Last year I asked my parents to fill out an end of the year survey on me (students do a separate one) and so this year is no different. I have updated it, but here it is, please feel free to use it.
Author: Pernille Schmidt Ripp
Since 2010, I have lived my teaching life outloud, writing, speaking, and sharing the great, the okay, and the sometimes not so great. Starting as a 4th grade teacher in Middleton, Wisconsin, then heading to the middle school for many years, in 2022 I moved back home to Denmark to try teaching primary grades. Because why not?
But I also started the Global Read Aloud in 2010, a global literacy project that has connected millions of children across the world. I also write books trying to help others co-create sustainable student-centered learning spaces, and I share my life on Instagram, in both English and Danish.
What These Kids Don’t Know
He stands to the side of me, waiting his turn, I look up and there he is, “Do you remember me?” “Of course!” I say and I mean it because this kid, how could anyone ever forget this kid? A quick hug and of he goes, he is a middle schooler now after all, and I stand there with a huge smile, happy to have been remembered. Happy that he took the time to come back to his old teacher, even if just for a moment. And in that short moment of time there is so much I wish I could say to this kid, and to the others before him; there is so much they don’t know.
What these kids don’t know is how we hope they will remember us with a smile but we never take it for granted.
What these kids don’t know is how we still have all of those notes and letters they wrote to us back then. And the drawings, yup, we have those too.
What these kids don’t know is how one little hi can make me smile for days.
What these kids don’t know is that we still carry them in our hearts wherever we go.
What these kids don’t know is how I still worry and wonder how life is treating them and if they know how much they are worth.
What these kids don’t know is that they never stop being our kids.
What all my kids don’t know is that I do it for them, every single day, no matter how little sleep I got, no matter what standards are pressing on me. Every day I come to school to teach for them, every day I cannot wait to get here to be with them. That’s what these kids don’t know.
Principals; Please Let Your Teachers Evaluate You
I am here today to really ask one thing; principals, please let your teachers evaluate you. And although it may not be my place and you may find it odd that I dare say it, I will tell you why I ask.
Please let us evaluate you so that we can tell you all of the great things you have done for our school. So that we can tell you where we have grown as teachers and how you have helped foster that growth.
Please let us evaluate you so that we can tell you our vision for our learning environment and we can figure out how it fits into a whole school vision.
Please let us evaluate you so that we can tell you how the school’s climate is doing from an individual classroom standpoint. We know you have the overall feel, but let us fill in the gaps.
Please let us evaluate you so that we can help you grow like you help us grow. We are all human, we all have areas we need to focus on, yet sometimes our own judgment or priorities cloud what is most pressing. Sometimes teachers or even students are the ones that can keep or put a whole school on track.
Please let us evaluate you so that we know that how we feel matters. So that we know that much as we should be listening to our students and to you, you will also listen to us.
Don’t make it anonymous; people need to stand behind their words. But please give us the chance to speak those words to you.
We know time is of the essence, and we all know how much there is still to do, but please let us evaluate you so that we can continue to grow together.
PS: I let parents and students evaluate me every year, and every year, I grow from it, even if some evaluations are not as positive as I could hope. We will not grow if we do not ask the people who we effect how we are doing.
We Cannot Measure
…This is my most precious moment…and he places a picture of a person who has passed away under the document camera and takes my breath away. Tears and stammered out questions about the picture. He asks if he may sit down…and the tears keep coming from me, from him, from everyone.
We cannot measure student trust on a test.
We cannot measure the community that allows a kid to share their most precious moment and then show the emotions that accompany it.
We cannot measure the bravery that comes from knowing how vulnerable that child made themselves.
We cannot measure the tears the other kids got when they saw how much this meant to him.
None of that gets measured on a test.
None of that will ever be a part of my educator effectiveness evaluation.
Not the tears. Not the moments. Not the trust or the care we have in each other. Because no one would ever know how to measure it. And so they don’t.
And yet, those moments, are the ones that make my classroom a community. Those moments are the reasons the students thrive, grow, and love school. Those are the very moments that should count the most.
Yet instead they focus on math, reading, bubbles filled in correctly and then pretend that it gives them a full picture of that child. Pretends that they know the strengths and weakness of that kid.
We know it doesn’t.
When will the outside world learn?
Help Us Create the Best Summer Reading List Ever!
This year has been the year of reading; I don’t think I have ever read so many fantastic books, I don’t think I have ever spent so much money on books, and I couldn’t be happier. Except now I am faced with a problem; my 5th graders are starting to seriously ponder what they should read over the summer and I running out of ideas. I have about 30 books to read myself and I have been piling books on their desks but we need a seriously massive list to get us through the summer. So please help us by filling out any of these boxes on our form. Pass it around; ask your students, your colleagues your favorite librarians, and we promise to share all of the results.
Please help us make the best summer reading list ever!
A Child’s Imagination Lost
it’s poetry month and my student shave been sharing these incredible, thoughtful, and often breathtaking poems. Today, Buddy, a students of mine who is such a writer, left me this on my desk.
Imagination
The thing that kept me occupied
For hours and hours
Was something so valuable
How come I lost it?
The thing that kept me happy
On the days I felt so down
The thing that I used to treasure
Long, long ago
The thing that kept my days
Worth having fun on
The thing that I relied on
For most of my childhood
Why now as I play games and write stories every day
Why aren’t those times fun?
Probably as I grow older
I will lose my treasure; my imagination
As I stood there with his gift in my hand, I knew I had to ask; what do we do in schools to safeguard a child’s imagination? What do we do to help them keep it? Or will they see losing their imagination as byproducts of going to school and growing up?
