Monday, January 4, 2016
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Raindrops and Torn Flesh
Ann Larson EricsonBy far the biggest resistance to change involves the use of sarcasm. When we begin to talk about the use of sarcasm in the classroom, the tone of our conversation often becomes argumentative and defensive. Kind, well-meaning teachers tell me, “But my students think it’s funny when I’m sarcastic,” or “Adolescents appreciate sarcasm. They use it all the time.” “They always know I’m just kidding.” “That’s how I build relationship with my students. It’s funny.”
Yet I wonder if our students really get it, or are they just laughing along with everyone else? Are we modeling a “gotcha culture” or one that is playful but also safe? Are our words helping our students build their identity, or are they creating confusion and self-doubt? Adolescents today are inundated with sarcastic comments, whether it’s peer-to-peer bantering or the rapid-fire one-liners they hear in sitcoms and movies. The root of the word sarcasm literally means “to tear flesh.” How can we educators help our students enjoy humor and laughter without resorting to tearing flesh?A number of years ago, I had an experience that really opened my mind to my personal use of sarcasm. One of my students did something careless in the science lab, and I good-naturedly helped him clean up and made some offhand sarcastic remark. He laughed and I walked away. Days later, I was asked to meet with this student and an administrator. I walked into the meeting and learned that this student had gone home devastated and told his father that his science teacher hated him. We went on to have a meaningful restorative conversation. I explained the meaning of my words and the spirit in which they were intended, but I knew our relationship was damaged. What this experience taught me is that we can never truly know how our students may hear and internalize the sarcastic comments we direct at them. It was a painful lesson for me but one that stops me in my tracks whenever I think about sarcasm.
I also know that humor between teachers and students lightens the day and helps to build relationships. I love to laugh with my students, and I love hearing them laugh in our classrooms. Adolescents are often so serious, given to brooding and self-doubt and need the relief of laughter and playful exchanges. I understand why we defend the need for humor, but what other forms of humor may be safer to share with our students—is it a corny joke, a personal humorous misadventure, or a silly game or song? How can we model alternatives to the sarcastic jousting and put-downs our students use that can end up in hurtful exchanges?
What are other ways to use humor in your classroom? What are some of the games we use in CPR that generate laughter and playfulness? Let’s get a conversation going about alternative uses of humor with adolescents.
Join the conversation.
Please share your thoughts—Post a Comment below or subscribe to the RSS Feed in the Comment box.
About Ann Larson Ericson For more than nine years, I've been using the Developmental Designs approach in my school. I am currently the 7–12 Instructional Coach at Community of Peace Academy, a public charter school on the east side of St. Paul, Minnesota. Before starting my new position, I taught high school chemistry and physical science at Community of Peace Academy. Since 2011 I've spent my summers as a Developmental Designs facilitator of professional development. Previously, I've taught science at urban and suburban schools, served as a director of gifted and talented education in a rural Wisconsin school district, and taught English in Shanghai, China. I hold a Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College and a Master of Arts from St. Catherine University. Contact me at Origins@OriginsOnline.org
Friday, June 26, 2015
FRIDAY FINALE:
We are finishing up another successful workshop week in St. Paul, MN at Community of Peace Academy.
Our participants enjoyed Learning Weeks of DD1, DD2, and Teaching for Equity...it is inspiring to see such dedicated educators excited to implement the new practices they have learned! Looking forward to another amazing Learning Week at Paul Cuffee School in Providence, RI next week!
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
by Edna Attias
I stood there trying to tolerate the deafening silence. I finished a Mississippi countdown in my head, to make sure I was giving students enough call time, but there were no responses to my question. Were they paying attention? Did they understand the question? Was I an alien who just landed from space? I thought my lesson was engaging and fun, but my advisory group was not grabbing onto its hook.
Lately, I had noticed that during my teaching time and class discussions, students were very quiet, yet when it was time for partner or group work, the classroom buzzed with voices that were a few notches higher than what I would have wanted. There was also more giggling and off-topic conversations (such as who was dating who) than necessary. Our CPRs were no better. Side conversations and attention-seeking behaviors started to cloud and poison our meetings. I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. I’d tried to isolate each of these behaviors and address them with my students. I was sweating the small stuff, yet I was failing to make an impact on my social butterflies.
We'd had numerous problem-solving meetings about side conversations, giggling, homework completion, classroom jobs, transitions, and the list goes on. My advisory students echoed that these were real issues that affected our advisory in negative ways, and they offered explanations and solutions. Nevertheless, their behavior did not change.
Now that it was nearly the end of the year, and the pressure was higher, I too was feeling the end-of-the-year teaching stresses - standards, assessments, report-cards-while also putting out all the little fires. Finally in a quieter moment, I realized that I was missing the big picture.
Over the weekend, I made a list of all the little behaviors and problems I had noticed. I decided to have another meeting, but I knew this one had to be different. I invited my principal to show up for the meeting in his formal attire. He mostly sat there, but his presence sent an implicit message. They saw that this meeting different.
I started by saying that I was highly concerned about their readiness to move on to the seventh grade. I wanted them to end the year strong, but this was not going to happen if their negative behaviors overshadowed the many good things they had accomplished. As I said this, one of the kids giggled, and my principal immediately asked him to take a break. I was a little taken aback, since I was so focused on my words that I was about to let that giggle go. Two seconds later, another student pulled out his chap stick and started to apply it in repeated and exaggerated circular motions. I quickly asked him to take a break. Based on the improved body language around the circle, I could tell that the rest of the advisory got the message loud and clear: this meeting was serious business.
Next I focused the meeting on their identity as learners. This was the big picture. Instead of being a bad doctor who treated one symptom at a time, I needed a more holistic approach. Yes, the disruptive behaviors were in the way, but they were just symptoms of my advisory losing track of their identity as scholars. I wrote on the board “How can we restore a culture of scholarship and learning to our advisory?”
At that moment I felt I had captured their attention. It was time for the final hook, which was for them to get inspired. I knew this from the process of creating goals and declarations. Students need to make personal connections—otherwise they don’t see the relevance. How many times do we tell our students, “You need to do well in school so you’ll go to college and get a good job?” The truth is that it is hard for students to think of who they will be ten years from now. Developmentally, the now is so powerful and hard to resist. I needed to make their now relevant and accessible.
We watched a ten-minute inspirational video clip with words of wisdom from Will Smith about the power of becoming, including the following quote: “We didn't grow up with the sense that where we were was where we want to be. Where we were almost didn't matter because we were becoming.” Then I asked them to share what resonated with them about the idea of “the power of becoming.” One of the other nuggets that Will Smith shared was that his “biggest fear was to be afraid of fear itself.” I was surprised to hear my students say that school scares them, because if they do not do well, they will disappoint their families and have a bad future. They were afraid of failing, and yet their now behavior was not reflecting it. I think they did not see how it connected to their becoming. We talked about how the now does matter and how their scholarly behavior will make a difference today and tomorrow.
Over the next few days, I used the Table of Two and Table of Four structure to enable students to work together to share their ideas of how they could restore a culture of scholarship to our advisory. As I was
eavesdropping on their conversations, I realized that they saw quiet behavior as scholarly, so no wonder they were subdued during my teaching time! But I wanted them to also understand that, while attentive behavior is important, there is more to being a scholar. It took some scaffolding to get them to see that constructive habits included asking questions, acknowledging and reflecting on new ideas, sharing ideas, actively listening, and pushing oneself to work at a risk zone.This was not the first time we had discussed scholarly attributes, and I had seen them displayed throughout the year. Yet somehow they had gotten lost and needed to be brought back in a new context. A week after our meeting, I was already seeing changes. Students made a visual reminder of what it means to be a scholar. And most important, what it means to be a scholar for the here and now, even though I know it will help them . . . to become.
The following is a link to Will Smith’s inspirational video clip that we watched.
About Edna Attias
I am currently a 6th grade science teacher and advisor at Paul Cuffee School, a public charter serving a diverse urban population in Providence, RI. I have been implementing the Developmental Design approach since 2007 and recently became a nationally certified Developmental Designs facilitator with The Origins Program. Previous to becoming a teacher, I worked in the legal field and I obtained a Masters degree from Brown University in the psychopharmacology of pain. I also hold a Masters degree in Elementary Education from Brown University, and I am currently working on my doctorate degree in Educational Leadership with a concentration in curriculum, teaching, learning from Northeastern University.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
By Scott TyinkFor my March birthday, I asked my son to give me the gift of time—time doing something together. We both enjoy running, so he signed us up for an 8K race in his university town. I was happy for the gift.
We had been trying to do this race for the entire four years he attended, but something always seemed to get in the way. We ran side by side, weaving in and out of the mostly college runners. We hadn’t intended on it being a way to close out his college career, but we naturally fell into talking about his tenure. There was no arranged agenda and no assigned questions—just a dad and his son having a moment.
We talked about the good friends he made and how he might keep the relationships going even though they would now be hundreds of miles apart. We discussed his choice to attend that university and why it was a good one. We discussed what he learned from school, both socially and academically. And of course we talked about the fun he had: life in the dorms, going to football games, and weekend trips.
As I reflected on our conversation, I realized everything we discussed naturally was a reflection of the needs we seek to fulfill—relationship, autonomy, competence, and fun. I thought about the hundreds of hours invested by teachers, friends, and parents to create those school experiences. And I thought about how grateful I was to have the opportunity to explore, with my own son, his observations and insights. How much I was learning from his reflections. And how important it is to structure a time with our classroom children to reflect on how they experience meeting their needs this year in school. My hope is that this process will help them learn and help us learn as well. What do our students really consider a significant experience in an advisory, a sports team, or time in science class?
It would be wise of us as educators to help our students brainstorm together and then record, document, and share. This process might begin with a class journal-writing exercise or small group discussions. It might emerge as a final representation through art, video, or drama. You might want to try using one or more of the questions below:
Relationship:Who did I meet this year? What impact did one or two new relationships have on my life? Do I wish to continue the relationship? What makes for a significant relationship?
Autonomy:What goals did I have for myself this year? What new choices or risks did I take that helped me grow to reach my goals? What was hard? What struggles did I overcome?
Competence:What new skills did I acquire? What content and knowledge did I master? How do I see myself now as a learner? What tools or methods best help me learn? How will what I learned help me with my goals?
Fun:What experiences did I enjoy both academically and socially? Why did I enjoy those particular ones? What experiences would I want to make sure I tried to do again?
As we all near the end of our own race this year, be it a 5K or a marathon, be it a home room or a math class, we want to be intentional in thinking about how our experiences have met our needs as educators. And how we can continue to help our students self-reflect and partner with us to meet their own needs. Please join me in this conversation. In what ways do you have students consider their needs at the end of the school year? What have you learned from this dialogue?
Join the conversation.
Please share your thoughts—click Comments below.
For fourteen years, I taught adolescents in grades 5 through 8. I co-organized, directed, and taught in the first multiage middle-level charter school in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where I developed curriculum that integrated arts and technology to inspire and challenge students. For more than ten years, I've helped to design and facilitate Developmental Designs workshops, consulted in middle schools, and coached teachers. I hold an EdD from Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, California, where my focus of study was on altruism and altruists. Contact me at Origins@OriginsOnline.org.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
No Laps, No Lines, No Lectures
By Erin Klug
This summer I attended a soccer-coaching clinic and was inspired to see that the lessons educators have learned about social-emotional and brain-based learning can be applied to the field as well as the classroom. Our instructor’s theme was “no laps, lines, or lectures.” I was easily able to make direct connections between this motto and my own teaching experience.
No laps The clinic started with a demonstration of two kinds of warm-ups:
- one group ran laps around the perimeter of the field
- the other group ran forward and backward, galloped, and skipped through gates scattered around the field
In the Developmental Designs approach, teachers often use a Do Now assignment at the beginning of the class to help students get materials ready for class and to begin engaging in the learning for that day. In a math class, for example, the teacher might display several problems and have students independently solve as many as they can in the time allotted. Or partners might make up problems for each other to solve. Students could reflect on what was easy about the problem and on what they still needed to learn. Partner work allows students to work with their peers and use critical thinking to assess their learning.
No lines As a childhood soccer player, much of my practice involved waiting in a line—waiting for my turn to shoot, pass, or dribble through cones.
But our clinic instructor had other ideas.
- one group lined up to dribble the ball, one by one, through a series of gates set up in a line
- in the other group, players had their own ball and were told to dribble through as many gates as they could in two minutes
The other group, however, continued to dribble, one by one, through their gates. Each group practiced dribbling, but one group dribbled in an environment similar to a game: multiple players moving about, dealing with defenders, and avoiding collisions, which required dribbling with their heads up. I noticed that all players in the line drill dribbled with their heads down—and they didn’t get much time actually working with a ball.
Why would you have students practice dribbling with their heads down when they have to dribble with their heads up in a real game?!
In the Developmental Designs approach, teachers practice bridging—helping students connect what they do at school with the rest of their lives. As a math teacher, making math relevant was often a challenge. I knew they would need to use math in the future, but adolescents live in the moment. My most successful strategy was to capitalize on projects and situations where we needed to use math for real, just not on a worksheet:
- The bulletin boards in the hallway need to be covered with paper. How much will we need?
- How much crepe paper will we need to decorate the gym for the dance?
The instructor replied, “I’m not with them on the field when they play. They have to figure it out in real time, so they practice making decisions on the spot. Soccer is a messy game, so practice can be messy too.”I could relate to his point.
In the Developmental Designs approach, teachers use the Power of Play to help students build relationships with one another, practice social skills, and learn or review academic content.
Many games provide opportunities for them to develop strategy. For example, in Team Red Light, Green Light, students are given a few short directions about the goal of the game and a couple of guidelines for how they can move. The rest is up to them to figure out. Year after year, students came up with unique ways to be successful at the game.
I have to admit, I wasn’t excited about attending the coaching clinic. Maybe I was expecting laps, lines, and lectures, too similar to what I experienced as a soccer student. But I left truly inspired.
I’m so excited to start coaching!
Join the conversation.
Please share your thoughts—click Comments below.
About Erin Klug
I taught intermediate and middle grades in Minneapolis for more than a decade before taking a position as Professional Development Specialist and Consultant for The Origins Program. I currently develop workshop programming, contribute to Origins publications, and provide direct service to area schools through consulting. I hold a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan and a Master of Education from the University of Minnesota. Contact me at Origins@OriginsOnline.org.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)