As we begin to gear up for real for the coming school year, we must avoid confusion. Many of our threads become unavoidably obtuse, and I accept that, but in spite of all the complex discussions that we always seem to get going here, the overriding theme of simplicity must be our main goal for the coming year. Otherwise, we will just confuse ourselves.
In the interests of simplicity and clarity, then, I want to identify here the themes that I see as “on the table” as we begin the year. Please add your thoughts in the comment fields below this post – we really need to go into this year with a clear mind.
We have always worked shoulder to shoulder facing in the same direction here – we must do it again this year, but with more clarity than ever as more and more new ideas are tested and either thrown out or put into our growing skill set.
Themes:
1. The theme of Simplicity itself (click on the category for more)
2. jGR – last year was a test year for this powerful classroom management tool. This year it must be tested further. Sharon starts school early in August and has asked for further discussion on jGR before her year starts so we might as well clean that all up before the year starts. If you are new to jGR, and you want good classroom management this year, click on that category and start reading – you’ll be happy that you did.
3. Upper level/AP instruction. There is a category on that nascent topic, and skip commented just today that he will share some stuff he got in Dallas about that all important topic. Many of us have together been growing our own TPRS/CI superstars and now they are juniors and seniors and they are packing our upper level classes and we need to know what to do with them. It is a new and good problem to have – large enrollments and a kind of new curricular frontier for us as teachers who use comprehension based instruction. Although the basics won’t change, some things like reading and choice of materials must be addressed.
4. Movie Talk
5. Reader’s Theatre
6. New People – total support
7. Taking proper time to rest.
James is making flow charts on some of these topics. That is huge. We won’t rush him, for he a true artist in making those charts (some are already above on the “Tools” hard link), not to mention his role as a member of the CI Latin Revivalists who are performing CPR/CI on a language that only looked dead but has not closed its eyes for the last time. Once we get some of those flow charts, we will be able to reference details in our instruction instantly by looking at them in class and not having to remember them from the posts here. It will be great, especially for right brain dominant people like me.
We can say that at the end of last year we had made major, as in super major, inroads into our teaching in these areas:
jGR
rSF
Weekly Two Week Schedule 2013
cRD
L & D
Textivate
IMTranslator
sGI
CC – Class Competitions (Videos)
We need to acknowledge the work we did in those areas and keep them going this year as well. They are gold for our continued success in our classrooms.
To read some of the comments posted by group members last spring on those topics, click here:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2013/05/21/developing-threads-2013-2014/
CI is not complicated, but making CI fit into what schools think good teaching is these days IS complicated. I want all the new people to feel that they are reading stuff that makes sense to them all the time. I want them in the loop all year. I have identified it as a theme above. New people here must absolutely feel free to question and challenge and ask for clarification on any and all topics that they encounter as they read here throughout the year.
I also want to repeat that skip Crosby and I have a kind of deal where we push each other to not post on the PLC on the weekends. It is so true that a typical week of reading here can be overwhelming, and so we need time to process and integrate what we learned that week, and skip and I are serious about learning how to rest and taking the weekends off. Skip told me in a recent email that he was proud about how much time I have taken away from posting here this summer and I am proud of myself as well. I also want to remodel my house. Resting and taking time to do things outside of school, even though many of us are enjoying being a part of a kind of modern day Charge of the Light Brigade in education, well will make us MUCH better teachers.
And remember that this PLC is not Ben’s Advice Column. It never has been. The entire group is one big problem solving machine, as many of us have seen, which is very very badass. I raise my glass to this coming school year. May we not enter it with that very common vague feeling of a kind of impending fear, but with confidence and even joy in the knowledge that teaching was not meant to be a chore, but a wonderful sharing with others in the target language, as per this beautiful definition of happiness by Stendhal:
Un bavardage sans détour, et la présence de ceux qu’on aime….
An endless conversation, and the presence of those one loves….
What must we do to give up the idea that kids are out to get us and gig us and make us miserable? What must we give up to change the paradigm? What must we do to establish the mutual respect in our classrooms that is the key to any healthy relationship? What must we do to realize Stendhal’s definition of happiness?
All we have to do, y’all, is trust that this stuff works. That’s all we have to do. Once the kids realize that all we want to do is hang out with them in the TL, they will put down their psychic weapons and our lives as teachers will change. What not turn our professional dreams into reality this year? Why wait any longer for the world to begin?
Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyLzscOiSfI