I’ve not really been much for trying to keep up with everyone else in the neighborhood. Growing up we wore hand-me-downs from our cousins, always had a “well-used” car, and did our best shopping at garage sales. It’s never really been my style to try to have, or do, what everyone else was doing.
But lately I’ve found myself doing that exact thing with my teaching.
It used to be that teachers operated in our own little classrooms. If you were lucky, you had a few colleagues you shared ideas with, and you might get to a conference once a year. But most of the time you did your own thing and that was that.
Now we are UBER-connected. There are blogs, listservs, wikispaces, webinars, Twitter, Facebook, webpages and more…each sharing teachers’ ideas and experiences. On one hand, that is FANTASTIC. We are not alone. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. On the other hand, I find myself asking….why aren’t I doing that? Should I be doing that? Am I depriving students if I don’t do that? Wow, I must be behind, out-of-touch, too slow, uneducated, or in other words” not good enough” if I don’t do what others are sharing about.
Just trying to keep up with what is out there…much less implement any of it…is exhausting.
It should be exciting and inspiring….but some days it is more than a bit overwhelming.
What’s up with that Ms. Jones anyway?!!!!!!
When I get in this mood I have to whip out a little self-talk. I pick one or more of the lines below and say it/them to myself until I stop trying to be Ms. Jones and her perfect classroom.
**You are not Ms. Jones. Even Ms. Jones is not Ms. Jones.
**You do not have to be a tech guru. You do not have to be ANY KIND OF GURU.
**It doesn’t matter how many “tricks” or “ideas” or “insights” you have. You can only use so many per day.
**Your time each day is limited. You can feel overwhelmed by too many ideas, or you can find one idea and work on a way to use it.
**You can be jealous or you can be grateful, but you can’t be both. Pick the one that makes you happy.
**Teaching is not a competitive sport.
**It is perfectly wonderful to be a bit of a mess. Messes are real.
**Your students’ successes are more important that your insecurities.
**Love trumps Laptops.
You get the idea. I AM grateful for all of the wonderful ideas that are out there, and for all of those generous teachers who share them. I just have be careful not to compare myself with the Joneses. Ms. Jones is not in my classroom and my students need me.
If you are interested in learning, or brushing off some old dusty Spanish, consider an upcoming class through Express Fluency. There are classes coming up at the beginning and intermediate Spanish on three different weekends this Spring: March 14-15, April 18-19, and May 30-31. You can attend one, two or all three sessions!!
Elissa McClean will be teaching the beginning groups and I’m excited to share that I’ll be teaching the intermediate classes!! Elissa has also opened up the classes to teachers who do not want to be language students, but who would like to observe a TPRS/Comprehensible Input class in action!!
We’ll be teaching language via Story-asking, Movie Talk, Embedded Reading, engaging conversations and a great deal more! Thinking about it? Know someone who might enjoy or benefit from such a class? Go to Express Fluency’s website or Facebook page!
This is a letter to a friend who is struggling this year with a small, but powerful, group of students. This group, and their equally vocal parents, are leading a “complain campaign” against the teacher. What is the problem? The teacher is working to create an environment where all students can be successful, where all students are capable of making progress and where all students, at the very least, allow their classmates to grow and to thrive. (Although ideally they would encourage each other.)
There is a group of students, encouraged by parents, who feel that this is not appropriate. They have been very successful in other classes by being “better” than other students. They do not understand, nor like, being part of a paradigm in which every student has value.
Are they saying this out loud? Not exactly. They are saying that the teacher’s methods are ineffective. But their meaning is clear. It is troublesome. It is exhausting. It has turned into a “me vs. them” scenario for the teacher. The students and parents are attacking the integrity of the teacher. Even though, all of the students, INCLUDING THOSE COMPLAINING, are doing very well.
We have all been there. Too many of us are there every day. (and right now, because the profession is being targeted, it is particularly painful!) When this happens we feel as if we are walking on eggshells, not even really knowing what we are doing wrong and certainly not sure how to fix it. What we want is for it to just get better. To get a do over with a group of kids. To make it go away.
So this teacher asked me, “What can I do?” And this is my answer. I asked the teacher if I could share it just in case there is another teacher out there, in another district, with other students, but feeling the same way. The teacher graciously agreed. Please remember that this is just a collection of my thoughts, certainly no definitive answer to anyone’s problems. But as our colleague Bryce Hedstrom often says, “We are all in this together.”
From time to time there are students that clarify our work for us. This seems
to be one of those groups for you.
For perspective:
These students are a product of their environment, which you clearly understand. At their age they have not had enough experiences to think differently. They are also savvy enough to know when agreeing with the status quo is in their best interest…and this is benefiting them …..in their minds….so they are perpetuating this. What you also understand is that this is NOT in their best interest, now or in the future. But you will not convince them of that, nor their parents. This is an insight that (as the word implies) must come from within..and in its own time. But….I PROMISE you that many of these students will come to see this in time. Many. I can only make this promise because I see and hear from many former students (and by now I have well over 3000 of them!!). I am constantly amazed at how they mature (many of them when they have their own children) and come to appreciate the messages I tried to include in my teaching when they were teenagers.
If you can, when you can, step back and stay out of their circle of thinking. They will graduate and move on. It feels as if these attitudes will forever prevail, but they will not. Often an entire school will change when one group of negativity graduates. I have seen it happen many times. Remember that while it seems as if their behavior stems from a need for power, that nee for power ultimately stems from a place of fear. Fear can only be overcome with love and/or knowledge. You offer these things. You will never be able to control when/if they will be ready to hear the message. Again, that will have to come from within these individuals.
In the meantime, you are offering hope, faith and love to students who do not have it. That is life-changing…for you and for them. If this is what calls you, follow it. Follow it as far as you are able. It connects you to a greater community than the little power-hungry social group can ever be a part of. I am grateful every day to be a part of that. I am grateful every day for the others that are doing the same.
For reality:
It’s tough dealing with these kids, and worse when they have formed a group with parental backing. Very tough. Exhausting. Soul-crushing even. I’m so thankful that you have administrative support. What a gift!!!! The truth is that you really must be shifting the status quo. You know that you are doing an amazing job of that when the folks who have been “in charge” really want to find fault with you. That is not fun, but it is their FEAR talking. They want to accuse you of not doing your job because they feel that you are threatening their “way of life.’ I know that you are not trying to ‘take down” a social group, just love and teach kids. It’s annoying and frustrating to be accused of something you would not do/be. Just because they say it doesn’t mean that it is true and it doesn’t mean that others will believe it, even if those that believe in you don’t stand up for you.
I know a number of other teachers who have been, or are, where you are. Some saw the culture change. Some have accepted that they are fighting an uphill battle and simply try to stay under the radar. Some move to other districts where they are not alone in their support of equal education for all.
Eventually you will have to make one of these decisions, or your own. You will know when it is time.
In the meantime, I am going to ask you to try to do something that may seem very
difficult.
Do not try to win these students over. Do not try to heal this relationship. Right now, it is not a healthy relationship, it’s abusive. The recipient of the abuse will never be able to heal a relationship with an abuser. Only the abuser can do that ….and these students do not have the maturity, nor the desire, to do so.
Right now your job is to be a teacher, and in some ways, a parent to these students. Not a friend. It does not matter whether or not they like you if they only want you to do things their way. To truly love them, to truly be their teacher, you will have to continue to do what is in their best interest whether they approve or not.
There are several challenges to that.
1. They are in many ways, the “popular” kids. Choosing not to cater to their “popularity” will be confusing to many students, and to many adults. But it will set a precedent for others who will, in time, be able to follow it. You will be a role model in the truest sense of the word. Other students will see how to handle a bully without being bullied, without giving up your dignity.
2. You will have to find ways to honor these students OTHER THAN honoring their
popularity and social power. This may not be a challenge for you at all. But it may be a very different experience for them. They are only accustomed to receiving artificial kudos rather than sincere ones. Be patient if they reject your positive comments about participation, assisting others, offering insight, etc. It will confuse them. They may reject it. They may mock it. But they will hear it.
3. You will have to rise above emotions. Emotions are their weapon, their target, their currency. Particularly insecurity and hurt. Picture yourself and strong, kind, caring and too mature to be damaged by their game. “Rise Above” will become your mantra. IT IS NOT YOU they are attacking. IT IS NOT YOU. They know that there is a piece of each of us that is vulnerable to being left out, pointed out, isolated and humiliated. They know how to hurt. They have done it in the past. They have done it to avoid being hurt themselves. They may try to hurt you. Remember that you too are vulnerable, but that no child, even in a group, even supported by a parent, can determine your worth. You are caring, you feel called to provide an equal education for all, you believe that catering to this group is not what you are called to do.
It is not an easy road sometimes. That is why other teachers in your position
do not always stay the course.
EVERYTHING YOU FEEL IS JUSTIFIED. However you respond or react is whatever you
can do that day. Know that you are supported, no matter what happens. Do not expect perfection. You are human. This is hard.
Sadly, sometimes people put us up against a wall and we have to make a choice: do what they want or do what we want. IT SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY. But sometimes it is.
What you won’t be able to do is turn students who are abusive into students who are not abusive in one day, one week, one month, or even, sadly, sometimes even in a school year. When they are ready for relationships with a balance of power, they will be willing to let you establish a better relationship.
“People can change. We can’t change people. We can only change ourselves.”
I don’t know where I heard/read this…but it has proven true over and over again.
If these students refuse to change, and that appears to be the case right now, you do have the ability to create a new relationship with them. A relationship where you respect them, but not their cruel behavior. A relationship where you appreciate their abilities to acquire language, to be citizens of the world, their potential to be leaders…but not their ability to ASSUME that they have inherited all of the knowledge about how these things happen.
What does that look like? That will be yours to decide. Perhaps you offer those students an option that is more to their “liking” to do quietly in a corner of the room. Perhaps that traditional “work” that they believe is so vital, but in the library where they won’t be disturbed by the work that you and your willing students are doing going on in the room. (All of this of course with the approval of your department chair and administration) Perhaps you only give these “learning” opportunities as extra credit for those extra-motivated-to-excel-on-paper
individuals. Perhaps they get a particular classroom responsibility that singles them out for responsibility and makes them feel recognized and honored, but doesn’t take away from instruction. Choices like this can be brainstormed with like-minded colleagues.
It may also mean that you include ways to recognize all students, including these kids. Clipping articles from the local paper and placing them on a bulletin board. Posting lists of the high honor roll. Congratulating scholarship recipients, Eagle Scouts, athletic accomplishments, getting a new job, the list could go on and on.
Whatever happens, have faith. You are making a difference. You already have. Above all remember…This too shall pass and you are NOT alone. It might not feel like it …but it’s true.
Midterms are over. But I worry that the mindset isn’t.
Even those of us who don’t enjoy assessment, tracking data and recording grades can get caught up in the tidal pull of measurement and the undertow of evaluation.
Well….that might be a little too metaphoric, but we ARE teachers. Since the age of 5 we’ve been playing with tests and trying to win. That is hard to let go of. Many of us were test champions and grade royalty.
(The following is my own opinion and might be considered heretic in this day and age)
I realize that we must assign grades and that students require passing grades in order to move to the next level. We have all worked hard to create systems that allow the progress our students make to be accurately reflected in the grades. Our jobs depend on it. But…in the great scope of life…
THE GRADES DO NOT MATTER. They are artificially “scores” that someone/something determined would measure value in schools. They are part of the system, BUT THEY DO NOT ACCURATELY REFLECT ANYTHING.
They certainly do not reflect value. No human being can be given a numerical value. It’s ridiculous to even think of it (although sadly, it is commonly done throughout American culture, not just in schools.)
Every moment that we see our students in terms of a number, we have lost an opportunity to see them as people.
The system, and most of the people in it, will try to change your mind about that. They will also try to convince you that YOUR value will also be determined by numbers: your students’ numbers. They will tell you that not only are students are numbers, but that we should compare students using these values. Actually, they would like us to line them up according to these numbers. They want us to believe that the students should all on the same place on a line of measurement at the same time. Finally, they tell us that the students should be moving along that measuring line at the same pace. On a day to day basis.
They are also trying to convince us that it is our job to make that happen. If we don’t, we are failures. (Yes, they use THAT word….a word we have secretly been afraid of since we entered a school at age 5)
My dear friends, that is a crock of horsepucky. All of it. Including the idea that we are special because we “earned” good grades when we were students. Grades do not make anyone special.
EVERYONE IS SPECIAL.
Its really difficult to see that. Our job doesn’t always let us remember that, even though that is an elemental part of our profession.
Please remember it.
Everyone is special and everyone is unique.
Our students are not supposed to be alike. They all enter our classes at different ages. They enter with different backgrounds and experiences. They did not learn to walk, learn to talk, learn to read their first language, learn to ride a bike, learn anything at the same rate. Why? Because while we may all be wired in the same way, we are all unique and incredibly miraculous human beings.
Have you ever seen a group of one year olds together? They are all at very different places in height, weight, ability to walk/talk etc. If they are paying attention, if they are in the classroom approximately the same number of days, they are all getting the same amount and quality of input. AND THEY WILL STILL NOT BE IN THE SAME PLACE.
Some students show growth in slow, steady increments. Others will grow in “hops”, showing improvement every two to three months….but very little in between. Others are icebergs. Everything grows beneath the surface and we see nothing…then all of a sudden BOOM! After six to eight months (or more) of nothing….amazing things are happening.
No one is really “ahead” or “behind”, despite what society might want us to believe. If the student is there, and involved, if we are providing a rich environment and comprehensible instruction, then the student is where the student is supposed to be. Period. They will move when they are ready, at the pace that is best for them. We can pay attention, and we can respond, but there is truly little we can do to change that.
And it is no reflection on us.
Hard as that is to remember.
We need to enjoy each student where he or she is….or we will lose sight of the beauty of the human brain, the human mind and the human spirit. How each and every human is unique and heart-stoppingly beautiful.
I have the honor of presenting two three-hour presentations for the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District in Dudley, MA on Friday, March 13th. The Director of Curriculum has opened enrollment to other teachers who wish to attend!!! The cost will be $50 for each of the sessions. They are designed to be an introduction to ‘the bigger
picture”…..but as you know, ANY presentation is a great place to meet with like minds. :o) Also not a bad place to invite other dept. members to experience / start a conversation. I would love to see you there!
See workshop descriptions below.
From the Director:
They can register by contacting me at this e-mail address with their name, e-mail, phone #, and District and we’ll be happy to save them a spot. We’re closing registrations on March 2nd in order to give us time to arrange rooms, etc.
Lorinda C. Allen
Director of Curriculum & Student Assessment
Dudley-Charlton Regional School District
68 Dudley-Oxford Road
Dudley, MA 01571
508-943-6888 Ext 152 [email protected]
Morning Workshop: Using Storytelling and Comprehensible-Input Based Strategies in the Classroom
This is workshop provides a demo lesson in Vietnamese along with a variety of activities demonstrating how language acquisition occurs in a classroom setting. Participants will have the opportunity to observe as educators and to participate as students. The goal of this workshop is for teachers to a) develop a better understanding of how CI is being utilized in the profession and b) examine how these activities can help teachers to scaffold the classroom towards the ACTFL recommendation of 90% use of comprehensible target language in the classroom.
Afternoon Workshop: Lighting Up Literacy in the Language Classroom
More and more often, language teachers are expected to incorporate literacy into the second language classroom. This workshop is designed to provide participants with knowledge and skills that a traditional methods program may not have provided. We will look at the literacy skills of visualization, fluency and stamina along with how to
move along Bloom’s Taxonomy at every level of language instruction. Participants will examine the use of authentic materials, textbooks, readers/novels and teacher-created materials. All activities are designed to be high-interest and student-centered.
I really hate January. Between post-vacation blues, a germ-filled building, exhausted colleauges, flu-stricken students, midterms, data analysis, reports, grading, meetings and attempting to “gear up” for a new semester, I get really worn down. When I’m worn down, everything gets blown out of proportion and I take things way too personally.
I’m the queen of taking things personally, having spent most of that past five decades elevating it to an art. :o) I have had to work very hard to listen to the voice in my head that says..’Oh that’s a good idea.” and not the one that says, “well duh!! You know that. You should do that. Why didn’t you think of that? Kids would pay attention if you did things like that. Thirty years in the profession and you still don’t have it right. ”
I’ve taken large numbers of suggestions as face-slapping criticism and used to cry on a regular basis after post-observation conferences with my principal. It’s taken a long time, and a lot of practice, to just listen to people without a strong, emotional self-flagellation reflex kicking in.
The folks in this profession are very passionate people. That inner energy sometimes leads us to extremes….whether it’s extreme dedication, extreme worry, extreme committment or extreme self-evaluation.
When I’m swinging towards the extremes, I have to remind myself of the following:
“If you are doing the best you can today, and hoping to always do better when you can…..
You are truly doing enough.”
Regardless of what your administrator, colleagues, students, their parents, and that nagging little ugly voice in your head are saying to you.
“You are truly doing enough.”
(and yes…I’m saying this to myself as much as I am saying it to anyone reading this….)
I’m sending a big thank you out to Chris Stolz tonight! Chris borrowed something that I had written on Ben Slavic’s blog and posted it on his blog: TPRS Questions and Answers
Then he gave me permission to post on my blog what he borrowed that I posted on Ben’s blog. :o) Thanks Chris!!
This post started as part of a response to my friend Skip….and then it grew from there. Thanks Skip for asking me the questions that make me think.
I never wanted to be a Spanish teacher. I wanted to teach kindergarten…or third grade. I wanted to sing songs, read stories, and introduce my students to history and heroes. Actually that is what I do, I am just lucky enough to do it via Spanish. But that is not what most of my colleagues were doing when I started thirty-plus years ago. I truly admired and respected those teachers, I just couldn’t be one of them. Maybe it was because I didn’t start out as a Spanish major (although I ended up with a Spanish and an Education degree), or maybe it was because I wasn’t very confident about my language abilities at the time….but my goals as a language teacher were a bit different.
Truthfully, I never thought that I would be able to convince teenagers to commit to memory the hundreds of rules and thousands of words necessary to master the language. I loved it, but I never thought all of my students would. And I wanted ALL of my students to love Spanish class the way 5 year olds love kindergarten (okay…think 30 year prior to Common Core!)
Thirty years ago (and more), we used to consider it our job to teach the understanding and appreciation of the beauty of the language…its history, structure, details. And we did that. Sadly, few students were able to draw on any of this knowledge after a few months….much less a few years.
We then made it our goal to teach the students the vocabulary, verb forms and highly irregular patterns so that they could also communicate with others. We created texts and materials that we thought would help our students to be able to put all of the pieces of the language in order to function while traveling, doing business etc.. But we still taught as if mastering the al to help students to communicate. It was a great deal of work, and yes.. fun, to create activities that allowed students to pretend that they could communicate in a real-life situation.
Sadly, once again, students failed to retain the language for any length of time.
It was the first reason I was so impressed with the results of TPRS and teaching with Comprehensible Input. The language stuck. For a long, long time. I was pretty excited about that!
Then along came technology.
I think that our job as language teachers has seriously shifted. And I am afraid we may not even know it.
Any knowledge about the language that students need can be found easily on the Internet. All of it. Communication can occur with a cell phone and an app. And almost instantly. And with about the same accuracy that our students used to have….probably more.
I had a great reason to switch from learning to acquisition in my classroom. But if my students can just use a machine to communicate…..why would it even matter if they acquire a language?
What IS our job now? Why would students need to be able to communicate…device-free…in a world quickly becoming overrun with devices? Why do they need us? Can’t they get all of the language they need via technology?
I think we need to be asking ourselves, and our profession, that question. What are we doing that students cannot now do for themselves…..without us?
For me (and you’ve heard me say this I think), I want my students to acquire Spanish in order to explore the hearts, minds and souls of people who speak Spanish. I want them to acquire Spanish so that they can think more deeply, express feelings to others, ask questions about the universe and SHARE that journey with people of other cultures…..and they can do that so much better in more than one language. AND WITH A PERSON…not a machine.
I believe that our job is less about teaching the language and more about using the language to teach the skill of making personal, social, historical, artistic and even political connections.
I believe that our job is about establishing relationships, nourishing relationships, growing as a result of relationships …..Relationships that are a)built via communicating so that we are understood in another language and b)built because we understand others in their language .
It’s about understanding….and being understood as a human being. It’s a job that no machine can do.
It isn’t easy to be kind at the high school. It isn’t at all cool. (and it doesn’t matter how old you are….) Nice people are perceived as stupid, or weak. These are things to be avoided at all costs.
At the high school, the operative word is tough. Tough is smart, tough is strong. These are things to be achieved and admired for.
Tough appears to be the overall winner. Tough attitudes, tough faces. Tough courses, tough tests. Tough teams, tough practices. Tough kids, tough teachers. No question,tough prevails.
Why even try?
Because Tough APPEARS to be the overall winner. Tough attitudes, tough faces. Tough courses, tough tests. Tough teams, tough practices. Tough kids, tough teachers. No question,tough prevails….on the surface. But underneath, BECAUSE tough prevails, kindess really matters. It’s desperately needed as a matter of fact.
You wouldn’t know that by teen behavior, but it is.
If you’ve ever parented a toddler, it is a little easier to understand. From the age of one to four years old, childen live in these adorable little teflon-coated cocoons. Nearly everything we say bounces right off of them. We don’t expect REALLY expect toddlers to say please and thank you. We don’t expect toddlers to be patient. We don’t expect toddlers to be responsible. Yet…we spend several years “pleasing and thank-youing” to them anyway. Even though…..we will see them throw tantrums, refuse to share, make faces, pick at their food, throw things and a number of other challenging behaviors. It is as if they do not hear a word we say. FOR SEVERAL YEARS! But we keep on trying anyway. That is what parents do. When children emerge from their “toddler-armor”, they have actually absorbed many of the behaviors we have been raining down on them since before potty-training.
I’ve often felt that toddlers and teens have a lot in common. Obsession with potty talk and bodily functions for one. Then there are the passionately emotional/stubbornly indifferent twin sides to their personalities. Both groups have moments when they are completely committed to doing things independently, even when it is impossible or riduculous to do so. AND this selective hearing issue occurs in teens just as virulently as it does in toddlers.
Then…at some point, a young adult emerges from this tought cocoon and it turns out that,yes indeed, they really had been listening all those years.
It is a rare, rare adolescent that is thankful for the kind people in his/her life. Some adolescents are too busy being focused on their struggles and miseries to be appreciative. Others don’t have the social skills to say thank you. Many would be just too embarrassed to try. But they do notice. And they remember.
True, it makes being kind a very thankless job (pun clearly intended!) So, if as human beings, we are being kind so that others will appreciate us, we may be disappointed. But, if we are kind because kindness speaks to how we want to affect the world, rather than how much we would like to be appreciated, being kind isn’t all that difficult to achieve.
Being kind opens the door for choices. It says, I can make decisions, I can be in control of my responses. It shows my students that…and it shows me that. On the days that I am worn out, feeling low, frustrated and grumpy, the choice to be kind is reassuring to me.
Being kind opens the door for additional kindness. It clears a space for the positive. It makes more good things possible. We all could use a little more of that.
Being kind feels better, physically and emotionally. Life is too short, illness too prevalent and pain too powerful to not open up a door that makes us feel healthy and strong.
Being kind communicates hope. Where there is hope, there can be change. When there can be change great things happen. I vote for hope.
It’s true that things at the high school level can get a bit more serious. If we are going to get serious, why not get serious about something as far-reaching, and life-saving, as kindness?
What a message. In the community of language teachers that I work with, we often say “Pause and Point” when we want teachers to slow down and direct the students’ attention to the meaning of a word or phrase.
This is “Pause and Picture”. Slow down and look for the meaning. I love it.
