Category: being a teacher

being a teacher, believe, connect, education reform, embrace, hero, inspiration, kids, love

We are Superheroes

Pernille Ripp

We are superheroes. Or at least in the eyes of some students, we are. We can do magic such as melt styrofoam cups, solve complicated algorithms in our head instantaneously, and know exactly what is happening behind us when our backs are turned. We are all-knowing, knowing who needs a hand, a soothing word, a joke. We come to the rescue of students that are lost, disheartened, upset over a fight with another child. And we love endlessly, always ready to share , hug (if allowed), laugh, and even cry. We are superheroes.

And yet, sometimes we forget that, and a raised voice stains our image. A sharpness of tone shows that we might be a little bit evil. A lost temper may prove it once and for all. And the students watch, and talk, and remember. And yet, they continue to believe because we build it back up. We continue our quest to make them superhuman, to make them believe in themselves. To pass on our powers as healers of the world, changers, movers, learners, teachers. We do it all and we do it out of love, respect, necessity. We let our students become our mission because someone has to show them that there is faith that they too will become superheroes one day, that they too will believe in others, that they too will change a life. So believe in yourself so that others may believe in you as well. The difference is being made, just look into the eyes of your students and you will see it. They believe in you, now believe in them.

acheivement, alfie kohn, assumptions, being a teacher, believe, change, choices, communication, difference, elementary, get out of the way, grades, homework, learning, parents, promise, trust

How Homework Destroys

Pernille Ripp

It finally happened; a parent decided to disagree with my new take on homework. They do not feel that I am providing enough and thus am doing a disservice to the students by lulling them into a fake sense of security in their skills. My response at first was indignation; how dare so and so question my fantastic educational shift in philosophy. Why are they not enlightened or believers as well? And then it dawned on me; I have not shown them the way.

I spend a lot of time speaking to students about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what the goal is for their learning but not enough explaining that to the parents. And while I hope that parents have faith in me, I cannot take it for granted. I am, after all, messing with a system that has been set in place for many years and that these same parents are products of. So, of course, my system may come as a shock at first, and without the proper explanation it will continue to be so. After all, parents have been trained to think that for every grade level you figure out homework load by multiplying the grade level with 10 minutes. So by 4th grade, students should at the very least be doing 40 minutes of homework a night. And yet, my students don’t. They do most of their work in class, even staying in for recess so that I may help them, and I never willingly send home a piece of homework that I know they will struggle for hours with.

Homework should be practice, a showing of skills. It should not be a two hour time consumer where both mom, dad and the encyclopedia gets involved. I explain this to my students and the sense of relief is visible in them. They know that I will challenge them in class but at home they may pursue life instead. So if you work hard at school then the reward is rest, family time, and a pursuit of happiness. And it works. My students are still learning everything they should for the year, albeit in a more hands-on manner. I am shying away from worksheets and instead having conversations about learning. Our favorite tool is our dry-eraseboards that allows me a quick check in for understanding. And the students are noticing the difference. No longer dreading the afternoon because I will continue to haunt their day. No longer dreading school because it means so many extra hours of works. No longer dreading learning because they are realizing that learning is something you do at school and that it doesn’t come form worksheets.

When I recently welcomed 9 new students into my room, one “old” student told me that she was looking forward to seeing how the newbies would react since I “teach a little crazy.” And perhaps that is true. I am loud, obnoxiously so at times, and I have high standards. I push kids to learn, I push kids to understand, and then I back off. I let them think about it, let the learning resonate within them, and then I challenge them to dredge it out again the following day.

By no means, am I the perfect teacher. I have many years of learning to come, but I do know that I am on to something here and I stand at a fork in the road signaling a massive shift in my whole educational philosophy. I believe these students are learning, I believe I am preparing them as well as any other teacher, and most importantly I believe I am letting them be kids at the same time. My students know that if something is homework it is for the benefit of their learning and is important to do, not just another piece of paper that their teacher didn’t get to in class. They know that I only assign it if it is truly valuable, and not just something for me to use for grades. They know that we will meet and discuss their learning, always knowing what is missing, what is accomplished, what the direction should be. They know that if I assign something to them it is because they have the skills needed to do it. Do yours?

aha moment, being a teacher, students

5 Days of Aha – Royan’s Aha Moment

Pernille Ripp


This week’s aha moment is shared by Royan Lee, a fantastic teacher whose blog I stumbled upon this summer.  Many times, I end up referring back to his posts or sending it to others because of his writing and the work he does with his students.  He is a must read and must follow as well as being a grade 7 literacy teacher in Ontario, Canada. His professional passions include contemporary literacy, social media, and technology integration in the classroom. You can find him on twitter at @royanlee or on his blog at spicylearning.wordpress.com.

5 Aha Days Learning from Kids
I am perhaps the luckiest teacher in the world. The thing that makes me so blessed is that I teach a group of 108 eleven and twelve-year-olds who I learn from on a daily basis. And I don’t mean this in the indirect way, as in, I am learning from my baby by changing their diaper that we all come full circle, or I am learning from my dog that we’re all a bunch of animals that need to be loved.

I mean that I literally receive instruction from these kids. They are remarkable. Sometimes I listen to their responses to an open-ended discussion question in class and get floored. Or I read one of their blog posts and tears well up in my eyes. Aha moments? I’ve had a few with them.

It was sometime during this past week where I felt that everything went *click* in my four classes. It was like the first month and a half with collaborative discussion, multiple understandings of ‘text’, iPads, blogging, and social networking were all a novelty and then, bam, everyone suddenly realized what the point of it all was. It was as though my mantra of Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication suddenly became normalized rather than unique. Preaching to practice. Lesson to living, breathing.
This tipping point dawned on me over the span of the week.

On Monday I read a post on one of my student’s blogs that levelled me. Then I witnessed the passion spread like wildfire. Seven other students read her post and wrote homage-worthy versions of their own.
On Tuesday I had a student approach me after class: “Um, Mr. Lee, I have, like, this idea? You know how we’re, like, working on procedure writing in English and healthy living in Health? We should, like, do a procedural writing thing on how to live healthy!” Guess what their new assignment is?

On Wednesday I mentioned to the students how astounded I was to witness their creative use of spelling, punctuation, and grammar on Buzz. I still wasn’t completely sure whether I was alright with them subverting the English language in this manner. Well, wasn’t I surprised when they so eloquently persuaded me that they wrote this way on Buzz because it was a completely different context for writing. One student’s words were: “It’s a place to talk like we really talk. As long as we know not to spell like that in a different situation, like on our blogs, or writing a letter to the principal, it’s OK.”

On Thursday I had a student ask if he could make a movie on his Mac in lieu of his procedural piece of writing on healthy living. “And don’t worry, I’m still gonna meet the success criteria.” After hearing this, another student pipe in to ask if they could use Google Docs to pen a collaborative novel.

On Friday I was given what I now realize was a gift of a question from another student.
“Mr. Lee, can I use my iPod to video our class sometimes?”
I didn’t really know how to answer at first. I figured she wanted to make a movie about our class. I just asked her why.
“I don’t know. I just wanna be able to watch it at home because it helps me learn.”
If you expect kids to lead, they often start leading. That’s what I notice. That’s my Aha moment.


advice, aha moment, behavior, being a teacher, believe, choices, community, connections, hopes, inspiration, teaching

Give Them Strength to Grow – Chris’s Aha Moment

Pernille Ripp

This week’s aha moment is shared by Chris Wejr, a K-6 principal in Agassiz, BC, Canada.  Chris is always quick with an understanding word, encouragement and advice even in non-school matters.  Never too busy to discuss or care, he is a wonderful person to have in your PLN.  This is his first time as a guest blogger do make sure you comment, follow him on Twitter at @mrwejr and add his blog to your must read list mrwejr.edublogs.org


“We don’t know who we can be until we know what we can do.” – Sir Ken Robinson

How can we truly see the potential of our students if we fail to provide the environment to bring out their talents?

I have always wanted to be a high school teacher and I was exactly that for 7 years. You never know where your life will lead you and, while completing my Master’s Degree, I was offered the opportunity to work with an amazing principal at an elementary school. Roxanne taught me to seek out the strengths in people and bring these talents out from within and opened my eyes to the power of strength-based, rather than deficit-based, teaching and leadership. My aha moment came in my first few months of being an elementary school teacher and a new vice principal.

When I did the tour of the school I was to be a teacher/vice principal, I met Daniel (pseudonym). Daniel had a smile that was contagious but was disengaged and struggled in school; the reason I met him that day was that he was in the hall after being asked to leave class. I never asked him why he was in the hall, I just started asking him about his life outside of school; we talked about music and friendships in the few moments we shared together on that day.

The next year, I was to teach a 5/6 class (in addition to the vice principal duties) so when we were creating the classes, I requested that Daniel be placed in my class. To be honest, in the first month, I really struggled with the transition from teaching 17 year-olds to teaching 11 year-olds. Many of the students had behaviour, social, emotional, and academic challenges so I spent many hours bouncing ideas off Roxanne and other teachers trying to find out how to reach these kids. I specifically started to talk about Daniel as he was so withdrawn in class – always refusing to take part in any learning activities and that smile that drew me to him seemed to have disappeared. She asked me what I knew about him; the truth was that I knew very little about him other than he struggled in class and liked music. She encouraged me to find out more about him; find out what he loved, what he was good at and try to bring that out in him.

During the next week, I spent a recess having a snack with Dan. I found out that he lived in a nearby community in which he spent two hours on the bus each day, lived with his Grandmother because his mother was far too young, and we shared a common interest in Johnny Cash. We spent much of the recess singing a variety of Cash songs and just laughing. Later that day, I was speaking with the First Nation Support Worker (Nelson), sharing with him about the moment that had occurred, and he let me in on another strength of Daniel: First Nation drumming and singing. He said this was something that he recently witnessed in his community but maybe something that we could support. The FNSW asked me if he could take Daniel and a few others to work on this interest; I believed this was a great opportunity so for 2 weeks, Nelson spent a few mornings a week drumming with Daniel and two others. What progressed after this changed the way I teach and live my life.

I asked Daniel if I could come watch one recess. I was blown away. Daniel was so into the drumming and singing that he would actually be sweating with pride as he was doing this. A few weeks later, I asked him if he could perform for our class – he unfortunately declined. Nelson encouraged him to sing and drum with him in front of our class. He nervously agreed and blew us all away when he performed; other students cheered when he finished and then asked if they could be part of “his group”. Daniel was now not only working with his strengths but also leading others to do the same. His group added girls and grew from 3 to 6 and then 8, including 2 students from another class. They played for our class every Monday morning, to start our week, and every Friday afternoon, to finish our week. They even gave themselves a name, Sacred Connections, and began to play for other schools and community events.

The moment that brought me almost to tears was right before Christmas. Each week, 1-2 new students would join up front in the singing and drumming. We often don’t see the impact of small changes but right before Christmas, the group actually had no people to play for, because every single student was up there singing with Daniel! To create an audience, I invited Roxanne and a grade 4 class to come and see the performance. We all sat there in awe of what Daniel had done not only as a performer, but also as a leader.

The other parts of Daniel’s school and life were drastically changing too. His friendships grew, his efforts in school improved and he became very engaged in learning activities. His reputation grew as a leader in the school and community and his group was asked to play at a local pre-Olympic Games (2010) event and in the spring he was asked to perform with Pow Wow drummers at a huge event in front of our entire school and community! Daniel had gone from a disengaged, quiet student who refused to take part in the learning to a proud leader and confident learner in our school.

That year was one that changed my life. It was not just one aha moment but a series of moments that shaped me as a person. I want to thank Roxanne, Nelson, and most importantly Daniel for teaching me that, as educators, the most important thing we can do is provide the optimal conditions for people to grow, bring out their strengths, and truly flourish.

being a teacher, believe, choices, community, embrace, emotions, energy, hopes, inspiration

Don’t Be the Pebble

Pernille Ripp

This week I was told by a dear friend that she envies how positive I am in in the face of all the changes happening in my classroom. She didn’t know how I did it. Instead of lurching into a long philosophical debate about my chosen attitude, I simply answered, “I don’t want to be the pebble that starts the rings of negativity.”

So think about your words; stop yourself before you unload the negative,the tiring, the unhappiness. Of course, reflect and vent about it, but don’t spread it. Be conscious of yourself and your affect on others because all it takes is one negative person to undermine a whole school. Don’t be the pebble.

advice, behavior, being a teacher, believe, blogging, never give up, New Category, students

But Mrs. Ripp, Blogging is Boring

Pernille Ripp

My students are now seasoned bloggers, or so they would like to think anyway. So as I was congratulating myself on a job well done, noting how much they were loving it, imagine my surprise when one student exclaimed just the opposite, “Do we have to blog, Mrs. Ripp, it is soooo boring.” For anyone that has taught 4th graders you know exactly what this sounds like coming from a 9 year old boy that would rather fight jedis than listen to me teach.

Ahh, but aren’t you the fun teacher, some people may think. Well, I like to think I am, sometimes, or as my husband would say, I lull myself with delusions of funniness, but anyone who has ever tried to play the funny teacher when the curriculum gets tough, knows how difficult it can be. So there I stand with my blogging pride in my hands, racking my brain over what I did wrong. I get it; this kid is not a big fan of school to say it mildly, in fact, he told me I was the perfect teacher when I stated there would be little homework in my classroom if students worked hard in school. Much to his surprise, he doesn’t understand that if he doesn’t work during class, then there is work to be completed at home. Strike one against me; I went back on my promise. I also promised him that blogging would be fun; strike two, blogging is only fun when you can write about whatever you want and get lots of comments from people all over the world. However, people don’t leave comments if you don’t blog.

So what do you do when students hate that spectacular idea that you love so much? Well, my initial reaction was to put on my big girl pants, along with my teacher voice, and tell him it’s his own fault for not writing blogs that people want to comment on. Glad I stopped that train-wreck. I then thought about it some more and realized that I don’t know what to do. Sure I have some minor ideas such as asking him how I can make it fun, giving him free time to write, promoting his blog on #comments4kids and so forth. But how do you reach a kid that already has decided by 4th grade that school is not the place he wants to put in his energy, his dreams, his wishes or his time? I leave that question up to you, my fantastic PLN, what would you say to this child if you were me? How would you help him realize what excitement he can gain from learning? And most of all, how would you reach him before it really is too late?