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Category Archives: Blogging

Quoth me

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on quotes.

If you read my blog with any regularity, you’ll see that many of my posts are accompanied by several pictures and often, a quote. As a reader, I am fond of words. I have my favorite tattooed on my body in another language. And I use quotes often: to laugh when I want to cry, to entertain and amuse, to stay humble yet often to empower, and to know myself. But I’ll share the one that I actually just shared with students today doing a book tasting in the library, showcasing the magic of books in all of their forms and formats:

DifferentCombination Doesn’t that absolutely capture the magic of books? Twenty-six letters and so many books that I have fallen in love with. How is that even possible?

With the advent of technology to make things faster and easier, let’s never forget the power of words. Spoken or written in the past or in the future. Use bigger words, don’t use abbreviations. Find a substitute for “that’s interesting” and say what you really mean. Buy books by authors you love to support their art. It may be easy to forget, but that’s why I keep this reminder around. Words are power.

3 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on September 28, 2017 in Authors, Blogging, edublogsclub, Miscellaneous

Past, present, and future

21 Sep

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week I’m combining two prompts into one on interviewing and something that you wouldn’t see in a classroom today that used to be learned or used.

I regularly blog for our local newspaper’s Books Blog contributing with other locals on what else… books! Two years ago, I wrote a June post entitled I’m the lucky one around five seniors graduating who I hold dear to my heart. One of those seniors I have kept in touch with regularly and decided to ask her a few questions about her high school experience and life post-graduation.

What were your expectations for high school and were they met?

I don’t think anything has wasted my time as much as high school did. I guess what I really expected out of high school was that it would really prepare me for the “real world” or for college at least. But it didn’t do that. It just genuinely was complete nonsense. It wasn’t reality and I’m glad I realized that early on unlike my peers who were really consumed in all that rubbish. My expectations weren’t met until it was finally over. Because I was happy it was over because high school just wasn’t for me.

Are you where you thought you’d be after graduation?

It’s been two years since I’ve graduated, and although it has seemed like time has flown by. I think I need more time to be where I really want to be. I think I settled for too much after graduation and now I just need to figure out where I really want to be.

What goals do you have for your future?

I have many goals for my future. I plan I being a Radiologist at some point in my life so that if my current goal that I’m working on. But I don’t want to settle on one thing so another main goal for after I get my life started as a radiologist is to learn photographer and just photograph people from all over the world.

How did the adults in school have an impact (or not) during high school?

Personally, every adult in this school has had an impact on me whether it being negatively or positively. But one adult who’s impact really has stuck with me forever is Ms. Lawyer. She really impacted me in a positive way. Her devotion and passion was really inspiring. She was really there for me when I struggled the most around my sophomore. She just made me feel like there was someone who genuinely cares and who will listen to whatever I had to say. I really felt heard.

What is one thing you wish educators would know or learn when teaching youth?

One thing that I think educators should learn when it comes to teaching the youth is to actively listen to some of the things students have to say, I guess it shows that someone actually cares to listen. I’ve seen teachers really shut students down and that makes me upset to see that. I just think that really listening to a students feedback makes a difference and makes class less miserable.

*****

EducationFire What she speaks to several times over leads me to respond to the second prompt around what used to be used or learned in schools that might be missing today. I could talk about filmstrips or the pro/cons of teaching cursive in elementary schools, but I’d rather address teaching the whole child. What my former student refers to about the connection with Ms. Lawyer is an emphasis that she was listened to, not “put in her place”. There are still teachers and certainly not all, who would rather sit and spit, getting through their lesson for the sake of sanity and the upcoming state test than stop and talk about a topic affecting a student emotionally or greeting the class with a smile and a handshake.

Every educator needs to be reminded that it’s not always about being right, it’s about people-building. I am guilty of letting frustration or anger getting the better of me, but upon reflection, I try to rectify that directly. That’s more of a lesson than ignoring it could ever be. Let’s remind our colleagues and ourselves that we need to continue to remember that these little or big bodies (at 5’1″, many high school students tower over me!) are as much in need of kindness as ourselves and that everything is a learning opportunity to grow ourselves.

2 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on September 21, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub

100 Word Challenge

15 Sep

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on a one-hundred word challenge using this image:

100WordChallenge

There is a beauty and a magic in the outdoors. Growing up in the country allows you to appreciate the magic of nature be it stars, trees, thunderstorms, or high winds whipping against the house. There is something equally as beautiful about winter mornings with newly fallen snow or the hot sun beaming on your nose in summer. Whether you’re five or ninety-five, there is no greater awesomeness than Earth and its wonders. Have you experienced the Serengeti in Africa? Mount Everest? The rain forests of South America? It’s just as well to sit outside pointing to a rainbow smiling.

1 Comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on September 15, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub, Miscellaneous

Reminding everyone about Remind

07 Sep

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on favorite tools and resources for the classroom.

Remind

I keep lists. Lots of lists. I have an agenda. I have a notebook. I love Post-its. I also use Evernote and Google Keep. Then there’s emailing myself to remind myself of something. So let’s face it- everyone needs reminders so what’s an educator to use? The Remind tool that’s almost more easy to use as an app than on a desktop, but both work for a buffer between the student and teacher in terms of communication. It can be individual messages or a class announcement and the best part is that the reminders can be scheduled and students who don’t have cell phones can attach it to their email.

The planner in all of us wants to not be last-minute and give kids ample time to prepare whether it’s an assignment, upcoming assessment, or an activity in the school community. In the library, I run several different “classes”- one for the blood drives that I coordinate, one for the club that I advise, and one for our library groupies when there are upcoming activities.

It’s the perfect solution to send out information, but get it in a centralized place too. And what’s more important for our sanity than a little organization?

4 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on September 7, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub

Find your people

25 Aug

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on recommendations for first-year educators.

In addition to blogging, obviously I follow plenty of blogs myself and sometimes they’re not always education-based though provide just as much insight. Seth Godin is one of those people for me. I have four of his posts cut out and placed on my work computer. So if I was going to share a thought, it would be in relation to Godin’s post Who are you playing tennis with? I’ll wait here while you read it.

My suggestion is to find your tribe of colleagues that inspire and engage you, challenge you, and most importantly keep you happy and sane. Over ten years, I have had the colleagues who slog through each day and I have the colleagues who come to work ready to do the work and stay positive even when it’s hard.

And the best part is that these colleagues don’t have to be in your content area. Maybe they share the same lunch and would rather walk the school than sit and complain, maybe it’s the Spanish teacher that bakes and you have a sweet tooth. Of course, it could be the maintenance worker (Ah, those were the days: my FIRST first year teaching ELA and I would arrive with the first maintenance staff member. I would be walking down the hallway literally as the lights warmed up while we talked about life at 6AM).

HelloMyNameIs

Therefore, talk to everyone. You’ll be able to determine pretty quickly who your people will be. When you’re down, they’re the ones offering chocolate. When you’re angry, they’re the ones telling you to wait twenty-four hours before sending that email. When you’re happy, they’re the ones share in your excitement. And when you need a good book to read, they’re the ones pulling one off their own bookshelf to lend. You get the point. Find those people.

2 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on August 25, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub, Miscellaneous

Reclaiming Conversation

31 Jul

In January 2017, I read Sherry Turkle’s 2015 book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age and I find myself referencing it frequently in my own conversations with others. So I wanted to share it in the context of this week’s #edublogsclub challenge prompt around digital citizenship. My stance aligns similarly to Turkle’s in that she isn’t anti-technology, she’s pro-conversation.

ReclaimingConversation Yes, we need to have digital citizenship lessons, but we have forgotten to continue the lessons on personal citizenship because of and ignorant of our digital lives. We believe we know people because we are connected with them on social media. We believe we are better than or worse than people because of what we see on their feeds. We compare ourselves to Photoshopped images in advertising. We reserve the right to demean others either because we are behind a screen or because we think it is our right. Turkle shares a few stories that I can only compare to why teenagers are less likely to get their drivers license. We have scared them with advertisements, statistics, and more. And the same thing is true in real life. We have scared teenagers into speaking less because they see what happens when people say the wrong thing. The instant screenshot or video immortalizes a misstep. For whatever reason, Turkle’s example of a teenage boy who ignored a phone call from a college recruiter so he could email him instead later was explained by the boy as a fear of saying the wrong thing over the phone. He shared that a phone conversation is too quick for him to think about what he wants to say and the fear of saying the wrong thing drives him to email instead because he can think as he types.

How many of us have seen or engaged in inflammatory Twitter conversations? How many have posted a rant on Facebook? We know things can get out of hand quickly but it’s coupled with the positive use of social media as demonstrated in the Middle East and North Africa during Arab Spring in which youth were protesting their governments and convening for the cause. In this case, the instant spread of information was beneficial.

So it’s the quickness of the digital age that means that we must still empower everyone’s voice outside of their digital presence and how they are IRL. How should we prepare to ask the right question to the customer service representative over the phone? How can people guide conversations deeper when most everyone wants a shallow conversation they can maneuver in and out of because what’s on the their phone is more important?

These are the gems that Turkle shares and truly made me think about how I am and how I want to raise my kids and how I want to teach my students. I want to reflect on Turkle’s lens through Thoreau’s thoughts on the subject in which he said his cabin had three chairs: one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society.

We need to remember how to be by ourselves and know ourselves before we know others, we also need friendship, the real kind not the followers kind, and we also need to know how to interact in groups. Turkle’s book was for me the kind of book that comes at the right time and has left an impact on me. While the last third of the book was recycled lessons, the first two thirds of the book provided enough material to think on that I must have used an entire pad of Post-its. It should give anyone thinking about digital citizenship thinking not only about the digital side, but also the personal side.

5 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 31, 2017 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, edublogsclub, Nonfiction

A guest’s thoughts

22 Jul

As part of the #edublogsclub year-long challenge about blogging on education, this week’s suggestion was featuring a guest blogger. Today, I welcome my colleague Stacey Rattner to share her thoughts. You can find her leaping on her own blog and follow her powerhouse presence on Twitter.

Yesterday I went to the city with a good friend of mine, his rising high school junior son, Tim, and my rising sophomore daughter, Tari. Joe and I have been taking this trip together for many years.

RattnerImage

Our kids consider themselves “cousins.” Now they are also good friends. The conversations have moved from forced to whispers in the back. An eclectic genre of music has always been an integral part of the trips: Lady Gaga, Sia, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Justin Timberlake, Chance…

We make lifetime memories: Top of the Rock in the rain while it was a blizzard back home, getting rush tickets to “School of Rock” and it being the night Stevie Nicks shows up, insisting on going to the top of the Freedom Tower on the cloudiest day on record, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, making t-shirts at the Museum of the City of New York…We have delicious food memories, too: dim sum in Chinatown, Big Gay Ice Cream in the West Village, Chocolate Works on the Upper West Side, matzo ball soup at Bubby’s in DUMBO and Meatpacking District…

Now our focus is moving from exposure to culture to opportunity. Last February we crashed an information session and tour of NYU. Yesterday we attempted to check out Hunter College but alas a Friday afternoon in July was not the ideal time to do that. We are thinking and talking more about college and it’s becoming the focus of our trips.

The weekend traffic wasn’t what bothered us last night but rather the reality of the cost of college as I became curious and turned to my phone for answers. While Tim and Tari were working the music among their soft spoken conversations in the back, I researched a few schools.

“Check out Hamilton,” Joe asked. I never got that far as I discovered a gem on their website, actual essays written by students who were accepted into the school. Wow. I was planning to just read one aloud but ended up reading them all. Joe Pucci’s hit a nerve so much that I ended up sending him a tweet and following him.

Think of a life changing event, add some dialogue, vivid descriptions and get it down on paper. Is being raised by two dads in a small town enough? Or a Jewpanese girl who goes to summer camp every year to escape the same small town? Doubt it. Whatever our kids end up writing, I look forward to it moving me enough to grab the Kleenex, shift in my britches from being a tad uncomfortable and finally, to take out the phone to tweet a “bravo.”

What would I write about today if I was 16? I can’t say but I can tell you about the fateful little girl’s birthday party I attended nearly 11 years ago while still out on maternity leave for my son. “I’d really like to go back to school to be a 4th grade teacher, “ I exclaimed to no one in particular.

“You should become a school librarian,” a woman I didn’t know responded in between bites of salad.

“A school librarian? Why?”

“It looks like the best job in the building and plus, there are jobs,” the third grade teacher said.

“Really? Hmmm…tell me more.”

Two days later I attended a prospective graduate student fair at SUNY-Albany and sought out the library science program. Couple of months later, I enrolled in my first class. After nine years in a job my husband thought I would be in forever I left to become a school librarian. I have never looked back and owe it all to my very good friend, Val.

2 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 22, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub

Reflecting on blogging

13 Jul

In January, I took on the challenge along with other seasoned and new education bloggers through Edublogs as a way to expound on my day job. For the most part, my posts kept true to libraries and books somehow. I’ve realized that while an occasional post about a non-library topic is refreshing, it’s not what I want my blog to focus on.

Therefore, my reflection is also a bit of a mid-point resolution to keep focused on libraries and books for each post because…

I like books. A lot. So I want to blog about liking books. A lot.

LoveBooksSoMuch

3 Comments

Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 13, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub

Routines

02 Jun

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on time management and productivity.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a policies and procedures type girl. There’s a reason that I’m a ISTJ also known as the duty fulfiller. So it won’t surprise anyone that I have routines. Not only to make me sane, but to make our household run smoothly, and work manageable. Here’s a basic outline of a typical day: 2017-06-02 07.56.25

Clearly this isn’t everything and it shouldn’t be because life is isn’t always organized, but it sure makes it easier. In a separate post about my love of folders, I share an image with Martha Stewart’s quote that “life is too complicated not to be orderly.” This perhaps was my personality from birth and why I became a librarian. It’s also why I have baskets and bins around my home andboards on Pinterest that I continually re-organize. I’m also lucky enough to have married a man who also believes in organization, tidiness, and schedules. He was also born with it and probably why he joined the military and is self-employed: an intrinsic motivation for order and a get-it-done attitude that comes with it.

Likewise, it’s also why we have policies and procedures for everything in our HS library. Students know what to expect. My favorite line is “Miss, I know X, but…” to which my reply is “Yes, you know X, so…” Because we see between 20-60 kids or more each period, nine periods a day, plus before and after school, routines make it more manageable. Then, we can focus on the students and staff.

Maybe that’s why I find routines comforting and necessary. They allow me to take the thinking off of certain items and be able to really ponder the more important aspects of life. Routines are the opposite of making my life mundane, they enrich it by allowing me to focus on what matters.

1 Comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on June 2, 2017 in Blogging, edublogsclub, Miscellaneous

The art of the booktalk

01 Apr

This post originally appeared on the Books Blog for the Times Union

The art of the booktalk. When a friend asks you about the book you’re reading or you’re sharing a recent fabulous read, how do you approach it? Do you ask a question? Perhaps have a pre-planned teaser or maybe you’d rather share an overview. Sometimes I’m so blinded by the emotion of absolutely loving a book that I clutch the book to my chest and whisper I love this book and then just hope that someone will take my word for it. Luckily I’ve got some street cred with this approach.

2017-03-30 15.40.02-1 But, I was thinking about the art of the booktalk after spending two days in classrooms talking to tenth graders about choosing a classic book to read for their fourth quarter project. I had a lot of ground to cover and not all of the books I had read. Yet that is nothing new because I booktalk frequently on topics that I may only know slightly and I am a firm believer that you can booktalk a book you haven’t read. I organized the books into categories that helped channel the number that I was talking about and then prepared my cheat sheet (things like publication date, title characters, main ideas, themes or topics, or a relevant current topic that paired nicely). And while this is necessary, I generally don’t use it as much as occasionally reference it since Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

It’s there if I need it, but the preparation solidifies my approach and then I don’t actually need it. Especially when I capitalize on others in the room who may have loved one of the books and ask them to share. When I talk about a book I may ask a hypothetical question or have a one-liner that intrigues someone, saying little more. And I learn from others. I facilitate a book group of local school librarians and everyone has a slightly different approach, all valuable in their own way. There are some I could listen to all day myself, admiring their vocabulary and word choice. I aspire to be better after each delivery and rework it until I hit booktalk gold. We only get better with practice.

So not only am I constantly honing my booktalking skills based on my audience, I also realized I have a lot of classic literature to read (or reread to refresh my memory). Maybe I can make this a monthly post to review a classic book as a way to kickstart this exploration. Which would you start with?