Context Clues and Observation Skills

Keys to Success

As a science teacher, I think those two things are the two most critical pieces of a student that I can help develop. Context Clues and Observation Skills. My students do not always come to me with these skills, nor can I always develop them as much as I would like in my 9 months with my sweet darlings.

Today I received an email inviting me to speak at STEMCON. I plan to try to go. It's an incredible opportunity to share with some of the really great minds in my field. But, what I find we all keep coming back to, is that as teachers we have to find ways to bring out the context clues for our students or demonstrate the use of observation skills. This means that no matter the skill level, reading level, IQ level, functionality, etc, our students can all use more developement in the area of context clues and observation skills.

I find that my students not only hear teachers often say, "are you sure you read ________" referring to novels, directions or most anything, but that often the students eyes have gone over the symbols on the page without really absorbing the full content within, much less gaining any clue to the context.

Most of our students today have grown up around technology in a way that most veteran, ie 4 years or more, teachers did not. Most veteran teachers watched the technology develop, some have even embraced it into their classrooms as much as their schools will allow. What this means for our students is that they are used to memes, instagram and vimeo videos, youtube, google, facebook and other medias, being short snipets of information and sound bites that are always at their disposal.

How as teachers and parents can we navigate the minefield and get them to actually see the world around them!?! How will they discover the science behind Leonardo DaVinci or Claude Monet?! When will they notice the patterns of flowers directly match the wind patterns months prior? Or how will they find out that Vincent Van Googh was the first to finally make us able to see turbulence and the prior to this, no scientist or artist could really get it right?

What as teachers can we do?

1. Create class lessons that utilize 10-20 minutes of time and then require the student to do a different task using a different part of their brain.
2. Question what we show them.
3. Give them word searches and word puzzles and brain teasers to start our high school classes.
4. Make our content rich classroom, Actually RICH WITH CONTENT! Don't throw it all on the wall, give it meaning.
5. Teach your students to see context clues and how to use observation skills. Maybe give them a search and see sheet for your classroom or show a short clip and have them write everything they saw.

What ideas do you have? Post them in the comments below.

Tuesday equals second monday?

I don't know about you, but the start of school for 3 of my children and teaching takes a lot out of a person. There are days that I feel like I'm really on the ball and on top of things, and then there are days that I feel mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. Do you have those days?


Since losing my mom, I spend a lot of time feeling like something is missing in my life. And there is, it's my mom. That's not news. I don't know if that feeling is ever going to go away. Some people say that the pain of losing someone you love will not be as strong as time goes on, I'm not sure if that is true or not. While I can talk about my mom with friends, family, my students, even strangers, without getting all teared up, I don't miss her less. Maybe I'm more comfortable with the loss than when it first happened?

Right now, I'm having a hard time. Not only am I missing my mom and having some general morale issues with being a teacher, I'm actually and acutely jealous of my friends right now as a result of my life choices. Please do not think I am say I regret my children. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that I'm looking at my friends who have one or two children and I'm remembering the simpleness of that compared to where we are now and I'm missing the more simpler part of my life. I'm sad for my friends who are struggling to get pregnant. I truly do not understand why I can get pregnant so easily and they cannot. How is that fair? What is it about my family that makes it so that I lose so many people I love in such a short time, and have 5 children without much effort? Why do my friends get to watch their parents grow VERY old and I don't? Why do I get to have 5 kids and some of my friends can't have even one? How does that make sense? Some people say it's G-d's way, but that leaves me feeling lost. So, I'm not sure what the answer is and that frustrates me.

Some people read my blog or see me in person and think that I have it all together. Please believe me when I say, that I so don't. I work hard at a few things that are important to me and I make the required effort at the others. Organizing and planning are things that I enjoy doing. Checklists make me feel like I am in control of the situation I am in, even if I'm not. I do not have a clean house, but I have a clean classroom. My space is organized at school because it is more conducive to learning and a fast-paced environment. My home is slightly more chaotic because I do not have imminent domain. My kitchen, bathroom, laundry area, well, my whole house; is not immaculate, but my children are well fed, they have clean clothes, they are bathed and they are loved.

Is it perfect? No. 

Does it work for us? yes.

For now, let's celebrate each other's good things. I'm going to try to be grateful for my kids today. I'm going to try to look for a silver lining and work on cleaning my house this afternoon, since I carved out some time to do it. I'm going to share with a friend who isn't getting pregnant, how much I love her. Will I be able to fix it for either of us? Probably not, but I'm hoping a coffee and a hug will let her know I care about her. Hopefully, cleaning a room, with my checklist and hugging my friend will help us both.

Organizing ALL THE THINGS

A lot of people ask me "How do you do it all?" And I frequently answer, "I'm a walking Nike commercial... I just do it!" But, that is a terrible explanation. So, I'd like to give you one explanation about how I organize some of the things.

This year, I have grades, classroom things, Mock Trial, Youth-in-Government, Softball and Swim Team to stay caught up on. For some this would seem like a truly daunting task and their desk might forever look like a tornado hit it...

Not to say that this doesn't get overwhelming sometimes. It does. Some days I get frustrated and wonder why I feel like I'm doing more than everyone else.

But, most days, it's not bad, because it's organized and ready to go in a way that is accessible, fluid and easy.

My number one suggestion is for separating each major "thing" into it's own notebook. This way all the papers and spreadsheets and what-nots are in one location, not to be shared with anything else. Next is to keep the labeling clean and bright. This way it pops out and is easy to find. I like the clear front pocket for receipts for the students for those activities so that if I need to find it quickly, I can.

most of the notebooks of the things

I keep my checklist as the first page when I open the notebook and try to keep as much as possible in the rings and not in the pockets so that things don't get lost. I have a similar system at home for keeping things tidy there, as well. Hopefully this helps you in getting some things more organized in your classroom, home or office.

Reflections

Today, one of my students brought me a yellow watermelon. If you have never had one, they are amazing. Yesterday, one of my students brought me a HUGE pack of Sharpies. (I love sharpies!)
I was sitting today thinking about how different I am now as a teacher as compared to when I first started teaching, especially, at the school where I am. It made me think about the way that I was as a teacher back when I first started.

I taught freshmen and sophomores in my first year at my school and last year my sophomores graduated. This year, my freshmen are graduating. I can't believe that I am about to watch them walk across the stage. These kids dealt with me being pregnant, my mother dying, my teacher licensure paperwork getting lost and then some. I was frustrated many times, I was unreasonable, and honestly, there were times I was just down right mean.

These kids have blossomed into amazing kids. They are smart, funny, kind, generous people. These students are exactly who they should be and where they should be.

I wish I could take more credit for who they have become, but honestly, I am so glad that I didn't have as much to do with it. I hope they learned as much from the lessons I was teaching as they did from the mistakes that I made.

As these students move forward, I wish for them all the same things that I constantly wish for my own children...I wish for them roots enough to feel grounded and confident in where they came from, that they know they have a "home base", but I also wish for them wings enough to fly high and soar to new places, to meet new people and to allow themselves to become new people.

I cannot wait to see who they become and where they go.

Why I do what I do

If you have a job that you love, cool. But if you have a job that mostly doesn't feel like a job, THEN you have something worth hanging on to.

I am not sure who said those words to me. But, I firmly believe in them.

This afternoon was another great example of this. I met with another parent and talked to one on the phone. Both of them were met with my usual happy upbeat personality, but I think they both were surprised by how very clear I am. So many teachers are so tired of what they do, that I don't think they really understand how vital they are. Some truly do not understand the impact they can have on their student population and the lasting effects of those relationships.

Each year I say that I have 204 kids; 4 I gave birth to and 200 that the school gave me. This year I feel that even more than normal. These kids are really incredible. I hear people say, "they have such a bright light" about different people and I've never really known what that meant. This year I do. These kids are AMAZING. They soak up the material while we're in class. They tell me jokes. They tell me problems. They ask me questions. They are incredible. I force them to work really, really, really, hard and they do it.

For the most part, I don't have any behavior issues. Ever. It is so strange to me. I've never been this lucky before. I give all the credit to the kids. Don't get me wrong, I am working my tushie off! I study every night to make sure I can teach them correctly, do my best to write quizzes and tests that are aligned with the primary learning objectives, write lesson plans that I think are really fun and they they will engage in and then write study guides that I believe will guide them in the right direction. It's the best hard work I've done in a long time.

I think this is the, "I am so blessed" post. Most of the time those sound so trite to me. I hope this doesn't sound that way. But, truly, I have never had a roster full of kids for whom I feel nearly the same way as I feel about my own kids. They're incredible. They make me want to work harder at my classes for my Doctorate to be sure that I am working at setting a good example.

Now, this is where I get pretty out of character for me....If you are of the praying kind, whatever your method, prayer beads, incense, spiritual gods, good vibes, positive energy, what have you; say a prayer for us. We have a big mountain to climb to try and get these kids to reach the proficient goal on the end of course test in May. I want to see these sweet kids reach the top. Help us reach the top.