K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple Sister

If you are a teacher then chances are you're experiencing the most stressful August you’ve ever endured. Whether your school is about to open in-person, has already opened, or whether you’re teaching virtually, nothing about the beginning of school is normal this year. Nothing.

With so much to worry about this year (Will I get Covid? Will I pass it on to my loved ones? How do I keep students physically distanced at recess? How can I teach word study with my mouth covered by a mask? What happens when the little rugrats start shooting their masks at each other?) it would probably behoove us to take a deep breath and think about these two questions:

1. What must we ABSOLUTELY get right during the first weeks of school?
2. What can wait?

I’ve learned than when things get complicated, it’s best to react with simplicity. Distill down the most critical concepts and save the others for later.

What MUST we get right?

First, it is imperative that students feel safe and loved when they come to school. Some of our students are extremely anxious about picking up the virus, some have been in neglectful or abusive situations for the past five months, and others are simply “regular” anxious about the beginning of school. Our first order of business needs to be building trust and a sense of community so that these little people can relax. Eric Jensen has shown us that stressful situations release cortisol, and cortisol has distinct negative effects on people’s ability to learn. If our kids don’t feel safe and cared for, all the teaching we do will be for naught.

Secondly, we must create and follow procedures that will make future learning possible. If you are teaching in-person, that means all the new rituals and routines surrounding CDC guidelines: how do we line up safely without touching each other? When do we have to wear a mask? What do we do with our mask when we don’t have to wear it? How and when should I use hand sanitizer? How can I use classroom manipulatives safely? If you’re teaching virtually, students must understand your schedule, create a learning spot at home, and make a plan for sharing devices with siblings and parents.

All of this will be different this year, and it must be taught. Of all the things that are new, I think this is what stresses teachers the most because we’re trying to teach kids something we’ve never done before. Therefore, while this teaching-of-safety-routines is a must, we need to give ourselves grace while we work through it. Tell your students, “This is how we’re going to store our masks when we go to recess today. We might do it differently tomorrow or next week, but if we change I promise I’ll show you how so we can all get it right.” Flexibility is the name of the game for both teachers and students.

Finally, in these beginning weeks of school we must help students become familiar with technology and the platforms/tools our schools are using. Most likely our schools will be going digital at some point this year, or at the very least particular students or cohorts will go digital if they have to quarantine. They need to be comfortable logging in and navigating the platform. This can be done through games, scavenger hunts, and simple assignments that inspire confidence rather than fear in students (and parents!). If your students are beginning the year in a digital format, it’s even more important for them to be comfortable with the technology before you introduce grade-level concepts.

What can wait?

Honestly, deeper content and grade-level standards are not important in these first weeks. Give yourself and your kids a break and instead play games to build community and trust. You might toss in some concepts they learned last year, but make sure they’re easy concepts that your students are sure to have mastered. Nothing provokes anxiety more than being thrown two-digit multiplication when you’re still unsure about addition.

Another piece of the educational puzzle that can wait? Assessments. This may be a bit controversial, especially since we know our students will likely not be academically up to speed due to last spring’s Pandemic Pause. But I still come back to the great amount of stress students and teachers are under right now. Imagine if you were on a mission trip to a third-world country and when you arrived instead of allowing you to settle in, your hosts drove you to the middle of the capital and dropped you off to “assess” your ability to find your way to the mission compound? You’d have done much better if they’d just waited a short while and let you get the lay of the land. The same applies to students. Of course, teachers are constantly assessing in informal ways from day one – speaking vocabulary, behavioral strengths, small motor control, desire to read – and these can still be done during games and routines. Just save the formal assessments until kids have settled in.

"Don't let success go to your head. Don't let failure go to your heart." - Tim Keller 

We know these first weeks of school will be hard. The only thing that’s guaranteed is change. In these times of uncertainty, keep it simple. Love your students and let them know it. Create structure that will allow for deeper learning later. And above all, give yourself grace.

Classroom Community in the Time of Covid

It’s the time of year when I find myself dreaming of school each night, but this year instead of energizing thoughts of fresh faces and sharpened pencils, my dreams are anxious ones, troubled by struggling to keep kids apart, computer programs that won’t operate, and children chewing their masks into soggy chinstraps.

Among the many things Covid-19 has stolen from us is the ability for the approximately 3.7 million teachers across the county to plan for the beginning of school. What would normally be one of the most enjoyable times of year for a teacher (Anything is possible! This will be the perfect class of eager, dedicated learners!) is instead being spent in debates between politicians, parents, and the general public with no clear right answer.

So, how can teachers find a bit of calm in this storm? How can we make plans when so much is up in the air and un-plannable? We do what we’ve always done – we think of our students first. Our students are coming, one way or the other. If we are nervous and anxious about this year, our students are much more so. They’re likely concerned about the same things as always – Will my teacher be nice? Will the work be too hard? But they’re also probably afraid of how school will be different, whether Covid guidelines will keep them from making friends, and how to negotiate this new version of school. Some will carry with them fears of catching the virus and spreading it to loved ones while others are dealing with the ongoing economic impact to their families. It’s our job to allay those fears as much as we can, and build a supportive community in our classroom, even if it’s a virtual space.

According to Dr. Mark Wilson, teachers and students who had strong, trusting relationships made an easier transition last spring to distance learning. Strong relationships build trust, and when teachers and students trust each other, much more can be asked of each. And we know this year will be asking a lot of all of us.

So, here are some ways I worked to build classroom community and trust at the beginning of each school year, with ideas on how to adjust to a digital format if that’s how school begins in your area:

• I like to help students, even young ones, understand that fair does not always mean equal. Along with sharing this image, I try to bring it closer to home by asking students to interview their guardians to find out the age at which they began to walk (in months), said their first word (in months), and lost their first tooth (in years). We then graph this information, which could easily be accomplished on software such as Kahoot (by creating answer choices with age ranges) or Microsoft Excel. We then have a conversation about how everyone grows differently and reaches milestones at different times. Similarly, not everyone will learn to read or multiply or shoot a basketball at the same exact time. Therefore, my job as a teacher is to meet you exactly where you are and give you just what you need. My teaching will look different for different students, and that’s ok.
• A classroom agreement is a great alternative to a set of rules. I like to read “The Kingdom with No Rules, No Laws, and No King” by Norman Stiles. After discussing how this applies to our classroom, we would create an agreement written in positive language (e.g. We agree to behave in ways that allow our friends to learn). An agreement with several broad, short statements tends to be most effective. If you are meeting with students via video conference this might be done best in groups of 5-7 rather than whole group to allow everyone to participate, then compile and narrow them down as a whole class.
• I also like to start the year by sending the message to students that our community values problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking, that mistakes are interesting and worth examining, so I like to put students into problem-solving situations fairly quickly. 3-Act Tasks are a great way to do this in math and could be adjusted to a video conference format. To celebrate problem-solving in literacy I love Jon Scieszka’s book Baloney (Henry P.) in which Henry explains why he’s late to class using alien terms that require careful use of context clues. I read the story to students without showing the pictures, then give partners this printout  and ask them to work together to problem-solve the underlined words (if your classroom is digital or you teach younger children the class could work collaboratively with the teacher scribing, perhaps on a shorter section). After sharing our guesses as a group, we finish by listening to the story again with pictures. It’s important that during these problem-solving activities you encourage divergent thinking and praise risk-taking. Repeatedly asking, “What makes you say that?” can help kids begin to adopt a metacognitive stance.
• Personal goal setting can be extremely powerful for students, even our youngest learners. Adapt this goal setting form for specific content areas or for certain timespans (e.g. quarterly goals). 

If you’re finding yourself in a funk (like I am) because it’s hard to find your place in this weird Covid world, spend some time thinking about the students who are on their way to your classroom community. Whether they arrive by bus or by internet videoconference, they’re coming, and it will benefit them and you to plan some community-building exercises to put everyone at ease.

What are some ways you plan to build community in your classroom? Share in the comments below

Book Review: Onward – by Elena Aguilar

This jewel of a book is one you’ll want to read very slowly so that you can stretch out the experience. It has taken me months to read it, and even now I’m sad it’s over. Elena knew it would likely have this effect, because she’s organized each chapter around a month of the year, beginning with June.

The book is about cultivating resilience in educators. Each chapter examines aspects of resilience such as emotional intelligence, storytelling, taking care of yourself, compassion, and dealing with change. Along the way she takes deeper dives into specific emotions such as optimism, empathy, and perfectionism. Each page gave me so much to think about and reflect upon that I felt the need to slow down to digest, but also share with others.

For instance, she begins the short section on perfectionism saying, “At the heart of perfectionism is the belief that, in order to be loved and accepted, we must strive to act and be the best all the time” (p. 166). This isn’t possible, of course, and so along with perfectionism comes frustration and even anger when things don’t work out perfectly. Understanding this helps me understand some people I know who at first glance appear to be angry much of the time, but underneath it all may be frustrated perfectionists. Education is certainly a difficult field if you’re constantly striving for perfection.

Her chapter on change made a big impression on me as well. Appropriately, she fit this into the April chapter, which in education is the month of testing and finding out the big changes for next year – the principal’s not coming back, or you’re asked to teach a new grade level. Change is incredibly stressful. The secret to leading change, Elena says, is to understand that most people are fearful of change, and as leaders we must acknowledge this and lend encouragement. There’s no fast way through this. “Leading change most often includes learning; in order for people to do something different, whatever it is that you want them to do, you need to address skill, knowledge, capacity, will, cultural competency, and emotional intelligence” (p. 280). She suggests setting up opportunities for teachers to reflect on their purpose and their ongoing growth. And above all, to listen.

As teachers, we all feel a complete range of emotions throughout the year. If you have lately been feeling less bounce in your step, less resilience in the face of challenge, I urge you to pick up this book. Each time I set it down after reading, I felt better, more encouraged, and filled with food for thought. Treat yourself to this book – you deserve it.

The Chameleon Effect

When I was six years old, my family moved from the big city of Memphis, TN, where my dad was an accountant, to the western North Carolina mountains. Back in the 70s, there weren’t many “ferreners” in the mountains, and we stood out like a tick on a beauty queen.

When I got a little older, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Anytime we stopped for gas at the local full-service station, my dad would always get out and talk to the owner. That wasn’t the interesting part. Rather, I was fascinated to hear my college-educated father pick up the country twang of the locals while he leaned on the fender talking about the weather, wild hogs, and deer hunting, which I was not aware that my father did. His entire demeanor changed in that situation, and I realized at some level it was necessary to try to fit in.

It turns out that this is called the Chameleon Effect, and we all do it. We tend to adapt ourselves to the surrounding social environment by changing our speech patterns, gestures, posture and behaviors to match those around us.

This morning I was in a 5^th grade classroom in which the teacher has built an amazing sense of community. She is constantly encouraging kids, celebrating their accomplishments, and having them set individual goals. As I was visiting this morning, I overheard one of her boys pass by her and whisper, “I love you!” to the teacher. She smiled and whispered it right back to him.

How many 5^th grade boys do you know who willingly tell their teachers they love them? This boy’s outward show of emotion is a direct result of the Chameleon Effect – he is taking on the same behaviors he sees modeled in his teacher. We’ve all observed it – students with a sarcastic teacher are much more likely to make biting comments to each other. “Good” students will suddenly become trouble-makers when put with a teacher with a loose management style. We see chameleons when upper elementary students must change their demeanors multiple times a day as they transition between classes and teachers with very different styles.

The good news is that kids are listening and watching. The bad news is… kids are listening and watching.

We must be incredibly tuned in to our demeanors and how we interact in our classrooms because, like it or not, we will have a couple dozen chameleons mimicking our actions. Studies show that, “if teachers ask lots of questions that everyone knows they already know the answer to, then often students ask teachers questions they tend to already know the answer to – questioning becomes a performance rather than an inquiry” (Hattie & Zierer, 2018, p. 137).

Do you feel like your kids aren’t listening to you? Is it possible that you’re not listening to them?

Do you kids love being at school? Are they picking that up from you?

This is one reason that establishing community is so incredibly important in classrooms. It’s not just a feel-good fluffy thing. It actually changes student behaviors and thought patterns as they mimic us. Hattie & Zierer say, “the more intense our relationships are, the more closely we imitate each other” (p. 137). It’s worth examining our students’ behaviors for what we wish were different, and then considering how we might model those behaviors when we interact with them.

Your students are chameleons. What types of behaviors do you want them to take on when they enter your classroom?

Hattie & Zierer (2018). 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning

Questioning Game for Coaches

I recently attended a great conference on The Art of Coaching hosted by Elena Aguilar, the author of the book The Art of Coaching . I've read a lot of books on coaching over the past ten years, but Elena's perspective stands out because of her commitment to social justice throughout the text. She helps us move beyond looking only at the interaction between coach and teacher to consider the implications of systems thinking, systemic oppression and change management, among others. Her book is changing how I think about coaching, and I have a feeling I'll be referring to it in future posts as I digest and attempt to apply her approach.

Elena mentioned that in coaching interactions, the coach should only speak about 1/3 of the time. This stems from her belief about coaching, which I paraphrased as: Most of the time, people are able to solve their own problems. Therefore, coaching should be about helping people solve their own problems. To do this, we need to let teachers talk, we need to draw out their beliefs and help them connect these to their actions, we need to tap into who they are being and who they want to be, and we need to understand their core values.

Over the course of the two day conference, I realized that I am much more tempted to solve people's problems for them, in an effort to be helpful and speed things along, instead of doing the harder and often more time-intensive work of helping them grow themselves so that they can solve future problems on their own.

To get better at this, I think I need to start by listening more, so I'm going to attempt something I'll call the Questioning Game. It's based on those Improv game shows where contestants can only ask questions:


I'm wondering if making myself ask a series of questions will encourage the person I'm with to think through their dilemma and possibly solve it themselves. I imagine it might go something like this:

Teacher: I'm really worried about my low group of kids. Their DRA scores show they're reading more than a year below grade level and a lot of them struggle with writing anything more than a couple sentences.
Coach: What have you tried so far?
T: Well, they all go to Mrs. Y for intervention and she's working with them on sight words and some of the comprehension strategies. But they miss most of my writing mini-lesson because they're gone to intervention, so I'm worried that they're falling even farther behind in writing.
C: Do the kids have to leave during that time? Is there a way to rearrange the schedule to make it work?
T: Well, unfortunately the intervention teacher's schedule is tied to everyone else's schedule, so I don't think she can pull them at another time. [pause] I wonder if I could move my mini-lesson back a little so they could be here for that and leave when we do independent reading?
C: Would you feel better about that?
T: I think so. Then they'd get to hear the mini-lesson from me AND receive intervention.

Of course, it can get awkward to answer everything with a question, so if I'm ever at a loss on a question to ask - like the comedians in the clip, there's a point at which you draw a blank - then rather than trying to solve the problem for the teacher, I'll try to restate what they've just said. I find that easier when restating emotions: It sounds like you're frustrated with this situation for instance.

In today’s stressed world, it can be tempting to take the “most efficient” route by solving people’s problems for them. But then they don’t own the solution, and can leave the interaction feeling less energized and empowered than when they arrived. So, my new goal is to ask more questions and act as a mirror by restating the thinking teachers are doing as they talk with me. I’ll let you know how it goes… 

Facing Down Imposter Syndrome

Becoming a coach is not an easy transition. Actually, part of being human is realizing that there are no easy transitions - becoming a teenager, moving to a new home, getting a divorce - most change is hard for us fragile beings.

I suppose much of it comes from discomfort with a lack of control. Most of us like feeling that we know what we're doing, and transitioning to a new place or a new position puts us in a place of Wobble, as my friend Bob Fecho calls it. Wobble is good however - it means we're changing, growing, and learning, becoming more than we were before. But it is also often uncomfortable.

Sometimes, those of us in this period of change subscribe to what is called Imposter Syndrome, or the feeling that we should “fake it til you make it." Imposter Syndrome is that uncomfortable feeling that you SHOULD know something, that others are depending on you for the answers, and that to not know them would appear weak. It can manifest as a feeling of guilt or shame or even in some cases in defensive behaviors such as anger.

I remember as a new coach, in a new building of teachers I didn't know, I felt I had WAY more questions than answers to give people. After several days of telling folks I would get back to them, I didn't feel like I'd helped anyone with any thing. I wasn't at all sure that they'd hired the right person for my job, that perhaps I'd just be better off going back to the classroom where at least I knew what I was doing. I remember wishing I could skip the next two years and just magically become an experienced coach who knew the answers.

If I'd had the words to label what I was feeling as Imposter Syndrome, I think it would have helped. I needed to know this was a perfectly normal feeling for a new coach, or even for a new teacher or new principal. I wish I had confided these feelings to someone, and that they had advised me to enjoy the Wobble that came with this new experience. There would only one time in my life I would be a new coach, and I could learn a lot from the experience if I only let myself reflect on it, pay attention to it, and use it.

If this is you this year, or if your next door neighbor down the hall is new this year (to the school, or the grade level, or to teaching), watch for the ugly evidence of Imposter Syndrome and do your best to squash it. Instead, tell yourself (or the other person) to enjoy the Wobble as a sign of growth. Embrace the chance to stretch yourself. And know that to not know something is never a sign of weakness. It is, instead, a sign of transition as our fragile selves change into something new.

The Power of Teachers

Years ago, on the first day of school, Nicholas walked into my classroom. Nicholas was a full head taller than the other kids, and though he wasn't necessarily older, he was much more confident than the other newly minted second graders. He hadn't come with his parents to “meet the teacher” afternoon earlier in the week, so I hadn't been sure he was still enrolled at our school, and yet here he stood at the door to my trailer classroom loudly asking the nearest kid, “This Mrs. Wall's class?” before walking in like he owned the place. His parents were nowhere to be seen - this 7-year-old had gotten off the bus, asked around, found our class, and simply presented himself. It was a perfect depiction of his personality in a nutshell, and it gave me a hint of how he would take charge of my class in the coming days.



Kids like Nicholas are in every classroom in the country. Kids with louder-than-the-teacher voices, kids who expect their classmates to obey them, kids who struggle with reading, and kids with very little parental support. It would have been very easy, that first morning, for me to harden my heart to Nicholas and mentally set him up to be the problem child, the negative mascot of the class who garnered most of my attention and whose name my husband would come to know from my daily rants.



Something was different that year, however, and for some reason I chose to really learn who Nicholas was and try to get inside his head. Perhaps it was because it was the second year I had done home visits with all of my students, and something about seeing these kids' earnestly cleaned bedrooms and their drawings on the refrigerator, and being introduced to the family pet while mom cooked Hamburger Helper suddenly brought into focus where school ranked in the overall picture of their lives. While I had Nicholas in my classroom for 6 ½ hours a day, there was another world in which he lived that we teachers had never seen.



Kids like Nicholas are why I love teaching. The power we hold in our hands as teachers is stomach-droppingly powerful. We decide whether a kid has a good year or a bad year. We can influence how a parent responds to their child, how that child feels about himself, and whether school becomes a place of love and safety or a place of shame and self-doubt. How we choose to respond to a child, every child, contributes to those children's beliefs about themselves and their own abilities for years to come. It's an awesome responsibility, and one we should be fully conscious of as we enter these first days of school.



My hope for teachers as this new year begins is that we all have the contemplative space we need in our days to be fully aware of this power we wield. Here's hoping we can come to understand the stories behind all of our little Nicholas's.

 

Fair Isn't Equal

It's the time of year when students and teachers are cramming in last-minute vacations before the fast-approaching first day of school. If you're a teacher, then most likely you're already dreaming “school dreams” at night and having day dreams as well. I always love the planning part of summer, when anything is possible and my optimist self foresees all my plans going perfectly in the upcoming year. Yep, THIS year I'll be organized, efficient, and downright inspirational to the best group of kids a teacher could hope to assemble in one place. Then reality hits as soon as every kid arrives bringing a bag of notebooks, folders, and reams of paper, none of which have their name on them, and somebody's crying and another one's mom wants to stay for the first 3 hours and my best laid plans are out the window before 8:15.

I do know, however, that however chaotic those first hours are in the classroom, one of the most important things I do during that crucial beginning time is to establish through my words and actions what kind of place this classroom will be for the 25 or so kids and I who inhabit it. Everything I say and how I say it is watched ever so carefully by kids those first hours, and so no matter how messy the pile of notebooks and folders, I have to prioritize and spend time creating community. My actions and words need to communicate that this is the kind of place where you'll be expected to think, where we value what you think even if we don't understand or agree with it, and where it's safe to be different and creative and even wrong.

Something I love to do on the first day, after everyone is settled and I've gathered everyone on the rug to tell them a little about myself, is to share with them an anonymous quote written large on chart paper: “Fair isn't equal. Fair doesn't mean everyone gets the same. It means that everyone gets what they need.” We talk about what this means, and how my job is to figure out what each one of them needs and their job is to help me find that out. Everyone in our classroom is different and has differing needs. One person might need me to help them come up with ideas for writing while another person might have plenty of ideas but need help organizing them. Some of them might love multiplication but need help with fractions, while others are just the opposite. People are complicated beings, which is why teaching isn't easy, but it's always interesting.

As I'm explaining this, all their faces are turned towards me, listening intently, not really sure what I mean. Some of them want to trust me, but if they've struggled in school they may be wary of being the one that's “different,” the one who sits in the special desk or sees the teacher every day for interventions. They don't really trust that I'll treat everyone's needs differently or that I'll ask their opinion about why they feel the need to distract other kids in circle time or that I really do want to hear about the fort they built behind their house during a writing conference. That will come later.

For now, they have homework: find out from their parents at exactly what age they learned to walk, say their first word, and lost their first tooth. We spend the next few days charting these facts so that I can once again reinforce the idea that we're all slightly different, just like snowflakes. And if our bodies grow at differing speeds, reaching these milestones at different times, then our minds and how we think develop the same way: at different speeds and at different times, but we all DID eventually lose our first tooth, right? We all did learn to walk and talk. So too will we all learn the things we're setting out to learn this year, but it won't happen at the same time for each one of us. And that's perfectly okay, because that's only natural.

It's my job to find out exactly what they need as students, and it's our job as a classroom community to help each other get there. It should be what being in school is all about.

New Beginnings

The power of teaching is no more evident than at the start of the school year, when our classrooms fill with scrubbed faces full of fear and hope about what the upcoming year will bring. As the leader of the class, we have the power to make it a year the child will remember until adulthood or, conversely, the ability to define the child as a troublemaker or “slow learner” and begin a hatred of school that could last a lifetime.

It’s an awesome amount of power.

But it’s also one reason I love those first weeks of school, as exhausting as they are. As a classroom teacher I saw it as the opportunity to help kids define school as an engaging, safe place where I expected them to treat each other well and think outside the box. For many kids, this was a different way to look at school from their experience thus far. It took a few weeks for them to understand they couldn’t just sit back and play it safe or mistreat their classmates like they always had. The constant vigilance I held, to establish routines, watch for and praise new behaviors, prompt deeper thinking, and redirect negative behaviors, was exhausting. But it paid off in the connections we built as a community as the year progressed.

When I taught first graders, I learned a technique from another teacher for helping them become more independent and to feel ownership of their learning. I spent some time telling them the parable of the fisherman who, rather than give the poor man a fish, taught him to fish so he might eat for a lifetime. I really fleshed out the story, described the characters, and built up to the climactic ending. And then I made the connection to our own classroom. I explained that my job was like that fisherman – I wasn’t going to give them fish, but I was going to teach them to fish so they’d be self-sufficient for a lifetime. From that day on they learned not to “give each other the fish” when helping a classmate, but instead to teach them to fish by giving clues or hints that helped their teammate learn. When they struggled with reading a word at home, parents told me they’d hold up a hand and say, “Don’t give me the fish!” and they’d work to figure it out themselves.

Common experiences and “inside jokes” like these serve to bind a group of students together into a community of learners. One 5th grade teacher I work with, Debbie Bagwell, showed the video below to her students and has made “the power of words” the theme of her first few weeks of school as she establishes community with her all-boy classroom.




The power of words is reflected in the power we hold as teachers. We create the nature of the community that makes up our classroom. How do you establish your community in your classroom?