Year 31 — My Montana Life

After spending three decades teaching, I approached year 31 a bit differently. I had always let the state standards and district curriculum drive my lessons. However, something had shifted within me. I asked myself what my teenagers really needed to learn this year and how our time together would be the most impactful on their futures. After so many years in the classroom, I was pretty confident that we would cover the standards even if I shook things up a bit, so I let go of my zeal to over-plan. In the back of my mind, I had an inkling that this would be my last year, so I also adopted a more carefree attitude; definitely a turn around from my typical “what will everyone think?” mindset. I was extremely fortunate to be teaching in a small rural school where I was at liberty to compose my own curriculum. As long as my students were learning the prescribed standards, I had the support and trust of my administration.

I usually break my English lessons into categories: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and so on. I did the same this year, except my categories were:

love versus fear
learning about our “true” selves and each other
presence
gratitude

Following are some of the activities we did, along with some rationale for each category.

Love vs Fear

I’m not sure why it took me so long to learn that every emotion and every motivation has its root in either love or fear. Pretty simple, really. I knew that I didn’t want my students waiting until their fifties before they figured that out like I had. I had been reading authors like Gary Zukav, David Hawkins, and Martha Beck and they all had this common thread. Through these readings, I began to question my own motivations and ask myself if my choices were driven by love or fear. When I started living more from a place of love than fear, I found that my anxiety diminished, my heart felt lighter, and overall I was a happier person. How had I lived so many years rooted in fear? I really wanted to plant this seed in my students so that they, too, could have these understandings. Here are some of the ways that I incorporated this theme into our lessons.

Annotated Bibliographies - The students did some research about love and fear, read a variety of articles, and wrote annotated bibliographies. This gave them the foundation for the other love/fear activities we did throughout the year.
Posters - In small groups, the students created posters that reflected the important things they learned in their reading for their annotated bibliographies. Then they shared and compared with the other groups.
Bulletin Board - At the front of the room I had a 2-column bulletin board with the labels LOVE and FEAR. Throughout the year, we would write choices that we and literary characters had made on index cards and hung them in the appropriate column.
Character Analysis - After reading a novel, students wrote an essay analyzing a character, with special emphasis on motivation. They had to explain choices the character made, whether the choices were motivated by love or fear, and provide evidence to support their conclusions.
Three Choices Essay - Students wrote essays about three important choices they had made. At least one had to be motivated by love and one had to be motivated by fear. They wrote about the consequences of their choice, explained how they knew their motivation was love or fear, and told what they learned from each. I was shocked by the honesty with which each student wrote.

My girls experienced some very judgmental adult members of our small community during the spring of this year. People who should have been encouraging and supporting them were judging their actions, their clothing, and their character. It was very hurtful and made my girls feel unworthy. I really wanted to have a talk with the offenders, and by talk I mean that I wanted to tell them off and put them in their place. Instead I chose to attempt to break the cycle and make my students aware of the adults’ true motivation in hopes that when they have the inclination to judge another, especially in a hurtful way, they will choose their actions from love. Because we had the framework of love vs fear in place, this gave me the opportunity to lead the girls to the conclusion that these “judging” behaviors were rooted in fear. We talked about how awful a person must be feeling to act in these ways. It certainly didn’t excuse the hurtful behavior, but it helped my girls understand that it was not their fault that people were passing judgment and being downright mean about it. More than anything, I wanted my students to know that they mattered and that they were enough. Period.

Gratitude

According to Martha Beck, “Gratitude is the greatest enhancer of mood. Being in a good mood is the single-most important variable to coming up with bold new ideas.” I’m not sure that our traditional education system encourages students to come up with original ideas, but I think it’s important. If being in a good mood enhances creativity and gratitude enhances mood, that in itself was enough to encourage my students to be grateful. Getting teenagers to live in a space of gratitude can be tricky. They are oftentimes self-centered and feel that everyone is out to get them. These are a few of the strategies I used to promote a semblance of thankfulness in class.

Choosing vs Wishing - All year long, my favorite quote to share with my students was something I heard Matt Kahn say in a video. He said, “If you choose to be where you are instead of wishing you were somewhere else, you will be joyful.” I think that choosing to be where you are has a lot to do with being grateful. I can’t believe how many years I have wasted wishing I was somewhere else. Finally, I truly understood how this practice in gratitude could make such an impact on my own well-being. My students either caught on as well, or were just annoyed with me quoting Kahn. Maybe, just maybe I planted a seed, though.
Gratitude Journals - At the beginning of January, I gave each of my students a gratitude journal. I made a deal with them that if they would bring me a completed journal by the end of the school year, they would be exempt from their final exam. By doing this, I showed them how much I value a daily habit of gratitude. Every student brought me a finished journal during finals week and actually commented about how much of a difference this practice had made in their attitudes.
Ted Talks - There are a number of wonderful Ted Talks that focus on gratitude. Sometimes hearing the same thing from a different person makes an impact. At the end of the year, the kids commented on how much they enjoyed watching them throughout the year.

One of my students enlisted in the National Guard during the school year. One day he brought a plaque that said, “Thank you for your continued support of the Montana National Guard.” He was given the instructions to give this plaque to the teacher who had given him the most support and he chose me. I was incredibly honored at this display of gratitude.

Learning About Our “True” Selves and Others

There’s a line in a song by Ryan O’Neal that says, “To know and love ourselves and others well is the most difficult and meaningful work we’ll ever do.” My hope was that if my students could understand how fundamentally different we all are, they would be more accepting of each other and themselves. When you go through life thinking that everyone has (or should have) the same motivations, personality, and way of looking at the world, it can be a very frustrating place to live. I remember back when I was in college, my mom and I ended up taking the same summer school class. She was earning renewal hours for teaching and I was finishing up my education degree. The class was about learning styles. When we took the diagnostic tool, the two of us came out on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. It was one of those “aha” moments for me as I turned to my mom and said, “No wonder I have been so frustrated all these years living under the same roof as you!” I had never even considered that two people (especially in the same family) could look at life from such different perspectives. I wanted my students to have that same realization. Below are some of the activities I incorporated into our routines.

Enneagrams - During the summer before this school year started, I did a deep dive into Enneagrams. I listened to podcasts (Jen Hatmaker has a great series) , read Instagram posts, and delved into the topic on Pinterest. I have always been fascinated with learning styles, multiple intelligences, and the like. Something about the Enneagram really caught my attention. Perhaps it was because of how spot-on the descriptions of each number seemed to be. I made a wall-sized chart (see photo) with descriptions of each number and had my students take an online quiz. Then each of us put our name under our number. This stayed up all year and I encouraged the kids to consult it when they were having difficulty with another person. They actually used the chart to work on their own family dynamics as well.
Autobiographical Essay - Students wrote about their number, including a paragraph about each portion on the chart. They gave examples from their own lives that supported the information from the chart. I was blown away by how authentic they were by sharing personal details in their writing. I actually cried as they read them aloud to their classmates.
Character Analysis - As we met characters through our literature studies this year, students labeled them with what they thought would be their Enneagram numbers. As always, they had to provide evidence for their analysis.
Posters - Every so often, I would find a great resource that gave ideas for each number, such as ways of relaxing, navigating conflict, and fostering empathy. I made simple posters and displayed them in the classroom.
Affirmations - I found a great list of affirmations for each number. I started writing those on my students’ papers, notes that I wrote to them, and birthday cards throughout the year (see photo from @ashton.creates on Instagram).
Guiding Word - This was a word that was meaningful enough to guide each of our actions for the school year. At the beginning of the year, each student chose a word, made a poster of it to hang in the classroom, and wrote a short essay about why they chose that word. At the end of the year, they wrote another essay illustrating how they had used their guiding word and citing anecdotal incidents.

I was asked to give the Commencement Address at graduation. When I inquired about why I was being chosen, my one and only senior replied that I knew her better than anyone else she could think of. While giving this address, I realized this was the first time since I was a teenager that I honestly felt that I had spoken my truth without regard to what everyone else thought. It was a liberating experience. I talked a lot about our graduate. She is a lovely young lady who was born in Africa and was adopted, along with her sister, to a family in rural Montana. I told her adoption story, which she had shared with me for the first time in such depth. I reminded her about the guiding word she had chosen for the year: believe. I spoke about being motivated by love and fear and encouraged her to choose love. I let the entire community know about our gratitude challenge and the deal I had made with my students. I told them that developing a daily practice of gratitude would take them further than passing any final exam in English class ever would. We collectively took some deep breaths and I reminded our sweet girl to be present at all times, before we sent her off with her diploma. I ended with a very special quote from Martha Beck. She says, “You are infinitely worthy. You are infinitely precious. You have always been enough. You will always be enough.”

Presence

This may be the most important, yet most difficult undertaking to accomplish. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious presence.” Without presence, we lose connection with ourselves and others. It seems so simple to just be present, but I found that I was easily distracted as were my students. Here are a few things that helped me to be present and hopefully encouraged moments of presence in my students.

Putting aside what I was doing and making eye contact with students when they visited with me.
Focusing on my breath and reminding students to do the same, especially when facing something especially challenging.
Practicing grounding through recognizing the five senses, feeling our feet in our shoes, placing our hands up against the wall, and so on when our minds and/or emotions were on the verge of losing control.
Setting aside time for daily journaling. I used questions from Jennie Lee’s Spark Change as prompts and told the students that their journals were private. I was happy to read their entries, but only if they asked me to.

I received some very heart-felt letters from my students at the end of the school year. These will be treasured always. I knew that I had accomplished my purpose when I read these lines from different students:

“Thank you for not just teaching me how to write better, write poems, diagram sentences, and so much more, but for also teaching me that I am enough and I should love myself.”
“I feel like you always realized that even if we were hiding it, we aren’t okay all the time. And you went out of your way to be the light in our lives.”
“Thank you for being the best teacher and role model we could ask for.”
“I am so thankful God gave me all the time I had with you!”
“You are the perfect example of a woman I would want to be!”

Pretty sweet ending to a very long teaching career. Thank you, students, for being receptive to new ways of thinking, learning, and being together in a classroom. My time spent with you will always be cherished. I am blessed and grateful.

**I love this photo!! I just wish the selfie-taker (me) had been more steady!!**