Pernille Ripp

The holidays are upon us which means so are the Edublog awards. I have a long history debating publicly whether or not we should have awards at all, but this year there are a few blogs that have greatly impacted what I do and how I do it and so I wanted to make sure that I publicly acknowledged these people and projects. I cannot ask you to vote for them, but read their blogs and see if you are not as moved as I was.

Most Influential Blog Post: John T.Spencer’s “Be Present” blog post. I read this before I started this year and this has been my mantra for the year. Not just in the classroom but in my life. I turn off my computer, leave my phone somewhere and focus on those incredible kids in front of me. Be present indeed has influenced me in so many ways, I hope it will do the same for you.

Best Student(s) Blog or Classroom Blog: My 5th graders have been absolutely blowing me out of the water this year and while the blog is run by me as an administrator, it isn’t my writing (I hope this does not disqualify them…). You want to know how kids feel about standardized tests, using the “R” word, time travel, and what it means to be a 5th grader today they will tell you. Their raw honesty inspires me to change the way I teach on a weekly basis.

Best free webtool for me continues to be Kidblog (although Edmodo is close behind). This blogging tool created by teachers allows me to peek into the minds of my 5th graders every week and brings the world in for us in a meaningful way. Thank you Kidblog for creating such an incredible product.

Best Group Blog for me has to be The Nerdy Book Club – this daily blog brings together some of the most passionate and inspired educators, authors, and writers that share their ideas, opinions and passion for all things reading. Thank you to all of those who continue to contribute and inspire me every day to be a better reading teacher.

Update: I did some more thinking and thought of a couple more blogs that deserve to be praised for their inspiration. So here are my added nominees for this year.

Best individual blog: I found myself once again thinking of a post John T. Spencer wrote again today, he is a must read for any educator that cares about anything. So not only does one of his posts get my nomination for most influential post, but his blog also gets a nod for best individual blog. Please add it your daily read.

Best edtech resource/sharing site. While I turn to many of these throughout my week, Larry Ferlazzo’s is sheer insanity. The breadth of what he shares on a daily basis makes me suspect that he is not just a teache rbut actually a robot churnin gout useful information. whatever he is, I appreciate all that he does and all that he shares.

Best Librarian/Library Blog. Not only is Shannon Miller one of the most inspiring and kind women I know, she shares so freely on her library blog that anyone would be a fool to not want to be one of her students. You want to see students doing crazy cool things with books and tech, head over to Shannon’s blog for her Van Meter Library.

Best Twitter Hashtag. While I love many hashtags: #Edchat, #Wischat, #GRA13, there is one that has helped my classroom year after year and that is #comments4kids created by Bill Chamberlain. This hashtag is meant to get students’ comments on their blog posts, to bring the world in, and boy does it ever. It is partly thanks to this hashtag that my students’ blogs have had more than 300,000 visitors!

There you have it for this year. I couldn’t choose between the other categories, there are simply too many people that pour their soul out every single day and change the way I think.

Thank you to all of those who move me, who disagree with me, who make me think. I am a better teacher and person because of you.

Be the change, reflection, Student-centered

Don’t Take a Break from Learning Just Because It’s the Holidays

November 20, 2013 Pernille Ripp

I can almost smell Thanksgiving. The turkey roasting, the cinnamon rolls, the pie. I think my students can to. Their energy has increased exponentially these last few days as we get ready for a 5 day break next week. They are so eager to be on break, they are so eager to do something other than school. When they come back it will be December and all teachers know how December goes. It feels like you are holding a simmering volcano in your hands at time as the kids try so hard to focus.

In the past, I would yell a little louder. I would tighten the reins of control. I would punish and then I would hold the great reward, our holiday party, as the big fat carrot on the stick. I would cajole, I would practically beg. “Hang with me! We have to get this done! Stay focused so we can all get a break!” But not anymore.

Now I notice the energy as it climbs and then I work with it. Sure, it means I am exhausted by the end of the day. Sure it means that I am using every single brain cell to try to come up with ways to use their energy for good. Sure, it still sometimes blows up in my face. But in our room the holidays don’t mean we take a break from learning, we just change what we do.

So now I create more hands-on learning opportunities. We have been immersed in the world of exploration and I have asked the students to figure out what they want to do with all of their knowledge. During December I don’t want to feed them the project, I want them to use their energy to come up with something amazing.

Now I recognize the holidays instead of pretending they are not happening. We listen to holiday music (I sneak in Danish Christmas songs to their befuddlement). We take part in the awesome holiday card exchange run by my talented friend Jen Wagner. I tell them about my holiday traditions and they share theirs on our blogs. We read picture books, we learn about other cultures. The holidays aren’t something to hide from, they are something to embrace!

We do more challenges. We just did the spaghetti and marshmallow tower challenge, we just had our flipstick olympics. Next up comes marshmallow catapults and the toilet paper roll challenge. They are still learning even if it is not all dictated by my curriculum.

We read more. All of the craziness can be too much if we try to keep it going, so we make sure to have our down time too. The students and I all need the calmness of the read aloud (even if it is a super exciting one) to give us all a breather. And we don’t mess with our independent reading time, that is sacred, no matter what.

We give back when we can. We write letters to Helping Hands, we make extra holiday cards for the nursing home across the street, we have extra time with our first grade buddies. We try to give back because we get so much throughout the year.

So instead of getting angry, work with the energy that has arisen during this exciting time for students. Use it to your advantage. Create learning opportunities that they will remember. Challenge them, push them, and have fun with it. The holidays are all about love, laughter, and great times. Bring that into the classroom in whatever you do.

Be the change, being a teacher, motivation, principals, reflection

Dear Administrators, Please Rescue the Staff Meeting

November 18, 2013November 20, 2013 Pernille Ripp

There are few things that induce quite as visceral reaction as bringing up staff meetings to teachers. (If in doubt check all the someecards that have been made discussing it!) It is not that teachers are opposed to meetings, after all most meetings mean collaboration, the reaction is more to what we think happens at staff meetings: you sit and get information and then you leave. Not exactly the most inspiring use of anyone’s time.

But it doesn’t need to be like this anymore. Technology has provided us with the tools to communicate what we need without people being present to hear it thus removing most of the time usage at most traditional staff meetings. Now I am not here to say we shouldn’t have meetings, I love meetings, I am here to say they should be a better use of everyone’s time. So why not reclaim the traditional staff meeting and make it something every teacher looks forward to?

How about skipping all of the information giving? Send out on email instead and then expect people to read it. Most email services have a function where you can see whether someone read it or not. Make it part of the job and if it isn’t read then those people can attend a special meeting where the same information is presented.
Make it hands on professional development. With all of the new roll outs facing all of us, I would love work time to try things, discuss things and attack something as a staff. Staff meeting time would be perfect for this.
How about making it collaboration time when possible? One of our staff meetings a month was made into collaboration time several years ago and it has been incredible. To be given the gift of time to either meet in an action team or with your grade level is truly one of the best things we can do for staff.
Make it in the morning. After school I usually have 5 fires to put out before I go home, or it feels that way anyway. I get that contract time starts at different times, but I would rather have a short 25 minute meeting before school than a long 45 one after school. When there is a bell deadline there is a sense of urgency that simply is not present in the afternoon when we are all distracted. However, if staff meetings become awesome then perhaps we would all be more focused during them.
Spread the responsibility. Whoever decided that principals should be the only one in charge of meetings didn’t consider all of the teacher leaders that can exist at a school or even the immense work load carried by all principals I have ever met. If you want to make it professional development, put others in charge. Let teachers teach teachers and let us work on something, not just sit and get.
Bring in parents and students. Too often these stakeholders are left out of a school’s professional discourse. I would love to hear from parents and students how they would like to be taught something or the ideas they may have. Also, I wonder how many experts do we have among our parents that could teach us something? How often is this part of our population left out of decisions and discussions?
Teach us something. I would to leave each staff meeting knowing something new or armed with a new idea to try in my room. But we need time to share those ideas, we need time to try new things and figure them out. Why not make the staff meeting a central component of what we should be learning?

What did I miss?

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 fall from PLPress. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

Be the change, building community, challenge, Student-centered, students

Hey, It’s Ok To Go Outside the Curriculum Once in a While

November 17, 2013November 17, 2013 Pernille Ripp

I have felt like a new teacher this year. Chalk it up to 27 students with a crazy range of learning needs, new program implementations, and just an insane amount of meetings to make sure everyone is on the same page. We also have a new block schedule to implement, which has been amazing in some ways and limiting in others. Most nights I work 2 or 3 extra hours at home making up for the time I don’t get in school. While I love this year, it has also been a crazy one and every day I feel the curriculum pressing down on me urging me forward, to just get it done.

So why on Friday, with the pressure of everything we need to get through, did I have my students do the spaghetti and marshmallow tower challenge, swallowing up 40 minutes of our day? Why “stop” the curriculum so the kids could have a team challenge? Haven’t we already built community?

I did it because the kids need it. They need to continue working in new teams. They need to be challenged. They need to think differently and deal directly with failure (there were epic attempts!). And if you look closely, you would have seen how it absolutely was curriculum, even if FOSS science had not mandated it. The students worked with design, creating a standard prototype and then testing their theory, adjusting along the way. They changed and tried to control the different variables and engaged in deep on-the-spot thinking to ensure success. In fact, as I looked up the Common Core standards for speaking and listening, I couldn’t believe how many of them we had covered.

Yet it’s bigger than that. I made the teams so that kids who would not pick each other worked together. I told them they would more than likely fail (based on previous years’ experience) and it was what they did with that failing moment that mattered. The spirit of living up to expectations swallowed the room and carried the children home. They did it together, and even though there was a winning team all of the kids celebrated and laughed about it.

We may think that when we leave the confines of our curriculum, we are breaking the rules or not teaching. And sure there are times when the educational value can be hard to uncover. But if the challenges are right, we are teaching the children more than some lessons do. It takes courage to step outside the boundaries, but do it right, and the pay off will be immense. My students left asking when they would do the next challenge, I told them “Soon!” and I meant it. We have to think outside the lines of our own rush and needs to keep those kids challenged and engaged.

Be the change, being a teacher, being me, reflection

Just Tell Me the Truth But Tell it Kindly

November 15, 2013 Pernille Ripp

I didn’t expect to be so nervous, after all, Thea is 4 years old, how much bad stuff could a teacher possibly tell me? And yet, I have seem some 4 year olds tear apart a classroom, hit other children, destroy and conquer at their whim. Surely not my own kid, right?

As I sat down next to her teacher in the tiny little 4K chair, I wasn’t sure what to do now. She had welcomed us, Thea was proudly showing off her classroom to her younger siblings, and so I waited for the information to start. “She is a such a sweet girl…” were the first words we heard, and my heart that had been residing in my throat up until then started to slow down and slide down. Everything would be ok.

I have been doing parent-techer conferences for 6 years now and the past 3 years have been student-led. I thought I knew what it meant to be the parent walking into my room. I thought I knew how to put them at ease. And yet, it wasn’t until the other night that I truly got it. I want to hear that my child tries. I want to hear that my kid is ok and if they aren’t then how are we going to help them. I want to hear the concerns. I want an honest discussion led from wanting to help, not wanting to punish. I want the truth and I want to know what I can do.

As teachers, we have the power to devastate a parent. Sure, there are truths that sometimes are hard to say, but it is in how we say that that the difference lies. I am not there to ruin a child’s night, but I am there to be truthful in what they need to conquer to be successful students, or even kids, sometimes. I am there to say what I see but in such a way that it is seen as fixable, not determined. As workable and not as too late to do anything about.

As we left, Brandon turned to me and said, “She has empathy, that means a lot to me.” Never mind the letters she doesn’t recognize or the fact that she always counts 11, 12, 13, 16… – but our kid is empathetic. She will be ok after all, her teacher told me so, even if there are things to work on.

being a teacher, being me

Oh the Great Things I Get to Do

November 12, 2013November 12, 2013 Pernille Ripp

I am so lucky when others ask me to join their webcast, blogs, or podcasts and the last few weeks were no different. My incredible friend, Katie Hellerman, interviewed me for her blog The Teaching Game on how I balance family and school (spoiler: I don’t!). That really made me think.

Then I got to moderate the culminating event for one of our books in the GRA; a live webcast with Sharon Draper! She had never done one before so I was super nervous, thankfully Sharon was as incredible as her book and even said she had a great time.

Then I also had the wonderful pleasure of being a guest on the EduAllStar webcast and much fun was had. I always get terribly nervous when I have no idea what we are going to discus, but Todd and Chris made it a great experience. My husband, Brandon, always says I do my best when I am candid, so judge for yourself.

One of my all-time favorite authors Kirby Larson (have you read Hattie Big Sky?- if not please do!) asked me to guest blog for her. Um yes! So Tuesday I got to give thanks to all of the authors that have paved the way for the Global Read Aloud. What an incredible honor that was.

And finally, EdCampMadWI – which stands for Edcamp Madison, WI is opening up for registration this Thursday! It will take place on January 25th, 2014 at the amazing Sun Prairie High School and I would love to see you there! So join me please, for an incredible day of learning and sharing, free food and fun goodies.

And while I have a nagging feeling there is something else, that is ll my pregnancy tired brain can remember for right now. So check it out if you want to see what I have been up to.