Words Matter

Participating in the 7 Habits training that goes along with the Leader in Me program we're implementing in my school has been life changing for me. While I have grown a lot this summer, putting these seven habits into practice has really been the icing on the cake of 4 long years of growth. I would say that the biggest change I've noticed in myself comes in terms of Habit 1: Be Proactive and Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.

I know in the past there were days when I let my emotions get the best of me. I'm sure anybody who is a teacher can say that, or anybody who's a parent, or anybody who has to deal with any other human being if you want to be honest. We all have had those times where we have snapped at somebody for no good reason, we've yelled at somebody when they really weren't the person who caused our anger in the first place, or we've said or done things when our emotions were high that we looked back later and regretted.

I'm not sure why it took a 2 day training for me to stop and think about how these negative interactions were affecting the people around me, especially my students.

I'm not sure why it took a 2 day training for me to realize that the kids didn't deserve it when I snapped or was angry; they didn't make me do it.

It was all me. It was my choice.

That's kind of a crappy realization, and yet it's also a really powerful realization.

Having that a-ha moment has allowed me to be proactive when my students have me feeling a little frustrated. I'll actually tell them that I need to take a moment so that I don't respond in a reactive way. (What better way to teach them the habits than to model them myself, right?) I ask them to help me think about why I'm feeling that way. Both of these have helped me handle situations where I might have responded by yelling or snapping in a more proactive manner, and I feel like it has helped my classroom community be even healthier than I thought it was in the past.

The other thing I'm doing, instead of instantly blaming a child for their behaviors, is taking a minute to have a conversation that starts with one of these two phrases:

• Can you help me understand why you are (insert whatever it is the child was doing)?
• You look frustrated. Can you tell me a little more about why you are feeling this way?

I had a great opportunity to use these yesterday when I was on recess duty. I saw a friend sitting on the curb alone, hood pulled up over his head and covering his face. I went over to see what was up, and I had the opportunity to make a new friend.

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this friend, if he were in my classroom, would probably be the friend who tries to see what buttons he could push. I'm guessing he stretches the rules as far as he possibly can, and I also learned (because he told me) that he can respond to his teachers in a pretty reactive way and probably can be, in his words, "yeah, a little disrespectful." So I get why he had a parent phone call coming his way.

At the same time, I met a very well spoken 4th grade for somebody who was able to rattle off the 7 different schools he's attended in his very short school career. I met a young man with an amazingly confident handshake, and he looked me right in the eyes when he did it. I met a young man who was able to tell me that he was mad that he got in trouble because his dad didn't sign something. I met a young man who felt like he didn't have any friends. And I met a young man who, it seemed, just wanted somebody to listen to how he was feeling.

I talked with him about trying to be more proactive and not so reactive when talking with his teacher and when doing things in the classroom. I'm not sure that will help - he seems like he has a pretty strong will. 

I also told him that if he ever just needed somebody to talk to, he could always come and talk to me. I may not always agree with him, but he could be sure that I would always listen.

Words matter.

Relationships matter.

First Month Reflection

When we last left off, I had shared about my amazing first day of school. It truly was one of the best, and I'm thrilled to report that things have continued to go just as well as they did the first day. While I can't say that everything is all unicorns and rainbows, things just feel different this year. I want to share some of the reasons why these first few weeks have been so successful.

• Using the four categories to plan my days and taking the time to establish routines:
• In my last post, I talked about establishing four categories to guide my first weeks of school. I ended up sticking with these categories for the first three weeks of school. 
• I slightly tweaked the management category to include training for our two student led stations. I spent about a week helping the kids learn how to be independent. We created a chart similar to those I did with the Daily 5 when I taught ELA classes, and we used Freckle, Exact Path (which I am excited to be piloting), and Study Island during this time. That made it an extra opportunity to practice some of our tech boot camp skills.
• We also spent about a week and a half learning how to work effectively in collaborative groups. A lot of our conversations focused on socialization vs collaboration and being willing to accept help or constructive criticism. During this time we used Week In Math activities from YouCubed to start developing the mathematical mindset I'm hoping to grow in the kids this year.
• Teaching and living the 7 Habits
• Since we are beginning to implement the Leader in Me program this year, I have been living the 7 habits in my life, and it truly has changed the way I interact with my students. Yesterday we had another fantastic training, and I'm looking forward to moving beyond just using the words with my classes and focusing on the principles.
• I always made the effort to make positive communication at the beginning of the year, but I always dropped the ball when things got busy and didn't keep it up. I am making this positive communication a priority this year.
• While hard conversations are never fun, my new learnings are helping me make these difficult contacts less challenging. I've stopped taking them personally and see them for what they are: ways to help my kids grow.
• Having 1:1 chromebooks in my classroom
• Being a teacher with 1:1 resources has made a huge change in my class, simply because of all the time saved in transitions. There's no, "Go down the hall and get your computers," or, "You need to go put the computers back in the cart." Because the kids can keep their computers in their desks and have the most important sites bookmarked, transitions are down to about a minute. It's pretty amazing.
• I am able to give the kids more opportunities to come up with different ways to show their learning.
• We are able to use different tools for formative assessments rather than just a paper pencil test.
• We're continuing to develop our technology skills, and I'm looking forward to the next big step: adding Schoology.
• Having my entire class do their independent station first in the afternoon allows us to meet with every single student individually each day. That's been a great way to learn about the kids and see how they are applying skills we're doing in groups.
• Doing all instruction in small groups
• While I know that I am not technically doing my station rotation model by the book, I am already thrilled with it. Students spend 20 minutes per day in each station.
• Having the opportunity to meet with all of my kids every day in small groups during math instruction has allowed me to see where kids are making mistakes more quickly and talk through misconceptions with them.
• Changing my spiral reviews to mostly small group number talks has allowed me, when not working with individuals, to walk around asking critical thinking questions that I learned about this summer at my Franklin Institute training. This has really helped me feel more like a facilitator than a teacher.

While there are always bumps along the road, I feel like this really has been the best start in my 21 years. I feel happy to come to school each day, and I really am looking forward to seeing how we can continue these routines and grow and adapt them to help the kids be even more successful.