it's not the world that I am changing

Wow, the response to my last post about tweeting with the munchkins has been nothing short of overwhelming, in the best possible way. After 500+ page views in 3 days, I am a little nervous that NOTHING I write is going to measure up to that.

The attention drawn by that post has made me think A LOT about my online presence. While I do not use my real name here, my real name is "out there." In the last few weeks, all 4 kindergarten classes at my school have created Twitter accounts, and my school community is increasingly aware of my involvement with a Twitter-based PLN of kindergarten teachers. After some soul-searching, I shared my last post (and some other posts ABOUT my post), with my boss. That post may lead to other collaboration opportunities, and collaboration with other ACTUAL PEOPLE does not lend itself well to remaining anonymous... And, of course, at the same time as I was wrestling with all of this, along came the case of Natalie Munroe, who was suspended from her teaching position due to things she wrote in her blog...

So, I have made some changes. I have carefully re-read and re-worded and re-thought anything that mentioned my colleagues, my students, or their parents. While every single word I have ever written here has always come out of love: for the children, and for the profession of teaching, that same love has compelled me to reconsider how to use this space.

It breaks my heart a little - telling honest, messy, complicated, joyful stories about CHILDREN was what compelled me to start a teaching blog in the first place. Writing out my struggles is a tremendous coping tool for me, and I received positive, precious feedback from others who read those stories. While I want to believe that anything I wrote about "my" kiddos always conveyed my heart-breaking love for them, I also love them too much to make them vulnerable here. I have kept the drafts of all of their stories, and perhaps one day will find a means to share them again, in a way that protects both the children and me (ideas, anyone?!).

The post about Twitter has opened up a world of possibility for me, and I am humbled by the recognition I have received for it. It is all a little tainted, though, by knowing that it has come at a cost.
For now: I am hopeful that my voice here will remain my own and that you will continue to read my stories... And, if you are a teacher who blogs: how are you dealing with all this? What is your approach to the questions  of anonymity and confidentiality? What are your thoughts about Natalie Munroe? Remember: anonymous or not, comments are like crack to bloggers!

Happy Sunday to all, and happy long weekend to many.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

So, as most of you know (I think?!) I belong to a community on Twitter called #kinderchat. You can read about it here, if you are so inclined.  Last night's topic was "Integrating Social Media in the Kindergarten Classroom," and boy, did it turn out to be WAY more controversial than I bargained for...

You can read the rest of this post over on my new blog, right here: http://missnightmutters.com/2011/02/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet.html.

See you on the sunny side!

the other hand that always holds the line

Hello, internet!

So, the last 2 weeks have not been the easiest of times in my classroom. The flu is making its vicious rounds, taking down everyone in its path. Mme Wendy, my aide, was away for 4 days last week, and I was away for 2 days of the week before. We have had between 12 and 15 (out of 20) munchkins at school every day. Most days, we have sent at least one of them home with a fever by lunchtime. The ones who have returned from being ill are often still coughing, irritable, and tired. Having only 60 - 75% of the kids at school on any given day makes it hard to contemplate introducing anything new. And, on top of all that, it has been so bitterly cold that we have had only indoor recess for 5 consecutive days. By Thursday, the bickering had reached record-breaking levels, the whining was shredding my ear drums, the sniffling and coughing and requests to get chapstick/water/coughdrops came in an endless parade. Having no aide meant I got very few breaks. The children were crabby and bored. I was crabby and bored. And there was still Friday to get through. Friday, which happened to be a Day 5, the day during which I have the fewest preps, and the children spend the most time in the classroom, with me. Friday, when the temperature was forecast to drop even further....

To digress for a few paragraphs: if you read my personal blog, you know that I worked at summer camp for a long time. Twelve summers, to be exact, in a situation where the children NEVER GO HOME. Quite some time ago, on that blog, I wrote a post called "Because of Camp". Number 45 on that list was "I know that the best cure for burnout is sometimes to work harder." The story behind that is as follows:

During one of my many summers at camp, I was the Assistant Director, and my dear friend Devil was the Head Counsellor. We had reached the point in the summer where everyone was tired and a little cranky: the adventures of communal living, no privacy, constant grubbiness, were wearing thin. Tempers were short, tears came easily... It was the time of the summer where camp management has to start looking after staff morale, because the staff's mindset, of course, influences the experience they provide to the campers.

One morning, in the lull between breakfast and morning activities, Devil came and asked me if I would please go do a lap of the girls cabins, to make sure the counsellors were getting their campers through cabin cleanup and toothbrushing and finding lost hairbrushes and generally getting themselves and their charges ready for the day in a pleasant and positive manner.

I didn't want to do it. That time of day was one of the ONLY lulls in my own long day. Once activities started, the inevitably gruelling string of questions and phone calls and crises that formed my job description would begin. Those 25 minutes, sitting in my office, still sipping my second cup of tea, might be the only quiet moments of my day. The last thing I wanted to do was start hoofing it up the hill to the girls' cabins, to referee bickering and enforce floor-sweeping. But... Devil was my friend. He and I had worked together, closely, for a long time, and I trusted him. I trusted that, if he was asking me to do something, it really needed to be done. I also knew that, if I had been asking him to do something similar, it would because: a) it really needed to be done, and b) I knew he would do it.

So, reluctantly, grouchily, and SLOWLY, I did it. In my pyjamas and flip-flops, I hoofed it up the hill. I checked on the staff and traded jokes about the quirks of camp life. I found a camper's missing sock. I braided a pigtail or two. I congratulated the teen leadership girls on the particularly glorious mess they had made of their cabin. I got hugs from 8-year-olds and danced the YMCA with 13-year olds. I tied off a frayed friendship bracelet. I got grateful smiles from counselors who were happy to interact with another adult. And, when the loudspeaker announced the beginning of the day's activities, I found myself... refreshed. My 20 minute loop through the girls' cabins had re-connected me to the daily magic of camp. I was smiling, and had more energy than I had had in several days. Working HARDER had helped me overcome burnout that I wasn't even really aware I had.

Clearly, the leap from that dusty California morning, to my frigid classroom last Friday, is not a big one. I knew, as I drove to school, that it HAD to be a good day, for myself as much as for the children. I could not close the week on a sour note. As my monkeys trickled into the coatroom, a parent happened to hand me a big bag of beautiful magazines, to add to our collage bucket. After an amazingly frank circle time discussion about the week we had had, and how we were ALL feeling (guess whose students now understand the expressions "cabin fever" and "stir crazy?"), we started talking about things that make us smile. Out came the magazines, poster boards, glue, scissors. For over and hour, we cut and pasted and giggled and laughed together, finding images that were undeniably smile-worthy: sunshine, ice cream, butterflies, snowmen, puppies, babies, bathtubs, rainbows, flowers, princesses, sports cars, birthday cakes, candles, campfires, beaches, hockey skates, swimming pools, ballerinas, jelly beans, swingsets, flip flops. We filled in any remaining spaces with coloured macaroni, sequins, rhinestones, and blizzards of glitter.

The collages took up most of the morning and part of the afternoon. The mess we made was unbelievable and never-ending. It seemed I did nothing but refill glue containers, find scissors that were "lost" in the pages of a magazine, collect gluestick caps from the floor, and control traffic flow to and from the glitter station, all while replying to a steady stream of "What is butterfly/beach/ballerina in French?". My clothes looked like Tinkerbell had thrown up on them. And yet, it was, honestly, the most engaged I had been with my students all week. When morning snacktime came, my boss offered me a break, and I chose to stay in the room and eat picnic-style on the carpet with the munchkins (the tables being completely covered by the still-in-progress collages) because I LIKED BEING WITH THEM. In the afternoon, we read extra stories, sang extra songs, and had a silly dress-up contest. (Sidebar: we also opened our class twitter account, so let me know if you would like to follow us!). They went home with stained uniforms, sticky fingers, and smiles on their faces. So did I.

It seems so counter-intuitive that, when I am tired or bored or overwhelmed by my job, withdrawing and taking it easy often do not help. Slowing down, moving more deeply into the moment with the kiddos, re-connecting with them and their world, THOSE are what helps. When tired of teaching, I need to teach MORE, teach HARDER, teach slower and more deliberately. I don't know if this is true in other fields. Do tired accountants need to ACCOUNT more? Regardless, while I have never doubted that summer camp made me a better teacher, it is always nice to have that link illustrated so very clearly. Because of camp, I am actually looking forward to Monday.