# 7 Falling in Love with Close Reading’s Chris Lehman

Chris Lehman

Educational Consultant, Author, Blogger -- Bronx, NY

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Chris has been in education for 12 years. He started as a middle school teacher in the Bronx, then moved to a high school in Brooklyn. He has also been a literacy coach, and he's worked with the Reading and Writing project with Columbia University, where he served as a senior staff developer. Now, he's working on the K-12 level effecting literacy and he has moved into the digital world with his blog.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– His family -- his parents and grand parents, who inspired his love of learning. A pivotal person was and made him believe in himself was his 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Ekstrand, who took him from shy Chris and made him believe in himself. Caroline Wagner, at NYU, also believed in him and noticed that the way he listened to kids is special.

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– In his second year there was one student who was the quintessential classroom management problem. One day this student threw someone's backpack out the window. No one knew what to do with this young man that was so disconnected from the school experience. His parents started to lose faith with the school because no one was getting through to him. Looking back, Chris learned that this student's parents didn't feel valued or believe that their voice was heard. The school really didn't listen to her concerns and collaborate with her about what to do with her son. Chris realizes now that he and the school should have asked more questions and listened more to her answers. 

Why teach English and the Language Arts?

– It primarily gives each student, when it is really working, the power to use his or her own voice. Chris comes from a place of social justice. He wants every child to feel empowered. He believes that when we learn to write well, we are allowing our students to impact other people. Reading allows us to escape, to learn new things, but it also allows us to learn to pay attention to characters and consequently pay attention to ourselves.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 – Everything! Chris loves children's minds as well as educators' minds. 

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- His short list includes The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller for reading. For writing, any of Carl Anderson's books, Assessing Writers.

The longer list would include  Penny Kittle's Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers and Smart Charts K-2: Optimizing an Instructional Staple to Create Independent Readers and Writers

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 – Go to other classrooms and other schools!!! It broadens your horizons and helps your to collaborate a lot more. You learn so much walking in someone else's hallways and sitting with students in someone else's classroom. 

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

–  Chris believes that you have to be on Twitter. The educator community is so huge and vast. You can join in the various education chats there. Nearly every day there is some sort of educational chats. One of his favorite resources is the Nerdy Book Club, which is a group of educators and young-adult book authors.   

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?