Let It Go!

If you haven't seen the movie Frozen, you have GOT to go see it. I knew it was a movie I would love when I first saw the previews, but held back seeing as I'm a grown adult without any children to bring with me to a Disney movie in theaters. Enter my best friend and her husband visiting Chicago over their spring break and our collective idea to go see the movie in theaters. Best. Idea. Ever. The four of us laughed and danced (ok, I was doing most of the dancing) through the whole thing and I admit, I bought the sound track the second we got home.

One of the best songs in the movie is called "Let It Go." It's beautiful and sung by the amazingly talented Idina Menzel. I loved it the second I heard it and I quickly put it on my play list for my after school yoga group.

My little yoga group is full of 4th and 5th grade girls on Thursday afternoons. They are spunky, full of life, and absolutely pure joy every single time I see them. They're incredible.

What I didn't know was that putting the song "Let It Go" on my playlist would turn yoga class into a full on dance party. It really was like something out of a movie. The first line of the song played while we were in one of our warrior poses and one of the girls started tapping her foot. The other girls started to smile, and before I could even say a thing, it was a dance party. Yep, dancing around the classroom, singing at the top of our lungs, I'm guessing the other after school programs were wondering what happened to yoga.

It was perfect. Absolutely perfect, and I'm not sure the words to the song could have been more perfect. Those girls 'let it go'!

On the running end of things, I am also learning to let it go. Let go of being perfectly prepared for a race, that is.

A few months ago, a few friends and I decided to sign up for a 15 mile trail race. At the time, it was mid-January and signing up for something in late March seemed like a very safe bet in terms of weather. Well, not so much. We got an email on Sunday with pictures of the course and let's just say that it prompted me to buy yax trax and my friend to buy new trail running shoes so that we can survive the icy conditions. We are all crossing our fingers and toes for some warm weather tomorrow.

We are in for an adventure, that is for sure. I have let go of the fact that it was a rough winter and I know I'm not fully trained for a 15 mile race. My honest plan is to put the Frozen soundtrack on my ipod and listen to it on repeat...and maybe even bust out a few dance moves if necessary. How's that for letting go? My yogi girls would be proud.

I hope you are letting go too. It's almost spring. And if that doesn't make you smile, I hope this does:

whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17QQcK4l6Yw

We all do better when we all do better.

The late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone once said, "we all do better when we all do better." Growing up in a good liberal Minnesota family, Paul Wellstone was one of my heroes. Yes, quite nerdy, but I was reading his book, Conscious of a Liberal, and listening intently to the liberal chatter between my mom and grandpa with a great deal of interest from a very young age. Nothing wrong with that, right? 

I have found myself thinking about this favorite Paul Wellstone quote often recently, particularly on Tuesday night as my wonderful policy fellowship met for our monthly session. Per usual, many topics were covered and we heard from wonderful presenters on a variety of topics. My head spun again with ideas and concerns about education as we talked about teaching as a performance vs seniority driven profession, peer evaluation, and teacher preparation. As with every meeting, I love the perspective that my fellow teachers have on every topic. It is a group of passionate, intelligent individuals who believe change is possible. It's a beautiful thing. 

This month's session blends together in my mind with a very quick trip I took to Washington DC with the same policy fellowship this past Saturday. The trip was to attend a training through EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products) and learn about a qualitative rubric to evaluate common core materials. The training was thoughtful and well organized and I benefited greatly from being there.

Teach Plus flew about 15 other policy fellows from around the country to be a part of the training as well. It was both inspiring and humbling to sit in a room with a group of teachers who are truly fighting every day to close the achievement gap all over the country. I heard stories from a brilliant teacher from Los Angeles who told me 80% of her students are undocumented making basic safety a major factor in her classroom. Other stories from a teacher in Memphis who told me that the children in his school are in the bottom 2% of achievement in the country and how the impact that can have on moral among staff and students is beyond words, and the stories went on. I listened and shared and soaked up all of their hope. Because what was impactful was not the weight of their realities, we know similar challenges in CPS, but that all of these teachers are hopeful and are fighting every day to do better for themselves, their students and communities, and this country. 

Throughout my DC whirlwind adventure as well as on Tuesday night at the policy meeting here in Chicago, Paul Wellstone's words have continued to haunt me. We all do better when we all do better. The reality is that we all need to do better. All of us. We have an achievement gap that is devastatingly large and we are not doing a good job of keeping quality teachers in our neediest schools. It needs to change and it needs to change quickly. After all of my experiences in the past week, I have hope.

My other favorite memory of Senator Paul Wellstone is that he used to cheer every year at the Twin Cities Marathon. He would stand at the bottom of the hill leading into the state capitol and give enthusiastic high fives, telling runners, "only one mile to go!" While I never saw him in person and was not old enough to run marathons when he passed away, I think any runner would agree that an enthusiastic cheer squad can make all the difference in the world.

And so, as my students and I wave good-bye to ISAT testing this week, I will be cheering for them in the same way that Senator Wellstone did the marathon runners. If you are a teacher, I hope you are cheering for your students too. Because we all do better when we all do better.  

Running Happy!

This week children in the state of Illinois are taking the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT). If I am honest, it's a depressing couple weeks of the year and this year has been extra stressful because of the "opt-out" debate happening in CPS.

After a lot of thinking, I've decided not to share my thoughts on opting out of the ISAT on this blog. I have a lot of thoughts and would gladly have a private conversation over email or in person, but I'm just not ready to use this blog for that reason. Send me an email, we can talk.

In the mean time, look at a picture of my running buddy this week and tell me it doesn't make you smile!

Meet Chloe. Chloe belongs to my brother Adam and his girlfriend Michelle. Adam and Michelle were in Mexico drinking margaritas on the beach this week and asked at Christmas time if their new puppy Chloe could stay with us. I admit, I didn't even ask Scott and immediately said YES!

I could not have asked for a better pick-me-up during the week of ISAT testing. I admit, I have been happily rushing home after school to take Chloe on walks around our neighborhood every day this week.

Chloe and I went on "runs" three or four times each day. Chloe's version of running involves sprinting for about 3 blocks, then coming to a dead halt, sniffing around...and repeat. Nope, not the usual running style for me, but I loved every minute.

My favorite part of having Chloe stay was that she worked right into my plan of convincing Scott that we should have a dog of our own. While Chloe followed me around some, she followed Scott wherever he went and seemed to have an extra glimmer in her eye for him. Well done, Chloe. We convinced him and are planning to look for a pup of our own this spring!

So, it has been a long week of ISAT testing that drained me to the core, but it was also a week full of happiness and energy. Thank you, Miss Chloe, your timing couldn't have been better!

"This is my special teacher. She runs in the winter!"

There are a few topics that come up with surprising regularity in my classroom. The first is my fiance, Scott. My students adore him (everybody does!) and love to ask about what he ate for breakfast that day, what movies he likes to watch, and of course, when he will be coming to visit room 206 again. The second is my wardrobe. Ask my students what I wore last Tuesday, they probably can tell you. I don't get it, but it's pretty entertaining.

The third, to my surprise, is my running. It is pretty normal that my big 8th grade boys ask me first thing Monday morning about how much I ran over the weekend. They want to know how many miles, what the weather was like, if I stopped for water, and if I ran with my friends. My students are fascinated by what time I wake up in the morning to go for a run during the week and usually remind me to watch out for ice (I broke my hand last winter running over ice, the memory still lives on.)

Again, I don't get it but I have to admit it warms my heart to hear my middle school students asking with so much interest about something that brings me so much joy. And I have to admit, I love knowing that even when I do something kind of stupid like run a half marathon mid-January in sub-zero temperatures, my kids will not think about the decision and only care that I drank gatorade at mile 8... "and it was free, Ms. Rajanen? that's awesome!"

This past week I had a visitor from DePaul University in my classroom. A really nice graduate student from the school of education who is considering the field of special education. My students love an audience so when I told them there was a visitor coming, they were ready.

I happened to be running a quick errand to the office when she came to my room and so my students were on their own to welcome her to our room. I can only imagine what they said to her before I walked in, but when I arrived one of my very sweet students brought her over to me and said, "This is my special teacher. She runs in the winter!"

I love them. So much.

In support of UIC

This past Tuesday the University of Illinois Chicago United Faculty (UICUF) made a brave choice by going on a two day work-stoppage strike. The main reasons for the strike include the right to collective bargaining and a reasonable salary for faculty (especially adjunct faculty).

My fiance, Scott, is currently in his first year of a PhD program at UIC and is incredibly happy with his choice in school and program. Beyond my happiness with the experiences he is having, I also care a lot about UIC. I care about UIC because, as Scott says, it's just a good place to be. I hold the professors in high regard and I also recognize that if UIC loses credibility, the degree Scott and many others receive will carry less merit.

This strike also means a great deal to me because I care about the future of higher education, about the importance of valuing professors who have spent years researching important topics to improve our country and world. I believe that faculty deserve fair pay and collective bargaining rights, and I know that if universities cannot pay at least competitive salaries, they will not attract top notch faculty.

As I'm sure is true for many teachers in the Chicago Public Schools, even the mention of the word strike brings back a million memories and feelings for me. To be honest, the word sends a chill down my spine because the week and a half the Chicago Public Schools went on strike was one of the most emotional weeks of my career. I am proud that I was a part of it, but I would never wish it upon anyone.

Strikes are messy. Strikes are personal and emotional. As my insightful mother says, nobody wins in a strike. I believe strongly in what UIC faculty are standing up for and I hope that in the coming months a fair contract can be agreed upon. For now, I will tell anyone who will listen the importance of valuing faculty at UIC and elsewhere.

And to the UIC faculty, I want to say that the work you do is invaluable and you deserve the utmost respect. I hope that a fair contract is agreed upon, I hope that change happens not only at UIC but in universities everywhere, and I hope that this is a reminder to all of us that education is a gift that we should never take for granted.

The woman who taught me to be a teacher

On Tuesday night, I went to the monthly meeting for Teach Plus policy fellows. We meet monthly for policy sessions in which presentations are given by local, state, and federal education policy makers and influencers. We are encouraged to question and challenge what is in front of us and to share our own experiences as teachers with people who have major influence on our jobs as well as the students we teach. We are also learning about how we can influence these decisions. Beautiful.

This was our second meeting, and much like the first, the topics covered and speakers we heard from left me feeling full of energy, questions, and a need to say something. After a run with my dear teacher friend Kylene where I rambled on for a solid three of our miles about all of my thoughts, I sat down with all of the notes I had frantically scribbled down and focused in on one topic that really struck me Tuesday night-- teacher preparation.

One of the speakers we were privileged to hear from was Jo Anderson. Mr. Anderson has recently stepped down from his role as the senior adviser to Arne Duncan, the US Education Secretary. Mr. Anderson spoke to us about many topics related to education. He was honest about what he sees as shortcomings, his concerns for the future, and work that he feels needs to be done.

When Mr. Anderson talked about teacher preparation, he spoke about his concern for the current "sink or swim" model we send teachers into when they graduate from any teaching program. He talked about a lack of connection between how we are preparing teachers and what they actually need to be able to do. He spoke of a blueprint for improving the state of teacher preparation that Arne Duncan and his staff prepared that provided big changes, but due to timing and politics, has not made it out of their office.

As Mr. Anderson spoke about teacher preparation, I thought back through my own journey to becoming a teacher. I thought about graduate school classes that taught me a lot and challenged me to think, but then I thought about how I  really, truly became a teacher. How did I learn the art and science of teaching? How did I learn to put all of my own learning into practice? The answer is a really phenomenal woman named Cathy.

Cathy taught for 25+ years in the Chicago Public Schools as a special education teacher. Following her career as a teacher, she took a job with the Inner City Teaching Corps (ICTC) as a coach for new teachers. The teacher preparation program that I went through (Chicago Teaching Fellows) had a partnership with ICTC. And so, Cathy and I were paired up as mentor and mentee.

The first time I met Cathy, it was the week before the first week of school. I was, in the words of my students, a hot mess. I was overwhelmed and fretting over where to put things in my classroom, what my students would be like, and absolutely sure that I was going to fail miserably at being a teacher. Cathy didn't miss a beat. She shook my hand, realized I needed a hug and delivered, told me that everything was going to be just fine, and promptly grabbed a stapler and started hanging things on my bulletin board.

Over the course of that first year of teaching, Cathy was in my room weekly to bi-weekly. I'm sure if she reads this she will say differently, but she truly taught me to be a teacher. Cathy provided a model of having a sense of humor and positive outlook about even the most difficult students and shared with me weekly her wealth of knowledge in special education. I would say, she taught me to teach in my tennies (I've decided this should be a term for really happy teacher runners :)

Beyond her magical abilities to teach me to teach, there is something very important about Cathy's role in my career that we should all be paying attention to. The key about a person like Cathy in a new teacher's life is that she was not there to decide if I would continue to be a teacher the following year. Yes, she reported back on my progress to the teacher preparation program, but there was almost no contact between Cathy and my principal.

The thing is, even in the best of circumstances with the very best principal (who I actually happen to have), a teacher is nervous about being cut. No matter how good you are, it's nerve wracking to have your boss in your room when you aren't so sure what you are doing. Cathy was not my boss and reminded me of this regularly. When she would ask what time I wanted her to visit, I would invite her at times I knew I was failing as a teacher. Cathy would watch with not an ounce of judgement and then help me find solutions.

As Jo Anderson spoke to us on Tuesday night, all I could think about was the need for every first year teacher to have a Cathy in their classroom. I think most, if not all, teachers would tell you it's terrifying to leave the comforts of an undergraduate or graduate program and head into your own big classroom. So why are we forcing new teachers to do it alone? And why are we shocked when they fall short? If we want to improve the quality of education in this country, I think coaches for new teachers would be an excellent first step.

My new best friend, stichfix.com

I have discovered something wonderful. I mean really wonderful. It's name is stichfix.com, a fantastic little site that has solved my very big problem-- a love for fashion with a lack of extra time. It's a huge problem, right? :)

It all started my first year of teaching. I was 22 years old that first year. This means that I was about 10 years older than the students I was teaching and about 10 - 20 years younger than most of their parents. Being that it was my first year, I also walked around sweaty and nervous 99% of the time and admittedly, I wore my hair in a pony tail most days (still guilty of that, I admit). I was young and I probably looked even younger. This was fine until I would try to have a very serious chat with a 12 year old about behavior, or be sitting at parent teacher conferences with parents probably wondering why a teenager was responsible for their child's education. Or, my favorite, when I was asked for a hall pass by another teacher while walking down to the office in my k-8 school. 

Embarrassing. I needed to look more professional and my "I went to college in Washington where fleece vests pass as professional" was not doing the job. So, a couple of my teacher friends and I began "operation look like a teacher." But not long into our mission, we realized we didn't really know what that meant.

Several years later, we still don't know. We've shopped at The Limited, The Gap, Banana Republic and have discovered that it's really hard to look professional while not spending too much money or looking older or younger than the target.

Enter my new found solution and best friend: stichfix.com.

If you are a teacher, a professional, a mom, really if you are a woman at any age (sorry guys, girls only on this site), you need to go to the site.

When you first arrive on the site, they will ask you to create an account and complete a profile. You will answer a series of questions about what types of clothes you wear, in what kind of environment you are looking to wear them, how you like things to fit, and how much you would typically to pay for different items. You pay a 20 dollar "styling fee" which gets applied to your order and reimbursed if you don't keep any of the clothes they send you.

Then, you schedule your "fix" and on the day you scheduled, your package arrives!

If you're me, you squeal on your doorstep when it arrives and run inside like it is an absolute emergency that you try these clothes on. I'm serious here, I tried mine on in my dining room!

The great thing is, you can send anything you don't want to keep back to stichfix, no questions asked. All you have to do is fill out a survey on what you liked and didn't and then drop off the pre-addressed package with your returns at the post office. In my case, I loved almost all of it, but I didn't need that much of a splurge mid-February.

Here's a peek at what I got:

And it also comes with this nifty little fashion suggestions card, useful!















Anyway, I think you'd love it! Give it a try! 
https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/3374650