Defining Beliefs and Aligning Practices: Debbie Miller Interview (Part I)
In her new book, Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, and Taking Action Debbie Miller advises teachers to slow down and think about what's really important in literacy teaching and learning. Debbie is good at taking her own advice -- she spent six years crafting this book. Written during a time of transition for Debbie from full-time teaching to full-time consulting with teachers across the country, the book is an honest, funny, and wise companion to Reading with Meaning. In a time where everything seems rushed, stressed, and too busy in classrooms, Debbie's elegant prose reminds us of why we became teachers in the first place -- because we love kids, learning, and creating beautiful classroom environments where anything seems possible. The interview took place on a warm, late summer day. Debbie talks about the process of writing the new book, the challenge of moving from one classroom to many classrooms, and the importance of staying true to what we believe about teaching and learning. She also talks about transitions in her personal and professional life. In fact, the day of the interview was Debbie's new daughter-in-law's first day as a teacher...at Slavins Elementary School in Denver, the site where Debbie taught and wrote Reading with Meaning. As Debbie would say, "How cool is that?!" Anyone reading this must be thinking about the perks of being a new teacher and having Debbie Miller as your mother-in-law. How cool is that indeed! Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW Brenda: Debbie, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Having been with you through the writing of the first book I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your process as a writer, and how it might have been a bit different with this second book?
Debbie: Well, let's see, in the first book I really struggled to find my writing voice. That took a while, and so from that standpoint, this one, as far as the actual writing, was a little bit easier just because I could remember those kinds of things when I was writing Reading with Meaning - like looking at my notes and then just closing my eyes and trying to recreate that scene. Learning how to do that was really helpful in the second book, so that was a big difference for me, or it certainly made this one a bit easier to write from that standpoint.
Brenda: And what do you want teachers who know, and have really enjoyed, and love Reading with Meaning to know about this second book? How is it different, and how is your stance in terms of what you're trying to convey to teachers different than with the first book?
Debbie: Well, in Reading with Meaning, it was so much about me, and my kids, and telling that story, and bringing comprehension strategy instruction to the fore. This one is a little bit different. It's not so much about my kids, my classroom, but it's the things that I've been learning and thinking about since leaving the classroom and working with, and being honored to work with so many wonderful teachers in these last five years. So it's more about the things that I've learned from them, understanding the importance of discovering or rediscovering who we are and what we're about in the classroom.
And it seems like today there's so much out there that tells us what to do, and that sometimes, as teachers, we take that backseat as far as really taking charge and understanding that we're the ones who know more than any program about our kids. So it's about sharing how I went about defining my beliefs, aligning practices, and then taking that action to put things into play, and that's what I think that's what this book is about is to help us, as teachers, to think about those things when we're teaching our kids and understanding that we know our kids better than anybody else, and so maybe thinking about some ways that we can put what we believe into play rather than, maybe, listening to somebody else tell us what to do.
Brenda: You have a wonderful anecdote in the book about leaving full-time teaching, and giving over your classroom to the next teacher, and it would be her space, and just looking in and not liking some of the things you saw like the - Debbie: (Laughter) Yeah.
Brenda: - the green and the orange dinosaur tablecloth when you had all that elegant checkerboard motif, and I was thinking that your experience in that way really isn't that different than a lot of readers on our site who are literacy leaders. I know Karen Szymusiak, we just taped in her school, she's a principal, and she said one of the hardest things for her as a principal was to realize that not all the good teachers in her school - and they're all good teachers - would have classrooms that looked anything like hers. That it was really hard to go from her vision, in real concrete ways, of what good teaching looks like to a much more broader vision as she saw variations on it. So how did you go through that process; I mean, what was it like for you going into all these different classrooms and being exposed to so many different models enacting your work in classrooms?
Debbie: Well, that's such a good question. Just like Karen, I had to really let go of a lot of things that were, maybe, very important or dear to me to get to that broader view of just thinking about what's really most important here? As we know, it's not about the tablecloth. It's not about so many things. It is about relationships, and what kinds of relationships we have with kids, the way that we talk to them, the way that we listen, most importantly. So I learned to not think about those surface elements.
I still think it's important, but I learned to look beyond that, and just really listen and understand that it's about relationships, and that if we can build those - if teachers can build great relationships with kids, and that that's really what it's about. aA teacher does have some core beliefs, and we can together, talk about them, and I can learn. I learned to listen, just like in the classroom we talk about that, learning to listen. I learned to listen to different points of view and to think, okay. I never thought about it like that, but it makes absolute sense. I now have a much broader perspective of classroom work, and teaching, and learning.
Brenda: It seemed to me in reading the new book that it really is that play between those two things that were in the first book. What does it look like concrete, practically to have a really thoughtful, strategies-based, relational-based instructional program in your classroom, and then what does that say about our core beliefs? And then to step outside your classroom in a lot of different classrooms and say, well, okay, maybe this concrete thing that I thought was so important wasn't, and maybe this other belief is far more important than I realized, and it can be expressed so many different ways. So it was fascinating for me to see you go into different classrooms and think those things through, and it was also fascinating when you went into a couple classrooms in the book. You talk about one with a teacher who's fairly new, who really does need some help with organization. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, and your work with new teachers. What you see as their particular needs, and how the book might be helpful to them?
Debbie: Well, in my work with new teachers, it seems like for Katie, the young teacher that I wrote about, she did have some things that she believed. She had just come from college, and she had some core beliefs. Yet she wasn't able to put anything into play, or much at least, just simply because of the environment and all of those things that many of us, I think, take for granted as veteran teachers. We found working together that you have to start with that something that's basic - organization and building in those routines and procedures.
I can remember the kids saying, "Well, can we just have a schedule?" You know, "Can we know what's next?" And in all that beginning of the year stuff, I mean, that's important, and I realized how supremely important it was in my work with Katie. Even though she's an amazing teacher, and is thoughtful and reflective - she was hijacked, really, by not having that environment set up, and organization, and all of that made such a big difference. It really got in her way and in her students' way too.
Brenda: I felt like the story of Katie was really just a great metaphor for the whole book because there's just so much stuff now. I mean, there's so many professional books and so many children's books, and so many great activities, and so many wonderful things at the teacher's store that you can put on your wall. It seems like the gift of the new book is to say, okay, just slow down and figure out what are the few core things that are so important to you, and just put away the rest.
Debbie: My son, Noah, was just married this summer, and his new bride, Courtney, is a sixth grade language arts teacher at my old schools, Slavins and today is her first day. Oh, she's so nervous, I just want to say, "Okay, Courtney, just slow down. It's going to be good." It's that panic, almost, for them, a - I'm kind of catching my throat here just talking about her. It is just that slowing down and learning to trust ourselves, and trust kids, and not get caught up, as hard as it is to not, but to just not get caught up in all of that that's swirling around us. It's hard for first-year teachers, definitely.
Brenda: And I think it's hard too for literacy coaches, literacy leaders because they feel the same thing. There's always so many new professional books, and ideas, and responsibilities, and assessment tests.
Debbie: And you want to get it all out there, right?
(Laughter)
Brenda: Right.
Debbie: And so we have to practice that very same thing. I always used to say to teachers, "If we're frantic, think how kids are." But then if coaches are frantic, think how teachers are, and then think how kids are. So it all connects, I think, just that feeling of calm. I'm hoping that we'll think about it in that way - what's really important, and to think about those few things that we believe deeply in, and how can we put that into play and just set the stage then for thoughtful teaching and learning.
Brenda: I got the sense too as you were drafting the book over the last few years, I think at different points you would feel that pressure, oh, I better say something about this, or this seems really important; now I better say something about that. And so is it fair to say part of your process was to say I'm not going to tackle the whole world? I'm just going to give a sense of where my thinking is at now in some of these areas and -
Debbie: Absolutely, and you really helped me with that, Brenda. It's like when somebody gives you your own advice back. You don't have to tackle the world but you say to yourself I'm going tackle this piece, and it did make a big difference for me when I was thinking things through.
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Jennifer Allen
