Author: Pernille Ripp

I am a passionate teacher in Oregon, Wisconsin, USA, who has taught 4th, 5th, and 7th grade. Proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classrooms Back to Our Students” can be purchased now. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” is out now from Corwin Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
mystery skype

Great Mystery Skype Questions to Get You Started

Pernille Ripp
My students have grown into being quite good Mystery Skypers but it has taken them most of the year and many practice calls.  One thing they have really worked on has been the act of asking great questions so we thought it would be nice to offer up some great sample questions for when you get started with Mystery Skype.  However, the best way to grow is to not follow a list but instead discuss throughout the year what the best questions are for your class.

For the USA

  • Are you in North America?
  • Are you in the United States?
  • Are you east of the Mississippi?

Depending on the answer to that, you can go in different directions:

If east of Mississippi:
  • Are you one of the original 13 colonies?
  • Do you border a Great Lake?
  • Do you border an ocean?
  • Do the Appalachians run through your state?
  • Do you border Canada?
  • Are you Northeast/Midwest/Southeast region?
  • Do you border the Gulf of Mexico?

If west of the Mississippi:

  • Are you in the West/Southwest region?
  • Do you border the Pacific?
  • Do the Rocky Mountains run through your state?
  • Do you border Canada?
  • Is your state landlocked?
  • Are you one of the contiguous states?

For Canada:
  • Are you in North America?
  • Are you in Canada?
  • Do you border a ocean?
  • Do you border Alaska?
  • Do you border the Hudson Bay?
  • Are you landlocked?
  • Does your province have a NHL team?
  • Do you border the United States?
  • Do the Rocky Mountains touch your province?
  • Are you north of British Columbia?

These are suggestions only!  Depending on your answers you have to adapt your questions.  We play in a yes/no format where students get to continue guessing until they get a no answer.  Then it becomes the other teams turn.
Things we do not recommend doing:
  • Vague questions such as weather related ones unless they are specific.
  • Guessing states too quickly.
  • Not having a student write down the questions and answers.
  • The teacher having their location on their Skype profile.
  • Wearing a shirt that represents or is a clue to your location.

Things we do recommend doing:

  • Paying attention to the questions that the other team asks – often it gives away clues.
  • Paying attention in general.
  • Having a sign signaling thinking or someone telling jokes/stories.
  • Staying calm and don’t be rude to each other.
  • Assigning jobs and sticking to them.
  • Having a student-led discussion after the call to discuss success/failures and figure out how to improve.

end of year, projects, students

The Learning Doesn’t Stop – Ideas for Maximizing Those Last Few Weeks of School

Pernille Ripp
I don’t do end of year countdowns, I actually dread the last day of school because it means these amazing kids are not going to be mine any longer.  And yet, being in 5th grade means that graduation is near, middle school looms, and the kids know that our time is limited.  So they started asking me what we would be doing these last few weeks after math is done, memoir is done, all that stuff we had to get through is done (I never tell them that we are never done even if we aren’t).  And voila; a list of ideas for the remaining weeks.

  • The teapot project.  After we finish our math journals I don’t want math to end, so thank you Aviva for choosing us to receive your teapot.  This means that the last two weeks of school we will be busy researching, designing  and building our own packing material for the teapot that will go back to another classroom in Canada.  Math journals may have stopped  but the math certainly doesn’t
  • Our reading recommendation list.  My students love to read; they breathe books and many kids have already expressed fear that they will not know what to read over the summer.  We therefore decided to ask strangers for recommendations and will also be compiling our own.  In the end we will create Animotos showcasing our favorites reads, a list for students to access for recommendations, and probably a massive wish list of books for me for next year.
  • Book bins of our favorite books.  This was a great idea from a teacher at my school; have your students create personalized book bins for the incoming class.  My students will each create one with a favorite 5th grade book, a favorite series book, a book they never thought they would like, and a book that was too hard for them to read at the beginning of the year but now they have mastered.  What a wonderful way to get the next set of students ready to read.
  • Our favorite memories.  Students become movie producers as they sort of how to film students favorite memories of 5th grade.  This is a great extension of our memoir unit and also allows the kids to tell me what they loved.  A committee usually takes care of the actual filming and producing.
  • What I like about….I love this simple video project where every student is tasked with complimenting three other students.  Again a committee takes care of the filming and editing.
  • A thank you letter for all those other people.  I try to teach my students the power of a thank you letter and so we end the year compiling letters to all of those people that have made the school year wonderful; our specials teachers, our custodians, our lunch ladies and anyone else the students want to thank.  Since they are 5th graders they often ask if they can write thank you notes to their old teachers as well.  A committee take scare of the binding of the books but this is a great way to once again discuss letter writing.
  • Precepts for the new 5th grade students.  Anyone who has read Wonder knows what I mean by precepts but in essence they are words to live by.  I will therefore be asking my students to write precepts for my new students that I can use for my welcome display.  This is their chance to give them words to live by in 5th grade and it will be nice to have these reminders on the first day of school where I tend to miss those old students a lot.
  • Innovation Day.  We just had Innovation Day as a whole grade level on Wednesday and I cannot tell you how incredible it is for 60 students to just engage in their very own project for a whole day.  If you don’t know what Innovation Day it is not too late to do it at your school.
  • Dear Future Mrs. Ripp’s Kids.  Letters from my old students to the new ones offering them tips, getting them excited about the year to come, and of course trying to answer any questions they may have.  I hand these to my new students to read and discuss and then I take them back after that.  I save every year’s letters as a reminder of just how many kids I have been privileged to teach.
  • We also blog up until the last few days, do a government simulation, read one more book aloud, do an end of the year survey, present our biome projects, weed through our library, figure out how the classroom should be set up next year and just have a really great time with each other.  So yeah, I don’t do a countdown – we simply have too much to still do!
Be the change, reflection, students

A Student Demands a Better Education…Finally

Pernille Ripp
I don’t know if you have seen this video, chances are you haven’t so stop reading and watch it.

Edit: the video has been pulled by the user which I am sad about.  It was 1 minute 30 seconds of a student asking a teacher to please teach them better than she was, that they did not want anymore packets and that she had to get them excited and to touch their hearts.  He then leaves the room after the teacher keeps telling him to.  He does this without swearing or raising his voice.

Edit 2:  The video is back up on Gawker

The video was posted on Reddit, I saw it this afternoon and immediately knew that I had to react it.  And while I do not know the backstory, I do not know this kid, or his teacher, or what the context was for this particular moment, I do know that I think this kid has courage.

If it is true that all he has been doing is packets since he got there then he has the right to stand up in a respectful manner and demand a better education.  It is what I teach my students every day; their voice matters because they are the ones we are doing this to.  And this kid, Jeff, he did it.  He stood up to a teacher without screaming, not really swearing, and asked her to touch their hearts.  To not treat them like a paycheck.  To make them excited and not sit behind a desk.  And then he left, just like she asked.

I cannot imagine the anger that must have built up for a kid to stand up to his teacher in this way.  I cannot imagine the courage it must have taken.  Courage to stand up against a system, courage to demand a better educational experience, and yes, courage to defy the determined authority and stand up for his own desire to have a better class.

I wish more students would stand up to the system, in a respectful manner, and let their voices be heard.   Students in America have the right to be angry about what is happening to them in their classroom, I am glad someone is finally speaking out.  We have silenced the voices of our students for too many years, we have not invited them into the educational debate even though it is being done to them.  Even though every decision we make as a teacher directly effects their lives and their future.  Jeff gets that and he has had enough.  I hope others figure out that they have to.  Us teachers cannot be the only voices demanding a change.

Be the change, reflection, students, testing

Testing Makes Me Feel Like a Bad Teacher

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

I know I should not care, I should go on my day like it is nothing, but the truth is; standardized testing makes me feel like a bad teacher.  It shouldn’t be a big deal but anyone who has had their students sit through a MAP test will tell you; printing out that report and seeing whether the students met their projected growth score is downright anxiety producing.

Once the test is over then we stand with the repercussions; scores that were not met because the kid was having a bad day, scores that were not met because they rushed, scores that were not met because they didn’t get that one question.  And yes, scores that were not met because I didn’t do my job well enough.  The problem is; I don’t know which category a score fits into.  I can certainly take a guess but that is all it would be; a guess.  So I base my teacher performance on a score that supposedly tells me everything without really teling me much.

I take their scores and try to let them be a guide merely, forget that they will go on with the students to middle school, forget that these scores will determine where on the data wall they sit.  Forget that as much as we pretend they don’t matter, that these scores will usually mean more to their future education than any of my feedback or summative assessment ever will.  And it makes me feel like a bad teacher.
I cannot protect my students from what I fight against; the standardization of their intellect.  The standardization of their knowledge, their creativity  and their aptitude.  I cannot protect them from being labeled due to test scores.  I can only do so much within my classroom to shield them from the test obsessed education policy that seems to be driving us.  I can downplay the test but the educational system does not let me downplay the result anymore.  So I feel like a bad teacher.
I became a teacher to make a difference, not to feel bad about the tests I have to put my students through in order that someone will believe me when I say that they grew as a reader, that they grew in their math knowledge, that they grew in their intellect.  Apparently my word is not enough anymore, perhaps it never has been, now the data is what guides us.  And the data makes me feel like a bad teacher.