Pernille Ripp

Give ‘Em a Break

December 27, 2011 Pernille Ripp

I used to be that teacher that thought breaks meant more time to do work. I used to be that teacher that thought that vacation meant the students would forget everything unless I assigned them work to do. I used to be that teacher that thought school was the most important thing in a child’s life and I therefore had the right to all of their free time, as much as I needed, to make sure that they were always learning. Then I had a child and as I see the world through her eyes I see the constant learning. I see the exploration. I see the boundless curiosity. And I am ashamed of my past decisions.

Vacations and breaks are not for school, otherwise students would not get them. They are for living, for being with family, for recharging and letting the world sink in. They are for going outside, for reading for fun, for exploring whatever one chooses. School is not the most important thing in life; living is. So I give my students a break over the break. Read a book if you want, blog if you want, sleep in, have fun, and relax. When you get back we have much to do but until then you deserve the rest.

So give your students a break.

family, help

Remember the Wish for My Brother

December 27, 2011 Pernille Ripp

In November, I wrote a post asking for help in giving my brother Paul a very special Christmas. He was at the time deployed to Afghanistan and expected to come home before Christmas. Besides being an incredible trauma nurse and studying to be a doctor, he is also the biggest Maple Leafs fan I have ever seen. So in my post I asked if anyone could help me get a shirt for him and lo and behold it all happened due to the power of Twitter. Watch the video below how it all went down and thank you again if you were part of the journey in getting the word out.

being me, review

The Ones That Meant the Most

December 24, 2011 Pernille Ripp

We can all see our statistics and see which posts are the ones people read the most. And yet those numbers don’t always convey those that meant the most to the author. So I thought why not highlight the ones you may have missed, the ones that speak the loudest of the last year, the ones that meant the most.

Those Things We Carry

Teachers carry more than the responsibility of teaching students.

The Story of My Brother The Onion Boy How there is no such thing as meaningful punishment.
What is Their Sentence? We often discuss what our own motto would be but I would rather think of what my students’ sentence would be.
What Type of Difference Do You Make? We all know that teachers make a difference in others’ lives but do you think of what type of difference you make?
He Was Right There – Words to My Father. How one man choosing me to be his daughter changed my life.
Saying Goodbye. Letting go and giving thanks to my cat.
Do Teachers Have the Right to Privacy? The title explains this fascinating discussion.
Teachers Save Lives Too – We Just Don’t Get Paid Like We Do.
An Ode to the Lost Saying goodbye and letting go to the child that never was.
We Say and Yet. How our words do not always match our actions.

So there you go, some that meant the most to me this year r came from the most personal place. I do not know if I will take a break here from blogging, I will blog if the mood strikes me. So thank you for reading this year and take care.

classroom management, hidden rules, Student-centered

How We Became that Room

December 23, 2011 Pernille Ripp

“…And if you walk into our room you may be surprised at the noise and the mess, but to me that means the students are engaged.” So ended an elementary teacher’s presentation to my class on classroom management and I was horrified. Noise? Mess? Not this teacher! I was going to run my classroom like a machine. Those kids would know routines for everything, even down to when they could sharpen their pencil, and they would love me for it because that was part of my expectations as well. Equipped with all of my Harry Wong ideas, I was ready to whip these kids into shape and they would be so thankful. After all, how could anyone possibly learn in noise or out of their desks?

Now some years later I look around our room and we are that classroom. The one you can hear coming down the hallway, the one where students are splayed out on the floor, discussing, laughing and gosh golly sharpening their pencils whenever they like. There are no laminated rule posters hanging on our walls, there are no reminders of how to get their stuff or how to come into the classroom. There are no sticks to move or stars to give. Just a classroom being run with the students and by the students. To the untrained eye it may seem chaotic. After all students crave routines, even in their classrooms. But if you look closer, you will notice they are there. Students get to work and stay focused, they treat each other with respect. They tell me in the morning when they forgot to do their homework and they ask to work on it during recess or to get it to me the next day. They have their things organized, they know when I need their attention, and they know how to treat each other. Behold, the managed classroom without the overt rules.

I did not start this way, in fact, I am not sure any new teacher should. As a new teacher it is so important that you discover who you are as a teacher, that you discover your own best practices and then start to question them. Question the ideas you are taught and see how they fit into your vision. I was taught that I should post the rules of my classroom so that the students would be continually reminded of what the expectations were. Except I like clean walls, and I don’t think students need constant reminders. Down came the posters and my room somehow got uncluttered. I was taught that I had to be the ultimate authority in the classroom or it would turn into Lord of the Flies, except I found out that by sharing the authority I created autonomous learners that were much more engaged. I was taught that students would learn better if they were rewarded with stickers or A + but found that we didn’t need the extrinsic motivation if the learning was worth it. How did I learn all of this? By watching my students and questioning my own practices and then trying it. I was terrified the first year I threw out the rules. When I told my students there would be no rewards and no punishment I thought I would have a riot on my hands, kids who refused to work, homework that would be weeks late, and instead? No change. In fact, the kids shrugged, no big deal, they knew they had to get to work.

So this year I did the unthinkable; I didn’t tell the kids the rules. I instead asked them what the routines should be and what type of classroom they envisioned. They discussed without much of my input and that was it. We didn’t make a poster, we didn’t all pledge to follow the rules, we moved on to more exciting things. Now students live up to the they expectations set and they help each other work well in the classroom. If a day is louder than normal, then I know we need to get out of our desks and I adapt our learning to their moods. By being clued in to what their behavior is telling me, we have a lot smoother days because I am not trying to squeeze them into my box of expectations. They are in the truest sense of the word active learning and teaching participants.

So how can you make this work for you? Start to question what you have been taught. Question those tips and tricks you were given that didn’t seem natural to you. Ask yourself how do you learn best and then ask everyone else you meet. The answers may surprise you. Ask the students; their voice is the most important one in the room. Yes, that’s right; their voice, not yours. Create a space where the students feel comfortable, welcome, and have ownership. Show them you trust them to make great decisions and then give them an opportunity to do so. Change your curriculum to fit their needs and get them moving; long periods of stationary work lead to restless bodies which means their minds have long since wandered off. Have i fit their age; I teach 5th graders so I can expect a lot more autonomy than I can from a roomful of kindergartners, but even our youngest students can own the room. And most importantly; believe in your students. Believe that they have buy-in in the room, believe that they care about it, and then give them a learning experience that they actually do want to care about. Tear down the authority between you and them and give them a chance to prove you wrong. Give them a chance to show that they can work without the overt rules, that they can set the expectations, that they can rise to the occasion.

being a teacher, Student, testing

It’s the Least We Can Do

December 21, 2011 Pernille Ripp

Image via Wikipedia

In this numbers obsessed society, test makers have figured us all out. They have realized that if they make the test long enough, tedious enough, and fill them with multiple choice or scantron-able answers then we will assume they are valuable. What more is that they have figured out that they can even sell us software that will grade the tests for us, break down all of the date, and create a nice graph. Testing done. Results at hand.

Except if we are to test students, then at the very least we should look at those tests. We should try to decipher their answers, create our own data, and meet with them to discuss it. Yes, a multiple choice test is cleaner and easier but it also provides less of a view into the heads of our students, into their thoughts, into their learning. A clean test that a machine can correct provides us with data, nothing else, points to be graphed with no clear direction or at the very least not a very detailed one.

So if we must test the children, then do them the favor of correcting it yourself. Give their work the time and effort you expect them to put into taking the test. It’s the least we can do.

being a teacher, social media, Student

How We Fail Young Students with Facebook

December 18, 2011 Pernille Ripp

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

A gaggle of 5th grade girls all sit around a lunch table obviously in a deep discussion. As I walk past them, one word makes my ears perk up and my step slow…Facebook. Immediately the teacher in me wants to interrupt, remind them that they are 10 and 11 which according to the law means they are not allowed to be on Facebook, and yet I don’t. I let them and their conversation be and instead head to my room and ponder the hypocrisy that is the age restriction on Facebook.

To be a legal member of Facebook you have to be 13 years old. The site makes this very clear, and yet we all know that the this rule is being broken on a daily basis as 4th and 5th graders sign up and start using the site. And while we can sit here and discuss how kids are just too young to handle to the responsibility of such a decision at that age, I think we should instead move on and discuss the real ramification of these sign ups: Kids that are not being taught how to use the site safely, because we choose to pretend they are not signing up. And yet, they are signing up, and they are using it to their full potential; the good, the bad, and the bullying. So rather than releasing educated students onto a social media site, we stick our heads in the sand, cover our ears and pretend it isn’t happening.

So as teachers we are once again put in a situation where we cannot teach kids skills that would be beneficial to them in the long run. Skills they for sure will need in middle school. Rather than confronting Facebook head on in the classroom and discussing how to use it, we ignore it, give stern warnings, and move on as if this will stop kids from signing up.

In America we seem to have a tendency in general to cover our ears and pretend kids are not doing things they shouldn’t, rather than actually teach them how to do it safely. Just look at how sex ed. and underage drinking is being treated. So as a society we would rather hold up the rule and say, “Well, they shouldn’t be doing this!” rather than face the facts and give them the proper education to handle it well. Again, this discussion isn’t meant to be about whether kids are too young to be on Facebook, much smarter people have written oodles about that. It is to bring up how we as a society should be giving kids an education in social media before they start to sign up rather than trying to patch things up later in life.

We fail these children when we pretend that they are not on Facebook at ten years old. We fail to teach them right, to show them how to behave and move around in a virtual social media site. How to deal with being friends with people or un-friending, how to post properly, what not to post, and how to treat others with respect. By being a restriction that is still so easily accessible to children, it becomes the ultimate must do. And perhaps Facebook isn’t what is so scary about this whole thing, but rather kids that have no idea how to use it properly. And that is for us to fix, if society would let us.