A birding favorite: The Big Year

Last spring, I had the privilege to meet a local legend Greg Miller at Flora-quest (a weekend-long outdoor adventure involving some of Ohio's best birders, botanists and all-around nature enthusiasts). I'd heard stories about Greg from my mother and from some of her birding friends, but to read about the feat that made him famous made me blush a little. I'd met one of the nation's top birders and was able to hang out with him during several meals over the course of the weekend. I was also able to hear about the 'real-live' Big Year from the man himself. The biggest thing that struck me about all of it was how funny and unassuming Greg was. It just made his stories that much more priceless. He was so good-natured that it was hard not to just find him fun and lovable and he was telling about tumbling down snow-banks and getting stuck in Florida mud. That said, I also knew that sometimes he could get so excited that he'd forget to do basic things like: plan ahead. After meeting Greg and then seeing the movie based on his Big Year (Jack Black plays him-- but Greg's name is changed) and two other birders' Big Years, I was ready to read the book to get the real deal. Particularly after finding out how little of the royalties on the movie he received (i.e. none), I wanted to support him by reading a book purchased to help benefit him. (Greg sells the book & signs it at many of his speaking engagements--- that is, if he doesn't get too excited and then forget the books!).

That being said, how was the book? Solid. I enjoyed that it covered the three competing birders: Greg Miller, Sandy Komito and Al Levantin. I also really enjoyed that the author (Mark Obmascik) interwove birding history about the founding fathers of birding & birding guides. There was also a bit about the characters' personal lives, but I noticed a drastic difference between the book and the movie on this: Sandy Komito's personal life. In the book, the reader finds out that Sandy is a self made man and in the movie there's a whole subplot with not-"Sandy" and his wife having conception problems and her leaving him. In the book, none of this happens-- which makes me wonder if this was fabricated for the movie, or if this was left out of the book for respect of Komito. Also, in the movie not-"Greg" and his lady friend seem to get together after she breaks up with her boyfriend and in the book it explicitly states that she lets him know that they'd just be friends. I also felt that the book delved more into Greg's personal life than the personal lives of the other two characters-- at least their adult personal lives. I found this interesting in that I feel like it made the reader want to relate more with Greg than with the other two and it also made Greg look the most vulnerable and like the biggest risk-taker because of the amount of investment-- monetarily and health-wise that he sacrificed (in proportion with Sandy and Al).

The book also seemed to show more of the caution that the characters had for one another and in comparison, the movie had "Al's" character deciding to help "Greg's" character by bank rolling several trips that "Greg" wouldn't have been able to afford. In the book, there seems to be only one trip at most that "Al" might have made possible for "Greg" in order to see snowcocks. The book also focused much more on the actual money spent and mileage accrued and the author explains that the three birders allowed him to review their journals and receipts in order to make sure that he was as accurate as possible.

I think any one who enjoys competition can appreciate the story of the three men and I found myself intrigued at the fact that the author put himself in each of the men's shoes to explain feelings and the surroundings. I felt torn about this. I enjoyed the textures, but then I also found myself thinking, "well, how would he know what the waitress's smile was like?" So there were a few times where the believability was lost for me. However, I found myself sucked into the last 100 pages as the rivalry heated up and the underdogs kept facing taunting greetings like "Sandy Komito says hi." Would I teach this to my high-school students? Probably not, but I might recommend it to a few of them. Would I send it to my non-fiction loving grandfather? Definitely.

Welcome to education: I Won't Read and You Can't Make Me

Many teachers tell their students: "don't write in the book!" but I am definitely NOT one of those teachers. I write in my books. And it's easy to tell which books I've really connected with because I'll write A LOT in these books. I even encourage my students to write in their books, that is, if they own them and sometimes I just encourage them to write in my books, but with pencil. I think this interaction with the text is crucial for really digesting the material and it helps me remember which parts I particularly connected with or would like to come back to later on. At other times, I simply jot a word or two in the margins just so that I can remember that paragraph's main point (because sometimes it's a little difficult to figure out exactly what the person WAS trying to say).

Recently, I was supervising my 5th period class as they began their weekly DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time and a handful of students meandered around the room, trying to locate some new reading material. I have some old magazines I brought from home (Rolling Stone, Details, Vogue, Vanity Fair, etc.) and I also have several bookshelves of romance, classics, field guides, mysteries, etc. I watched each of the meandering students, one-by one, locate something to read and I was reminded of a book I'd borrowed for my school's library: "I won't read and you can't make me" by Marilyn Reynolds. While I had several students in the class who were readers before we began to observe DEAR, there were many more that were reluctant readers. I located the book, opened it up and promptly got ready to make some notes in the margins, when I realized it wasn't my book. Instead, I grabbed some of my trusty scrap paper, and began to jot down some of Ms. Reynolds' main points. I was sucked back into the book... and I realized I'd had the book for quite sometime (as in, over a year) without having recieved an overdue notice. I knew I was "special," but I didn't think I was that special. Realizing that I must have accidentally stolen the book from my school's library, I took it back and formally checked it out with the vow to read it in a timely manner and actually return the book to the library BEFORE it was due.

What reminded me the book was on the shelf was my desire to find some solutions to the students being reluctant to read. I was pleasantly surprised that Ms. Reynolds and I agreed about many of the tactics that will work and have worked as well as the tactics that are definitely losers. First and forement, DEAR was a winner. I could agree with that, with the caveat that each teacher had to lead by example and demand reading for enjoyment. DEAR is NOT and should NOT be used as a study hall, otherwise it undermines the fundamentals of allowing students to connect with reading. It gives them the excuse to do something else. This is a gross injustice to the students, whether the students realize it or not. That's what teachers are for: to guide and mold students to be responsible, healthy adults.

Ms. Reynolds covered a myriad of issues facing reluctant reader. She lets the reader know about her student population, which included students from diverse backgrounds and especially students with learning disabilities, histories of abuse (sexual, psychological, substance, etc.) among other extenuating circumstances. The approach is the same: find a book that the student can connect with. Once this connection is formed, continue to encourage more connections with books by suggesting more books and talking with the student about what he or she is reading. Feed the student's soul through reading and the desire to learn and the reading skills will also develop with this student's desire to read more.

Why do I love this book? 1. It supports students reading ALL types of books-- even the ones with foul language, sex, violence and other controversial issues. The goal is for a student to connect with a book and sometimes this is only done through a student being able to relate to the book-- which often will mean that the language and experiences should be reflective of what the students has/ is encountering. 2. It gives ways teachers go right and go wrong with encouraging reading. There are lists and explanations. This should be mandatory reading for administrators and all teachers-- particularly in the field of language arts. 3. This book encourages teachers to become the writers teens are seeking out & it encourages teachers by showing that there a several authors who got their starts in this way. 4. Lastly, Ms. Reynolds gives a nice list of tried and true books for teens and she breaks them down by topics too.

What would I change about this book? The organization struck me as peculiar in that I felt that it popped around enough that it didn't always flow logically. Also, I would have like to see more about her process for publishing and more about how she assesses students' reading gains. I realize the goal is to encourage a lifelong habit of reading, so there may only be qualitative analysis for this, but it seems like there should be some research out there that she could have brought in to really back up her claims. In this way, I felt that her argument was not nearly as influential as it could have been (remember, I'm already a DEAR supporter). Lastly, (p. 119) there were a couple of errors: Zlata Filipovic is NOT the author for "Freedom Writer's Diary." Filipovic wrote "Zlata's Diary". Erin Gruwell is the author to "Freedom Writer's Diary." On the same page later on, it says that "No One Here Gets Out Alive" is about John Morrison, when it's actually about Jim Morrison (lead singer for The Doors). I caught both of these because I'd read "Zlata's Diary" and "No One Here Gets Out Alive" and thought they were captivating. "The Freedom Writer's Diary" was adapted into the movie "Freedom Writers," which I would also highly recommend. Overall, it was an informative read and it reminded me a bit of Natalie Goldberg's Long Quiet Highway, which is also about writing and teaching, but in a less "professional development" sort of style.

Educational Nugget: Literacy with an Attitude

I love thrift shopping and yard sales-- particularly for the great books I manage to find. Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick J. Finn, was one such find. Over the past few years I'd been doing a bit of research in order to complete my Master's degree and I found myself doing A LOT of reading about grammar teaching and reading teaching. I'm always fascinated at how little we actually DO know about teaching students, even though it seems like education has been going on forever. It's really just amazing how hard it is to quantify education. With that said, I wondered if I could pick up some educational nuggets to use in my classroom.

Six months later, I finally finished the book. This isn't a slight for the writer or the topic. Both were relevant; it's just that the book was definitely academic style writing. The book followed a variety of British schools, with some that were dominated by the social elite and then others that were school with working class. The results were typical: schools with elite parents did well and the working class schools struggled. There were also differences in the demands of the parents of the children as well as freedoms for the children at the schools. Elite parents demanded more of the children and of the schools while also encouraging the students to do more problem solving and these schools also allowed the students more freedoms. These school encouraged flourishing leaders and treated the students as such.

To make a long story short, Finn (building off Paulo Freire's ideas) encourages educators to become agents of social change. He pushes for educators to "make reading dangerous again" by fostering students to question and become politically involved and therefore seeing the need to become educated to change the issues around the community. Along these lines Finn & Freire push for the socially oppressed to rise and create their own stories and to embrace literacy as a means for sharing their culture and beliefs-- rather than seeing literacy as being taken over by the oppressors. The result: literacy with an attitude or a literacy pushing for change.

With this push for change in mind, there were a handful of suggestions for educators, most of which simply included getting students politically involved. One of the last small segments was a list of attributes for "domesticating education" (bad) and "liberating education" (good). I found this list probably the single most beneficial piece in the book. For instance, a domesticating attribute would be "work is easy" while liberating would be "work is challenging" or "teachers...focus on correctness before expression" versus "teachers focus on expression before correctness" (respectively).

I must admit with some of these awesome teaching tools snugly tucked into the final chapter of the book, I felt a bit cheated that the author didn't sandwich more of these teaching tools in the text much earlier on. I felt they would have been more easily digestible if they'd shown up and brief forms earlier and then expanded upon later in the book. As it was, while there were some nice nuggets at the end, it seemed that the research was so Freire-heavy that Freire should have been credited as a co-author. Nonetheless, it made me excited to go learn more about Freire's works and life, all while reminding me that while I may struggle with my classes, my struggle is felt by others and the ends justify the means.