assumptions – Page 4 – Pernille Ripp

Use This Time to Remind

December 8, 2014 Pernille Ripp

I thought they would all remember. I thought they would all instinctively know. After all, by now, we have spent so much time together. I am sure they had me pretty figured out. Yet, after I surveyed them last Friday, I realized a few things. They have plenty of demons for me to battle when it comes to English, and boy, do they not remember the first day of school.

That first day of school. I should have known. After all, I don’t think I remember any of my first days or what was said, what we did. More an overall feeling of confusion, an overall feeling of nervousness yet wanting to get through the day so that the first day would be over; a new year begun.

So today we spent 15 minutes discussing the survey results, but also more importantly going through things that were said the first day of school. Yes, you can really move the tables and chairs wherever you want. Yes, you can really work ahead on projects and hand them in before they are due. Yes, you can come up with your own ideas. Yes, you can sit by whomever you want. Things that I thought by now they surely just knew.

You should have seen the look of surprise on many faces.

So as we lead up to the next winter break, as we get closer to an exciting time for many students; take the time to remind. Take the time to restate some of those things you said on the first day. Discuss as a class what you discussed on the first day. Bring it back up and watch it sink in for the first time for some. I thought they knew but once again I should have known better. As we unwind; remind and see the change, plant the seeds for 2015.

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 from Powerful Learning Press. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” is out now from Corwin Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

aha moment, assumptions, Be the change, being me, Passion

5 Things I Learned to Say That Changed the Way I Taught

November 11, 2014 Pernille Ripp

There are many things that we can change as educators. We can all embark on major journeys toward bettering our lives, the lives of our students, and the effect we have on others. Often those big journeys start when we hit frustration, mine certainly did. And yet those big journey of change are not the only journeys we can take. Every day we make a choice as to how we effect those that surround us. We make a choice as to how we will teach, how we will react. There are many changes that will change our lives, these are some of my simplest and most important.

I learned to say, “I’m sorry.” Apologizing to students, and not just for the big things changed my relationship with them. Now when I accidentally call out a wrong kid, I apologize rather than make an excuse. When I screw up, I admit it. When I inadvertently hurt a child’s feeling, which does happen, I apologize. I don’t try to explain my way out of it, a quick statement is all it takes, but the power of “I’m sorry” cannot be underestimated. Those words share the story of how we view our students. They are human beings that deserve respect.

I learned to say, “Let me check.” I used to know I was right. I used to know that whatever a child said about already turned in homework, sent emails, or other obligations was a lie. Until I realized that I was in the wrong and that even if I think I am right, it is better to check first. Check the pile of paper. Check my email. Check my file. Whatever it may, they check and I check, no lost pride, no hurt relationship.

I learned to laugh at myself. When you teach you will make stupid mistakes that make you look like a fool. You are bound to trip and fall, you are bound to say things that can be misunderstood, you are bound to do something that you would giggle at if it happened to others. Laughing at yourself with the students is powerful. Showing students my inner dork, which I tried to suppress at all cost for so many years, has allowed them to fly their flags. They know when I am serious, but they also know how much I love to laugh, even at myself.

I learned to say, “Ok.” Ok to sit there, ok to turn it in that way, ok to explore this, ok to read that book, ok to have that conversation. OK to try, ok to fail. I learned to say ok to new adventures and epic attempts. I learned to say when I realized I couldn’t say yes to anything more, and ok when I could. I learned to say ok when a lesson failed, I learned to say ok when a child told me they tried. This simple word, these two letters, have allowed me to let go of so much. I no longer strive for perfection, but for authenticity. The latter is so much more interesting. “Ok” taught me that.

I learned to say, “You matter,” but more importantly I learned to show it. I learned to look at my students when they speak to me, to stop what I am doing and listen. I learned to read between the lines, to dig a little deeper. I learned to say yes to lunch, to stop and talk, I learned to tell stupid jokes to break the ice. I learned the language of my students, whether spoken or unspoken, and I learned to teach with my whole heart, with all of me.

What have you learned to say that changed you?

aha moment, assessment, assumptions, Be the change, being a teacher

You Can’t Just Do It To Them

November 8, 2014 Pernille Ripp

“Remember, whatever I ask you to do, I ask myself to do too.”

This is how almost any assignment is handed out in my classes. Not to make the students feel better. Not to make them embrace the assignment more quickly. No, it is really quite simple; I have done the assignment already. I have spent time doing the exact same thing, following the same directions, looked at the assessment and pondered how I would do. Not when I was their age, not when I was in college, not even last year. No the assignment I am asking them to do, I have done in the past few days as well as I prepared.

Why is this important? Because every day we ask students to spend their time, whether in class or after school, doing work for us to show their mastery, to practice their skills, to help them grow. Yet often these assignments are ones that we have never experienced ourselves. Ones that we may have used to much success before. Or ones that we got from an amazing source. Yet, we don’t know what it feels to actually do it. And that creates a problem based on assumptions. We assume we know how much time it will take. We assume we know how hard it is. We assume our directions are clear. We assume the assessment is fair. All of those assumptions add up to nothing good.

I started doing my own assignments a few years back. I didn’t get why my students groaned so much when a new project was handed out. I didn’t get why I would get emails from parents stating how many hours their children had spent. Whether it was book report dioramas, grammar packets, or even just outside reading, I assumed I knew what it was like to do them because I had gone to school once too. On a whim one night, after a particular groan-filled day, I did one of my grammar packets. 9 pages, front to back copied, neatly stapled to teach me all about proper nouns versus common nouns. 45 minutes later, I threw it in the trash. How many times could I write the same answer over and over or be asked the same thing? Yikes. The next day I apologized to my students and we found other ways to do grammar.

So now, I live by a simple rule. Whatever I ask my students to do I have to do as well. So if they have to write an assignment, I write it too. If they have to read outside of school every night, I do too. I discuss my struggles and problems that I encounter hoping they will feel more confident to try something new. I tell them when I stop reading and I recommit in front of them, I tell them when I don’t feel like doing any work but now I have to. My students will not learn from having a perfect teacher, they need someone that they can relate to, even if our years push us apart.

I know that I am not 12 years old and that I have an easier time doing their work. That only cements my resolve to do every assignment. If it takes me 30 minutes to write a great constructed response, then imagine how long it can take for a student?

We cannot keep forcing our ideas on kids without experiencing them ourselves. So commit; whatever your students have to do, make yourself go through it. Trust me, the things you will change will surprise you. Be a learner, just like them, and tell them that you know what it feels like. But don’t just say it, do it and mean it.

assumptions, being me, Decisions, life choices, students

We Should All Be Surprised

October 3, 2012 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

A teacher contacts me at the beginning of the year at their wits end; they have this one student, you know the one, the one that doesn’t listen, the one with the rap sheet miles long even though they are just in 5th grade. That student that smiles and laughs and then turns deadly the moment you turn your back. yeah that one is now in their room and this teacher tries everything. Throughout the year we share tips and ideas, what if’s and have you tried’s. Sometimes there are small victories but most often the honeymoon is over before it began. At the end of the year the teacher is exhausted and the student is about the same except maybe taller, faster, and even more hellbent on saying no and getting their way.

Over the summer I hear once more from the teacher, this time telling me that the student had been in trouble with police. Something minor but still a gateway to worse, a gateway to things we so diligently try to shield our kids from. What comes next floors me; “I’m not surprised, just thought it would happen later, that’s all…” The words form a rope around my neck and I feel myself at a loss for words. I don’t know how to answer that, not then, but now I do. You should be surprised! You should be shocked that any kid decides to go down that path. We should never lose our surprise when students, kids, make bad decisions. I don’t care what path they were on in our classrooms. I don’t care how destructive they may have come off as. We should be surprised when they make terrible decisions and not just say, “See, I knew it would happen…”

I know this may be idealistic and perhaps I have one foot in utopia, but yet, we have to be surprised when our students fail our expectations. We have to be surprised when they wander into dangerous territory and make poor decisions. Be surprised when all of our hard work, all of our efforts, don’t seem to make a difference. Someone has to keep believing in these kids, even the ones we think are lost. Even the ones that give us the hardest time, sometimes, because after all, they are the ones that need it the most. So stay surprised and keep believing.

advice, assumptions, Dream, students

A Child Reveals His Ambition and I Snort

June 18, 2012 Pernille Ripp

Basketball (Photo credit: mvongrue)

“…Awe but Mrs. Ripp, I won’t need to know how to do this because I am going to be a famous basketball player…”

I hold back a snort. Really? A famous basketball player? In my head, the statistics of this ever coming true run through at lightning speed, I am about to say something, and then I stop. Who am I to squash a dream, even if in my eyes it is an unrealistic one?

So I take a different approach. “Did you know that even famous basketball players have to go to high school, have to learn, have to go to college?” The boy stares at me. “Did you know that this will directly lead into more math that we are going to do and I have a feeling you are going think it is really fun? Did you know that to be a true role model you shouldn’t just be great at basketball but you should also show the world just how smart you are?” The boy nods, still unsure of what I am saying, but I walk away, dreams still in place, not squashed by this teacher.

As a teacher, I used to be the biggest realist I knew. I was quick to tell students what they could or could not do, the odds of something happening to them. I felt it was part of my job to set them up for “real life” with real expectations and real failure coming their way. Now I know better, there is no sense in destroying dreams, even if we know it may not happen. There is no sense in taking hope away from children. What we can do, though, is to show them everything else that is important; how an education fits into their dreams. How an education may be the ticket to get them where they need to be. Hoa an education is not a waste of their time, so don’t make it a waste of their time. Make it something they want to have, make school a place they want to go to. A lofty goal perhaps, but a necessary one.

assumptions, being a teacher, lessons learned, Student-centered

Even With Our Changed Classrooms, Have We Changed Anything At All?

April 27, 2012July 24, 2013 Pernille Ripp

Image from icanread

It relates to school because there are calculators…

It relates to school because he uses math in counting out the tickets …

It has to do with math and that is why it has to do with school…

My students are journaling about the movie “Caine’s Arcade” and how it relates to school. These wonderfully creative, powerfully imaginative students don’t see the deep connections between the environment that I try to create and that of Caine. They don’t see how I try to challenge them to problemsolve, to create, to use materials in different ways. to try, to fail and to have hope and perseverance.

Instead they see a 9-year-old boy who realized life was more than calculators and math. That you could build something with what you have and have a little bit of hope. They see that boy as an inspiration, his arcade as incredible, but not those things in the environment we create here, at school.

What a lesson for me to be taught; school is still seen as its own world with set rules. Segmented and regimented. As something departmentalized from creativity, or at least where creativity is built into the day, scripted and called for. School is viewed as something to be lived through so the real experimenting can happen afterwards. I may think I do things differently, but I may be the only one.