Renee, Elaine, Barb, Bill, Lori, Kim, and more I am sure, Wow. I have been away from my computer on vacation (who knew national parks seldom have Internet?) But I feel the need to comment on how much I am loving all of your posts on where instruction needs to go and how teachers need to drive it there.
Someone asked what to do if basals are bought by your district and brought to your classrooms and my thought was, "Pile them up to use as props for slanting tables? Use them as writing boards if students choose to sit on the floor? How about cutting out pictures for collages?" Kidding here... In reality I know (and read here) that many of our colleagues are being coraled into addressing the basal and only the basal and it is such a sad commentary on the complacency of our profession that we are not kicking and screaming louder at some of the atrocities (like removal of all books but basals?). Instead this list works to talk about the classroom and to help each other out in the classroom the best that we can despite whatever roadblocks we each have within our teaching systems. I would like to do 2 things in my post. I would ask that those of you receiving directives like: "Use only the basal materials and nothing else", or "Take out all other books to read"...would you mind emailing me with your stories offlist? I am thinking of writing a piece for the general public and I promise to keep names out of it--I just want a taste of how widespread and what sorts of things are happening... Again--this should not clog up the list--please email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you have such a story to share. The second thing I want to suggest through this post is that we continue this conversation. I agree with so many things that all of you have said here. The passion and knowledge base is impressive. It must be good talk given that I came home to 721 emails and I am actually trying to read them all! I would like to continue this conversation, but at the same time I recognize Ginger's mighty efforts to keep the list focused on reading comprehension in the classroom. It is a tough line to draw--like when our students go off-topic in say, science, and you do not want to block the passion and excitement, but then again, how long do you let it go before you return to the actual science topic you are teaching? (in my case, sometimes way too long). I am so happy to wander off topic--being the rather connection-orientated person that I am (my husband calls it a pinball discussion), but I know that quality of mine can be quite annoying to some. How do we keep this list focused and still open up to these broader connections that are so important? I am wondering if we could fix the issue by having parallel conversations--perhaps labeled "teachers and professionalism" in the subject line--that would be easy for people to participate in, listen in on, or delete based upon whether their reading comprehension interests stray to teacher professionalism? That way our talking would not interfere with the purposes of the list, but we could keep talking about this and people could bypass these posts if they are not interested? I do not know if this would appropriately address the issue of staying focused versus the issue of free conversation or if it is even needed, but I thought I would jump in and ask the question. Beat me up if you must. :)Bonita DeAmicis California, Gr. 5 _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
