assumptions – Page 6 – Pernille Ripp

We’ve all been there, bouncing around at your school or home because you just discovered something absolutely, truly, fantastically wonderful that you just cannot wait to try in your teaching. It is a marvelous feeling this one, one that makes you want to sing from the rooftops and share the idea with everyone you meet. And then you do and the person who you indulge it with looks at you blankly. Silence. Deflated, you walk away, thinking to yourself that maybe that idea was not so great after all.

But wait it’s not them, it’s you. Or me in this case. I am one of those can’t wait to try it and then tell everyone about (mostly on this blog) idea kind of people. I get so overly excited about something that I am practically bursting at the seams with my newfound wisdom and my poor husband is forced to listen to hours upon hours of blissful teacher talk. I rave, I rant, I share and then I don’t understand why others don’t see the magic or get as excited to try it as I did. Take Twitter for example, I don’t think I have convinced a single person to get on it, and yet it is one of the most life-altering educational experiences I have ever had. But it’s not the “them” that are to fault, it is me.

We all love great ideas. We all have them and we all share them. Some great ideas work especially well for us and others just really don’t. As I grow as an educator, I am beginning to understand more which type of ideas I am really drawn to; student-centered, technology integration, and no grade/homeworks/rewards etc. are things that just rock my world. Others not so much. So when other people come up to me and share their great idea, I might be the one with that blank stare that does not show any kind of enthusiasm. Because to me it just doesn’t sound that exciting, or it goes against something I think I believe in, or I just don’t have the time.

And that’s when I realize, hey it is okay for others NOT to get excited over my great idea.

After all, being a teacher means you get to work with an incredible array of personalities that have one thing in common; they really love kids. So whichever way, or whichever ideas we use, to get us to change the world one kid at a time, is alright by me. However, I will promise myself that the next time someone presents their great idea to me, even if it seems a little strange, I will give it a good listen, perhaps even try it, and then decide. After all, I can only change myself.

assumptions, students

Wait, I’m a Foreigner Too

January 9, 2011 Pernille Ripp

We are at the grocery store and my daughter starts to run away, I yell after her “Thea, kom her nu” and other Danish after her until she comes running back. As I turn back to the cash register I notice the glance from the cashier and I think, “Yes, I am foreigner too.” Being a Dane with every stereotype personified (tall, blonde) in America means people in general do not realize that English is not my first language. While this is a blessing most of the time, it always astounds me how much of that perception is based on my looks and my name. I married into a big farm name in this area so my last name “Ripp” means most do not give me a second glance even after stumbling through my first name, which is as about as typically Danish as one can get.

I also do not have an accent. An early gift from my mother was living in San Francisco at the age of 6 and being thrust into a 1st grade classroom not speaking a single word of English. Directions were mimed and friendships were formed through glances and lots of hand movement. Perhaps this is why I speak so much with my hands now? Either way, research shows that children pick up the native accent if they are exposed to a language before a certain age and I happen to fall into that category. So when most people discover that I am indeed fresh off the boat so to speak, there are two reactions: “Wow, I had no idea” or “Oh, I thought I heard an accent” (to which I always think, no, you didn’t).

So why am I bothering share this story? Because it made me think of how we treat students who may be a higher level ELL (English Language Learners). Those non-native speakers that speak so well that we forget that English is not their first language. We generally remove our support in the classroom, expecting them to do just as well as their English-first speaking peers and then are surprised when sometimes they don’t. We get fooled by their conversational language and perhaps even their academic one, and then do not understand why their written work may be not as strong or another academic area.

So as I think of my own experience as an ELL student, I recognize my own need to re-support those students that may “sound” just fine. Those students that are very strong but are still learning. After all, although we are all still learning, when something is not your native language it does add another exciting dimension to your progress. So enough with my own assumptions, I must not forget about the whole history of the child and not just their present day status.

aha moment, assumptions, being a teacher, memories, school staff, students

It Happened at a Meeting

January 6, 2011 Pernille Ripp

Today I took notes at our staff meeting. Yes, a highly unusual task for me as I just sit and listen most of the time. But today was a day for note taking as we discussed hidden assumptions in life. I have written about this before mainly on this post, but the discussion keeps pulling me back in as I continue to challenge myself.

To assume means to suppose to be the case, without proof and it is this last bit of the definition that really sparked my interest today. When we assume in our classrooms, do we do it because it is easy? Because of intellectual laziness? Or is it some inane need to classify in order to navigate through life?

As teachers we often assume whether we can admit or not. We assume perhaps that a child who rides a certain bus has a laundry list of issues that need correcting. Or a child who comes from a wealthy neighborhood should be fine academically. Perhaps we assume socioeconomic status based on a pair of worn out shoes, rather than stop to ask the child, who may in the end, just really like those shoes. We provide snacks for the kids who live in rental properties, and extra time to do homework because their home-life may be tough, but how often do we ask our middle-class kids whether they are having difficult or whether food is sparse at their house? So in this instance, we assume because we are used to it.

I didn’t start my job with these assumptions, in fact, I prided myself on how much of blank slate I was. And yet, here they are now, fighting me every day. We see our class list and images and connotations frequent our thoughts until we meet the kids and then (hopefully) realize how wrong we are. We base our class lists for the coming year on even more assumptions about how a certain student may be do in a certain class based on the assumptions we make about that teacher. Sometimes others correct us and sometimes the assumptions is given more life because others nod their head, already victims of the same cloaked inferences.

So why are assumptions bad? As a victim of many, I can tell you they diminish you as a person unless you fight hard enough to break out of them. Because I moved a lot as a child due to my mother being awarded Fullbright scholarships, I was assumed to be transient with everything that entails. Because I was taught English at a very young age, and thus was the only 1st grader fluent in English, I was assumed to be gifted, which I am not. Because I was raised by an incredible single parent, I was assumed to have “daddy” issues or be the victim of a lackluster childhood, when the opposite is true. My mother’s scholarships means I learned what it means to be a global citizen. Being fluent in English means that I can teach my class with a native accent, rather than the awful Danish one (Lars Ulrich anyone?), and being raised by the most passionate and inspiring of mother’s who later married her soulmate gave me a role-model that I will forever try to emulate both in life and in love. In short, my “messed up life” on paper proved to be a fantastic journey.

As we pass our assumptions on in the hallways, meetings, or lounge conversations, we breathe new life into them. When we have one more child that fits the bill of what we thought they would be like, then we pat ourselves on the back, and know that we were right to categorize them such in the first place. Every year, as more students come our way, we strengthen our categories, our distinctions, and it becomes harder to see the truth, to wipe them all away.

Some will argue that there is nothing wrong with assuming certain things, and I agree that this is not a black and white discussion. Yet something has to be done with the monologue constantly running in our heads. When we do not speak our assumptions aloud, no one is there to refute them, and so they take on more “truthiness” until we don’t remember a time when we didn’t know this to be a fact. We have to fight our assumptions before we make them truths, the future of our students are at stake.

assumptions, hopes, inspiration, personality, students, teaching, vision

Which Lens Do You View the World With?

January 4, 2011 Pernille Ripp

We choose how we view the world, a line taken from an excellent post recounting a mother whose daughter has autism speaking to a group of MIT professors. Think about it for a moment, it is a quite deep sentence, we choose how we view to world…

Now flip that to your classroom, your school, your community; we also choose how we view these. Do we come to school with dark colored lenses where no matter what our students do, it is simply not good enough? Are our lenses wonky where we end up treating our students unequally? Is one eye closed to the world so we only see one side of the story? Or do we wear rose-colored lenses so that the world always seems bright and cheerful?

My lenses are clear, therein lies no fog. I view the world every day with a slight rosy tint to it but clear nonetheless. And more importantly, my lenses work both ways; they view the world and they view myself. I am always checking, readjusting and cleaning off my lens, so that whomever I encounter gets a clear view and not one tinted by perception. Is it time you clean your lenses?

anger, assumptions, behavior, being a teacher, classroom expectations, classroom setup, noncompliance, students

Are We Forcing Students to be Noncompliant?

December 27, 2010 Pernille Ripp

Noncompliance; just the word makes me shudder. So many connotations, so much negativity connected to this word, particularly in a classroom setting and yet you hear it whispered in the hallways, “noncompliance…” This word means: The failure or refusal to comply, meaning someone who is not following directions whether intentional or not. It is a mantra that we repeat, we must have students that comply in order to be successful. Without compliance our classrooms would simply fall apart.

Think about your day; you expect certain things out of the students for the classroom to work. Perhaps these expectations are simple such as signing in, getting to work, hanging your backpack, and handing in your homework. Or perhaps these expectations are ones that have been taught, such as raising your hand, not interrupting, working hard and trying your best. Whatever your expectations, sometimes there are kids that do not comply. I once had a student that didn’t comply, it was a tough year, everything was a battle. And yet, it was not because of a refusal to do so, he simply failed in the act of complying. He had too many demons to battle that there simply was not enough life energy left over to focus on all of my expectations and demands. So he was, indeed, noncompliant.

Think about the heaviness that comes with that word, though, when we label our students. Is it really because they are truly refusing or is it because of failure in communications or expectations? Perhaps a child becomes noncompliant because we set up perimeters in which they cannot succeed. Think of the child that fiddles, that child will not perform as expected if we set them up with nothing to fiddle with. Or the child that learns kinestethically rather than orally; if we continue to just talk rather than do, they might also not conform or do what we expect.

So when you set up your classroom expectations, think about what you are asking every student to do. Does every rule need to apply to ever student? How many rules or expectations does there really need to be? Don’t forget about your hidden assumptions that you have to communicate as well. What in your learning environment can you change to to give the biggest percent of kids a chance to be compliant? We often assume that students defy us on purpose, rather than figuring out the reason. And yet, sometimes the real reasons for students behavior may be something we would have never guessed. Instead of battling later, don’t set your room up for battle instead set up your room for freedom so that students may have choices. Offer them an opportunity to be successful, to be compliant, to want to learn, after all, most ids do really like school. Let’s not take that away from them.

assumptions, being a teacher, poverty, students

Don’t Judge that Bus

December 11, 2010 Pernille Ripp

Those kids that come from that neighborhood, perhaps it is one bus, perhaps most of your school. Whatever the numbers, there are always those kids. The poor ones, the ones that wont have a real Christmas because there is no money, the ones we worry about because surely someone has to save them from themselves, from the cycle. Those kids said with connotations, with meaning, with emphasis.

What shall we ever do for those kids, with those kids, to those kids?

And yet those kids may not be what we think they are. Yes, they may come from a certain neighborhood, or arrive on a certain bus, walk a certain way, speak differently than me. And yes, mom may be young or dad non-existent. There may be holes, tears, too short of pants, missing backpacks, and free and reduced lunch. But what there isn’t is one story. There isn’t one thing we can know about those kids. There is perhaps no need to fret, to worry, to save. We are always trying to save those kids. Sometimes what is needed is the lack of connotations, the lack of assumptions about life quality or needs.

Yes, they may come from that bus but that does not mean they need help. They may come to school with that swagger but that does not mean that life will always be hard or that bad choices will be made. It is time to stop making those assumptions about those kids. Stop hiding behind trying to be a better person by “adopting” those kids as your project. Treat them the same and if there is a need for help, help, but don’t jump to conclusions, don’t guess, ask, discover, and find out. Those kids are just that; kids.