C'mon!

We went back to that inner city Detroit church last weekend. (I'm grateful that Immersion educators are famous for understanding the joy of crossing cultures.) We returned to the same neighborhood, the same streets, to continue cleaning up, cutting waist high weeds, sweeping, raking, boarding up abandoned homes with decorative boards; whatever the pastor asked of us to help make the neighborhood safer and more attractive. About the time that we finished clearing a sizeable lot, along came a city bus. The driver honked his horn & gave us the thumb's up sign to show his appreciation. That encouraged us all so much. Just a small token of appreciation, and we were ready to pull more weeds!

Skip to Sunday morning...I was part of the visiting Praise Team for the Worship service. The pastor had invited us to lead worship that day, because "we don't have any musicians. We just use CDs to sing along with." We didn't exactly have an abundance of musicians in our group that day, 3 to be exact, but we agreed to do what we could. Low and behold, to start off the service here came about 20 singers, plus a choir director, plus a pastor who became sort of the lead singer. They used a CD alright; but they backed it up with so many beautiful voices. It was amazing!

Then we were invited up. The 3 of us. I don't think I was really nervous, inspite of the fact that the guitar player is a Middle Schooler who is still learning his craft, and the other singer has a very soft voice, but we plugged ahead, appealing to the congregation to help us not feel so lonely by singing along with us. We only had 2 songs. As I started the 2nd song, I messed up. I played the right chords, but in the wrong places & confused my guitar player. So I just stopped & said, "Let's start that again." The congregation was very patient with us. And we really appreciated it. But what impacted me most, was, just as I started the chord progression again, one of the young members down front shouted out, "C'mon! You can do it!" And the others of the congregation chimed in, affirming that they too believed in us.  We finished the song. We did it! And we didn't feel bummed, discouraged or disappointed in ourselves for the error.

I want to be that young person. I want to be a part of that congregation/community culture. I want every one of you as teachers, administrators, parents, students to feel affirmed, even in your failures. I want you to feel that support as you go about your day, making plans, teaching, listening, facilitating, enabling, releasing...C'mon! You can do it! I want your students and my students to feel that affirmation from the teachers & leaders in their lives. C'mon! You can do it! I want our students to learn to be that kind of support to their peers; help them to break down the barriers of embarrassment; to discontinue the laughing in response to personal errors or failures, and instead to take up the cry of this young person, C'mon! You can do it!

So often at the beginning of a new school year we are so excited about the new ideas we've dreamed up, classes that we've taken, new products to be unveiled in the classroom, new students to get to know, only to get the wind knocked out of us by a critical co-worker, a disgruntled parent, a harsh administrator, a seemingly impossible task just presented to us the week before school starts, that we become discouraged. But this year I'm taking on that affirmation I heard from that young person in Detroit. C'mon! You can do it!  C'mon! You can do it!  C'mon! You can do it!

I hope you will too. Have a beautiful start to a new year!

Sheryl René

A little help?

I am amazed at how quickly many of you teachers & authors get new materials ready for new challenges. I've been reading Lucy Calkins' updated curriculum for writing this summer to prepare for the Common Core State Standards. How in the world did she get that curriculum written, tested, revised, samples gathered, teachers trained to assist in her research, students to observe & confer with, and have it all published in time for the new season?  I am very thankful for her leadership gifts and her willingness to share them with our profession!

As I pore over the many templates and charts she has produced, I'm wondering once again, why is it so necessary to "lock" everything up? As an immersion teacher, I know from the "get-go" that I will have to revise, translate & adapt any charts or templates that I find in the curriculum. I would think that by now publishers would also be aware of the many immersion and bilingual programs that are out there, so why not just unlock these templates & chart samples so we can download them and start editing them for our classrooms? Being a digital immigrant, I do not always relish having to copy the idea, but start from scratch to make the worksheets. I know my traditional peers will be able to just download, print & voila! have a template ready to go for day 1.

So I went to option #2: See if my school's technology allows me to change PDFs to Word documents so that I can quickly & easily edit the templates & be ready to go "in a jiff!"  Alas, we teachers do not have that privilege. It was purchased for a few administrators, but not for teachers. If I would like I could purchase it myself for the school's price of $60, then I could have access to these helps. It was also recommended that I put it on a more public computer so that other teachers could take advantage of my purchase as well. I'm all about sharing, but in a day and age where both technological savvy and immersion education are highly valued, (not to mention you'll be evaluated on these during the school year) why would you not make this available to your staff?

What did I do? I bought the program for my personal laptop for $20. And now I begin the process of editing, adapting, and printing templates and charts that will be totally in line with the curriculum, and totally usable for my immersion classroom! Win-win! But really, publishers & administrators, let's start planning better so that all of our teachers will be able to start the new school year with all the materials they need, in the language they need them!

~Sheryl René