Reflecting on Change By Janice Ewing

            December is a busy month for teachers, but it also tends to be a reflective one as well.  The weeks leading up to a break from school or transition to a new semester and a new year are a natural time to think about where we’ve been and where we’re going. For many of us, that reflection might include looking back at moments of transformative professional learning and growth, whether at a conference, a school-based event, or within another type of professional or collegial network. Have we learned something new? Do we understand something differently or more deeply? What will this look like in our learning spaces?

            My colleague and co-writer Mary Buckelew and I had the good fortune to attend and present at the NCTE/NWP conference in Baltimore, along with several Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project colleagues, and Mary and I also stayed for the Conference on English Leadership (CEL), immediately following NCTE and NWP.

            There were, of course, many highlights and significant moments, big and small. Finding new friends, meeting Twitter friends in real life, and getting deeper insight into ongoing relationships are all part of the experience. I’m grateful to all the people I had the opportunity to learn from and with, whether presenting or attending a session, or sharing a conversation or meal. I wanted to share a few highlights from three of the speakers:

            One was the author Tommy Orange’s address on Saturday morning. I had read the highly acclaimd There There, and was looking forward to this presentation. Once Orange began talking, the space, with perhaps 500 people, felt intimate. Orange shared his journey from his early school experience as a sports-loving, non-reader who showed no literary promise whatsoever (corroborated by his first and second grade teachers!) to a young bookstore employee who got turned on to fiction when he took breaks from moving and re-shelving books. A love of reading led to a passion for writing, writing the books that he wished had been available to him. Like most writers, he wrote what he knew. When asked if they were literally true stories, he explained that people have “earned their stories” and are not his to take. No matter, his characters come alive on the page, and his words captivated us in the convention hall.

            Two other memorable and moving talks took place at the CEL conference on Monday. At a breakfast session on Monday, Dr. Dana Stachowiak, an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Women’s Studies and Resource Center at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, presented on the topic of “Creating a Community of Care.” She began by inviting us to ask ourselves how we can be fully present during our time together. How many of us had to put our phones down and resist the urge to tweet that suggestion? Dr. Stachowiak entered into her topic by using herself as an example of someone who challenges our perceptions of the gender binary, and guided us in reflecting on the characteristics that we have come to identify as male and female. With wisdom, humor, and grace, she led us to examine our gender biases and how to create healing-centered engagement at the school and community level.

            Later that day, at the CEL lunch, we heard from Dr. Kim Parker, who is assistant director of the Teacher Training Center at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is one of the co-founders of #DisruptTexts. Her talk was called “#TheyDeserve: Creating Transformational Literacy Spaces with and for Young People.” Dr. Parker posed the question: “What does it mean to get out of kids’ way?” She spoke passionately about the need for us to share our internal reading lives with our students, and to set the conditions for them to create their own identities as readers. She went on to share examples of how she has approached this work in a variety of ways, including independent reading, Genius Hour projects, and Rumination Essays.

            A common thread seemed to be that each of these presenters brought their full self to the presentation, and encouraged us to do the same. They took us on an exploration into the way their passions and vulnerabilities have infused their lives as writers, educators, and unique humans finding ways to navigate the world, and left us with a call to support our students and colleagues on our own journeys. Dr. Parker concluded her talk with a quote from Octavia Butler: “All that you change, changes you.”

            What changes have you made this year? How have you changed? How will you share those changes with your students and colleagues?

Janice Ewing is an adjunct instructor in the Reading Specialist Program at Cabrini University and a co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project. She is a long-term member of NCTE and a new member of CEL. She and her colleague, Mary Buckelew, are the authors of Action Research for English Language Arts Teachers:Invitation to Inquiry (Routledge, 2019).