being a teacher, communication, community, new teacher, school staff

Why is Teaching a Lonely Job?

Pernille Ripp

This past week as I have reflected upon personal conversations, emails and posts I have come across I had a sad realization; everywhere there are teachers who feel that no one wants them to succeed, that no one cares what they do, that no one stops to listen to them.  While I had hoped that these were merely regional perspectives and not something worldwide, I see now that teaching can be an incredibly lonely job.

Every teacher wants to be the best teacher they can be.  They start out with ideas, ideals, and aspirations, truly believing that every child can learn, achieve, be something incredible.  And yet, after perhaps not so gracious welcomes, or reserved hello’s, teachers learn their first lesson about teaching: don’t expect a red carpet welcome.  It is not that other teachers aren’t welcoming, the profession as a whole just seems to be a bit skeptical, naturally reserved when anything new enters our midsts whether it be a new idea, change, or a new person.

And what a sad lesson that is.  We are there to reach out to all students, to make them feel welcome, and we spend precious class time building community with our students and then forget the community that needs to be re-formed every time someone new enters our schools.

I discussed this with my mother, who is a college professor.  She agreed with me that this is not a localized phenomenon but something that she has encountered on various levels as well.  Her take was that it often can be attributed to jealousy, busyness, competitiveness or a combination of any of those.  I hate to say she is right but I do think from personal experience that there is room for improvement in how we treat each other face to face.  I think of how in my online PLN whenever there is a success, people cheer and ask more questions.  Now I wonder whether this happens as much in real life as we would  like to think it does.  I certainly have days where I feel as if no one hardly cares and then there are days when I feel accepted and welcomed.

So I open it up for debate.  Are teachers friendly to each other or could we improve on this?  Why can teaching feel as if it is you against the world with few people cheering you on?  Do we create this situation or is a just a cutthroat profession where people fend for themselves, constantly wary of the new person?

being a teacher, first day, inspiration, new teacher

Dear First Year Pernille

Pernille Ripp
Image from here

Dear First Year Pernille,
You did it!  You got the job you set your heart on and now comes the part you have been looking forward to; teaching!  I know life has a lot in store for you this first year, already you are 4 months pregnant on the first day of school, and yet there are just a few things I want you to know before you start.

Stop stressing over your room!  Now is the time to be outside going for a walk, not laboring over the placement of posters, bulletin boards or welcome signs.  The kids will hardly notice it so give yourself a break.  Even if it feels like a hallway bulletin board competition at times – it’s not.

Ask more questions.  Your teammates are some of the kindest and smartest people around.  Don’t feel that you are a burden or that you should already know.  You are new, don’t feel like you have to act like you already know the answer.

Trust your gut.  Feel that little tingle in your stomach?  Besides the baby, that’s your intuition trying to tell you to listen to it.  So absolutely go ahead and use some of those same programs but then spend some time finding yourself as well. Make this your room with your teaching style, not a watered down version of someone else’s.

Allow yourself to fail.  The students love it when we fail, why?  Because it shows we are humans.  The sooner you embrace your failures as another step in learning, the sooner you can get over it, and the more you will be a role model for the kids.

Don’t beat yourself up.  Not everything will be perfect, even for an overachiever like yourself.  Some days will be amazing, others will not.  Don’t worry there will be more good than bad but when those bad ones come around – give yourself a break.

Smile.  Love. Laugh.  Share.  Think.  Reflect.  Question.  Be kind.  Be brave.  Be you.  Everything is going to be just fine.  Oh, and do get on Twitter.

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being a teacher, classroom expectations, communication, inspiration

Give the Gift of Now

Pernille Ripp

Being a teacher means being there in the moment at all times. Yet often this simple truth is misplaced, pushed aside or simply forgotten. So even though we may be thinking about the next lesson, the paper’s that need to be looked at, or whatever else may be happening in our world; being there is the most important thing.

So keep this in mind on Monday when those kids need you again. What is most important; what has happened already, what will happen, or what is happening right now? So listen to them, look at them and be in the now. The now is, after all, a wonderful gift. Give it to them.

being a teacher, inspiration

One Deep Breath

Pernille Ripp

Letting go; it’s a beautiful thing.  And yes, one that is so hard to do for all humans.  Whether it is the unjustified comments at work, misunderstood jokes from your spouse, or misinterpreted glances;  they hurt, fester and boil, until they become so all consuming that all rational thought disappears.

In the last year, I have learned how to better let go.  I knew that I could not carry these thoughts, these all-consuming hurts that led to nowhere but self-doubt and loathing.  I didn’t have a hallelujah moment, just realized that those people whose words I held on to so tightly as commissaries of my self-inflicted torture, had long since moved on from me.  And so now I choose to move on from them as well.

It has become sort of a life philosophy now, this letting go.  I have to remind myself, allow myself to fester, and then breathe.  With that breath I push it all out and refuse to let it pull me down farther.  With that breath I put up my wall, say no more, and then realize all of the beauty I have in my life.  With that breath I continue living a better life, vowing to not be one of those whose words hurt.

Now, if only I could stop carrying grudges.

being a teacher, college, education reform, preparation

A Teaching Degree Does Not Make a Teacher

Pernille Ripp

I wasn’t taught how to be a teacher.  I took all of the teaching classes sure, and my diploma says that I have a teaching degree but being a teacher isn’t something you can be taught in today’s university.  All of the educational classes on reading, math,  and science provided me with background knowledge and a dabble in what it might be like as a teacher.  Lesson plans were written with fictitious students hand-selected by our imagination.  I liked to keep things harder so I always had a student with less attention or limited English proficiency, you know just to spice things up.  And amazingly every one one of those lesson plans was a hit with my professors.  My fictitious students ran home to their parents and heralded me as the best teacher ever.  And yet inside, I knew I was not ready to teach.

I walked the stage at graduation already with a long-term sub position I had gotten at my school.  I had been inducted into that job through on the job training and yet the entire time I just swam to stay afloat.  I was not a teacher then either.  I got my own classroom and on that first day I looked at those students and knew that I had not been prepared for this.  It wasn’t that I didn’t feel prepared; my education degree had not equipped me with the tools I needed to be a teacher.  So when we discuss education reform today and we throw around harsh lines about the quality of teachers, I think we need to refocus and aim our glances at the universities and colleges preparing the next generation of teachers.  How are they reforming to create capable teachers? 

No amount of papers, lesson plans, or discussion can truly prepare you to to the amazing and exhausting job of teaching so why is it we hide our future teachers in college classrooms rather than set them free in schools? To be a teacher, we need to be in the classrooms because that is where we learn how to be effective, reflective and creative.  This is where we face the true audience, the true measure of whether students have learned or not.  So disband teacher educations, or at the very least the last two years and replace it with on the job training with a certified experienced teacher.  Imagine the benefit for not just the wannabe teacher but also those students that get the luxury of having two adults in the room.  If there are bad teachers out there, or ineffective as the new term goes, then we must look at how those teachers were prepared.  Until our teaching education is changed, real reform will not be accomplished.

conferences, letter to Jeremy, technology

Are We Setting Students up for Failure?

Pernille Ripp
This letter is part of a series of letters taking place between  Jeremy Macdonald @MrMacnology, a 5th grade teacher in Oregon, and Pernille Ripp @4thgrdteacher, 4th grade teacher in Wisconsin; two educators who for the first time are attempting a no grades classroom, as well as limited homework.  We share our thoughts and struggles with creating the best learning environment for our students so that others may learn something as well.  To see the other letters, please visit us here or here.
Hi Jeremy,
I am so glad to hear that conferences went well. There we both were, sweating over every single detail and once again our fears got the better of us.  My parents loved it.  No one asked any questions as to what grade their child should be getting but instead asked pointed questions to their children about their learning.  As you may have realized, I have gotten hooked on student-led conferences as well in the process.  So maybe this shows us too that we have done our job well as well.  We have prepared our parents as much as we prepare our students.  We let them know from the beginning what type of environment we envision and then we follow our own guidelines.  No surprises means no anger.  I do wonder how you ended up doing your report cards in that you say some students were surprised?   Had you not shown them to them beforehand or discussed it with them?  I am liberally borrowing the idea from Joe Bower in setting grades with the kids, that way there won’t be any surprises or confusion.  I agree, we continue this path and we adjust and continue, knowing that it is the right way to go.
I too am tech-obsessed.  I like to blame it on my parents who had one of the only original apple computers in town.  My students know that I have this obsession and they love it.  And yet, like you, I ponder whether my obsession is a healthy one and whether it is educationally relevant to the students?  So every time I choose to introduce a new tool for the students I have to know why.  Is it just for playing or is it an integral part of the learning process.  My students blog because we are learning to connect with an audience and to cater our writing to specific purposes.  Blogging also has the added excitement of responses from other people rather than just plain old me.  And yet, we write by hand every day as well.  One teacher told me that they thought students needed to learn how to write before they moved on to typing.  She therefore did not want students doing technology “stuff.”  I was hurt and confused by her comment, knowing that she was directing it at me and the approach I have taken and I didn’t get what she meant as I see the two as one in the same.  I can just as easily write a story by pencil as by typing.  To me that seems to be an excuse to keep students away from technology.
There have been times though where I have had to stop myself, though.  I know that my students get much more excited when they get to use technology but some times learning has to come from books and from discussion.  Not from a movie, or a voicethread, or some other computer related activity.  How do we set up our students for excitement about that type of learning?  Is there a way to combine the two?  Or will the technology always win because it is a gadget.  Are we, in truth, by being techy teachers, doing our students a disservice by setting them up for perpetual disappointment when they move on to teachers that do not embrace it as fully as we do?  Are we instead of helping shape 21st century students, shaping kids that will more quickly become disillusioned in a classroom because their teacher does not embrace technology?  Should teachers even be allowed to not incorporate technology into their lessons?
We will always be advocates for learning, that is the nature of our job, but what we must deliberate on every day is whether a tool will enhance learning or merely dress it up to become easier to digest?  I take an unpopular stance when I say that I feel interactive whiteboards are not all that they are hailed to be for learning purposes, although I agree that they catch children’s’ attention very well.   And that’s it, isn’t it?  Do we use technology to get the attention of our students or do we use it properly to teach them something?  
I fear I left you with more questions than answers.  Yet they are important ones that I struggle with on a daily basis.  And I wish I could say that I had typed this on my Ipad, however Santa has yet to decide whether I have been good enough to deserve one of those for Christmas or not.  I swear I have…