Category Archive

Rosemary London is a third grade teacher at La Seda Elementary School.

Going through the whole process with the Ball Foundation has been enlightening. The Ball people are really driven to help, which is fantastic and admirable and wonderful. When I first heard about the Ball Foundation, I was excited and confused because I thought, “Can they really do this? What is this going to be?” There are many things that sound great on paper, but when you try to make them work, they don’t. At the beginning of the process, I felt bogged down in procedures – like we were all trying to figure out how this was going to work. I thought, “Okay, well, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about stuff, but we’re not really doing anything.”

But then, at the Literacy Network Day that I just attended, the teachers spent the day sharing ideas and thoughts and procedures. That was incredibly helpful. I had just gotten GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Development) trained, and was wondering about a particular twenty day writing procedure that is part of GLAD. I liked the idea of it, but I didn’t know how to do it. So, at the Network Day, I said, “Does anybody know about this GLAD writing thing because I want to know how to set it up and do it.” Somebody said, “Yes, I know. I’ll send you the stuff on how we do it.” I really liked that part of the Network Day because why should teachers have to redo what others have already done? You don’t have the hours in the day to do everything. I felt moved by that experience, and hope more things like that will happen.

I’m also hoping that more of the sharing across grade levels and schools will happen. Getting the long view picture of your teaching is so helpful. Sometimes as a teacher you feel like, “I’m trying really hard, and I’m inching the students forward, but is it making any difference?” It’s so gratifying and encouraging to talk to the teachers at other grade levels and have them say, “Yes, I can see the groundwork that you laid.” It keeps your fire lit when you have days where you wonder, “Is McDonald’s hiring because I don’t think this is for me.” So that was very, very, very uplifting and energizing for me.

Another thing I saw at the Network Day was the teachers vocalizing as a unit about time. One of the complaints that came up was, “This is lovely, but what time do we have to know our individual students’ goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations? Quit piling stuff on and take some stuff away – let us really teach.” So I think that teachers are getting to a point where they’re feeling like we need to become more proactive in our role in society. Teachers have been very passive thinking, “We can’t do anything about it.” But I think because teachers are becoming more proactive, we can now start saying what’s effective and what’s not. We need to get to the top and work down, starting in Sacramento. The people making the decisions aren’t teachers – maybe they were 30 years ago, but they’re not now. And it’s a whole different world in so many ways.

I feel like the teachers are more empowered – that they’re saying, “We’re all in this together, so let’s work together.” Ball has taken a lot of time to find out what’s needed, and made a genuine effort to include everyone. I feel listened to. At first it was a little awkward because you’re sitting at the table with your principal and vice principal, and you think, “I can’t really say what I think because they’re right here.” But then, as time goes on, you say, “Okay, they’re here, but this is a safe place for me to express my opinion.”

I’ll be honest – I am surprised that all this work with Ball is actually coming to fruition. It seems like it took a really long time to develop, which was good. They were trying to figure out how to make it all work. But we went to all those dinners and we talked, and we did more things and we talked, and more things and talked. I thought, “We are talking a lot, but when are we going to see something happen? When are we going to benefit from this?” But Ball had high goals, which I love. With my students, I climb up on the desk on the first day of school and say, “This is where you’ll be at the end of the year. You’re not going to be down there, you’re going to be way up here.” My students are like, “The teacher is standing on the desk,” and I say, “Because you can get anywhere. You can do anything, and we’re going to shoot for this.” So I felt like Ball had really lofty goals, and that’s lovely.

I truly feel there is a love that comes from the Ball Foundation that feels like, “Here we are. Let us help you.” Their hand is out and they want to help us. I genuinely feel the incredible support from them. Now I’m really excited because I’m seeing something happen.

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