being a teacher, choices, Student-centered, trust

5 + 1 Things I Learned This Year

Pernille Schmidt Ripp
I was recently asked what would be my top 5 things I have learned this past year in my journey to radically change my classroom.  So after some deep pondering and gut checks, here are the lessons I have learned, or the top 5 + 1.

  1. Give them choice (and a voice).  The number one thing my students said they loved was the fact that they had a choice and a voice.  As teachers we are taught that we are the only experts but this is so far from the truth.  My students have a lot of background knowledge and a lot of enthusiasm so letting them choose the type of project they wanted to create or how they wanted to learn something meant there was buy in.   No longer was learning mandated, there was actual buy-in from everyone.
  2. Trust your students.  I was not sure that my students could handle all of the responsibility I was giving them but throughout the year I was proven wrong again and again.  In fact, my students could probably have handled even more.  Trust also means that if they tell you something not so nice, you should celebrate it, not get upset.  The fact that my students trusted me enough to tell me something was boring is something that I relish and then learned from.  
  3. Trust yourself.  I knew I had to make big changes in my room and yet I questioned myself throughout the year.  was not giving them a letter grade really benefitting them?  Was not having punishment in my classroom better for all of us?  Were we accomplishing as much as we should have?  My gut told me I was doing the right thing and yet doubt snuck in sometimes, in the end, do what you believe in and then stand behind it.  There is a reason your common sense is telling you something is amiss and needs to be fixed, so fix it to suit you.
  4. Ask yourself the tough questions.  I asked myself whether I would be a student in my own classroom.  Before this year, the answer would have been a resounding no.  Now that answer has changed.  In fact, I love being in my classroom as much as my students do.  School should be about learning, yes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging and enticing at the same time.
  5. Give yourself a break.  There were days were I sucked as a teacher.   Days were I pined for inane punishment just to make them behave or were I raised my voice.  There were days were I didn’t feel like giving feedback or having lengthy conversations about projects.  Some days I just wanted to lecture and be done with it.  Thankfully my students snapped me out of that really quickly.  You are not perfect, you never will be, and that is ok.  Trust the direction you are taking and make adjustments as you see fit.  
  6. Be Quiet!  Teaching should not be about teachers pouring information into the heads of students, but rather teachers as a guide letting students explore, create, and make connections.  When we let the students own the classroom and the discussion they also take ownership of the learning, and that is a beautiful thing indeed.  So get off the stage but set it up for them to learn and then stop talking.  Much like we ask our parents to not help with homework, we should also ask ourselves to not take away the pleasure of learning.  

So there they are; my biggest lessons this year.  I am already excitedly planning for my transition to 5th grade next year and reevaluating what worked, what sucked, and what will I definitely do differently.  A new year brings new challenges and for that I am thankful.

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being a teacher, Dream

Allow Yourself to Dream

Pernille Schmidt Ripp
Cross posted from the fantastic Cooperative Catalyst


I do my best teaching while I dream.  Far away from my own cowardice that tells me to stick within the lines, follow the lesson plan, and to not deviate off the trodden path.  I do my best teaching right before sleep comes and envelopes me, right before the stress of the day falls away, leaving only time to think of what can be done.  That is when I think of how I will reach all of my students.  This is where the labels are cast aside and only ability and tenacity shine the brightest.  This is when I fully believe that they can all achieve everything.
In college, I was taught not to dream.  Dreams were for people without teaching degrees, people that might make a warm and fuzzy teacher, a softie,  but certainly not someone who made their students achieve.  Instead I was told to plan, plan, and plan some more.  Read the standards, correlate them, and throw in some spice for those students with minor special needs that may pop up in your classroom.  English language learners?  No problemo; just throw in some pre-teaching of the vocabulary and off they will go. I was ready to teach them all that school was fun and useful.  And then reality struck and I looked at the list of my not so minor disabled students, my english language learners that did not just need vocabulary, and even that one child that was just so angry at the world.  And so I planned some more.
After a year or two with glazed eyes and long, drawn out speeches about how important it all was, I dreamed a little.  I dreamt of a classroom that students wanted to come to.  A room where learning was loud, excited and maybe not always practical.  And so when I was dozing every night, I would think that maybe I could try one little thing, maybe that would not hurt my plans so much if instead of planning every minute of the lesson, I asked the students what they wanted to do instead.  Maybe they could dream along with me?
So I have become a dreamer, one who believes that children have a valid voice in their own education.  One that believes that parents should be involved in the school, one that believes we must drop the labels and see our children for what they are; dreamers just like us.  They do not dream of a school that talks at them, but one where there is engaging conversation.  They do not dream of being drones chained to desks being stuffed with information, but rather really learning through experimentation, thinking, and yes even dreaming.  So let them dream, or even more importantly, let yourself dream.  For it is in these dream that we realize just how powerful our classroom can be.  It is in these dreams that we shape the future and the future shapes us.  We are a world of dreamers, if only we choose to be.


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alfie kohn, education, No grades, Student, Teacher

So You Want to Quit Letter Grades – A Practical Guide From Someone Who’s Done It and Survived

Pernille Schmidt Ripp
Last year I made the decision to stop giving out letter grades as much as possible. This was not an easy decision or one that I made lightly. Only after research, deep reflection, and many conversations with peers did I decide that this was the best step for me within my educational philosophy. This post is not a debate of why I quit letter grades, but a how, so here goes.

  1. Do your research.  I knew that to do this right I had to have my philosophy and facts straight so I read Alfie Kohn’s work, as well as the numerous blogs, articles, and reflections on it available through a  Google search.  This strengthened my stance and gave me practical know-how.
  2. Think it through.  This is a bucking-the-system type of decision so you need to be clear on why you are doing this.  Providing students with more meaningful feedback: yes.  Less work and more free time: no.  
  3. Now think it through practically.  What is this going to look like in your room?  How will you take notes?  How will you assess their learning?  And then how will you compile that all into feedback, progress reports, and perhaps even a dictated grade on a district report card?  This was my biggest hurdle this year and something that I need to refine next year.
  4. Create your goals. All lessons have to have goals, otherwise you will have nothing to assess.  Sometimes we are not totally sure of that what those goals are since a curriculum has been prescribed to us.  Dig through it and find them or create your own within your standards and then make a list or some sort of report.  I was able to quickly assess through verbal Q&A whether a student was secure in something or not and then check off that goal, moving that student on to something else.
  5. Involve the higher ups.  I didn’t have to alert my principal to what I was planning on doing but it made my life a lot easier when I did.  Some districts will not support this without a proper discussion and it is important to have allies if someone questions your program or philosophy.
  6. Explain it to your families, and particularly your students.  The first few weeks we discussed what proper feedback was, what we could use it for, and how the feedback was just another step in our journey.  This made my students start to focus on the feedback rather than pine for a grade to be done with it.  Deadlines became more flexible and a product was seldom “done” but always a work in progress.
  7. Involve your students.  I had to still give letter grades on our report cards so I discussed with students what their grade should be.  More time consuming, absolutely, but it was wonderful to see their knowledge of the subject and understanding of what they should know.  Most of the time, their grades and mine lined up perfectly and in rare occasions were they much harder on themselves than I was.  Either way we figured it out together, through conversation and reflection, and they started to own their learning more.
  8. Plan for it.  Meaningful assessment does not just happen, it is planned and somehow noted.  If you think you are just going to remember, you are not.  So every day I had my trusty clipboard that I took notes on, checked off progress and goals accomplished on, and added anything else useful to.  This became my “grade book” and the days I didn’t use it, all of that information was lost.  
  9. Take Your Time.  Letter grades will always be easier to do because they most often are compiled from a piece of paper or a one-time presentation.  Deep feedback is not.  This happens through conversations, assignments, and lots and lots of formative assessment.  Give yourself time to take it all in, take your most important goals and give them enough time to be accomplished by your students, and then give yourself enough time to have the conversations.  The conversations are the most important tool here.
  10. Allow Yourself to Change.  This means both allowing yourself to try out not giving letter grades and then figuring out if it works for you.  This also means allowing yourself to know that this is a work in progress.  There were absolutely missed opportunities in my room this year concerning feedback, but I know what to work on now.  I also know what my goals are, how to engage students in meaningful conversation regarding their work, and also how to give better feedback.  Just like our students, we too, are learning.
  11. Most Importantly: Reach Out.  Through my PLN I was able to engage in meaningful conversations and iron out hurdles with the help of Joe Bower, Jeremy MacDonald, and Chris Wejr.  I even reached out to Alfie Kohn.  There are people who have done this before you, there are people who have gone through it before you, use them, ask them questions, and know that you are not alone.  I am always available to discuss this with anyone so reach out to me as well.

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being a teacher, education, Passion, Teacher

No Longer Mine

Pernille Schmidt Ripp
I can’t take their work off the walls.  With two days left my classroom still looks as if we have all the time in the world, but we don’t.  On Thursday our journey ends and a new one begins for these incredible 23 students that I have been lucky enough to call my kids.  When I am asked what I am passionate about, many people assume technology, or writing, or math.  Sure, I love all of those things, they are interesting, they even sometimes excite me.  But passions?  I am passionate about my students.

These children are given to me on loan and it is my job to make sure they still love school when I am done with them.  It is my job to ensure that they still love learning when this year is over and that they, in fact, have grown not just academically but personally as well.  I am passionate about them because they are the reason why teaching is the best job in the world and also the most heartbreaking.

We invest our hearts every year.  Our dreams, our hopes, our ideas.  And we hope to plant a tiny seed within our students knowing that they matter, that we care, that their sheer presence makes a difference for us and everyone else.  That passion consumes me.  When the end of the year arrives, I know I have to let go.  I know they are no longer ming but someone else’s.  It is someone else’s turn to become passionate about these kids and I get new ones to focus on.  Yet my heart grows wider after the sadness leaves and I know that these students will in some way always be mine, or at least their 4th grade version will be.

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being a teacher, goodbye, journey, Student-centered

They Are Ready to Leave

Pernille Schmidt Ripp

I started this year with a vision and ended it with a new belief. I started this year by throwing it almost all out, scrappng what I thought were “have to’s” in the classroom, discarding rhetoric survived from college, raising my own expectation for eagerness, excitement, genuine learning rather than memorization. I started this year with many ideas. Not my students. They started this year being excited about being 4th graders, bummed about losing their third recess, but pumped that the chairs and desks were bigger. Some were even interested in what we would learn in 4th grade, but none of them knew what to expect. Neither did I to tell you the truth.

So these kids that have been my partners in learning, these kids that have believed in our journey together are now ready to leave me. They are ready for new challenges, new jokes, new routines and expectations. They are ready to decompress, breathe a little bit, and just be kids in the summer heat. I pretend to be ready to let them go, I know it is their time, but it is still hard to lose the label of “my kids.” The journey we have been on has been so incredible, so beyond expectations, that I wonder if this is it? Is this the year I will always try to emulate? Or did I really stumble upon something within myself? Did I create a new teacher where then old me once stood? Will my vision survive the next year?

I started this year with a vision and I was lucky enough to have kids that believed in it too. Now they get to leave with our vision of what learning should feel like, and I am left behind, alone, but so, so proud. These kids – they will change the world some day.