Author Archives: sara holbrook

About sara holbrook

Poet/Author/Educator

December 8, 2006

yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Tomorrow we leave for Croatia. I haven’t been obsessing about it until today. The clothes are in the bag, housesitting arrangements in place, meeting plans and reservations confirmed. The only variable is the weather. Nothing to be done about that, so no use worrying. Right? But as I hear the wind body slamming itself against the house and shooting ice crystals like buckshot into the windows, okay, I worry.

Yesterday was such a full day, it’s amazing I’m even standing today. First a 4+ hour drive to Parma, MI to meet my new little pal, Suzette. She can’t actually come and join the family until closer to Christmas, but I sealed the deal with the breeder. She is a papillon and (don’t tell her) a runt. Cute as a bug. Hope I can handle the puppy training. Another worry to put on the stack.

Yesterday I also talked to Birmingham, MI teachers and media specialists about poetry in preparation for my visit to their schools in April. It was a great session and it is a pleasure to be working with old friends again. Barbara Clark, the head of the media for that district, first hired me for a district visit back in 1994. I remembered as I pulled into Covington School parking lot that I was wearing the exact same leather coat I had purchased to celebrate my visit way back then. When I saw Barbara, I couldn’t help telling her, “you bought me this coat.” It has taken me years to develop a sense of community in this job. My community is supportive and strong, if somewhat far flung.

Today was all about packing and getting the house ready. I wonder if houses miss us when we are gone. There will be someone here, but not the same throb and jive of the daily familiness. The refrigerator is down to bare wire, fruit basket empty. My bathtub will miss me, I’m certain. We like to relax together, bonded by transient, fickle steamy water. Maybe we should share a little goodbye soak. Always a good way to ward off the worries.

December 2, 2006

What a difference a syllable makes

“Mankind will need to venture far beyond planet Earth to ensure the long-term survival of our species, according to the world’s best known scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking. ” And how did he say this, exactly? He hasn’t been able to speak for years. He said it by twitching the muscle under his right eye and activating a voice simulator. Here is a man that is literally all brain. I guess I always kind of knew that, that he was all brain, but I stumbled over his professional title when I read today’s article about him. He is a cosmologist.

Do you realize that he is one syllable away from hair foils and pedicures? A rather puny degree of separation there. cosmologist — cosmotologist.

Today wasn’t as productive as I would have liked. Yesterday I managed to get a new YA manuscript into the mail and today I took a good long walk and just about got blown away. Not by the power of my thoughts, by the wind which let us know it has had entirely enough of this mild weather business and it has come to take over. It crossed my mind to just sit down and blow the entire day off except that I kept thinking of Hawking and while he didn’t necessarily inspire me to board a rocket to another dimension, he did motivate me to get out of my desk chair and face the winds of change.

November 14, 2006

Saluda Trail Middle School, Rock Hill SC

I had the best time visiting Saluda Trail Middle School. Please Please if you read this click on the school name above and hyperlink to the site where the kids have posted their poems. I don’t even want to think about how long it took to put up this grand site, but I can tell you it is very cool.

The day started with a teacher workshop because it was a delayed start for the kids. The teachers were great and tried their hands at writing poetry all across, over and around the curriculum. Congrats to them for working outside their comfort zones. Then I performed two assemblies, but that wasn’t the best part. The best part was reading the poetry written by Saluda Trail students and seeing them perform. I don’t think I have EVER been to a school that was more pumped up by their own writing and performance. I came home with a DVD of their voices, pictures of their bulletin boards, a T shirt and some of the warmest, bestest memories any visitor could hope for. And on their website you can read energy poems from science class, poetry from Spanish class, percetage poems and even poetry from (get this!) computer class! The poetry was everywhere.

Actually, what I always hope for is that my visit inspires kids to express themselves through their own writing and performance. What was especially cool at Saluda Trail is that not only had the kids been inspired to write, but the teachers got them stoked before I got there so I could see the results of their work. Lucky me.

I came home to the birth of the grandbaby and then NCTE followed closely by Thanksgiving company so I am late posting this, but that does not diminish my excitement one single bit. Thank you so much to Carolyn Moore for making the connection. Wow.

November 14, 2006

Sara Kelly Lufkin

Born November 11, 2006 at 4:59 pm. Weight: 4 lbs. 9 oz. (tiny baby!). She joins mom and dad (Katie and Doug) and her big sister Steph and brother Scott (aka Scooter).

She was anxious to make her arrival and check-in several weeks early, but Sara Kelly is eating and breathing at the same time and I’m sure, dancing in place.

I say I am sure because although she is living and breathing a mere few miles from here, I HAVE YET TO SEE HER AND HOLD HER! This is a minor tragedy for me, but a good thing for her as I have been sick sick for over a week and no granana would go and breathe germs on such a precious little bundle. I will undoubtedly make up for lost time as soon as it is safe for her to camp out in my arms.

Lights blue-bright, I squint

and hear a familiar voice.

This is life outside.

November 3, 2006

Warm Up Joy

You have to give respect to get it!
Be the best you can be!
Fairness!
Play by the rules, be a winner!
Giraffe heroes stick their necks out for the common good!

The gymnasium at Rockcave Elementary School is papered with inspiring banners, all ending in ballooning exclamation points. I was particularly drawn to the talking giraffe urging kids to stick their necks out for the “common good,” which was kind of quaint in our “me first” society. Cool. Continuing to browse the banners, waiting for the kids to arrive and the assembly to start, I noticed a white board with hand written directions. Reading from the bottom up, it said
10 sprints
coffee grinders
windmills
and the first line, which I read (from across the room) to say, “Warm up Joy.”

I wasn’t sure what a coffee grinder was but I know a sprint and a windmill is pretty self explanatory — but what about this “warm up joy?” How cool is that? Not only has this school NOT followed the current trend to cancel gym class for phonics drills, but they are encouraging JOY.

Joy! Just the word lifted my spirit through the gym roof.

It didn’t even bother me too much when I realized I had misread the white board and what it actually said was “Warm up Jog.” Didn’t matter, the subliminal message stuck.

If I did not go into elementary schools, if I did not talk to elementary school children and hear their writing and see their pride and excitement, if I just read and believed the reports on children that I read in the newspapers, the reports from the greedy testing companies with feeder, scripted programs sold to schools to support their tests and the published achievement (or lack of achievement) numbers, I would believe those reports and never experience the daily, private, joy of kids learning together.

So, here’s the question — how do we slip more uplifting subliminal messages into our stressed out, over-tested, underfunded schools?

October 31, 2006

Why Education is Useless

“Tradition encourages us to think that those who are book smart are lacking in street smarts. We are inclined to think that even if [intellectuals] hearts[s] are in the right place, their heads are in the clouds.” Daniel Cottom

I was researching and wandering the aisles at the library downtown Cleveland Public Library Branch on yet another cold, rainy Saturday afternoon when a homeless man at a nearby table woke from his nap with a start. “Where am I?” he asked, looking around.

I doubt that he viewed that as an existential question, but if he had looked at me he might have seen through my reading glasses a precise reflection of the same emotion, lost as I was in a forest of pedagogy. In fact, we might have engaged in some discourse around the topic of “where am I” except his head promptly dropped back into the cave of his arms, sound asleep. I know this posture, I’ve seen it in many classrooms.

Shelves of books on learning and teaching strategies boasting advanced degrees on their spines inhabit this well-lit library. I say inhabit because frankly, they don’t get out much. From the Idiot’s Guide to Home Schooling (doesn’t one preclude the other?) to graphs and scientific studies written by the well-educated and well-intentioned, it appears that the paths between and around student desks are well-traveled, mapped by educators dating back to Aristotle.

I looked from the shelves back to the homeless man and thought, what do all these high-minded words have to do with the reality of that man’s life? Beyond that, with the reality of the lives of the grocery store clerks, police officers, parents and gum popping teenagers of the world? Some of these authors are icons of their field, famous among teachers, but unknown to the (can I say it?) real world. These educators are never on MTV, the cover of People Magazine or My Space. As Frank McCourt pointed out during an appearance on Leno, he never would have been invited to the Tonight Show when he was just a teacher. Teachers don’t get that much media attention unless they behave in a manner that forces their districts to urge them to seek other career opportunities. Not only do most regular folks not know these pedagogical pundits, they are frankly suspicious of them. Bunch of “effete intellectual snobs,” to quote former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.

My eyes scanned the shelves in my own practiced brand of researching that I call, Random Meandering, the most evident characteristic of which is its inefficiency, and I picked up a book titled Why Education is Useless, by some college professor named Daniel Cotton. I don’t know him, but he is a university type, therefore I’m suspicious. I sat down with the book expecting him to be pompous and me to be bored. How’s that for prejudice? I mention this to show how pervasive the hostility toward the educated really is. I felt it and I’m an educator. Good grief.

But I have to say, the Introduction of Why Education is Useless is worth checking out at your own library. It provides a classic example of motivation through opposing argument and is helpful if you have ever lifted your head up to look around and wondered (bellowed?) “Where am I?”

It is also very quotable and well-documented — an excellent research find. It is just this kind of random success that encourages me to keep wandering aisles. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it is certainly more rewarding AND time consuming than shopping databases.

October 24, 2006

Keystone State Reading Association

Lots of old friends at this meeting — but not as many new faces. I have no hard numbers to back this up, but like many reading conferences lately, this one seemed smaller and more sparsely attended. Is it the economy? Is it that schools are too tied in knots over NCLB that there is no time for letting teachers go hear about new ideas? Is it because NCLB not only mandates what kinds of classroom materials teachers can use and curriculum specialists can buy but how professional development money is spent (must be on “scientifically” proven methods?) More and more teachers must pay their own ways to conferences in addition to paying for their own subs. That’s rough in this tight economy.

In every spare minute, I’m chipping away at my new manuscript with Allan Wolf. This is going to be a fun one. At least I’m having a lot of fun working on it.

SNOW on the way home from PA — real snow rounding the curbs and tree limbs and slushing up the streets. Amazing.

October 22, 2006

DIBELS

I thought this test was a joke when I first heard about it — but it is far from funny. Dr. Goodman has approved this article for sharing — seen here in part. Since the article’s first publication, the investigation of the committee that sanctioned this test has concluded that those who were to profit directly from this test’s sale to thousands of schools were in fact the very same people who approved its use.

Read an article from the Washington Post entitled “Billions for an Inside Game on Reading”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901333.html

Read entire article by Ken Goodman http://sdkrashen.com/pipermail/krashen_sdkrashen.com/2006-January/000382.html

Exerpt from an article by Ken Goodman on DIBELS —

“There are many things wrong with DIBELS.

It turns reading into a set of abstract decontextualized tasks that can be measured in one minute. It makes little children race with a stop watch.

It values speed over thoughtful responses.

It takes over the curriculum leaving no time for science, social studies, writing, not to mention art music and play.

It ignores and even penalizes children for the knowledge and reading ability they may have already achieved.

Reading is ultimately the ability to make sense of print and no part of DIBELS tests that in any way. In DIBELS the whole is clearly the sum of the parts and comprehension will somehow emerge from the fragments being tested.

On top of that the sub-tests are poorly executed- the authors do badly what they say they are doing. Furthermore the testers must judge accuracy, mark a score sheet and watch a stop watch all at the same time. And, to be fair, testers must listen carefully to children who at this age often lack front teeth, have soft voices, and
speak a range of dialects as well languages other than English.

Consistency in scoring is highly unlikely among so many testers and each tester is likely to be inconsistent.

And lets add that DIBELS encourages cheating. There is a thin line between practicing the “skills” that are tested and being drilled on the actual test items, all of which are on-line to be downloaded.. With so much at stake why wouldn’t there be cheating?

In summary DIBELS, The Perfect Literacy Test, is a mixed bag of silly little tests. If it weren’t causing so much grief to children and teachers it would be laughable. It’s hard to believe that it could have passed the review of professional committees state laws require for adoption of texts and tests . And in fact it has not passed such reviews. There is strong evidence of coercion from those with the power to approve funding of state NCLB proposals and blatant conflicts of interest for those who profit from the test and also have the power to force its use. A ongressional investigation is now underway into these conflicts of interest.

In training sessions for DIBELS, teachers are not permitted to raise questions and are made to feel that there is a scientific base to the test they lack the ompetence to understand. It is, after all, The Perfect Literacy Test.”

Ken Goodman, Professor Emeritus
Language, Reading and Culture,

October 21, 2006

St. Thomas Aquinas Literacy Storytelling Festival

Stories are the bridge between who we are and who we used to be. Listening to the other presenter’s stories, I’m drawn to cross those bridges with the teller, to put my trust in the teller’s hand as he/she reminds me of who I once was, other crossings flashing by on fast forward.

I’m still stuck thinking of the tragedy in Lancaster. Of how the Amish community just said no to the media circus, to revenge and retaliation and what a contrast that is to the rest of the worldview. How can we build more of that attitude in our kids? Our collective memory bank is jammed with aftermarket stories of hatefulness and revenge from movies, videos and TV, the everyday drug of choice. The gridlock is so honking loud, it is hard to give ear to REAL stories, stories that most often hum with gentle compassion. I worry we are paying the price for this in our society, of the piles and piles of violent drama. Smarter people than I have done studies on this. But still we tune into murder and mayhem to (get this) relax.

I am grateful for a life that interrupts the broadcasted purple stream of vengefulness with real stories and poems. The kid who said, the teacher who made a difference, the librarian who took time. These are the kinds of stories that coax me out of bed in the morning and tuck me in, turning off the TV, saying everything will be okay.

Thanks to Michael Shaw for inviting me to this beautiful place and giving me the time to remember the power of story.

October 20, 2006

Wattsburg Elementary , Erie PA

This is a happening place, students were active in a common area making little literacy bags to hold their books and their journals and pencils. NO DIBELS at this school, hooray! Toward the end of the day, at the beginning of a writing workshop with the second grade, one girl looked at me and said, “You look tired.”
“I am sweetie, I guess I better put my lipstick on.”
A second girl responded reassuringly, “You’ll be okay if you comb your hair.”
I’ve been laughing about it ever since.

Also, I received a fun poem from a second grade teacher, Stacey Mattocks — no, she was NOT grading papers during the assembly (highly discouraged) — she began shaping a poem (very much encouraged). Michael wanted to know where I was stashing the cash if it was true that I make her entire salary working a few days a month. I wish! I also sometimes wish for a retirement program and health insurance, but that’s another story. Here’s Stacey’s poem, which I was honored and delighted to receive.

We had an author come to our school today.
I hit my knees and just had to pray —

Cuz I’ve sat through these dry, agonizing assemblies before.
I guess I’m prepared to endure one more.

Had to drag my class to the auditorium and find each child a seat —
Waiting for this Sara Holbrook whom we were supposed to meet.

She came out on stage with a microphone in hand,
To my surprise she wasn’t even that stuffy, boring or bland.

Soon I felt a tiny giggle start to bubble within
Then a real live laugh, a few snorts and then a big grin.

Her enthusiasm for poetry was so inspiring,
I started to play with some words on a page and it wasn’t even that tiring.

She probably only has to work a few days a month — golly gee
To make my whole year’s salary.

Now I’m convinced!! A poet I’ll be . . .
No more lesson plans or paper correcting for me . . .

After all, I’m a Sara Holbrook want to be!!!

Watch out for me, I’ll be signing books too,
After all, I found out today that poets are really cool.

by Stacey Mattocks
2nd grade teacher