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The Myth of the “Recipe for Success”

Faige Meller, a friend in my PLN recently wrote about mindsets:

“One of our teacher mindsets has been to follow rules. We ask kids to follow the rules, because that’s what we as teachers do. We might not like to admit that some of what we do is part of the recipe of schools; schedules, routines, classroom design, classroom rules, administrative directives and so on and so forth.”

Reading this instantly took me back to a memory early in my first year of teaching. During a teacher education course, I had been given a piece of advice from a professor: “At your first job, ask for the standardized testing data right away. Your principal will love you!”

Wanting to make a good impression, I did just that — before the students had even arrived for the first day of school, I asked my administrators for that data. And like magic, it worked. They seemed pleased.

But I couldn’t shake an unsettled feeling. Faithful to the “recipe for success” I’d been given, I did indeed look over the data — but it turned out that it didn’t tell me much anyway. What was more troubling, however, was the fact that I knew I hadn’t engaged in any sort of authentic relationship-building. I had simply demonstrated that I was willing to be a compliant hoop-jumper.

Don’t get me wrong — willingness to be a “team-player” has its place in any work setting. However, it seems that too often, we’re willing to stop there. As long as the job gets done, why go further? Why bother with real relationship-building? Why push the status quo? That advice I had been given as a pre-service teacher definitely promoted that mentality.

Maybe it’s because we don’t want to give advice that has any degree of uncertainty to it. But John Spencer illustrates the role of that uncertainty well:

by John Spencer

If we’re always “sure this will work,” we choose the comfort of certainty over the messiness of opportunities.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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How Our Desperation for Results Skews Process: Potty-Training Edition #TeacherMom

Potty training. I doubt I’m alone when I say it’s the bane of my parenting existence.

Because it’s not just the task at hand — with a child that’s highly suspicious of toilets, at that.

It’s the pressure.

Pressure to prepare the child for “what’s next” (ie, places where diapers are frowned upon. Like junior high school, for instance).

Pressure to keep the child from falling behind peers.

Pressure to be reminded that on average, those kids in Japan are getting potty trained way earlier than kids in this country.

Teachers, sound familiar?

As parents and teachers, we all set forth with ideals to cultivate empowered, autonomous, thriving kids. But as the pressures rise like flood waters seeping into the bottom of a boat, we start to bail out everything to do with process in a desperate frenzy to get results.

And that’s generally when treats, bribes, and punishments start taking a more prominent role.

The biggest concern with this isn’t that we’re trying to help our child make progress in their development. It’s that we start working from a place of fear instead of understanding. When we’re driven by fear, we no longer start with the individual child and his needs/readiness. We instead start with ourselves: our timetables and our pressures. We listen less and dictate more.

We can start with the child while still inviting him to move forward in his progress. But whether it’s potty training or reading or multiplication facts — be sure to reflect & check that fear at the door!

featured image: Mark Michaelis

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“Mommy, What’s Rape?” (addressing those unexpected extracurriculars) #TeacherMom

As parents, we tend to expect that our kids will pick things up from classmates at school.

Like comparing who has seen what movie, who can afford some new gadget, who is allowed to have a phone, or even who knows what swear words.

But I never fathomed that rape might join the list of discussion points among first graders.

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her, asking her where she had heard that term.

She told me that before school had gotten out a couple weeks ago, she heard another student dare a kid to rape a classmate.

She had also heard the word used by the Witch in a song in Into The Woods, so we added alliteration and non-literal word usage to our list of sophisticated topics of the day (thanks a lot, Stephen Sondheim).

Once I recovered from the initial shock that I was having this conversation with my 7 year-old, it wasn’t as difficult as I would have imagined (had I actually been able to anticipate that conversation to begin with, of course).

And I realized that there were some important lessons to be shared as both a teacher and a parent when it comes to these “unexpected extracurriculars:”

#1: Keep the communication channels wide open at all times. This advice shows up in the parenting books so often that there are probably readers out there rolling their eyes right now. But let’s get a little more specific with this.

Had my response to questions about sensitive subjects in the past been met with embarrassment or shame, I seriously doubt my daughter would have been willing to ask more.

We also needed time together when she felt comfortable striking up the conversation — for some parents, that’s in the form of a bedtime routine that includes specific questions like, “What made you feel happy today?” or “Was there anything that made you feel confused?”

#2: Build off your child’s existing schema. Part of me wondered, is now the time for the talk? But I knew I did not want her introduction to the topic to revolve around sex at its very worst.

So, instead, we built our discussion around concepts with which she was already familiar. In this case, I focused on the notion that we have always taught her that she is “the boss of her body” (meaning that no one has the right to touch her body without her permission). Thus, the information came across as a more natural next step in an ongoing discussion, rather than an onslaught of bombshell-style information she may not have been ready for when she asked her innocent question.

#3: Revisit the idea of safe adults.  This entire facet of our conversation reminded me just how complicated it can be to ask our children to talk to adults when someone says or does something that makes them feel uncomfortable. What if it’s a friend who says it? How do we know when we should just walk away, or when we should get help? How do we tell if what they are saying is actually threatening people’s safety? Who are the safe adults at school we should talk with?

These and other questions are essential and not nearly as straight-forward as we would hope. But as long as we keep it an ongoing discussion, we can hopefully increase the odds of our child learning to correctly discerning the answers.

As we become more aware of the unexpected lessons our kids and students face, we will be better equipped to help them navigate them. Please share ways you have approached these kinds of lessons with your kids at home and/or in the classroom.

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into Color

Color. Seems like one of the more straight-forward aspects of our world, but lately, I’ve come across several resources to make me wonder. And since that’s what these provocation posts are all about — inviting wonder — I thought it would be fitting to dedicate a post to color.

At first glance, you might think an inquiry into color would only have applications in art, but it is much more rooted in the social and physical sciences than I would have guessed! So take a look and see what might inspire your students to dig into the deeper concepts for their next unit!

Resource #1: The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin & Rosana Faria

How do you explain color to someone who can’t see? A fascinating picture book of raised images to represent the different colors!

Resource #2: “Kids Describe Color to a Blind Person” by WatchCut Video

Speaking of color and blindness, check this video out of kid attempting to explain it to a man who is blind!

Resource #3: Colorscope series from CNN

The Kid Should See This has compiled all the videos into one page here.

Resource #4: The World’s Deadliest Colors by TedEd

Provocation Questions: 

  • How does color work in our society?
  • How have the perspectives on color changed over time?
  • What are reasons humans care about color?
  • How has human fascination with color impacted our world over time?
  • How is color related to perspective?
  • What is the relationship between color and human health?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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How Ownership Can Get Rid of “I Suck at…”

Think having students self-grade and reflect is fluff?

Think again.

Over the course of a 15 year study, John Hattie analyzed over 800 meta-studies to identify effects that have the strongest impact on learning (and he is constantly updating this list through continued studies). Self reported grades is almost at the top of the list of over 150 effects.

It beat out motivation. It beat out home environment. It even beat out “decreasing disruptive behavior.”

The truth is, students know a lot more about their own learning process than we so often give them credit for.

Which brings me to the issue at hand: When a student claims he/she “sucks at ___.”

When I hear that claim, I hear a student that has become convinced that their personal rate of learning is inferior to classmates. That because their progress has not looked identical to their peers, it must mean they are defective. That their learning is fixed, hopeless, and beyond theirs or anyone else’s reach.

Now, discouragement is normal for all learners from time to time. But when said discouragement is also rooted in learning that feels irrelevant or imposed, we’ve got problems.

Enter student ownership.

Any time we empower students with tools to take their learning in their own hands, we are giving them ownership.

Self-assessments are one such powerful tool.

Michael BondClegg recently wrote about giving students the opportunity to write their own report card comments, encouraging teachers to help students identify “ways in which learners can identify their strengths and areas for growth” and “plans for improving.”

This may seem trivial, but really, it turns the whole “I suck at” model on its head.

When a teacher fills out the comments, it perpetuates the whole “this is out of my hands” notion.

When a student is encouraged to fill out those comments in this way, it places the learning back in the students’ hands.

A student in diagnostics mode is student on her way toward a stronger growth mindset.

 

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Green Kids Craft Box Review #TeacherMom

Thanks to thoughtful grandparents, my daughter received a subscription to the Green Kids Craft Box for her birthday. She gets to look forward to a fresh box each month, and I don’t have to pull out my hair trying to make room for one more toy. Win-win!

First off, what’s in the box? Over the course of two boxes so far (one with a Green Energy theme, the other with Robotics), my daughter has:

  • built a self-propelling wooden boat
  • baked herself a cookie in her own solar oven
  • launched “rockets” using a straw
  • built an art-bot that drew for her
  • navigated courses with her magnetic robot
  • Created a pulley “Glide-bot” (which now resides on our filthy sliding glass door)

As a mom and a teacher, I absolutely love that she has something to fuel her curiosity and creativity for hours on end.

My favorite element of this box is the fact that it provides interdisciplinary opportunities:

  • She has to read loads of instructions (which are very detailed with pictures), so she’s working hard on her reading and comprehension skills.
  • She has to take a lot of measurements, so she’s developing her ability to convert between inches and centimeters, along with other basic math skills.
  • Science skills are by the boatload here (pun intended, I guess, as she actually did build a little boat): hypothesizing, experimenting, data-collecting, reflecting, etc.
  • Even engineering and art (definitely a win for the whole STEM/STEAM endeavor) get a work-out as she has to figure out pulleys, gears, and brads, plus general aesthetic design.

I’m guessing that if I spent enough hours combing Pinterest, I could maybe find most of these activities. However, the fact that I don’t have to go hunt down a bunch of obscure materials is worth my time. And there really is something magical for kids about receiving your own little parcel in the mail made just for you, especially with the added anticipation of a monthly subscription!

Overall, I’d definitely recommend these boxes to the 5-8 year-old crowd!

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Provocation Into “Outside the Box” Thinking

This week’s provocation that, at face value, may seem a little more abstract, but that has a wide range of applications. You might be beginning a unit about inventors, or perhaps one on algebra, or maybe even some creative writing. Whatever the case, there is power in beginning a unit in a way that is a little less obvious, and a little more mysterious. The intrigue not only helps to hook our students’ interest, but it provokes deeper questions. This in turn leads them to broader concepts that tend to carry more relevance, meaning, and universality (at least, more than the compartmentalized memorize-and-forget content they might otherwise prioritize).

So with this introduction, I share two resources on thinking outside the box!

#1: “Unexpected Outcome” Video series by  Daihei Shibata

https://vimeo.com/207244733

For a compilation of additional videos and photos, visit The Kid Should See This.

#2: “1+1=5” Picture Book by David LaRochelle

My 7 year old was absolutely delighted with all the possibilities, and loved predicting them based on the pictures before turning the page.

Provocation Questions:

  • What does it mean to “think outside the box?”
  • What does “thinking outside the box” have to do with perspective?
  • How does thinking about the world in unexpected ways help us as learners?
  • What is the value of perspective to our communities?
  • What is our responsibility to think outside the box?
  • What are ways “outside the box” thinking has helped the world change and grow?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto