Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Learning to write



I love my grandchildren's writing, especially when they are first learning to write. These are recent pages my daughter sent from our five-year-old grand-daughter, Shannon. She's in kindergarten.
I love the sentiment. I love the images accompanying the text. I even love the misspellings as they are evidence of learning.

I wonder, though, as teachers, when we stop being charmed by evidences of learning, when we stop seeing errors as the writer taking risks and start seeing the errors, instead, as wrong. As mistakes. As bad writing. Could I correct Shannon's spelling? Of course. But why would I? I don't mind that she spells my name with an o at the end instead of an a. I know her. I know that she's thinking of one of the sounds an o can make. (She's kind of a stickler for letters making the sounds she knows and doesn't like it at all when letters make different sounds in some words.)

Loving the notes and letters my grandchildren send me reminds me that we are all learners. Do I sometimes have to hold students to a standard? Yes. But not every time they write. And sometimes, even in polished writing, I should probably look at some of what my students do as risks they have taken, as their attempt to address something I may not understand, as evidence of learning in process. I should think of them as people. If I do that, I take a more human perspective. And, in the end, I might take more risks in my own writing, maybe giving myself the same freedom to take risks and try something that I might not be really good at. I hope so, anyway.

Monday, January 8, 2018

circle of life


Last week four people we knew passed away, relatives and friends. Some of the loss was expected and a blessing for lives in suffering; others were surprises. We were able to attend two funerals and still have one to go to.

During the same week, we also attended a sealing of a young woman we came to know and love after we were assigned to be her home teachers last year. Two days later we (with my parents) were able to seal 56 relatives to our family, extending the connections further.

And then, to top off the week, we had a new addition to our family: a new grand-daughter. What a delight and a blessing. Even though we haven't seen her in person yet, we love her already. Family members texted in the hours before her birth, all joyously awaiting her arrival, reminding me that a baby binds us together in happy ways.

And after a week like this--with all its ups and downs, with its joys and sorrows--I am reminded that this is the stuff of living. Through it all, our family holds. We have the things that matter most: a knowledge of life after this one and the connection of family that extends beyond the doors of death. Blessed!