My teaching philosophy

My philosophy & teaching approach:

• I set up different themes and "writing environments" each week, such as diaries, portals, pirate treasure hunts, unbirthday parties, etc. Class consists of a writing warm-up, sharing the previous week's work if students desire, a lesson, and discussion. Then, we write for about 10-15 minutes (sometimes longer) & kids finish their work at home. Many kids stay 15 minutes after class writing on a couch, on their tummies, on a lime green shaggy rug, on red dot-shaped rugs with friends, ... and I'm happy to have them write as long as they please. This is what it's all about.
• While technical aspects of writing are important, our class focuses on creativity, experimentation, exploration, and developing & sharing students' unique "voice" on the page. I do offer written feedback about student work, which may include punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc. but no one wants to see a list of ten misspelled words. So, I sneak in lessons to improve writing, spelling, .... and they write more and more each week. Really, they do!
• Many kids enter the classroom worried about their penmanship, spelling, and abilities -- they quickly learn there are no mistakes and we are in a "safe" place to write, where they are respected and celebrated.
• I am continually blown away by the kids' ideas and quality of work! They are AWESOME! Write on!

Influential educators

An overview of educators I admire:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(pronounced chick-sent-me-high-ee)
Csikszentmihalyi has conducted influential research on motivation and creativity — including what makes people truly happy, satisfied and fulfilled. He is known for the concept of "flow" in creativity — people enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in activity and lose their sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction. He describes flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

To increase creativity, Csikszentmihalyi says:

• Acquire curiosity and interest.
• Try to be surprised by something every day.
• Try to surprise at least one person every day.
• When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.
• [Find] a way to express what moves you.
• Generate as many ideas as possible.
• Try to produce unlikely ideas.

Howard Gardner
Gardner is most noted for his Multiple Intelligences Theory, which simply states that people learn and process information in many different ways. Each individual has varying levels of different intelligences. I try to keep this in mind when developing lessons and activities for kids so that the needs of all learners are being met. Gardner's intelligences are defined as:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: the capacity to use language to express what's on your mind and to understand other people.

2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: having a capacity for logic, abstractions, reasoning, and numbers.

3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence: having a sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music; having a capacity for singing, composing music, or playing instruments.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body to make something, put on a production, or solve a problem — such as in dancing or acting.

5. Spatial Intelligence: the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind — such as how an airplane pilot navigates the large world.

6. Naturalist Intelligence: having a sensitivity to living things (plants, animals) and to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations).

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: having an understanding of yourself; knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, and what you don't want to do. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves.

8. Interpersonal Intelligence: the ability to understand and effectively interact with other people.