I worry that some students might get diminished by any negative observations. There is that theory about building high self-esteem, after all, and I certainly don’t remember my teachers caring about my self-esteem (and I didn’t like it). However, I’ve found (and read) that this approach is ultimately ineffective. Better is having very high expectations of each student. Sure, it is essential to balance positive comments with discussions of areas needing improvement but even this doesn’t quite work for me. What I have settled on for the moment is to care about the student’s work and reflect to them the strengths they’ve displayed and the areas for further work. I’ve tried hard to build a culture of kaizen (constant improvement) and one that accepts mistakes. “Cherish mistakes,” I’ve taught them, “being wrong is on the road to being right.” What I hope and expect will happen is that they will quickly learn they are working in a safe environment where all feedback is positive whether it highlights areas of strength or weakness.
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Mistakes
September 18, 2011School Staff
September 18, 2011DQ2– What is the importance of building relationships with all school personnel (i.e. custodians, school secretary, librarian, support staff, etc.)?
A school is a VERY cramped environment. Like a ship, everybody works in tight quarters and is forced together in cooperation regularly. While teachers spend their days in relative isolation, they are nonetheless connected to the other site personnel. To function optimally, a teacher needs all the other staff on her side. Each member of the site team holds keys to smooth success, from lending a screwdriver to working out a snafu with books to navigating an arcane district form. They also have the power to make things easy or hard. They are human and consciously or unconsciously respond to how they perceive they are treated. On a less practical more emotional note, working in a friendly environment beats the alternative by a mile. The best way to work towards a friendly environment is to be preemptively friendly. Finally and most importantly, I believe that students learn from our behavior and treating other adults with respect and friendship models not only how they might treat their peers but also how they should behave when they become adults.
Be Nice. Work Hard.
February 24, 2011
I did my classroom observation last week in the room of a legendary teacher. The mature behavior of his 5th grade students is famous. Classroom management is an area of particular interest for me so I was excited to see what his class looked like for an entire day. It was extraordinary. At 7:10 am, during pre-school music practice, I was immediately offered a bottle of water by one student, then a minute later, by another. The students were quiet and respectful throughout the day – without exception. To be sure, when they played baseball first period, they were normal kids – except that they were uniformly supportive of their teammates and their opponents. It was extraordinary how much time was saved and how much less tiring the day was (especially because the day was 7 am to 4 pm…).
The reason I bring this up here is that taking risks and making mistakes is such a critical part of learning. Creating an atmosphere where that can safely take place is perhaps the hardest thing for a teacher to do. Even extraordinary teachers often don’t intrude on (or know about) the subtle interactions between students. I am coming to believe that the classroom atmosphere has to be something that follows my students 24 hours a day. While this sounds over the top, a classroom can’t be safe if the students are mocked for their in class mistakes away from my sight. Of course, such an intention can’t be fulfilled through coercion. I have no reach beyond the classroom. However, it can be achieved (as demonstrated above) with the proper teaching as the school year begins and reinforcement as it proceeds.
The classroom I observed has a motto, “Work hard, be nice.” Nice is a core value reinforced everyday. Students who misbehave while other students are talking are asked, “You’re acting as if Jorge doesn’t matter. Does Jorge matter?” Harsh, but very true and very effective. As for discipline, the teacher has a simple rule: the class activities have to be interesting enough such that not being allowed to participate is punishment enough. The teacher holds himself and all his students to an extremely high behavioral (and academic) expectation. It works beautifully.
In his class, there is no issue pursuing questioning with struggling students. There is no issue when students make mistakes. In fact, he said at one point, “Thank you for getting it (a math problem) wrong and allowing us to learn with you.”
I think the ultimate testament of how effective his strategy is came in reviewing the answers to the same math quiz. When the teacher asked if anybody had gotten a particular problem wrong, one of the students raised her hand and said that she’d gotten the problem right but didn’t really understand it. Now that’s something special and something to aspire to.
Intrapersonal Intelligence
January 21, 2011Which themes and skills reflected in the national and state standards do you consider to be the most vital to teach? Explain why. In which discipline areas does this occur?
Given the list of Ten Themes of Social Studies (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], n.d.), I would pick “Individual Development and Identity” as my highest priority.
My goal as a teacher is to both create relevance in the material to enhance learning and to concentrate my time with my students on material that will be of use in their lives. While everything on the NCSS list is important, nothing will be as valuable as personal identity. It is impossible to have stable, resilient self-efficacy in the absence of a clear sense of self. Likewise, it is terribly hard to interact with other humans in community absent comfort with one’s own identity. Finally, knowing what we do not know is central to both self-knowledge and effective learning. By giving my students the tools to understand themselves, I am giving them the ability to withstand more easily many of the traumas of youth. For example, it is not enough to know that Howard Gardner identified multiple intelligences. The power of that construct is in understanding that we are all differently gifted and appropriately so. Knowing our own capacities and proclivities with regard to these intelligences is a wonderful gift that will buffer adolescent angst and clear the way for focus and optimal proficiency in life.
In addition, “Individual Development and Identity” is a wonderful place to begin learning the other nine Themes. This theme’s description directly references two other themes (“Culture” and “Individuals, Groups, and Institutions”). It also must cover “People, Places, and Environments” and “Time, Continuity, and Change” by way of creating perspective and context for self. That is half the list right there. If I only cover that, I feel like I have given my students an enormous advantage as they move forward with their lives. If one of the main themes of my teaching is personal power, power to build a mindful, joyful, satisfying life, a strong sense of self and a strong sense of one’s relationship to time, space, people, and change is crucial and nearly sufficient to that goal.
References
National Council for the Social Studies. (n.d.). National curriculum standards for social studies: Chapter 2—the themes of social studies. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands
I need some quick help for my Master’s program…
July 8, 2010If you can spare a minute or two, please take my survey on movement in the classroom. This is an assignment of mine for my Master’s program. It’s only 10 questions long!!!
So far, the results are fascinating. I’d love to have more!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9RBGL9L
Thanks in Advance!
Craig
Unacceptable Losses
March 27, 2010Kauchak & Eggen (2005) say, ”many new teachers end up leaving the profession. About 15 percent leave teaching after their first year, another 15 percent after their second year, and still another 10 percent leave after their third year (Croasmun, Hampton, & Herrmann, 1999)” (p. 71). That’s an amazingly bad statistic. Forty percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first three years of teaching!
Something’s really wrong somewhere. Either the programs don’t weed folks out effectively. Or the prospective teachers don’t get the right academic training to succeed. Or there are issues with student teaching practices and/or the introduction of new teachers into teaching independently. Or there are issues of support for new teachers who are trying to find their feet. Or there aren’t sufficient remedies for teachers who’ve become dissatisfied early in their careers (“Sorry, goodbye” not being an ideal way of preserving that human capital). There are a lot of crazy statistics in education (like the amazingly low proportion of students who test proficient or better on anything). But this one is, for me, the most ridiculous. There’s either something broken in the system that forces these teachers out or something broken in the system that supplies the teachers in the first place.
It’s amazing that this doesn’t get more discussion around legislative initiatives. Education is such a central issue of our society and this is just flushing away years of preparation of eager volunteers. It is also amazing that the unions don’t do a better job of taking care of “their own.” Unfortunately, I think unions are so wedded to the seniority system that these new teachers don’t get on their radar. And of course, it’s amazing that the existing teachers don’t do a better job of helping the newcomers to their field. This is one of the easier questions to understand though. The older teachers are probably busy surviving themselves or dedicating their time to their students or counting the hours until they can retire. However, the lack of camaraderie among teachers is interesting to me. I see more polite competition than true cooperation.
Reference
Attention to Detail
March 26, 2010Students all learn differently. Of course, we need to present the lessons to them in enough different ways to cover the major different styles.
However, I have a second set of intentions, much harder. I hope, being an elementary teacher with the same students for a year, to learn how each student learns. I hope to structure my lessons, not just to cover the major learning styles but to cover how Johnny learns and Jill learns and what Sally sits up and notices. I hope to learn where each child’s interests lie and to incorporate those interests into the examples and stories and artwork so that the learning and the interests are joined. Finally, I hope to learn where each child’s strengths, passions, and power lie and to incorporate those actions, skills, and talents into the learning so that being who they were born to be and their lessons become one.
I believe with enough focus and attention to detail, I will be able to build my lesson plans to truly fit each individual child sitting in my classroom.
Respect, Again
March 25, 2010What are some easy or simple things that you can do as the leader or boss that can set the tone for a respectful and positive learning environment?
Respect will be the foundational concept of my classroom.
I believe that all too often the love and importance of learning is lost in the rush for both students and teacher to achieve their narrow survival-based goals. Respect for the learning, respect for the process, and respect for the subject matter will keep the focus on the importance and joy of learning.
I believe a teacher’s respect for students is all too often at least occasionally lost to the frustration of unmet behavioral and/or learning expectations. However, it is the adult’s job to be the adult. The students are children and entitled to their native behaviors. Managing and evolving those native behaviors is one of the teacher’s responsibilities. The uneven development of improved behavioral patterns must not be allowed to break affinity with the students or lead to disrespectful behavior by the teacher.
Students in my classroom will behave with respect towards each other. There is no room in my heart for hurtful, isolating behaviors in the classroom or elsewhere. Disagreements will be resolved through communications. Each child’s personality will be cherished as a unique expression of humanity. There will be no requirement of friendship, but there will be an inviolable requirement of respect.
In all these regards, the teacher is the example for the students and the protector of the behavioral code. To have any reasonable hope of a respectful classroom society, the teacher needs to consistently model respectful behavior. This includes behavior towards the material, towards the craft and discipline of teaching, towards the students, and towards peers, parents, and all others. I believe children recognize and prefer the decency and safety of a respectful environment. For respect to become the operating principle, they simply need come to trust that all will be held to that standard. A teacher who models respect and strictly protects that fragile code of behavior will earn that trust.
Broadening Understanding
March 25, 2010How does effective questioning support student learning?
Lang & Evans (2006) say, “good questioning is not something that works in isolation” (p. 249). They cite Weiss and Pasley (2004) saying that “teacher questions are crucial in helping students make connections and learn concepts, and that effective questions monitor students’ understanding of new ideas and encourage them to think more deeply” (Lang & Evans, 2006, p. 249).
Questions test for comprehension. In the teacher-centered world of Direct Instruction, it is critical to assess comprehension in anticipation of re-teaching areas of uncertainty. To paraphrase Frank Luntz (2007), it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.
Questions can help students integrate the concepts presented, expand upon them, and make connections to other concepts even in other disciplines.
The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. How long had there been European settlers in what was to become the United States? What are the social, economic, and familial implications of a revolution after such a long period as a colony and as an extension of the mother country? How does that length of time compare to the amount of time the USA has existed as a country subsequent to that? What else was happening around the world at that time? What was happening in France and how did the French colonies and French king compare to this English one? What was happening in Russia, China, and India? What were the military, diplomatic, and economic implications of the American Revolution for England? What was the domestic political situation in England and how did this event effect that situation?
Suddenly, a narrow, American-centered story of the country’s founding becomes part of a tapestry of interconnected events around the world. Other interesting leads to follow might be the lifestyles and technology of the American Revolution. How was the news passed, what changes in the American economy were caused by the war, what changes in military technology were spawned in the conflict, and on and on. What was happening in the world of fine art at this time and what impact might the Revolution have had on fine arts? Each subject is an opportunity to bring life to other areas of learning; mathematics, science, literature, English language arts, history, fine art, etc.
Direct instruction is the food of education. Questioning, whether teacher led or in student discussions, is the digestion process whereby the nutrition is made available for use.
References
