the last day of winter break

Sitting here on the last day of Winter Break, trying to make sure that I am ready to go back to school, I realize that I am never ready. There is always something else that I could do to be 'more ready.' There is always one more lesson to tweak, one more strategy to read about, one more Power Point to create. That being said, I am never 'ready,' but I am always excited to get back in there with my students to explore more text and hear their take on it. What they get out of the text, with their limited English, is at times very different from what I get out of the text. That is when I have to take a step back and allow them to navigate and explore both alone and with each other (with me as an observer, only there to make sure we stay on task). This is one of the most difficult parts of what I do, allowing them to struggle to make sense of the text in lieu of giving them the answers. It's like the mother (or father) who watches as her child starts to take his first steps; when he starts to fall, you want to reach out and protect him, but he needs to fall and get up again to learn to walk on his own. Here's to another semester of back seat observing instead of back seat driving.