Category: reflection

reflection, students

What Is Our Obsession With Quiet Kids?

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

This year there has been a lot of emphasis on voice level at my school.  Chalk it up to our status as a PBIS school where it is all about the voice levels.  And I agree, many times kids talking in the hallways can be a distraction to those teaching. Or kids shouting in the lunch room is not great behavior, but there seems to be an obsessions with quiet in our schools.  As if quiet always means learning.

So I am here to disagree, to ponder our obsessions with quiet students.  To me quiet can mean many things, and yes, one of them is studious behavior.  But it can also mean a child that is lost in their work and doesn’t even know what to ask.  It can mean a child has no one to speak to as they sit at lunch by themselves.  It can mean that children are merely doing their job as learners and not fully invested in what they are doing.  It is not that I am against the quiet, it has its place in school, but so does boisterous excitement, loud noises, and general conversation.

We often equate teacher weakness with loud classrooms, however, my classroom is loud and we get done what we need to get done and sometimes even more than what we are supposed to.  We get excited, we get a little loud, and we know when to be quiet because it fits the purpose.  Walk by on any given day and you may see us at all sorts of voice levels.  Walk by on any given day and hopefully you will see kids engaged with the learning.

So let’s revisit the quiet.  Let’s figure out when it is truly needed and when it should take center stage, but let us not continue to teach children that learning must be quiet, that learning should be in whisper voices only, unless you are speaking to the teacher.  Much like we have blank classroom walls at the beginning fo the year so that students may take them over, let us also have quiet rooms waiting to be filled with noise by the students.  They should have a voice, and nut just a voice level 1 kind of voice, but perhaps even a voice level 2 or 3 at times.  

reflection

Should Principals Have Term Limits?

Pernille Ripp
Note:  This post is me starting a conversation coming from a teacher’s perspective, hoping teachers and administrators will share their thoughts.  This is not a solid opinion of mine but a question.  This is also not in relation to my own principal, I hope that clarifies.

I was asked once where I thought this whole blogging thing was going, what was my destination?  I had no answer so the questioner asked me whether I would ever become a principal.  I quickly answered no and when pressed to explain I told them I was worried about losing my relevance after a few years, that I would not be able to stay current and soon my ideas would be as outdated as my outfits.  See teaching every day keeps me in the know, in the moment with these kids, so every day I have to adapt, every day I have to figure out new situations.  And even now just 5 years into my teaching career some of my original ideas are already outdated and have definitely lost their relevance to anyone but myself.

I bring this up because I cannot help but wonder whether principalships should have term limits of sort?    

Should principals only be allowed to be one for 4 or 5 years before they are automatically kicked back to the classroom for a year?  Then when the year has passed they can reapply for another principalship. And yes, this idea is completely cumbersome and a little bit crazy and I am not even saying it is the right idea, but how do we make sure principals stay relevant in their knowledge when sought out by teachers?  After all, there are only so many conferences, articles, discussions you can experience and even those will never add up to more classroom experience.  And perhaps it is not needed, perhaps principals stay current through their teachers but don’t they also need to rely on their own teaching experiences to help them guide kids and teachers alike?  I don’t have the answer.

Since I am not a principal and I am genuinely curious, I would love your comments on this:

  • Can principals give relevant advice after they have been out of the classroom for many years?
  • Does it matter how many years they taught?  Or does it only matter how they are as a leader?
  • How do we feel as teachers when our principal has not been in the classroom for more than 10 years and still uses their own old experiences as their measuring stock for every question?  Does it work?

I don’t have the answer, only this huge question that I cannot answer.  I would love to hear your opinions on this.

Be the change, reflection

I Get So Sick Of Being the Change

Pernille Ripp
Sometimes I get sick of being the change, of leading the charge, of paving the way.  I get sick of all the bumps and bruises from trying something new, from being honest and sharing it with whomever will read.  I get sick of having to defend Twitter as something more than conceitedness or hobnobbing with people “that aren’t really my friends ”  I get tired of explaining again why I don’t take recess, why I have a hard time bribing kids, and why grades – whether A’s or 4’s – really don’t belong in education.

I get so tired that I make myself believe that perhaps if I shut my mouth the path would get easier.  That if I stopped blogging about it all perhaps no one would notice and I could just do my things, my way.  That perhaps if I just swallowed a big dose of reality and learned that what is happening now in education is what will be for years to come and I better just get used to it, then my life would be easier.

But then I am told to share my story.  A friendly stranger ask me why.  Schools ask me to help them out as they struggle with the same things I do and I regain my faith in the change and being the change.  I knew this path wouldn’t be easy.  I knew this path would sometimes double back, twist and turn on itself, and lose me.  Yet, I follow it because I see where the path leads; to change, the right kind.  The kind many are hoping will come.  I have to keep believing and I have to share my stories so that others will know it is ok to share theirs.

Clarification:  This post is more a comment on trying to change how education is done in general, rather than people around me.  I think it is tough for anyone out there trying to change the massive politically motivated education policy machine and that is what I was trying to address here.

image from icanread

reflection, students

I Don’t Feel Inspired – Admitting the Truth to Students

Pernille Ripp
I am in the middle of a writing unit asking my students to be inspired   Yup, just like that.  Unfortunately it seems that most of the kids left their “I am inspired right in this moment” juice at home and I am struggling to get them to “live like writers” like Lucy is telling them to do.  Oh Lucy Calkins, I love your ideas but sometimes you are just a little bit crazy.

So I take a deep breath and pull back a little.  I tell them sometimes I get inspired when I am driving or falling asleep.  Sometimes I get inspired walking down the hallway or gently rocking a child.  Sometimes inspiration hits me and I don’t even realize it until a blogpost  has written itself.  But if I tell myself I have to blog and be inspired at that very moment I can almost guarantee it is not going to happen.  Stunned silence and 20 pairs of eyes looking at me.  A kid nervously blurts out, “You mean, you don’t just write when you have to?”  I am at cross road; do I pretend I do or do I admit the truth?

I clear my throat…”Umm, no I don’t.  In fact, sometimes writing is very hard for me too.”  Two kids start to whisper and the silence pervades the room.  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t try…”

So I tell the kids to take a deep breath and allow their thoughts to wander.  They can write down whatever pops into their heads.  They can go off on a tangent or just write statements.  They can sit there and just think.  They can wait for inspiration to strike but just promise me to notice when it does and capture those ideas.  They can write naturally for once.

I don’t know if they will remember me admitting that I can’t always write but that isn’t the important part.  The important part is me telling them that it is ok to think before they write.  That I get it.  That inspiration is not just something turned on even though we wish it were.  It’s not so much that I hope THEY remember as that I remember.  I have to remember what it feels like for my students.  I have to remember that as much as I want them to be producers and super students, they are indeed humans with inspiration that strike sand inspiration that fades, and that is not a bad thing.

image from icanread
Be the change, reflection

This Kid and His Big Dreams

Pernille Ripp
So I have this kid that’s been blowing my mind.  You know that kid that everybody says has “it” whatever “it is?  Yeah, this kid has it.  If you come into my room he will probably give you a smile, sometimes he is unfocused, most of the time he is not.  This kid is the leader of my classroom, I don’t know if it is because of his size, don’t know if is just his personality, but the kids they look up to him and he knows it and he leads them like a gentle giant.

This kid works so hard to get where he needs to get in reading.  He works so hard in math trying to figure out all of the crazy stuff we throw at him.  He puts in extra time after school to get better at reading, and it shows, his scores are inching up, catching up to the others.

This kid wants to be a football player when he grows up and for the first time ever I think it might actually happen; he is that kind of kid.  He has the size for sure, he has the skills, and for now, he has the dedication it takes to maybe reach that dream.  If life doesn’t get in the way…

So this kid that’s been blowing my mind, this kid that has so many dreams, I want him to keep going for it.  I want him to stay focused, to keep working hard, to not give up even if the math is really hard at times and reading and writing is tough too.   I want him to keep believing in himself and that his dreams are attainable too.

So I wonder if someone can help me with this kid and his big dreams?  Does anyone know someone that plays football for a college team or another higher level that will write him a note?  This kid bleeds Bucky Badger red but I am not sure it even has to be from someone on the Badger team.  Can someone help me get a note to him telling him how school is important and to not give up on his dreams even when life gets in the way?  To keep working as hard as he has and surprising everyone along the way, to know that he has worth and that school will only help him get to where he wants to go?

Thank you for helping me help this kid and his big dreams.

reflection

Goodbye To My Classroom Library

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

I don’t remember when I stopped reading children’s book.  When those young adult novels that had enticed me for years just seemed to slip out of my selections to be replaced by serious sounding titles that definitely did not have stories that centered around children.  I do not remember making the decision or even doing it, it just happened like so many other adult things in life.

So when I started teaching and I inherited an already stock full classroom library I flipped through the books, got rid of the most forlorn looking ones, weeded out a few titles that would be too mature for my 4th graders and let it sit.  I organized it and labeled it, went to thrift stores to get even more books, grabbing whatever sounded like it belonged in 4th grade; Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, a stray Harry Potter (that series I had at least read).  I placed them in my library and waited for the children to eagerly pick their books.  Except they didn’t, and I shrugged, and I sent them to the school library.

Sure, I ordered more books; whatever seemed to entice me in the shiny Scholastic catalogue.  I read a few; Twilight  Hunger Games, Coraline, The Lightning Thief series.  When parents asked me for recommendations, I rattled off those old stalwarts hoping that one of them would entice.  Usually they didn’t.  I didn’t weed out, I didn’t examine, I didn’t judge the books I already had and every year kids would pick through my library with upturned noses and then head out the door.  Gems were hidden behind books no one had heard of.  Covers were cracked and falling off.  I thought it didn’t matter.  I thought kids would figure out that there were indeed great books hidden in there if they just took the time.  I thought if I just kept ordering more books and showing them to the kids they would read them eagerly.

This summer, I came across The Nerdy Book Club.  This blog and its love of reading all things children shocked me.  After all, these people had read all of these books and threw titles around as if I should know what these books were, but I didn’t.  Those books they spoke of and the way they presented them reignited that spark in me and urged me to pick up the books.  So I did and I fell in love with the power of children’s books and young adults ones again.

So this summer, insanely pregnant with twins and very tired, I hid with Jen and Luke and the other third children.  I shuddered when Hansel & Gretel got their heads chopped off and delighted in the wonder of Auggie and his love of life.  I cried not once but twice with Ivan and cared deeply about Melody and her quiz tournament.  And I knew I had to share these books.  I had to highlight them, show them off, make my kids read them and make them want to read more.  I had to want them to read those books in my library hidden among the rest.  I had to get them to explore books and the best way to do that was for me to read them and love them first.

At the moment there are 4 books waiting for me on my nightstand.  Going back to school means falling asleep at 8 PM but there they sit and I yearn to crack their pages so that I can share them with my students.

And my library waits for me tomorrow when I will do something I never thought would make any sense; get rid of books.  I will clear the shelves and start over, I will ask the kids to help me, get them to see and feel and touch the books we want to keep and bid farewell to those we don’t.  I want my library to be the first place they come to for books.  So we say goodbye to let others in; I cannot wait.

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