- Involve yourself in things you're interested in
- Build bridges to other classrooms. Learn from other teachers in your school and around the globe.
- Concern yourself with what happens around the school and in other classrooms. When you teach you're put on "teams." Don't take yourself off these teams.
- Pick the kid that drives you the most crazy and hang out with them!
- Stop and take a look at what you've built by the end of each day.
Today I had the immense privilege of hearing a really great man talk about how much he loves teaching. It was inspirational and kind. Here are a few key tidbits to share and remember:
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The word include is an interesting one. Coming from the latin in meaning, well, "in" and claudere meaning "shut" the verb suggests a matter of exclusivity. If something is shut, it assumes an enclosure of some sort. In our case, this enclosure comes in the form of a community. Your classroom is meant to provide comfort and understanding, joy and learning, friendship and kindness. This cultivation of community is what defines my philosophy on inclusion.
In a community, every student feels heard and understood. This means taking the time to get to know each individual students likes and dislikes; their learning styles and preferences; and their learning exceptionalities and gifts. It is important to use this invaluable information to structure your classroom environment. Some students will inevitably love a lively and active classroom. For these students (and being sure to encourage all to participate) have activities that allow students to move around and process orally. Try "wiggle seats" or balance balls, bounce bands and standing desks for activities where students are required to be confined to smaller spaces. In contrast, there will also be students who require a very quiet, calming classroom. For them it is important to have a space for them to go to experience this peace and quiet. A cozy reading corner or even several desks where students can work independently instead of near other students. To work in times of quiet, solitary work is also beneficial, whether this means a short meditation or quiet, music-listening period, or a silent reading time to give students the needed calm. In a community, every student must be given the tools to reach optimum learning and growth. This means including the necessary supports for all students including those with learning disabilities and exceptionalities; those with physical disabilities; those with difficult home lives; those with financial barriers; and, those with cultural, religious or linguistic barriers. While it is important to foster relationships with all of your students, and be personally sure that their needs are being met there is an understanding that many, though not all, of these barriers and challenges can be helped by technology. For students with learning disabilities there are programs to read test and books out loud. There are technologies that allow students to type or speak their thoughts instead of hand-write them. There are programs to increase the font size or read orally pieces of writing that are difficult for students with visual impairment. Most importantly, in a community, every student is accepted. Every person is different from the next. Every person is unique and wonderful. Developing a classroom spirit that celebrates these differences and expresses the joy and understanding that go along with diversity will make for the most inclusive classroom possible! In case I have not yet made this clear, this course is rocking my summer. And I'll be honest, most days I'm a little hesitant to log into the course because, let's face it, its summer time and doing "work" isn't always nearly the top of my priority list. This being said, I am consistently amazed at how powerful and incredibly interesting this course is and how excited I get about the possibilities it brings.
This weeks content focused on Macro-structures instead of Micro-moments. The thought behind Macro-structures is that character strengths should be practiced regularly and intentionally, making clear links between the actual activity and the strength it is supposed to better understand or embody. The part that really led to my epiphany (but first to a little bit of fear) was to make these activities and structures dual purpose. That is, to make these structures within the framework of course content and learning objectives but making clear, meaningful ties to character strengths. And initially, as mentioned, I was a little fearful of this. Not because I didn't like this idea. But rather, because it sounds really challenging. It's difficult enough to make meaningful, engaging lessons that have strong objectives and assessments; to have clear ties to course content and curriculum objectives. And now I'm supposed to use these lessons to make my students better, more successful people too? That seems a daunting task. And here's the epiphany (warning, I may have built it up to be more than it is using the word 'epiphany' three [now four] whole times, but its very meaningful to me.) Here it is: most content is about people. The things we teach our students have to do with learning about the world and surviving and thriving in it. Whether this means discussing people of the past or people of the future, or your students' place in any of that, its all about people! And so framing your history lessons, not as "John Cabot was a good or bad man because he did this or this or this" but rather "John Cabot should real grit when he made the major journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Why is this grit? How did his grit affect those around him? Would you have made the same decisions that he made if you were in that same situation?" In your math lesson, you're not telling your students to use particular strategies or to just "get it done". But instead you ask them how they should approach this problem? What skills will they need? What character strengths with they build and strengthen? Ask students what their classmates are doing? What character strengths they are showcasing? And in changing the language you use and restructuring the way you look at content, you build enormous amounts of social intelligence. Students learn who they are and how they got there. They recognize positive and negative traits in themselves and those around them. And most of all, the build empathy. They learn to understand a world of situations and understanding the reasons behind why people do what they do. And that is an incredibly powerful tool. In case you haven't already, check out this amazing online course here! Scary task for the week: embody a new character strength every day for a week (zest, grit, self-control, optimism, gratitude, social intelligence, curiosity) Thanks for reading folks! Have an inspiring week! "Who had a great struggle today?" And Other Exceptional Learnings from "Teaching Character" Week 27/21/2014 I'll tell you. If I could simply post the entire transcript of the videos and information from this week's session on teaching character I completely would. But...I'm really sure that's plagiarism. So here are my key learnings from the amazing and completely free online course titled, "Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms."
This week's lesson focused on micro-minutes. These are just small blocks of time, just a few seconds, that help to build a relationship with a student and help them to develop those ever-important character strengths. There are three key elements to making these micro-minutes extremely meaningful:
Other key learnings from the lesson:
If I have not yet made this clear, I am loving this online course. I am learning so much and the entire experience is so incredibly valuable. Go check it out! I'll be honest. I've never taken an online course before. And when I found this one I was hesitant (as I tend to be) but really excited at the same time.
After watching the videos and reading through the activities for Week 1 of 'Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms' I feel nothing short of inspired. The videos are incredibly interesting and manageable, and match up well with my prior knowledge of Happiness, GRIT and developing character strengths. Key learnings from this "week":
Course Activity Recommendations for the week:
Aren't these great suggestions? Concrete and simple, but really meaningful. If reading this post made you as excited as I feel writing/thinking about this stuff check out the free online course from Dave Levin right here. Hope to write again soon! Have a grateful week :) Last week I started writing a post titled "Why I love Junior High." Then I had some bad days. Some frustrating days. Some exhausting days. And yet, I still love teaching in a junior high school. Here's why:
Notice that all of my reasons have to do with the students? That the joy of teaching, for me, comes from working with the kids, getting to know them, learning to love them (quirks and all) and learning to learn from them. Man, junior high is just the best! Until next time, Jo :)
The next day I tried a different approach which seemed to work much better. Students were divided into groups and had to "discover" and teach the class about a particular social class within the Aztec hierarchy. While this lesson had plenty of hiccups too, they seemed much more engaged and active in their own learning.
The second lesson I have chosen to include is also Grade 8 Social Studies and also happened to be a stand and deliver type of lesson. Initially I had given the students a choice: watch a short video about Aztec civilization or discuss Aztec human sacrifice (something a few students had asked about earlier). The class unanimously chose to talk about human sacrifice instead. While some may argue that the aspect of human sacrifice is not necessary to the study of the Aztecs and lacks a strong correlation to the Program of Studies. However, within this lesson we were able to make connections to current events in terms of human sacrifice and duty for one's country, while at the same time bringing home the point that the Aztecs believed so strongly in their religion that they were willing to sacrifice themselves (or others) for its sake. To me, these make great connections to the P of S in terms of developing an idea of the Aztec worldview and how it influenced their society. While these connections were great to make, they are not what I loved best about this lesson. The kids were so fascinated by all of it! Students fought to ask questions first. Some were jumping out of their chairs, so excited to ask a question. Several students stayed after class (that's right, last period of the day on a Friday) to ask more questions because they were just so interested. One of my favourite questions of the class was about whether or not the priest or emperor would have felt guilty in performing the sacrifices. How great a question is that? Bringing up a major philosophical debate in a Grade 8 classroom? Yes I was thrilled that students enjoyed so much about this lesson. But I still struggle with how to replicate this excitement in further classes. I understand that the content was gory and gruesome, and thus infinitely more interesting to them. But how can I get them to love learning in all things, not just the blood and guts stuff? I'm still working out the details of this. I'll be back to discuss it further on another night... Today was my first day of practicum. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I really really was.
But today I met a lot of people who truly care about students. Students more than subjects. One of these fine such people gave me the wonderful quote that gave this post its namesake: "Kids aren't worse today than before, they're better. " But we need to give them a chance to be kids, without consequences (within reason, of course). "Give them a chance to be stupid!" Now, I don't know about you, but I don't hear that very often. And to be honest, I don't think that often either. As strongly as I believe in building relationships with students and understanding the contextual variables within these kids lives, I rarely stop and think, 'hmm...these kids are making poor choices...and that's okay!' But maybe I should? This evening I had the enjoyable task of decipher for myself what my classroom expectations are. What must my students do or not do in my classroom? What rules do they follow and which ones are okay to break? I've really been struggling with developing these sorts of clean-cut answers. You must find the balance between being friendly, without being their friend. Between being strict and being mean. After some pondering, and some truly inspirational role models today at school I came up with the following list of expectations. Keeping in mind that yes I know they seem a little cliche, but I really believe them to be a necessary balance. Expectations of Students: Be Responsible • Be on time (to class and with work) Don’t Leave Us! • Ask to use the washroom, get a drink, go to your locker • Wait to be dismissed Be Kind Be Cooperative Communicate • Listen! • Give input! Expectations of Teacher: Be Responsible Be Kind Be Cooperative Communicate Be Available What do you think folks? Am I totally out to lunch on these? Is it okay for kids to be "stupid"? I absolutely love learning things. I really do. Sometimes I get a little lost in the world of Professional Development and I want to get so much out of it and learn so much. I love the idea of going to conferences and getting a bucket full of new ideas to ponder over and develop for yourself over time. This was my experience with WestCAST 2014.
While I did attend several sessions that didn't make me contemplate a whole lot, there were a few key sessions that have led to some great intrigue on my part. Key Highlights from the Conference Include:
- stubbornness as determination - distractibility/daydreaming as creative invention - off-the-wall behaviour as outside-of-the-box thinking - bullying as leadership - lying as imagination
2. be like a family 3. improve communication 4. support with school work 5. listen and respect each other 6. improve opportunity to participate in sports 7. never give up
There you have it folks. Thanks for reading if you did and thanks for stopping by if you didn't. Until the next time! Okay, that title may be a little strong. I am my no means an expert in motivating students, or an expert in anything for that matter. I love to observe what I see around me and try to interpret it in a way that's meaningful to me.
Recently we have been discussing the importance of differentiated instruction and assessment. By recently, I mean we have an entire class devoted to it. And while I find so much of the information very helpful, I also find it very frustrating. I really really want to help every student. If I could I would plan a different lesson for each student, directed specifically at their learner needs, readiness and interests. But let's be honest, I can't do that. I don't have the time, energy or know-how to actually execute it. This being said, I think I've found a solution that makes my heart satisfied, at least for the time being. Here it is folks: make every kid feel special! I know this doesn't sound surprising, or insightful in anyway. But for me this seems like such an attainable goal. You can't be everything for every student all the time. But what you can do is make sure that every student knows that you care about them. That you want them to succeed and are one their team. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with one of my tutoring students right before their final math exam. This particular student is such a bright-eyed exuberant student but struggles a lot with focus and confidence in math. I did notice, however, after working with this student a lot, that - when on task - the student could make math computations really quickly and with little difficulty. From my concept of how mathematics works I would consider this student to have a "math brain." Now guess what I did next? Wait for it...I told them that! I told the student that they were really good at math, that really, they had a math brain. Am I an expert in all cognitive processes about mathematics? No. Have I done numerous psychological, neurological studies to filter out the characteristics that determine a person's aptness for math? No. Does it matter? I would argue no! In this case it didn't matter whether I was an expert or not. For this student, giving them the gift of confidence was enough for them to a.) complete every required question we were working on b.) complete them much faster than the previous pace c.) get very nearly every one right. So here's my thought for the evening. Discover the gifts of every one of your students. And then tell them about it. It took me 22 years to finally realize what I'm good at, legitimately gifted at (aside from snarky comments). Why wait that long? Find out what makes your student special and make sure they know about it. |
Johannah Wirzba
I am Junior High Language Arts teacher who has the amazing privilege of working with crazy, amazing staff and students each and every day. I hope to use this space as a way to process the many new ideas being thrown at me and grow as a learner and educator. Categories
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