Tag: positive classroom

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An Investment in Book Love: Reframing My Perspective #TeacherMom

Ahhh, book love. There’s nothing quite like watching my kids wade through stacks and stacks of books.

With 3 tiny humans in the house, I’ve long-since determined that all the frayed corners, torn pages, and disheveled shelves are simply signs of love and affection. Plus, I figured that, given that any attempts at order look a LOT like the meme below, what was the point?

I also firmly believe that to teach responsibility, we can’t be constantly cleaning up after/solving problems for our kids — if they want to be able to find all their books and keep them in good shape, they need to learn to take care of them, right?

But recently, all of this was set aside with a bout of spring cleaning which extended to sprucing up the books.

We sorted them by size…

…authors…

…and collections.

 

I knew it likely wouldn’t last, but it still felt nice to have them organized.

To my delight, I discovered an unexpected outcome after nap time/school. Though I didn’t add a single new book during this clean-up process, it was as if my kids were seeing them all anew. They spent the rest of the day exclaiming over books they thought were lost and enjoying entire collections or author groups.

Though I know details like right-side-up and spine out will still fall mostly to me, this experience has shown me that I can view my time spent here with a fresh perspective.

Until the day comes that my kids can fully exercise fine motor and organizational skills, shaping their reading environment is an investment on my part.

Meanwhile, I can still teach them responsible book care within their abilities — it does not need to be an all-or-nothing kind of approach. But if I get a new idea to present their books in a way that will spark renewed interest and book love, nothing should get in the way of that.

After all, if “doing for them what they cannot do for themselves” doesn’t extend to fostering deeper love of reading, what does?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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What About When They Don’t Choose What’s Best For Them? #DCSDBlogs Challenge

This is in response to the #DCSDblogs challenge prompt on sharing mistakes. (Note: While I’m not associated with the Davenport School District, I’m grateful for the warm invitation to participate in their blogging challenge, which is a wonderful initiative to encourage teacher blogging)!

We talk and share and write about giving students a voice and choice. To encourage them to own their learning process and make thoughtful, personal decisions along the way.

But after all the choices we give them, what happens when they don’t choose what’s best for them?

Like when you allow them to choose the classroom layout — and they choose rows, the most collaboration-unfriendly arrangement?

Or when you ask them for input on classroom management and rules — and they clamor to institute a stickers/candy/otherwise extrinsic-reward system?

Or when you turn time over to them to decide what kind of literacy word work task they will pursue — and they choose the option you know is least valuable to them right now?

In the past, when I encountered each of these, my response was to withdraw, clamp down control, or persuade.

But as I’ve learned from amazing teachers in my PLN (like Taryn BondClegg’s example when she encountered the exact experience of kids picking rows!), these, too, are precious learning opportunities. If we could just set aside our fears of falling behind or causing inconvenience, we might find a veritable goldmine of growth mindset/#FailForward/metacognition learning moments.

In the face of possible failure, if our response is to always snatch away the reins, our students will never have to opportunity to investigate and discover for themselves why and how these processes work. That means stepping aside and honoring their choices, no matter how painful it might be. 

Of course, sometimes their failures have more to do with our own failure — for instance, in the literacy example, we might not have done enough scaffolding to teach stamina, metacognition, or other tools to empower students to take informed action (see, “That Time I Failed at Inquiry“). In these instances, we can and should be constantly making adjustments in our approach as the teacher. But even when we’ve made mistakes, we should seize the opportunities to model our learning process!

In this way, the only real failure is when we try to mask it, hide it, or preempt it with control. Instead, let’s bring it into the light. Bring it into the learning.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Provocation into the Power of Words

I recently came across the following image from one of my favorite comics, The Awkward Yeti, by Nick Seluk:

Language Emoji
via The Awkward Yeti, by Nick Seluk

The modes of communication have undergone such dramatic, exponential change in the past couple of decades that it makes sense that communication itself is also undergoing change. But even as language gets sometimes stripped away to basic emojis, it’s significant to examine the enduring principles of powerful word choice.

Resource #1: “The Power of Words”

Resource #2: “A Child Of Books” by Oliver Jeffers

via Amazon
via Amazon
via Amazon

Resource #3: Infographic by Grammar Check

5 Weak Words to Avoid & What to Use Instead (Infographic)
Source: www.grammarcheck.net

Provocation Questions:

  • What makes words powerful?
  • How does developing better word choice impact our lives? How does it impact our societies?
  • How is vocabulary use changing in the 21st century?
  • What is the relationship with words and language? How are they alike and how are they different?
  • How does powerful word choice impact message people share with their audiences?
  • How is powerful word choice relevant even as communication evolves?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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How “Use Your Resources” Shaped My Classroom

“How do you spell _________?”

“What resources could you use to decide?”

“My pencil broke.”

“Could you use your resources to be a problem-solver?”

“I don’t get what we’re supposed to do at this point in our writing.”

“I bet you could use your resources to figure that one out.”

This was one of my go-to phrases with my students. But it wasn’t one of those silver bullet, use-this-and-the-kids-will-do-more-themselves kind of phrase. It took quite a bit of behind-the-scenes effort.

For one thing, there was a lot of ongoing dialogue behind it. 

We would discuss what it meant to be a problem-solver. I would always tell my students, “You may solve your problems in any way that doesn’t cause problems for you or anyone else.” For some, it took months before I could fully convince them that I meant it — for instance, that they could, in fact, use the bathroom without asking as long as they weren’t causing problems.

I would also continually spotlight when students would solve their problems in particularly creative ways, and would praise students for using resources effectively.

For another, I worked to set up a resource-rich environment that students felt comfortable using freely.

Whenever I gave any verbal instructions, I also wrote them on the board so they had that reference. Whenever we worked to uncover new writing or math tools, we wrote our strategies on anchor charts and then posted them as resources to check on. Whenever I brought in new supplies, I told my students about them and asked where would be the most effective storage place.

And perhaps most importantly, I worked to listen to student voice.  

They were always full of remarkable ideas for using and creating resources I hadn’t thought of.  The easy part of listening to student voice was keeping a suggestion box that we would review during weekly class meetings. The hard part was letting go to truly honor that voice by allowing sometimes imperfect or messy ideas to move forward.

After all, if “use your resources” meant they were only permitted to use my resources, or to solve problems within my set of solutions, I wasn’t actually cultivating an environment of student ownership. Real autonomy comes when those in charge don’t pretend they have all the answers.

I was certainly an imperfect executor of this ideal, but I’m enjoying the way I can use my current resources to learn more from my PLN to return to the classroom with a greater commitment to student voice, choice, and ownership.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Provocation Into Visual Mathematics

Many of us have spent just as much time in math courses as we have spent wondering the point of those math courses.

However, today, what makes mathematics most fascinating — that is, visual representations — are more widely shared and distributed largely thanks to social media. And perhaps this is how math teachers everywhere will at last be able to help their students understand “the point.”

Resource #1: Fibonacci’s Spiral

Resource #2: Charts that visually debunk falsehoods.

Resource #3: Power of Infographics

Provocation Questions: 

  • How can visual mathematics help societies?
  • How can visual mathematics help individuals?
  • What are patterns in visual mathematics that are relevant to your life?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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3 Reasons 1st Grade Isn’t Too Early to Teach Digital Citizenship #TeacherMom

For a kid whose internet use is still limited almost exclusively to Netflix, I’ve been surprised just how enthralled my first grader has been by White Ribbon Internet Safety Week. I’m sure that this has more than a little to do with all the prizes her school is raffling off for participation, but still.

She came home eager to chat about all the Internet safety “power boosts.” What surprised me even more than her enthusiasm was her ability to make important connections, even without the context of full internet use.

So today’s #TeacherMom post is a follow-up on my post entitled, “3 Reasons High School’s Too Late to Teach Digital Citizenship.”

#1: It helps them build intuition and confidence.

In the course of our conversation, my daughter and I watched a Youtube video about cyberbullying that featured some boys taking a picture of a classmate, adding unkind captions, and then circulating it through the school. When we finished, my daughter told me about how an older student asked to take a selfie with her at Halloween, and she wondered if that had been cyberbullying.

In that moment, the protective mama-bear side of me just wanted to blurt, “Never let anyone take your picture without permission [because cyberbullying]!” But instead, we discussed that moment in the video when the boys sneakily snapped that girl’s photo and walked away laughing. I asked her how that moment felt, and how it compared to how she felt when the student asked to take a picture with her in their Halloween costumes.

She concluded that the older student had not intended any harm in her situation, and was able to begin to learn about identifying and trusting her own gut feelings. And since I know I won’t be there in most of her future moments of uncertainty, I’m grateful that she is learning such discernment now.

(I also loved that she made a great connection here with a phrase from her teacher: “Hurtful or helpful?”)

#2: It helps them learn to be true to themselves.

Given that my daughter doesn’t yet have much of an online presence, it was a bit confusing for her when we discussed the “power boosts” that involved friends doing or saying silly things online. But we were able to start the discussion about how some people think that their internet lives are different than their “real” lives, and so they do and say things online that they would never say in-person. I loved that we are already building the foundation that we should “ALWAYS be the same in person as you are online” (LivBits, an inspiring young digital citizen I recently wrote about). As a result, she doesn’t even have time yet to develop the notion that her online self will differ from her in-person self.

#3: It gives the opportunity to model our own digital lives. 

Because the White Ribbon week focuses on safety for young kids, one of the power boosts says, “I will use tech to connect with my REAL-LIFE friends. People online are not always who they say they are.” In this context, we discussed how there are people who try to “make friends” online and get kids to meet with them to cause harm. However, I also got to tell my daughter about how now, as an adult, I get to connect with and learn from teachers all over the world that I haven’t met. But we also returned again to safety measures that I take now as well.

When my daughter wants to play outside with friends in our neighborhood, we talk both about the safety and the possibilities. I am grateful for the opportunity to lay the same foundation for her digital life.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into Collaboration

Whether you are beginning the PYP Exhibition or otherwise would like to recharge your students’ teamwork skills, this week’s provocation centers on collaboration.

One word of caution however: spend more time “coaching from the side” than you do lecturing from the start. Chances are, they’ve heard it all before, and they need hands-on, timely feedback more than anything! (I’ve definitely gotten this all backward in the past, giving far too much time and energy to the initial instruction and then expecting them to put it into practice effectively).

Resource #1: “They All Saw A Cat” by Brendan Wenzel

via Amazon
via Amazon
via Amazon
via Amazon

Both the advantage and disadvantage of collaboration lies in the fact that we all have different perspectives. Enter “They All Saw A Cat” to get kids thinking about what this means.

Resource #2: 21 Balançoires (21 Swings) by Daily tous les jours

Every time I watch this, I keep forgetting that the background music was not, in fact, a professional soundtrack, but was created by these people simply cooperating with one another on the swings. Sure to evoke serious thought from your students!

Provocation Questions:

  • Why does perspective matter when it comes to collaboration?
  • What makes collaboration work?
  • How has the need for collaboration changed over history?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto