There is no looking back.  The pandemic has widened the gap in education and we must be aggressive in our thinking of how we reinvent teaching and learning moving forward.  In the renewal of education, human interaction and wellbeing must be a top priority. It has been confirmed that positive relationships and attachment are essential to learning.  Learning is social, emotional, and academic. Children learn best when they feel safe, affirmed, and deeply engaged within a supportive community of learners.  This was lost when classrooms across the nation moved from classroom to isolation.  Learning in isolation was not successful and we saw a need for belonging and collaborative learning opportunities.  

To re-attach students to school and to accelerate learning throughout the coming year and for years to come, the most effective classrooms will need to reimage how they deliver instruction as well as make time for social-emotional learning.  Educators need to have a mindset of learning recovery with the learner in mind when planning instruction.  This means what we did in the past will not work.  

A supportive school return in the fall will need to include a focus on relationships with social-emotional support.  In addition, we will need to have a curriculum that responds to our current needs. One size fits all won’t work.  To help students thrive the curriculum needs to focus on developing student’s capabilities. When designing lessons the teacher should design her standard-based instruction on the needs of the students and their capabilities.  The curriculum should be more focused on preparing individuals for the challenges of the future; empower students with knowledge and skills in various fields of study in a flexible educational program tailored to each student. A universal approach to teaching and learning will help the educator tailor instruction to meet the needs of every individual.

So ask yourself?  How will you organize your classroom for the first two weeks of instruction post covid?  How will you refamiliarize students with school?  What have we learned from distance learning that we will want to incorporate into in-person learning?  

We will all heal from this crisis and I hope in its aftermath we reimagine human interaction and wellbeing and build it into the core principles of our education system. 

Cultivating school achievement is impossible without trustworthy and positive relationships.  I know this first hand because of an experience I had six years ago.  Six years ago I landed my dream job.  I had always dreamed of teaching in the district in which I grew up.  After 10 years in education, I was back in the district that I admired and idolized.  This change came with such excitement and admiration as I quickly purchased all things district 512 merchandise and wore them proudly.  The first weeks of school I was welcomed with open arms and the staff and my grade level team were kind to welcome me to a school they had called home since the doors opened in 1998.  I was working with educators that had started their career at this school as well as married, grew their families, saw their children graduate, and even get married.  This school was filled with founding members and their names were etched in concrete on sidewalks everywhere.  

As the weeks went on and decisions needed to be made I soon realized my voice did not matter.  The teachers that had a legacy with the school were not open to new ideas.  They did not want to be innovative with instructional design and implementation and they certainly did not want me as a “newbie” to tell them or show them a different way to differentiate reading instruction. They wanted to do it their way and the way they had always gone about business.  The problem was that the students that walked through the doors in 1998 were a far cry to the students walking through the doors now.  Teachers were using the same strategies as in the past with an entirely different group of students that had different academic and social-emotional needs.  The only legacy they were leaving on students was a failure. 

Collaborating was not up for discussion because every teacher had their own way of doing things.  Just as their names were forever etched in concrete dating back twenty years so were their ideas and mindsets.  This brought on frustration and resentment from administrators and colleagues. 

Growing student achievement takes collaboration and in order to collaborate an organization must have a shared mission and vision of core values.  The school needed to change in order to have a positive school culture that fosters collaboration.  The change was drastic and came with some controversy.  District leaders decided to reconstitute the school. 

With the reconstitution came new administration, staff, custodians, cafeteria and office personnel.  I wanted to stay so I had to reapply for my position and luckily I was given the opportunity to stay. 

For the next four years, I was part of a team that created and implemented a shared mission and vision along with an idea that all students can learn and grow.  The staff trusted and valued new ideas and opinions and were always working in professional learning communities to evaluate and design instruction around student growth and achievement.  

Our school now had a purposeful community and a shared can-do attitude, or a sense of collective efficacy.  Our faculty members perceived all of their colleagues as competent valued members that embraced challenging goals.  Our school also now had teachers that had a shared sense of moral purpose and high expectations, a shared commitment to consistency, a shared focus on creating a culture of continuous improvement and helping students succeed.  

Creating this purposeful community did not happen overnight.  This was a process and continues to be a journey. 

For the past several weeks I have been engaged in activities that have helped me understand what it means to be a culturally responsive educator.  I want to share with you some of my takeaways and meaningful activities for culturally relevant pedagogy.  

I have been on this journey to be an effective educator for my entire career.  In my mind, being vigilant with my knowledge of the curriculum and making sure my students had mastery meant I was being effective and meeting their needs academically.  However, I am learning that being an effective educator goes beyond just mastery of learning goals.  A culturally responsive teacher places the student at the center of teaching and learning but in order to do this one must allow the student to bring their historical self into the classroom.  We must spend time getting to know our students.  We must actively listen to understand what students come to us with.  Understanding their backgrounds will allow us to find the key that unlocks their potential in order to have academic success.  

A week ago I participated in an activity titled “learning partnerships”.  This activity focused on building an alliance with students.  I was intentional with my time and made sure I had no distractions.  I gave them my full attention and listened with grace and empathy.  In the past I would have told you “I always listen to my students’ but I wasn’t actively listening and I didn’t give them one-on-one time to really develop an understanding of their background.  We met every day and each day brought a new conversation.  We talked about favorite foods, games, friends, siblings, and television shows.  We laughed sharing the nicknames we have been given and even discussed our strengths and weaknesses.  I even impressed these students with my knowledge of snap chat and the newest game titled Among Us that is a huge hit with every teen who owns a device.  Not only did I get to learn about these students but I also allowed them to learn about me.  This learning partnership activity created a relationship of trust.  We now see each other in the hallway and wildly wave with excitement.  

I look at listening and learning about students through a different lens now.  Not only am I getting to know students but I am learning and listening to them to understand the biological, psychological, and sociological aspects that make them who they are. 

Unitli next time..

Katy

#culturallyresponsiveteaching

Growing up I spent every summer with a reading tutor.  Reading and comprehension were always a struggle for me and to this day I have to read things multiple times in order to comprehend the text.  I remember my mom begging me to read.  She was a passionate reader, sometimes reading a book a day.  Her favorite Saturday activity was the bookstore.  She would always take me and try to bribe me with a new title or fancy book cover.  I never gave in and always refused her efforts to make me a reader.  Despite my hatred for books, I loved magazines.  Magazines were filled with pictures and I am drawn to images of people, places, and activities.  I would always study the pictures first, sometimes never reading the text.  My mom saw my increased interest in magazines so she invested in magazine subscriptions for me all throughout my high school years. Life, Time, and People magazine came to me weekly and I started to do more than just look at the pictures.  My mom recognized that It’s not what I read, but how often I read that helped improve my literacy abilities. I reflect back on my reluctance to read and I imagine how children feel who speak a different language.  If reading is hard for a student they won’t read.  However, we all know that reading is important and we must find ways to foster a love of reading.  So how do you do that for an English language learner?  I want you to consider the role of graphic novels and their importance in English language learners’ reading development.  Graphic novels have all of the elements of a traditional chapter book, plot, theme, characters, and setting. However, they offer the reader with a different level of reading comprehension than a traditional novel as kids decipher a story with not just the words, but also the plot captured in the images. With a graphic novel, the reader must do the work. They have to see and think and wonder and look for clues and become a visual detective to understand the full story. Graphic novels also support reading comprehension and build vocabulary by forcing the student to use critical thinking to visualize and understand the art and illustrations. Also, some of us learn best by seeing and pictures make it easier to learn more abstract things and concepts.  Building confidence in a reader is also important.  ELL students who can’t read typically feel negative thoughts about themselves and their abilities.  Graphic Novels provide opportunities for students to “finish” a book.  And if that isn’t enough to convince you why you should promote graphic novels to ELL students then watch this testimonial of a young teen reader and their reading journey.  She describes how graphic novels helped her to learn to read and how they played a part in her learning to speak English. 

Unitl next time,

Katy

#psubuildingbridges #imls #aasl #ala #schoollibrarians

Moment of truth… I have never heard of Hispanic Heritage Month.  If you are like me let me take a moment to fill you in. National Hispanic Heritage Month traditionally honors the cultures and contributions of both Hispanic and Latino Americans as we celebrate heritage rooted in all Latin American countries. During this month and throughout the year, the National Park Service and our partners, share the history, heritage, and accomplishments of Hispanic and Latino Americans of past and present.

I recently created a 30-day calendar filled with daily activities centered around Hispanic Heritage celebrations. These activities include music, dancing, art, and recipes.  Also, included are books and community resources.

I enjoyed making this calendar because it brought awareness to this celebration.  I would love to put this in a school newsletter to share with my school community.  Before I do I need I would like to collaborate with other librarians and gather some different ideas and resources.  Also, I didn’t like my layout and design of the slides.  I saw on a website where I could purchase images and posters related to Hispanic Heritage Month.  If I were to post this to my school newsletter I would invest in those images.

Please reach out with any ideas or if you would like to collaborate. Click HERE for a link to my calendar.

Need a lesson for the beginning of the year?  This lesson about My Name is a good start to getting to know our classmates.

My Name by Katy Seibold is licensed under CC0 1.0

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HqRGs_F6LaL2U49ECCRHy3k0sNVwx8uX-BGGWAgxVLY/edit?usp=sharing

When I was a young student the school library was a place I went and picked out a book  It was a 45 min chunk of my school day.  I didn’t enjoy reading, at all, so let me say it was the worst 45 minutes of my day.  From my memory, the librarian would read a book and then the class would roam through the collection trying to find a book of their liking.  This is actually the time I spent talking with my friends trying not to get caught talking. HAHA!! I was so bored and could not wait for the pain of the library class to be over.  Library class was never an experience.  For me, the library was something we had to do. and never once did the librarian try to engage us or allow us to create.  Looking back I wish the librarian would have made that time meaningful.  This is where instructional design comes into play. Most would agree that crafting an engaging learning experience is a fundamental role of the educator.  In creating any lesson, instructional design is critical because it must establish ways to engage the learners while defining the learning gaps and providing meaningful objectives. Furthermore, instructional design is a systematic development of learning and resources that take into consideration best practices and learning models to meet the needs of every student.

Whew! So how does instructional design fit into the role of the librarian?  As a librarian, we must focus on our audience and how to gain their attention.  This would mean we would need to provide material that is diverse and meets the needs of all our readers. Librarians need to provide opportunities for students to be engaged in the learning goals and provide guidance with book selection and materials.  The librarian must also provide feedback and allow students to reflect and assess their performance.

Using an instructional design approach the librarian will also need to bring their personal experience as well as the personal experience of the student into the library.

By providing a systematic approach and using instructional design the librarian can make it an environment where students are the constructors of their learning and are actively engaged in the library experience.

As a librarian I never want a child to feel the pain of a 45-minute library class.  I want them to be engaged, part of the experience and have a meaningful takeaway.  All in the hope that I am creating a life long reader.

#schoollibririans

Everyone has a special place.  My mother-in-law, MaryAnn, lived in a home that will be forever my favorite place.  Her 1,800 sq ft home located at 5225 Bond in Shawnee KS, was just one mile from my house.  MaryAnn had eleven children and this house was our common space.  Weekly Sunday dinners with children, spouses, and grandchildren were always filled with laughter.  We would play scrabble, gather around the television for a Chief’s game, summer cookouts followed by movie nights on the driveway were endless.  Holidays and birthdays were always celebrated on Bond street.  We would drive down the street pulling into the driveway and before the car would stop the children would be bouncing out of the car to run into grandmas house to grab a cookie out of the never-ending cookie jar.  The kids would be greeted with a hug from grandma and then attached with a swarm of cousins who quickly grabbed their hand and pulled them to the backyard.  I would never be far behind. I was just as anxious to enter the cozy home that was always filled with sights and sounds and delicious smells.  For twenty-two years I walked through those doors with excitement.  It was magical.  It has been a year since I have walked through the door on Bond.  After my mother-in-law died the house was sold.  I spent weeks driving by and wishing I could go in one more time.  Not only do I mourn the loss of my beloved MaryAnn, but I also mourn the loss of this charming home that brought me so many tremendous memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Image information: My mother-in-law, MaryAnn’s, home 5225 Bond

Image information: Front and center, MaryAnn Seibold, surrounded by her 25 grandchildren. 2018

Image Information: On movie nights the driveway would serve as our movie theatre. MaryAnn’s home 5225 Bond 2015

Image Information: Christmas 2018. Pictured is the Seibold Family. As always front and center, MaryAnn Seibold, surrounded by her children, their spouses, and of course grandchildren.

My name is Katy Seibold and I live in Shawnee with my husband Jim and my five daughters. I graduated from Emporia State Teachers’ college with a teaching degree and have been a teacher for 13 years. I took a break to have my five daughters. I have lived in Kansas most of my life and love being in education. I graduated from high school in 1992 and incidentally, it is the same district that my parents, brothers, children, aunts, and uncles all graduated from.

This is my first blog post. I certainly find it somewhat difficult to write about myself, so please, send in your comments, ask questions, and help me out here. When I applied for my master’s degree, I knew it would be hard, but there is nothing harder than talking about yourself (well, unless you are my mother). Oh well, this is a job interview to a degree.

I work in an elementary school and have taught first, second, third, and fifth grades as well as kindergarten. Currently, I am an innovation specialist. What is that? Well, it is a myriad of building responsibilities, with lots of involvement with students, parents, and staff. I love my job. Well, most days I love my job. I think my first ah-ha moment was one right before Christmas break one year when a student came to me with a present. It was a bundle of silk poinsettias in a Crown Royal bag. His eyes were wide and studying my face as I took the gift when I realized this was a treasure to him. From that moment on, if I have a bad day, I have to think of that student. The gift sits on my desk to this day.

Throughout my career, I often think of that young boy as I browse through books. I don’t see anything that matches him or possibly his lifestyle. This knowledge has brought me to a better level of trying to see that we are all different and there should be a diverse choice in books that are relevant to all students. So what did I do? I wrote a co-grant that would provide funding for the purchase of books to support our Hispanic/Latino community in the school library. Our school has a wonderful dynamic of cultures, and this grant will help level the playing field as we develop lifelong readers.

I would love to know about your experiences with developing a diverse school library. Please send me books that would be good for elementary learners.

Pictured is me doing what I love.. Reading to kids!

Let’s talk soon!

#whereyourjourneybegins

#Whatsyourstory

#wehaveallthebeststories