Donuts & Post-its

It happened. I reached the point of, “What do I write about today?”

​It’s almost 6 AM, and I decided to sneak out and sit in my dark living room to get today’s slice done before my day begins. I haven’t read slices in two days, so I want to focus on that whenever I get a chance to pause work.

​So here I sit, with my plug-in earbuds and a cool playlist, but no ideas.

​This year, whenever ideas for slices come to me, I’ve been collecting them on a tab of my SOL26 Google Doc. Yet, when I checked it out this morning, I found zero ideas vibing to my current mood.

​So, what do I write about? Maybe Lainie’s call for daily slices has something that inspires me. I go check that out. I find one of Juliette’s slices, which I remember loving and commenting on. Should I write about my process? Hmm. Don’t know.

​Still searching, I stretch my arm and reach for my phone, which is lying face down on the other side of the couch. I go straight to my camera roll. That has always worked, and I know I’ll find photos I snapped yesterday. 

​I indulge in a few seconds of admiration when I come across Elena, and move on to images of my afternoon PD with teachers at my school. I immediately compare the quality of my iPhone 11 photos to Angie’s, which she posted on KLA’s Instagram page. I’m a little kid wanting the latest device, can’t help it.

​Most of the photos I took of teachers show them facing a laptop, reading, inspired, writing comments, compliments, and wonderings on Post-its. None of them notices me. Some sit alone in front of someone’s laptop; others gather around it; a few lie on the table, their heads resting on their hands, in awe of whatever they are reading or watching.

​I was a bit anxious about facilitating that exercise for reasons foreign to the work itself. I’ve been part of endless “gallery work”- style PD, where teachers interact with someone else’s interpretation of something, but I honestly can’t remember the last time we did that at our school. I know I’ve used that protocol in my large PDs, but yeah, it’s been a long time.

My head rushes to other thoughts around PD structures, collaborative sense-making protocols, and what makes afternoon like yesterday successful, but then I redirect my thinking to something that felt right yesterday: all of us, in one room, free-flowing, connecting like we don’t always do, and adding more bricks to the “Preschool → Elementary” bridge.

Later today, I’ll spend a few minutes reading all those comments left on each grade level’s chart, and I know joy and pride will overflow. It will remind me why I love working with these educators.

Yesterday was a great afternoon, that’s my slice.

It must have been the donuts and Post-its 😉