Harriet Tubman

Lessons Learned

The Araminta Project

Harriet “Araminta” Tubman, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, had every reason to surrender to the crushing despair of slavery that oppressed her, her family, and thousands and thousands of others, but she did not succumb. Instead, against all odds and all better judgement, she ran for her life and for her freedom and did not stop until she possessed it. Even then, in the exhilaration and bliss of freedom’s joy, Harriet was not content knowing that countless sisters and brothers still remained bound in the wretched, brutal, hopeless claws of slavery. So back she went, at inconceivable personal risk, to lead more than 300 others to freedom. Harriet made nineteen trips back, undeterred by the $40,000. bounty which was being offered for her capture dead or alive. Courage, perseverance, faith, hard work, generosity, patience, selflessness, confidence, strength, and hope are just a few of Harriet’s attributes that drove her to serve, lead, and rescue others.

This summer, we will gather 100 at-risk and special needs students from grades 3-5, and teach them Harriet’s story through script, song, poetry, dance, and spirituals, which they, then, in turn will share with parents, neighbors, and all in the community through a collection of performances. The cast of 100 will also take a field trip to an Underground Railroad(UGRR) Museum, walk through an actual UGRR tunnel, and then perform Harriet’s story on the lawn of the museum for museum guests. Learning Harriet’s story will teach them history, understanding Harriet’s heroic attributes will inspire their hearts, and performing for adoring audiences will fill their souls with confidence and gladness.  With immense anticipation and excitement, we are tweaking this original musical piece in preparation for the precious children who will learn it. The TpT Store, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, contains one of the “Araminta” songs as sheet music and as an mp4 file.

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sheet Music

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sheet-Music-1659828

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sing Along

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sing-Along-1675166

Can’t wait for the Araminta Project!

No "If Only's" Here.

Lessons Learned

Do What You Do.

If only I could do...  If only I could just be a bit more…  If only I was a little less… If only. If only. If only. These little whimsical pinings are harmless insofar as they are fleeting.  But often, these “if only’s” become rather more consuming and frequently crowd out the gratefulness and joy that should accompany our understanding of our own unique wiring and giftedness. No two individuals are, have ever been, or will ever be exactly alike. Each individual comes to this planet with a heart full of gifts, the combination of which is absolutely unique, hence priceless. Each individual is a true treasure. A gold mine.  A pearl of great price. A gift beyond measure.  As parents, teachers, coaches, directors, neighbors, friends, siblings, co-workers, do we acknowledge this? Do we celebrate this? Do we encourage one another down the path of pursuing one’s gifts, one’s passion, one’s heart? Or do we silence the song by exalting conformity and demanding its zeal-less lockstep? We’re simply not all meant to be the same. Is there room, is there time for us in our busy days, with our busy schedules, and our busy lives to discover the treasure that’s waiting to be shared in each and every precious heart? We must make time. We must. We absolutely must.  So that we will not one day look back with the heavy heart often associated with a retrospective glance, and lament, if only.

I set stories and feelings and academic content to music to help students learn, understand, and remember. It's what I do. It is my gift. It is my passion. And I am deeply thankful for every opportunity to share. What is your gift? Your passion? What stirs your soul with deep thankfulness every time you have an opportunity to share? Find this and you will find great treasure.  

An Invigorating Week At Creativity Camp

Lessons Learned

Creativity Camp

Woo hoo! Three and a half hours each morning with first and second graders for a full week with the goal of “creating” things sounded like an awesome adventure to me; an arts integration enthusiast and specialist.  Because creativity requires one to see something new or perhaps to see a new possibility for something that is not new, I thought it best to begin with ordinary, familiar items and use them as our diving board into the lovely pool of imagination. We need to imagine to create. So out came the tinfoil, duct tape, pipe cleaners, burlap potato sacks, popsicle sticks, tissue paper, glue, pony beads, wooden beads, shoe laces, yarn, 64 crayons, empty plastic coffee canisters,  small clear glass vases, thin-wired coat hangers, polar fleece, and at least one hundred brown paper bags, and with that outstanding imagination-tickling assortment of tools, we began. Weaving was a great place to begin and paper weaving was easy, quick, and looked excellent without hours of practice. We handily graduated to weaving through burlap with pipe cleaners, feathers and yarn, and a shoe lace. Our creations were exciting, unique, and brought gleeful smiles of pride. After reading a Native American folk tale, we created friendship necklaces; one to keep and one to share. Our final activity the first day was to create tinfoil sculptures; anything each student wanted to make, but it needed to be accompanied with a clear verbal description and presentation to the class. I, then, ask each of them to make a canoe sculpture reminiscent of the one in the story we read. The homework assigned them was to float their canoes in the sink or bathtub at their homes. Hours flew and smiles never left. Day after day, project after project, story after story, we imagined and we created, all interspersed with lively ongoing conversation and an occasional nature walk outside in search of twigs or leaves or small stones on the ground for use In future projects. We played. We laughed. We exercised our imaginations. We learned new stories about new characters. We learned about and experimented with new art forms by recycling and rejuvenating ordinary, familiar items. We created something brand new from something that had always been there. We needed no kits nor step-by-step directions, for our imaginations led the way. Creativity Camp was a beautiful opportunity for the brilliant imaginations of children to romp happily and fully free, unrestrained by the highly structured, highly scheduled lockstep that is frequently life when it is not summer vacation.  Why couldn’t Creativity Camp be a regular part of an academic curriculum? The benefits would surely ripple infinitely through young hearts and lives.

Oh, And Another Thing On Metrics

Lessons Learned

While Still On The Soapbox Of Metrics…

One of the most significant outages of metrics driven educational accountability, as I see it, is the absence of time for relational connection to the students.  There simply are not enough hours in the school day to accommodate all of the paperwork that needs to be accomplished in terms of a variety of assessments, high-stakes testing with endless prep for that, and documentation on each issue of each student so that suitable amounts of paper trails can cover every measurable aspect. Information is not the enemy, however. We have a tendency towards the extreme, and that is the problem.  The “go big or go home” mentality which drives our culture and permeates our every moment, pushes and extends the wide-sweeping swing of the pendulum of trends to new extremes that readily enslave us all. We seem to have lost all sense of moderation and balance and have traded that for superlative amounts of the next new-fangled idea, whatever that may be. Excessive, obsessive amounts of metrics fastidiously gathered for the purposes of something that may or may not be working relative to educating students successfully is fast becoming ridiculous. And what has been traded for the boxes full of pointless data which will sit and ultimately become kindling for the fire resulting from the spark of tomorrow’s next theory? Show and tell has been traded.  Arts have been traded. Field trips and special curiosity-driven projects have been traded.  PE, an extra recess and normal-length lunch hours have been traded. All things that make education real and human and meaningful and relatable have been traded. That is a gargantuanly pricey trade. The numbers have added little besides significant stress and have taken beauty and connection. In thirty years of teaching, I have sadly witnessed exponentially increasing numbers of relational breakdowns all around but beginning with families. Kids are resilient is what the experts all say and it’s true to a certain extent but it is not the whole story. Scars. Fear. Pain. Insecurity.  And on and on. These are the rest of the story. These are what students carry to the classroom, to recess, to the nurse’s office. These are the things that tummy aches are made of. These are the things that stir in bullies. These are the things that result in high distractibility and disengagement.  These things hurt deeply and permanently and affect every single aspect of school. These things are not documented alongside reading scores, but they influence every assessment.  All of the traded elements mentioned above provide balm for the deep hurts such as these, and without them our burdened children merely go superficially through educational motions. To talk, to interact, to share, to relate, to express, to create, these are meaning-making attributes of education that inspire engagement and foster affirmation that in turn will encourage confidence and desire to discover.  Swing pendulum, swing away from the numbers that allow decision-makers to enthusiastically pat one another on the back, and instead swing toward those deep things that honestly reach and nurture students. We yearn for connection; it’s a human need, and it cannot be extracted from educating children without suffering an unfathomable price.  We are there.     

Creativity Fizzles Out When There's No Time For Play

Lessons Learned

The Playfulness of Creativity

Creativity dwells within a playful spirit; of this there is no doubt.  If eyes contain a playful sparkle, you can be certain that a deliciously creative scheme is lurking ready to spring from just around the corner. This creative sparkle is highly contagious and extraordinarily irresistible to children who have not yet swallowed themselves up in a plethora of doubts and self-consciousness. We learn to push the sparkle away, however, as we grow older because it feels silly and childish and an extremely inefficient use of our highly structured, scheduled, and accounted for time. Our time is far too important, far too valuable to be frittered away in pointless child’s play. Really? We readily relinquish that playful creative sparkle in exchange for the joyless lockstep of nebulous beige uninspiring “keeping up with the Joneses” expectations.  We draw ourselves closer to the comfort, security and measurability of conformity. But why? If the trade that we so eagerly choose does not set us in a happier place, then why do we not offer greater resistance, ask deeper more probing questions, or at least attempt to retain remnants of playfulness for weekends and holidays? Why do we walk away so very easily from that which makes our heart light and our smile lasting? As we move away from the creative sparkle, we clearly seem to lose a little joy, a little lilt in our step, and a little piece of our ability to see possibility, because these things are all swirling around within the wonder and delight of playfulness. Why do we allow ourselves to be herded down this sad and tired path which so easily can become a sad and tired rut? Why do we opt for sparkle-less when we surely could choose sparkle-full? Why are we surprised and then disappointed when we cannot come up with a new idea, a new plan, a new solution, a new possibility, when we have deliberately discarded the playful sparkle which is exactly where all of this originates. Perhaps it is time to discard the clock, loosen our too-tight bowties, and regain our sparkle.  So, as an elementary creative drama teacher, I am allowed the excellent privilege of playing every day. Bliss. Sparkle. Joy. No one plays better creatively than children, whose eyes and hearts are filled to the brim with sparkles and whose imaginations are perpetually ready to fully engage. For example, to the kindergartners I mention that a blue heron is sort of a shy seeming bird with very long legs; let’s walk like blue herons. Instantly, twenty perfect blue herons fill the room. Let’s walk like a scissors. Twenty snappy  scissors. Let’s swish like a sprinkler. Twenty spectacular sprinklers. And on and on we play and could easily continue  forever this way, because children never ever run out of imagination. They never run out of playful sparkle. They never run out of new ideas, new stories, or new reasons to play. Growing older does not have to mean turning our backs on that glorious, happy, wonder-filled sparkle that thrives on a playful spirit which drives imagination, creativity, and ultimately innovation.