I love gardening, but I have come to accept the fact that I’m not a very good gardener. Part of this failing comes from a tendency to impatience – I buy the plants with great enthusiasm, find and clear the perfect spot, and then dig away. Nine times out of ten, I find that someone has planted something else in this perfect spot long ago, and then I wished I’d taken the time to follow my mother’s gardening rule: first, discover what is there. I was thinking about this rule on Sunday, when I dug deep to plant some cone flowers, and found myself gazing at a shovel full of bulbs. Annoyed, I set aside my perfect pot of flowers, and spent the next twenty minutes fixing all that I had carelessly undone…which led me to make (of course!) a teaching connection.
As I forge ahead in my summer PD reading and Twitter learning, collecting brilliant ideas from the likes of Colleen Cruz, Jennifer Serravallo, and Dr. Mary Howard, I will have to keep my mother’s rule in mind. Before I launch my mini lessons, unveil new units of study, reveal the treasures of our classroom library, I will need to take the time to first discover what is there. So, even as I plan new ventures and approaches, I’m making a mental note to attend to the following:
- revamping my beginning of the year surveys – am I asking questions that will yield meaningful answers?
- thinking of structuring individual and small group conferences so that I can learn from what my kids share, and the questions and concerns they pose?
- planning thoughtful readalouds with books that will draw us together as a learning community, set the tone for the school year, and allow my kids opportunities for our first conversations about the stories we read and how we discover ourselves through them.
- figuring out creative but authentic ways in which to assess their writing so that I can learn what they are good at as well as what I need to teach.
Before I charge ahead in the new school year, I must commit to discovering, first, what is there.