being a teacher – Page 135

I Don’t Want to Be Superwoman

January 11, 2012 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

We worry about whether we are enough. Whether we plan enough, whether we know enough, do we grow enough or are we outdated? We worry about whether we are reaching them, teaching them, and always making them feel like they can do it, like they matter, like they belong. We worry because that is what teachers do. Did we do enough? Did we listen enough? Did we let them speak, find their voice, share their passion? Did we uncover their talents and boost their weaknesses? How will they remember school? How will they remember us? Will it matter all of the tears, the time, the trouble we went through so that they knew they were important?

I know I am not superwoman, and nor would I ever want to be. Superwoman isn’t human, she is too busy to sit down and listen to a story or see a lightbulb moment. Superwoman has to save the world and my shoulders cannot carry that. So I would rather be human, be me, be here in this classroom, at this time, working with these students. Being there for them, catching the moments, guiding and stepping back. Letting them fail and learning with them. I would rather be me, thankful for this time, for this moment, for these challenges that I know I can carry. Superwoman cannot invest, but I can, and I do, every day, every moment, even after they are gone. They are my children and I grow with them. That is what teachers do.

being a teacher, Student-centered, technology, tools

Teachers Do More Than Teach – Why Technology Can Never Replace Them

January 9, 2012 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

I hate that technology and education seem to be at odds with each other as presented in some media. This “either or” mentality is, in my opinion, detrimental to the future of education. We should embrace technology when it serves its purpose, but not treat as a replacement for teachers. Computerized tests may be better at accurately assessing which reading skills my student needs to focus on, but a computerized test will not know why that student has not mastered that skill. It can dictate a learning program fit to fix that gap, or to propel them forward, but hitting rewind and watching it over and over will not always guarantee that a student masters a concept. So when we let videos be the only teaching tool for a child, or a computer program, then we stop figuring out why that child is not understanding. We lose that human connection that teachers provide.

We need the human connection for that, we need some form of a teacher to sit down and figure out what is happening in that child’s mind. To figure out how we keep them engaged and interested. How we keep them invested. A computer program will always analyze but forget about the human aspect. It will assess the problem from a deficit standpoint whereas lack of understanding may be as easy as lack of vocabulary or lack of sleep.

In high school, I failed math and I repeatedly asked my teacher for help to explain the concepts to me. She would explain it the same way she had explained it before and I finally stopped asking, it simply didn’t make sense to me no matter how many times she repeated it. Mind you this was before YouTube and vast internet communities, before Google, and Twitter. The only other place I could turn was the library. And yet we let tools that do nothing but repeat take so much value away from the job that we do every day as teacher. We have let the media portray it as the saviour of education.

A frightening future to me would be one where teachers are nonexistent or serve a secondary role to the almighty computer. Where students are greeted by machines from their own private spaces and curriculum is served through a computer program. Lunch is served by themselves and extracurricular activities are gone by the wayside. Drastic sure, but scary nonetheless. Teachers don’t just teach the curriculum; they process it, they analyze it knowing their students’ skills. They invest their time in it so that students will want to invest their own. They make it meaningful, relevant, and they make it fun. Technology can help with that, but it shouldn’t replace. Teachers do more than just teach; they shape, they mold, they model behavior, and they connect. Often that connection is worth more than any curriculum. Worth more than any computer program.

So the path of the future is our hands; we can show the way of how to use technology correctly as a tool to help propel us forward as practitioners or we can hide from it and lament its coming. Technology was never meant to replace teachers, but it slowly is, it is up to us whether we let it.

being a teacher, being me, choices, classroom expectations, classroom management, Student-centered

Why Trusting Your Gut Can Be the Best Classroom Management Course You Ever Take

January 7, 2012 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

A year and a half ago, I went through a radical change in the way I am as a teacher. The whole foundation of what my classroom was was discarded and re-born, all on the basis of my gut instinct. It told me that to increase student motivation and increase buy-in that my method of teaching and, indeed, the whole feel of my classroom had to change. That to see motivation increase and excitement build that the old method I was using was so far away from what I wanted that it simply should not exist anymore. So instead of dismissing what some may have viewed as a crazy whim, unsafe territory if you must, I pursued, I went there and I took the chance of implementing it into my classroom and my unsuspecting students.

I trusted my instincts and my own desire for how my schooling should have been; projects, team-work, choices. And now in the second year into this implementation I am the proof that it works. I am the proof that if you believe in your students, if you believe in their ability to make great choices, to work together as teams rather than as individuals their learning will benefit. I have students who love coming to school, and not just those 50% that love you no matter what they do. I have kids that had given up, that believed that they could not succeed, that they were not smart enough to go to school, now tell me that they love coming, that they cannot wait to learn. That they cannot wait to be challenged. They may not ace every single assignment but they try and they grown. They may not get the grades that others get but they participate, they share and they know that their voice is just as important as those who used to be the top-kids, the stars of the room. They smile, they belong, and they own the community. School is a place they want to come to, not somewhere they have to go.

I cannot take credit for all of this because the students trusted me as well. They trusted me with their dreams of school and of learning. They trusted me with how they want to learn, how they see themselves as individuals and the paths they want to take. That speaks a lot of the relationships we have created. Those children trusted me enough to let me in, and to make our classroom their second home. So my classroom is the proof that these strategies work, even if you do not know that is what you are doing. My classroom is the proof that sometimes following your gut is more important than following any college class on classroom management. My classroom is the proof that even though your mentor does it one way, it is ok for you to do it completely different. We can change the way we do school and we can make school all about the children. We just have to be willing to change ourselves.

being a teacher, choices, homework

Give ‘Em a Break

December 27, 2011 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

I used to be that teacher that thought breaks meant more time to do work. I used to be that teacher that thought that vacation meant the students would forget everything unless I assigned them work to do. I used to be that teacher that thought school was the most important thing in a child’s life and I therefore had the right to all of their free time, as much as I needed, to make sure that they were always learning. Then I had a child and as I see the world through her eyes I see the constant learning. I see the exploration. I see the boundless curiosity. And I am ashamed of my past decisions.

Vacations and breaks are not for school, otherwise students would not get them. They are for living, for being with family, for recharging and letting the world sink in. They are for going outside, for reading for fun, for exploring whatever one chooses. School is not the most important thing in life; living is. So I give my students a break over the break. Read a book if you want, blog if you want, sleep in, have fun, and relax. When you get back we have much to do but until then you deserve the rest.

So give your students a break.

being a teacher, Student, testing

It’s the Least We Can Do

December 21, 2011 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

Image via Wikipedia

In this numbers obsessed society, test makers have figured us all out. They have realized that if they make the test long enough, tedious enough, and fill them with multiple choice or scantron-able answers then we will assume they are valuable. What more is that they have figured out that they can even sell us software that will grade the tests for us, break down all of the date, and create a nice graph. Testing done. Results at hand.

Except if we are to test students, then at the very least we should look at those tests. We should try to decipher their answers, create our own data, and meet with them to discuss it. Yes, a multiple choice test is cleaner and easier but it also provides less of a view into the heads of our students, into their thoughts, into their learning. A clean test that a machine can correct provides us with data, nothing else, points to be graphed with no clear direction or at the very least not a very detailed one.

So if we must test the children, then do them the favor of correcting it yourself. Give their work the time and effort you expect them to put into taking the test. It’s the least we can do.

being a teacher, social media, Student

How We Fail Young Students with Facebook

December 18, 2011 Pernille Schmidt Ripp

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

A gaggle of 5th grade girls all sit around a lunch table obviously in a deep discussion. As I walk past them, one word makes my ears perk up and my step slow…Facebook. Immediately the teacher in me wants to interrupt, remind them that they are 10 and 11 which according to the law means they are not allowed to be on Facebook, and yet I don’t. I let them and their conversation be and instead head to my room and ponder the hypocrisy that is the age restriction on Facebook.

To be a legal member of Facebook you have to be 13 years old. The site makes this very clear, and yet we all know that the this rule is being broken on a daily basis as 4th and 5th graders sign up and start using the site. And while we can sit here and discuss how kids are just too young to handle to the responsibility of such a decision at that age, I think we should instead move on and discuss the real ramification of these sign ups: Kids that are not being taught how to use the site safely, because we choose to pretend they are not signing up. And yet, they are signing up, and they are using it to their full potential; the good, the bad, and the bullying. So rather than releasing educated students onto a social media site, we stick our heads in the sand, cover our ears and pretend it isn’t happening.

So as teachers we are once again put in a situation where we cannot teach kids skills that would be beneficial to them in the long run. Skills they for sure will need in middle school. Rather than confronting Facebook head on in the classroom and discussing how to use it, we ignore it, give stern warnings, and move on as if this will stop kids from signing up.

In America we seem to have a tendency in general to cover our ears and pretend kids are not doing things they shouldn’t, rather than actually teach them how to do it safely. Just look at how sex ed. and underage drinking is being treated. So as a society we would rather hold up the rule and say, “Well, they shouldn’t be doing this!” rather than face the facts and give them the proper education to handle it well. Again, this discussion isn’t meant to be about whether kids are too young to be on Facebook, much smarter people have written oodles about that. It is to bring up how we as a society should be giving kids an education in social media before they start to sign up rather than trying to patch things up later in life.

We fail these children when we pretend that they are not on Facebook at ten years old. We fail to teach them right, to show them how to behave and move around in a virtual social media site. How to deal with being friends with people or un-friending, how to post properly, what not to post, and how to treat others with respect. By being a restriction that is still so easily accessible to children, it becomes the ultimate must do. And perhaps Facebook isn’t what is so scary about this whole thing, but rather kids that have no idea how to use it properly. And that is for us to fix, if society would let us.