About Jessica Lerner
I began teaching in an urban elementary school straight out of college. It wasn’t my plan… I majored in Biology. I started as a substitute, which was actally great experience. I saw how teachers all over town set up their classrooms. Some were great and inspiring and some were really, really awful. The school at which I subbed the most often offered me a long term sub job for a woman on maternity leave. I had no teaching experience and no teaching degree and all of the sudden I took over a first grade class. The teacher never came back, so I had the class for most of the year. In those days, there was no district-wide curriculum. Every teacher made their own plan and everyone worked ALONE. I had no long term plans, so I made it all up. It was really hard work. The kids were crazy and I fell in love with all of them. The school was one of the poorest in the district, and one of the worst performing on the standardized tests. But, all the teachers were just like me… young and idealistic. We all cried and stayed late and hugged eachother often.
After that year, the school created a position for me and I got an alternative license. I taught science for all the kids, kindergarten through fifth grade. We did experiements and wrote lab reports and the kids did plays about sub-atomic particles. The kids loved it and I loved it. I went on to get my principal’s license. In the meantime, I taught fifth grade - with some of the same kids I had in first grade my first year. Then I became a literacy coach - planning staff development and coaching teachers. The school continued to struggle academically. The superintendent called for the school to be reformed, soliciting plans from anyone interested in taking it over. With my infinite optimism and desire to save all of our jobs, I (along with the other literacy coach) wrote a plan of improvement. We called it the PACE model - Parents, Accountability, Collaboration and Expectations. The school board selected our plan and we began implementation the following year. I continued my position as a literacy coach, but I had a baby at the end of that year and decided to stay home with him the year after.
Now home with baby number two, I find myself thinking about teaching and coaching all the time. Maybe my brain needs a break from the toddler-speak.
Contact me at jessicalerner@hotmail.com
As a middle school principal my first reaction to this site was, “Wow, this is some really useful stuff, but its scope is limited to elementary school teachers and parents of young children.” But after perusing through the archives a while longer I found myself thinking of how easily transferable and relevant these strategies and ideas are. Take for instance the lovely little section on writing at home with your pre-schooler. The elegant notion that what can be thought can be said, what can be said can be written, and what can be written can be read transcends just working with emergent readers and writers. This is exactly at the heart of the writing process where so many adolescents struggle as writers. They’ve lost perspective about the role of their thought life and have hijacked their natural instincts as writers to serve the banal agenda of writing for the teacher, for the assignment, for the homework completion, for some mythical length requirement, etc. The very best language arts teachers I’ve worked with are constantly challenging their students to “write small.” This site stresses this point throughout the various topics on writing by admonishing teachers and parents to encourage the child to write about a detail of an event rather than the whole of the event (e.g. a day to remember vs. summer vacation; a thrilling ride vs. a day at the amusement park). Anyways, I very excited to have this resource bookmarked on my computer and I can’t wait to share it with my teaching faculty of 60 plus middle school teachers. Sometimes going back to the heart and basics of our practice helps us gain valuable insight into truly powerful instruction and learning, regardless of what level we teach. Good stuff!
Wow. My principal, Sid Rundle, asked me to check this website out and I’ve just spent 45 minutes clicking here and then there and printing off all sorts of great resources…. As a middle school staff developer, I feel like I’ve hit the “jackpot” here! We’re in the middle of “redefining” ourselves as a school and this wonderful website gets right to the heart of the work that we’re attempting to do. Like Sid, I certainly do not feel that this is an “elementary school only” resource as many of the links are just about good, research-based instruction… which transcends all grade levels. I, too, was particularly impressed with the writing resources because as a former English teacher, my goal was always to create lifelong readers, writers, and thinkers. Being able to move students from the notion of simply writing to fulfill an assignment into the mode of writing to THINK and LEARN was powerful. And while you illustrate this beautifully in the context of young writers, the same mode of thought works for higher level writers as well. Powerful stuff. Thank you for creating this wonderful resource… I look forward to checking back often…