I feel like we’re getting too busy here. I can’t read everything, and I want to. I learn from every comment and it takes me more time than I have to absorb everything.
Should I limit the articles? The queue is always full of new articles. I guess it is a problem with this kind of change. Any ideas? Anybody else being overwhelmed by too much content here?
I am going to put a hold on new articles until the weekend, just to catch up. That’s a start.
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18 thoughts on “Can’t Keep Up”
I like the idea of a hold. I’ve only been able to read 50% of posts lately, if that. But that being said, I surely don’t HAVE TO read every single entry, just the ones that appeal to me. That probably didn’t help you much.
I feel like I have to read all the comments, mainly, and reflect on them. There is so much richness in them. So maybe if I slow the rate of posting new articles down, I can absorb the comments better. After all, this is about our getting to know each other and what each other is going through, since we can’t all physically meet for a wrap up discussion at the end of each day. And that leads me to the topic of bios. Please send them in. It may not seem important, but it is. It just is, so do it.
I agree. A hold or slow down would be good. I want to read everything because it is so valuable. I also want to spend time reading over old articles.
I agree. I have been posting and reading a ton because I am a newbie and desperately trying to learn and ask questions, but even I find it a bit overwhelming to keep up. Maybe a limit of 1 or two articles a day would help. In general, I think this is a structural problem that happens when communities grow too quickly without planning how to handle the growth. How can one person, you, be expected to direct the increased flow of messages here while also holding a (more than) full-time job as a teacher? I don´t have any solutions, but I feel your pain.
Hey Ben, you’re on to something. Think of it this way: for our students we practice SLOW and PAUSE. Don’t we need that too?
OK I’ll do it but then what happens is all of this very rich content in posts and articles gets jammed like a bunch of logs behind a dam and it just gets worse, more crowded.
Another thing is that I have noticed for years now how there is a flow to our dialogue, and I don’t want to lose that. Instead of merely sharing ideas, I feel like I am searching for gold nuggets in a gold field with you guys and whenever one of us finds one, we call to the others and say, “Hey, look what I found!”
Like the recent one on getting strong responses in y/n answers from every kid and waiting them out. It used to be merely an idea, and I did it sometimes, but now that I have embraced and do it fully in every class, along with SLOW and inbounds, it has changed my level of expertise with it.
I just don’t want the flow to get blocked up. Chris, honestly, the last few hundred comments, I would not trade them for anything. Go read them. Hold your child in your arms and read them to him/her. I have been able to learn so much from them. But Anne I guess you are right, everyone is right. OK.
Hey Anne, by the way, and this is the subject of one of the posts waiting in the queue – I am officially doing a lot less random PQA and more and more with your stories. Let me just say this at the risk of sounding sollicitous – I probably wouldn’t be still teaching if I had not had those stories you wrote.
Your stories – so clever – have kept me going. All I have to do to turn my fear into confidence is be holding one of your scripts in my hand. Right now I am doing the Tent Story, what a tale that is! Seriously, it just rocks the house.
I feel like all the work I have done in this method, all my work, all of it, depends totally on having one of your scripts on the desk in front of me in class. And this is NOT a sollicitation for another scripts book. It is an important truth that I want to tell you publicly, that your stories have made all the difference for me.
So publicly or at least privately in our group I thank you thank you thank you for your sense of humor and how you tap into teenagers’ minds in a way that is hued with a certain kind of humor that reflects you, the genius you are.
Now what were we talking about before?
I’m a good 15 articles behind and hundreds of comments behind. Between grad classes, teaching and family I’m struggling finding extra time. Now, I have this curriculum meeting next week to prepare for. I agree on slowing down. Go Slow-Li. At least for the next month, I still feel like I’m getting into the groove of things now that the school year is ramping up.
I cannot keep up either…. I end up copying and pasting and saving articles to read later…..
I know that in the past when you have said on Fridays or before vacations to “catch up” it is a HUGE relief….. I think this is all the more reason to stop ALL blog activity completely from noon on Friday until Monday AM……
Actually, would a complete moratorium on weekend and school vacation blog activity be enough reprieve for people to get caught up??
Thanks Ben…. The stuff is just SO helpful and SO good that I hate to 1. have it stop at all 2. hate to miss any of it because there is so much 🙁
Skip
Ben, don’t feel like you have to answer every comment because we can get a lot out of reading what is happening in each others’ classrooms, too. Plus, I am getting a lot out of reading the posts by topic that are listed at right.
I do want to mention that what you are doing for us is invaluable. All the advice you gave me last weekend has helped so much in my Chinese 2 class. When I started class on Monday, I said to the kids that I had “consulted with my coach over the weekend” and that got an immediate reaction: “Mrs. Drumm you have a coach?” I know I was taking some liberties there but the kids started to get involved in the process. Most of the kids are involved in sports so they understand the value of a coach as well. By the way, they said you were totally right about too many new terms. And we had much more success with the new pared down version of the lesson.
Don’t feel you have to reply to this one. I just wanted you to know. And I’ll get my Bio in this weekend.
Tamula, are you in Akron?
Yes, I am. Why do you ask, Chris?
I live down in Stark County but I teach in Stow. How long have you been doing TPRS? It’s awesome that there’s somebody so close that does TPRS. Would you like to meet up sometime with some colleagues for coffee or something? My student teacher is learning TPRS right now while working with me and one of my colleagues in my building is slowly converting over. It would be great to have a local “support group” to occassionally get together and discuss things.
Wow, that is a great idea. I went to iFLT this summer because I was looking for a better way to teach reading to my Chinese students. I didn’t even know I would be learning about TPRS. I was totally blown away by what I learned there from Ben, Diana Noonan, Jason, Linda Li, Annick Chen, and Laurie C. (whose Embedded Reading opened up so many new possibilities for my teaching). Now I am trying to get it right in my own classrooms.
So I am just getting started and have lots to learn. Our Russian teacher just started at our school last year but is in her 4th year of teaching with CI and TPRS and has been a huge help to me. I think it would be great to all get together. Do you know many other teachers using TPRS? The only other Ohioian I met t iFLT was Terri Weichert who is wonderfully supportive.
Teri is good, but she lives kind of far from us. I know a few in the northeast Ohio area but it seems as if there are more than I even thought. I didn’t know that there was anybody in the Akron area but now I know about you and your colleague. The other Spanish teacher in my middle school is converting over to TPRS. I’ve given her articles, DVDs and let her borrow the green book. She’s convinced that it’s the way to go. One of the teachers at our high school dabbles in TPRS after going to a workshop with Von about a year ago. I know a TPRS teacher in Millersburg, she lives in Wooster though. Gary Di Bianca lives up in Willoughby, he’s great! He’s done a few workshops. My student teacher is really liking TPRS as he sees it and experiences it in my classes. The language department in Canton City Schools is becoming TPRS. So it’s a growing movement around here, I guess none of us really know of each other’s existence though. That needs to change.
My email is christopherroberts9@gmail.com . And I’m trying to start a Northeast Ohio TPRS “group” as a way for TPRS teachers in NE Ohio to network, support each other, and hopefully find ways to bring more training and coaching to each other. I made a facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NEOTPRS . Hopefully it’s something that can get rolling.
I really appreciate your saying that but Tamula here’s the deal. I WANT to respond. I can’t help it. Y’all write stuff that is just so real and I just want to get involved and say what I’m thinking. I think that is true for Robert. Everyone is so invaluable to the ongoing discussion. I never dreamed I could learn like this in a million years. So rest assured that this is voluntary on my part. We are, as skip says, on fire with change and positive things. I have been waiting my entire professional life for this kind of conversation and growth in my own classroom. Had jen, for example, not read what Robert wrote last year and then followed along with David Talone’s suggested rubric, and then come up with jGR, my teaching would be a lot different this year. I’m really flaming with this stuff, but like Drew Barrymore, we got to learn to fly our freak flags. Hey, there is a post here from some years ago. I’ll look for it.
Skip we made an agreement and I have been breaking it because I am a maniac, so keep calling me on it. It’s just that by the 3rd week of school the patterns we have or have not established in our classrooms are too late to break. So that is one reason I would ask for a September exception to our agreement. But, yes, let’s start this weekend with the moratorium, but only on articles. I think that there are just too many good comments that we need to allow in over the weekends. The richness of the comments is such a fine thing! So is that o.k. – comments allowed on the weekends but no new articles?
Please give yourself the break that WE need, too! As it is, I’m sitting here not being able to tear myself away from all this important and ground-breaking stuff while I’m supposed to be on the road already.
Narrow and deep; less is better. Yes, yes, coming up for air, breathe deeply and read! Hope I can catch up soon!
Chill