given at the beginning of each school day, it was completely ignored in the state capital school district. The public address system did not work at the Santa Fe high school where I did my post-baccelaureate licensure internship, and I never saw any flag flying from the flagpole. On the other hand, at Rio Rancho High, the morning advisory came with "the pledge" to the flag, viewed by closed-caption TV in every classroom. At the private Catholic school where I was the only non-Christian teacher, I led my class in the pledge and then invited one of the students to come up and give the "Our Father" prayer. The kids tended to say it all in a perfunctory manner that fooled me into thinking that it was rote, until I asked them once what it all meant to them as part of a Socratic Discussion in their Advisory period. They were quite serious about the importance of both. But even though they said " . . . and to the republic for which it stands. . ." every day of their school careers, most of my students had no idea that they lived in a republic, not a democracy.

As a result of that discussion, we determined that in our class, we would not only give the prayer and "the pledge," but that we would recite the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, in order to remind ourselves of the mission statement of our government.
That was eye-opening for all of us, and led to some very interesting discussions about current events.

When I taught gifted education at an Albuquerque public school, I continued this tradition, sans the prayer, and again, that led to some very interesting discussions about the role of the federal government in our lives as Americans. It was particularly germane, given the content curriculum my 4th -5th grade gifted kids were studying with me, the William and Mary Curriculum about the founding of this nation.

Then I stopped teaching other people's children and began homeschooling the Boychick. We decided to hang the flag outdoors every morning that the weather allowed. We then had a discussion about "the pledge." Together, we decided that to us, pledging allegiance to a flag made no sense at all. It is not the flag that we owe allegiance to, nor the servant government that established the flag. Rather, it is the US Constitution that guarantees our liberty and is intended to secure our rights as human beings.

So we continued with the tradition begun by my class at the Catholic school of reciting the Preamble to the Constitution, sans the prayer and "the pledge." (We did have prayer in our homeschool--but we did the flag ceremony after the morning service). At first it felt a little ridiculous, the two of us, Boychick often still in PJ's, hanging the flag and standing at attention while reciting:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

But just as it did among my high school class, and my gifted class, this custom sparked conversations about the role of the Constitution, the role of the people, and the proper bounds of government.

So here is my solution to all those neighbors going at each other over "the pledge."
Stop it.
Replace "the pledge" with a daily recitation of the Preamble to the US Constitution.
Instead of fights over the words "under G-d" and "indivisible," you can begin having interesting discussions about the role of government in the lives of We the People. And as teachers of our children, it helps to listen more than we talk. It's amazing how well kids can consider these things.

And anyway, the flag is merely and ultimately a symbol of something much greater than a colorful, if beloved, piece of cloth. It is the symbol of an idea. The idea that governments are instituted among us to secure our rights at our consent.
What a concept!

IRD Term II Week V: Endings...

...AND MORE REFLECTIONS ON READING

Yesterday, I finished my summer job with a spirited discussion of a William Sayoran short story, My Cousin Dikran, the Orator from the book My Name is Aram. The discussion was the last of my adult classes. Yesterday, I also did a final discussion of Banner in the Sky for young adults (mostly middle schoolers) and read The Cat in the Hat with 4-5 year-olds. The lessons were similar to ones that I have been teaching all summer, but I had those flashes of "teacher" moments; those times when a teacher realizes that the students have progressed about as far as each one can at that level and that they really don't need the instruction from me anymore. In other words, those moments that a teacher knows that the time has come to move on.

The season is subtly changing here in Sedillo, and in the cool morning mists, one can read fall in the offing. It is time to move on. New adventures and challenges await for me, for Los Pecos Homeschool, and for the family. But more on that later. Now is the time to wrap-up the summer's work, take stock and do the necessary chores of closing down the summer's employment.

Today, as I am puttering about--filling out the exit evaluation for IRD, getting ready to ship books and materials back, thinking about the upcoming year of study--I have also been thinking about what I have learned and accomplished this summer. Although there are many areas where I might have done better at reaching the children and adults that I taught, I do think I have helped almost every student make progress in learning to read and in developing the skills at the right level to read with absorption for pleasure, and to use active reading skills to accomplish reading goals. I do think my summer has been fulfilling in the work I had chosen to do.

I also think I have learned a tremendous amount about teaching reading skills at every level, and I have seen that reading skills need to be taught at every level from beginner to adult, and I have learned how curriculum to teach these skills ought to be developed. I have also learned that many skills can be meaningfully acquired and enhanced in only five weeks (or approximately 10 hours) of direct instruction, with four to five hours of guided practice and independent practice to supplement. I believe that the skills acquired can be sustained and enhanced by continuing practice on the part of the student over the next year. That, of course, is up to the student.

All of what I learned only makes me wonder further at the resistance of government schools to providing such skills instruction at every level. As I have said before, American public education does bring almost every child through the skills instruction up to about the third grade level, which means successful decoding skills. After that, reading instruction as a skill shifts to the use of reading for acquiring content in the various subjects, as if the higher-order skills cannot be taught through direct instruction. But they can be taught, and in the talks I have had with my adult students, the students expressed quite clearly the need for such instruction so that reading becomes a critical skill for thinking, as well as a vehicle of absorption and pleasure.

When I taught high school science, I noticed when I attempted to discuss assigned textbook readings with my students, that although they can successfully decode the words, many of them did not appear to comprehend what they read. I used to say that what they read appeared to "go in one eye and out the other." My experience this summer has not only helped me to learn why this is so, but what to do about it.

I also have learned why certain popular remedies, such as summer reading lists, are not by themselves helpful to the problem. Certainly, a summer reading list seems to address the issue that students are not doing enough reading in school. Well, then, the logic goes, we must make them read in the summer. However, in the schools I have taught at, the summer reading assignment was followed up by a very short discussion and a quiz. There were no extensive book discussions, and no guidance was provided to enhance the reading skills of the students in order to make the summer reading productive. In the eyes of the students, it was simply another hoop to jump through in order to get points towards their grades. It had no other value. How could it be anything else to students who are not fundamentally "readers" in the rich sense?
And to be fair, none of the teachers involved had every really learned how to teach reading in our content fields--despite having paid for courses by that name in order to be certified. So we had no idea how to make the experience more than a hoop to jump through.

If I ever teach high school science again, I would not assign summer reading unless I was willing to gather students over the course of a summer month for skills instruction and book discussions. There I could model for them, and they could model for each other, the type of thinking needed to truly delve into the assigned book. Instead, I think I would assign a book to be read over the course of a semester, and devote one class period each week to reading instruction and discussion so that the assignment would have some meaning for the students.

Most likely, though, I will not be teaching high school science again. Instead I will be likely go on to do research and perhaps teach at the university level. Still, what I have learned this summer will enrich my thinking about the research I am planning. It will also alter how I would teach both undergraduate and graduate classes using the primary literature of the field.

This summer's work has indeed been fruitful on multiple levels for me. And it has provided me with more questions to consider, and more ways to think about my future as a teacher.

Oh! And I am so not from California! I forgot this goal! I did have a lot of fun teaching--especially during the second term, when the specifics of curriculum delivery became more natural to me, and I could focus on more of the meta-aspects of teaching.

IRD Fifth Week: Dayenu!

Last Wednesday evening, I finished the 5th week of my IRD teaching commitment, which mean that I finished the Early Summer Session.

I was supposed to reflect on the last week then, but what with United cancelling N.'s flight to Chicago O'Hare and the need to talk to two different people at the airline, plus my sister and my mother, and my other sister who called just to make sure she wasn't missing anything...well you know what happened.

Then I had a wonderfully restful fourth of July holiday weekend.
I do mean restful. Thursday I did some vacuuming. And I folded some clothes. But mostly I sat on the porch and read.
Friday, I read the whole morning paper, a chapter in Radicals for Capitalism and then I went to a movie and dinner with friends and the Engineering Geek.
Saturday I prayed on the porch and read, watched Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, and read some more. I did some blogging, too.
Sunday, guess what? I read some more. Then watched Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. And then I read some more. And I blogged some, too. I took a short break from reading to go to the grocery store. That's it.

According to the Chem Geek Princess upon hearing our weekend's activities, we are becoming homebodies and fogies. Homebodies and Fogies. Doesn't that sound like a great book title?

It's ironic how much I have missed my summer reading time, all because I am teaching reading.

By the last week of that first session, I was feeling in balance. Teaching the lessons as IRD wants them taught was finally feeling like teaching them as I want to teach them. The lesson structures were feeling automatic and the "why's" of each part were in my gut as well as my brain.

I was also feeling very good about the progress I was seeing.
In the younger kid classes I saw great leaps in most children when it came to skills used to read, assisted reading, and independent reading with support.
For the older kids, I saw reading comprehension improve greatly in every child, reading speeds increase in most students, and more insightful discussions evolve over time.

The one part of the older student lessons that I was really questioning was the non-fiction study skills portion. Although I had been told that these lessons were beta-tested, I thought that maybe we were trying to do too much in too little time. I was nervous about the material and the rate at which we were supposed to deliver it. As I was doing the first few lessons, I felt like I was going at break-neck speed and I was really wondering whether the students were getting it.

I soldiered on as I was supposed to do. But I wondered about it.

In week 5 , I found that those students who came in unable to find the main idea in a non-fiction paragraph now could at least find one and state it in a few words or a phrase. I found that those who could find the main idea at lesson 1 but had a hard time stating why it was the main idea, could now not only state the main idea, but explain it. I found that those who came in finding the main idea and explaining how, but could not identify important details from the unimportant elaborations, could now point out the important details. And those who came in able to find the main idea, explain how they found it, and identify the important details, could now also follow the development of ideas in non-fiction writing over paragraphs and sections.

And I realized that for each type of student, each one came forth from my class with better skills than they had started. And that each one also took with him or her, an outline of skills for continued learning through the years of middle and high school.

This reminds me a bit of the song we sing each year at the Passover Seder.

Ilu hotzi, hotzi anu,
Hotzi anu mi-Mitzrayim, Dayenu!

If you had just brought us out of Egypt but not parted the Sea for us, it would have been enough!
If you had brought us out of Egypt and parted the Sea for us, but not given us manna in the wilderness, it would have been enough!
If you had ...given us manna, but not brought us to Sinai, it would have been enough!
etc. etc.

So in my non-fiction lessons it became:
If you had just identified the main idea, but not told how, dayeu! It would have been enough!
If you had identified the main idea, and told how, but not identified important supporting details, dayenu! It would have been enough!

Only this Dayenu! differed from student to student in the length of the song.
And for each student: Dayenu! It was enough.

I need to think about my perfectionism in my teaching this way.
By the end of the five weeks I had mastered the timing, understood the lessons more deeply, balanced my overcorrections, and Dayenu! It was enough.

Tomorrow as I begin the first week of the Late Summer Session, I can take those Dayenu verses and build on them as I move on towards the IRD promised land--which is really a place in time rather than space. The IRD promised land to me is coming to August 10th--my last teaching day, knowing that I have been successful, my students have made progress, and that I have learned new things about teaching reading.

Oh! And I'm so not from California, so sometimes I forget this one, final goal for August 10th:... And knowing I've had fun.

Dayenu! (It will be enough!)

IRD Third (and a half!) Week: Correcting the Overcorrection

The end of last week was very busy, even though N. was away at camp, and I did not post a reflection at all.

And perhaps that's to the good, because today I was confronted with the balancing act of learning to teach differently than I have in the past.
So this is a good day to write a reflection.

I had a parent complaint about the atmosphere in one of my classes. This is a class with middle school children, one or two of whom I am concerned about in terms of progress and home practice, but all of whom are likeable kids. It is a quiet class, too, although last week with the excitement of an electrical outage, they loosened up quite a bit. As did I, and this last may be the clue to the problem.

I think what the parent observed is based on overcorrections on my part. I have been struggling with two issues, and achieving balance in both of them will make me a better teacher. The first is timing--in my case complicated by my perfectionistic desire to add detail upon detail. I discussed that here. The second is the need to be direct with students. My tendency is to soften commands by saying things like: "You might want to do...." and "Open the book to page such-and-such, please" and "Suzie, please put the pencil down." My trainers made me practice saying: "Put the pencil down" and "I need you to do..." and "Now open your books to..." This directness goes against my early training designed to corral a rather "spirited" child!

And the new directness has been working. With my younger kids, especially, where I am also playing games with them as part of the process, and where directness interacts well with my natural warmth for the little guys. But in this particular class, I am dealing with mid-school kids and I have been very matter-of-fact with them, especially when teaching the study skills part of the class. My supervisor asked me if I was remembering to praise their efforts frequently enough. And I realized that although when I go around to check homework, I do try to find a good thing to say to each one, I have not been praising the group effort as enthusiastically as I do with my younger kiddos. And yet these are not yet the high school kids who would be insulted by that. These are middle schoolers who still have a little kid in them, and not buried too deeply, either. They need to know that their hard work is noticed. And they need to know it with the same level of directness that I am using to give directions.

So there you have it, like a nervous new driver overcorrects by jerking the wheel a little too hard, I was overcorrecting for my tendency to qualify directions and sounded quite strict. It is not bad to be strict, but at the same time, I forgot to praise real effort when they are working on something difficult. And for middle school kids, the art of finding main ideas and supporting details in a textbook or other work of non-fiction is difficult. So this parent was observing the fallout of my overcorrection.

In addition to this, there were some other incidents that had happened that day that left me a little rattled and I was having a real Jonah Day--as Anne of the Island called a bad teaching day. (Although my day did not include fireworks in the heating system as Anne's did).

Factor in that this day (my second with the class) was this parent's child's first week in the class. So this was the parent's first impression of me.
And I had not gotten to the bathroom between classes, to touch up and get a breath of outside air. Imagine this: hair wild, lip gloss not touched up, nerves tingling.Well.

It is never pleasant to recognize that someone's first impression of you is not your best foot forward. And it always hurts a bit when you first hear the truth of the matter via a complaint.
My first reaction is to want to explain myself--in detail, of course!
But...

If the complaint was not made, I would not have the opportunity to correct the overcorrection problem. It might never have been called to my attention.

Just like that test answer that you got wrong and so you remember that information twenty years later even after forgetting most of the rest of the test, (a diatreme is the frozen neck of a volcano exposed by weathering way of the original mountain--I got it wrong in 1981), so having attention called to the issue so forcefully means I am more likely to achieve the balance sooner.

This is the never-ending process of getting the rough edges rubbed off.
Painful, but necessary to the process of arriving at a smooth and balanced state.

IRD First Week: Curbing Loquaciousness

On Wednesday evening, I completed my first week of teaching reading for IRD.

Wednesday is the last day of my teaching week, though I have a break early in the week and then I have a few days off before the new teaching week starts up over the coming weekend. Basically I have two days on, time off, and then Wednesday, when I drive up to Santa Fe to teach there.

Each teaching day is very full, as I have three classes, each of which last anywhere from one hour fifteen minutes to two hours and thirty minutes. There is a 45 minute break between each class, but last week I barely had time to get a bite to eat before I needed to prep for the next class. Part of the reason for that is that there is more to do on "opening day" and also anxious parents show up very early with their children because they have scheduled extra time to find the place and the classroom. In this respect, teaching is no different than teaching in the schools. There I usually ate and prepped at the same time in the first few weeks.

And like the opening week of school, I was also very tired after the first two days of teaching the reading classes. A lot of it stems from getting accustomed to being on my feet for 6 hours at a time again, as well as the incredible energy and focus required to teach a class at any time, but especially when learning new methods and pacing.

One thing that I am learning from the streamlined lesson plans required by IRD is that we teachers, left to our own devices, tend to talk too much. This is partly due to the natural loquacious personalities that teaching attracts, but for me, I suspect it also has to do with a desire to render complete and detailed explanations. This is appropriate to the scientific laboratory, where one is interacting with other Geek Queens and Kings who demand such detail, but it is fatal when one is trying to teach novices in an area. The novice needs to get the basics down and then maybe--maybe--s/he would be interested in the details. And maybe not. A person may just be interested in the skill learned and not the theory behind it!

I do know this about myself, but since my previous teaching evaluations were done by equally talkative teachers (mmmm, nice allititeration), the subject has never come up in a way that was useful to me. I would get comments like "too fast" or "too long" but never "too many words" or "too much detail. "

Well, actually, the above is not quite true. I did get more pointed critiques for PowerPoint presentations in my Neurobiology and Neuroanatomy/Neurophysiology classes. And such critique helped me make a leaner meaner presentation. I have really cut down on the detail put on a PowerPoint slide. However, given the nature of the material, although I needed uncluttered slides, I had to give extremely detailed explanations of those slides.

The point is that I believe this training and using this very scripted curriculum is already making me more conscious of my penchant for supplying too much detail, and that I will come out of this ten-week teaching experience with a classroom style more suited to every kid, not just the gifted ones. (GK's will press for more details and can handle them most of the time, but they can also eat up time better used for practice this way).

By Wednesday in Santa Fe, the scripting seemed more natural and my timing was also more natural. I got everything done that I needed to do without feeling rushed or worried.
Wednesday was really nice.

First, the hour's drive up was beautiful, because it makes more sense for me to cut up the "back way" on NM 14--The Turquoise Trail. A National Scenic Byway, it took me north along the back of the Sandia Mountain Front. It then cuts northwest through the Ortiz Mountains, through Golden, Madrid (pronounced with the short a, accent on the first syllable), and Cerillos. Golden and Madrid are both old mining towns, and Madrid has become quite the arts community. Next week, I will leave early and take my camera!

Santa Fe is also nice, because it has a different cultural feel than Albuquerque.
People tend to be more laid back. It is partially the old Spanish culture. And it is also due to the influx of New-Agers; former hippies, now with money, but who are still under the influence of Crystal Blue Persuasion. (This is the piece of Santa Fe that we, the unenlightened, have taken to calling "Fanta Se." Fanta Se is where you see Shirley McClaine using a crystal plumb bob to choose bread at Wild Oats on Rodeo Road). But if you can accept lateness* with aplomb and grace, the lower intensity of Santa Fe is a welcome change.

*In Albuquerque I had one or two late people out of six classes. Those who were late came in and joined the class quietly, and I sorted out the check-in with very little fuss. In Santa Fe, one-third to one-half of every class was late. Being aware of the Fanta Se element there, though, I expected to state class late and make-up time at the end. That worked very well there--Santa Feans are not in a hurry but neither do they expect you to be.

Personally, I am going to enjoy ending each teaching week experiencing the culture of the Holy "City." (Santa Fe means "Holy Faith." And like Jerusalem, you go up to get there).

All in all, then, it was a successful first week.
And now, I must prepare for Shabbat, and prepare for next week's teaching.

"On to Khartoum!"

Which proves that N. is not the only Aspie in the house with a penchant for quoting movies out of context.

In Training: The Heart of It All

Today in training we had a special treat.

In the afternoon, the director of the teaching division of IRD was with us, and he spent an hour talking to us about the importance of reading to the development of a child. It was an informative and passionate talk that reminded us all of why we had chosen this commitment, delivered at that time when we were all feeling more than a bit tired, albeit willing to soldier on. But we needed the philosophical justification to balance all of the technical teaching nitty-gritty that we had been focused on.

I remember the tone more than the actual words, but here is some of what I do remember.

Fifty years ago, and more, young people 18-22 were the demographic group that read the most in the United States Now, they are the least likely to pick up a book. To me, this is sad beyond words.

There is a great deal of research that shows that the paths of readers and non-readers diverge after the summer between 4th and 5th grade. Those kids who love reading will begin reading voraciously--and over the next year read tens of thousand to a million words. These readers will gain more and more fluency and reading speed, and will come to love immersing themselves in books, and thus gain very important cultural, personal and spiritual value from their reading. Those kids who do not love reading will read only what is required and never for pleasure. They will lose ground in many important ways, and are likely to never experience the joy and pleasure of reading. They are also far less likely to develop the value systems that come from immersion in reading of great fiction and literature. So our students who are entering the 4th or 5th grade next fall, and particularly those who are struggling readers, present a small window of opportunity to us to help them become readers relatively painlessly. We do work with older kids as well, but in those situations we must do a great deal of catching them up in their technical skills as well as teaching them to love books. This presents a far greater challenge, although it is doable.

I will have more to say about this in the coming weeks but I really wanted to share this tidbit with you.

Also, as I had my fingerprinting done--all of us must have a background check to work with children--the technician out from IRD's Novato office noticed that I had been a school teacher before teaching for the institute. He said, "My wife's a teacher, and she sometimes comes with me on these trips and hears some of the training you are doing. She says that all teachers should get this kind of training."

I had to agree. It is difficult for those of us with old habits that must be changed, but the more I grok (remember that word?) the logic of the curriculum, and the beauty and economy with which it is put together (there are no superfluous words or activities in the lessons), the more I can imagine the transformations it can accomplish with our students. I am learning so much about teaching that will transfer to any other teaching I will ever do.

I am still a novice, but I am learning to teach reading from the philosophy of immersion.

Every lesson, every word we will say has the ultimate aim of developing in our students the capacity and the desire to immerse themselves in books.

Today, I am feeling grateful to have the opportunity to learn like this.

Today's Chicago picture is of the Chicago Theatre in the Loop.

The small picture here is the same--I accidently posted the thumbnail version, and I can't figure out how to delete pictures.