Category: being a teacher

being a teacher, being me, future, student driven, Student-centered

Why I Make My Life Harder

Pernille Ripp
Sometimes I wonder why I make my life so hard?  Why do I let the students explore rather than just dictate what they are supposed to learn?  Why do I fight for them not to be graded at every turn when just writing that percentage or that letter would free up so much of my time?

Why do I insist that we work things out rather than just punish them without a conversation?  Why do I force myself to get the learning done in school rather than sending it home as homework?

Why do I fight for the creative spirit of these kids?  Why do I challenge myself to change and grow when really I know that I am a decent teacher, isn’t that enough?  Do they really deserve the best of me so that my family only gets the rest of me?

I make my life hard because our future is at stake.  We are modeling the future of the world and I want it to be a beautiful one.  I want it to be one where children believe in themselves as learners, where their creativity shines, and they are unafraid to fail.  I want the world to be one in which I do not fear sending my own child to school, afraid that our system will kill her curiosity.  I do this for my daughter and for all of the other children.

alfie kohn, being a teacher, education reform, Student-centered

We Say And Yet

Pernille Ripp
We say we don’t want to be micromanaged as teachers and yet then we do it to our students.

We say we want democratic schools, where our voices are heard, and yet we rule our students with an iron fist.

We say we are working as hard as we can and that merit pay will not boost our dedication or our effort, and yet we dangle grades in front of our students to try to incentivize them.

We say we work too many hours as teachers without getting paid for it and yet we assign hours of homework to our students.

We say our voices are not being heard in the educational debate yet we do not listen to the voice of our students.

We say we want to be invited into the educational policy decisions being made and yet we do not invite parents and students into our own decisions.

We say that we want freedom to teach and yet we allow little freedom to our students in learning.

We say we want to teach in our own way, infused with our passion, and yet we expect students to all learn the same way.

We say that we need to time to teach and to learn all of these new things being thrust at us and yet we expect our students to all find the time and to master it at the same time.

We say we want to be respected as individual teachers and yet we show little respect to our students as individuals, expecting them to fit into whatever we have decided the perfect student should be.

We wonder why our students are losing interest in schools and never stop to look at what we do to them.  Education should not be done to them, it should happen with them.  Give back your classroom to your students; give them a voice.

being a teacher, discipline, discussion, students

But Wait, You Didn’t Tell Me I Wasn’t A Disappointment

Pernille Ripp
Today I was embarrassed, so utterly left without words and ashamed that I didn’t know what to say.  A child did this to me and I deserved every moment of it.  That child and I had had an interaction more than 3 weeks ago where I had scolded him for improper video camera usage.  The task had been simple; film a short film telling me everything you know about a topic.  This child had decided to goof off and create bloppers and then forgotten to delete the evidence.  In my best teacher voice, I had reprimanded him and told him how very disaapointed in him I was.  I had then left it at that and dismissed him thinking nothing more of it.

Today, as he walked down the hallway, I stopped him to ask him about a rumor I had heard and whether it was true.  When he affirmed its validity I couldn’t help but tell him I was surprised he had been involved, that it seemed out of his nature to make such choices.  He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Well, Mrs. Ripp, I thought you didn’t care because you were disappointed in me.”  Confused, I asked him what he meant.  “You told me you were disappointed in me back in social studies…” 

And then it all clicked; this child had never been told that I was no longer disappointed.  This child, whom I care for deeply, had never been let off the hook but instead I had left him dangling, wondering where our relationship stood.  I stammered out a hurried reply about not being disappointed any longer and then walked away ashamed.  How could I have left him to think that for so many weeks?  How many times have I done this before?  How many other kids assume that I view them unfavorably because of how they have been spoken to?

So as I sit here defeated, I vow to change, to speak to these kids and then follow up.  When we use such heavy sentences as “I am disappointed in you” do we ever come back to tell them that we no longer feel that way?  Do we repair the void we create with our words or do we just let it grow?  As for this kid, I wrote him a note saying I was sorry.  What will you do if this happens to you?

being a teacher, education reform

The Emerging Age Bias – a Post for Edutopia

Pernille Ripp
This was posted on Edutopia this week – what a thrill

“You know I was worried at first, because she was so old, but it turned out she was really good…” A friend and I are discussing her child’s teacher. Her words resonate with me because I have heard them a lot lately; she was so old…old… and I wonder since when did being a veteran teacher become a negative quality in America?
Rewind to my first year of teaching and how I wished to be a veteran, how I yearned for years of knowledge and experience that could really wow parents and engage the students at such a high level that they would love coming to school every day. Instead, I bumbled my way through, figuring out my style, using the students as test subjects to all my untried ideas and staring wistfully into veteran teachers’ classrooms. I envied their orderly, calm lessons, their seemingly endless project ideas and angles to reach every child. I could not wait to be a veteran.

The Case for Veteran Teachers

Now it appears a new trend has emerged; veteran teachers are no longer “experienced” — they are simply “old,” with every negative connotation of that word. The media and politicians portray these older teachers as stubborn and stuck in their ways. They are labeled static and washed out. The way to resuscitate America’s “failing” education is now to get rid of the veterans and pave way for the new teachers, those with boundless energy, passion and fresh ideas. It’s truly a case of out with the old and in with the new.
But those working in education can see just how flawed this method of thinking is. Those of us who breathe education recognize what these veteran teachers really bring to us all — knowledge, expertise, methods that work, and a deep-seated passion for a job that has done little to reward them. We realize that by creating a bias against experience, we are all losers in the world of education. Now before I forget: yes, there are experienced teachers that do fulfill the stereotype, much like there are new teachers that do. However, the majority of experienced teachers do not.
Thanks in part to the rhetoric of the “reformers,” the anti-veteran bias seems to be taking root in society, too. Now when teachers are searching for work, the more years they have, the less likely it seems that they will get an interview. Some districts say tight budgets are to blame, which as a teacher in Wisconsin I can appreciate, and yet, you would think that a district would spend the bulk of its money on getting experienced teachers in front of our students. Instead, we see a stigma that says the more years of teaching you have, the less open to new ideas you must be. Parents eagerly tell us how they want that new young teacher because he or she will have something new to offer. Students hope for the young teacher because they are sure he or she will be more fun.

Our Most Valuable Asset

So what can we do? Youth is the ultimate desirability in America, and it is warping the educational world as well. Youth now seems to be the one trait that everyone agrees will save our schools. Get rid of tenure, and with it the more experienced teachers, which frees school districts to hire as many brand new teachers as they want. Brand new teachers that also happen to cost less. Brand new teachers that come off as confident and brimming with new initiatives. Brand new teachers that lack the foundation that only years of teaching can provide them with.
I think back now to what I put my students through my first year — and I shudder at the thought. There were the make-no-sense rules just to ensure control, tests upon tests because I thought that was the only way I could assess, and just a small stockpile of ideas to pull from. I had the confidence but lacked experience, and the only thing I knew that would make me a better teacher (besides more years) was turning to my mentors, veteran teachers that shared their knowledge and inventiveness. In those master teachers I saw everything that had drawn me to teaching: passion, dedication, innovation and an unstopping sense of urgency to reach all students.
That is what we’ll be removing from our educational system — experience; because in the view of society, old = bad. So when we dismiss and run out our master teachers, we drain our schools of one of their most valuable assets — knowledge. When we place teachers with experience at the bottom of our respect pole, we set students up to be every new teacher’s test subject over and over, throughout their years of schooling. Yes, new teachers bring new ideas to the table, but so do veteran teachers. How anyone can claim otherwise baffles me.
Thankfully, there are others in our profession who agree with me. Veteran teachers are joining social media such as Twitter to reach out to new teachers. They are blogging about their experience, thus creating a database of knowledge accessible to anyone in need. They are creating networks within their schools, ensuring that new teachers have someone to turn to. They are not being run out of education quietly, and we should all be grateful for that. We are only as strong as the weakest link in our schools, and our mentor teachers are doing everything they can to empower the people they work with. That power transfers to our students.
being a teacher, label, Student-centered

Are You Smart?

Pernille Ripp
Every day we journal in our classroom, sometimes it relates to our curriculum, sometimes it is to start a discussion.  Yesterday I asked my students to answer the question, “Are you smart?”  Stunned students looked at me.  Then the comments came flodding in…what do you mean…I don’t know….what kind of smart….in fact one student was so flustered by the question that he was unable to journal about it. 

Now make no mistake, I knew the question would be difficult and yet we, as teachers, often use the label “smart” to describe students in conferences and on report cards.  So can we answer what it means to be smart ourselves? 

My students struggled through the journal prompt and today I had the opportunity to read their thoughts.  I was blown away by their insight.  Many lamented the fact that they did not know which smart I was referring to; was I referring to the school smart or to the logical smart?  By smart, who was I comparing them to?  They feel smart compared to a 3-year-old but not compared to a teacher.  Many kids disucussed that school can make you smarter but one pointed out that it is not the only thing that makes us smart and my heart rejoiced. 
Some discussed, again so thankful at their wisdom, that smart is something you grow into, not something you are born with.  Some unfortunately compared their smartness to how well they do on tests, and my spirit dropped a little. 

In the end, no one student had the same answer but they made me think; how do we define smart?  How do we show our students that they are indeed smart?  Is their any point in even discussing it with them or should we be focusing instead on the abilities they have; their problem solving skills, their work ethics, their creativity?  Do students need to feel smart to succeed?  And how do we stop tests from robbing them of their self-esteem and faith in themselves?

I may have asked my students one questions, but they asked many more of me.  It was a great day for thinking.

being a teacher, writing

But We Get So Excited….

Pernille Ripp
We are in the middle of writing boot camp, that back to basics training that my 5th graders all need.  They have these incredible ideas just bursting onto their blogs, their journals and anywhere else they write, but they lack the basics.  The organization, capitalization, and other things that make readers stumble and lose interest.

So as we go through another lesson on paragraphs and the students correctly put all of the pieces together, I ask them, “Do you all know this?”  A resounding “Yes!” greets me.  “Well, then why don’t you use it in your writing?”  Silence and then this answer, “Well, we just forget because we get so excited…”  I smile and move on.

I wonder how many times students don’t show their best work because they are so excited…