Around the end of Volume 25

Volume 25, No. 4

About a year ago, I discovered what I'd been longing for in my teaching career: Rethinking Schools, a quarterly education journal, "for educators who want to enlist students in thinking deeply and critically about the world today". It includes inspiring articles written by a variety of educators, but of course not so inspiring if I bring it in from the mailbox and stash it on the bottom shelf of the coffee table.

What atrocious habits I have developed!

A couple of days ago, Rethinking Schools sent me a renewal notice. I see it laying unopened on the desk to the left of the computer where I am typing this blog entry. Not quite on the top of the pile, but close enough so I can see it still. The reason I haven't opened it and renewed the subscription yet is the same reason I haven't opened the latest issue of that journal... I have gotten into the habit of not having time for such things as READING during the long hectic weeks and months of the school year. Not that I don't read anything. In fact I do a lot of reading after work hours:

• teacher's guides, 
• students' essays, 
• articles required for professional development classes, 
• curriculum maps and pacing guides, 
• Colorado Department of Education standards website in search of acceptable reasons to include in grant proposals to justify my requests for money to purchase classroom books, 
• and I've spent many evenings and weekends in the company of leveled reading books from my classroom so I could stay ahead of my 7 year old students. 

A year ago, after an especially hectic and stressful school year, my very generously supportive husband suggested that we would not be suffering financially if I worked part-time. Last fall, I started the experiment to see what it would be like to work a 65% part-time position. Unfortunately I was assigned to a grade level I'd never taught, using a curriculum program I'd never used, in a language I hadn't taught in (all-English!) for more than a decade. I had a huge amount of homework that year. But it's now over and a new autumn has rolled around. I am back to a familiar teaching assignment (Bilingual Literacy Lab) and working half-time.

It seems, however, that I need a reminder from time to time that I can take a cleansing breath, relax, pick up a book or magazine and delve into reading something for pleasure, or even for inspiration. Such a reminder arrived yesterday in my mailbox... from Rethinking Schools. No, not another subscription renewal reminder, it was a donation request. Instead of sending it straight to the junk-mail trash bin, I read the following story excerpt from that letter, written by a young teacher.

"When I first entered my teacher education program...I wanted to change the world and love children. After reading [a book published by Rethinking Schools] I still wanted to change the world and love children, but I realized to do that, I needed to also be the thoughtful and conscious teacher who empowers children, advocates for their rights, and creates critical thinkers who understand that their voices count."

Words near and dear to my heart.

So, what's on my agenda today? Another cup of coffee, followed by renewing a journal subscription, then digging out its latest issue, Volume 27, No. 1 and settling into a pleasurably inspiring morning of reading on this Friday "comp-day" following the completion of a couple late evening Parent Teacher Conferences this past week.

      

Volume 27, No.1 , Fall 2012

                                                                                    Aaaaaah.
                                                                                              YES!!