Teamwork

When I worked at KIPP in Atlanta, I had a coworker that would always say, "Teamwork makes the dream work!"  I would listen politely and then walk away, grumbling about corny, rhyming teacher-phrases.

 Fast forward 5 years, it's the first day of school in my new school in Charlotte and I'm standing in front of my new group of fifth graders.  They don't know me and I, frankly, don't know them.  I have many things to tell them about how different this classroom is, from their past classrooms.  I usually start, though, by letting them know that they are a team and I am a stand for them to be an extraordinary team all year long.  I use the typical sports analogy.  We can only win as a team if we work together.  But this is still very common Teacher Chatter, and I'm pretty sure I sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown.  The real work happens during the school year.  Every day.

How do I have my class become an extraordinary team each year?  Here are some of the things I do:

-Play kickball!
Our class plays against my team teacher's class in a weekly Friday tournament.  The kids learn all sorts of invaluable lessons during these games: compromise for the greater good, communication, kindness (in winning or losing), hard work for a long term goal, perseverance and the importance of optimism (encouraging yourself) and encouraging others.  Just last week, the girls in my class (who were originally extremely resistant to kick ball) ran their own game during recess!

-My language
I never refer to their peers as classmates.  They are always TEAMMATES.  When someone isn't doing well in the class, it weakens the team.  I also am very careful not to refer to MY classroom.  This is OUR classroom, OUR supplies, OUR behavior in the hallway.  We're all in the together.

-Class communication
Opposite our very American individualism, I teach the kids to be concerned for their more disruptive or distracted peers.  During Community Meeting, at the beginning of the school year, I ask if there are any Class Concerns, and there typically aren't any, or they are tattles. I know I need to train them what, exactly, to be concerned about.  This isn't a logical thought process for them.  It is a taught skill.  They learn that not only is someone yelling out answers in class a concern (clearly), but also someone quietly drawing a picture during an important math lesson.  The Drawer isn't disrupting anyone but herself, but it is still a concern.  When she doesn't learn enough, it weakens our team.

-Who solves the problems
Rarely do I have to step in to solve a problem anymore with my class.  They solve about 90% of them on their own.  They learn that it's important to try and solve problems with each other (by communicating with each other) before bringing them for the class to solve during Community Meeting.  If it's brought as a Class Concern, the community will then find a solution.  A very important piece of this is sharing and stating the impact of whatever happened.  This helps them differentiate between issues that are actually problems and issues that aren't.  I will step in to help with immature students who are developmentally not ready to be held accountable by their peers yet (usually one or two each year). They still need an adult to be present to do the right thing.  But they learn, by the end of the year, the positive results that come when they listen and work together with their peers.

Recently, I watched a Community Meeting happen, and these were the two Class Concerns:
1. The literacy teacher walked by in reading class and a student sniffed the air because he liked her perfume.
2.  When getting into groups, a student sat in other student's seat.  When told of his mistake, the original seat-sitter said it wasn't a problem for the kid to stay in the seat.

As you can tell, neither of those are concerning at all.  I reflected later on why they would bring those up in Community Meeting.  Haven't I taught them what to be concerned about?  Then I realized- there were no actual concerns that day! This was a shock to them and they were grabbing at straws.  Every day, problems arise. The difference in my class, is it is communicated directly to the person and resolved immediately.

What if us adults did this?  Had a problem, brought it up immediately to that person and walked around totally self expressed and complete about our relationships and communication.  There would be no need for gossip, "venting" (which many times is a euphemism for gossip), passive-aggressive behavior or general resentment.

How great would life be if our "team" was the world and we really saw how connected we are?  When I hurt you, I really hurt me.

The Inspirational Teacher

Who I am- a combination of decisions I made about myself when I was young and my strong suits- allows me to have successes in my life.  My bosses have always enjoyed having me as teacher at their school, students always make growth in my class and, generally, I'm a pretty low maintenance teacher (after my first year- which was mayhem).

Unfortunately, the parts of my personality that make me successful also give me anxiety, sleep loss, minimal joy and cause me to burn out easily.  It's like I'm a sprinter running a marathon that has no end in sight.

It came to a head for me last week when, in the midst if huge successes in my classroom, I found I didn't feel inspired.  This is absolutely not going to work in my life.  So I started to investigate what could be causing this loss of fulfillment in this profession that is packed with opportunities to make a difference.  This is what I found:
1.  The number of hours I was required to work and the number of hours I was actively doing school work differed by an average of 15 hours a week.
2.  I significantly jumped the tally of work hours by tacking on all of the hours I spent processing, reviewing and worrying about things happening at school.  Rarely did I take action on these thoughts.

It seems that thinking about school outside of actually doing productive work is totally unproductive.  As a matter of fact, it drains me, distracts me, gives me anxiety and steals my joy. Somehow, I concluded early on in my career that happiness occurs in this order:

Work hard   ---   Be successful   ---   Be happy

I'm certain that I've been doing this forever because, even knowing that this doesn't work for me, I can't seem to easily stop doing it.  Current happiness research shows that us Americans have it backwards.  This is actually what happens:

Be happy.  ---   Work harder and enjoy it.  ---   Significant increase in chances of success.

So how have I been stopping my auto-pilot Inspirational Teacher from taking over?  I make a choice to drop the act.  Every moment I get to choose who I am going to be.  I conscientiously let go of this "character" I play at least 10-15 times a day.  Every time I choose to drop it, I have a moment of fear, when I worry that if I stop juggling 20 imaginary balls I created, my students will fail and I'll be a failure as well.  But after that completely irrational moment, I am certain that I am making the best decision to live a balanced life.  I know because joy and excitement swoop in to take fear's place and I'm at peace with the difference I make and how I go about making it.

Bullies

I like bullies.  Actually, if I ever have control over who's put in my class, I always ask for the grade level bullies to be put in mine.  They're outspoken about how they feel, they break rules to get what they want and, most importantly, they're leaders.  Mind you, they lead people to make poor choices, but that's a minor detail.

Seriously, though, it's so much easier to teach right from wrong than to teach leadership skills.  Many years have I taken the class bully, turned them around to making good choices, and BAM! my class is run for me.  There are only minor behavior problems for the rest of the school year.

So, the question becomes, how do I turn these stubborn leaders from leading negative choices to leading positive choices?  I have a dialogue that I have with the bully.  It goes something like this:

Me:  You were calling Katie a hippo and making fun of the way she looks.  Do you know what that makes you?

Bully:  *shrugs*

Me:  A bully.  And do you know what a bully is?

Bully: Someone that's mean to someone?

Me: No.  Someone that doesn't like something about themself.  You see, someone that likes themself doesn't feel a need to put other people down to feel good about themself.

Bully:  *shocked face. eyes get wide*

Me:  So my question to you is, what don't you like about yourself?

Bully: *shrugs*

Me:  It's ok, I'll wait until you figure it out.

And then I silently what until that inevitable moment (and it always comes) when they realize we're not going anywhere until they say something.  Their eyes start to well up and then the flood gates open up and they admit whatever insecurity they have.  At that moment, I acknowledge that they said it but make sure not to validate them or make them feel better.  They need to sit in the pain they've been hiding in anger towards others.  During this time, I get them to really have empathy for their victims and usually they figure out they need to apologize.

After this interaction, a few things happen:
1. My relationship with this child is strengthened ten-fold.
2. The kid follows my directions in class very well (and gets everyone else to do the same).
3. The kid stops bullying.

I've never done this with a kid and heard of him/her relapsing into bullying.  It's unbelievable.

Ya know, us, as adults, have forms of slight bullying as well.  Gossip is one.  I once heard gossip defined as information about another person that would change how the other would feel about them in a negative way.  I see that when I choose to take part in gossip, it's really just because I want to feel better than that person in some way.  I don't gossip about people I truly respect.  It can take a strong commitment to live a gossip-free life (not even listening to it).  But keeping the lens that gossip is to make people feel better about themselves helps me stay committed not to tearing people down behind their back, but to living a life of empowering them.

The start of a new community

We started a new school year and I've had two days with a brand new group of kids.  This year is unique year for me, because out of the seven years I've taught, I've never taught the same curriculum or grade level twice.  Until this year.  So I enter this year not having to start over in learning a new curriculum or school.  But I do have to learn new students.  I have a clean slate with these kids and I am anxious to, as I joke with my friends, induct them into my "cult."

Generally, I have to "undo" a lot of their wanting rewards and rules and punishments for things.  They also tend to like to police each other (be "in charge" and tell the teacher who's misbehaving) and lie to get out of trouble.  In my class, they must learn it is FAR better to admit to making a mistake than to lie about it.  They also must shift their dynamic from wanting to have power over each other to working together.

In general, when I ask them a question, they are masters at giving me the answer they think I want to hear (which is rarely the truth).  For example, I asked them this today, "Why is it a bad idea to be loud during transitions in our classroom?"  My favorite incorrect answer was, "We'll interrupt the other classes." We are in a self-contained trailer.  No one can hear us.  It's all scripted responses.  It takes a while to get them to actually THINK about their responses to questions, instead of just repeating what they've heard in the past.

I volunteered to take a really difficult boy this year.  He's impulsive, has no filter and completely lacks empathy for other people.  His home life is extremely turbulent and he seems to have a broken volume control on his voice.  I was wondering what in my class could make a difference for him.  So far, it seems to be community meeting.  The first day, he took the opportunity, when Class Concerns came up, to share that he had a concern about his own behavior.  This has only happened once before, when a student admits to being concerned about himself.  He was able to state the impact of his
actions and then committed to showing more self control.  While I know these are just words, he has declared this in front of the whole class.  I then respond, "OK, great.  Don't just talk about, BE about it.  Show us you're committed to showing self control."  Today, he shared a Shout Out to another boy in the class for working hard and finding the most examples to a question I had asked.  Honestly, I didn't even know he was capable of noticing what others did inside the classroom, much less recognize someone for doing something specifically awesome.  There might be hope of teaching him empathy after all.

Today I also gave the students my number.  They were confused, then blown away that this was occurring.  I also gave them a script to read when they call me which involves them introducing themself, asking how I am and then stating their question clearly.  I do this because I have a no excuses policy in my class for homework.  This covers the "I didn't understand" excuse.  I have already received 3 calls today.  One from a very high functioning girl who, I think, just wanted to check if it worked.  And the other two were from another girl.  She first called me for help on her homework then called back because her 7th grade brother needed help on HIS homework!  That definitely made me laugh.

My little community is just beginning but I think we're off to a good start.

Punishment

Today, my students entered the cafeteria and were told immediately they were on silent lunch from an older Teacher Assistent that had replaced our recently quit Lunch Monitor.  My students' responses were perfect: Why are we being punished?  Did we do something wrong?

I teach my students to question the rules they're told.  After all, the people who changed history didn't do so by following the rules.  Clearly, I model how to question rules in a respectful way. So, I was stuck was a stubborn TA who was desperately trying to have control over the cafeteria, not trying to steal her power, and respond to a class that, rightfully so, felt this mandate was unfair.

After trying to reason with her twice, I gave up frustrated.

Even though I was playing damage control most of my lunch, I am proud of my students' ability to critically think about what's happening and stick up for themselves.  They weren't being obedient at first, and I don't blame them.  There was a time when I valued obedience in my classroom because, well, it was easier.  Following directions, while important, is not the greatest skill in life.  Obedient children make teaching, in this moment, easier.  But what about the future?  I don't believe emphasizing the celebrated Following Directions skill will help my students impact the world.  I want them to think about what people are asking them to do, and WHY they're being asked to do it.

This morning, I followed my students to their reading class (I teach them math, science and social studies) to invest them in a writing competition called "The One Pager."  They had completely written it off to the Literacy Teacher as useless and boring.  We had about a 10 minute talk about how doing this activity will help improve their drowning writing skills and the ways that writing shows up in an adult's life.  There was pushback about it being boring (things can be important and boring at the same time) or not needing it (everyone could use some improvement).  I'm sure I didn't invest every kid in the class.  However, I know I got the wheels turning in everyone's brains.  And, no matter what, my students know that when they improve their academic skills, they are making their lives better.

What matters is WHY

In my classroom, we have two rules: work hard and be nice.  We actually call them our rules for life.  Everything we do, I want my students to see the connection to their lives. I tell them that I, as an adult, live by those two rules as well.

In my classroom, "integrity" is common vocabulary and the community benefit is placed over individual.  It is a place where students see how their actions today affect their opportunities in the future.  It is a place where sitting quietly in the classroom isn't enough, but sitting quietly for the right reasons is expected.

My end goal is to break the cycle of poverty my students are living in and get them into and through college to have careers that they love and, more importantly, living a life they love.  Honestly, selfishly, I want my students to not only graduate from college, but to change the world in a way that makes it fairer and more peaceful.

The foundation my classroom is built on are what I call "the levels."  These are Lawrence Kholberg's Six Levels of Moral Development.  These levels describe people's motivations.  This is what it looks like in my class:

I make good or bad choices because:
I am avoiding punishment (level 1)
I want a reward (level 2)
I want to impress someone (level 3)
I follow the rules (level 4)
I am considerate of other people and compromise for the greater good (level 5)
I am living by my own beliefs (level 6)


Whenever I have introduced the levels to a new class, and have explained them thoroughly, I always ask what level my students think they're each on.  Typically, they will rate themselves quite high (a lot of 4s, 5s, 6s).  I then bring them back to reality and tell them that the vast majority of them are not on any level above two.  I also tell them that it's not their fault- the adults in their lives (teachers  and parents) have been training them and expecting them to be on levels one and two their whole lives.  Usually, at that moment in the conversation I get a few "ohh"s as they start to reflect on their life and see the patterns of bribery and punishment that have paved their way to my class.  I also tell them, though, that now they know there's a better way to live.  And for that moment on, the upward climb to level 6 starts.

Because part of living on a higher level (5 and 6) is understanding your impact on others, we have Community Meeting in my classroom.  This meeting is run by a student by the second month of
school.  The order of Community Meeting goes like this:

1. Shout Outs
Classmates recognize each other for kind things that were done that day.  The shout out must be specific for the action and the person.  Some examples of typical shout ours are:
"I'd like to give a shout out to ____ for lending me a pencil." (They never bother me for pencils when they forget it at home.  They take care of each other.)

"I'd like to give a shoutout to ____ for teaching me a new strategy in math."

These shout outs having a pretty wide range.  I enjoy secretly listening to them because I find out kind things that my students did that I would never have known.  It's tricky teaching students to be on higher levels because the typical "Teacher, look what I did!" rarely happens.

2.  Class concerns
This is when the students share any problem they have with each other.  They do so in the format of an "I feel" statement.  For example, "I felt sad when you snatched the pencil out of my hand."  I want them to identify with the feeling they had instead of blaming someone else for "making" them feel a certain way.

The cool thing about this part of Community Meeting is that, as the students start to feel increasingly safer with each other, stuff comes up in this part that I never noticed (or happened when they weren't in my classroom).  They also have a chance to stick up for their learning and feel a sense of control and power within their own community.  At this point in the school year, they call each other out for more things than I do.

3. Out of Integrity
This is the part where students can admit any part of the day that they had broken their own integrity. Out of integrity goes like this:
1.  State how you were out of integrity
2.  State the impact of your actions (on self and others)
3.  State what you are going to do next time.

The nice thing about out of integrity is they know they can admit anything and they won't get in trouble.  It's not about catching the bad guy.  It's about coming clean about things that they've done to compromise their own integrity and clean it up with their classmates.  It's nice when they can admit it before being called out by their teammates, as well, during the class concerns.  It, mostly though, allows the students to feel complete about their day.  There's no need for guilt or shame.  We all make mistakes, and taking responsibility for them is half the battle.

What's important

For two weeks straight, the specials teachers (art, music, library, computers, PE) have the same report about my kids when I pick them up.  It goes something like, "They had a great class.  They were so productive and worked well together, but they lost it when they lined up."  So, as they get rated on a 1-10 scale, they've consistently gotten 9's.

My younger self would have fussed at the class, making them practice lining up until it was perfect.  I would have had a serious talk with them and been really uptight about the whole thing.  But the way I've run my class this year, it would have been very discordant.  We're constantly questioning rules and routines, asking, "How important is this?  Will this help me be a better human being?"  For example, after dealing with an ambush of tattles on curse words heard from other kids in the school, my students have gotten to understand that there are SO many more important things in life than an arbitrary word someone chose to be considered "bad."

So, my position on the matter was decided: if these other teachers had no other complaints, and my students were kind to each other and tried their hardest, they're doing pretty well.  But, my job isn't done yet.

Recently, my students took a test that tracks their progress in math throughout the year.  One of my students only went up 2 points from winter to spring.  While it was an improvement, it was a small one.  This student has gone through a range of emotions and decisions in which he shared with me along the way:
-He immediately wanted to retake the test to get a higher score
-Remorseful that he didn't do better
-Scared his score may go down instead of up
-Excited to sit for over an hour the next day just to improve a test score that would more accurately represent his learned knowledge

Oh, and this kid had ADHD.

He also voluntarily puts himself on punishment if he thinks he forgot to go the day before.  At first, I thought he liked it, so it didn't bother him.  It came out recently how much he really hates it.

The fact that he will be bored and will also be missing PE to take a test was not even a blip on his screen.  The fact that sitting on silent lunch for half an hour for a kid with a disorder that causes him to never stop moving is very difficult does overshadow his own integrity.  He understands that doing his best is important.  He understands that punishment is temporary, but who he is is for the rest of his life.

There is no reason to hesitate.  He is clear on what is important.