Three Book Autobiography: My Story in Stories

If you told your story through the stories you have read, how might it go?

Below is a Three Book Autobiography by Sarah Worland. Sarah is a university student studying literature and psychology. I met her through the nonprofit work I do with my family. She is wonderful, smart, witty, and loves others. She has her own blog, and I suggest you check it out.

The only time I’ve ever been grateful for standardized testing was in the eighth grade. Why? It gave me the opportunity to read Ella Enchanted for the first time. Few books continuously capture my imagination as intimately as this book. I love it more now as a twenty year old college student than I did as a thirteen year old middle school student. This is a novel that grows with me: Ella’s spunk, courage, and determination inspired me and now encourage me to live life to the fullest and not allow anything to hold me back. Gail Carson Levine’s book taught me I’m never too old for a fairytale.

Just about everyone reads The Great Gatsby in high school. Just about all of my friends hated it. Not me. I’ve read Fitzgerald’s masterpiece three times now, and each time, I learn something new. This novel captures the essence of literature in my mind – it is the very reason for my great love affair with libraries, book stores, and Amazon.com. I might call Gatsby an onion, if I’m bold enough to use that cliché (and I am). I peel back a new layer of historical, character, or style analysis during each re-read. This book represents an unending mystery, a trove of unexplored paths to greater knowledge and understanding.

Clocking in at the most read book in the world, The Bible is the most influential tome on my bookshelf. As the earliest source of stories I can remember reading, I’ve progressed over the years from “graphic novel” Bible to “teen” Bible to “adult leather-bound” Bible. Call me crazy, and some people have, but this book is alive. It speaks to me; it teaches me; it corrects me; it inspires me. God’s words shape the deepest part of who I am; through them, I hear His voice and feel His love.

I want to learn about you and from you. I’m curious, what are your three stories?

The Child’s Concept of Story, Chapter 1

Below is a my own personal summary of the first chapter of Arthur N. Applebee’s The Child’s Concept of Story: Ages Two to Seventeen. I encourage you to read it for yourself. The summary is merely my understanding upon reading it, and my attempt to make it plain for myself.

Introduction

Social structures provide information and experiences through which and in which we develop our constructs of the world. Verbal and nonverbal communication build our concepts of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Along with this language development comes the rules by which we govern them. However, we learn this language and the rules through reciprocity, mutual understanding accompanied with enriching and extending communication experiences. James Britton (1970) calls our first language forms the “expressive mode.” In efforts to better understand one another, we move through various modes of communication. Moving from expressive talk to more specialized forms of language begs us to define and analyze the purpose and use of language.

My thoughts as I read: I am suddenly transported to my last classroom. I watch myself from a desk in the classroom, from the students’ perspective. If a foundational principal to communication is reciprocity, a give and take/back and forth/you and me type of experience, then does our current grading system honor a foundational component to effective communication? If we aren’t respecting our innate human communication process can we expect a learning experience from those we are trying to teach, whether its our own children or students?

Guess I am not ready for this

As an English teacher, I taught literature. This included theory, cognitive concepts, various types of writing, understanding culture, connecting to authors, and communication through various means. I did not teach reading. Understanding the written word and processing this back and forth between reader and author is a very different skill than identifying all of the letters’ sounds and working them into words. There are so many reading rules I utilize without thinking. I am humbled at the complication of our language as I now revisit the many rules.

Louisa Moats writes in Teaching is Rocket Science, “Research indicates that, although some children will learn to read in spite of incidental teaching, others never learn unless they are taught in an organized, systematic, efficient way by a knowledgeable teacher using a well-designed instructional approach” (7).

Woops.

I have not read all of Teaching is Rocket Science. What I have read makes me nervous. This is complicated. This reading mess is filled with the “shoulds” and “musts” of many researchers and opinionated individuals.  I am now starting to doubt myself and my abilities. Currently, I am one part willing to do anything and three parts too proud to cave in and buy a curriculum to tell me how to do this. Not sure why I am four parts, but let’s go with it.

The one part (my mommy part I think) is willing to do anything and is interested in my sweet Amelia’s learning to read. It wants to help her however I can. It is also a practical. There many people who have created many resources to help moms like me do this well. It is also a slightly lazy part wanting someone else’s research and time to bring fruition in our learning adventure. The other three parts (my arrogant teacher parts I think) are all talking very loudly and confuse me with my own “should” and “must” statements. I should be able to do this. I must figure it out on my own. I should do more research because I must figure it out because I am smarter than…this. My pride and ambition add themselves to the mix.

I don’t have a conclusion.

What do you think? Incidental or systematic?

Circumference of Learning

Around each one of us is an invisible circle.

The circle is different sizes based our age, time of day, mood, past, and even possible futures (just to name a few). When I was teaching, I imagined these invisible circles snugly encircling each student and his or her desk. You see, it’s easier that way. Manageable. Imagining it small gives me a chance and makes a space just big enough for the student, his or her work, and myself when I stroll by and invade the little circle just long enough to support the learning taking place. Now, I imagine it much differently.

A few nights ago my husband had our baby boy, my daughter, and a book about fish all snuggled together on my daughter’s bed. Books are a part of my daughter’s nighttime routine and this night was no exception. The three shared this very special and very brief moment huddled around a book, talking and laughing. My daughter wasn’t just learning about fish. She was creating a memory with her brother and father, and books were a part of that experience. This is one of the many moments she will carry with her throughout her learning. She might not remember the jokes or the fish facts, but she will compile all of these types of experiences and learn through the colored glasses she’s painting now at four years old. These memories along with many others will crowd in and around her desk as she attempts to learn inside of and outside of structured learning activities. Her teachers and mentors will have to share the circle with me, her dad, and her brother. It’s crowded in here, but I am not going anywhere.

We must honor this wide untouchable space  people inhabit.

There are positive and negative moments and memories we all carry. These moments define us and our concept of self in relationship to others, academics, and even possibility. Assuming all of the messiness of being human can be left at the door of a classroom and set aside as we encounter new learning challenges is ignorant at best. My daughter is trying to merge the past experiences of cuddles and books and fun trips to the library with the challenge of learning to read and write as a skill to perform and not just a way to connect with mom, dad, and brother.  She is learning how to learn.

I remember a no bullying sign I used to hang in my classroom (school policy required it). As if somehow the little red line through the word “bullying” could wipe clean the past and comfort the hurts caused in the halls just outside of my room. Silly me.

The circumference of learning invisibly stretches around our perception of self and the external world.

It encompasses the good and bad moments defining us on surface and significant levels. It involves our sense of self and the place we inhabit in relationship to others. It has a shifting center and sliding sides. The formulas we used in high school math to calculate the circle’s area and circumference using the radius and diameter don’t work here because our circles are constantly moving, with a shifting center and sliding sides.  They are real but remain unseen. The moment sweet Amelia was born she became a part of my circumference of learning and change me for the better. I am doing my best to remain inside her circle and help for the better as new challenges keep crowding in and affecting us all.

Whose inside your circumference of learning?

She’s Reading Me

People have been learning to read for countless years. Before words, people were reading images, gestures, and voices. We are made to communicate, share our own experience, and be curious about the experiences of others. We long for sincere interactions with others. When working with Sweet Amelia, I am trying all kinds of materials. We have workbooks, the IPad, videos, and activities on the fly. She is bombarded by colors, sounds, electronics, kinesthetic activities, flashcards, clay, crayons, and paints as I try to help her develop the skills needed to read, the words on the page. Documenting our experiences has unearthed an unspoken obsession I have to find the perfect way to help her efficiently learn letters and their corresponding sounds guided by rules thus creating words. I have a background in education, but I am an immediate sucker for a gold sticker stamped on a DVD claiming parents and teachers love a particular resource and credit it with their child or students educational success. Even PBS, with its nonprofit lure, has “supporters” selling products promising to make my child healthy in mind and body. If PBS says it’s good then it must be. I keep coming to my sweet daughter with a cornucopia of activities, but she keeps looking at me and, I feel, through me.

While teaching high school English at two very prestigious public high schools, I went to over fifteen different training events wrapped with promises and gold medal stamps of approval. Districts spent tens of thousands of dollars sending me all over the country to learn the latest and greatest discoveries in education. Some of the strategies were accompanied by researched statistics and personal testimonials from other teachers, principals, and curriculum gurus. All of the trainings looked great and came in beautifully shrink-wrapped bundles. Initially, I returned to the classroom and tried them out. To my surprise, the students were never impressed with the spoils I returned with. They refused to follow the script and never responded like student A or B or even C in the model handouts. I was always interested in the strategies and hopeful they would live up to their promises, but interest and promise does not go far with teenagers. Strategies often fell flat but sincerity never did. Like sweet Amelia, they saw me, heard my tone, and analyzed my body language with precision. They read me and through this lens, read the text, classroom activity, and the assessment. When I let my students teach me, I learned what no conference could teach. My students taught me education was not the text. Being a successful educator required more of me than passing out a workbook and following five easy steps. Showing up, expecting more, relentlessly encouraging, providing consistent feedback, and being myself seemed to be the best handout I could give. I gave them me, even when they gave nothing in return. Amelia is reminding me of this lesson, one I must not forget.

I often ask people to tell me about their favorite class in elementary, high school, or college. Without an exception the story begins with, “I had this teacher…” I have never listened to a story about diagramming sentences or technical facts or an assessment. I am always attacked with a sensory overloaded retelling of the teacher who stood on his desk, expected excellence from her students, used personal stories from his life for examples, invited discussions and share her opinions, fiddled with the seam on his sweater he wore every day, or who listened and encouraged. Sincerity is the common thread weaving these stories together. Our humanity and not our materials are our most powerful teaching credentials.

Sweet Amelia doesn’t see the workbook or the clay. She sees me, hears my voice’s tone, and analyzes my body language with precision. She’s trying to learn to read by reading me. Am I the activity?

For sweet Amelia, it’s not an IPad or a trip to the library teaching her. The sum total of our experiences together are educating my daughter. Sweet Amelia wants me. Her letters and the corresponding sounds are resounding within the relationship we are creating each day with each other and in every experience, structured and unstructured.

She’s already reading.

Our Tornado of Learning

The above photo is not of my sweet Amelia, but it is of another child who–like sweet Amelia–is curious about her world. The caption accompanying this photo explains how this little girl curiously started asking questions. Looking at this picture and watching a video clip (2-19-13; 9:15am) I took of my daughter as we work through her ABC’s makes me wonder about outside and inside worlds of learning.

This subject came up repeatedly during my graduate work at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Every one in the room wondered why one teenager was excited by a challenge or activity and another was completely put off, at times even hostile. The thought we all had was somewhere in the educational shuffle the unmotivated student had the love of learning we are born with (personal assumption) beaten out of him or her by a well meaning but horribly misguided leader/educator/authority figure. Now, I am not so sure.

Even at the itty-bitty age of four I see sweet Amelia becoming frustrated at the drop of a hat. When working on her ABC’s, Amelia cannot seem to get the L M N O P portion of the song. Before we started playing with reading manipulatives it was a cute little rendition, “Elenenopeee!” It stopped being cute when I, to no avail, tried to show her how each sound matches a letter. I tried to show her the right way of doing this ABC thing. She was probably confused as to why all of the sudden her funny song became a project, a project she was not doing well with. After just a few rounds of pointing and enunciating, Amelia put her head on the table, sighed a frustrated sigh, and tried to quit. I was aware of my tone, my word choice, and her sudden change in mood. I was also very concerned. Suddenly, my colleagues’ presence filled our learning space. I nervously looked around the room and became desperately sensitive. I was determined to not become the evil leader/educator/authority figured we theoretically witch hunted in my graduate courses. This helped me stay positive but it also made me hypersensitive and slightly cloudy in my instruction. To lighten the mood I started being silly with the enunciation, a game she quickly joined. However when we returned to the actual abstract symbols inviting a memorized sound, she went back to her “elenenopee” version. “Collins don’t quit?” she asked. “Yup,” I said. “You’re a Collins, we don’t quit.” Hmmph.

I want sweet Amelia’s learning to be about the letters on the page. I also want it to be easy and fun and affirming to my psyche and hers. Is that too much to ask?

I had to call for back-up by re-affirming her identity as a member of the non-quitting Collins team. This makes me re-visit my prior assumptions (something parenting makes me do on a regular basis). Is there a moment or moments when we must choose to keep our curiosity or leave it behind to adapt a different strategy to not just survive but preserve our personhood? Is it purely external experiences, or is there something more?

Education is a messy mix of identity challenges resulting in deconstruction and reconstruction of how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. There seems to be a clash of identity involving objective (external) and subjective (internal) experiences, These experiences involve feelings needing language, spoken and unspoken. This learning to communicate is our education. Susanne Langer’s (1967, 1972) study deals with these feelings. A language is needed as thoughts and feelings are formed from the impact of external activity, the objective. A language is also needed as the internal activity, the subjective, pushes within and begs to be expressed.

We are dealing with a tornado of sorts as the objective and subject swirl around bringing us to new knowledge or challenging us with uncomfortable unknowns. I see this tornado of external and internal progress as sweet Amelia is learns more than letters. She is constructing both the external language necessary to interact with me and the outside world as well her own internal language necessary to interact with her own self. This is the public and private, the rational and emotional construction we manage as we learn. Developing these languages is necessary to manage new obstacles presented both internally and externally.

So is education less about the information and more and about self-management? Possibly.

Please share with me, how can we become better learners in light of the objective and subjective realms of our language development and/or self-managment?