Category: Be the change

aha moment, Be the change, being a teacher, being me

Ordinary Life

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

The man I love turned 50 yesterday.

A milestone event, cataclysmic in its ordinarity really. Just live long enough and you too will reach this day. And yet, it moves the ground beneath you, Makes you stop and pause. 50 is for grownups, for less life to live than lived (more than likely), for adult-decisions, and adult wisdom.

And so we celebrated in a busy ordinary day. Squeezed in a birthday song before drop off and pick up. Planted birthday flags in a school dinner for the Project Pig meal our daughter had been a part of with a local butcher (Danish schools are wild). Fell asleep on the couch at 9, filled with love, and also all of the responsibilities of two working adults with 4 children.

This morning, the alarm still rang at 4:30. The tea tasted the same. The bubble of excitement for the weekend felt familiar. He didn’t look any different. Our love hadn’t changed.

Life is lived in the ordinary. In the moments of familiarity, in the ease of the couch cushions that embrace us on good days and bad. In the routines that keep this neurodivergent household afloat. We long for freedom in our weekends. We celebrate the big moments, the befores and afters that mark the turning of the page. But really, life is lived in the ordinary.

It makes me think of our reading identities. That we may have the markers of the big experiences – the first book you couldn’t put down, the book you had to share, the first book we ever read to show the map of you. But the steps in between, those are ordinary events if we make it.

The invitation to read every day, for every child. The read aloud that children can count on will happen during the day, with voices, of course. The everyday access to books of their choosing. To have adults who care about the way they experience those books. The questions posed about who they are as readers and who they want to be. The books returned, the books abandoned, the books finished.

All ordinary moments.

Or they should be.

Because we build a life in the ordinary.

We build our reading identity in the flow of access. In the invitations into reading that happen every day. In the steady faith that reading is a place for all children, and adults, to find a home, even if it feels unfamiliar and wasteful right now.

The door remains open. There is no time limit on becoming a reader. There is no extraordinary celebration you must attend in order to be made a reader. You show up, you try, and you try again.

And we keep that door open for all. We fight the poor policies that shut the door on our readers. We fight the bans. We fight the lethargy.

We reserve the right to make reading an ordinary experience, one to be counted on, much like the school bell will ring. Kids should be able to count on that books, and reading, and moments of silence await them in our spaces. Not just on special days, but on every day.

This afternoon, I will run errands, get my flu and covid shots, and gather our family for our weekly Friday night movie night. If the movie is terrible, I will read alongside them, present but engaged in my own make believe world. Tomorrow morning, I will go run on a treadmill, do my laundry, and walk my garden.

Mundane perhaps, ordinary, yet extraordinary in that I get to live it.

I keep the door open to my ordinary life so that we can look back and see it for its beauty, for what it really was. A life lived between breaths. A reading journey built between pages.

Won’t you live an ordinary life with me?

Be the change, being a teacher

Good Enough

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

It’s been so long since I wrote, that I forgot my own website address.

It’s not that there haven’t been things to share, it’s more that I don’t know where to begin. That I have lived back home in Denmark for four years now, and been a teacher here for nearly three, and yet still feel like Bambi on ice. Trying to find my footing but knowing that I am more than likely spinning in circles and sliding farther away from my intended target.

So instead of trying to catch anyone up, don’t even know if there is anyone to catch up here, I am simply beginning again.

Hello and welcome to my thoughts about teaching, about life, about being a mom, a woman and living in this world right now with all its complications and wonders.

I am supposed to be the one that teaches children to read and write in my first grade classes. This is a burden I never wanted to have and yet the puzzle of trying to make the pieces click into place, of trying to help children find their way into story, and place their stories into the world, is one I relish. Will this little thing work? What if we do this? Try this? Stop this?

My students are both willing and unwilling participants; while happy to be in school still, they don’t get to choose that they should learn how to read or write. Like so many other things, that choice has been made for them.

But how we do it, together, that can be rife with choices. Some we are exploring cautiously, some we throw ourselves into just happy to try something new.

There is so much we can do together that I feel paralyzed at times. The weight of this wondrous world of literacy so heavy that I am not sure of what is best, what to do, what to keep. Imposter syndrome at its finest.

Because am I enough for everyone? Probably not. But can I show up and try my best, yes. Can I plan something every day that is one part of an expansive path that will expand these readers and authors? Can I teach strategies, offer practice, and pull them into the magic of what it means to read and write and leave the door so wide that even the most cautious of children can bumble through. Yes. Always yes.

I can observe, and tweak, and dream, and wonder and try. I can try again when it didn’t work. I can offer myself grace when it feels like too much to do and not enough me.

Because the power we have to experiment and pilot cannot be removed when we sit in our classrooms. We are allowed to try again again and again.

Because that’s really all this great big thing is. Whether it be life or teaching. An invitation to show up every day and try again. To leave knowing that you tried something. To leave in a way that makes you want to come back.

So I may not always know what I am doing, or even how to do something well, but I know how to show up. And for now, that’s going to be good enough.

Be the change

This Year I Am Boring My Students (On Purpose)

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

I have been thinking a lot about boredom. And how so many of us, yes, myself included, seem to be almost allergic to it. I am not aware of this obviously when I search for constant stimulus, but my brain is.

It shows up in the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day, in the way I can’t quite remember the details of my life like I used to. How my own kids will bring up events that they remember so clearly, and yet I don’t even remember them happening.

I feel my hand reach for my phone before I am even aware of my brain telling me to do it. As I write this in my greenhouse, my phone lies next to me, calling to me with a quick check of Instagram to see how my latest post is doing, or perhaps to extend that Snapstreak I have with my husband.

None of this is new.

People much smarter than me have been ringing the alarm on attention issues and how we all need to be more bored, more often, for years. We know it. We try it. And then we get busy again, and we are right back to the cycle of stimulus chasing.

And yet, we also know that within boredom lies creativity, and so it is this that I ruminate on today. Because where did my own creativity go? And what happens to creativity when those behind all the latest AI tools want us to believe that it can come from a machine? What happens to creativity when we can be handed a manual for practically everything we can dream of doing, and assume that because our worlds are so filled already, what we have invented and created now is enough?

I see it with my students too. When I tell them to free draw, they immediately ask me if they can watch how to draw on YouTube. When I propose a dance break, they want a Just Dance with choreographed dance moves. When I invite them to write a story, often it is the first idea they go with, and often that idea is inspired by a game, a movie, or set in a world not created by them.

When I push them beyond the scripted or the known, they get a little lost. The insistence of needing help grows louder, the confidence drops, sometimes even followed by tears.

It turns out not knowing what to do, or not having a guide to follow, is a really scary place for some.

And I get it.

In a world where so many of us feel like we need to be perfect because that is all we are surrounded by, who wants to stand out as unique or creative? After all, when you take a risk, others may not like it, others may judge you. And with phones ever present, it is no longer just those close enough to you that can witness your strangeness. The whole world can point its finger and laugh.

So how do we invite boredom into our classes? Because it is kind of the opposite of what we have been told to do for so many years.

Do more, make it exciting, teach like a — insert whatever. Bring the exuberance and plan many activities in a short amount of time so you don’t lose their attention. Faster. More tech. More tools. More colors and noises. Bombard them so they don’t want to look away. Feel a dip in energy, do a game. Eyelids getting heavy — brain break!

And we leave the days needing to recover because our brains were never supposed to take so much in, no matter how well we think we do at it.

If we already know that we can’t win in the dopamine race that our brains are constantly in, then why even bother entering?

Because I am sick of running at a furious pace just to keep up with something I wasn’t meant to keep up with. And so in some ways, this year, unintentionally, I have been trying to bring boredom back into my classroom.

Slowing down purposefully, inviting children to sit in the discomfort of not getting help right away, telling them to try even when they are frustrated.

We have started with reading for more than 10 minutes now. A slow invitation into community and stories that allows everyone to settle in, settle down, and sink into their minds. I am steadfast in my commitment that this is one of the largest gifts we can give children. A book where they get to find peace, hopefully.

We do choose your own writing every week. Four choices are presented, or they can do their own, and as the year has grown so has the given time. Write beyond what you think you can. Allow yourself to think. No rush to get started, but select something that piques your attention. And keep at it. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be written.

Our art classes have been freer, techniques shown, and then make something. Back to the basics of how to use the world for inspiration, mixed in with more formal lessons.

Saying no to brain breaks as a way to relax, and instead recognizing them as a way to hype up. They bring the energy, not a break, and so I use them for that purpose.

Using our class meeting as a way to reflect on how our community is and what it needs work on, and taking the time it takes because that is the whole lesson.

Staying with our read aloud and not offering opportunities to do anything else while you listen, except that you can choose to lie down if you would like.

Actively looking for places to slow down, focus in, and not feel the urge to rush through lessons in order to keep the excitement up. Sure, that three week unit on idioms should have ended two weeks ago, but we are still in it, and we are still having fun.

I need them to be present, I would love for them to be alert, but I am going to give them time to be involved longer.

And so as I dream of next year, although I still teach until June 26th, as we do in Denmark, I am thinking of more ways to cultivate boredom, and hopefully creativity, with my new 1st graders.

I asked Claude what ideas it had to share, and of course it complimented me on my thinking, because according to AI, I am a genius. But the ideas shared beyond that were worth perhaps considering. Or perhaps, when I garden next, where I have banned AirPods and music, my mind will wander and more ideas will flow as my hands dig in the dirt and order starts to take shape. Because after all, I discovered that my key to creativity is dirty hands and plans that promise a bright future.

From Claude:

What a great question — and a countercultural one. Here are some ways to build productive boredom into your teaching:

Create empty space and protect it

The instinct is to fill every minute. Resist it. Build in unstructured time with no task attached — even 5–10 minutes where students have nothing they have to do. Don’t rescue them from the discomfort. That discomfort is the point.

Give prompts with no right answer and then go quiet

Ask a question, then wait far longer than feels comfortable. Don’t fill the silence. Don’t rephrase. Just wait. Students will eventually stop looking to you for direction and start looking inward.

Remove the scaffold before they feel ready

A lot of creative paralysis comes from over-scaffolded tasks. Give a topic, a blank page, and nothing else. The constraints they invent themselves are always more interesting than the ones you provide.

Slow down repetitive tasks on purpose

Repetition — copying, tracing, sorting — creates a kind of mild cognitive float that’s actually fertile ground for ideas. Don’t apologize for it. Let minds wander during it.

Ban “I’m done”

When students finish early, don’t give them the next thing. Say: now just sit with it for a bit. Make “done” a beginning rather than an ending.

Build in maker/wonder time with no product requirement

Time to draw, build, mess around with materials — with no expectation of output. No sharing, no display, no rubric. The absence of an audience changes everything.

Let lessons meander sometimes

Follow a tangent even if it takes you off-plan. Model for students that curiosity doesn’t always lead somewhere useful — and that’s fine. Wandering has value.

The underlying principle: most creativity tools in school inadvertently kill boredom by replacing it with stimulation. The goal is to stop filling the gap and trust that students will eventually fill it themselves — with something that came from them, not from you.

Be the change, being me

One breath at a time

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

I have the lung capacity of a 70-year-old.

Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a genetic deficit in my lungs and liver. One that can lead to emphysema, asthma, and a whole list of other things no one hopes to casually collect. It made sense. Walking up the stairs while talking would leave me breathless, still does. And yet, hearing that my lungs were not the way they were supposed to be was a quiet devastation. One more heavy thing to carry. A moment where my imagined ending shifted, where my future suddenly looked smaller, more fragile, than I had planned for.

And then we did what people tend to do.

We carried on living.

I noted how biking uphill became harder, how running became officially impossible (not that it was ever my thing), how nearly every cold turned into bronchitis or pneumonia, how exhaustion lingered long after the illness had passed. How my body kept whispering, something isn’t right, even when I was trying very hard not to listen.

And my fear grew. Because living beside your own mortality, really beside it, is exhausting. It’s scary. It makes you feel out of control.

A year ago, I realized I needed to change the trajectory. That I was living inside a self-fulfilling prophecy of decay. Because I knew biking would be hard, I didn’t bike. Because I knew exercise would leave me gasping for breath, it did, and once I was out of breath I stopped. I avoided the very things that might help because they confirmed everything I was afraid of.

But I also knew this: the constant current of stress, needed an outlet. And sugar wasn’t it. Alcohol wasn’t it. Tears weren’t it. Rage definitely wasn’t it.

A change had to come.

So I signed up for an introduction to CrossFit, bought actual trainers, and showed up — wildly out of my depth, unsure of what I was doing, and hoping no one would notice how hard breathing felt. I didn’t do it because I suddenly believed in myself. I did it because staying the same felt worse.

What followed wasn’t a transformation. It was resistance.

It was showing up fueled more by desperation and anger than motivation. It was loud, angry music. It was the fear of being the first to die in a zombie apocalypse. It was learning that I will never like running, or be good at it — and that this does not mean I can’t do it.

It didn’t come from a big training program. It came from small steps. From doing a little, resting, and then doing a little more. From learning that my pace is not a failure, but a necessity.

My pace. My way.

How much of change is exactly this?

Not the sweeping programs. Not the inspirational speeches. But lacing up your shoes (I promise this won’t turn into an exercise blog) and seeing how it goes.

So on January 1st, I made the goal that I wanted to be able to run one kilometer in a month. I turned to ChatGPT and asked it to create a plan. Its first suggestion was to warm up by running three kilometers.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how familiar that felt.

How often do we ask for a small change and are handed an overhaul? A new program, new training, new language — when what we really needed was permission to start where we are. To try one thing. To begin without confidence, without mastery, without pretending this will be easy.

I see this all the time in education. We want to support children better, reach them sooner, help them regulate, belong, and learn. And so often, the answer becomes more: more systems, more steps, more expectations, more work for the adults — while the children wait for us to fix everything.

And then we wonder why we burn out.

Because the truth is, we cannot meet every child’s need. And that expectation, implicit or explicit, is impossible to carry alone. What we can do — what truly matters — is show up. Notice. Offer presence, consistency, and a small, safe step forward. For some children, just knowing that someone sees them, waits for them, or trusts them to make a choice is enough to shift something inside.

The children carrying so much anger, fear, grief, and overwhelm spill it into our shared spaces. They trust us enough to bring all of that mess into school — even when we cannot fix it.

This work rarely starts with big interventions. It starts with the smallest possible step. Not because it will fix everything, but because it might shift something, and because we, too, need to survive alongside them. And so we start small.

Letting a child decide when a check-in happens — now, later, or not today — and trusting that choice as information, not defiance.

Creating one predictable question that never changes, not to extract answers, but to signal safety: Do you want me close, or do you want space?

Making the exit plan visible before it’s needed, and then honoring it without commentary when it is used.

Lowering the academic demand in the moment without lowering the relationship — fewer words, shorter tasks, a pause instead of a push.

Offering literacy as regulation: a book already on the desk, a familiar text reread, writing without an audience, reading without assessment.

Naming what you notice without asking for repair: Something feels heavy today. I’m here when you’re ready.

Returning to the child later, always later, to restore, not resolve.

It is allowing yourself to not be perfect. To say good enough. To try, live with it, and then, when it becomes familiar, add another layer. It is resisting the urge to rush toward resolution and choosing presence instead.

This is slow work. It is unglamorous. It is deeply human.

And maybe that’s why we miss it while it’s happening. Because change rarely announces itself.

And like taking small steps with your own health or fitness, it is done one breath at a time.

Today, I ran 2.6 kilometers. That’s 1.6 miles for those of you in the U.S. A new personal record. Something I didn’t think I could do a year ago, and not even a week ago.

And maybe that’s the point. Change, for me, for a child, for a classroom, doesn’t announce itself.

It slips in quietly, one breath at a time.

So do we keep breathing? Or stop?

balance, Be the change, being me

The Work That Still Works

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

It has been ages since I have written here.

Not created content, not shared ideas, but simply written in the ways that I have been writing for so many years. A familiar refrain, a coat that fits just so, but left forgotten in a closet because who has time to take it out?

It seems I moved to Denmark and forgot parts of myself.

As with so many other things, there are many reasons. We moved back home, but home was something brand-new. I had to create a support system for everyone in the move, which also included two of my children receiving neurodivergence diagnoses that finally made so many things make more sense. I had to learn how to be a teacher in an education system that I have only ever been a student in.

And so I put my head down, and I took the steps every day, trying to get all the pieces to fit together, even though the instructions never came, and the pieces seemed to change overnight.

And I ran, and I felt I couldn’t share because what we navigated was too hard at times, too raw, too foreign—even though it shouldn’t have been—and I knew I would have found solace in sharing out, but also felt that this story was one that had little importance, while the world we had left behind seemed to light on fire. And it didn’t feel new or worthy, because the whole world is filled with glitz and glam, and influencers telling you that they indeed hold the key to happiness.

But now, I am here. Back in this space, still holding hope that there is a space to return to.

Because the work is still there. The need to shout for more sanity, to slow down, to get back to basics, even though there are so many forces that work against us.

And so we take the basic steps every day to retain dignity, to further understanding, and to create spaces where children get to be fully human.

This year, I took over a parallel 3rd grade, a bunch of incredible kids who, through circumstances beyond them, have had a slew of incredible teachers who haven’t been able to stay. And so, rightfully so, they demand a lot of the adults who now get to be their teachers, because why should they trust us to stay when so many others have left?

And so we have done what we have always done: we have slowed down. We have integrated morning meetings every day, we have reclaimed independent reading. We have taught conflict solutions for them to use before they come to us. We have talked, and talked, and talked—but not at them, with them—giving them ways to voice their worries, their hopes, and their ideas. We have differentiated the work, given them more freedom to move, to shape their learning, so that they too can answer how they learn best.

And I have wanted to share about all the progress that we have built, but is there really a way that something as simple as starting with a morning meeting, and how simply asking children to hold space for each other’s voices, can help another educator out there?

Because it is not flashy. It is basic. And it is being pushed out of our schools at alarming speeds, replaced with more learning, more rote, more prepackaged programs. And in this rush, we forget that gathering in schools is also meant to simply gather us. And when so many of our children gather more and more behind a screen, they don’t know how to gather on the floor unless we make the spaces for it.

Unless we hold on to the value of it.

Unless we stand steadfast and refuse to let the invented urgency of more curriculum drown out our common sense.

And so we plan for it, because we see the inherent strength of asking others to listen, to set their needs aside while others speak, to wait their turn, and then know that when they do speak, others do the same.

And so, I sit in the light of my soon-to-be taken-down Christmas tree, and I recognize the need for simplicity. For recognizing and owning that I don’t want to create simply to produce. That what works for me still works. Basic, down-to-earth ideas that may not be flashy or glitzy, but at their core recognize the humanity of the children we teach.

And so, for now, I am here. I will share. I will hold space for those of you who are also running every day, who also feel that what you are doing is maybe not the flashiest of work, but Lord knows, it works. And we see it in the way the kids carry themselves. How they ask us whether we can do a morning meeting when our schedules are changed. Who want to share all the things they have been holding in. Who come to school knowing that when they are not there, they are truly missed.

Perhaps I was missed too, here. I am not sure, but I know I missed this.