new year – Page 23 – Pernille Ripp

Those bare walls beckon, calling out to us to fill them with motivational posters, rules, and most definitely lots and lots of colorful charts. Our counters are perfect for boxes of tools that may be useful: staplers, extra books, and perhaps even a cute pencil cup for all of those lost pencils. Every nook and cranny serves a purpose, every nook and cranny should be used. Behold; our brand new classroom awaits, and boy, does it have personality! Yours that is, and not so much that of your students. My first classroom I had panic attacks over the bareness of it all. I didn’t have enough stuff to make it look welcoming, to make it look useful, to just make it look great. So I created laminated rule posters, what if… posters, and even threw up a couple with frogs telling us to “Hang on” or “Work hard!” My desk was covered in Danish proverbs that I knew my kids would be inspired by and above my door hung a rather obscure quote from Shakespeare telling my students to persevere in failure. I loved that quote and spent hours getting it just so with my paper and my laminator. I hung it proudly thinking that it made my room look like a place for learning and that it was sure to inspire my kids every day. One day, my principal walked in and said the quote to a couple of my students, who instead of breaking out into knowing grins, stared at him blankly. They had no idea what he was referring to or even what it meant. After all, these 4th graders had not yet heard of that Shakespeare guy. I was mortified, and just a little surprised; what else did they not notice in my meticulously set up classroom?

I share that story so that new teachers can laugh at my mistakes and hopefully use it as a way to guide themselves in their classroom setup and organization. I made the mistake that many teachers make; I filled my room so that it looked cute. I filled it so that it looked used. I didn’t want to come off as the newbie in town that had nothing. Except, that is who I was and I should have embraced it, let my room develop over the years, and always edit everything, but I didn’t. Instead, I was afraid of looking new. So to steer you away from my mistakes, I offer some questions as you contemplate the organization of your own room.

Do you really need that paper copy? I hoard paper, most teachers do, yet I never use my paper files much. Whatever I need I find in my computer files or I google it if I can’t find it. So ask yourself whether you really need to make that many copies of that sheet of paper, or whether one is sufficient, or perhaps even just a bookmark on your computer to find it again will do.

Where does your stuff want to go? I always tell teachers to ask themselves this because often we subconsciously set things where we feel they belong. So if you are constantly setting down your books in a certain place, make that place their home. Make it purposeful rather than accidental. I started doing this several years ago and my intuition now rules where stuff goes and it means less time spent searching for things that I tried to corral somewhere else.

To desk or not to desk? Several years ago I gave up my desk because of what it did; it created a barrier between me and the students and I was constantly drawn behind it, even though I shouldn’t have been. So I got rid of, now I have a table for my computer and planner, it faces the wall in the corner and I can’t sit there without turning my back to the students. It forces me to stay present and not get pulled away from them. Perhaps that will work for you as well or perhaps you love your desk and that is okay as well.

Are you in the room? Is there anything personal of you in the room or will the room not give of a hint of your personality. Are there pictures or something that shows the kids just a little of what you are about. Be aware though, don’t have too much, which leads me to the next question…

Is there room for the kids? I don’t just mean spacewise, although the flow of your room is incredibly important, but did you leave things blank enough for the kids to take over the space and put their mark on it? Is there room to show their work or whatever tool you need at the moment? Are there places for them to work besides their tables? Can they spread out, can they meet at other tables, can they lie on the floor? Can they make the room their own, a safe place for exploration, or is it just your room and your rules?

How many unwritten rules do you have? Are you strict about where the supplies go or whether kids have access to them? Do they have to sign out to leave for the bathroom or can they just put a pass on their desk? Are there other places for them to work or is their desk their only option? Can they get a corner for themselves if they need it or will the rest of the class always be watching? Are there things labeled your things and some labeled their things? All of these ways to organize inadvertently create more rules for the students that may leave them feeling less welcome. Find the balance between your need for control and their need to take ownership of their learning space.

While many lists abound of great organizational tips, I find that sometimes they don’t speak to the deeper meaning of how we organize our classroom. The truth is that how you organize your classroom says so much about you and your teaching style. I hope you take the time it deserves to get it just right, and then take an outsiders perspective to to see what it signals about you and your teaching. We may think that our classroom is only the place we teach in, but often it is also the place that shows how we teach. So make it meaningful, much like you teaching probably will be.

A snapshot from my classroom on a regular day

new teacher, new year, Reading

What Will You Do the Very First Moment of the First Day of the Year?

July 10, 2013 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

Yesterday I started setting up my classroom for next year, yes really, with 2 months almost left of vacation, I couldn’t wait to get in there and see what I needed to change, what worked already, and just fiddle with the room. As I shelved new books that have found their way into my reading life, I pondered, how will I start this year?

Not how will the day go? Not what will we do? But how will I start the day, that very first day, with my so far 26 new students. In the past we would have done an ice breaker, we would have done a pretend quiz on me (I know it’s mean but funny once the kids get that the quiz is about me and not curriculum), in the past I have even showed them exactly the way I wanted them to enter the room. Great way to show who is the boss.

This year, I want it to be different though, I want us to focus on our passions and I want that to be the very first thing we do. So instead of rules, instead of games, I will read a picture book to them. Invite them to the carpet, tell them to get comfortable, and then share one of my passions; books. I hope they have the courage to share their thoughts as w read, I hope they have courage to show their emotions as we read, I hope they have the courage to show that even though they are now the oldest kids in the school it is ok to think picture books are magical.

Which book? I don’t know yet. It could be the incredible “Bluebird” by Bob Staake, which is just as powerful as any books with words I have ever read. Or how about the funny “Creepy Carrots” by Aaron Reynolds that show us that things aren’t always as they seem. Or “This is a Book” by Dimitri Martin which would be a wonderful way to showcase another of my passions; blogging. Or in the end it may be “Chu’s Day” by Neil Gaiman so that I can tell them that every time I read it aloud to Thea, she giggles when Chu doesn’t sneeze and that she is starting school this week too for the very time and I know that we start a new chapter with her just as I do with my new kids. Perhaps it will be that one. No matter the book, though, what matters is the thought behind it.

So what will you do the very first moment with your new kids?

I am a passionate 5th grade teacher in Middleton, Wisconsin, USA, 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 “The Passionate Learner – Giving Our Classroom Back to Our Students Starting Today” will be released this fall from PLPress. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

community, first week, new year

Hold Off on that Curriculum – Slowing Down Now Speeds You Up Later

September 16, 2012 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

You feel the sense of urgency as you enter, the hallways are buzzing with sounds, and everywhere you look teachers and students are engaged in activities; welcome to the first few days of school. And while we all feel the curriculum rushing up on us, here is why taking your time with your students those first few days will be the ultimate payoff for the rest of the year.

We are all brand new to each other. Yes, you may have had their sister, or you may have started a relationship with them in an earlier grade but let’s face it; they are a brand new kid who just wants to be liked by their teacher. How will you ever find common ground if you don’t find the time to actually hear about their lives?
We are cementing our routines. I am not always a fan of prescriptive programs but there are certain routines that the students have to master for our days to get started quickly and for us to work more effectively. Those routines will not be secured if we don’t take the time not just to practice them, but also to discover and discuss the need for them. I don’t set the rules but I do show routines.
We are discovering our rules. As I said, I don’t set the rules, my students do, so to do that we have to take the time to discuss what we want our year to look like, feel like, sound like. What do we want to leave 5th grade with? So we create a vision video for our room on Animoto and we talk a lot about what we need in order to be successful learners. We do not write the rules down but bring them up throughout the year. This takes time and that time needs to be given at the start of the year, later on it is too late.
The curriculum will mean nothing if we don’t get excited. School has been done for too many years to students so I would rather see students get excited about what this coming year of learning will mean for them. To do that you have to invest time in exploring just what the year will look like. We pull our curriculum a little bit apart just so we know where we are headed and all of the things we have to look forward to. It is wonderful to see a child get excited about something they will explore in February already.
We relish our freedom. We sometimes have to unteach certain behaviors because we work a little bit differently in our room. So instead of always raising our hand to answer, we figure out how to do “adult” discussions. We figure out how to work independently, what our help resources are, as well as how to take control of our misguided attempts or abject failures and figure out where to go from there. Students tend to think at first that I am trying to trick them into misbehaving, they have to see that it isn’t a trick. This takes time but is so important to the rest of the year.
We have to build trust. Without trust our blogging does not work, and neither do many of the other learning activities we do. I don’t demand their trust, I earn it just as they have to earn mine. Respect and representing ourselves well is something I hold very dear and I try to pass on those values to my students. If we don’t trust each other to learn together then we cannot overcome all of the challenges we need to conquer. Trust is a main tenet of our room.

Being on maternity leave doesn’t mean that I won’t have a first day of school, it jst means that it comes a little bit later and there may be changes for the students. When I go back, I know that i will have to invest the time to start our relationships. Right now, my 5th graders are not my kids, they belong to my sub, so to become mine, we have to build our relationship. So yes, I will be taking the time to do so even if that means the curriculum has to wait a little.

Some of the activities I plan on using such as the human treasure hunt, our time capsule, as well as the letter to me can be found as a printable packet on Teachers Pay Teachers with 13 pages of ideas.

behavior, being a teacher, community, new year

We Should Act Like Our Students

August 27, 2012 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

You can feel it when you enter. It hangs around you like a fog, enveloping you wherever you go, emphasizing the true nature of the school from your eyes. Climate, and particularly a bad one, surrounds you when you enter into a school and can quickly soak its way into any perception otherwise presented. It doesn’t matter how many smiles you get, if a school is suffering from a lack of community, those smiles will not be able to mask it.

We spend so much time and thought in how we will build the community in our classrooms, perhaps even in our grade level, and yet where is our thought to how we will build community in our school for the staff? At my school, we have new staff every year, and sometimes quite a bit, yet we assume that the community we have created in years past will just flow into the new year and welcome the new staff. What a strange notion! We know as professionals that community must be nourished and preserved throughout the year and that every year we start anew. So why does this not carry over into our staff development? In fact, often in schools we act the opposite of how we expect our students to act.

We ask our students to work in groups, yet often close our own doors during collaboration time.

We ask our students to branch out and meet new people, yet we often stick to the same familiar faces, making it hard for anyone new to feel like they belong.

We ask our students to discuss problems face-to-face, dialogue about issues, and come to an amicable agreement, yet we often speak ill of one another and shy away from conflict or confrontation.

We ask our students to work with new people and not always pick their best friends, yet we sit with those we know at our staff meetings and try to get into each others groups.

We ask our students to trust us as professionals, yet we don’t extend that trust to all of those we work with.

We ask our students to actively listen when we speak, yet we often bring work into meetings or have side conversations when someone speaks.

We ask our students to be up for the challenge, to embrace change, yet we roll our eyes and fight change whenever we can unless we are the ones wanting to do it.

We say this is a bully free zone, yet sometimes the bullies can be found amongst the teachers.

So we must focus on community and not just within our rooms. We must act more like our students.

advice, Be the change, being a teacher, education reform, new year

Who Is to Blame? Who Cares…

August 23, 2012 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

In the ever expanding debate on the state of education, it seems a lot of blame is passed around. Teachers blame parents, parents blame teachers, public schools blame society, charter schools blame public schools, and politicians, well they seem to blame everybody. Not a day goes by without another blaring headline of one side versus the other and frankly I am sick of it. I know there is blame to be passed, I know there is blame to be had, but in the end, who really cares?

Blame doesn’t do us any good. Blame doesn’t fix the problem. Yes, I can lament the fact that not all of my students have the same socioeconomic background, the same level of parent commitment, heck, I can get upset about their varying degrees of pre-school involvement, but at the end of my teaching day, none of it matters. What matters is what I do now. What matters is how I work with the students, with all of their background, and how we keep them successful from there. Blame is great to discuss, it can get us all riled up, it can get us more invested in the debate, but really it takes our focus off of where it should be – what we can do in education with the students we have.

So this year, I am going to try to step out of the blame game. Yes, I know there are many ills in our public schools and society in general. Yes, I know poverty is a major factor in many students’ lives. Yes, I know that I cannot control what happens outside of school or what happened before they became my students but I can control the now. I can play a part in what happens starting September 4th and for a whole school year within the walls of our classroom. I can focus on the students as I have them, rather than the blame I would like to assign. I am going to take my energy off of blaming and place it back with my students. I will continue to work and fight for change. I will continue to be a voice in the debate. But I will not continue to just pass the blame and do nothing. Are you with me?

advice, being me, new year

Take Your Moment

August 18, 2012 Pernille Ripp

image from icanread

Tonight I had to get out of the house. Leave with no children needing things. Just me, alone, caring for my own whims, doing nothing and everything, whatever I needed right at that moment. Being a new mom of 18 day old twins and a very active 3 year old, I am not surprised that I hit this point, indeed, it was nothing dramatic, just a realization that a break was needed so that I could continue to function optimally. And so I left when the opportunity arose, went to the mall of all places, to surf from store to store, aimlessly, yet breathing and thinking of nothing except for putting one foot infront of the other.

This has happened to me as a teacher as well, that moment snuck up on me on an ordinary day where things just were not working and I knew a break was needed. For me, for the students, for the room to clear the air so we could all start over again. How many of us haven’t had that time where our tricks didn’t work? Where our glorious lesson fall apart? Where there is nothing going right and we know we either start to get angry with the students or we just take a moment. A moment to breathe, a moment to step out if possible, a moment is all we need.

So this school year, I will take those moments if needed. I have found that with the way I teach they are very far and few in between, however, now with the addition of sleep deprivation who knows what will happen. I hope you allow yourself to take those moments as well, to realize that you are human, that you cannot solve, soothe, or fix everything all by yourself. That it is ok to call in the troops, that it is ok to step away. As long as you return, after all, it should just be a moment you need.