Midday; Middle of the Woods

Today's teaching and learning adventure plucked us from the hallowed hall of our modest middle school and spirited us away on trusty school bus to the Sugar Creek Bluff State Natural Area, south of Ferryville, Wisconsin.

Ever take 41 twelve and thirteen year-olds to the woods to pull garlic mustard for a few hours? It's definitely one of those endeavors that takes a team of cooperative (if a little crazy) adults to plan and coordinate.

This is the third official year of our efforts to attack this invasive species at the site and give our students some outdoor education experiences along the way. We're determined to get them out and hopefully invested and attached to their natural environments in some important ways.

Our students removed approximately 761 pounds of garlic mustard today through teamwork, dedication, muscles, and sweat.

Amber and Adam, the interns from the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, were fantastic guides today. We appreciated their ability to keep a good sense of humor when working with our crowd of eager and energetic middle schoolers. I think both of them should consider careers as middle school educators. After all they bravely requested to ride the bus with us!

When I find myself in the middle of the woods in the middle of the kind of day where I'm usually tethered indoors, I want to send a bit of gratitude to all those people who make my kind of work possible, and to the events and forces that led me to this particularly beautiful spot on this planet.

And just when I get a little too carried away with this gratitude-in-the-moment stuff, the voices of my woods-weary students call up from points off the beaten path and bring me back: "Ms. H.! Look at this! You gotta see this!!" And it's a 7th grader, hauling a black garbage bag nearly as big as he is, brimming with just-gathered plants, huffing and puffing, all determination and smiles, heading out of the woods.

Thanks go out to Craig, Jenny, and Tony, and to Howie, for their work and fellowship this day.

Middle School Moment

One thing I hope my middle school students understand about my teaching is that I will do whatever it takes to provide them with a positive reading experience on a daily basis. And yes, there are many small goals and lessons associated with that big picture goal, but it's really very simple:

Give kids the freedom to find books that interest them, give them time to read, and then give them opportunities to talk about what they've read. It's a recipe for literacy, and as Nancie Atwell (one of my literacy heroes) writes, "It just happens to be the only way anyone ever became a reader."

Today was a great example of the magic that can occur when everything works, though I can be quite sure my students will laugh at my word choice of "magic" to describe anything that happens in our classroom!

As I fumbled to iron out some issues with our online learning activity at my teacher workstation, I asked the students to share what they've been reading with one another in a whole class discussion.

I can always count on Sam, a voracious reader, to pipe up with her latest book obsession, and she did. She couldn't help but throw three titles together into her talk.

Then Caleb--reliable Caleb-- jumped in with a completely different book recommendation of a fantastic recent Newbery winner that he initially found as an ebook. The first chapter of the book inspired him to find it on our shelves, and he's been hooked.

Katelyn followed with a review of a popular book-turned-movie, and I encouraged her to share the "guts" of the story. Reluctantly she did, though she felt hesitant to give too much away. In doing so, I bet she hooked two or three other people into trying the book.

Alisa was next with a review of a compelling, but somewhat controversial award-winner (my favorite kind of read!). This prompted me to share a connected story of a much younger reader who also tried to read that book. We talked about what happens when younger readers try to read books about things they don't understand, and the class reassured me that they were no longer "immature readers." "We can handle this stuff, Ms. H.," they say.

Emily brought us to the end of the booktalking episode with a plug for a series she's really into. This led to a little discussion about series in general, and we chatted a bit about the pros and cons of the epic series that launched so many readers: J.K. Rowling's beloved Harry Potter books.

I know this doesn't seem like a fancy use of academic time, and there's certainly nothing out-of-the-box about a bunch of people talking about what they're reading, but if you look a little closer, you see the magic part: this whole scene involved teenagers talking about books. Books! Teenagers! Are you reading me, skeptics?

In the middle of this class, I suddenly realized that my goals had been reached with this group: they had become Readers; each one of them different and finding his or her own way through the world of published human stories, but reading all along the way.

And no, it isn't always easy, and some days all some of them can muster is staring at a few pages while their minds wander with adolescent worries (remember?), but I believe that many of them, most of them in fact, will keep this up--that books and reading will be a part of their lives in some way, from now on.

So when I argue with myself over whether I should throw more energy into updating my classroom to include all the "bells and whistles" of a modern educational machine, I hear that persistant voice reminding me of moments like these, in the middle of the afternoon: kids and books; reading and talking.

We move forward in leaps and bounds in what technology can do for us, and yet great writers, compelling stories, and conversation about the things in life worth talking about pull us back and set us down firmly on real ground.

And so here I am, yet again in the middle. I embrace (and struggle with) new technology in the clouds, but I am mindful of our essential ties to "old school" things like reading and talking.

At the end of class today, when I asked my Readers to haul out their netbooks to post comments and review the website that I finally got up and running, the majority of them piped up in agreement with someone who ventured, "No, Ms. H. Let's just read instead."

Magic words to this middle school teacher's ears.