gratitude lately

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Hope you are set for an awesome day with family and friends. Before I get to the turkey, a little bit of gratitude on this November day.

Thankful for a five day Thanksgiving holiday, to see friends and family, to rest, to catch up, to spend time doing the things I enjoy.

Thankful for the kids I teach. I think they're so smart and talented and kind, and also, like all kids at this age, don't always get the consequences of their actions, which makes this life's work demanding and complicated, but so rewarding.

Thankful for these thankful notes our PBIS team put on, and messages from students.

The longer note reads, "Thank you Ms. Brezek for being a good teacher! I know most students do not like you, but I do. You're just really strict, but I like that about you because it keeps me on time in class and helps me do my work faster. Ok, I didn't mean "really strict." I meant you're a little bit strict. To other students you're "super strict" though. Thanks for being there to help me succeed and be a good reader and writer!"

Thankful that I continue to put myself out there in an authentic way, even if it doesn't always work out in my favor.... both in my personal and professional life. Thanks to Jennifer at Cult of Pedagogy for this, I can totally relate.

Thankful for family who is always there at a moment's notice when something goes wrong. Thankful that even though my car is smashed, I am not.

Thankful for Landmark Forum and it's personal/professional development sessions. It has has really shown me how to live my best life - to live more powerfully in all aspects of my life, with freedom and self-expression, and has created a greater sense of peace of mind. It's by far the best personal and professional development session I've ever participated in. Do not believe what the blogs out there say. Landmark will change your life.

Thankful for my niece, who will be my Goddaughter in April. And thankful for text messages and a shared love of Young Adult Lit.

Speaking of books - currently reading On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life. Once again I am reminded that gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Thankful for a growing family of Arbonne sisters.

Thankful for Old St. Pat's. Every time I'm there, I laugh, learn something new, and leave feeling so perfectly peaceful, which is exactly what I need on Sunday evenings.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends and family!

What are you thankful for?

slice of life

It's Tuesday. My students created their blogs today and I had them publish their first post. (EEEKkkk! So exciting! I've already left them all a comment!) So, I should probably do the same and be a great model!

My slice comes from a small moment from Monday. It was passing period and I was standing in the hallway, supervising, high-fiving some students, joking with others, directing traffic to keep moving so the hallway didn't get congested. As the hallway started to clear out, one of the sixth graders came and gave me a hug. I half way hugged her back and then stopped and looked in her eyes.

"Is this hug for me or is it for you?" I asked her.

"It's for me," she replied softly. At that moment, I gave the kiddo a good hug. We had known each other since she was in third grade, just beginning writing in a fab writer's workshop, and over the years, we've learned more and more about each other.

She went on, "I just want to go back to Emerson. I miss it."

"There's a lot going on here in middle school, isn't there?"

She nodded and I continued, "Yeah, it's busy. Lots of teachers, lots more kids. Maybe some drama with friends, but today is just one bad day. Today is just one hectic day. Pretty soon you'll go home and rest, and then you'll have a fresh start tomorrow."

She nodded, and I sent her on her way to lunch.

Life is tough. There's so many demands on our kiddos - school, and friends, and family, and hobbies, and sports, and chores. Plus a million more. It's so nice when kids ask for what they need, like this case when this kiddo came for a hug because she knew it would make her feel better. But what about the kiddos who don't? 

Let's all check in with our students and children tonight and tomorrow. If they are not asking, let it be us who do so!

bigtime reflections

We just finished up a short week and I wanted to share and reflect on it with you!

Pineapple Chart
This has been a long time coming, but it finally launched this Wednesday!

The Pineapple Chart concept is from Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez who wrote Hacking Education. It's a way to invite teachers to your classroom in a space (our lounge) that everyone hangs out. Then, teachers can check out classes that are on the chart.

We just launched it on Wednesday, and there were four teachers to put up an invitation - to a band class (trumpets!), Math Class, to see a cool app called Class Kick, a Social Studies Class to see a learning platform called Summit, and my ELA class to see Quick Writing.

What's awesome about the Pineapple Chart is that there's no subs involved, no paperwork, no formal reflections - just teachers visiting one another's classrooms to learn and collaborate together.

I visited the math class to see Class Kick and the app was super cool, but it's also cool to just be in another teacher's room to see how the students interact, to see how they organize and structure their class, to talk to kids, and 100 more reasons!

I highly suggest this form of on-demand, personalized PD - check out Hacking Education for this great Hack, and so many others! (My next project is Teacher Quiet Zone!)

Quick Writing
I've been doing Quick Writing for about 6 weeks now and it's making such a difference in the kids stamina for writing. (Check out the details here.) We are about to launch our first writing unit, and I know the Quick Writing will lend itself to the writing they will do for me coming up! I'm just so proud to see kids really getting to business with their writing, this example was just about 7 minutes worth of writing! This strategy helps kids get out of their head, stop the writer's block, and just let thoughts flow on to paper, because we know that the real writing lies in revision.

Progress Reports
One area I've been struggling is communicating grades with parents. Like, I have grades in my book, but I am not super sure how to use our online management system and so until yesterday, I hadn't done much of that. I tell you this not so you'll be judgy, but because what I'm learning as a teacher and coach is that it's so hard to do everything. The last few years when I was just a coach, I would attend meetings, and to me, it seemed simple the plans that we would make for instruction. But then there's assemblies, and shortened schedules for PBIS kickoffs, and days off, and then there's a day or two when none of your students do their homework, so the plan that you've created, it doesn't go as you had envisioned.

But then something amazing happens anyways, and I'm so mad I didn't snap a picture of this - my kids doing self-reflection on their progress reports.

We have moved to Standards Based Grading. I like it. So I created progress reports for kids, where I had it broken down into seven categories, listing the scores I had recorded for kids. Then, I asked them to reflect on scores, share something they're doing well in each area, and also something they need to improve. And I had them spend about 20 minutes on self-reflection, using my notes and grading themselves. And it was amazing.

Kids made comments like,

• "I need to study my vocabulary more."
• "I need my handwriting to be neater."
• "I should share my ideas with people I sit with more."
• "I wasn't taking this seriously, but now I will."
• "I need to be kinder to others in my class."
• "I have a lot of tardies, I need to come on time." (Side note: yesterday this student *was on time!)

I have always been a reflective teacher (like, here on the blog) but I am going to make this self-reflection for students an ongoing process. Oh, and then my principal (who initiated this whole idea for me) shared how I could take it to the next level - have parents rate themselves for things at home like,

• My child gets 8 hours of sleep a night.
• My child eats a good breakfast each morning.
• My child reads 20 pages of their book each night at home.
• My child has routines and a quiet space to work on homework.
• Electronic devices are turned off at 9pm each night.
• Electronic devices are kept out of my child's bedroom, especially after 9pm.

This kind of rating and reflection on behalf of the family seems like a great reminder for all involved, and really creates that space for teachers, students, and families to do the work together!

Award Nomination

Finally, pretty cool that someone nominated me for a Golden Apple Award:

I got this last Friday and at first thought it was junk mail, but upon further examination and research, it is legit. This is an award for teachers in Illinois, in a few of the counties around where I live. This year, it's for 4th-8th grade teachers. Winners receive

• A paid spring quarter sabbatical to study tuition-free at Northwestern University
• Induction into the Golden Apple Academy of Educators
• A cash award of $5,000
• Recognition on an hour long Awards ceremony program on WTTW/Channel 11 in May 2017

I have no idea who nominated me - I asked some people at work and a friend who is a Golden Apple Scholar, but have not figured that out, but I am super thankful and honored someone thought of me!

That's about all for this week! I really enjoy sitting down to write and am so thankful blogging and writing is a consistent part of my life! Have a fab weekend, I'm off to the Apple Orchard and then will be watching the Sun Devils and Cubbies tonight!

Any thoughts on the Pineapple Chart, Quick Writing, Student Self-Assessment or your weekend? Keep the conversation going in the comments below!

Tree Thoughts

I don't know why I am so drawn to trees, but I am.

One summer day I sat on my couch and could hear the leaves rustling behind me and I loved it so much I took an Instagram video of it.

When I wake up in the morning (when I don't have to leave early for work) the light that is cast through my kitchen and living room windows is so pretty - the light comes through the leaves outside my windows and dances around my apartment.

I love fall. (I know, so basic.) But seriously, look:

This book, of course.

And is it a coincidence that Arbonne, a product line and health and wellness philosophy I have come to love so much, means beautiful tree?

I'm drawn to art that includes trees, too. About 5 years ago at the Frankfort Fall Fest, there was this artisan who created these beautiful mosaics, and my favorite one was a tree. If only I had $300 at the time, that piece would be here on my wall at home.

And then just this week, on Twitter, I saw a tree that was part of a writing workshop, and etched into the trunk was "Writers grow together," and I am in love:

Speaking of etchings, I've always wanted to etch initials into a tree trunk with some special someone, you know, like this:

The past few days I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what it is about trees that draws me so much to them...?

Is it because living without trees in Arizona all those years has me really appreciating them?

Or maybe it's because of their roots that has them grounded firmly. The best people I know know who they are - when you go out into this crazy world, if you don't at least know yourself, you can be easily manipulated...

Which brings up another quality of trees, flexibility and bendiness. While you do have to stand for something, it's also important to be flexible enough to compromise.

Is it because the leaves change colors and fall away? Last time I had a breakup, this quote spoke to me pretty profoundly:

Or is it because the courageous few, who sometimes, step out onto that limb? Like having that hard conversation with friend or family member. Or walking up to someone you'd like to know to say hello. Or sharing Arbonne, even when people are so judgy. Putting yourself out there isn't easy, but it can definitely yield some pretty amazing results.

So this fall, as you go about your busy days, slow down to notice the trees around you. And, in a few weeks, stop by my classroom to see my Writer's Workshop Tree. It's going to be a daily reminder of all that trees bring into our lives!

Am I missing any other awesome tree references?

Leave me a comment to share them!

Creating Relevance

Last week I was at the Illinois Reading Council Conference and I had so much fun. One thing that is still new to me are the Notice and Note books by Beers and Probst. These books are built around strategies for Close Reading.

The big theme of their sessions was relevance. Obviously we want to take into account student interests when we teaching, and ideally we would give all students readings that were directly related to their interests. But, we also have to instruct classic texts, books and articles that students read at various grade levels as a whole class. The Outsiders. Romeo and Juliet. The Scarlet Letter.

I get differentiation, but I also see power in one class, one book. This year, I'm only going to have one book that the whole class reads, and it's The Giver, which we are immersed in now. I've read The Giver with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, and I say it's best interpreted by eight graders, but I digress.

Back to relevance, though - since we can't give kids readings on their interests all the time, we have to build relevance into our teaching. The strategies that Beers and Probst modeled to us last week are called Possible Sentences and Notice and Wonder. (Well, I'm naming the second one Notice and Wonder!) I used these strategies yesterday with my ELA class and they worked so flawlessly to engage kids to the text. Here's how to do it.

Possible Sentences
Create a group of words and phrases that are about the coming chapters of your book. There should be a bunch of choices. What I did is wrote sentences about the book - things that were actually going to happen, and then I broke them down into a set of names, a set of actions, and a set of descriptors (I'm sure there's a better grammar way to explain that third column!) Here's what I came up with:

Then I modeled to students how to write sentences, using words and phrases from the chart. I showed them a few I created, and then asked them to write two. Then they did a pair share. Then the pair wrote a third. Then silently they wrote two more.

After each kid had five sentences, I had them share out to me and I recorded them on the board:

Notice and Wonder
Now the cool part, I ask students to notice sentences, consider them, and then wonder about them. Here's a lot of questions we had about Jonas and his medication:

As you can see, they were concerned about the pill that Jonas takes and were wondering many things. As the class began sharing, it stemmed more questions. We were rolling!

Prior to that one, we wondered about the other Possible Sentences:

Genius Strategy
These Possible Sentences were created by kids but used the language from the teacher who has already read the book. When you use this strategy, you create an easy way for students to predict using language you give them (so great for ELs) and then you invest them into the story by wondering together.

The engagement yesterday was awesome after this strategy. I highly recommend it!

Other Applications
Think of all the other readings we do in other content areas! When Beers and Probst modeled this strategy, they did so with a NF article about child labor laws in an African (African? Can't exactly remember where...) country. They didn't read the article with us, just did this pre-reading work, and it really stimulated our interest in the topic. I can see this being HIGHLY successful in any content area!

Have you tried these strategies? Have you taught with Notice and Note? Keep the conversation going in the comments below!

illinois reading council review

Just came home from the Illinois Reading Council Conference. It was awesome. If I had to sum it up in three words, I'd go with volume, relevance, and giggles. Here's the story...

Reading and writing volume matters
I read Readicide years and years ago, but this was the first time hearing Kelly Gallagher speak. He talked about how we need to repurpose our middle and high school classrooms away from 4 big novels and 4 big papers to something different so that kids are reading and writing in crazy quantities.

His schedule looks like this:
2 min     Book talks
10 min   Reading and Conferring
10 min   Daily writing to launch units
8 min     Mentor Text Study
20 min   Writing Workshop and Conferring
3 min     Debrief and sharing of beautiful words

This was so reaffirming to me. I try and emulate the experts - Gallagher and Penny Kittle (they are co-authoring a book together due out next November!) and so now I have some ideas to tweak my schedule further. If he can do this with 53 minutes, I can definitely get down to biz in 88!

Our district is awesome and sends so many people to IRC, so we had to get a picture with the Selfie Stick:

And then I had him sign my book and I got to sit down and talk to him a bit.

He is seriously such a great teacher, I feel so blessed to have met him!

Authors Speak: Jordan Sonneblick & Laurie Halse Anderson
I had never heard of Jordan and am now super excited to read one of his books. His session was so great - about how your kids who drive you bananas need you to be there for them, and you might even turn them into writers! Jordan spoke these beautiful words, "Your writing feedback needs to be anointing and appointing - writing is a person's soul on paper." So so true, we can't rip our kids to shreds when we look at their writing or go nuts with a red pen. Read for ideas first, hear your writers!

And Laurie Halse Anderson has amazing books, my favorites to date are Speak and Twisted, but I saw a new side of her this time with her historical Thriller Series, Chains, Forge, and Ashes. I had always wondered how she writes books so different - realistic fiction with Speak and Twisted in Young Adult about sexual violence and then historical thrillers centered around slavery, so it was great to hear her stories. What really stuck out to me was when she said something along the lines of "keep pushing to learn about white privilege" if you have been thinking about that lately. (I have.) The current state of our country goes way back, back even further than slavery, back to when people took land from Native Americans. We have a long road ahead to fix the difficulties we face here in 2016, but it can start with books and conversations.

Enchanted, yet again, by Ralph Fletcher
Ralph Fletcher has easily been one of the most impactful researcher-teachers on my career. I would not be who I am as far as a workshop stance without him. So to have him reaffirm what I already know as a writer - that children need to play with writing to develop not only a love for it but also to be effective at it was so wonderful to hear.

We have to make time in our writing workshops for students to have choice and voice, and when our writing workhops work, we are like a hot air balloon flying away with energy. Our students' writer's notebooks should be a playground and hot house for ideas!

So with all the mandates we have from outside our buildings and our state departments, let's remember to keep writing joyful for our students!

Kyleen Beers and Bob Probst
These two are quite comical and super smart, sharing about their books Notice and Note. These books focus on close reading strategies in both fiction and nonfiction. What I am walking away with her is relevance. We have to make the work we do with kids relevant, and one way to do that is through an awesome strategy called Possible Sentences and then using Notice and Wonder.

Next time you're going to read an article with your students, pick out 15 - 20 words and phrases from the article and list them. Have kids, in pairs, write possible sentences that could be in the text. Then, kids share their sentences and teacher scribes them on the board. Next, teacher asks kids to look at one sentence and wonder about it - what questions do you have? what do you wonder? Kids turn and talk and then share out.

These wonderings create relevance for our readers, big time. When we did this exercise, we all wanted to read the article afterward! This pre-reading strategy is so powerful for our readers, highly recommend.

More learning experiences
I heard a lot of other great sessions, too: about dyslexia, about content-area writing tips, CRAFTS, the hot new lit for Young Adult, and an awesome presentation from a great friend and colleague about blogging with kids. I can't wait to get my students going on blogs!

Hilarity
In addition to learning so much wonderful information that can be brought back to my classroom on Monday, it's just so fun to be around amazing friends from work. We laughed and had so much fun and geeked out taking selfies with our literacy celebrities. On the way home, we sang songs from Lion King and The Little Mermaid. Who does that? Which brings me to...

Gratitude
So many things to be thankful for:

• A district who gets that ongoing professional development is such a must for our teachers and kids; thank you for sending me to IRC and allowing me to continue my training so my students can continue theirs:

• Friendships built around selfie sticks and reading and writing workshop!

• Cute bags from the conference! (You guys: chevron!)

• "ELA Squad" t-shirts, that were the brainchild of a #D100chat one Tuesday evening. Thanks Cap!

• for teachers who teach with a firm, loving insistence so that our students become readers and writers who can powerfully interpret and interact in such world where news, advertisements, informatoin is usually skewed one way or another.

• for Twitter that allows us to stay connected and continue to learn from one another. Check out the #IRC2016 feed and my twitter feed for more! Let's grow our PLN!

Did you attend IRC? What did you take away?

week 4 in review

Four weeks of school have flown by already, it's crazy how fast it goes! Here are some of the things I was thinking this week as time continued to keep movin' on by...

I'm so thankful for my new area rug for the kids to read. It takes a lot of feedback to get them to read without disturbing others, but how cool is this view from my conferring table at the present moment? :-)

Our school is putting forward 9 focus areas across the building. One of them is note-taking, so this was one of my demos of Cornell Notes. I had a video playing and was taking notes as students watched me. Then, I had them share out about what they noticed I did. Then they tried on their own. It's working so well! They are finally getting that copying notes from a teacher involves no thinking. They have to do their own notes!

We also worked on getting vulnerable in one of my classes. I asked students to share their notes to fill in things they may have missed, but they wouldn't even move close to one another. So then I said, "Slide your notebooks together, look at one another's work. Talk about it. Trust me, I know it's hard, especially when you're unsure that you even did it right in the first place. I know I'm asking you to do hard things, but just trust me, and go with it." And for the kiddos who still wouldn't move their notebooks together, I did it for them :-)

These girls at the basketball game, I love it. This was after a crazy rant by me to my ELA class a few hours earlier. I super love teaching, but when you are teaching kids what behaviors are okay and what are not, you usually come off to them like you're yelling all the time. I'm not actually yelling, just talking in a stern voice about what is and what is not acceptable. So, after that tough class, it was nice to unwind with these kiddos at the game...until the fire alarm got bumped!

I'm super strict about assignment notebooks with my 6th grade homeroom. I am training them to be organized and create to do lists to make sure they get their work done and stay out of the Working Lunch classroom. And it's working. All by stickers, and these puffy emoji stickers for a week of writing all their homework down! Who doesn't love stickers?!

My classroom is coming along much slower this year because I'm waiting on all the work of the kids to decorate it! I finally finished up the Nerdy Birdies - It's a great book that I read to my homeroom on the first day. Then I had a few kids do blackline masters of a few different birds, copied them, had the kids color them, put them up, labeled them, along with the quote driving my school year:

A bird is safe in it's nest but that is not what wings are made for.  

-Amit Ray

Here are a few close ups:

One more thing on this - A week ago I got some super cute buletin board birds in the mail, except I didn't remember ordering them. I was thinking that I was getting a little irresponsible with my online shopping, so I went looking for the online orders. Couldn't find it. So I posed on facebook and found out my bff sent them :-)

And last, ASU once again named most innovative, and I totally feel it's true in education, with the amazing instruction I got with Reading and Writing Workshop and a social constructivist philosophy with heavy influences from Paulo Freire. So thankful I'm the teacher I am today because of Arizona State. Now we just need to win some football!

How was your week?

best week ever

No, seriously. You guys, now I'm back in middle school and I have a few of my own classes to teach. It's been three years without! I'm so happy!

Here's my homeroom on the first day. We're already a little classroom family and I love it! I can't wait to share our homeroom theme with you, it's not ready yet, but hopefully in the next week or two!




They're super cute as they learn the big middle school systems. They've done so well this week, I can't wait to see what comes next for them!

I'm teaching two classes: Challenge Based Learning and English Language Arts. This week, I've been working on two big things: Quick Writing & teaching kids to talk to and listen to one another.

Quick Writing
I learned Quick Writing from Penny Kittle's book Write Beside Them. It's prompted writing that happens in three minute spurts. There are three rules:

Rule 1: Write for the whole three minutes. Give the kids a prompt and then tell them that when they run out of things to say, that they need to listen to the talking in their mind and just write whatever that is saying. Main goal, to write furiously and not quit till time is called. Tip: Don't ask a question when you prompt, instead, give a sentence stem. Here are a few I used this week:

• What I like/dislike about this classroom is...
• Poetry is different than fiction/nonfiction because...
• Something I'm looking forward to doing this weekend is...

Rule 2: Don't let your head tell you what you're writing is crap. We all have that critic inside, but writing is messy, thinking is messy! In quick writing, the idea is to get it all to come out, and it doesn't have to be organized or correct or perfect. When you can't think of the next work, put a line to save the spot and keep going! Just don't stop writing.

Rule 3: Relax, have fun, play. Quick writing is meant to be the writer's playground. It builds stamina and fluency for writing, and it also allows a writer's voice to come out. But it has to be done consistently. One other point to note, if a kid has a great thing going after prompt #1, they can skip prompt #2 and stick where the writing is hot. It's recommended!

Quick writing is not collected or graded. Kids do the work, not the teacher. Even if we're not checking it, kids are still reaping the benefits. This week, on an exit slip, one student said this:

That was after session 1 of quick writing. Imagine the confidence they will have after a month of it!

Speaking & Listening

In the three years when I didn't have my own classroom, I read a lot of stuff without a space for application. This week I finally put some of that information to use! I read somewhere that when a teacher repeats what a soft-spoken child says, the message it sends to the other kids is that they don't have to listen to the quiet kid, because the teacher will just repeat them.

I no longer repeat anyone.

If a child shares to the group and is too quiet, I turn to a student on the other side of the room and ask if they heard what the soft-spoken student said. If they say no, I ask the second student to ask the quiet student to repeat themselves. It forces kids to speak up.

I'm telling you, my Challenge Based Learning kids thought I was insane the first day. There were like 50 times when I had to facilitate them listening to one another, but the underlying message here is so powerful: Each person's voice is important and deserves to be heard. So we're going to speak up!

I'm also having them work on eye contact, that rather than having it go from students to teacher and then back from teacher to students, it's one person (student or teacher) to everyone else. So that feedback sounds like this: "You did an awesome job speaking loudly, but can you say it again, and this time, instead of just making eye contact with me, say what you're saying to everyone?"

We will just keep practicing, but I know that the conversations in my classes this year will be wonderful, from kid to kid to me to kid to all the other kids and on and on. I just love it!

Not ready

This is the first year I was not ready - like, I'm still waiting on furniture and my new rug, I didn't have my bulletin board stuff until after the first day, my plans were written on a day-by-day basis, my library wasn't totally unpacked (in fact, 2/3 of it is still in my basement in a storage closet I'm afraid to go in bc I'm sure there's 100s of spiders in there!) And you know what? It was all ok. It was okay that my first day was more about making sure I remembered their names than showing the perfect power point presentation about rules. It's okay that there's a huge empty spot where a rug will soon be, it's okay that I only had planned for the few hours ahead of me. Every kid knows they matter to me, and that's the most important thing.

That being said, I can't wait till my room is ready for the blog reveal! It's coming along, day by day. I'm hoping that in the next three weeks it will be ready for a photo shoot to share with all of you!

That's about all on my end. My heart is seriously so full, I'm so thankful for the opportunities I've been blessed with. Working with kids puts me in that state of flow - you know, where there's nothing else getting at you, you're not stressed about anything, you're not thinking about missing out on anything, you're just living every moment and enjoying the ride.

How was your first (or second) week of school?

do hard things.

I've been involved with our local teacher's union for the past two years. This year, I've stepped into the new role of Social Media Chair, so I'm excited to stay connected. Additionally, this year, our co-presidents asked me to give the welcome address to our membership. I said yes, because I knew it would push me. 

They asked me just a few days ago. On the drive home that day, I was thinking about how I could go back and decline, and I could sit in the audience and just be passive and not have to stress. But in my heart and my gut, I knew I wanted to give the speech. So I said to myself, "Okay, just wait and see how you feel in a few hours."

Well, I still felt the same, but I knew I had already said yes, and I've been working on doing what I say I'm going to do, to show integrity through my words and actions and not go back on something. So I just stuck with it. But I was nervous. Up until about noon on the day of (my speech was to be around 2:30) I was fine, I could set the nerves aside and just go about my buisiness. But then from around noon -2:30 (including when I did a practice read with a good friend) I was so nervous. Sweaty palms and racing heart nervous.

But then I got up there and did my thing. When you do the hard things, it's exhilarating. And it's rewarding.

I wanted to share my speech with you and also some of the tweets and texts I got, not because I am trying to brag, but because I want to encourage all of you to do the hard thing. Do them! If it's hard, it's making you grow, and when you do those hard things, you are rewarded in ways you can't imagine.

So, here is the speech, and after, the notes from friends.

Hi there! Welcome back to the 2016-2017 school year! My name is Michelle Brezek; I’m a teacher and Literacy Coach here at Heritage and the Social Media chair for the South Berwyn Education Association. On behalf of the SBEA, it’s such an honor to welcome both returning and new teachers and staff to our amazing school district!

As I was thinking about what I was going to say to you today, I got to thinking about who were are, that is, the teachers in D100. We are passionate and dedicated educators, innovators on a global stage, and sometimes school supply junkies. We are multicultural, bilingual and inclusive of all. We are writers and shoe-tiers, mentors, and coteachers. We are athletes and coaches. We are sometimes or always obsessed with our craft. We are nurses with cough drops and social workers listening ears. We are researchers and problem solvers. We are jokesters, too, we want to have fun! We believe that in teaching and learning, anything is possible, especially when you look at it a different way, perhaps with a different mindset. This year, we will create possibilities and a future that no one has yet to dream, and we’ll be able to do that because of the talent, excitement, and knowledge that returns to our district each year.

Which brings me to you, new teachers. It’s only the opening institute day, and so many of us have yet to meet one another, but I’m sure I can speak for all when I say we are so happy to have you here. We can’t wait to uncover the gifts you will bring to the lives of our students and everyone here in D100.

Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much.” I couldn’t agree more. As the year unfolds and our relationships grow, we will have so much to offer - to our students, to one another, to ourselves. It’s when we are united and working together that our efforts really flourish, with huge returns in student achievement and teacher engagement in the work we love so much.

In the spirit of collaboration and unity, I hope you’ll take me up on this proposal: Open your classroom doors this year. Invite your team over to watch you teach. Get into other classrooms in your building and around the district. I know that it’s easier to not do this, you know, because sub plans are just another thing to do, but I can promise you, you’ll come back to your classroom refreshed with new ideas, new perspectives, and new energy.

In addition to collaboration, dream those big dreams, but don’t stop there. Don’t save a hope or a dream in your head or your heart for one day, some day. Tell your friends about them! Write them down! Tweet it out to the world! It’s when we enroll others in our hopes and dreams that they become so powerful we’re able to manifest them into our lives and the lives of our students.

Let’s make this the year we are all open to something new. Let’s look at things in a new light and consider different perspectives. Let’s dream new possibilities, declare them to be true, and then take action to achieve them. Together we can make this our best year yet!

It's so not easy to do the hard thing. Colleen, thank you for capturing the moment for me and always being one of my biggest cheerleaders!

These friends are always in my corner, it's a big part of the reason I can say yes to the scary, hard things:

   

And two texts from two of the other Literacy Coaches in the district. Has anyone told you recently that they are proud of you? I mean, perhaps your parents have, and while that is amazing and rewarding, the feeling you get when a colleague or friend or even a significant other tells you that will blow your mind! And a request for your speech to be published? I am so thankful for such a supportive community here in my district!

It's a new school year. I'm in a new building - I'm back at the middle school! I'm teaching a 7th-8th grade ELA class and an 8th grade section of Challenge Based Learning. I'm also a homeroom teacher to some awesome 6th graders and have I have some coaching periods too.

I'm once again out of my comfort zone, working with new people and actually team leader, too, which I haven't done before, and I don't even realize the things I'm missing. But I'm doing the hard things, so I know I'm growing.

What are the hard things you're setting yourself up for this year?

Leave a comment and let's keep the conversation going!

One last thank you, to our keynote yesterday, Dave Stuart for an awesome speech, about writing, about teaching, and about keeping life in balance. "Do hard things" was all him, applied easily to my life, and I'm sure, all my reader's lives, too!