Connected

March 1, 2013

I love the saying "We're all in this together!" Despite the differences in our grade levels, our scattered locales, and our schools, we teachers are connected through our dedication to children. Here at The Daily CAFE we come together to discover best practices for fostering a passion for literacy in our students and yet, we have much to learn from each other. 

Cultivating relationships with like-minded teachers with whom we can share successes and concerns with can make all the difference in how we feel about the work we do. Visit other Daily 5/CAFE classrooms whenever possible. Even walking through a room without the children present can give you new ideas. Whether it's book boxes, CAFE boards, read-alouds, I-charts, traffic patterns, or pillows, it's interesting to see someone else's take on it. Watching rotations in action will often provide inspiration or validation for your own teaching efforts. It's not uncommon to see another teacher's variation that might be just the answer to a question you had. Even the smallest tweak can make a big difference in how smoothly your literacy blocks run.

Watch the videos spotlighted here each week regardless of the targeted grade level. Doing this will give you a deeper understanding of the entire literacy journey. Observing children in younger grades will give you a picture of how far your students have already progressed. Watching videos of older students can be eye opening because you'll discover that the reading concepts are the same, just at a more sophisticated level. Also, we often have children whose developmental level is below or above the grade we teach. Videos targeting other levels may help us meet the needs of these particular students.

Don't forget to check in with the discussion board periodically. It's a wonderful place to celebrate successes together or search for solutions others have tried. Did you know that if you leave a comment and someone responds, you get an email notification? It makes it easy to keep up with the discussion.

Ultimately, we are connected because we are members of a profession that does not give up. The stakes are too high. Even when the journey is tough, we come back each morning ready to try again. We are a tenacious bunch. "We're all in this together!"