being a teacher

Yes It Is All About the Children But It Also Has To Be About the Teachers

February 22, 2012July 24, 2013 Pernille Ripp

reddogreport.com

I agree that education is all about the children, after all, they are the ones we serve, both as individuals and as communities. Those children we send into our educational system, whether it be public, private or home schooled are indeed what a great education is about. But at some point we gave up our dignity as educators. We got so infatuated with believing that it is all for the children that we forgot that we need decent work environments to sustain us. That we need to be a little bit about ourselves as well.

The quickest retort to any educator who stands up and fights for change is “You are against the children.” We are not allowed as teachers to ask for better pay, because some believe that the money will then be taken away from the students. We are not allowed to ask for respect in a profession that gives little otherwise, because teachers are public servants funded by the tax payers and we should just be happy that we have a job. We are not allowed to point out that we do work more than 8 to 3 every day and most of us do not get the summers off because that doesn’t fit with the box that society has created for us as lazy, indulgent, and taking an easy job. But most of all, we are not allowed to say that yes, indeed, it is about the children, but it is also about the teachers.

As teachers we cannot be all about the children if we do not have work environments that support and nurture us. Communities that rally around us. Governments willing to pay us a better wage. If we fight for change we must not be for the children, but instead selfish and demanding. However, those children that we all serve, deserve to have teachers that don’t need to work an extra job on top of the 60 hours many of us put in. Teachers that do not spend their own money on extra supplies because otherwise the students will suffer. Teachers that are respected because they do make it all about the children. So yes, I agree, education is all about the children but it also about those teachers that prop them up to be the leaders of tomorrow.

Females Shouldn’t Be Principals and Other Idiotic Statements Overheard in Education

February 21, 2012 Pernille Ripp

Not too long ago I heard someone (a female someone) say that they were not sure that a female principal would make a good fit at an elementary school. Now mind you, this wasn’t any particular female principal, just the general notion that females really don’t have a place running a school. When I probed a little deeper there seemed to be a notion that with all these female teachers that tend to flock to elementary levels (5 years old through 11 years old) there is a need for a strong male to keep us all in line. After I picked my jaw off the floor I went home and could not stop thinking about it.

So I present to you the arguments I have come across when I hear negative talk of female principals running a school:

Women are ruled by their emotions and we all know how women get when they have PMS.
Women tend to cause more drama, not able to distinguish between fairness and friendship.
All those women in a school need a strong male role model to be ruled by.
All those boys in our schools need a strong role model to look up to it.
Women may be good at organizing but they are much too nice to make hard decisions.
Demanding parents will be able to run a female principal right over.

And this isn’t a single person voicing these opinions; this is permeated into the general school culture. Why else do we not hear these types of blanket statements made about male principals? What is holding all of us organized, fair, capable women back from being principals? Are we just too nice to hold a position of power or will our emotions truly get the better of us? Please enlighten me so we can stop the nonsense.

being a teacher, internet safety

I Found 8 Students on Facebook…

February 12, 2012 Pernille Ripp

It finally happened; in a passing conversation my principal mentioned Facebook and one of our students. Curious I jumped onto my account typed in the name and there it was; his profile for the whole world to see. No protection, no privacy, but all the information you could want about this 10 year old kid. I noticed he had more than 800 friends and so I scrolled through and sure enough about 8 more of our 5th graders showed up and even some 4th and 3rd graders. Yes, I felt like a creepy stalker but also I couldn’t help but think why hadn’t anyone taught them about their privacy settings? I shouldn’t be able to see his pictures, his walls, his friends

This post is not to debate the merits of Facebook. I think a lot of 5th graders are on there, whether they should be or not. It is to discuss how we are not able to teach them the safety lessons they need when we stick our head in the sand and pretend they are not. I have written about it before and it continues to irk me. As a school we do internet safety, sure, which mainly teaches the kids how scary the Internet is, instead of devoting our time to teaching them how to use the internet properly.

Now some may argue that it really is the job of a parent, but with Facebook changing its privacy policy more times than I change shoes, can you blame them if they are as confused as their kids? So I propose that we as teachers figure out a way to teach the safety and proper privacy policy of Facebook. Maybe not in younger grades than 5th although my searching found 8 year olds on there, but there needs to be some sort of open discussion. There needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that these young kids are on there and that we need to teach them to do it right.

I have used Edmodo with my students and my students are probably more internet savvy than most other 4th or 5th graders. And while I like Edmodo one drawback is that my students don’t have control over their own settings. I set it all up so that they are protected. I decide what they can post and who they can post to. Edmodo is a step yes, but it is not enough simply because it is not the wide-open world of Facebook We don’t expect kids to learn how to drive by keeping them on a bumper-padded closed course either? Instead, we take them into the real world and navigate it with them, we need to do that with Facebook. Facebook comes with such immense responsibility; why are we skirting ours when it comes to teaching safety?

being a teacher, classroom expectations, classroom setup, Student-centered

5 Steps to Letting Go and Learning More

February 5, 2012 Pernille Ripp

Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege to give a webinar for SimpleK12 on the topic of student centered learning. I am not an expert on this topic, far from it, but I am someone who has done it by following her own instincts and now can marvel at the classroom I get to be a part of. The webinar was very short and we had a lot of questions, the biggest one being, “How do I get started?” So here are the first 5 steps I took to give my students more control:

Search your heart. Before you let go of certain aspects of the classroom you have to figure out what you can live with. Can you live with more noise? More movement? More conversation? Someone asked me if it was a lot more work to teach in a student-centered classroom to which I answered no, it is the same amount of work as I put in before but now I do it in school rather than outside of it. If you cannot handle more noise you may want to dig a little deeper and try to figure out why, it may be that you fear students will goof off or get off task, which yes that still happens but much less frequently. If they are engaged they will work.
Tell the kids why. Too often we make decisions and never tell students what led us to those decisions. Every year I start out with a discussion of why our classroom is the way it is and how I envision it to run. I set high expectations for my students who are always surprised at the environment and I let them ask questions. One thing that inevitably comes up is whether they can earn rewards (nope) so I politely discuss why they should not expect that from me. That also includes limited homework (if they work hard in school I don’t need to take up their time outside of school), no letter grades except for on report cards (we have conversations and feedback instead), and no punishment (no lost recesses here most of the time).
Then let them talk. I tell the students this is our room and that they need to decide what type of learning environment they want to be a part of. This conversation is totally student-run, they brainstorm in small groups and then share their results. They do not post a list of rules or even vote. We discuss, decide and then move on to bigger things. Throughout the year we re-visit our expectations and tweak them if we have to. The level of responsibility and buy-in to the classroom immediately increases without me having to beg for it.
I challenge them. Every year, I have some sort of team challenge right after they have set the rules to see whether they can figure out how to work together. This year it was the amazing Bloxes challenge that brought my students together and got them excited. Throughout the year we do mini-challenges to continue working on teamwork and expectations for the classroom. Different students step up as leaders, again without my direction, and they share the success of the challenge together. And challenges doesn’t have to be anything crazy, it can be to give them an extra science lesson to explore whatever they want. Teachers think there is no time for this sort of thing but there is, because our engagement level is higher we get through our curriculum quicker which gives us time to explore. The biggest time waster in a classroom is usually the teacher talking at the students – how much do you really need to talk?
I ask the kids. No single thing is more important in our classroom than the voice of the students. How do they want to learn something, how can we improve, what are we missing? All of these questions pop up on a regular basis and they add so much to our curriculum. I know what the goals of learning need to be but the students can certainly work on how we will get there. Even at an elementary level these kids have incredible ideas and methods for covering curriculum thus getting natural buy-in (no carrot and stick needed) and increasing their enthusiasm for school.

This is how I get started in my classroom every year. I didn’t read a book that told me to do these things, instead I asked, “Would I want to be a student in my own classroom?” That answer is now a resounding yes! We do a lot of hands-on learning, student-led exploration, and try to keep school fun no matter what we are doing. I love coming to school, I love my students, and I am proud of what they accomplish every day.

being a teacher, future, technology

Do High-tech Gadgets Improve Learning – What a Dumb Question

February 1, 2012 Pernille Ripp

I love Time For Kids; this magazine invokes deep discussion in my classroom, it lets the kid explore career opportunities and it delivers news to us every week. This week’s blaring headline was “Technology Takeover…Schools Nationwide Are Using Technology to Teach Lessons. But Do High-Tech Gadgets Improve Learning?” At which I immediately scribbled on a post-it – what a dumb question!

Dumb because the gadget has nothing to do with the learning. Dumb because any new thing introduced to a classroom could be considered a “gadget” which makes it sound not quite serious, not quite ready to be used by students properly. Dumb because it has nothing to do with the access to a new tool but rather how you use it. In fact, you could change this headline to truly show its idiocy thus “Do Paper and Pencils Improve Learning?” Well no, not really, but how you use them do! We have all witnessed classrooms where paper and pencils do nothing to enhance the out-dated instruction being lectured. Many of us have rebelled against the stale classroom by bringing in technology tools to connect our students with the world, to give them the tools they need to succeed, while still using paper and pencils. So no high-tech gadgets do not improve learning but how you use them can.

Yet this question keeps popping up in media and school conversations. Can tech gadgets really improve learning or is it all a rueful ploy orchestrated by Apple and its minions to get us to spend more money on it? Should we be getting rid of textbooks in favor of iPads, will students ever use paper and pencils again, what will becomes of this generation? Magazines discuss these topics as if technology means a farewell to everything else we hold dear, to everything else we know and trust. But it doesn’t. Technology adds (if used properly!), technology deepens, and it can enhance. That can lead to improved learning but only if the facilitator uses it right. Like with anything else we bring into a classroom, we determine whether it is worth it, or whether it should be forgotten. We must embrace the future but that the tools of it will be the magic pill. A poor instructor remains a poor instructor with or without the technology.

Be the change, being a teacher, mistakes, reflecting

We Need More Courageous Conversations

January 27, 2012 Pernille Ripp

I am wrong. I made a mistake. It didn’t work. These are all words I have had to say frequently in all of the years of my teaching career. They are not easy to say, nor easy to swallow, and yet those words are what have made me the educator I am today; someone who reflects, someone who realizes they are human, someone who admits fault.

In education we often put ourselves on pedestals, assuming no wrong. We have all of the answers because that is what we need to have. We have the solutions, the right ways. We are trained professionals after all. Except we don’t always have those answers, or the right way to do something. Things may not always work and the students do not always get the best education.

We must learn to admit when we are wrong. We must learn to reflect upon our mistakes and make ourselves better. We must realize we are not perfect and that others don’t expect us to be. We must have these courageous conversations about our own teaching, our grade levels, our classroom, and our schools. We must reflect, we must discuss, and we must learn. If we all fall under the illusion of perfection we will never change the way we do teaching. We will never change to be better. Our students will never learn from s that mistakes are glorious occasions that move us forward. Start the conversation with yourself and then spread it. All it takes is one courageous person to set the example.

And right after I sent this out Chad Lehman reminded me that we need courageous actions. He is so right; take your courageous conversations and turn them into action.