The students look a bit confused as I finish speaking. I wait a second and then ask them if they have any questions.
“No project?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing to present?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Can we present if we want?”
“Sure, if we have time.”
Then smiles, murmurs, and whispered comments.
“Ok, Mrs. Ripp, this sounds fun.”
I have just told the students about our new resource time schedule and how I have built in project time – a 30 minute time block once a week for each child where they get to just learn something. Not time to create a presentation, not time to think of how they will share what they have learned, not time to work on homework, but just pure, self-regulated learning for the fun of it. Learning driven by their curiosity. Learning driven by their desires. Not genius hour even, just soaking in knowledge.
We decided as a group we would have an overarching theme every week, a common theme to get excited about, so geography will greet us next week. The students can create if they want or they can just soak in knowledge. They can work by themselves or learn with a friend. They can decide what part of geography they want to learn out of need or out of interest. I don’t set the direction, I don’t set the tone, I don’t tell them how. I give them the time, they pick the tools, they push themselves.
I can’t wait to see what they learn. I can’t wait to see what they do.
I am busy working on my second book to be published by Corwin in the fall hopefully, tentatively titled “Empowered Teachers – Empowered Students” it is all about how to change the climate of a school and a classroom. One of the things that I have been writing about is the need for “small moment PD,” particularly as we get busier and busier in our educational lives. What follows here is an excerpt from the draft, I would love to add your ideas to it or just get your thoughts.
So where can small moments of professional development happen?
5 minutes after the first bell. This may be a sacred time for attendance but why not dedicate it instead to article reading time or video viewing time. Send a short blog post or article for teachers to read the first five minutes during the day. Students are typically settling in, working on morning work, listening to announcements, and getting ready for class to start. While you read they could still be doing all of that or they could also be reading an article to benefit them.
Create school-wide independent reading time. Once a day or once a week, everyone should drop everything and read. Often teachers think that independent reading time (if at all implemented) should be used to meet with students, grade papers, get ready etc, but instead give permission to just read something. You can choose whether it should be something pre-determined or whether teachers can choose their own reading material but give them the time.
Buy professional books for book clubs. Some teachers thrive in informal book club discussions but don’t want to spend their own money buying the books needed. So why not allocate money for staff to pick their book club books and then highlight that a book club exists. Often all it takes for teachers to start reading is to give them a nice, new inspiring book.
Forward on condensed magazines filled with information. One of the biggest obstacles to quick professional development is finding the time to find things to share. Magazines such as “The Best and Next in Education” do the work for you. All you have to do is subscribe and then pass it on to staff.
Preload iPods with podcasts. I know teachers who drive for more than 45 minutes to get to work, why not have pre-loaded iPods ready for them to check out with great new podcasts to inspire them? There are so many wonderful podcasts available for free that is destined to inspire. What’s more many podcasts nowadays are 15 to 10 minutes long, that means even teachers driving short distances can benefit from these.
The all school read in. Why not have a weekly or bi-weekly read-in in the gym where teachers can drop their students off and meet in teams to learn something together? Often teachers are eager to learn but don’t have the time to meet, so even a 30 minute read-in can provide the time needed with minimal supervision required.
The bathroom article. The one place that all teachers go at some point is the bathroom, so why not post relevant articles in them? While this may seem silly or disgusting to some, having reading material right in front of you usually means you will read it.
Bribe teachers with lunch or coffee. Where this is food, there can be learning. Once a month, my incredible PTO provides a teacher appreciation lunch, why not combine this with a great video or discussion group. While it could not be made mandatory, if the content being delivered is worthwhile, you should see at least some teachers choose to participate.
Combine PD with students. Some of my best best PD has been in discussion with mystudents after watching a video or reading an article. Now these are 5th graders so the content being delivered has to fit the appropriate age group, but I have always left these student discussions with ideas to implement in our classroom the very next day.
As I said, this is not the ultimate list, but rather a beginning to spark ideas for you. Every school is different, as is its culture. Brainstorm with teachers and students where to find the time for extra professional development. Create the opportunities and then highlight the teachers that take it. Lead them into new leadership positions where they can share their new-found knowledge, after all, it is not just meant to provide teachers with more knowledge, but for them to become experts in their own right.
I am a passionate (female) 5th grade teacher in Wisconsin, USA, 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 Classroom Back to Our Students” will be released this March from Powerful Learning Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
In one week I return to my amazing classroom full-time. Done with a messed up maternity leave and eager to be back, yet sad to leave our little baby at home. Being at home has let me not only snuggle 4 kids any time I want, but it has also allowed me to reflect on small changes I want to incorporate into my own routine when I get back to my other kids. Perhaps you will find some ideas to shake things up a bit as well.
Be a PD ninja. So often we think of PD as a whole day affair but PD can also come in the form of a really great 5 minutes. So why not print out an article and slap it on the bathroom door? Why not forward a link to the whole staff? Why not start a PD related discussion at lunch? I love the little moments of learning that can be found in a day.
Ask your students. I swear this should be on my non-existent business card. My students have had an incredible sub while I was gone so the first thing I plan on doing is asking them what they loved about her way of teaching. I love stealing ideas that have worked in my room already, we should always embrace our chance to grow from others.
Incorporate a talk break. My students really struggle with transitions, they even blogged about it. Yet instead of beating them up about it, I plan on incorporating a mini-talk break before we transition. Students get a chance to switch their brains and also just get it out. A few minutes invested in talking will hopefully pay off the whole day,
Seek mindfulness.This article on mindfulness really made me think of how much it is needed in my room. While I have yet to figure out where it will fit, I am going to make it fit somewhere. I think we all need a moment to just be content and quiet as we tackle our learning.
Encourage unsupported reflection. I get to do conferences the week I am back and as always they are student-led. However, this time rather than having students fill out a questionnaire, I created a reflection sheet for them. I really want to see where they are not just as thinkers, but also how they will express themselves. How deep will they go in their conference when it isn’t just a fill in the blank sheet?
Make more connections. We got really busy before winter break and then I went into the hospital and everything got a bit chaotic. Making global connections was not our first priority. So the first week I am back we have 2 mystery skypes and a literacy share in honor of World Read Aloud Day. I have also reached out to a 5th grade in Australia to start a collaboration with them.
Start a continents project. Geography seems to be the loser in our curriculum with very little time to figure out where we are in the world. We will therefore be researching the continents and learning about the world during our resource block, hello Twitter connections!, what we will be doing I have not decided, after all, I need to ask my students.
Give back. I was inspired by this article on a 6 year old getting books for homeless children in NYC to think about what my own students could accomplish. We will therefore be starting a service learning project as well, once again proving that even children can change the world.
I became a teacher because I thought I could change the world. Now I know what a foolish endeavor I have set out upon. It is not so much that I cannot change the world, my teaching career is not over yet so I will not throw in the towel. It is more that I don’t care so much about changing the world anymore, but rather that I care about helping children change the world. My time is now, but theirs is coming up and as a teacher I have the privilege of being able to provide students with opportunities to make a difference, to make a change, to make their mark.
So what can you do to empower your students? I have been writing my second book on this topic for Corwin (hopeful publication this fall!) and keep coming back to the same simple principles.
Give them a voice – but also help them understand what it means to have a voice. Many of my students assume that having a voice just means speaking up, but to me it is much broader than that. Having a voice means having a say, deciding in what happens within the classroom or the school. Changing the way school is provided and having a way to speak to the world.
Breed honesty. Too often our students are too nice to say how they really feel about what we are doing to them, so leading by example in your own honest reflections, and starting discussions where students can safely share their true opinions, knowing that they will not haunt them in the future through a vindictive teacher. Yes, honesty can hurt our pride as teachers, even mine, but I would rather know what I am doing wrong than having students pretend everything is okay.
Find your place. It is too simplistic to say that our place as teachers should be on the side, it is also too simplistic to say that it should be as the leader. Instead as a teacher, our jobs and our place changes every day and sometimes every minute. While one child may need you to hold their hand, another needs you to push them forward. One child may need for you to get out of their way, while another is lost. I thought I would fail as a teacher if I led my students, now I know I only fail if I don’t give them what they need.
Make room for failure and success. Too often we simplify failure and how we must embrace it because that is the only true way to learn. Yet, success is also needed. Sure students need perseverance, we all do, but we also need success to fuel our perseverance. If I set up a classroom where students continually failed all in the name of creative pursuit, I would have a classroom full of students unsure that they would ever be able to succeed. Chance of failure – absolutely – but chance of success as well!
While empowering students is more than this, this are the foundation that I build my classroom upon. These are the tenets that must be in place for my students to continue developing into the incredibly passionate, confident, self-reliant problem-solvers they can be. Then they can change the world, and not just when they grow up, but starting today as 5th graders, not waiting for tomorrow.
Thea learns when she wants to. She creates her own homework when she wants to. And she gets it done when she wants to. She has almost been like this since she was born. Master of her own path and of her own time, So putting her in school, 4K, to be exact, has been interesting to say the least. She works hard in school, playing mostly, learning happens too (she has an amazing teacher) but she is carving her path at her own speed. Her personality staying true no matter what we try to do at home, no matter what she should be learning at a certain point in time. She doesn’t care about time lines of learning, she is on her own journey.
I wonder about my own students and those whose habits I try to change, am I on a wild goose chase? Are their habits already past changing or does that change have to come from within them with slight goading from me? How many times have I told a quiet child that they should speak up more, or a rowdy child that they should calm down? What about the child whose file shares a pattern of work not getting done, office referrals for miles, and grades to go with it? Can I truly change how they are as a person or only show them a better way and hope that they agree? Can I expect them to line up their achievements with what my curriculum map says thet should accomplish?
We talk about achievement in education as if we can just teach students something and expect them to be ready to learn it because of their age. Yet we seem to forget that we are working with human beings that don’t just change when someone tells them to, even if they are just a child being told what to do. We forget that even children have a sense of self and stay true to that unless the benefit to change is so great that they cannot resist. No matter how much I cajole Thea to learn her letters if she doesn’t want to, she won’t. No matter how much I sweet talk or tell her of the life consequences that will face her if she doesn’t. She will learn in her own time, as she always does, staying true to her personality along the way. Curious, creative, but all in her own time. Did I forget that my students are probably just like her?
I used to think I would end my days as an administrator, now I laugh at the notion. Nothing against administrators, but being a teacher has proven to me that I have no dreams of being a principal anymore. So I cannot pretend to write this post as a letter to a future me, instead, I hope it will serve as a small homage to the amazing principals I know and as a guide to those just starting out.
Dear principal,
I offer you a wish list of do’s, some hopes and dreams, some things I have seen amazing principals do, from this single teacher to you.
Do be accountable. When you say you are going to do something, please do it, no matter how big or small. If the every day gets in the way, please let us know, we understand there are only so many hours in a day. Tell us your plan for getting it done or why you can’t. Don’t make promises you cannot keep.
Do be confidential. It is hard to open up to your boss sometimes so confidentiality is key, and not just with our personal lives, but also with what happens in our classrooms. If you see areas we need to improve, let us know, but please do not tell other teachers, it only breeds embarrassment, not an urgency to change.
Do trust us. Part of being a strong leader is allowing yourself to trust others to do their best, even if their idea sounds a little crazy, even if they teach in a different way. Ask questions, be curious, but do trust our methods when you can.
Do share you stories but keep them short. It is wonderful when a principal has experienced something similar, that tells us this is not a singular event. Acknowledge the similarity and then help us problem solve, time is precious, let’s not waste it.
Do listen well. Part of being a role model is showing teachers how to be effective leaders, and great leaders listen well. So while you may have much to share, wait until the right time to interject, sometimes teachers are only looking for a shoulder rather than a solution.
Do advocate. Sometimes we need you to advocate for us to others, please stand behind us when you can or come to us when you can’t. We should be in this educational journey together, so have our backs.
Do lead by example, but be wary of titles. I see many principals call themselves the lead learner, the lead thinker and so on. While I embrace the notion of setting an example when you take that title it can diminish what all the other staff is doing. If you are the lead thinker then no one else will ever be expected to think as much as you or even think differently than you. As the lead learner I would expect you to learn more than me, learn better than me, and also share more than me. For some principals that is true, for others it is not. I am not sure that a title is either needed or conducive to foster joint responsibility or innovation.
Do draw your own conclusions. Part of being a fair and trusted leader is to make sure you have the full story, so seek people out, do your own research before decisions are made and above all, be fair.
Do be connected. Some of the best principals I have met have been connected ones. They bring new ideas into their schools, they have a finger on the pulse, and they are the first to share the amazing things happening at their school. So connect in some way with others, not just to promote your school, but to learn from the world.
Do be visible. A principal I worked with knew the names of every single child and parent in the building. This meant something to the people he encountered every day and he did it partly by being out in the school. I know there are mountains of things to do in your office, but take time to be seen. It shows us that the people matter, not just the duties.
Be honest. Being a great leader also means being honest with yourself, with your staff, and with the kids. If I am doing something that needs improvement I would like to know. If I did something amazing, let me know. Don’t sugarcoat it too much, cut to the chase and stay honest.
I am sure there is much I have left out, what else do amazing principals doI am a passionate (female) 5th grade teacher in Wisconsin, USA, 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 Classroom Back to Our Students” will be released this March from Powerful Learning Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
Pernille Ripp 