MISSION: Create a society that can...

I've been thinking about the discipline post that I ran across yesterday. Especially after I had a run-in with a notorious student. I had a bit of a wake-up call....or a remembrance.

I decided to teach at this school because I was tired of people feeling sorry for these students. Compassion, Empathy, and Understanding are essential characteristics of educators however, as with everything in education, they need to be handled with balance.

Students are given many chances because we feel sorry for them, because we are aware of their background. I appreciate this sensitivity. However, at some point these students learn to be dependent on their extra chances. They stop being grateful because they are always given a "free lunch." It works well for us here, but then they leave here and go to a world that, frankly, doesn't give a s@#$. What life are we teaching them to live if we don't expect them to step up to the plate, and they'll be given a third and fourth chance if they don't?

What if we expected them to use their diversity to become strong people who knew how to help themselves?

What if we expected that they could handle the little extra pressure, because they already are used to carrying an extra load?

Then, would we create students that were leaders?
Then, would we create students who could think and handle tough situations with ease?
Then, would we really be doing our jobs?

If we don't take student behavior serious enough...and laugh it off too many times...I believe that we are setting the student up for failure.

Yeah, we can be nice. We can be friendly...but we need to do it in such a way the the student understands the seriousness of his/her actions.

On the other side of the same coin, we can be tough...but we need to do it in such a way that discipline is a learning experience and that we do it because we care about the student.

In the long-run, my job is to make adults and productive members of society out of my teens. I can do this by making sure they understand that, as a society, we have norms and values that everyone follows.

"The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal - to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can't end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves."

--Scott Turow, Author of Presumed Innocent and Limitations (from my Starbucks coffee cup)

Classroom Management = Student Engagement

I believe that student engagement begins with a well planned lesson. Lessons and activities should be meaningful to students and keep them engaged.

I've heard teachers talk about teachers at other schools who get to have professional conversations about content and instruction rather than behavior.

But what if we began having that content and instruction conversation first....would that cure most of the behavior issues?

I'm proud to say that my colleagues, spurred by an amazing AP, have begun to have such conversations. I am even prouder to say that when we listed the things we want discuss and change this year...we never mentioned behavior...not until our facilitator brought it up.

I think that if the focused switched from behavior issues to meaningful exposures to content, then, students would be fully engaged and have less behavior problem.

It won't cure all student issues...but it will go a long way to helping!

Dr. Lange told me last year that his wife was assigned a "tough" 6th grade class for the upcoming year. Luckily, he said, she had taken her dog to training the summer before. She learned a valuable lesson: control their environment.

The first step in successful classroom management (besides an engaging lesson) is controlling the environment. Don't give them opportunities to get themselves in trouble! My students are opportunists....but hopefully with the right control and nurturing, they will use this skill in a positive way....and not an annoying one!

This week I experienced a few 100% days: 100% engagement from 100% of my students 100% of the time....It wasn't because I threatened or had them all facing front...they were up, discussing, moving around: they couldn't help but be engaged. I controlled their environment. Hopefully, as I hone my teaching skills and polish my teaching art, I will experience more and more of these days....

These are days when its great to be a teacher.

do-overs

The thing with teaching that can be both good and bad is the number of do-overs we all are allowed. Students get do-overs with new classes, teachers, semesters, years and even days....teachers get do-overs with about the same frequency.

The hard part is balancing these do-overs with consistency. As long as standards and expectations are high, they can be flexible with how they are measured and achieved. I can change my mind with how things are run to fit the situation, this happens as each second passes. --Sometimes I feel sorry with for my para-professional; I give her an outline of class but, everyday things have to change depending on the mood of my students, my mood, the content, and random events throughout the day!

The great thing with education is that I can change things until they work for me and my students....I don't know very many other "jobs" that this can be said for!

This week I start a new unit-- and have a few "do-overs"
My Social Studies class just finished their first unit and assessment. I am always amazed that students work on projects for about a week and then have nothing to turn in when the project is due? AMAZING!

They created a Newspaper using an edclass template describing the causes of the Civil War

My thoughts and reflection on what will change in the future and what worked:

Students changed their assigned groups

• Students who stayed in their assigned groups had something (good) to turn in
• Absences made the groupings hard
• For the next few projects, students will work independently
  

Students changed and stole other students' work that we saved on the network

• work for the next few assignments will be in google docs
• use classroom money or mini-grant to purchase each student thumb-drive

Students copied and pasted from internet

• Explicitly discuss what is appropriate to take and how to site it
• discuss

For this unit I'm going to give them all of the objective rubrics in advance in a folder and have all of their work be done in google docs. The folders will stay in class and will be used in our weekly conferences.

I have been rethinking blogging as well, so maybe I can get it off the ground now!