I did not prepare my classroom & maybe you shouldn't either!

Inspired by this post "Less is More? What do your classroom walls look like?" by Craig Kemp and a twitter conversation with Tim Kaegi . I thought I would share something I did many years ago with my 1st graders at the beginning of the year.

It was way back in 1992 when I was teaching at Nora Elementary in Indianapolis. It was my first teaching position, but my 3rd year at that school.  I loved teaching there. I had great leadership and wonderful colleagues.  A few of us in the building had given up the basal readers, and were exploring having "inquiry based" classrooms. We had strong administrative support, it was a great place to be a beginning teacher.

I was really exploring deeply giving those 1st graders ownership of their own learning and was studying Reggio Emilia  due to my years at the Butler University College of Education and the now current Dean of Education, Ena Shelley .

So....I did not prepare my classroom!

• No bulletin boards
• No taped down names on the desk
• Nothing purchased from the teacher store
• No books on the bookshelves
• No little bins for folders

When my students arrived, it looked pretty much how the custodians left it.  You should have seen their faces!  They didn't know what to do, they were already "experts" at what school looked like at 6 and 7 years old!

I greeted them, said hi and....watched...it wasn't too long before one of the students "took charge".  She said, " When are we having a class meeting?"  

I asked "Do you guys want a class meeting?"  

They said yes and immediately say down in a group in front of the easel and white board.

 I asked what we should talk about...

"Why isn't our room ready?"

"Where should we put our backpacks?"

"How do I know which table to sit at?"  ( I had ditched desks for tables, too)

"Where are the bathroom passes?"

"Where is the jobs list?"

"Where is the calendar?"

So I told them this was OUR learning space and that we were going to create it together.  They made a list of what they thought we needed and they divided themselves up and got to work.

They arranged tables, chairs, made bulletin boards ( WAY better than anything I had ever done and it was THEIR work), set up reading areas, the calendar, stations, made job charts....I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but if they thought it was needed, they created it!

IT WAS WONDERUL!  

They felt ownership, they made changes as the space worked or didn't work for their learning.  They brought in a few things from home . ( Lamps, posters, rugs...)

We had a wonderful year.  For the rest of my years at Nora I began the year with the furniture shoved in a corner and nothing on the walls and we created our learning space from scratch, together.

I highly recommend it!

I Miss People & Sometimes Paper

Like most of you who are a part of a variety of social media networks,  I'm hyper-connected. My cell phone is WAY more than a phone. we have no home phone or alarm clocks, I text more than I talk, at night after I shut down my laptop, I check my phone before going to sleep. I can go days and only get texts, not actually speaking to our kids.

My home office is equipped with a laptop, dual monitors, an iPad and google chat is always open.
Today, I have had  a Vidyo meeting connecting Rochester IN with Napa and Oakland CA. , exchanged tweets with students in Michigan and Indiana.  I have chatted with teachers in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon, none of whom I have ever met in person.  In about an hour I have another virtual meeting where three of us in 3 different states will be collaborating around a project.

I work from home and can go days without seeing anyone face to face except my husband and my dog, Brinkley.

Don't get me wrong, most of the the time I love working from home! My morning commute is about 15 steps and I don't have to wait in line for coffee! The dress code is pretty relaxed, too.
  
But I miss people!

A few weeks ago I was able to attend the CoSN conference, conferences, for me, have become a place where I get to meet f2f people I've already talked to via Twitter or blogs for months or sometimes years.  I had no idea how conferences would change in nature for me as I became a "virtual girl".  They are still places of inspiration, learning and conversation, but now, they are so much more.

I'm super excited about the upcoming New Tech Network summer conferences. I'll get to see educators who I've been working with online face to face, to laugh and think together in person.

Also for Indiana's Summer of E-Learning conferences, I'll be attending and/or presenting at many of them. Indiana is the home of my very first PLN by way of the HECC list and #INeLearn.

Ohh and I can't forget two more!

EdCamp Fort Wayne is coming up in May, this will be my very first edcamp and I cannot wait!
Then another brand spanking new conferences in Grand Rapids, MI called Nova Now.  


I also miss paper

Not all paper, just sometimes.  At NTN we use google docs for pretty much everything. I have more docs than I can count (or sometimes find) but for some tasks,  I do better with paper.  I like my to do list on a yellow legal pad.  I make a new one everyday at the end of the day, prioritizing a la Stephan Covey's quadrants.  I have yet to find an app that is more effective for me!

During those virtual meetings, someone is always keeping notes on a Google doc, but I am also taking messy, scribbly notes of my own on that same legal pad.

I wonder... 

As we move towards blended learning, online learning, and less face to face, if we don't need to keep in mind that our students might miss face to face (and paper) too! Let's make sure they get time with people and with paper as needed!