1. If you could go back and talk to yourself as a young teacher, what is one piece of advice you might offer?
As a beginning teacher I definitely thought I had to play the role of “teacher.” I had some archetypes in my head about what that meant. There was this person, “Gravity,” outside of school and then “Ms. Goldberg” inside the building. Once I began to bring more of myself into the classroom I began to create my own version of what it means to be a teacher.
It is so helpful to have role models and mentors when learning something new and it is important to be in community with others who will help you reflect on who you uniquely are, what your particular gifts are, and how you can teach in ways that are aligned to your integrity. Get a thinking and reflecting partner and meet often in informal and formal ways. That person may be just starting off like you are or a veteran. They don’t necessarily have to teach the same subject or grade level, but someone you can trust and build a collegial relationship with.
2. What do you see as both the major challenges and a few (or at least one) potential solution(s) for reading teachers right now?
So much emphasis is on deficits at the state and district levels that teachers are often carrying the weight of this thinking into their planning. When we look for weaknesses and needs we will find them. When we look for strengths to build upon we will find those too. The brain is taught what to look for by how we frame our questions and what we pay attention to. When we pay attention to what our students cannot do we suffer from lack of energy and feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. I recently read the research from Judson Brewer that shows we cannot be both anxious and curious at the same time. This means when we feel anxious we are shutting down our curiosity. When we are no longer curious we miss all of the nuanced moves student readers are making and approximating. Students sense this and often stop showing us who they really are as people and readers.
At the school and classroom level we have more control than we sometimes think. We can intentionally choose to frame our department meetings, grade level planning sessions, and lessons from a strengths-based perspective.
Start each meeting by naming at least three things your students learned since the last meeting.
Before deciding what to teach a student or group next, make sure you can name a few strengths first. Name these for students before adding to what they already know how to do.
End each day with students sharing something they are proud of.
Use learning progressions that help you frame what to look for through a strengths-based approach. Here is one example from my Teacher’s Toolkit for Independent Reading (Goldberg & Houser, Stenhouse, 2020). This helps you see what is in place and a next step for what you might teach next.
3. What message would you send to future teachers about the importance of literacy?
Twenty-seven percent of adults surveyed say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019. In a covid-19 context the numbers may be even higher. While this data is about adults, these adults are coming from our k-12 schools. Yes, it is vitally important to teach students the skills of reading but it is equally important to teach them the love, joy, and purpose of reading. Before teaching any literacy lesson I ask myself the following questions.
How does this support reading skills?
How does this support reading joy?
How does this support out of school literacy practices?
If the lesson does not support skill, joy, and authenticity I don't teach it or I find another way to teach it. If we want to create adults who choose to read, we must look at our current k-12 literacy practices.
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