Show A Little Kindness

Show A Little Kindness

                Creating a warm, caring environment helps students grow both emotionally and intellectually. A conscious effort by the instructor is the only way to achieve this.  How do you do this?  First, develop empathy; second, model formal manners; and third, create predictable procedures, but temper them with mercy.

                Remember what it feels like to be a fourteen-year-old teenager who is certain that the girl sitting next to you and who has never said more than three words to you is the love of your life.  Remember what if feels to be a seventh grade boy who is so worried about getting to class on time that you don’t see the door opening into the hallway and crash directly into it breaking your nose.  Remember being so preoccupied with what others might think that you couldn’t possibly go into the restroom and use a toilet during class change because other people will know that you have bodily functions. Remember when you were an eleven year old boy and believed belching the alphabet was the funniest and the greatest accomplishment of your life. Remember when you were a thirteen year old girl and you raised your hand four times to answer questions.  When the teacher finally called on you, it was the one and only question that you didn’t know.  You knew that teacher did this on purpose just to humiliate you.  It is easy to laugh at the serious tribulation of the average middle school student, but to these students these concerns are serious and at times overwhelming. As educators, we not only teach our subject’s curriculum, but help build the emotional and social well-being of the child.  To do that, the teacher needs to remember what if feels like to be a middle school student and communicate that empathy to them. 

                Modeling proper manners is a good way for an educator to teach a student how to show respect.  To be respected, one must earn respect.  Manners involves more than what you say to a student, because body language communicates so much more than words. For example, I have known educators whose body language and vocal tones tell students that they are “the scum of the earth.”  The students read this and reflect the attitude back to the instructor.  On the other hand, I have known teachers who refer to students as "Mr. Smith” or “Miss Martinez,” thank students for each appropriate gesture and give students compliments as they enter the classroom.  The students feel like millionaire guests at a luxury hotel.  They love to be pampered and respected, just like we all do. They sub-consciously begin to mirror the behavior and become more civilized.  The civility continues when a student is being corrected, “Mr. Brown, I am sorry, but you know you can’t have that cell phone out in class.  If you could please put it away, I would greatly appreciate it.  Thank you for complying with the rules.” (All of this, of course, is said with a smile on his face.)

                Finally students comply with rules if there are clear procedures in place and they are consistently reinforced.  The Conscious Classroom Management by Rick Smith is a good source for new teachers to develop creative, fun procedures that are easily established. (If you are an administrator, either send your teachers to one of Rick Smith’s workshops or invite him for the entire faculty.  He is amazing and very entertaining.)  I personally love his “Exit Procedure.”  If you have taught middle school or are about to teach it, you know or will learn that the last five minutes of class is not productive.  The students stop working, put everything away, wander about the room, so they can be the first to dash out of the door knocking desks, small students and teachers asunder.  To avoid this, Rick Smith suggests that you have an “Exit Procedure” that is posted on the wall with a rubric of readiness.  Mine was:  first, butts in seats, second, feet on floor; third, facing front; fourth, hands on desk; and fifth, smiling.  (Smiling was added by a student, because he said it was his favorite class and it felt more like a game.  Since people are always happy when they play games, we should smile.) I hold up my fingers to indicate if they are ready to leave.  One finger means total mayhem and five fingers means ready to go.  The great thing about this procedure is as a teacher, you don’t have to say anything.  The students will begin regulating the less manageable students.  They know that no one can leave (regardless of when the bell rings) until they reach a five and everyone is in proper exit procedure. 

                Although it is important to be consistent, sometimes all teachers have to “show a little kindness” and bend the rules.  If you have a student who is struggling because of a difficult situation, you may need to stretch the rules a little.  For example, I once had a student whose parents were going through a custody battle and when he spent time with his father he was absent often and did not complete his assigned work; as a result, he failed my class.  When I learned about the situation,  the young man  and I sat and discussed this.  I began by showing empathy for his situation.  Then, I emphasized the importance of taking control of one’s life even when “bad things happen that are beyond our control.”  Finally I offered him a contractual agreement to rectify the situation.  He had to earn a minimum of a “C” and I would change his grade for the previous quarter to a “D-“; thus avoiding summer school.  He earned an “A” the next quarter.  It doesn’t matter the details of the agreement. The students learns how to pick himself  up and get back in the race, an important life skill. Often students are in a stressful situation and they need a little kindness to be successful.  

Combating the Classroom Terrorist

Combating the Classroom Terrorist

                For those of us in the teaching profession, we have all heard stories about that student in the faculty room for at least two years before he is assigned to our class.  These stories are so gruesome that we visit the counseling office to beg the head-counselor to send him to the old, veteran teacher who might chew him up and spit him out before breakfast.  Every assistant principal, not only knows him by name, but has kept a detailed account of each interaction because he is one of the frequent flyers that they each hope one day to begin expulsion procedures.  The school resource officer has not only heard of him, but knows him on a first name basis.   In fact, he has made him his “special project.”  He is classroom terrorist, the student that all teachers fear.   Some of these terrorist have created serious havoc.  I had one who held a knife to my throat, one who hit me over the head with a 1000-page literature textbook, and another who punched me.  I have seen others light a teacher on fire, bite a teacher and I have heard of one who raped and murdered another student who was heading to the rest room, but most of these terrorist are more like Bart Simpson and only want to disrupt the orderly process of education in one creative form of  tomfoolery or another. This is the student who put a dead mouse in my teacher's desk or took all of the drawers from that desk and put them back upside down, so when I opened my desk drawers, everything fell on the floor to the amusement of all of the other students.  This is the class comedian. 

                How should a teacher combat the classroom terrorist?  First, understand why he has chosen to become a classroom terrorist.  Students often choose to behave this way for three reasons: first, the child needs his parents’ attention; second, the child lacks self-confidence or academic skills and has decided if he can’t be the best of the best, he will become the worst of the worst; and third, the child is psychologically or emotionally disturbed.  As a teacher, you can’t do anything about the third cause except notify the school psychologist and hope he/she will be able to get the child the professional help he needs, focus on the first two and hope one of them is the reason for his disturbance.

                If the child is acting out to get his parents’ attention, the teacher can usually discover this by calling his parent to a meeting..  If the parents are not available by phone, email or in person that could be an indication.  The other type of parent will be more than happy to answer the teacher’s phone call and expect her to stay on the phone for thirty minutes to an hour long after contract time so they can berate the teacher for every problem in which the child has ever become involved, decrying that this teacher is the culprit who is responsible for everything and anything that child has ever done or been a party to. You can guess that this teacher will be waiting with baited-breath for the face-to-face meeting with this parent.  Be sure to invite an administrator to witness the bedlam so he/she can add more interesting facts to the file he/she is collecting.  Maybe you’ll get lucky and this will be the tidbit he/she needs to make that expulsion a reality.  Dreams do come true.  The good news is you don’t need to take his behavior or the parents’ rage personally.  Just note that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  If on the other hand, the parents act frustrated and confused, you know he isn’t acting that way to get their attention.

                If the student is acting out because he lacks good self-esteem or academic skills, these are both easily resolved.  First, move a desk close to the teacher’s desk, facing the teacher.  When your little terrorist begins to act out, simply move him to that desk and tell him he “needs positive-time with the teacher.” This will give you time to show him how to do the assignment while the other students believe he is being punished.   He does not want to lose face for lacking skills and he won't, because he still looks like The Billy the Kid, the image he desires.  It is a win-win situation.  Second, sometimes a silly technique works with these students.  Another teacher shared with me that when a particularly difficult student became restless, he would say, “Frozen Man.”  The student had to freeze in whatever position he was in for a given amount of time.  When the teacher allowed him to “thaw,” he was ready to join the class and the disruption was over.  Third, I have used rewards, I begin small: if the student behaves himself for one class period, he earns a piece of candy.  After a week, I extend it to an entire week to earn a larger prize, a candy bar.  If you are working in teams, you can have the principal call him down if he has behaves himself in all of his classes for a week to receive his candy bar.  Other teachers use cards: a green card means the student's behavior is appropriate, a red card means it is inappropriate.  Some students need to learn what is appropriate and what is not appropriate.  Fourth, social interaction with the teacher also serves as a reward.  Take the student out into the hall when the class is engaged in an independent activity and either praise him for appropriate behavior or correct him for inappropriate behavior.  After a week if he has behaved appropriately, write a positive note and mail it to his parents.  They will probably appreciate it, because this may be the first time they have every received praise about their child.  Fifth, often times these terrorist are suffering from emotional trauma at home like divorce, a death in the family or abuse.  Talking to the parent, a counselor or even the child himself can give you some insight.  When students feels they have an adult to talk to or someone who is willing to understand their situation, they behave better in school.

                What you don’t want to do with a classroom terrorist is become angry or fearful around him.  He is the master of manipulation who wants to run your classroom.  If he sees any signs of weakness, he will go for the jugular, because he is an Alpha Dog.   At all times remain calm, but assertive.  If you lose your temper, he will discover the buttons to keep you angry just for his amusement.  Don’t ever allow that.  Fighting with this type of student is like wrestling with a pig.  You both get dirty and the pig loves it.   To combat the classroom terrorist, you must maintain the master of your domain. 

Bestowing the Gift of Self-Confidence to Students

The Gift of Self-Confidence

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

            One of the most important gifts that a teacher can impart to a student is the gift of self-confidence.  To succeed at anything, a person must believe that success is possible.  Many students lack the belief that they could possibly be successful in school or anywhere else; as a result, these same people have difficulty succeeding in life.  Students who doubt their abilities often lack any motivation to try.  If a person does not try, they have no possibility of succeeding.  As a result, an educator must first impart the ability to believe in oneself before the student can begin to succeed. Educators must become Peter Pan to help students fly.

            When I was teaching in an Alternative Education, I was amazed at the students who had no desire to do well in school or even to attempt to do well in school.  After getting to know these students, I discovered that most of them had suffered so many humiliating failures at school that they believed that they were not capable of learning.  They found it was less painful to do nothing, than to attempt anything and fail.  To continually have the belief that they could not succeed reinforced was just too painful for them.  Some of them used outrageous behavior as a way of avoiding this failure. I remember one particular student, Juan, who would not stay in his seat, sang loudly and yelled obscenities across the room to avoid a writing assignment. To reach students like Juan, I had to break down their barriers, get to know them as individuals, persuade them that I was their advocate and I was going to show them how to be successful by celebrating even their smallest achievement.  Being successful can be  rewarding, but to convince these students of that, the teachers needs to break successful behavior into its smallest components and reward for the successful completion of each small step.  For example, I began by rewarding students for coming to class prepared.  Each student who had a pencil and paper was rewarded with a small piece of candy.  Next I created a chart on the board showing the relationship of how a student would feel if he brought this parents a report cards with all “A’s” on it compared to how he would feel if he brought his parents a report card with all “F’s” on it.  Helping a student understand that happiness is directly connected to their success in school is an important step to motivating them to want to succeed.

            Students who feel socially inept are often unhappy at school.  Girls, especially, suffer from social bullying that goes unnoticed by educators.  Our society puts so much emphasis on physical beauty and social position in school that students who do not fit the norm are often isolated.  Girls often exclude these girls from social situations and do not include them even in conversations.  Shunning can be cruel treatment that can cause scars that last a lifetime.  Some of this bullying takes the form of cruel comments in social media or scathing remarks made in a classroom or a hallway.  Students who suffer from these vicious assaults lose their self-esteem and as a result, do poorly academically or feel badly about continuing their education because it is too painful.  This kind of assault is also directed at students of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual community.  As an educator, protecting and supporting students’ self-esteem should be one of our goals. Helping students learn to accept and embrace people who are different from them should be another. For students to do well, all students must feel safe and appreciated. 

           

            When teachers are writing goals for their classrooms, academic goals are only one dimension of education.  Helping a student feel safe and good about his ability to succeed should be high on the list of objectives. Helping a student accept that others may differ from him, but should still included  in the community without ridicule or attack.   School should prepare students to succeed in life.  If a student has doubts or is not empowered with self-confidence, he cannot succeed.  Like Peter Pan, teachers must bestow the gift of self-confidence.

Is There Too Much Testing in the New Common Core?

Is There Too Much Testing in the New Common Core?

                The State of Utah has adopted the new Common Core and hired a company to write not only end of the year tests, but tests that teachers are expected to give their students throughout the year.  The middle schools in most of the state are developing weekly tests that students will take in each subject covering the learning goals established in the new Common Core.  The students who pass these weekly tests are given enhancement activities while those who do not pass are retaught the skill and retested.  Is all of this testing good for students?

     The purpose of testing is to determine if a student has mastered a skill, but not all objectives are easily tested.  In English Language Arts, students are expected to write two essays: an argumentative and an informational essay with both using correct M.L.A. documentation.  In order to achieve that goal, students need to develop the ability to analyze information, evaluate its relevance, select appropriate information and write it in the coherent, well-written essay that uses parenthetical footnotes and a Works Cited.  To do this students need to not only have skills in punctuation, grammar and usage (the old standbys), but be able to think critically, and compose a carefully thought-through response on command.  Developing these skills takes a variety of learning tactics: modeling good writing, discussions and analysis of nonfiction, materials, as well as grammar, punctuations and usage drills.  More importantly the student needs to write, reflect and rewrite.  If students are taking weekly tests on a single learning goal, the teacher will not have time needed to complete the more important learning activities. 

                As well as the two essays, the students must pass a test on reading skills, literary analysis, vocabulary development and various other language arts skills.   Some of these skills could be contained in weekly tests, but then schools are focusing on the least important skills and the students with the lowest potential for success.   Schools should meet the educational needs of all students, not just the lowest ten percent.  The new Common Core requires teachers to increase the difficulty (lexiles) of the reading materials that is taught.  That is a positive move.  The new Common Core requires students to read both fiction and non-fiction and is not dissimilar to curriculum that was used in schools thirty years ago.  With the advent of Adolescent Literature, many school allowed the reading materials to decline so that many books that had previously been taught in fifth grade were now being taught in the ninth grade.  This too is a positive note.  The new Common Core Curriculum not only focuses on fiction, but nonfiction.  Since students need to be able read non-fiction to be successful in the real world, this too is an advantage.  In order to motivate students to read these more difficult pieces of literature and non-fiction, teachers need time and an opportunity to introduce them in creative ways or students will quickly become disinterested and bored.  If teachers are expected to give these weekly tests, they will be forced to resort to short condensed of selected bits of literature and articles instead of full pieces of literature.  This means our students will become illiterate and lack any culture. 

                End of the year testing has its place, but the administrators and legislatures need to get out of the classroom and let the teachers do their magic.  Teachers are not robots and neither are students.  Weekly testing will reduce what our students know, help them become uncultured, illiterate, unprepared young people who will drop out of school from sheer boredom.  Don’t let that happen.