Category: students

I think I may have interventioned some kids to death.  Not an easy thing to admit but it needs admitting.  In the trend for differentiated instruction and a test to discover every shortcoming a child could possibly have, my students know and dread the word intervention.  I dose them, specialists double dose them, and sometimes when things get really rough, they even get a triple dose.  Call it reading help, call it math support, call it what you will, but I wonder if some of these kids don’t need a break from all of our help?

Imagine being a child who comes in with certain knowledge lacking.  Perhaps they have moved many times.  Perhaps they have a learning disability.  Perhaps they just hate reading.  Or perhaps they can’t help what they don’t know.  We test and discover the holes, we meet and discuss the gaps, we then plan and set up all of the things we now shall do to the child.  Often without ever asking them or wondering how they will feel when they get pulled out.  We teach them strategies, we fill their brains with more methods, more knowledge, more understanding, hoping to find the one that makes it all make sense.  They lose class time but we know we have to sacrifice something.  They lose reading time because they are in the group we meet with as much as possible.  We hover and constantly ask, “Does it make sense?”  All in the hope to help them.

I don’t mean to suggest we shouldn’t intervene but perhaps we should ask them how they feel about all of the things we do to them.  How do they feel about their labels that we are not supposed to have put on them?  How do they feel about the pull out?  The extra attention?  The extra people that they get to work with?  Most kids just go along, but perhaps we should ask them.  Perhaps they need a break t ojust be a kid, like all the other kids in the classroom, and perhaps they just need some time.

I tend to get the angry ones.  You know the ones; they shout, kick, fume and hold their jaw just so, hoping you will push them over that cliff.  They show up in my room all smiles and ready to go but within a day or two, I see something else, that torrent of emotion, that distrust that has consumed their whole school experience, just waiting to unleash on me.  So I smile, and I trust, and I go home and think about what I will do with this angry child who needs me more than others.

I didn’t know I would be ok with the angry ones at first, but I am.  In fact, my first year of teaching I got one of the angriest ones I have ever met and I loved that child like he was my own.  Now I don’t worry when I see the file, the reports, the suspensions and recommendations, because I know what has happened in the past will stay there and together we will carve a new path.  And I smile laugh rather than yell even when my very last button has been pushed and pushed and pushed because in the end that is all there is to do.  That child already has enough anger for the both of us.

So the angry ones keep on coming and they bring new stories of broken relationships and reasons why school just isn’t for them.  And we listen, and we nod, and we take note and look for that kid that is still in there somewhere.  And we hope that they leave us a little less angry, a little more trusting, a little more ready for the next step in life.  In the end, that is all we can do; hope and believe.  Hope we must because the angry ones needs us as well and believe we have to because someone has to believe that there is still a chance.  Even for the angry ones.

I thought I had them hooked.  I thought they would be over the moon, buzzing with excitement, having one of those moments that we so often dream about in teaching.  Those moments that will forever remind a student why 5th grade was their absolute favorite year in school, ever.  It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but maybe not so much as a buzz, rather than a quiet murmur.  A couple of kids smiling, a couple of kids, nodding, not bad, but definitely not as epic as I had envisioned it.

I had just revealed our January book challenge.

A simple premise really; the class would set a goal of how many books we will read in January thus creating a sense of urgency and excitement.  We will have until January 31st to reach it and if we do there would be a huge read-in celebration to toast our achievements with surprise treats and games.  I thought is was a no-lose proposal.  And like I said, they didn’t hate it, but the cheers of excitement I thought would be reverberating through my room with perhaps the addition of a chant of “Reading, reading, reading…” just didn’t happen.

Instead some kids wrote a normal goal; 4 books.  Others stretched themselves with adding picture books; 10 books, while some did not hide their distate for reading; 1 book and even that would probably be a graphic novel.  “You mean you want us to read more Mrs. Ripp?”  I sighed and thought about what to say next.

“It is not just that.  I don’t just want you to read more, I want you to be excited, to share your books and to grab them from each other.  I want you to want to come to school to tell me what you have been reading, tell me what to read next, and to see our goal grow.”  “Oh…”

They get it.  They want to please me.  And some of them are a little bit excited.  Most though, they are still learning the magic of a book and a story that swallows you up.  Some still struggle with what to read next.  Some still struggle with focusing in on a book.  But a couple of them get it, a couple of them ask me what to read next.  A couple of them told me how they had read during snack time, turned off their computer, read to their little brother.  Those kids are with me; the rest?  I am still working on those and that’s ok, I am up for the challenge.

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.