I was honored to help plan her baby shower on March 7 at Mohonk Moutain House. Our theme? Cherry blossoms. It’s still a little early for them, even here in Washington, DC, but with the bright blue sky that Sunday morning and a baby girl on her way, it seemed the perfect metaphor.

As I told the 50 ladies who joined us, this is about helping Christine transition into motherhood. There will plenty of time for baby when she arrives. Now is our chance to create a path for Christine to take this new step her life.

As women we have an opportunity to nurture and support one another through our transitions. Motherhood can be a mystery, though it doesn’t have to be. By sharing honestly about our experiences, and offering support to one another, we make all of lives richer. Women, we are in this life together!

In celebration of Christine and her love of literacy, every person was asked to bring a new children’s book to the shower that we would donate in her honor. Specifically they were asked to bring their favorite, either one they read as a child or read to a child in their life.

The response was overwhelming! Just like the response I received to my question posed on this blog – What was your favorite book as a child? – even before the shower people were calling or emailing to tell me their favorite book, and how excited they were to bring it with them.

We collected such an amazing variety, from Dick & Jane to Frog & Toad and of course a bunch of Dr Seuss. At the shower, I had women tell us why they brought the book they did. We heard stories about books read to Christine as a child, to their own children, and books with cherished memories and beloved characters. In fact, going into the bookstore to buy my book for the shower I ended up with one for her, and one for me, my favorite, James & The Giant Peach. (No sooner had I bought it did my father ask to borrow it. The power of children’s literature!)

The books collected are now with The Children’s Home in Poughkeepsie, NY for their new library for young mothers to read to their children.

As we celebrate the newness of spring, of birth and rebirth in our lives, consider how the beauty and simplicity of children’s literature and our connection as women can be equally celebrated and nurtured.

This post is about more than the pregnancy of my friend. It’s about the connection we have to each other, and the role that literature can play in those relationships. As teachers, you offer students a space to learn and grow. What a special gift that you can give yourself and the people in your lives too. A seemingly simple book, and a genuine curiosity about what inspires us as readers, can become a meaningful conversation. Even among people who don’t know each other well.

What support are you wanting in your life? What support can you offer the women around you?

More than the titles of books, I saw in the responses a sincere joy in remembering the sensory feel of the pages, the vivid illustrations, and where they were or who they were with when they first discovered reading. There also were the lingering lessons:

• You can be anything you chose to be
• Make yourself happy
• It’s possible to give yourself completely to another person
• Unabashedly be yourself
• Even in the toughest of situations, you can be brave (and thrive)
• Be kind to others, including animals
• War is useless
• Your challenge can also be your greatest gift
• It’s fun to be silly
• You’re not alone

These lessons have shaped us, and shaped the decisions we’ve made throughout our lives in a way that only our core values can do.

I’ve blogged before about values. They can come from any number of places – your experiences, what was instilled in you by others, or what you were born believing. Once a belief is introduced, we often use what happens around us — more specifically, our viewpoint of what is happening — as a proof point that it must be true.

Take for example, The Wizard of Oz. Reading it one could believe, or find proof, that a magical world is waiting to be discovered out the front door. Or, that there’s no place like home, so stay close to it. Same book, completely different lesson and resulting perspective on opportunities that arise in our lives.

Values, no matter how unquestionable they seem or how long you have held them to be true, are not hard-and-fast rules. You always have a choice about what you believe.

I love talking about choice. As a life coach, I host guided conversations on this topic. It’s amazing what can happen when we step outside ourselves and see how much change we can affect just through our perspective.

Look at any situation in your life right now, from the relationship with your mother to a disagreement in the checkout line. What would it be like if this wasn’t happening to you, if you were watching it unfold in a book instead? Suddenly each person involved (including you) are “characters” with their own needs, motivations, fears and desires. As an objective reader, you can see what led to this point and what might happen to change the outcome.

From this perspective, how might all of the characters get what they really need?

Not only is stepping outside of a situation useful for working with values and perspective in your own life, it brings new meaning to role of parents and teachers. Children’s minds are being shaped, and lasting values are being forged at every moment. Though we can’t control what they take with them or how it’s used later, your contribution is immensely powerful. More, in fact, than you can realize.

Makes me think that my next Facebook question should be – who was your favorite teacher and why? Stay tuned!

I couldn’t help but think of those same, vulnerable feelings when I re-read Maurice Sendak’s 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are in anticipation of the newly released film version of the book.  Max felt misunderstood.  He was perceived as naughty.  He longed to be in community with others who understood him.  Max didn’t want to be alone.  As a teacher and teacher educator, I have frequently felt this way.

Reflection often happens in isolation.  In our busy lives, the only time we have to reflect is within the walls of our own minds or classrooms.  While this is an important step in professional growth, it should by no means be the final step. We need to talk to others about our experiences.  It’s an important part of our growth and of our identities.  “We not only learn from others–we learn from ourselves by talking and interacting with others. When the process of reflection involves others, we enhance our ability to determine and to shape our own educational philosophies, instruction, and responsibilities to students’ growth” (Woodcock, 2004).  

Our understandings become more real and clearer as teachers speak about them to each other. As this process involves the close scrutiny of personal beliefs, an atmosphere of trust is essential for meaningful, collaborative reflection to happen. We need to stay openminded, responsible, and wholehearted in order to foster the trusting environment that encourages collaborative reflection. As we reflect by writing and speaking with others, we are led to question and revisit our teaching from different perspectives.

Like Max, we need not be alone.  We need not feel misunderstood.  Don’t allow yourself to feel “naughty” for feeling the way you do.  Your feelings are valid.  You deserve to be in a community of trusted, like-minded others.  Trust me, there is no perfect school.  I tried traveling around the country to look!  Like Max, I ended up right back at home where I started.  Instead, now I rely on my various support networks to listen and to provide insights.  Allow yourself to do the same.

To all of you readers out there– Where/who are your support networks?  How do you avoid isolation?  How can we and others help?

If you’d like to read more about collaboration and reflection, I published a brief article in 2004 entitled “How Does Collaborative Reflection Play a Role in a Teacher Researcher’s Beliefs About Herself and Her Teaching?: Discovering the Power of Relationships” that was published in The Journal of Natural Inquiry & Reflective Practice.

For my coaching blog at Simply Leap I wrote that I love cocktail parties and seeing art films with subtitles. I like going to the cafe for pain au chocolat, mostly so I can say the name. My parents can attest to me, as a child, always ordering something exotic sounding on a menu even if I had no idea what it was. Ok, I still do that today.

Like Nancy, I also do not understand people who like plain vanilla ice cream. Not even sprinkles on top?

The lesson for me in Fancy Nancy is to share your individuality with the world, and to be appreciated for it.

It is also about values. I think most of us think we know our values without stopping to consider what they are.

Case in point: fancy. Reading Fancy Nancy I was reminded how I have always thought of it as an interest, not on par with health and career, my “real” values.

Truth is, fancy influences my decisions and contributes to my overall happiness – indicators that it is a value.

So now I can more unabashedly cherish my fancy-ness, my joie de vivre if you will, and share that sheer delight with other people.

By understanding and owning our values, we get to more fully accept ourselves. And, as you teach your students, accepting yourself means others can witness and accept all that is you.

It’s a great gift that we can give to each other.

How do you introduce values in the classroom? What role do they play in your own life?

As a coach and avid photographer what I found in the pages was inspiration for my own creativity — and I hope for yours too.

As Christine experienced in her classroom of 4th graders, the book is a palate for the imagination and allows each of us to see that anything in our everyday lives can be a source for creative imagining. A snowy hillside and a pancake misfired from the pan to a stack of papers to grade or your car keys on the kitchen table. There is life in every object around us, all it takes is an extra moment to consider what it is saying/showing us.

When I hired my first coach in 2003, I did so to be more creative without leaving my day job. It took me in a lot of directions. The most profound one was to realize how I was already creative. You are too.

Have doubts? Well, for one, you are already creative in the classroom. Creating lessons to challenge the minds of your students, and the ability to rework them on the fly. Your classroom is not the only place you are creative though.

Where else? Maybe you are an artist. I can say for sure that you see the world in a unique way from everyone else you know. Whether it’s imagining the shapes of clouds while daydreaming out your window, or how you organize a grocery list based on the aisles of your local store, you come to the world in your own way.

To me, the beauty of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, is that it reminds us to take that time and look around. What are the things in your life that you take for granted? Look around you right now…go on. What everyday objects catch your eye? Look closer. What would they say, do, if they were suddenly animated in this moment? What other forms might they take before your eyes?

Imagination is not limited to the playground. It is in all of us. A muscle that we always have access to, even if it’s a little rusty. By tapping into it daily, just by stopping to look around, you have the opportunity for downtime, for inspiration and for connecting to the child inside. What could be more worthwhile than that?

In some way, I feel like I have been a teacher my whole life. Although I have been an elementary and middle school teacher, as well as a college professor for several years, my teaching days began as a child. I would systematically line up my stuffed animals and carefully hold my prized children’s books for all of those plastic eyes to see, and read each word, with emotion.

Over the last few years, in my days as a college professor, I’ve found that the best times of our classes have been those moments I merely read a picture book aloud. All of the college students melt into their seats as the worlds come alive for them, and they can finally relax after a stressful day. Afterward, we frequently discuss the themes of the books, and how they can be applied to life and learning. I would hazard a guess that it was probably one the best parts of everybody’s day, to just lose ourselves in that book and the discussion of it.

Of course, my college students regularly have questions about the specifics of teaching, but more often than not, what I find to be the most challenging aspect of their days is simply their stress levels, and the demands that are placed on teachers everyday, by administrators, parents, students, and just personal concerns.

It is at these moments I genuinely wonder, why can’t we just sit back, relax, and look at children’s books for our clues? The literature sheds such light on our lives, which then impacts our teaching and everything else we do.

My dear friend Lauree and I have been close since the childhood days of playing school. For nearly thirty years, we have tackled each milestone together, trying never to be afraid of what life deals us. Lauree and I have had long talks about the straightforward beauty in children’s literature, and the complex lessons the simple books teach us. Their lessons are far more complex than anything we learned in complicated college classes.

Over time, Lauree and I have developed a vision for the type of work we would like to do with other woman, as we’re all tackling life’s twists and turns. Let’s have a website, a blog, occasional events, and most importantly, on-going, honest dialogue about what matters in our lives. We’ll frame it all with children’s literature, one simple yet gorgeous book at a time. I will share my favorite teaching stories, lessons and anecdotes from over the years, Lauree will share reflections on how to manage the demands in our lives, and we’ll frame the whole endeavor with various children’s books, both classics and the latest hot titles.

Join Lauree and me in this journey, and let’s play school together!

Since our friendship began at age 5, Christine Woodcock and I have shared a fascination of life’s twists and turns, especially as women. From the uniqueness of female friendships to navigating the decisions of career, marriage and motherhood.

Reflective Renewal gives us a chance to bring our curiosity and appreciation of women – and teachers – to others, in the process combining our distinct gifts as an educator and a life coach. We come at literature and life from different yet complementary perspectives. As we embrace what that means, we hope so will you.

For me, children’s literature, childhood games and the rules of the classroom are tools that I use as a certified life coach to help my clients understand their values and motivation. They are also fun – something adults need in their lives – and an excellent resource for brainstorming and creating a vision for what you want your life to look like.

Though I am not an educator by profession, I come to Reflective Renewal with a deep appreciation for teachers, and how much your work shapes who we are as people. I hope that you find our blog insightful both for your lesson planning and your personal development.

Please feel free to comment, question and challenge the ideas presented here. We look forward to it!