This Weekend with That Workshop Book Author

Samantha Bennett opened our 2 day Literacy Connection Workshop with her foundational beliefs about our work as educators. Her thoughts are worth reading...

-whoever is doing the reading, writing and talking ( in the classroom) is doing the thinking. Learning is a consequence of thinking.

-teaching is personal, but not private

-teachers matter most to student learning (what we do, what we ask them to do, what we say, how we allow them to talk to each other, how we listen, how we structure time, how we structure curriculum, how we acknowledge students, how we give feedback, how we ask them to think about themselves and their own learning, teachers determine the weather, you have to trust yourself and feel trusted to help students learn. Teachers matter most to student learning.

-teaching is an incredibly complex endeavor. No one has nailed it. There are always ways to get better for students

-everyone does the best they can until they know better; then they do better.

-We are smarter together.

Some other big, smart ideas she repeated that I came away with are:

It is not about what we uncover--it is about what they uncover.

No more blaming.

Student resistance= Students won't when

- they don't care

-there's no purpose

or they don't know how

My personal "aha":

I need to be a better planner. Samantha helped me see how importance of big picture planning ( determining what you will teach and why it matters using learning targets, determine what students will create to demonstrate their understanding, put the planning and final product date on the calendar). I have lots to think about how I efficiently, purposefully and effectively plan for next year.

She taught me a ton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!