students – Page 8 – Pernille Ripp

Be the change, being a teacher, new year, parents, reflection, students

Have You Included Parent Voice in Back to School Planning?

August 24, 2014 Pernille Ripp

On Wednesday, Theadora gets to meet her kindergarten teacher. We get to show up, me with all 4 of the kids, drop off her supplies and asnwer any questions the teacher may have. You would think I have a mile-long list of questions, but I don’t. I don’t know what to as at this point, that will come later, once school has started. And yet, I do have hopes and dreams for Thea and I hope I get to express that to her teacher.

This realization made me remember that I need to include my 7th grade parents’ voice in my back to school preparation. That yes, I may be planning awesome things for my first days of schools, and that yes I may be teaching students at an age of more independence from parents. But parents still need to have a voice in our classroom.

So I created my hopes and dreams survey. One simple question to get their feedback, to guide me as I prepare. Don’t forget to tap into parent knowledge. Don’t forget to reach out, even if you think their child is too old for you to ask. I don’t think any parent ever stops dreaming for their child, don’t forget to ask.

PS: In 5th grade, I used this

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.

being a teacher, new year, reflection, Student-centered, students

I Know What Students Want So Why Do I Forget It?

August 9, 2014 Pernille Ripp

The new year anxiety and excitement is creeping in. The days are ticking down. I am awake more often with dreams of schools and ideas trailing around my mind. Can I do this? haunts me in my thoughts Do I know what I am doing? keeps me awake.

Then I remember. I know what students want. Not my new students, those I have yet to uncover, but year upon year when I have asked my students what they need from school and teachers their answers have been the same.

We need someone who cares.

We need someone who listens.

We need someone that believes in us. Notices when we are not there. We need someone who likes what they are doing.

They need us to be kind. To be honest. To be present.

They need us to have open minds, open hearts, and open arms.

They need a safe place to try.

But it is not just what they need that I remember. It is also what they want.

They want to be respected.

They want to be pushed.

They want us to see that having in fun in school does not mean learning has stopped.

They want to have a voice, to have choice, to know that their opinion matters and so do their ideas.

They want to know that what they are doing is relevant and not just because. They want to know we trust them,

They want to feel loved. To feel important.

They want what so many of us want; a place where they belong.

So why do we forget this every year? Why do we allow the curriculum to push us into a frenzy, forgetting about these most basic things?

Children don’t remember the tests, the homework, not even always that crazy, cool project you did. They don’t remember the posters, the seating, or even the rewards necessarily.

But they do remember how they felt, and that we can control. They do remember if our rooms felt like home, and whether they mattered. Don’t forget that as our year gets busy. We know what to do, just do it.

Be the change, being a teacher, new year, reflection, Student-centered, students

Just Fine is Not Enough

July 30, 2014 Pernille Ripp

Today, my baby twins turn two.Hard to think they were ever small enough to fit in my body when they stand in front of me demanding another waffle, another kiss, another story. And yet, two years is a long time, a lot has changed. Not only have they changed, but we have changed. The world has changed in ways we could never imagine. Sometimes on purpose, other times out of necessity. Change, as they say, is a constant.

I think of how we change in the classroom and how we often change based on what we need. We are after all the ones who wield most of the power. We are the ones who plan the lessons. Who chart the course. Who have to act in charge, even if we don’t feel it. We change when things don’t work for us, when things don’t fit into our framework of what our classrooms should look like. We change when the little voice inside tells us we need to. And sometimes we change because the kids ask us to. Then we get happy, we stay, we think our change is enough and the years start to tick by, and we forget that we ever needed the change because what we are doing seems to work just fine.

“Just fine…”something I hear so often when I ask people to whether they can change. We hold up our files of success, our pictures of kids engaged, we find the proof we need that things are working and kids are learning, that our change that happened so long ago was enough for now. Yet those kids are not the same, I see that in my own four kids. The twins are nothing like Theadora when she was two, the world has changed a lot since then. And when Augustine turns two, the world will have changed again, and so will the kids in it.

So be proud of your change, but check it too. You may have found it works “just fine” but is it time to change again? To fine-tune? To adapt? To throw it all out? Is it time to listen to the kids that are coming to you now, not those that you taught a few years ago. The ones who are excited to have you be their teacher this year. Is there change that needs to be done for them? I know there is for me.

Be the change, being a teacher, new year, Student-centered, students

3 Easy Things to Try That Will Make a Big Difference

July 26, 2014 Pernille Ripp

The reviews have been rolling my way, quietly, yet loudly making my heart sing.

“I loved #PassionateLearners book by @pernilleripp so much bought copies for our whole staff! Great read for where we are at & wanting to go!”

” I am enjoying your book. You climbed into my head and my thoughts. Thank you for sharing your story.”

“”I never marry an idea, I date it.” Pernille Ripp in Passionate Learners. Great quote from an awesome book!

These people, these strangers, are reading my first book “Passionate Learners…” and they actually like it. What an amazing feeling that is. This book about my own transformation is inspiring others to change the way they teach, helping them give the classroom back to their students too. What an honor to be a part of someone else’s journey of change.

So I am often asked, where do I start? What can I easily do right now to change the way my classroom flows? Here are my top three most frequently given answers (I think).

Ask your students what they want. This simple, yet teacher-changing way of changing the way we teach is also one of the easiest things to do. It is what we do with their answers that may make it hard. So ask your students what they would like their year to be like? What they would like their rules to be? How an assignment should be done. What a great teacher does. And anything else you can think of. I started asking my students all of these questions and more, and then I started changing the way I teach. Why not give them a voice?

Let students work wherever they want. I hate sitting still, I hate being forced to sit in a desk. My students can work wherver they want as long as it works for them and the people surrounding them.

Offer Choice. The very first thing I will do with all of my 7th graders is to ask them to pick the picture book I read aloud to them. Then they will be asked to respond to it in some way. While not full choice, as in, “What do you want to do right now?” it gives them an idea of what our year will be like. That we will share a lot of reading and writing but that their choices in reading and writing matter. That they are here to uncover or shape their inner reader/writer and that their voice matters.

These three simple things can make an incredible difference in any environment. Think of the message it sends from the very beginning; your opinion matters, as do your ideas, and you know yourself best. That is the message I hope to start with and that is the message I hope my students understand.

being a teacher, being me, new year, Student-centered, students

What We Need to Remember

July 25, 2014 Pernille Ripp

“I don’t think I can thank you enough.” And with that, we said goodbye, and our nanny of the last two years left our home for the last time, ready for her new adventure. I held back tears, after all, our nanny has helped us raise them, helped us care for them, helped us love them. We have trusted her with our most important parts; our kids, and she has always lived up to the challenge. I hope our new nanny does too, after all I spent weeks picking her.

When we send our children to school, we don’t have as much choice in who they get as a teacher. We hope, of course, that whomever they get will love them, will care for them, will help them be passionate learners. But the choice is not really ours. We place our faith in an interview process that may have happened long ago, a screening or selection process for class lists that may be mostly random, and we place our faith in the humanity of that very teacher. That they will get our child. That they will love them too. And it is our job to love, to think, to remember.

So before we plan for anything new this year, remember they are a child.

Before we raise our voice, point our finger, shut the door, remember; they are a child.

Before we get frustrated, get ready to discipline, to gossip about that thing that drove us crazy, remember they are a child.

Someone whose parents hopes that you get what they see at home.

Someone whose parents sends their best child to us every day.

Before we assume that parents don’t care, or that there is nothing we can do to help, remember; they are a child.

Before we tell them the long-term consequences of their poor decisions, remember they are a child.

Before we shoot down ideas, reject change, reject new, reject anything other than our own, remember; they are a child and we should be doing our best to give them the best.

Before we hold back, before we leave scars, before we tell a child what they can or cannot do, remember exactly that, they are a child. They do not belong to us, but we get to have them for a bit. They are someone else’s, ours to borrow, ours to safeguard. They are someone’s child, yes, but they are also ours for just a little bit and we can never forget that.

Be the change, being me, rewards, students

Ten Reasons I Ditched Traditional Rewards

July 13, 2014 Pernille Ripp

When I moved this blog to WordPress some posts did not survive, so in an effort to move some of my favorite posts with me, I will be republishing them here. This one first appeared October, 2011.

I used to be the queen of the awesome board, the gold stickers, and definitely the special lunches and privileges. I thought my kids loved it, and sure some did, but after a huge hallelujah moment, I realized that I was doing more harm than good in my seemingly innocent hand out of rewards. So I ended all individual rewards as I knew them, because here is what I realized.

Students don’t actually need rewards to work. Sure they work in the short-run but guess what after a while you have to up the ante and keep going up because it just isn’t going to be very effective for long. And yes, students will take rewards if you offer them, but they will actually also work without the perpetual carrot dangling in front of their noses. And you won’t believe me until you actually try it.
Rewards tend to go to the same kids over and over and over. We say that it is really up to the students to get the rewards but at the same time we can probably all list the kids that would have a hard time earning one. So then who are we fooling?
Rewards split the students. If you ever want to create a class of have and have not’s in your classroom just hand out rewards; the students will quickly figure out who the “smart” kids are and who are not. Or worse, who the teachers like and who they don’t.
Rewards devalue the learning. By attaching a reward to a learning task, you are telling a student that the task is not worth doing if it weren’t for the reward. That is not how learning should be. Learning should be fun, exciting, and curiosity driven, not mechanical and focused on the end point. When a reward becomes the end point, then that is the focus.
You keep giving rewards; the students won’t work without it. With rewards you create a culture of “what’s in it for me?” and the learning just isn’t enough. And yet the learning and experience should be enough for the child, provided it is meaningful and purposeful. So set them up from the beginning to earn rewards and soon there will be hardly any extra work or deeper digging into concepts. If the child knows that they “just” have to do whatever to get a reward, or an A for that matter, then that is what they will do. The learning stops wherever you dictate it to.
The students will argue with you. My first year students would get upset over which sticker I gave them because in their minds certain stickers were worth more. A sticker! Now equate that to extra recess, or books, or special lunches and think of the conflict it creates. You want to make sure your struggling learners keep feeling more disenfranchised; keep up the rewards.
Rewards become the measure of success. If you don’t reward a child then they don’t think they have succeeded. No more handing them back a project with great feedback; if that sticker or some recognition isn’t attached then it just isn’t enough. I had students collect stickers and notes to showcase to the other students, it became a competition of who could gather more. It wasn’t about what they had learned or how great a project was, it was only about how many they had.
Students lose their voice in the learning process. When a teacher is the only one deciding on success shown through rewards, the classroom does not belong to the students. That teacher is therefore the ultimate power within the room and the kids know it. If you want to create a student-centered classroom, you cannot have such a vast difference in learning authority. To build the kids confidence they have to have a voice.
But they all get rewarded…. Some schools run weekly recognitions of students for whatever reason, or some classrooms do. And while this may seem innocent enough, after all, there is nothing tangible tied to it, it still causes jealousy and anxiety. If a program calls for recognizing every single student for the same things, then why are we recognizing in a public way in the first place. Wouldn’t it be easier just to state the expectations and then tell the kids that we are happy they are all living up to it? There is no need to create weekly recognition if we are doing our jobs right as educators; making our students feel valued and respected as part of the learning community.
Rewards create more work for the teacher. I was so worried that everyone had been on my “Awesome board” that I kept track = more paperwork. I also had to make sure that I was eating lunch with all of my students = more paperwork. I also had to make sure I could justify to parents why one child got a certain privilege and another didn’t = more paperwork. Do you see where I am going? Rewards and trying to keep it “fair and balanced” creates more work for us without providing any long-term benefits.

So you may assume that my classroom is one stripped of rewards and recognition, yet it isn’t. My students have parties, except they get them after the fact, when we have something to celebrate. I have high expectations for my students to “represent” as much as they have for me. We strive to create a learning environment where we all feel comfortable messing up and trying again, because we know that the learning journey is the focus and not just the end result. So I recognize and I reward but I do it through the learning and the conversations. I don’t have a classroom where students expect things to do their jobs, I have a classroom of kids eager to learn, on some days more than others, but who are always willing to be a part of what we consider our second home; our classroom. All without the use of rewards.