The Power of You

I'm sure you all get it when I say that some days are just hard. Especially afternoons, after recess, at the end of the week -- it just gets hard for everybody. We're tired. We've been working hard. We just need a break. How do we help those hard times get a little bit easier?

I did a little lesson with my classes that I like to call Problem Makers, Problem Solvers. First we sit down and brainstorm all of the different ways that kids can be problem makers at school, and then we brainstorm all the ways that we can think of that kids can be problem solvers. I'm not sure if I have helped more in the past or planted more ideas, but this year I had a startling realization. While both of my classes could come up with 50-60 different ways that kids could be problem makers, the problem solving list topped out at 17 for one class, and less than that for the other. How in the world can my kids be problem solvers, if they don't even realize what that looks like?

So I decided to spend more time on Habit 1: Be Proactive.

The first thing we talked about is our brains. Our brains don't want to be proactive. Our brains are naturally wired to be reactive: to fight, to run, or to hide. It takes a LOT of effort, even for adults, to be proactive, so we need to talk about it and practice it often and use reactive times as learning opportunities, not punishment opportunities.

After we talked about our brains, we talked about the messages we send to others. I have been interrupting class as we've worked on establishing our routines to say things like, "I'm getting the message that my words don't matter, and that's making me feel frustrated. Is that the message you want to send?" Almost always the kids say no (there is one who says yes, which is a challenge in and of itself), so we talk about what's going on and how we can improve.

The latest activity we did was called The Power of You. First, I had them share the things that teachers have done to them that they don't like. Their list included:

• yelling at us
• blaming us for something we didn't do
• taking recess
• giving me a checkmark
• taking away Free Bear (our Day 6 free choice time)

We talked about how some of the items on the list, like yelling, are things that are in my control; if I'm yelling that means I'm being reactive, so that's something that is out of their circle of control - it's mine. I have to think about how I respond. Then we talked about the others. Many of them, like some on the list above, are consequences assigned to student misbehavior. We talked about the fact that every single student has the power, in themselves, to keep all of these things from happening by being proactive. By stopping, thinking, and making the right choice. By walking away. By asking for help instead of refusing to do work. By trying their best. The list went on and on.

We watched the clip from old school He-Man cartoons. You know, "I HAVE THE POWER!!!" and each student added, "I Have the Power" statements to their superhero pictures. They are hanging in the room as a reminder that we all have the power in us. Sometimes it's hard, and none of us are going to be perfect. But this is a great reminder that we can do it!

Round Peg Square Hole

I've talked at length about the great start to my school year last year, and I was truly excited to repeat the practice this year.

This. Year.

Last year, I took everything I wanted to accomplish in terms of routines, technology, and culture and scheduled them out so I could make a little progress in each area, each day. This year, with the expanded implementation of our Leader in Me program, we were asked to participate in something called The First 8 Days. This intensive introduction to the 8 habits of the Leader in Me program helps everybody in the school have a common language and sets the foundation for all of our kids having the opportunity to be leaders.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE..... and I mean L-O-V-E this program. The 7 habits have absolutely helped me become a better teacher and, more importantly, a better person. But my awesome plan to start the year and the many different activities included in The First 8 Days just were not jiving.

It was like trying to put a round peg in a square hole.

As I was trying to do my weekly planning on Sunday I started to feel anxious and frustrated. There was so much that I had already done last year that I hadn't gotten to this year. There were so many things for the First 8 Days that I just hadn't covered. There was an email that a diagnostic test may have to be completed by 9/13. There was another email reminding us that homeroom teachers were to be giving our district benchmark. A pit was forming in my stomach. My amazing plan - my great start - it was crumbling before my eyes, and it felt awful.

And then I had another one of those a-ha moments. I'm sure it's nothing new to you.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

This Leader in Me kickoff? It was definitely worth doing well. And I KNOW how important my tech boot camps and routine building were last year. 

I don't need to cram them all together. 

I just need to take the time to do them well. 

I made the decision to simply do the First 8 Days, and if something else fits, great. If not, I'll start with my plan next week. The diagnostic? It'll get done. So will the benchmark. 

I only get one chance to really establish the culture and routines in my classroom. So I need to do it right. The round peg, it's going in the round hole. And the square peg is going in the square hole. And when I do finally get to start my curriculum, it's going to be another successful year thanks to all of the time we take to set up the expectations for working in our classroom.

Love Them Where They're At

It's been another great start to the school year. By following my plan from last year with just a few tweaks for The First 8 Days of our Leader in Me program, I have been able to touch on school rules, the 7 Habits, community building, classroom routines, and tech bootcamps each day. The two days were a blur; I just can't believe how fast the time went!

I enjoyed getting to know my morning group throughout the day yesterday, and today I enjoyed getting to learn about my afternoon friends for the first time.

And it was really hard.

But it's still great.

Thanks, 7 Habits and the trauma informed instruction I received.

I know in the past I would have been angry and reactive. I would have been complaining about the kids. I would have been shaking my head wondering how in the world I was going to make it through the year. I would have been exhausted.

Today, my actions were a little different:

I chose to pick my battles which meant not picking to battle at all and just seeing what happened.

Today, my thoughts were a little different:

I wonder what's causing this.

How can I make school work for this child?

Since I can only control myself, what can I do differently?

Maybe this child is nervous, scared, tired, angry, happy, confused, <insert your favorite feeling word here>, that's why I'm seeing this.

What can I do?

I'm not going to lie; I'm a little bit nervous. I'm not necessarily sure where to go next. I'm hopeful that the systems in place will be able to support me and the students I met today, but there's never any guarantee. I just hope that I can continue to remember to pause and think, and in that tiny pause I'll be able to be proactive and be the person these kids need in their lives right now.

It's Not a Program

Wednesday we had the third phase of our Leader in Me training. We started talking about the next steps in our school journey, aligning the seven habits with academics. To begin the training we were asked the following question:

Why are you implementing Leader in Me?

My first answer for this question was, "to improve the behavior of the students in our building and reduce discipline issues." As I sat there and thought a little longer, I realized that, one - I really didn't know why we initially decided to implement Leader in Me, and two - if that was the actual reason for our implementation, Leader in Me would just be one more program that could easily be replaced with the next new thing.  

In that moment, I had one of those paradigm shifts our trainers and our coach have talked about. 

I shifted my paradigm from thinking that Leader in Me was a bandaid we put on behavior problems to thinking that it's tools we are giving our students and ourselves to be more successful in every aspect of our lives. Erin, our amazing school librarian, brought up the idea that our district's vision is to help students become life-ready, but as a 4th - 6th grade school we rarely see the fruits of our labor. We rarely get to see what our students have become at the end of this journey. 

The language we use and the actions we model are giving our students the tools they need for their futures. Despite all of our hard work, it may not be until 5, 10 or even 15 years down the road that these ideas and tools will really click for our kids and help them make better choices and lead successful lives. 

We need to shift our paradigm and realize that these seven habits aren't a "pill to make the headache go away." By seeing these seven habits as a foundation for the choices we make and by modeling these seven habits for our kids, we will be able to be the role models that our students need to begin using the tools in their own lives and work towards becoming life-ready adults. 

B Minus Is AOK

For the first time in 22 years I didn't spend the entire week before inservice at school, doing school work, or completely obsessed with school.

For the first time in 22 years, I haven't had any back to school teacher nightmares.

For the first time in 22 years, I didn't spend my last day of summer vacation at school.

And I'm ready enough.

I feel good. Actually I feel great!

I was excited (I know.... I know....) to attend our opening sessions today, and I was proud to be part of  a team of teachers leading one of the workshops.

I also got up, did some yoga, wrote in my journal, and went to the gym after school because I will never ever be my best teacher self if I don't take care of myself first.

I spent a lot of time being a perfectionist. I was that student who would rewrite her entire homework so that nobody knew how many times she had to erase mistakes. I still strive to be distinguished in areas where I'm passionate and willing to put forth the effort.

But I have learned to say no.

I am getting better at leaving school at school and making home about home.

And if that means I'm *just* proficient, I've finally learned that it's okay.

While I'll always do my best, if my best is a B- then I'll be the most awesome B- there is. Because as much as being a teacher is an important part of my life, there's now way more to my life than just being a teacher.

Seven Hour Setup

Last summer I had major surgery at the end of July, and I had some pretty significant restrictions. In order to get my classroom set up for the beginning of the year, I had one work day prior to surgery to get ready. Needless to say I was a little panicked about the whole situation.

As I listened to the Chalk Full of Life podcast (unfortunately no longer running), I was intrigued by an idea I heard. Stop planning to do lists and starting planning your time. The basic premise is that you block out the time you want to spend doing something, and at the end of that time, whether you are finished or not, you move on to the next task.

At a loss as to how I was going to set up my classroom in just one day, I figured this was as good of a strategy as any and decided to give it a try. Much to my delight, it worked! I was able to finish everything that was available to me in one day.

One year later I decided to try it again, this time with all of the regular distractions of "back to school week" and lots of people in the building.  Surprisingly, it worked for me again.

Because I found so much success with it, I thought I would share my plan with you. You can find the document here, and I've shared some notes and explanations below.

• Hour 1 - I still have my own personal space. While I don't sit at my desk very often, it's my place where I start and end each day. It's also where I hold individual conferences. The kids also love sitting at or under my desk for independent work, so this has become an important spot in the room.
• Hour 2 - We're required to take most items down or put most items away for summer cleaning. This may not be something you need to do, so this could be a spot where you'll save some time.
• Hour 3 - We place our beginning of the year supply order in May for delivery over the summer. We are extremely lucky to have almost all of our supplies available, so it takes some time to unpack and organize the materials. 
• Hour 4 - This hour bleeds together with Hour 3. Often times as I'm unpacking supplies I'm also starting to pass out student materials, so the two hours mix together.
• Hour 5 - I have a creation station in my classroom with foldable bins holding toilet paper tubes, my scrap paper, colored cellophane, straws, acorns..... all kinds of materials. While my students help clean this up at the end of the year, I like to go through the bins to make sure everything is usable.
• Hour 6 / 7 - You'll see this starts with, "Finish anything that wasn't finished in any other hour," and that's pretty much how I completed my tasks today. I'm mostly concerned with getting the physical room setup completed, so if I need to push off the copies and tech tasks I'm okay with that.
• And the most important part: I put a very polite sign on my door that read, "Welcome back - would love to say hello. Please stop back and say hi when my door is open." People were very respectful of my wishes, and it definitely helped me get a lot done.

Obviously, my classroom is very different from every other room, so I know you'll have to make changes to this plan to fit your classroom. It's my hope that you'll find this to be some help as you are setting up your classroom so that you can reduce some beginning of the year stress.

New Beginnings

I can't help but feel like August, for me, must be like January for other people. While I'm always sad to see my lazy days of summer come to an end, there is nothing quite like the beginning of the school year. Every August gives me the opportunity to do the same job in a totally different way than I did last year. I guess that's why I love teaching so much. Even though I will once again be a 4th grade math and science teacher, my two new groups of students assure me that this year will be completely different from the previous ones.

Last year was one of the best years in my 21 years of teaching, and I know that is because of two things:

• how I started my year
• the hybrid rotational model

My classroom worked so well for all of us because we spent the time at the beginning of the year to really establish routines and build a culture in our classroom. You can read about how I ran my first few weeks (yes, even though when I typed the original post it was about the first week, it ended up being a little over three) here. Being able to spiral back to routines we established gave me so much additional instructional time throughout the year. And the hybrid rotational model? While I was skeptical about only teaching for 20 minutes to each group, the connections I made with every single student and the quality of those 20 minutes allowed me to complete far more than I have ever done before with both of my classes. 

For the first time ever, I'm not getting ready for a new school year thinking, "How do I want to do things differently this year?" This year I'm thinking, "How can I make things better?"

I'll be honest, I'm not sure yet, and that's okay. I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of great videos during this summer's Ditch Summit focusing on teacher wellness. Today, the idea that struck me the most was the idea of picking just a couple of things and being really, really good at them. I think I did this last year by only focusing on my beginning of the year lessons and implementing my new instructional model. I'm going to really think about my goals for this year and come up with two or three new things that I want to try. Then I'll tell you about them here.

And that's one personal goal I have. My blogging as been.... sporadic to say the least these last few years. Also during today's Ditch video, I realized my lack of posting was probably because I felt like people weren't really interested in what I had to say. But it has been really amazing for me to go back and revisit these moments. Because of that, I'm setting a goal to write once a week to share things that are going well and not so well. Hopefully I can look back on the entries and see how I can make things even better next year, and if somebody else finds something they can use, too, then that will be just an added bonus.  

Year 21 in the Books

I have these big goals of blogging! I think, "Oh, I should put that on my blog!" And then in my quest for balance (it's interesting and different when you love to be home and don't want to spend every waking minute on school stuff), blogging was the thing that went.

But just to catch you up....

1. Year 21 -- probably one of the best!
2. Hybrid rotational model -- love, love, love it. I know I'm not doing it the "right way" but it's the right way for me. There's definitely a post here now that it's summer time.
3. Leader in Me -- living the 7 habits.... it just makes sense.
4. I wish we could help kids the way they need help. They're never going to pass any stinkin' test unless we meet their other needs first.
5. Coworkers who are friends - I could not do it without them.
6. Got the Google -- Level 1 certified, and my friends and I just started working on level two.

I know there's way more I should be telling you, and I'll probably get there. But I'm not making any promises. I'll be here when the spirit moves me. :)