One of the most exciting parts of my job is visiting schools across the state of Georgia and observing teachers and students as they learn in different settings. Tuesday and Wednesdays were such days, as I spent time in an elementary school and a high school in the eastern part of the state. Our task for these days was to observe for cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement.
In the elementary school, students smiled and waved as our team of coaches entered classrooms. They sized us up, giving us curious stares. No doubt, their teachers had put them on their best behavior and explained our presence in their building on this day. We took notes, writing down important best practices and preserving the productive struggle of learning.
One student, when sorting details from main idea statements, said, “I think the topic is koalas, because I see the word koala in every sentence.” He was leading his elbow partner through his logic, articulating the turning wheels in his head as he made sense of the sentences. Together, they talked as they sorted the sentences, discussing the placement of each in its correct category.
In another classroom, a young girl beamed as she worked with letter tiles, forming as many words as she could make using digraphs. “I have thirteen words,” she exclaimed, “because I just wrote shoes!”
In a math lesson, a teacher shared a book about multiplication and invited students to explain the similarities and differences between arrays and number sentences. One student noted, “Arrays have dots, and problems have digits.”
Her tablemate inserted, “That’s hard.”
The teacher replied, “Hard things won’t kill us. They make us smarter.”
Where I spent moments considering the full impact of this, the third grade student accepted it, nodded, and continued listening to those sharing.
Common Threads 
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