PAEMST Recognition Trip - Day 1

We made it to Washington! I know that flying in the winter, especially in the Northeast can cause all kinds of trouble, but our trip was uneventful and smooth.

After a fun day at school yesterday where I helped a group of really cool second graders record and produce a video to share their Haiku poems and learning about Japan, Lori and I made our way to Scranton/Wilkes Barre International Airport in plenty of time to have a very mediocre dinner (there's only one restaurant there) before boarding our first plane.

Leaving Home

Scranton/Wilkes Barre Intl Airport

Since we needed to switch planes in Philadelphia, both flights were less than an hour on 37 seat turboprops.  The plane from Scranton to Philly was the dirtiest plane I've ever flown.  I joked that it was a dumpster with propellers.  That didn't stop me from having a huge smile on my face the entire flight.

The Flying Dumpster

 The flight into Reagan National was pretty cool.  Right before landing we flew past the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the Capitol.  In the picture below you can see the Capitol in the distance from the tarmac. 

It took us less than a half hour from the time we stepped off the plane to get our checked bag, hail a taxi, check into the Hilton Garden Inn, and get to our room.  That was awesome.  Exhausted, both Lori and I passed out right away.

 

This morning, in true Soskil travel style, we were out of the hotel early and went to a Cosi for a light breakfast. I like this place.  I ate there before both of my first two half marathons that went great.

 

After breakfast we walked the two blocks to the White House.  In all the times I had been to Washington, I don't think I'd ever gone to even see it.  I'm not sure why.  It was kind of cool to think that I'd be on the other side of the fence in two days. After walking past the front lawn, we walked around back to the South Lawn.

 

 

Afterwards we walked down to the Mall to look around.  We had a little time to kill before the Museum of American History opened at 10AM, so we had some fun with the camera.

 

 

 

 The Museum of American History was fantastic.  I especially liked the Hall of American Presidents and the room devoted to the Star Spangled Banner that inspired our National Anthem during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed in there.

In the First Lady exhibit, it was kind of cool to see that Mary Todd Lincoln's White House stemware was made by Dorflinger Glass up in our rural little part of Pennsylvania.

In the American Life display, I found Kermit the Frog.  Coincidentally (really, it wasn't planned) I happened to have a Kermit "Hop to it, Do good today" t-shirt on, so I had Lori take a picture of me with my favorite frog. 

 

After a few hours in the museum, we found on Yelp that there was a little cafe in the Sculpture Garden nearby that had a decent lunch.  When we walked over, we found that there was also an ice-skating rink there.  We had a nice lunch near a window overlooking the rink, then rented skates and took a few laps.  Lori, who took figure skating lessons as a kid loved it.  I didn't last long.  I can skate fine having grown up playing hockey on ponds, but the rental skates made the arches of my feet hurt.  I enjoyed watching her having fun.

 When the Zamboni came out, we returned our skates and walked across the Mall to the Smithsonian Castle.  There were some neat exhibits there.  I took a picture of the Lego model of the Castle to show my 8 year old son, who's a big Lego fan.

Next, we headed to the Air and Space Museum.  I loved this place as a kid, and Lori had never been, so we spent an hour or so wandering through some really interesting exhibits before we decided we needed to take a little break.

 

Hubble Space Telescope Backup Mirror

We walked back to the room and looked for a place to have dinner.  The Old Ebbitt Grill was recommended by Danielle Miller Peterson, one of the winners from Alabama, who had eaten there last night.  It also got great reviews on Yelp, so we called to make a reservation.  The only available time was 4PM, and it was 3:40.  We made a quick decision to skip the resting and head out to dinner early so that we could get a self-guided evening tour of the monuments in afterwards.  

It was a great decision.  Dinner was excellent.  We shared grilled oysters and Korean pork belly tacos for appetizers.  Amazing.  For dinner I had Rockfish, which was good.  Lori had Osso Bucco over sweet potatoes that was fantastic.  We split peanut butter pie for dessert.

We started our walking tour by going past the Washington Monument and visiting the World War II Memorial.  It looks a lot different in the winter with no water in the fountain.  Unfortunately, the computers weren't working, so I couldn't look up my two grandfathers.

Then, we made our way to the other end of the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial.  It had been years since I had been here.  Seeing pictures or seeing it on TV just don't compare to the feel you get when you visit.

 

 Before visiting the Vietnam Memorial, we called the kids to see how they were doing.  It seems like they are having a great time with Lori's Mom.  Michael was very excited that he almost finished building the giant Lego set he got for his birthday.

While visiting the Vietnam Memorial there were a few loud high-school aged girls acting like loud high-school aged girls.  I appreciated that a park ranger came over and tore into them for not respecting those whom the memorial was built to remember.

 From there we walked over to the Korean War Memorial.  Like the World War II memorial that we visited previously, and the FDR Memorial that we visited later in the evening, being at these places made me miss my grandfathers.  Especially Poppy Buddy who had brought me to these places when I was younger and shared so many stories about his younger days that are echoed in the words and statues on these memorials.

 Even though our feet hurt from all the walking, we decided to loop the Tidal Basin to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, FDR Memorial, and the Jefferson Monument.  It was a little weird, but very nice to see each of them at night and with almost nobody else around.  At times while we were walking, there was nobody else in sight. 

At the FDR Memorial we briefly tagged along behind a park ranger who giving a tour.  It was interesting to hear him describe how choices were made when they were designing the outdoor rooms that make up the Memorial.

 There were some great views across the Tidal Basin as we made our way to the Jefferson Monument.

On the way back to the hotel we decided to pass by the White House one more time to see it lit up at night.

Tomorrow is another busy day.  I'm planning on getting a long run in early on the Mall, around the Tidal Basin, and up the Rock Creek Trail.  Afterwards, we have reservations at Georgia Brown's for their Sunday Jazz brunch.  Then, we're heading up the Omni where we'll be for the rest of the trip.  The PAEMST events get started with a Meet & Greet at 4PM.  I'm really excited to finally meet the other winners face to face.  Getting to know them in our Facebook group has been fun, and they seem like an amazing group of people. 

Global #Kidwish Project

"Great moments are born from great opportunity." - Herb Brooks

It's been an incredible week.  Every week seems pretty incredible since I switched jobs this year from being a 5th grade teacher to a Curriculum Support Coach.  I still often miss having my own class and being able to act on moments of serendipity without having to convince someone to let me borrow their students, but it's exciting to have the job of helping teachers and students do awesome things every day.

This week was exceedingly incredible, though.  First, I was able to work out the details with our local newspaper, The News Eagle, to allow our 5th grade students to start writing blog posts for their website.  The paper was looking for the perspectives of students in the area, read the blog posts our students have been writing, and asked if we could partner up.  There's no better way for our students to learn to write than to actually be journalists, so we were happy to accept.

Next, after about a month of research and planning, the our 5th grade students put on their first US History Living Wax Museum.  Each student researched a figure from early American History, wrote a monologue in the first person, and came up with a costume that was as historically accurate as possible. We invited younger students and community members.  Each student stood or sat frozen until "activated" by a visitor.  They then came to life and delivered their monologue before freezing again.  It was a whole lot of fun, our students learned a great deal, and the comments from our visitors were overwhelmingly positive.

The most exciting thing about this week is the launch of an fantastic global collaboration project that I have been lucky enough to be working on with three absolutely amazing teachers from across the country.  A few weeks ago Dyane Smokorowski, Andrea Keller, and Karen Wright-Balbier contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in collaborating on a project intended to connect classrooms.

One of the great things about being a networked educator is the inspiration that comes from seeing the things that others do with their students.  Having been connected to these teachers for years, I was so excited and humbled that they thought of me to help out with this.

Our intention is to connect regular ed, special ed, special needs, and mainstreamed classrooms across North America so that students can share their wishes for 2014 with each other.  They'll do this by exchanging holiday cards and meeting face-to-face to share their wishes via videoconference.

I believe that school should be less about what you know and more about what you can do to make a difference.  Instead of telling students to sit down and listen, we should be empowering them to stand up and facilitate the change they want to see in the world.  Instead of complaining about what's wrong, I want my students to start becoming the members of society that make things right.

My hope is that this project is a way to help students start those conversations.  If the four of us can assist teachers all over the world in helping their students share their wishes and dreams for the upcoming year, maybe those students and teachers can start making them come true.

To learn more about the 2014 Wishes Project, and to sign up, visit the website we created.  You'll find information about the project, a map of classrooms that have already signed up, and possible extension opportunities.  If connecting with other classrooms like this seems overwhelming to you, don't worry.  We're going to help you with whatever you need to make this successful.

I opened this post with a quote from Herb Brooks, a hockey coach most famous for guiding the 1980 USA Olympic team to the gold medal in the Lake Placid Olympics.  Great moments are born from great opportunity.  I know what an amazing opportunity this is for our students.  I can't wait to see the moments yet to come.  I hope you'll join us.

Here We Go Again: 5 Things I'm Looking Forward to This School Year

The school year officially starts tomorrow for me, and I'm pretty excited to get back to helping my students do and learn amazing things.  

Image:  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The summer was a wonderful time for me, and I enjoyed pursuing passions I have outside of teaching.  I spent three amazing weeks touring Europe with my family and did a bit of travel blogging.  I started training for a half marathon that I'm going to run in November.  I enjoyed time with my wife and kids.

For the first summer in a long time, I took time away from teaching and education.  I didn't attend any conferences this summer or teach any graduate classes.  The books I read were all on subjects other than education (most were travel guides to places in Europe).  You may have noticed that I haven't posted on this blog for about two months.  

I needed that time away.  I wasn't feeling burned out by any means, but I was feeling frustrated.  So many of the trends in education are bad for our students, and I needed time away to accept that the change in direction I'm fighting for sometimes happens slower than I want.

Now, refreshed, I'm looking forward to a new school year and all of the amazing things that will happen in the next 9 months.  As a throwback to my previous "Friday's Five" posts, here are five things I'm really looking forward to this year:

• Having my students blog regularly - I've done bits of blogging with my kids before, but not on any kind of regular basis.  This year, I'm going to have them start in the first week of school and post often.  While our class wiki has been a great place for students to post the amazing things they've done over the past 5 years, I want each student to also have a place on the web that is their own.  I want them to be able to share the incredible things they are doing with others, get feedback, and have pride in the product of their learning.
• Giving students more freedom in what they read - Every year it seems that I learn new ways to ditch the reading textbook, give students more choice, and still teach all of the standards that my kids are supposed to learn.  I'm hoping to expand that even more this year and rely on the textbook even less.
• Math class - I love teaching math.  I love that my students seem to love learning math.  I love that my admin collected all the math textbooks in trucks and sold them to some other school district.
• Being an American History teacher during a presidential election.  Sure, there's the obvious benefits of it being an election year like the fact that it's much easier for kids to understand the electoral college.  There's also the less obvious benefits that students will disagree, argue, and debate more.  There will be ample opportunity to have them defend their positions, research why candidates do the things they do, and learn about bias.  
• The unknown - Each year and each group of kids is so different than any other.  I love that the best lessons and the most meaningful interactions usually happen in moments of unplanned serendipity.  I can't wait to experience more of those moments with this year's group of students.

Friday's Five - My Favorite Lessons

Every teacher has a few lessons that they get excited to teach every year.  I'd bet that for the majority of teachers these are lessons that do not come from a textbook, are engaging, and get students excited to learn.  They probably have nothing to do with preparing students for standardized tests.  In today's post, I'd like to share five of my favorites, and encourage you to share your favorites in the comment section.

1. Pasta Mining - I love this lesson because it allows me to combine social studies, writing, math, and science into one lesson, makes my students use higher order thinking, and gives me an excuse to dump 16 pounds of pasta onto my classroom floor.
2. You Be the Supreme Court - Every year when we finish learning about the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I give my students the opportunity to listen to overviews of actual court cases dealing with each Amendment (except #3, which has never been relevant in a Supreme Court case).  They then get to vote on what they believe the Court's decision should be based on the facts.  I then tell them how the Supreme Court actually ruled.  The case overviews come from a beat up, highlighted, and written on book that I bought for 25 cents at a garage sale about fifteen years ago.  It's the best quarter I ever spent.
3. π Day - On March 14th we celebrate π Day in my math class every year.  The activities vary from year to year, but there's always an abundance of pie, excitement, and learning.  You can see what we did the past two years here and here. 
4. Book Reviews - I always hated book reports, both as a student and as a teacher.  There didn't seem to be a purpose for either reading or the report that came afterward.  Since I've started having my students write book reviews and publish them to our class wiki, I've seen a great deal more interest.  Since many of my students refer to book reviews from past years when they are choosing books to read in their free time, they understand that publishing a book review will help others in the future.  It's also refreshing to them to be able to say, "I really didn't find this book interesting or entertaining at all" if they feel that way.  I simply ask that they back up any of their opinions with examples and details from the book.
5. State of the Union Address - For someone that teachers American History, there is no better event than the State of the Union.  Regardless of who the president is, there is always a plethora of material for students to discuss and learn ranging from the content of the speech to the historical significance and procedure.  My students always love learning about the presidential line of succession and the reason one cabinet member is always hidden in a secure location.

What are your favorite lessons to teach?  Share with us in the comment section below.  Feel free to steal my lesson ideas; I'm sure I'll steal yours if they fit what I'm teaching.  Also, please share the post with others in your network so that we can steal their lesson ideas as well.  After all, imitation is the finest form of flattery, right?