Standards, goals, objectives, for some reason they have been rattling around in my head for the last few days... all thanks to Bill Nye the Science Guy. Yes, the adorkable science video guy whom we all just love. This week I had the privilege of hearing him speak live at the STEM Symposium here in San Diego. His speech resonated with every educator in the room as he spoke about opening the minds of our students to the JOD (joy of discovery.) So this got me to thinking. What are MY learning goals for my students? What immediately came to my mind had NOTHING to do with Common Core, NETS, or other standards. It all had to do with the beauty of watching a child learn and discover. You know what I mean, those wonderful moments punctuated by an expletive such as "Ahhh," "Whoa," "Cool," or even better, What?!?" That being said, here is what I really want for the students with whom I work:

1. May you open your mind in order to experience the joy of discovery.
Isn't this why we teach? Of course it is! We want our students to become lifelong learners who continually seek to better themselves through study. But in order for this to happen, discovery has to occur in its natural, awe-inspiring, wonder-producing state. It certainly shouldn't be scripted away by a teacher's manual.

2. May you understand that asking the right question is more important than giving the right  answers.
We've all had those students who can read out loud beautifully, but lack comprehension skills; or the student who has memorized their multiplication facts, but has no idea how to apply mathematical theory to their lives. This is not the point of education. Creating critical thinkers is the point of education. Asking the right question, means that you understand the problem at hand. If you don't ask the right question, then the answer to it is of no use. If my students recognize this, then they can be the Louie Pasteur, Steve Jobs, or Picasso of their field; someone who asked the right question, and found an answer that changed the world.

3. May you attain a sense of accomplishment as you fail forward in order to reach a goal.
There is a lot of talk out there about failure, but failure means giving up. We want students who can persevere through setbacks, tribulations, and mistakes. This is the only way that honest-to-goodness discovery can take place. This is what it will take for one of my students to develop a cure for malaria or develop an inexpensive way to get water to drought stricken farmers.

4. May you discover that learning gives purpose to your life.
I truly hope that same idea, somewhere in my students' educational careers, will inspire them to do something wonderful with their lives. Will they invent a life-saving medical device that stems from their love of origami? Will they become a best-selling novelist, even though they found writing tedious, but still had creative ideas to share? Will they open a shop catering to a niche market of customers that only they had the compassion to understand? I certainly hope so!

5. May you merit the friendship that develops from working as part of a team.
Let's face it, you can be a genius, but if you are a jerk, no one wants to work with you. You have met these people before. They are brilliant, but working with them is so tiresome, that it's not sustainable. I absolutely do not want my students to be "that person." How you play is just as important as what you know, and sometimes even more so. If one of my students is to negotiate peace in the Middle East, then they'd better have well-developed social skills.

6. May you delight in the process of making the world a better place.
And now we get to the real reason I teach. I have admitted it repeatedly, and I remind my students daily. For me personally, the world is an amazing, beautiful, and love-filled place. However, this isn't the case for everyone in our world. I expect my students to make the world better than it is now. And I want to live in, and experience that world. This is their one true assignment, the one by which they, as a person, will be measured. THIS is the assignment where they most need to earn an A+. And darned it if I won't do my damndest to help them do it!

     I just happened upon this infographic in the best place on the Internet for teachers... Twitter. Wow! Now in reality, we all know that parents are far more important in the lives of their children than we teachers could ever hope to be. And that is just as it should be. But parents, your direct and supportive involvement has a drastic and lasting effect on your child's education, and therefore their success in life.  It is also no secret that income is often directly correlated with school achievement and success. But just look at some of the numbers in this infographic, look at the immediate negative effect that the recession had on certain students students. I wouldn't have thought it to be so drastic.
     So, this is a call to action! Parents, break the cycle of poverty and continue the cycle of success by involving yourself, immersing yourself, in the education of your child. If you don't understand what they are doing, have them teach you. Ask the teacher, find a tutorial on YouTube. It will help your child and you can learn along with them.  Educators, this doesn't mean you're off the hook, quite the opposite in fact! This means you have to foster parent involvement where it is high, but more importantly, nurture it and grow it where it is low. This is our chance people! If we work together we can improve the education, and the lives, of countless students. This in turn will improve the lives of their families and ultimately of our society as a whole.
     All right, I'll admit it here in a public forum, I have very selfish reasons for putting out this call to action. I want to live in this improved society. I often tell my students that when they run the world I expect them to do a better job than those who are running it now. I expect them to cure diseases, make beautiful art, invent something to make the lives of others better, and be fantastic parents themselves. But I also expect them to work hard, to think, and to solve problems both big and small. So who's in? Who wants to live in this new and better world with my students and me? Won't you join us? We'd love to have you!

     There is a lovely retired teacher and writer who I run into on occasion in my neighborhood coffee shop.  Last week, he gave me his card and he described himself as purveyor of words.  Isn't that just like an author?  Describing something everyday and normal in a manner that makes you take a second look so you realize that it is in fact not everyday and normal.  Well, this sparked some thinking for me.  What do I do?  I teach.  But that answer doesn't even begin to describe what I do with my students.  A teacher just hands off knowledge to her pupils and that is certainly not what I do at all.  (Though I must confess, way, way, back, that might have been what I did.)
     So I asked myself, "If I don't teach, what do I do?"  Well... I help my kiddos learn how to find information, solve problems, and deal with adversity.  I help them become caring, helpful, concerned citizens who make the world a better place for others around them.  I help them look at the world to find beauty, wonder, and wrongs to be righted.  I work my butt off for them because they deserve my best, and they do the same for me!  I lay awake at night worrying about them and muddling over ways to best help them conquer the challenges they face.  I spend a great many of my waking hours researching, learning, and developing new and innovative ways to help them become better learners and nicer people.  But most of all... I love them!  Really, I can't help it.  They are just there... smiling or scowling at me, imperfect, hoping to do well, having good days and bad ones, making others smile, being naughty.  How could I not love all that?
     So back to the original question.  How do I put all of what I do into one short description, a job title?  That seemed to be quite the conundrum.  Hmmm... I thought about the fact that teaching, when done well, is truly an art form.  So what about an artist?  But most art is a static creation once finished, it doesn't continue to grow, change, and develop, at least not in the way people do.  So if not an artist what?  A chef?  A tour guide?  A gardener?  Yes.  That was it!  A gardener!  A garden, whether beautifully manicured, overgrown, or untended is continually changing and growing... just like my students.  The landscaper or arborist can make small changes that will have a lasting impact for years to come, but isn't in complete control.  That gardener is me!  Those plants are my students!  Some are tall and sturdy, with deep roots able to weather any storm.  Some are delicate flowers needing some extra care in order to bloom beautifully.  Some are the grass beneath your feet, warming your toes on a sunny day.  And with some tools, rain, and sun, we all work together to create something beautiful.  So it is decided.  If someone asks me what I do, my response is that I am a cultivator of minds.  I like the sound of that and all that it implies.  Now if I can just get the school administration to change my job title...

Sometimes you just need to get away from it all!  Well then, just go to Fiji and relax on the beach.  That's what our first graders will do.  This past week we started to create Fiji in the back office.  This is a place where the students (and teachers) can go when they need a break or a cooling off period.  We started by painting the water, the sandy beach, and the palm trees.  I even added a plastic coconut "drink." (You can see it on the desk.)  But we aren't finished yet.  I'm going to bring in a beach towel, Ms. Shapp said she had an old beach chair we could add, and we are hoping for a grass skirt donation to put around the desk.  The kicker would be if we could get a small blow-up boat, but we'll have to do some "fishing around" for that.  So far Fiji has been entirely too popular, but that always happens when our get-away spot is new.  Wouldn't you be there all the time?  In a few days in won't be so novel and will be used as intended.  In the past I've had Antarctica as a place to "cool off" with penguins, and a field with a stuffed lamb friend.  But one word of warning, be sure to put it in your sub plans.  A few years ago a sub in my friend's second grade class was not amused when a student disappeared and then informed her he had been to Hawaii.

It is always nice to have some affirmation of what you do, but it is even better to have that affirmation as well as more training.   A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be sent to San Francisco to be trained in the Responsive Classroom approach to classroom community.  I follow their blog and newsletter because they are always full of ideas I find quite useful.  There is also a host of ideas from teaches using this approach if you just Google the term.  But to actually having the chance to be trained for an entire week was just fantastic, and it made me confront and evaluate some of my classroom practices honestly.

I always have a pretty close knit community in my classes where students, teachers, and parents could say what they felt, give constructive criticism, and most importantly feel a sense of belonging, significance, and fun.  But after having been through the training I realized that our classroom community could be improved in several ways.  Yes!  It could be even better.

However, here I am going to focus on just one aspect... sharing.  Is that a groan I hear from my fellow teachers out there?  I am right there with you.  Those endless bring-n-brag sessions, known as show-and-tell, about the newest toys were just torturous.  I gave that up aeons ago to save everyone from the misery.  Yet the Responsive Classroom version of sharing will be making its debut in my class come fall.  Yes, really!  With this approach, the purpose of sharing is so that each of us can get to know each other for who they are as a human being.  This means that sharing comes with topics such as, my biggest fear is... the personality trait I most like about myself is... etc.  I believe that structured in this way, sharing has the potential to become something wonderful that will make the classroom a more accepting and loving environment.  Who woulda thunk it?