In the past few years, writing has been my solace...my go to...my place to be vulnerable in the hopes at least one other person can connect. But I have literally sat in this same spot, every Saturday for the past month- and I have been frozen. I have so much in my head to share, but could not get any of it out- for various reasons. But today, I feel compelled to push past those and pray that it is the right thing. When I was out of the classroom, I often spoke and wrote about #cultureovercurriculum - I was even asked to write a book chapter on that subject. I whole-heartedly believed in it, because in the 14 years that I was in the classroom- my colleagues and I were encouraged to take the first month to get to know our kids, to build culture. Curriculum could wait. And I did and it did. Now, jumping back into the classroom- I believe it now, more than ever. But it's hard. It's dam* hard. And once again- I apologize to any educator that may have felt judged or frustrated with my words or ideas while I was out of the classroom. I believe that we connect through stories, so here is just one of the many from that past (first) 28 days of school. From day 1, *John stood out to me. He was loud, he was disruptive, he filled up every quiet breath I took. He struggled to stay on task, he struggled to not cause others to be off task, he was disrespectful and he didn't produce any work. He obviously needed something. Every time he was asked to do something, he would come up and tell me he "couldn't do it". I didn't know these kids, I didn't know him. So I was spending my time trying "manage", support and learn about 27 kids. I hate to admit, for the first week or so, I just told him "You can do it, just do what you can" and then moved on. Since this was the beginning of the year, I gave the class work that was a low cognitive load. Just so I could observe and learn about them. This shouldn't have been a struggle. #knowbetterdobetter When I gave collaborative work, John seemed to thrive. He was excited, he shared his ideas and he wanted to share them with me. To this, I gave him my full attention, asked questions and praised his thinking, his effort and how well he was contributing to his team. I saw a light in his tired, sullen eyes and the beginnings of a smile. The next week, while the students were writing, I finally sat down for a second to watch them work. I don't have a desk, so I just sat on the chair in the front of the room. I saw John get up and start walking, thinking he was going to go and disrupt another table. I just watched. He proved me wrong, he came all the way up front, to me. Whiteboard, paper and pencil in hand. He pulled a chair up in front of me and said "I need help.". Those three words, flipped the switch in me- woke me up to remembering why I was there. I had been so busy trying to "manage" various behaviors- I forgot my "why" - "To encourage and support others". I was there to help. So I looked straight into those eyes and saw John for the first time. And so we began. He said he needed help writing, so I asked him to tell me, what he wanted to write. It was a great sentence and I asked him to start with the first word. He couldn't. I asked him to start with the first sound. He couldn't. This "woke me up" even more. He is in third grade, how was this missed? So we sounded out each word together and I let him write the sounds he heard, even if they were misspelled. I encouraged, smiled, high fived -all the way through one sentence. When I said "Look, you did it.", his response was "No, you did." Heart broken, eyes opened. I could continue that story, but the important part was, I learned a TON about that kid in 10 minutes. I learned that he had a huge confidence issue, I learned that he thought he was not only "bad" but "not smart". I learned that he craved attention and NEEDED the positive. But something I also assumed from that interaction, was that if he was a struggling writer, he was a struggling reader. Maybe he struggled with all academics? The next day, during math. He did his thing, where he spun on the rug, (we tried alternate seating as well), fooled around and disrupted. So my assumption was- he wasn't paying attention, he didn't understand- he's probably low in math, too. After we finished one of our first number talks, I dismissed the class for recess and he came up to me and asked if he could show me how he solved the problem. I handed him the marker and watched as he wrote and explained his thinking. About 10 seconds in, I stopped him- he looked scared. I said "You are not "in trouble"" (Something I realized I have been saying quite often in this class) "John, this is amazing math thinking, may I video you explaining it and show the principal"? He beamed and went to work- and I WAS FLOORED! I praised his thinking and told him I was so proud- and sent him out to recess. I went back to his desk, took out his Expo marker and I wrote on it. When we lined up to come in from recess, I asked him if he would like to "teach the class" his way. It was beautiful. I learned a lot more about him, that day. A few days later, he came up to me again, to help him with his writing, this time we were writing digitally. I asked him if he knew about voice typing and he told me that was cheating. So we had a discussion about it. In that discussion, I said "You are a very smart boy." His eyes were skeptical. Then I said "Do you believe me?"- he shrugged and said "Dunno" and looked down. I said "Has anyone ever told you that?" - he said "No". So I made him look in my eyes and I repeated "You are a very smart boy, and here are some examples....". We repeated that conversation with "You know you are a very kind boy, right?'- I didn't know what else to do- my heart was breaking. So I just grabbed a post-it and wrote "John, you ARE smart. You ARE kind. Love, Ms. Orlando" and told him to stick it somewhere that he could read it often. I found it that afternoon on the front of his desk, where it faced him every day. Fast forward last week, when I finally started listening to kids read. I fully expected John to be a struggling reader, based on his struggle with writing. And he proved me wrong, again. The kid could read AND he could comprehend. This was an interesting mystery. Yesterday, he whipped through some math work, so I had him bring his white board and marker to me and I went back to my Kinder/first grade days and had him draw three lines and sound out CVC (three letter) words. He was able to do it, but it took some effort. Then we moved on to four letter words and that was where it broke down. So we did a mini-mini lesson and he said "yeah, it's words like this that confuse me" and I responded "Well, now we know where to start and we will work on this together". *An interesting by product was during that time, another little girl, who also struggles with writing and is new to the language walked over with her white board and marker and asked if she could join. Aha! The start of a skills based small group. Why am I sharing this story (that actually has many more facets to it)? Because I am so glad that I took the time to get to know this kid and others. He is intelligent and good hearted- he just has many other things blocking the world from seeing it. Now- can we do this with EVERY child in our care? I wish we could. But I can pretty much tell you what makes each of my 27 kids tick, what they seem to excel at, what they seem to care about, what they seem to struggle with. And we are working on finding things that work for them. As a whole, this class CRAVES attention and they CRAVE and respond to positivity. So that is what we do. They are slowly trusting me, that I am not going to turn on them. Every day is an up and down for us all in that room...but the "ups" out weigh and the positives are what we talk about, what we put our attention to and what we celebrate. The content is making it's way in and the change in their ability to explain their thinking, talk to each other about the content, collaborate and share is unexplainable. So when I hear educators say that knowing our kids is not important, that our job is to just teach them and keep them "in line"... I have to remember these stories and believe in my heart, that what I am doing, matters and it works. Students can not focus or understand the content, if they don't feel safe, cared for and understood. On that, I WILL NOT waver. So is it worth it? For me, and overwhelming he** YES! Afterward: Thursday, as we were cleaning up to go home, John came up to me and asked "Ms. Orlando, am I smart?". I looked at him, smirked and said "John, you know that I believe you are smart. Go look at that post it I wrote you." And he just beamed.
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Whoa... just finished day 16 in third grade and I feel like I have aged 16 years! I am finally forcing myself to come up for air and reflect. I have been wavering on whether to write or not. But as always, I decided to go for it, to be real, because my hope is that it can help someone else...so here goes... I wrote a personal positive message on each desk to start the day. Then we had a talk. As my principal walked in, I was saying these words "Alright guys, I owe you an apology. Remember how we talked about #failforward moments? Well I had a big one." To which they were all perplexed. I told them that I expected too much from them at the beginning of the school year. That I didn't do my job in teaching them the routines and reminders of how we we act in the classroom. I told them that we were starting "Day 1" over and we were going to focus on the positive in class. Here is where I want to pause for a second- We started over. And it was needed. In Brene' Brown's book Rising Strong she says "You can't skip day 2". In that she means that you can't just brush over the hard stuff, the messy stuff- you have to put in the work. I tried to skip our "Day 2", so to speak. I tried to go from "Hi, we don't know each other" to "Let's get busy and work as a family." Without support for them. #failforward! So rather than keep snowballing into a mess, we stopped and we restarted...and I don't feel guilty. Others may think I'm crazy, because we have "so much curriculum to "cover". but I have to stay true to my belief. #cultureovercurriculum "We need to reach the students,to teach the students." What these kids (and my principal saw) was humility, humanity and realness. I showed them that there is no "perfect", that we are going to fail and how to use that "failure as feedback" as Dave Burgess, says. How to admit mistake and move forward. Great convos about grit, perseverance and resilience- and they REALLY dug it. I was a bit taken aback, when they asked what the word "positive" meant, but so glad they asked. We had a really great discussion on the difference between positive statements and behaviors vs. negative ones and how each one makes us feel. We role played saying positive things to each other. We wrote them around the room. We watched a "Kid President" video and they pulled out the "Awesome Quotes" and charted them. And the positive "vibe" has just taken off from there. I don't believe that they still fully trust me on this... I still hear them say things about themselves being "bad"- or that they "can't do..." to which we have a talk. Sometimes their faces look like I am speaking a foreign language, but I have vowed to be consistent and I can't even wrap my head around on the pay offs, thus far. We still have many struggles, and we will continue- such is life. But every day when they leave- I find those bright spots- and they are usually the "heart spots". I see changes in them. I see empathy, kindness, understanding, beginning of confidence, helpfulness. But I also see them testing it and me. They want to know if I am going to break and go negative on them? The answer is and always will be "NO". My call to action is this: Be kind to yourself - this is HARD work and we are going to struggle. But it is through that struggle - we learn and grow and so do our students. Take time to reflect and and if you need to do a "restart" of some things... do it. It matters.
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Mother, Teacher, Presenter, GCE Level 1 & 2, Encourager of others.
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March 2019
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