Finding your professional posse

     I am a very collaborative person. I am the seventh child in a family of nine, and having grown up on a baseball team means that I enjoy having people to learn and think alongside.

     That is one of the reasons why I love Twitter! There is such a great community of educators on Twitter who want to put themselves out there and learn alongside others.

     It is also why I love to be a literacy coach. I get to work with the most amazing teachers, students, and schools, and embrace new learning each and every day. In fact, I operate from the belief that I will learn something new every day, at work and at home. To that end, I have a group of individuals—my teaching posse—who I turn to when I have questions and ideas.

     That's right, a professional posse. People who help me when I am in need and who help me to grapple with the everyday struggles of teaching.

     When I am grappling with a struggling reader, I call Sally. She is my reading friend, the one I talk to about all things reading. When I am thinking about work with my client schools, I call Jaime. Jaime and I have never taught together, but people who have been in both of our classrooms remark on how similar our teaching is. She reminds me of what I value in teaching and helps me think through the particulars of being a coach to many different school communities.

     When I want to imagine a new adventure or talk with someone who knows what great teaching looks like, I call Bev: hers is an amazing classroom. She is the one I go to when I want to float an idea or be reminded of what matters most. She and I have recently created this blog where we can continue to develop and grow ideas together. When I want advice, especially from a leadership perspective, I call Ella. Ella was my principal when I taught in Tenafly, New Jersey, both a colleague and a mentor, the person who best knows my teaching. She gives me advice based on her own experience.

     Some of these women don't know each other, but they have one thing in common: me. They think with me and laugh with me and learn with me and commiserate with me and evolve with me and keep me the most engaged I can be in my learning.

     And this is my professional posse. What is most important is to remember who motivates and engages you as a teacher and who will be there with you to learn alongside as you grapple with the joys and complexities of teaching.

     And so, I highly recommend that you find your own professional posse! In doing so you might want to do the following:

     1. Identify the people in your teaching and learning life who motivate and engage you. Think about what you love about this learning relationship and what it has to offer you.

     2. Name what that person offers you and what you have to offer that person.

     3. Look for people outside your school or organization community to learn with and from. You push your thinking when you go outside your daily community.

     4. Find ways to interact with these learning buddies. Make space to learn with them and from them in person or virtually. 

     Find your teaching posse! These are the learning professionals who will offer you the support and love you need to have your teaching grow. And, keep us posted! We would love to hear all about your own professional posse, and how you are learning together!

– Patty

Excerpted with permission from Engaging Every Learner: Classroom Principles, Strategies and Tools, Patricia Vitale-Reilly, Heinemann, 2015.

"Setting the table..."

After speaking with Sharon McKool of Rider University at the 47th Rutgers Literacy Conference in January, I was struck by the questions and concerns of the participants.  They were not wondering about the Common Core, nor testing, nor pre-made materials for teaching small group instruction.  No, they were concerned with creating an atmosphere in their classrooms which would be a launching pad for life-long readers.  

Although we discussed guided reading, book clubs and literature circles, teachers were thirsty for mentor text, mini-lessons that would make a difference for students and how students would continue to read outside the classroom walls.  I was eager to email mentor text and mini-lesson ideas to teachers, but I kept thinking about how important it is for you, the teacher, to show your passion for reading within your classroom and how to be a role model for your students.  

Early in the year I like to “set the table” for reading work by showing my passion for cooking and baking.  Not only do I bring in rolling pins, pie weights and a bench scraper (great items for nonfiction writing!), but I try hard to find texts in a variety of genres that demonstrate my interest.  A few things I prominently display are the “series” books from The Magnolia Bakery, A Handmade Life by Molly Wizenberg for memoir, Cook’s Magazine, and a delightful poem about “pie” by Valerie Worth. Glorious cookbooks from Chile, Vietnam and Italy. Not to mention all of the terrific blogs about cooking and baking (Orangette.com, DavidLebovitz.com, smittenkitchen.com). Not only do I have mentor text that I can refer to later on, sharing snippets and vignettes, but also the students see that I am fully immersed in reading as well.  

How do you share your passions?  What kind of books, blogs and materials could you display?  Is it sailing? Dogs?  Space travel?

Your role as a mentor is a powerful one.

Bev.

Our first post!

It is the start of the New Year, and with that comes resolutions and plans to make improvements to be our best selves. We all do this, as there is something so ceremonious and comforting about ringing in the New Year in this way.

And as well intentioned as we are, there is something about these resolutions that is temporary and fleeting. We are ambitious and earnest, but most of these resolutions fall to the wayside by mid February.

And in teaching, that can happen as well. Increasingly each day we are asked to adhere to new protocols, implement new curricula, consider new ideas and teach in an ever changing new world.  And that is ok, it really is. As long as we remember what. matters. most.

I learned all about focusing on what matters a few years ago when I started yoga. In yoga, when you are trying out poses that require balance, it is helpful to focus on one spot in front of you on the floor, the wall, or some other area. Staring intently at this spot, known as a drishti, helps you remain balanced and thus implement and hold the pose.

The same is true of teaching. As educators, we need to find our drishti — a focal point, passion, or point of interest that keeps us well balanced and reminds of what we hold near and dear and what we know matters to our learning and to the learning of our students.  

This is the driving force behind this blog, the reason why we want to be out in the world with our voices and the voices of others around the ideas and topics that resonate with us and that we know matter in teaching and learning.

So we will do just that. In each post, we will explore the ideas that we feel are seminal to teaching and learning and represent ideas that we are passionate about.

We have been collaborating for over 15 years. We have been in each other’s presence in classrooms, lecture halls, study groups and our own personal collaborations and have come together around so many ideas, that we feel we have a deep and shared understanding of what matters most to the heart of teaching and to the art of our profession.

And we want to open up this collaboration to all of you.  

We want to hear your voices — your experiences and your ideas, your responses and most importantly what matters most to you.

Do you ever feel that you would just like to focus on best practices in your classroom?  Create an environment for your readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists and historians that invigorates your work and is inspiring for you as well as your students? With this blog, we will do just that — focus on ideas that allow you to think deeply and widely about a variety of topics and in addition, we will provide support and resources for you as well.  Please join in our conversation by adding comments, sharing with colleagues, and tweeting your own ideas and classroom examples with the hashtag, #whatmattersmost. We are looking forward to this adventure and thank you for joining us on this journey.

Patty and Bev.