Why and how I become a teacher

I became a teacher because teaching allowed me to feel like my life was meaningful. It's difficult for me to imagine pushing papers from one end of a desk to the other in an office. Sometimes, I do wonder what I got myself into, as teaching is such a high-pressure, high-stress profession with little monetary reward. Certainly the current push at the state level to de-skill the profession isn't helping teachers feel needed. I do love my job though. No matter how I feel, whenever I walk into my classroom and see those twenty smiling, expectant faces, I always feel a rush of energy.

My first teaching position was in Guatemala, where I taught pre-school and kindergarten in English. I was shocked to find that teaching was much more difficult than I expected. I naively thought that I could just walk into a room and my pre-school and kindergarten students would be respectful and listen. I have never been more wrong. When a student grabbed my roll book out of my hand, I quickly learned about setting boundaries and rules. I also learned that students at that age needed to be engaged at almost all times. During the first two weeks of my teaching experience in Guatemala, I considered quitting nearly every day, but I got through it and I learned a lot.

My professional history

Teaching was basically my first career. As I mentioned above, my first teaching experience was at a 50/50 English immersion program in Guatemala for pre-school and kindergarten kids. Prior to my work at Fiesta Gardens International School, I taught for 7 years in the U.S. - 3 years in kindergarten and 4 years in third grade. I then left the classroom to work as a literacy coach for my previous program. I've now returned to the classroom teaching kindergarten at a new school.

In my year-long role as a literacy coach, I worked at Hatch Elementary School, which is part of the Cabrillo Unified School District in Half Moon Bay, CA. My position was jointly funded by the Noyce Foundation's ECRW program and by my school district. My position was geared both to help newer teachers to implement Writing Workshop and to help more experienced teachers advance their teaching.

To that end, I attended Writing Workshop seminars provided by the Noyce program to further my knowledge about writing. I worked to implement and train teachers for a school-wide reading assessment program. I helped to buy Spanish books for use as mentor texts, for guided reading, and upper-grade literacy circles. I also helped to run staff development for our school and for the district with coaches from other schools.

I am deeply concerned that California and American schools are doing a poor job of educating students from non-mainstream backgrounds. It is my sincere hope that schools begin to implement research-based reforms that will address this glaring inequality. I believe that teachers must stand up for literacy practices that research has shown work for students from non-mainstream backgrounds - and not yield to state-mandated curricula that have been shown to continue to perpetuate inequality.

Why and how I began to focus on writing

I began to focus on writing because my previous school belonged to one of the Noyce Initiative's core districts. I would say that my focus on writing has now moved into a focus on literacy in general - I can't really focus on writing without simultaneously focusing on reading and speaking. I think that Writing Workshop's effectiveness is greatly increased when Reading Workshop is also implemented. Both literacy structures support each other. When students have the freedom to pick their own reading materials, their knowledge of genres is greatly increased. Also, I have found that students simply read more within the Reading Workshop than they do with other reading methods. Because Reading Workshop helps students grow more familiar with the written word, their writing is enhanced.

I strongly support the theory that learners must believe that what they are learning has some importance in their lives. I always try to relate reading and writing to my students' lives so that our work feels more authentic.

My history as a writer - strengths and struggles

I don't really write much except papers for classes. I do throw around some ideas for children's books. At this point, I've written an unpublished book manuscript about the importance of taking time to do nothing. Too many times in life we forget to stop occasionally, to look around, and to enjoy our surroundings rather than jumping on to the next thing. I tried to express that in my children's book.

Writing is a solitary act. I enjoy the process of thinking about how best to say something in order to convey my point to the reader. That is not to say that it's easy!

A few favorite writers

My favorite thing to read is The New Yorker magazine. I also enjoy reading some professional literature assigned in my classes. At this moment, my favorite professional book is called Schools that Work: Where All Children Read and Write by Patricia Cunningham and Richard Allington. This is a very logical and well-laid out book that summarizes much of the research about how best to create a school where all students can read and write. I also enjoy Brian Cambourne's work on the importance of engagement.

My favorite author to read with my students is Anthony Browne - his books can be so strange and interesting. I also enjoy reading (for older students) books by William Steig. I think its extremely important to read literature in the classroom that reflects the cultural backgrounds of my students, so I often read books by Latino authors like Juan Felipe Herrera. Now that I'm teaching kindergarten, I'm reading everything I can to my students. Once I see what they like best, I can start to create compile a collection of good books.

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My writing curriculum resources

Because this is my first year teaching kindergarten, I'm drawing frequently on The Noyce Foundation's Writerly Life unit. I also gather a lot of information from a colleague who has taught writing workshop in an immersion program for many years. She has made some significant adaptations that allow the native-English speaking students to work independently (for example, allowing them to write in English if they want to). I also try to keep in mind two influential articles that I read in my masters program: one by Lisa Delpit, and one by Maria de la Luz Reyes. These articles argued for more scaffolding and explicit instruction in workshop teaching for non-mainstream students. Reading these pieces helped me to realize that explicit instruction combined with independent practice is extremely important for students from non-middle class white backgrounds.

My reading curriculum resources

Currently, I'm implementing a curriculum from Teachers College, which I received in a week-long, Noyce-sponsored training in the Cabrillo Unified School District at the beginning of our school year. It is called Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Kindergarten Curriculum Calendar for Reading Workshop (2006-2007). Intended for Writers Workshop, the training session entailed long-term staff development for schools involved in the ECRW project. Newer teachers in the project visited teachers at other schools who were more experienced with teaching Writing Workshop. Substitute teachers for these visits were funded by The Noyce Project and by our districts. The trainings were an effective way for teachers to see Writing Workshop in practice.

I'm also using a book called Growing Readers: Units of Study in the Primary Classroom by Kathy Collins, a staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. The book provides an overview of different units of study for Reading Workshop. Collins gives examples of how to set up the Reading Workshop as well as possible mini-lessons. I find the book helpful as a curriculum guide because I've never taught kindergarten Reading Workshop before. I use it in combination with the Teachers College Curriculum guide to help me to plan mini-lessons and also to think about what my students should be learning in the Reading Workshop over the year.

Standards that guide my literacy instruction

I try to make sure my lessons match state standards, with an awareness that these standards lack any focus on comprehension and meaning for younger students. The state standards tend to focus only on students' ability to decode text. I believe a focus on meaning and comprehension builds important literacy and strategies for even the youngest readers, so I emphasize this in my teaching.

My curriculum context

Fiesta Gardens International School in San Mateo, CA is a two-way Spanish-immersion school. A two-way Spanish-immersion program is a bilingual program in which students come from two language groups: native English Speakers and native Spanish speakers (and some initially bilingual students). An ideal kindergarten class starts with a 50/50 ratio of Spanish- and English-speaking students. Upon entering kindergarten, these two language groups receive instruction for 90% of their day in Spanish and 10% in English. They are taught to read in Spanish with the idea being that the native Spanish speakers build their literacy skills in Spanish while the native English speakers acquire literacy and oral ability in Spanish. As the students progress through grade levels, the amount of Spanish instruction is gradually reduced by 10% each year so that in fifth grade, students are receiving 50% of their instruction in Spanish and 50% in English. The program aims to produce students who are not only orally bilingual in Spanish and English but are also bi-literate.

As teachers in this unique program, my colleagues and I need to continually evaluate how our curriculum surrounding literacy helps to support language development in both English and Spanish. At this point, our district has renewed its commitment to using workshop techniques in reading and writing. Because our school is not currently involved with the state in any specific program improvement, we are not subject to top-down mandates tied to reading curricula. Our current professional freedom may change at any point, depending on whether our test scores go up or down.

As I mentioned previously, our district has recently renewed its interest in continuing to develop and implement workshop literacy models for its schools. We have a high emphasis on standards like most California districts, but we are not subject to top-down mandates.

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My class profile

This year I have 10 girls and 10 boys. Of my 20 students, 8 have registered for free or reduced lunch. Ten students are native Spanish speakers, and ten native English speakers. Of the ten native Spanish speakers, five place at the beginning level in English, three are intermediate, and two are fluent. These proficiency levels are based on a state-wide oral language assessment called CELDT (California English Language Development Test).

While we currently don't have a similar test to assess English speakers' oral language levels in Spanish, we do have many different assessments for each student (for example, letter knowledge, reading ability, letter sound knowledge, print concepts, etc.). Generally, all my native English speakers have learned most of their Spanish letter sounds. About three-quarters of them are blending sounds to actually decode words. Almost all of them have at least attempted some reading in Spanish but their levels of literacy vary widely. Their Spanish literacy levels closely match their literacy levels in English. Some students are already reading at a first-grade level in Spanish, and the more confident students are producing more writing in Spanish.

School Accountability Report Card (SARC)

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