being me – Page 51 – Pernille Ripp

I am Home and I am Not Crazy Anymore

August 20, 2014August 20, 2014 Pernille Ripp

For the past 4 years I have felt like I was an outlier. Like my ideas were not normal, sane, and sometimes unacceptable, even if I knew they worked. Like I wasn’t quite right in what I believed. There have been days of doubt. There have been days of genius. There have been days where I have gone home beating myself up, dismantling my philosophy; questioning my belief in giving the classroom back to our students. There have been days I thought I was crazy and was only doing harm.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have support, I did. Some people cheered on my ideas, others cautiously watched from afar. But I was alone in a lot of initiatives. I was alone in taking some of the risks. I was alone in defending what I knew was right; that students should have a voice, a choice, and that there is a way to help students stay passionate about school, learning, and their own learning journey if we only push ourselves beyond the ideas of a traditional way to do school.

Today I finally found the place I belong, the place I want to be. Today I found my people, my home; Oregon School District.

New teacher days don’t tend to be inspirational, even though administrators nationwide work hard to plan them well. They don’t tend to be filled with people telling you to take risks. To fail. To push yourself. To not worry most about the test scores, but rather to worry about the kids. But mine have been. My days have been filled with visions of rooms where students are all on personalized learning paths, where homework is for practice not punishment, where grades are for feedback and not for labeling. Where risk is applauded and new ideas are supported. And they don’t just talk it, they walk it.

I never thought I would be lucky enough to work for a district that I envisioned in my book, “Passionate Learners.” I never thought that I would be surrounded by people who were crazy like me. I never thought I wouldn’t be alone. But they are out there; districts that put the kids first, that push for innovative teaching, that don’t believe that the way things have been done in the past 100 years is the way to go forward. I hope all teachers find their home.

I am a passionate teacher in Wisconsin, USA, who has taught 4, 5th, and 7th grade. 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 Classrooms Back to Our Students” can be purchased now from Powerful Learning Press. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” can be pre-ordered from Corwin Press now. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

Be the change, being me, Student-centered

The Connected Educator Series – First Four Drop Today

August 19, 2014August 19, 2014 Pernille Ripp

Thank you so much to Mark Barnes for writing this post highlighting the incredible series I get to be a part of with my next book “Empowered Schools, Empowered Students.”

Ask any of the thousands of teachers who regularly use Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook about connected education, and you may get an earful about using digital tools as a means to connect with educators and students worldwide.

But if you ask teachers who have never used a social network, blog, or mobile device for learning in their classrooms to discuss connected education, you are likely to be met with blank stares, furrowed eyebrows and shrugged shoulders.

Enter Corwin Press and the Connected Educators Series.

In an effort to connect all teachers, EdWeek author and Corwin editor Peter DeWitt enlisted the help of his professional learning network (PLN) in order to launch a series of books on digital learning, digital leadership, mobile learning, digital citizenship, and everything else that is connected education.

Peter DeWitt, Connected Educators Series Editor”It is our hope and intent to meet you where you are in your digital journey, and elevate you as educators to the next level.

Corwin’s Connected Educators Series features short books, about 70 pages, in both paperback and electronic formats, aimed at helping educators improve classroom practice and educational leadership in the digital world, something that has been sorely missing in the education book world.

The first books in the series will be published in August and September.

[su_heading size=”28″]Corwin Connected Educators Series[/su_heading]

The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning, by Tom Whitby and Steven Anderson: Two of the profession’s most connected educators explain how to effectively use social media to build a professional learning network.

Flipped Leadership Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel, by Peter DeWitt: If we can flip the classroom, why can’t we flip faculty meetings and other kinds of communication with parents and teachers? According to DeWitt, we can.

Connected Educator Series — Connected Educators Series

The Edcamp Model: Powering Up Professional Learning, by The Edcamp Foundation: Professional development has never been so simple than when teachers create it. The Edcamp model connects educators to PD like never before.

Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom, by Mark Barnes: Knowledge is in the palm of learners’ hands, making them iStudents. This book helps teachers understand how to maximize this incredible power.

The Corwin Connected Educators series is your key to unlocking the greatest resource available to all educators: other educators.

Connected Leadership: It’s Just a Click Away, by Spike Cook: In the 21st-century, it’s critical that principals create a transparent school for all stakeholders. Principal Cook shows school leaders how to author blogs, PLNs and more, in order to open up a digital window to your school for parents and community.

All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities, by Brad Currie: The connected educator doesn’t just connect with students and colleagues. She connects with parents and community, using 21st-century tools. Currie shows readers how this is done.

Empowered Schools, Empowered Students: Creating Connected and Invested Learners, by Pernille Ripp: Connecting also means empowering. Ripp shares a variety of methods for teachers and school leaders to empower colleagues and students to help each other build a strong learning community.

The Power of Branding: Telling Your School’s Story, by Tony Sinanis and Joseph Sanfelippo: Connected educators must teach students about digital citizenship, and what better way to teach this lesson, according to administrators Sinanis and Sanfelippo, than by showing students how to brand their own schools?

These eight books are the first in Corwin’s ongoing Connected Educators Series. Several more are currently in production and scheduled for publication in early 2015.

For updates, author biographies and other valuable information, visit the Corwin Connected Educators Series website here.

You can order Any books in the Connected Educators Series here. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next.

being a teacher, being me, classroom expectations, classroom management, classroom setup, new year

Modified Readers/Writers Workshop in the 7th Grade Classroom

August 15, 2014 Pernille Ripp

All summer my mind has been in high gear trying to wrap itself around what my classroom experience will be like next year. I know I will be teaching an incredible age group of students at an amazing school with a stellar team. I know I will be an English teacher and what our curriculum is. But that still left me with the big question; what will this look like in my room? 5th grade I knew what it looked like. 5th grade I had 90 leisurely minutes to get through reading and then another 75 for writing. What luxury! But 45 minutes every day for both reading and writing what does that even look like?

So I did what I always do; reach out both locally here to my awesome colleague Wendy, but also globally to amazing people who have been answering my questions. So I think I have an idea of what it will look like, a more tangible plan has been forming in my head, so now I do what I always do; share. Because I cannot be the only 7th grade English teacher wondering how to do this!

My crazy ideas include independent reading EVERY DAY. This is not a typical thing I have heard in 7th grade due to the limited time for teaching, but Jillian Heise, who I admire, gave me the perfect idea; to use it as the very first thing when students enter. That way every child has a purpose and routine as they enter the room. I am free to check in with students, gather what needs to be gathered and otherwise just observe/assess/and ask questions.

Up next will be the mini-lesson, I will be alternating days between a reading and writing focus, however, there will be both every day. This is where my skills of not blabbering will be tested. The mini-lesson needs to be short! This is where picture books come in handy, as well as using the same text for both. That way students are familiar with the text on the second day but we can change our lens with which we view it. Also, the Global Read Aloud text “One For the Murphy’s” will be used as our mentor text for the 6 weeks of the project, ensuring that we participate in the read aloud. And yes, I set up my rocking chair and easel in a corner just for this purpose, students can choose to sit on the carpet or in chairs as we listen, discuss, and reflect.

Then on to conferring and independent work time. I will be meeting with small groups and one-on-one with students for the next 15/20 minutes. During this time students will be writing or reading, whatever the focus is for the day. That does mean that some kids will get more independent reading time, and I am thankful for that. I fully believe that if we want kids to be great readers they need to read as much as possible. I am hoping to meet with 2 small groups at least every day. This may be totally unrealistic, but it will keep the pressure on me. I will also spend time popping down next to students as they read for informal check ins, cutting out time wasted of students coming to me.

We will end the 45 minutes with grammar, blogging, random mini-teaching points as well as show-and-tell. Yup how-and-tell. Thank you John T. Spencer for the idea. If we are to live a life of readers and writers, we need to build a community and show off what we hold dear. Show and tell allows us to share a slice of us, plus it can lead to deeper reflection for the audience of the reaction they have to something. This won’t be every day, probably on Friday’s, but it will happen.

This is all tentative and should really be entitled “Pernille’s crazy ideas for modified workshop.” But it is a start, a tangible start, that gives me something to work with and work on from the very first day of school. There will also be days of Mystery Skype, Skyping with authors, longer assignments, speeches, and presentations. But those will come as needed. And with my independent reading class I will get to implement 20% time every Friday! So yeah, I may not know what I am doing yet, but I have an idea, and it is making me so excited to get started!

Be the change, being a teacher, being me, building community, making a difference, new year, principals

Dear Administrators, Please Don’t Forget About the Little Things

August 12, 2014August 13, 2014 Pernille Ripp

Dear Administrators,

I know you are excited. I see it on Twitter, I hear it on Voxer, and in the conversations I am lucky enough to be a part of. School is starting and another year is about to begin. The big ideas are ready, the new initiatives, the dreams, hopes, wishes that come bundled with the start of a new school year. There is so much potential surrounding you. So much to do. And so little time to waste.

But before you get too far in your dreams, think small first, please. Before you roll out all of the new initiatives, the changes that you know will make everything so much better for everyone, yourself included, make me a promise first; promise to take care of the little things as soon as possible.

Yes, I know it is not fun or exciting to think about those things that you promise teachers that you will do, like approving a form, emailing a parent, looking up that long lost order. But those little things? They make a big difference to us teachers. Those little things that you may not think deserves your limited time right now, those are the ones we need you to also take care of because those things add up to a whole lot of stress for us when left undone. In fact, some of those little things may be stopping us from fulfilling our big dreams, hopes, and wishes.

An amazing school doesn’t just come from dreams. It is built upon a foundation of trust, of accountability, of feeling respected. And all three of those are built on getting the management side of your job done for those who need it. There are certain things that we teachers can only ask you to do, we don’t mean to burden you, we don’t mean to add more tasks to your already busy day, but there are some things we are not allowed to do or we are not capable of doing. There are some things we need you for to make our jobs easier.

So this year, please do dream big. Please do work for change. Get excited about the big things. But don’t forget the little things, those boring to-do tasks that don’t seem pressing. To you they may be able to wait, but to me, it matters so much that you got them done. That I can trust you to get them done. That I know that even the small things deserve attention in the journey we are on.

Thank you,

Pernille

PS: Shannon or Jason, if you read this, you do this. Thank you from the bottom of my very excited heart.

Be the change, being a teacher, being me, new year

What We Can Choose

August 7, 2014August 7, 2014 Pernille Ripp

We get so caught up in our big things. The units we have to teach. The conferences we need to do. The to-do list that always grows with our next big project. We lie awake at night wondering about our direction, whether students are invested? Whether what we do matters? And yet, the big things are not always the things that matter the most. We may think they do, but really, the little things have a lot of power. There are choices we make every day that seem so small, yet make such a big difference.

We can choose to look at a child when they speak to us. That matters.

We can choose to withhold judgment as an answer is given. That matters.

We can choose to do something we promised we would, even if it is so small we think the other person may forget about it. This matters.

We can choose to smile when someone greets us.

We can choose to stop by, say hello, even if we are busy.

We can choose to be interested, to slough away our tiredness, and instead remember why we do this job.

That matters.

We can choose to remember names. To ask about a weekend. To find a book. To lend a pencil. We can choose to take time for talking.

We may be busy. We may always have the next big thing waiting for us, pressing down on us, urging us to move faster and further. Yet.

We can choose to slow down in small moments.

We can choose to savor the time.

We can choose to tell a story. To laugh out loud. To show our humanness. We can choose to share our mistakes.

We can choose to unveil our dreams, our fears, and in turn create a community. This matters.

We may dream big, but we should think small. Everything matters, especially the things we think matter very little.

That’s what we can choose.

Be the change, being me, building community, new year, Student-centered

May I Speak to You Privately?

August 4, 2014 Pernille Ripp

“Hey Pernille, can I speak to you in my office?” My new principal asked me today. Immediately my heart dropped; what had I done? Had I screwed up already? Were they regretting their decision to hire me?

I followed her in, sat down, took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable. I must have screwed up somehow, why else would she want to speak to me privately? And then she surprised me. It wasn’t to yell or reprimand, nor was it to point out my rookie mistakes. It was to connect, to ask questions, to ask how she could help. To further welcome me and discuss the year ahead. I stayed for almost 30 minutes, inwardly amazed at the moment. So thankful that this is the kind of person I get to work for and with. That this is the community I get to represent.

As I left I couldn’t help but cringe at my initial reaction. My assumptions had gotten the better of me. Yet, I realized that those assumptions are based upon my experience, that asking to speak privately with someone has a negative connotation. That being asked to step into an office is usually not positive.

So think of how our students feel when we do the same to them? When we ask them to stay back for a moment? To come in during recess? To hang on? Wait up? Don’t go? Do they assume we have something positive to share or something negative? I can tell you right now, that I have missed so many opportunities to use this moment for praise. I have reserved the private moment for corrections, reprimands, careful questions of concern. I have almost never used it for good. Have you?

This year that will change. I want to reclaim the power of the private moment and change the assumption. I want students to not automatically assume that staying behind means something bad. That waiting for a moment does not signify trouble. Sure, there will be times where a private moment is needed to discuss decisions or actions, but there should be more of celebration. There should be more positive surprises.

So just as I tell students what I notice on post-it notes, I will look for the moment to praise privately. I will look for that small sliver of time where I get to speak one to one to someone and tell them what I see, how proud I am, how I am here to help. I hope they leave feeling relieved like I did and then proud. I hope they will see that I care.