I didn’t know what I would read. I didn’t know what they would say. I only knew we needed to have this conversation.
They gathered on the carpet, waiting for the usual routine to start, but instead I started to read “The Invisible Boy.” They grew silent and then were sucked in, they have become such focused listeners. I closed the book. Told them to grab their thoughtful logs and answer the questions posted. Are there any invisible children in our class?
They wrote, took their time. I read and my heart sank. It was what I feared. Even within our incredible community of learners there were children that felt invisible. Children that felt they had few friends, few who cared. Who felt that they were a part of school simply because they showed up but not a part of something bigger than that.
We gathered back on the carpet and I told them the story of how I moved so many times as a child I never felt I belonged anywhere. That I often tried to reinvent myself when I was the new kid but inevitably ended up being me again. The only person I really knew how to be. I then told them that many of them had said there were no invisible children in our classroom but that was not true. That several kids had been brave enough to share that they felt invisible. That they felt they had no friends. And it was our job to change that.
I didn’t share the names. I didn’t tell them how to fix it, but I told them to really start to notice each other. To not take each child for granted. To not just live by the school rules but to be kinder, to be more caring, to take the time to reach out and start new conversations. That this is not just about finding the new kid and making them feel welcome but reaching out to every child, even the one you think is just fine, the one who you think may have plenty of friends. To really see who is in their class and make sure no one feels invisible.
I don’t know if it made a difference today. I can only hope. There should be no invisible children. Not in our room.
I first gave up on percentages the day I found myself overriding a student’s average and changing their grade to something else. Mind you that average was calculated by me on worksheets I had assigned. I remember erasing the letter I had written, so meticulously calculated, and then arguing with myself over whether I had the right to do so. Would anyone know that I had changed the grade to more accurately reflect what they knew and that it was no longer based on an average? Would I get busted for this? I felt like such a fraud.
Today I asked my students to once again assess themselves. Assign 4 through 1 to their learning in all subjects and then hand it in to me. The numbers are not my invention but rather my district’s take on standards based grading and so that portion is out of my hands, it is the end of the trimester so report cards must be written. I gave them their previous report card, also filled out by them. I gave them an explanation of what the categories meant and then I gave them time to evaluate. They thought, they asked questions. and then they handed them in. Yet some people may wonder why I bother?
I don’t have them write their own grades because I’m lazy. It is not because I don’t know how I would assess them. It is not to give them a fake sense of control. Or a fake sense of ownership.
I do it so it is their voice that is heard when they are judged. So that their input determines where they are and where they need to go. I do it because every time there is a surprise. A child always evaluates themselves differently than I would, and it is in that difference that some of our most revealing discussions take place. This is where a child reveals their broken self esteem, this is where a child reveals their confusion, their lack of belief in their own capabilities. This is where a child shows that they perhaps are less clued in then they have led me to believe. Or where they prove to me how much they know but were too afraid to share. It is within these conversations that my students truly take control of their learning journey and set the goals. It is where they find their mistakes and take ownership. It is where they realize what they have mastered, how far they have grown. It is where we celebrate their successes and think about our failures.
I may not be a believer in grades, but I will always believe in the power of a good conversation. These conversations shape the next trimester, the next month, the next day. These shape the journey my students continue to take. My students know that I am not the only one assessing them, they have someone else that is much tougher than me; themselves. And they don’t want to let that person down.
My students used to read so they could do a book report. They used to read so they could have a book talk with an adult. They used to read so they could check off 1,000 pages. Some read for the love of it, some for the occasional thrill, and some read because I told them to. Much like many children today. This year as we started to have deep discussion about the books we chose to read, I realized quickly that my students were unsure how to discuss a book, how to dig deeper and pull out answers from each other. They even were unsure of why we were learning how to do this in the first place. Surely reading doesn’t have much to do with conversations?
So when I asked them why we discuss our books, the most common answer was because we want to share them. Because it gives us something to do at the end of reading. Because it proves to you that we read. Quietly I looked at them and then told them, “We don’t talk about books to just share them. We don’t practice these reading conversations so that we have proof that we have read that day. We don’t even do it to become better readers. Reading and talking about reading is bigger than that.
We share our books because they show a part of us that others may not know.
We share our thoughts because it may give someone else the courage to share theirs.
We ask questions about books because we must learn to ask questions of others. We must learn to adapt to any conversation thrust upon as adults. To engage and be engaging whenever needed. Sure, we practice our conversations through our love of books, but it is much bigger than that. We practice these conversations so that we can be better people who are interested in those they meet. Who can speak to strangers when needed. Who can think quickly and respond well.
We may speak of books now, but you don’t know what life will need you to speak of later. ” A child that reads becomes an adult who thinks” and you, my students, are thinkers indeed. So don’t think we do it just to wrap up reading, to have a nice little chat. We do it because it is a life skill. We do it for our love of reading, for our love of conversation, and for our love of people. That’s why we have reading discussions; to connect with others and become better human beings.”
I became a teacher because I thought I could change the world. Now I know what a foolish endeavor I have set out upon. It is not so much that I cannot change the world, my teaching career is not over yet so I will not throw in the towel. It is more that I don’t care so much about changing the world anymore, but rather that I care about helping children change the world. My time is now, but theirs is coming up and as a teacher I have the privilege of being able to provide students with opportunities to make a difference, to make a change, to make their mark.
So what can you do to empower your students? I have been writing my second book on this topic for Corwin (hopeful publication this fall!) and keep coming back to the same simple principles.
Give them a voice – but also help them understand what it means to have a voice. Many of my students assume that having a voice just means speaking up, but to me it is much broader than that. Having a voice means having a say, deciding in what happens within the classroom or the school. Changing the way school is provided and having a way to speak to the world.
Breed honesty. Too often our students are too nice to say how they really feel about what we are doing to them, so leading by example in your own honest reflections, and starting discussions where students can safely share their true opinions, knowing that they will not haunt them in the future through a vindictive teacher. Yes, honesty can hurt our pride as teachers, even mine, but I would rather know what I am doing wrong than having students pretend everything is okay.
Find your place. It is too simplistic to say that our place as teachers should be on the side, it is also too simplistic to say that it should be as the leader. Instead as a teacher, our jobs and our place changes every day and sometimes every minute. While one child may need you to hold their hand, another needs you to push them forward. One child may need for you to get out of their way, while another is lost. I thought I would fail as a teacher if I led my students, now I know I only fail if I don’t give them what they need.
Make room for failure and success. Too often we simplify failure and how we must embrace it because that is the only true way to learn. Yet, success is also needed. Sure students need perseverance, we all do, but we also need success to fuel our perseverance. If I set up a classroom where students continually failed all in the name of creative pursuit, I would have a classroom full of students unsure that they would ever be able to succeed. Chance of failure – absolutely – but chance of success as well!
While empowering students is more than this, this are the foundation that I build my classroom upon. These are the tenets that must be in place for my students to continue developing into the incredibly passionate, confident, self-reliant problem-solvers they can be. Then they can change the world, and not just when they grow up, but starting today as 5th graders, not waiting for tomorrow.
I was a dreadfully uncreative child. Sure, I would draw trees, flowers, animals, but whenever someone told me to unleash my creativity, my heart sank and my page usually stayed empty. Writing was slightly better, but I tended to stay on tangents so much that even I couldn’t tell my stories apart after awhile. And singing? While I loved to sing, I couldn’t just create something out of thin air no matter how hard I wanted to. No, I would never be a jazz singer.
When I look back on my childhood I see that I was probably not alone. Many of my friends weren’t explosively creative either and while these days when we have uncreative children we tend to blame our school system, I think it was just the way we were. We didn’t know how to be creative so we weren’t.
I see this play out in my classroom as well. I ask students to come up with whatever type of project they want and they go into a slight panic, not quite sure where to go with that much choice. Or tell them to write a story about anything they want and some of them are so stuck in a writers block that they actually sit there frozen, never even lifting their pencils. So what can be done with those kids that are stuck in a panic battled with creativity? How can we unleash their potential?
Give them limited choice. I think choice is one of the biggest gifts we can give to students, however, to some the thought of free choice limits their imagination rather than urging them to create. So give them some choices and then urge them forward.
Give them examples. I know this sounds counter-intuitive to spark creativity but often some students simple need to see what is possible before they venture out on their own. Sure, they may borrow ideas from what we show but in the end they still create.
Check in often. While we tend to think of creativity as an adult-less venture, those kids that struggle with the process need check-ins and reassurance letting them know they are on the right track and help getting unstuck.
Celebrate the small risks. We tend to look for the impressive but when it comes to some students, we need to celebrate even the little ventures into creativity. Boost their self-esteem and let them know that what they are doing is right.
Praise, praise, praise. As an uncreative child I always thought I was doing it wrong, if someone had told me I was doing it right, I would have had more faith in myself. Often lack of creativity comes from the same place as lack of self-confidence. Make sure it is not empty praise but rather specific and to the point.
Give options to collaborate. I almost always give students the choice to have partners in projects simply because they spur each other on.
Break the mold of creativity. We tend to only allow for creativity within certain subjects but why not open up all of our subjects to creative thought and exploration? Some students will do better unleashing their genius within math than literacy. Make room for them as well.
Be persistent. I was almost allowed allowed to give up on projects as a child whenever they failed rather than see them through, and while we should know it is ok to abandon something, as teachers we should also encourage our reluctant students to push forward. While it may not be the best creation, it is something, and that is always worth celebrating.
Highlight everyone. Part of not being creative was that I knew who was considered creative in my class. Those kids were given special attention every time. I was never in the group therefore I quickly deduced that I was not creative. Be careful that we don’t let our labels of students stymie them.
I am a passionate (female) 5th grade teacher in 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 “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classroom Back to Our Students Starting Today” will be released this March from Powerful Learning Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
When I moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress last summer I mistakenly assumed that all posts would seamlessly transfer. I have since found the error in my thinking and have decided to re-post some of my more discussed posts. This post first appeared in June of 2011 but still rings true to me.
Three years ago I gave up my inane punishment plans. Out went the sticks, the cups, the posters, the pointed fingers and definitely the lost recesses. No more check-marks, or charts to explain what that check-mark meant, no more raised voice telling a child they better behave or else. Some thought I was crazy, I thought I was crazy, and yet, here I am now a complete convert. So what happened?
Well, a lot of conversations. If just one child was off that day, disruptive, disrespectful and so on, it was usually handled through a quiet conversation off to the side or in their ear. Sometimes we went in the hallway. I tried to limit the times I called out their names and I spoke to them as human beings. No more teacher from the top, I am going to get you if you don’t listen, but rather, “Do you see what your behavior is doing for your learning?” Believe it or not, framed in a way where they understood what the loss was = the learning, there was better behavior or at least an attempt to behave. And that was a central part of my plan; make the learning something they didn’t want to miss. Most kids do not want to miss recess because they have a lot of fun and hang out with their friends, which is why it is such a favored punishment. Hit them where it hurst kind of thing. So I decided to make my classroom fun, exciting, and collaborative. That meant that students actually wanted to participate and not miss out.
Sometimes my whole class was off; jumpy, jiggly, or falling asleep. In the past I would have yelled, droned on, and probably lectured about the importance of school. No surprise there that usually didn’t work at all. So then I would just get mad, tighten the reins and exert my control. Yeah, didn’t work so well. Now I instead change my teaching and learning. While we may have had certain activities planned for that day they are modified to require movement and discussion or totally changed if I can. The learning goals usually stays the same, the method of delivering them doesn’t. Often this takes care of a lot of behavior that would have led to a check-mark before. And I think that is central to this whole thing; bad behavior often comes from disengagement and boredom. So when we change our classrooms to give students more outlet for their energy, bad behavior reduces. My worst days were the days that I hadn’t considered my students needs enough, the days were there was too much sitting down and not enough choice.
In the beginning it was hard. I so instinctually wanted to say “Move your stick!” that I actually had to grind my teeth. With time it got easier. The students knew when they were misbehaving because we discussed it. If the whole class or a majority of students were off we had a class meeting. Sounds like a lot of time spent on talking? Yes, but I would have been spending the same time yelling at the kids and doling out punishment. The kids got used to it and many of them relished the fact that they were given a voice in their behavior and how to fix it, rather than a dictation from me. Kids started keeping each other in line as well, asking others to be quiet when need be or to work more focused. They knew what the expectations were for the different learning settings because we had set them together. This was our classroom, not mine.
So did it work? Absolutely, I would never go back. I don’t take away recess but have it reserved to work with the kids that need it, I make fewer phone calls home, and I rarely send a kid to the office. I am sure there are tougher classes out there than mine, but this is your every day average American elementary class. We have the talkers, the interrupters, the disrespectful, the fighters, and the sleepers. And it works for them as well. The kids feel part of something big, and they let me know on just how much it means to them. They relish the voice they have, even when it comes to their own consequences. They relish that rewards are no longer personal but rather classroom-wide whenever I feel like it. Kids are not singled out for horrible behavior and so I don’t have “that kid” that everyone knows will get in trouble. Instead we are all there as learners being rewarded through our community rather than punished. I remember the relief I felt when I placed my old punishment cups in the staff lounge and finally let go of my old ways. To this day I hope no one picked them up.
Pernille Ripp 