This is the first of a two-part podcast. Please listen to part two as well: Teachers Teaching Teachers #154 - Resiliency: What are we learning with our colleagues (Part 2 of 2) -06.03.09

Please consider this podcast to be an invitation, perhaps even a request for you to join us in the National Writing Project in this conversation about resiliency, writing, and teaching in these difficult times. We ask that you listen to this podcast, then add your own story (by posting a comment) about a student who exhibited the qualities of resiliency that we are seeking to nurture in our classrooms. What specific structures, decisions, books, approaches, projects or technologies have you learned to employ in your classroom to provide the "protective factors" that enable "at-risk" students to develop the resiliency they need to succeed?

Our guests on this podcast are:

• DeWayne Dickens, Oklahoma State Writing Project
• Suzanne Linebarger, Northern California Writing Project
• Sandra Hogue, Louisville Writing Project
• Irina McGrath, Louisville Writing Project
• Lynette Herring-Harris, Thinking Partner for Rural Sites Network
• Vanessa Brown, Thinking Partner for the Urban Sites Network, Philadelphia Writing Project

Resiliency theories have been shared for over a decade. These teachers are just a few of the members of the National Writing Project's Urban and Rural Sites Networks, who have been discussing the implications of resiliency research for classroom practice. On this podcast you will hear what they see and do when stakes are high, supports are limited, and odds are tough—and kids rise above it all.

• DeWayne tells us about a woman in her late-30's who has failed Composition II three times, but is not giving up.
• Suzanne describes Jermaine, the Mayor of Liondot Avenue, and a video project that draws him into school.
• Sandra relates a story about six-year-old "Richard" who had been removed from his home and placed with his aunt, but who finds himself in literature.
• Irina tells us about her work with English Language Learners, her Spanish-speaking students who found community by telling their stories in Spanish.
• Lynette talks about a letter she wrote to her students with a quarter for a phone call. Many of her rural students used these quarters, connecting with a teacher who cared. They were kids who had the odds against them, but they found success.

This podcast is the first of a special two-part Teachers Teaching Teachers sponsored by the Urban Sites Network and Rural Sites Network of the National Writing Project. The next webcast will be on Wednesday June 3, 2009 right here at EdTechTalk at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times.

After the webcast, DeWayne sent around a statement by a student that represents his thinking on resilience: "Overall, I feel as though I have accomplished the impossible. I has not been easy, nor has it been without failure, but it has been the hardships that have made the successes not only more important but much more meaningful."

Another example from DeWayne:

A student from this semester with visual impairment represents the resilience needed to make it through school. Some days he was angry. Some days he seemed lost because he could not see the white board, the classroom text books, or the computer screens. He had to learn how to make requests of staff, faculty, and students--in a mature and respectful manner that placed people in a mode of wanting to help him. At the beginning of the semester, most comments were angry and forceful. Toward the end of the semester, the comments shifted to engaging others in helping him solve his problems by his suggesting possible alternate ways for others to provide him work. He had moved to appreciating his academic skills and his need to master even subjects he detested. This young father became an agent in his learning, not just a bystander hoping to gather some crumbs from what others distributed at will. I call him my "Seeing Better Now" student.

Suzanne wanted to add to the conversation that she found the webcast to be "inspirational...much needed right now!" She continues, "I've been thinking about the development of the resiliency research. It began, I believe with Emmy Werner's work in Kauai. Bonnie Benard built on that work, and later researchers like Tim Burns and Nan Henderson built on Benard's work. My husband did his doctoral work by creating a sort of backward resilience study with students in a small rural high school who had been in the community since kindergarten."

Suzanne also points us to what might be next:

I'm wondering if there's a place for new thinking... where to from here... in our next conversation [June 3]. Is there a place for us to continue the work? Dewayne's study of persistance is powerful, as is thinking about the far reaching results of Kentucky's professional learning community. Around here [Northern California], many of our schools used to use Dorothy Rich's book MegaSkils to foster resiliency, but shifted to a weekly list of character traits, which everyone is finding not nearly as effective as people had hoped. This is certainly a perfect time to revisit resiliency. New applications...New ideas...California teachers for sure are hungry for any hopeful thinking!

Finally, Suzanne point us to an article, "Fostering Resiliency in Kids," Bonnie Benard, Educational Leadership Vol. 51, Number 3 November 1993. Other resources for Benard's work can be found at this National Writing Project resource: The Importance of Resiliency in Learning and Writing, by Art Peterson.

It's probably evident that this is an ongoing conversation between theory and practice. We would love to include your story of what you have learned from your resilient students. How has working with students such as the ones in this podcast transformed your teaching? We would be pleased if you would take the time to describe the students in your classroom by leaving a comment.

And, of course, please join us again on Wednesday June 3, 2009 right here at EdTechTalk at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times.

Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.

On a snowy, windy night last week, Dr. Sondra Perl, Lehman College and Gradate Center, CUNY, NY and five National Writing Project  teachers from the Rural Sites Network joined us to describe their journeys as teachers of Holocaust studies.  These are the teachers who you'll hear on this podcast:

• Danielle Bethune, McCool Junction Schools, Nebraska
• Kristi Bancroft Boucher, Oxford Hills High School, Maine
• Gail Desler, Elk Grove School District, California
• Ilka Hanselmann, Wind Gap Middle School, Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania
• Susan Hodgin, Moscow Senior High School, Idaho
• Larry Neuberger, Miller High School, Springfield, Missouri

We took a look at their experiences in 10-day seminars that Dr. Perl led this summer and last summer. We learned more about how these teachers have integrated teaching about the Holocaust into their work with students. Perhaps you will be inspired by these teachers to begin your own journey into studying and teaching about the Holocaust.

The purpose of the Holocaust Educators Network (HEN) is:

...to provide a forum for faculty interested in studying and teaching the Holocaust. The Network extends the work of the summer seminars sponsored by the Memorial Library. Located at Lehman College of the City University of New York, HEN uses an inquiry-based approach to focus on how educators can engage students with difficult material and how writing and dialogue can help move students from shock and denial to empathy and action. We look to support educators from middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities in the following ways:

• By examining teaching practices both critically and generously;
• By sharing resources and devising new approaches in workshops and in online forums;
• By inviting noted scholars and researchers to present new work to the group; and
• By developing and conducting workshops in teachers' own schools and communities.

(Image: Holocaust survivor, Irving Roth)

This summer the Holocaust Educators Network will once again offer a ten-day summer seminar led by Dr. Sondra Perl to middle school, high school, and college teachers from rural sites within the National Writing Project. To find out more or to apply for this summer's seminar, please send an e-mail to Holocaust.educators@gmail.com

Don't delay! Applications for this summer need to be in by mid-January.

For the 2009 summer seminar, we invite applications in two formats: 1) applications by individual teachers who are already members of the National Writing Project (NWP) and 2) applications by teams of two teachers from different subject areas in which at least one is a member of the NWP. Click here to download an individual application form; Click here to download a team application form. Please note: applications for the 2009 summer seminar must be postmarked no later than January 16, 2009. Applicants will be notified of all decisions by March 2009.

This year, rural teachers outside of the National Writing Project may also apply. Click here for a flier with more information about the program; click here to download an application form.

On this week's Teachers Teaching Teachers, we followed up on two collaborative projects that some of us have been working on: a new Drupal site for Youth Voices and "Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future"

Paul Oh stopped by to report on the launch of the Website for teachers, which allows us to post student writing to the Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future website. Paul Oh directed us to the website where: "At the secure area of that site, you will be able to log in using your Google account information. Once you do so, further directions will help you manage your students' pieces that were published using the special project submission
template described in Step 2. At that point, your students' work will be publicly visible along with all the writing from across the country."

Several teachers have tip-toed into Youth Voices, and on this podcast we report on the mechanics of joining this site and creating groups. Listen in, then consider having your students join us.

We invited several teachers and student to come talk about the site. In particular we talked about how to use the groups function of our new Drupal baby. (Thanks Bill Firtzgerald!) For
example, we set up a Digital Photography Community Group and a literature-focused inquiry group, "Catastrophe and Resiliency":

A space where we can take a stand against historical and current atrocities, genocides, ethnic cleanings, holocausts, occupations, and wars. A place to share our responses to books and stories about how humaity can not be stopped by these catastrophes, and how we must never again turn away from these disasters. A forum where we can connect around books, stories, and poems at all levels of difficulty and variety, books like Long Way Gone, What is the What? Persepolis, Maus, Night and other stories of spirit in the face of calamity.

Lindsea, a student from Hawaii joined us, and many others.

Looking for collaborative projects? Want to find out more? Listen to this podcast, and join in the coming weeks as we continue to plan together on Teachers Teaching Teachers.