Pushing Our Learning: What Really Matters?

In the last post, Josie once again reminded me about listening.  But she went one step further.  She reminded me to honor each learner’s individuality and uniqueness.  She asked about what was pushing our thinking and learning.

I had to laugh and wonder why we keep coming up with these deep questions?  Maybe because we are both deep thinkers and that’s what draws us together.

But sometimes I really feel stuck.  My thinking has been driven by my curiosity about one single question.  Why can we be successful in one context and not in another?

Fueling my enduring question is the absolute belief that success and happiness are available for everyone and my deep desire to help others achieve this through my teaching practice.

This year I am participating in another embedded professional development program through my first year of training as a Reading Recovery teacher.  As I continue to think about my daily interactions with students, I am reminded that we need to have a reason to want to learn how to read. Does reading matter to me or to them?  Why read?

Marie Clay challenges us to “be tentative, flexible and immediately responsive to the best opportunity for a particular learner to have at this moment.”  

So, just as Josie keeps returning to the idea of listening, I am brought back to listening to my students and helping them to connect reading to their own lives.  Sometimes this seems so far away from the legislative demands of political institutions.  In Ohio, we start worrying about reading success starting in kindergarten.  We are required to send notices to parents predicting progress or lack of progress on a third grade test that fulfills legal requirements of what the State Department of Education has named the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. 

The challenge for me is to try to do things with love and patience, with ease and energy ------

         so that I can listen to my students and what reading means to them.  To do this, I have to remember what reading means to me, not just as a research based curriculum or standardized test, but as a real part of my living.

I wonder if the children experience reading as something similar or different in other contexts, for example, in their classroom or at their home.

I hope that these question matter. I keep asking myself if what I’m doing and thinking about is important enough to do and think about.  We only have a certain amount of time and energy, so our efforts need to matter, need to make a difference and bring some sort of joy and happiness through learning.

And I’m reminded how struggles are a way to learn.  So I will keep on joyfully struggling to define and enjoy reading for my students and myself. 

What is your current problem and how are you learning as you work your way through the struggles and difficulties?

I am finally getting back into reading for pleasure and not just graduate classes!  I am loving my kindle app on my phone.  Here is my current reading candy:

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

I am using the annotation feature to capture and share my thinking with a fifth-grade-reading-buddy.  I can’t wait to share this tool with her!

What do I Want to Learn?

In Mary Kate's last post she asked, "What do you want to learn, Josie?"  What a great reflective question, to think deeply about what it is you truly want to learn, it forces me to focus and key in on what will push me the most as a learner, to focus my reading, reflecting, collaborating time.  No wonder when we allow students to determine what they want to learn about, it becomes so powerful - this process is a good reminder for me!

I noticed as I started to reflect on what I wanted to learn, my mind always went to the HOW I love to learn.   I wonder, do I offer enough choices with my students on HOW to learn?   The how for me is the easier piece - I love to learn with people, especially with students.  For me that equates to conferring.  So if I were to choose one thing to focus my learning on it would be the conference piece of workshop.

The conference time could possibly be my favorite part of both workshops. The time that you truly get to see passion in a writer's and reader's plans, passion when the reader or writer reads to you. This is the time you get to share in the excitement for what has been written and what has been read.  This is the time that you get to hear strings of truth that allow you into that reader's/writer's life and bring you closer to understanding choices made in that reader's/writer's learning. 

The same is true during conferences with colleagues as we plan together or reflect on student progress and next steps.  I want to learn how to learn more in all conferences - writing and reading conferences with students, pre-conferences and reflection conferences with colleagues.  I want to learn to listen with more intensity.  Learning to rephrase what is said and then ask for clarification before moving on to a goal or to a next-step plan.


Mary Kate shared her thinking about scaffolding.  This is where conferring and scaffolding come together. Here is one of my favorite new professional books: 

The Construction Zone: Building Scaffolds for Readers and Writers 

By Terry Thompson

Terry Thompson helps us to learn about the feedback loop.  How we observe, reflect and respond.  "Effective scaffolds exist and expand in a responsive feedback loop that continually moves learners toward greater degrees of mastery." pg. 105

With the help of reading material like this and colleagues and students to think about conferencing with, I feel more focused and ready to challenge myself to push deeper and more focused when conferring.  

Reflecting on what I want to learn and how I want to learn has been a true reminder for me to honor both the what and the how with the learners I encounter each day.  What is pushing your learning, thinking, reflecting?