First Day Jitters

By Kim Paniagua

And just like that...it was July. The end of the school year came fast and left me feeling like I had been hit by a speeding bus. Swiftly followed by summer work days and a tech-ed conference in Chicago. After landing at 6pm on Wednesday, the institute awaited me the very next morning. Missing the first 3 days of a NWP summer institute is like missing a month. So much happens. Bonds are formed. Beautiful writing has filled countless pages already, people have their own nerdy, inside jokes. So when I walked into our new space, filled with new people, and embraced my new role as “staff,” I was nervous to say the least. I was the proverbial new kid in school and I just hoped people would let me sit with them at the lunch table.

What always strikes me about the institute is how familial it feels. Here we are. 15 or so teachers, writers, thinkers. Spanning across all ages, teaching backgrounds and cultures. Sharing ourselves, our practices and our writing. All working toward the same goal: to learn. About ourselves, each other and our students. By the end of Thursday, as the hot rain settled in and around the empty campus, I had a feeling that I was right where I was supposed to be.

Time will bring solace

when every minute and second weighs a ton.

when it spans like shadows in the night

hugging my bones to the core.

Time becomes a blanket

burning like a hot summer day,

humid and dense

when I wish to run away.

Time sneaks in occasionally

frightening my existence

as monsters in disguise

ready to capture my soul.

Time, friend or foe?

Fanny Fernandez

From Poker Poetry

Our Time Will Come

OUR TIME WILL COME
Elizabeth Renaud

“Hace mucho frio siempre aqui en New Hampshire!”

“A glorious summer day in New Hampshire, they won’t last long, enjoy it while you can!”

Two groups of people in the exact same place, with the exact same weather, but with very different interpretations of the situation.

This got me thinking about the Writing Institute. While we are all teachers, we come to the Institute with very different interpretations of our situations. So many variables from different levels of classrooms, different subjects, different ages, even different segments of the population, are sitting right beside us in the Explorations, Inquiry, and Writing groups. As these differences challenge us, they also become the foundations for us to find common ground. As we discuss and get to know one another, some may not understand what goes on in a 1st grade class, but we learn the teaching practices are the same. We begin to connect on deeper levels. We begin to recognize and realize our goals are the same -- to become better teachers, better writers, better listeners for our students. The differences allow us to practice empathy, become more aware that not everyone is like us. We are learning to be open, to allow others their space, and to sit with it -- no judgement, no suggestions, no conditions -- it just is.

To our Dominican friends from your New Hampshire friends - we do understand cold, believe me, we do - just not at this time of year. While we bask in the relative warmth of 71 degrees, we will hand you a sweater knowing our time will come.

Poem-a-day

Poem a Day

By Meg Petersen

Many poets challenge themselves during National Poetry Month to write a poem every day.  The official National Poetry Month is in April, and since in April, I barely have time to brush my teeth, I have decided that for me, June is National Poetry Month.  I have written a poem every day so far this month (5 more days to go).  This has served to make me more attentive to the small things each day that catch my attention.  It’s sometimes challenging and a few times, I got pretty close to midnight without a poem, but it helps to jumpstart my writing as I enter the institute and provides a record of my life during the month of June.  It also gives me plenty of material for future revision.

I will share with you a poem I wrote, as the title implies, right before we began the institute, my poem for day 23 of this month.  

At the Cusp of the Institute

Right now, it’s all possibility.

The frame is there, the careful structure we have built

over months, over years, but it is only that, a border

to contain what we cannot yet know.  All we need

is inside us.  We are this thing;

it is ours, and we are it, and we will remake it

in an image we know will be unique, but recognizable. 

All this we know, but for now,

it is only potential, until we set it all in motion,

so we poise like coiled springs, ready,

We know this much:  that it will test us,

that we will need to trust in processes we don’t fully

understand, that we will build the plane while flying,

and that the after will be different.

But this is the before.

So we take a moment to breathe,

to reflect on what we might want to remember

of this pregnant space and wonder just what this is

in us, yearning

to be born.

Teacher lore, 2nd draft

by Eridania Rodriguez

“Teachers are students”

          Sometimes you learn from your students more than what you’re aware, you also learn how to forecast their result at the end of the school year and try to find all means possible to help them succeed in the school and besides that in all their daily life issues. I’d learned from my students, especially from Carlos, to be more empathetic.

I’ve learned that to be successful during the teaching and learning process, all the actors in the educational community should support the goal and depending on that, the result will be met.

During the first day of class in 7th graders classroom, the Physical Education teacher just said, “Good afternoon, do you want to participate in the activity we have in the yard today? without asking me permission to announce that in my class, and of course, due to the circumstances and students' feelings at the moment they agreed in going out (the last two periods of classes that day), but I interrupted the P.E. teacher and reflected with the students about my lesson planning, I explained to them that that was the first day of class for me and the only day I had to evaluate them for the first time in that school year and besides that the next week was the due date to hand in all groups’ evaluation results, and that I haven’t done it because the school activities haven’t given me the chance to do it before that due date.

 The P.E. teacher understood and left the classroom.  Even though I reflected with the students about this  the students didn’t; they got very mad at me instead, but I couldn’t let them go out anyway, because I thought that was fair for all of us. I learned that next time I have a similar situation I’ll use my plan B to evaluate them and help them reflect on the importance of learning foreign languages. What I didn’t know was that since that day I became the enemy for that group! And that didn’t help during the whole school year.

There was extensive interaction with all those 7th graders during the whole school year, the principal, the psychologist and other teachers; trying to give them (students who needed it) reinforcement workshops in content areas, having meetings with their parents (most of them never showed up, like Carlos’s). At the end five students out 31 had to repeat the level.

Several months later I found Carlos very angry, he said that he wanted to kill the homeroom teacher because she only gave 59% of the assistance. I sat across from him and recollected the story; I can’t decipher my emotions regarding it because at last, he understood the importance of being present and active with all the teachers. So, we reflected on what’s really important in life, trying to be a team next year can help him succeed, but at least, for the first time, he showed interest, he paid attention to my words!

I learned that even though teenagers and parents show that they don’t care and don’t make any effort to overcome their challenges, that’s when all the teachers and school management team, administrators, parents should not give up and leave them alone. We all, as a team, should sit together and formulate a better plan for Carlos and his next school year’s challenge, and  for all those students that are in a similar situation; all teachers must provide support to help them meet their needs even though it’s not a piece of cake, but it’s also our success as teachers.

A Diamond in the Rough by Gavin Kearns

By Gavin Kearns

A Diamond in the Rough

“He’s our diamond in the rough” my new principal said to one of the school board members. It was late August in Pembroke NH where first year teachers like myself and those new to the district were meeting members of the school board.  My principal calling me a diamond in the rough resounded with me.

Diamonds are priceless, brilliant, expensive gems; she must really see my true potential I thought when I heard her say that. After completing my yearlong internship where I also was a long term sub, I knew I was ready for my first teaching gig.  I even thought that I could take a friend of mine under my wing who was entering the teaching profession without any experience; how could I coach him to become a better teacher?

Teachers after their internship tend to model themselves after their cooperating teacher.  I set up my room exactly like his was, a horseshoe around the room.  I thought that if I took the same format for how he structured his class mine would go exactly the same.  But why did I have issues?  Students were throwing paper balls back and forth across the room.  They were stomping on empty milk cartons to make a loud pop.  They were folding paper so that it would make a loud snap when whipped through the air.  Through the connecting door teachers would come in looking to see what the noise was and why their classroom was being interrupted with noise.

I knew that how my classroom was working was not right, but I didn’t know how to fix it.  One of the solutions that teachers use is to send students to the office that are making it a non-productive work environment for the rest of the class.  How do you respond when the office staff says “please don’t” when I tell them I am sending a problem student to the office.  They do not want to deal with the student either. I know that the administration was not to blame, but where was the support?  During the post-observation meeting with the principal, I was not given any ideas for what I needed to improve upon, or even told that I was in danger of being non-renewed.

On a oddly sunny, April day over the PA myself and the rest of the class heard

“Mr. Kearns, can you come to the office?”

“I’m in the middle of teaching” I replied.

“Ok, come during your planning period” they said.  I thought it was odd they would try and call me down in the middle of my class.  But when I went down my principal told me I was not being renewed. That was a tough moment, mostly thinking what will the rest of today be like?  The rest of the week? The rest of the year? She told me “I think you know why” and that “the kids have your number”.  She was right, I knew why, but what I wanted to know was where the support was?  Where was the here’s how to improve?

The rest of the year went by in a blur as I’ve learned they do.  It’s embarrassing being fired from a job.  You do not want anyone to know and you don’t want to talk about it.  But it’s public, how can people not know? It was awkward when students would ask why I would not be teaching the following year.  I wanted to tell them it was because of them.

I thought I’d never teach again, I sent countless resumes and went on plenty of interviews, but none came to fruition.  A single year was all I was going to make it?  What would I do for a career.  I thought teaching was what I would do for the rest of my life.

The following June I’m interviewing at for the position I’m in now.  “What was the last book you read?” the language arts teacher asked.  “Teacher Man” I replied.  This was a connecting moment between myself and my future teammates, we would get along and have similar styles, similar goals.  This past June I just finished my 5th year at Paul School as the 7th and 8th grade science teacher.  It’s amazing seeing how myself and my classroom has changed from my first to my fifth year.  The math teacher and I jokingly compete with each other on who are the favorite teachers  and subjects.  I have become a leader in the school, something I couldn’t imagine from my first year.  I am the treasurer of our local union and also on the bargaining team.  I have led professional development both in my school and at regional conferences.  At my most recent assessment from my principals, I received high marks and am now a continuing contract teacher.

I was surprised in February to see a student from my first year teaching at a play in Rochester.  It would have been easy for her to not say anything, I doubt I would have recognized her.  What does it mean when someone you used to know goes out of their way to say hi?  To say “hey remember me”?  Even though my first year wasn’t a success for me, it made enough of a difference for her to come say hi.

 Tuesday, Week 5
A group poem by Chris D'Agostino, Diomedes Fernandez, Kim Paniagua, Ashley Nichol, Molly Campbell, Alexis Sebillian, Meg Petersen, and Michael

We are doubting the process
We imagine having more time
We hear common experience
We see diversity
We want more time
We are doubting the process

We pretend to know what we're writing
We worry that the end will come
We fear forgetting
We scar when we see injustice
We touch lives
We are doubting the process

We know absolutely nothing
We believe we might figure it out someday
We dream of next summer
We try to keep writing
We hope to be our best selves
We are doubting the process.