Reliably Enforced Consequences

I did my blog post today already, but I just felt I needed to write this down somewhere.  I should probably be adding it to my calendar as a monthly reminder that never ends.  In Chapter 9 of Cooperative Discipline, there is a section on setting consequences.  I thought it went hand in hand with the Linsin reading, Holding Students Accountable.  I could see myself being swayed by all 5 tactics that were mentioned in the Reliably Enforced Consequences section.  I want my students to be happy.  I want them to be learning.  I want them to feel safe and capable.  I will have to remind myself that part of that is not letting myself be manipulated into forgoing the stated consequences for their behavior.  I just know that I have fallen for the the "I'm Sorry" and "Invoking Guilty" tactics before.  I have to remember that part of what the students need to learn is responsibility for their own actions.  If I fail to follow through, I am doing a disservice to them.

SCRATCH!

a Topsy Turvy Scratch project

For what it's worth, I tried to stay true to the assignment and only spent the 20-30 minutes that Carrie recommended.  I could see getting carried away with this and playing on it for hours.  I will be introducing my children to Scratch this evening.  They will have ample opportunity to make their own programs during this upcoming conference week.

Seeing success . . . in real life

We have been reading about and discussing how detrimental a deficit approach is in teaching.  I've been inspired by all of the readings and have felt as though I have really been invested in seeing my student's strengths.  I was really struck by Linsin's words "Whenever you let negative thoughts about students take root in your mind, you'll subconsciously act differently toward them, and they'll know it."  I  took those words to heart and have made it (one of my many) mission(s) to see behavior as a form of communication, to look deeper and find out what is really going on with my students.  But, it seems that the idea of seeing their strengths has not completely sunk in yet.

This past week when were performing the math assessment with our first graders, I was carefully documenting what I was seeing.  I was trying to capture all of the good math thinking and strategies that my math buddy was using.  I took lots of notes and looked forward to reviewing the video of the interaction to be sure that I gave my buddy full credit for all of his great ideas.  When we returned to the classroom, Allison reminded us how important it was for us to document what the student could do, not what the student couldn't do.  At that moment, I realized that when we got to a portion of the assessment where my buddy did not come up with the "right" answer, I had seen what he couldn't do.  I looked again at his work, and ran through our conversations in my head and realized that I had missed some really important successes in my notes.  Had I not been reminded to look at what my buddy could do, I simply would have written "does not understand multiplication."  He may not have shown me three groups of 5 and answered "15."  But, he did show me another example of repeated addition.  He used 3 blocks to show me the tables.  He pulled over 5 more blocks to show me the children and said that there were 8 block altogether.  He then said "If you turn the tables into children, there would be 8 children.  If 4 more joined, there would be 12."  I know that as soon as he began the problem with the 5 crackers, I thought "he doesn't understand how to do division."  I did not stop paying attention.  I watched and listened as he grouped the unifix cubes, but I know that as it was happening, I was not grasping the importance of what he WAS DOING.  I was only seeing what he wasn't doing.  He had displayed important concepts that I think I would have completely missed if Allison hadn't said those words so soon after the experience.

What a powerful tool to be able to see those building blocks and be equipped with good questions.  If you acknowledge all the great things the students are doing and ask them about their thinking, I'll bet they will lead themselves right to the next step.

Your thoughts are showing

If the readings hadn't been assigned weeks in advance, I would have thought that Dr. Eisele gave us "See The Best in Your Students" this week due to some of the conversations that we were just having in class.  We are all fresh and new and inspired by all of the learning we are doing in the UW classrooms and in our placements.  We want the best for every single student.  We are appalled and hurt when we hear negative comments about any student.  We reassure each other and we remind one another that "every behavior is an attempt to communicate."  We don't assume that a child is acting out just for the sake of acting out.  We truly do want to see the best in our students.

We struggle when we hear a student described as low.  We've been taught that there are multiple intelligences.  If a student struggles in one area, that doesn't mean they will struggle in all of them.  We must recognize their strengths and build on them.  It will be much easier to build on these strengths if we walk into our classrooms energized and happy to see every single one of the students there.  This chapter reminded me that I used to ask my colleagues to smile before they answered the phone.  It sounds a bit corny, but it works.  The customer can hear that smile (or frown) in your voice.  Our students are right there in front of us, there is no hiding our feelings from them.  And, somehow when they are young, the seem to have a heightened sense of our feelings (ESF?)

If we can't always completely escape negativity, we can take a deep breath, smile, and be the positive impact in our students lives.

What are the long-term costs of learning English?

When we began this program in Spring Quarter, I worked with a group exploring the best ways to help English Language Learners.  Based on what we learned, I felt very strongly that it was much better to use a bi-lingual approach.  I assumed that the earlier the student started, the better.  It would be so much easier to learn English when they were still forming their language skills.  I did not realize the variety or intensity of the impacts that learning English too soon would have on a young student.  

Near the beginning of the Fillmore article I wrote the following in the margin “can’t we retain the funding and the early education programs but make them bi-lingual?”  I was referring to the head start programs that had been made available to language-minority children.  My comment is now amended with a highlighted arrow and a note that says “see p. 333.”  That is the beginning of where I began to read about the effects of learning English too soon.  I had not considered that children would feel that speaking English had so much social currency that they would simply give up their home language.  I did place a tremendous amount of importance on maintaining the home language as a part of their identity.  I did not think about how important it would be for maintaining relationships in their family.  I was heartbroken by the thought of a 2^nd grader coming home and no longer being able to have a meaningful conversation with their parents.  I spend so much time trying to choose my words carefully when I speak to my own children about social and personal issues.  I cannot imagine how devastating it would be to not have the language skills to discuss my own values, thoughts, and ideas with them.

Often in this program, my eyes are opened to the unintentional and damaging effects of a program developed to be helpful by a well-meaning, but uninformed group.  Are we simply too ego-centric?  How do we educate ourselves to understand the far-reaching effects of the decisions that we make?  How do we climb outside of our own “knapsack?”

Confirmation

I returned to my primary placement on Friday.  It was a ridiculously busy day, but I was already missing my 2nd graders and I really do not want to lose touch with them for two full months.  I arrived when the children were in the library so that I could have a few minutes to catch up with my Cooperating Teacher.  He updated me with some of the highlights of the week, two visits from the Assistant Superintendent, continuing struggles with overloaded classrooms, and concerning new behaviors displayed by a couple of the students.  Just a few more items to be added to the teetering stack of issues to balance when trying to help shape the futures of these wonderful young people.

A few minutes later we headed over to the library to retrieve the children.  They had not been told that I would be coming to visit today.  I was going to say "You can't imagine how my heart felt when I saw their faces" but considering the audience, you probably know exactly how I was feeling.  I could see on their faces that they were truly excited to have me back at school, nearly as excited as I was to see them.  I wished that I could take the time to sit down with each and every one of them and catch up on what had happened in their lives in the past week.  Small things stood out, several of them had new haircuts, one was celebrating her birthday.  What luck that I would come back on the only day of October when we had a student birthday.

We distributed laptops for the first time this school year.  It was a wonderful learning experience for all of us.  The best lesson for me was to step back and watch.  The kiddos can and should be able to troubleshoot most of the problems on their own.  I was impressed!  It seemed that about 5 minutes had elapsed since I arrived, and then it was time to escort them to lunch.  I did not want to leave.  This is it, this is definitely the place for me.