What Dreams Reminds Us Of

Last night I lost control of my class.  It was a dream, of course, it being Sunday today, but I have had this dream before.  The students are older - nothing likethose  older students to be disrespectful.  The classroom is crowded - poor teaching conditions.  The task is simple and yet they don't understand.  They talk amongst themselves.  They get up and move around to talk.  They are too busy, too bored, to listen to me.

So I raise my voice and I yell at them.  Except in this dream I always start to lose my voice thus leaving me  feeling powerless.  The students proceed with their misbehavior.

They rush into the task I have created, they do it wrong.  I signal for their attention by yelling but I cannot yell over the crowd.  They ignore me and we do not get through what we need to.

They start to answer my questions but they are doing it all wrong and the frustration increases until finally the bell rings; class dismissed. the students are upset, I am ready to quit teaching, and my heart is pounding.

The first time I had this dream I thought it was a reflection of me and it was; how I used to be.  How I used to control my classroom.  Yet this dream is nothing like my now classroom.  The students are the perfect age for me, they are moving around because they learn better that way.  They pay attention when they need to and I barely ever raise my voice.  Instead I wait until I get their attention and then provide them with the task.  But the biggest difference; the task itself.  In the dream the task is meaningless, not tied into anything, and totally controlled by me.  In reality our tasks are building blocks, shaped by the students and with a bigger purpose.

So I wake from  my nightmare shook up but aware that i have changed my reality.  That I no longer thrive on controlling my students but relish the freedom they have in my room.  Relish the community we have built.  relish the learning happening.  My brain may be playing tricks on me but it does serve a reminder of why I changed my classroom philosophy; I did it for the students.

Related articles

• Why Trusting Your Gut Can Be the Best Classroom Management Course You Ever Take (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• The Story of the Child that Changed Me (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• How We Became that Room (mrspripp.blogspot.com)

No Size Fits All - Some Thoughts on Prescribed Systems in the Classroom

I am sometimes asked what system I used in my classroom; which system do you prescribe to to get them to act this way, which system do you believe in for your philosophy.  I always feel like a disappointment when I tell them, "None."  It is not that I am pioneer within education, or a maverick, but rather that I don't believe in systems.  A system to me means prescribed, a system means rigidity, rules to follow, and scripts to use.  I tried that for 2 years when I first started teaching and it failed, horrifically and miserably.  My classrooms doesn't work that way, it doesn't fit into a book description.   So while some people may say I fall under whatever system they think, I always giggle a little because the truth is much simpler.

I follow the Pernille system.  The one that says to listen to your students, give them a voice, get out of the way, and then change your mind when needed.  The system I use has no book or no guidelines but only common sense and a lot of reflection.  I don't manage my children, they are not stress I must constrain.  I guide them, they guide me and we trade spots more often than I can count.   I do not read a book to see how I should train my students the first week of school; they are not circus animals getting ready for a performance.  Instead we get to know each other and we laugh a lot because laughter is a key ingredient in my life.   I do not hide the "real" Pernille from my students because I believe education must be authentic to be meaningful.  My students share their emotions and opinions whenever they can.

I know that if I wanted a book-deal or masses of followers I should call my system something, my husband jokes about that all the time.  That way people could refer to it and ask themselves, "Well what would Pernille do?"  And then they would be confused as to why my system wouldn't work as well for them, because  a system has to be as personal as your classroom.  You borrow, you steal,  you get inspired by others, but in the end your voice and that of your students is the one that needs to  shout the loudest and it needs flexibility and adaption skills.  So trust in yourself, sure read the books, ask the questions and then reflect; what will you do and what will your students do?  Hint:  It requires conversations with your students to create your own system.  Good luck.

Related articles

• This is My Room - How Controlling Ones Classroom Can Send the Wrong Message (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• 10 Ways to Make it "Their" Room (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• The Real Reason Kids Are Missing From School (coopcatalyst.wordpress.com)

Ten Picture Tour - Plus One

Inspired by three fantastic people Cale Birk @birklearns, Katie Hellerman @TheTeachingGame and Jabiz Raisdana @Intrepid Teacher, I am happy to open up and share 10 pictures + 1 of my school environment.  So this is West Middleton Elementary...

The long hallway that I walk countless times a day.  Our building has been added to  3 times at least, each time it seems, adding another hallway.

As the founder of the Global Read Aloud, we have the Little Prince watching over us and all of the connections we make around the globe.

A very unmessy desk day, usually I have piles of stuff my students want me to watch or read, as well as all their work.  However, I leave a clean desk every single night - sick habit.  Notice my daughter's picture on the computer, I change it weekly so the kids can see her too.

The school lies off a busy road leading out of Madison but my window looks into the playground area.  I have the most divine sunlight come in and we almost never have all of our artificial lights on in the room.

We are taking part in the Students Rebuild crane folding, I never knew how to fold origami before this and the kids are way better than I am.  It has been amazing to see student leaders emerge in this and the kids get fired up over helping others.

Being a native Dane I was raised on the fairy-tales of Hans Christian Andersen so a big thrill of mine is the annual fairy tale unit I do.  We go all the way back to the gruesome versions and then discuss the moral of the story from back then.  Right now we are reading "The Little Mermaid."

A special collection of gifts for a care package we are mailing to Mr Foteah's class in New York City - Matt, no peeking!  

A Venn diagram given to me by my favorite Nolan.  He surprised me with it on our last day together as a split class.  One circle is him, the other is me.  If I ever have a bad day; this is what matters.

Another reference to The Little Prince reminds me every day what my teaching philosophy is; if the kids fail, it is my fault.

They put me in the kindergarten wing, which means I get to look at incredible colorful art every day.

A glimpse at our office run by the amazing Sue.  Our school is fighting bullying and 5th graders have put up slogans all over.

 For other amazing 10 picture tours make sure you check out:
@mmhoward: http://bit.ly/gIjcDg@johnnybevacqua: http://bit.ly/gxJDqH
@birklearns: http://tiny.cc/18o9s@justintarte: http://tiny.cc/kawd1
@thetheachingGame:  http://ow.ly/4vGcW 

Put Your Name on the Board - a Tale of Why I Gave Up Classroom Discipline Systems

Image from here

Put your name on the board! Those words spoken in a very stern voice accompanied by a teacher look was enough to whip the toughest student into shape. Except when it didn't which for me was enough times to make me wonder. Could my discipline systems really be thrown out and replaced with nothing? Would chaos then reign supreme?

If you had come by my room last year you would have seen them. Those sticks in the cups or the names on the boards with checks, sometimes double checks and plenty of stern looks to go around. I was doing exactly what I had been taught in school, exerting my control as the main authority figure and if students misbehaved, well, then there was some form of punishment. Oh don't worry; there were plenty of rewards as well. If students didn't move their stick or get their name on the board for a week then their name got entered into drawing for pizza with me. At the end of the month if they didn't have their name in my book for not doing their homework, they could also enter their name, and then I would finally draw names and five lucky students would have pizza with me. Confused? I was! I could hardly keep check Of all those names, checks, and punishments.

However, last year I realized something after reading Alfie Kohn; I knew I had to change. By perpetually focusing negative energy on the same students, who, lets face it, are most often the ones having their name singled out somehow already, I was indeed just adding more to their self doubt. While I believe in discipline for all students, I also believe in compassion and that philosophy simply was not fitting in with my chosen system. So I did as many teachers may do; I threw it all out. However, instead of hunting for a new system, I decided to detox myself, start this year with no system for reward and punishment and instead strive to create a classroom community where students just know what the expectation is.

I was petrified that first month. I run a tough classroom in my expectations for my students and I know that if you do not set the tone those first weeks, it can be detrimental to the rest of the year. And yet I held strong in my conviction that even the more unruly students would eventually figure this out through repeated conversations and respect. And boy, did we talk. We talked about expectations, rules, how to speak to one another, and what to do when something goes wrong. A lot of the time, I just listened to these amazing students come up with solutions to problems, listened to them explain how they envisioned our classroom, how they wanted fourth grade to be. And I was in awe; these kids knew how to behave without me telling them over and over. And they certainly would figure it out without me alternating punishment and rewards.

So after the first month I started to breathe again. I let our new system flex itself and watched the students help keep the classroom stabile. Sure, there are times when I think ooh if I just had a way to "punish" it would fix this and this and then I realize that perhaps I just need to find some time to speak to that particular student. Now instead of an exasperated tone and a system to keep them in check, we discuss, we try to fix, and we reevaluate. I don't run the classroom with a complicated system of checks and balances, rewards and punishments, but rather with an atmosphere of community, of belonging. Is it perfect? No, but neither am I, nor my students. I am just glad I believed in my own skills enough to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, my students would know how to behave without me rewarding them for it. Once again, they blew away all of my expectations.

Related articles

• Surprise; The Biggest Obstacle in The Classroom Isn't Your Students (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• The Story of the Child that Changed Me (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• 5 Steps to Letting Go and Learning More (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• 10 Easy Things You Can Change in Your Classroom Today (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• This is My Room - How Controlling Ones Classroom Can Send the Wrong Message (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• What Would Pernille Do - Some Thoughts on Prescribed Systems in the Classroom (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
• How We Became that Room (mrspripp.blogspot.com)

The Perfect Classroom

Did you see those students? How focused and engaged they were? Did you see that quiet classroom, that looks to be the perfect classroom. My insides cringe. Quiet = learning, since when?

I used to be a believer in quiet. After all, if the students were not quiet how could they listen to all of my wisdom? After all, I was the one with the degree, the answers, the path, the years, and mostly the responsibility for any and all learning. I was a trained professional and they were just students, empty vessels ready to be filled.

And then I thought about all that energy put into saying "shhh...." into asking for silence, not to speak with partners, face me, me, me, me. But it wasn't about me and it never should have been. It is about the students and them finding their voice, the knowledge, the confidence to believe in themselves and their brains.

So my perfect classroom now: a little messy, (after all learning is kind if messy), student-owned, pods, choices and that wonderful noise of learning. There are still guidelines, we are not crazy, but there is life, excitement and joy. So if you walk by my room and think we are a little bit loud, hey, that just shows there is learning going on.

Letting Students Rule

Social studies was getting stagnant with packetwork meant to establish background knowledge for a Native American simulation. So work before the fun; going against my philosophy. The students kept asking amazing questions to which I replied that maybe later we would study that.

So I decided to do a circle discussion of social studies and the kids asked me if they could please research something of their choice about Native Americans. Sure. They even had ideas for how they would present the info: posters, models, skits, glogsters, research papers - boundless creativity.

So today my room was filled with noise, kids partnering up, books being shared, questions being thrown out and discarded, research being questioned. In short; it was beautiful.

A Teacher's Biggest Fear

Last Thursday I had a parent meeting for the students that will be in my 4/5 class.  We had set up this opportunity since my school has not had a combination class for a long time and therefore wanted all questions and concerns addressed before orientation day.  It was a great turn out and a great night, something I wish anyone could do really before they start the school year.  And although there were many great questions, the best one was, "What is your biggest concern?"  My answer was "Building community."

I am sure many would have thought I would have answered how to get through the curriculum or something of that nature but that does not worry me as much as building community does.  And I am not alone with this concern.  Every year, when we start a new year, we want the best class possible.  We want our students to walk away from the year feeling that they belonged, that their teacher trusted them, respected them and that they had a genuine voice in the room.  No longer is it my room, but ours.  So community, that old catch phrase, is the one that keeps me awake.  

Since we are a combination room, community has to be a major focus right away.  Some students know each other and a lot do not.  However, that is true for almost any class.  Students tend to congregate with like-minded peers but often at the 4th grade level we start seeing some of the first shifts in friendships as students spread their wings a little and discover the world.

So how do I plan on building community, well let me count the ways....

One thing I am big on is language; language can destroy or build up.  In this case being a combination room rather than split class says a lot about how I feel.  We are a fusion, a combination, not something that is split off from the school, from other classes, other kids.  My welcome back bulletin board says, "We are a Terrippic Combination" and a bag of Combo's, one for each student, with their name on it, is stapled around the door.  This is the first things students see; combination rather than split.

I hate ice breakers.  They are awkward and contrived.  Rather we need to create a common purpose and that purpose is to have an amazing learning experience together.  So our first week activities reflect that.  We will be creating a digital scavenger hunt through questions made up by the students, they will decide what is important to know and find in our room and then do a voicethread presentation on it.  I will share my Animoto with them and invite them as a class to create one of our vision and class environment.  Armed with cameras and ideas students will lead this as well.  We will come up with filmed definitions of what student, classroom, and community means and share them on Wordia.

Students will come up with what they would like to be called when I do need to split according to grade level.  I don't want to continue calling them 4th and 5th graders, those words stick, whereas the birds and the dogs or something else does not remind them of their age difference.  We will talk about ourselves, our families, our hopes, our worries.  And then we will talk some more.  Although curriculum is super important, these first days and weeks set the tone for the rest of the year.  

So as I continue focusing on community, I wonder, what other teachers are doing?  What works for you, what will you never do again?  I have many small exercises as well that I will not bore you with, but what are the big things that leave students smiling, ready to learn?