Breakthrough Moments: One of the Rewards of Teaching

One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching for me is that moment when I finally feel like I've gotten through to a student-- possibly making a difference in their life by helping them to feel good about themselves.  Such a moment happened to me on Friday...

As teachers, we've all had those students who've tested us, to try to figure out our limits and to push our buttons.  For me this year, that student is Sam.  Sam enjoys making off topic comments to make his peers laugh and laughing at inappropriate times.  Then he has difficulty getting back to task.  At first I tried talking with Sam, explaining why his behavior was problematic.  He seemed to understand.  I asked Sam what he could do differently to change his behavior the next time.  Although he always seemed to have the right answers and even apologized, inevitably, the behavior remained the same.  When asked why he was acting that way, he would reply, "I don't know."

After talking with Sam's classroom teacher, the three of us sat down together, to talk with Sam about how he would be held to the same expectations by all teachers.  That didn't work.  Since the classroom teacher had had Sam in third grade as well, she had already established a close working relationship with his mom.  Sam's mom was very supportive when the teacher called her and then she had a long talk with Sam.  Still the behavior continued.  A few days later, I called Sam's mom.  Once again, she was very supportive and asked me what I thought we should do.  I explained that I thought it was very important for Sam to know that we are all on the same page, that we are all in communication with one another.  Although this was a crucial part of our conversation, it wasn't what interested me the most....

As a dyslexic student, I work with Sam on both reading and writing, especially in elaborating upon his thoughts.  In third grade, he was not very expressive in his writing.  So at the beginning of the year, I was thrilled to witness Sam's voice shining through, loud and clear on a piece of paper, whatever form it came in.  Sam's class had been required to write what Lucy Calkin's calls a small moment, taking an individual event and writing about it descriptively so the reader can picture what happened in their mind.  When I read Sam's piece it wasn't written in this style, however, it was a good piece of writing.

Not wanting to squash Sam's enthusiasm for this piece, I borrowed a technique that I had learned about this summer from reading Katherine Bomer's book (Hidden Gems: Naming and Teaching from the Brilliance in Every Student's Writing)  In her book she talks about providing students first with feedback about what they are doing well in their writing before giving constructive criticism.  Sam was using a technique that Bomer discusses that good writers use-- modeling their writing after a style that a good writer uses.  Sam had written his paragraph in the style of Jeff Kinney, author of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  Sam's small moment was funny, filled with commentary and a huge dose of his voice.

After complimenting Sam on his writing style, his body seemed to swell with pride-- he sat up straighter and a smile spread across his face.  Afterward, I had to explain to him that in fourth grade, he needed to practice the more descriptive style of writing in school.  But outside of his assignments, he should continue to practice writing in Jeff Kinney's style.  Although Sam was disappointed, he seemed to understand.  However, for some weeks later, I did not see that same spark or enthusiasm in Sam, or in his writing.

In talking with Sam's mom, I mentioned to her his first piece of writing.  Unbeknownst to me, that very afternoon, he had shared it with his mom.  Sam's mom, proud of him, sent a copy of his piece to his grandparents.  She told me that he had been very excited about it.  This story inspired my second piece of advice to his mom about what would be helpful for Sam-- providing him with plenty of positive reinforcement about what he is doing well.

The next day, Sam came into school, completely turned around.  He was attentive, polite, dutiful in focusing upon and completing his work, and even resisted his peers' attempts to engage in inappropriate behavior.  Usually one to complain about having to write and to ask how much more until he was done, that day, Sam wrote an entire small moment paragraph.  His voice appeared back within the lines of the page, but this time, also included the descriptive style required of fourth grade students.  Sam enjoyed my praise of his piece, responded well to constructive criticism, and even thanked me at one point in the session.  He asked if he could begin a second small moment and was excited to hear that he could. 

In my ninth year of teaching, I'm not naive enough to think that Sam's fooling around behavior and testing of limits will never again rear its ugly head.  In fact, I am confident that it will resurface from time to time.  What I do know is that my opinion of Sam changed that day.  I saw a student in front of me who could control his behavior and genuinely did want to do well, as all students do.

At the end of the session, I called Sam into the hallway.  I told him that I had talked with his mom the day before and she had told me about sending a copy of his story to his grandparents.  Sam's body once again swelled with pride and he looked up at me, smiling, his eyes wide open as I explained to him that we were going to xerox a copy of his most recent small moment so he could go home and share it with his mom.

About 45 minutes after the last bus pulled away from school that afternoon, I called Sam's mom to thank her for talking with him and that whatever she had said to him had worked.  She was glad to hear it and thankful for my phone call.  When I mentioned that we had xeroxed his newest great piece of writing to bring home, she told me that it was already hanging up on the refrigerator.


Questions to Ponder-- Choose one or both of these to think about.

1.  What is a breakthrough moment that you've had with a student?
2.  How do you use positive reinforcement to help students feel good about what they are doing in the classroom?

Joyfulness in the Classroom:)

In talking about standards for education, politicians often discuss curriculum frameworks and standardized testing such as the MCAS, the Massachusetts Curriculum Assessment System.  During the Courage to Teach Institute I participated in this summer, it was very refreshing to see a new kind of standard that was presented to us:  a standard for joyfulness!  The following is an early draft toward a standard for joyfulness in school and classroom for Hillcrest School in Turner Falls, Massachusetts, October 2008.

"The importance of a successful start is well recognized.  What is too often overlooked, however, is that a successful start involves more than just skills and socialization.  It involves instilling in students that learning is a joyful experience and schools can be a place of joy."  Robert Balfanz.  What Your Community Can Do to End Its Drop-out Crisis:  Learning from Research and Practice, John Hopkins.  May 9, 2007.

Joyfuness is important because it fosters lifelong learning.  A joyful learning experience should help children feel empowered by:
*Engaging them in meaningful activities.
*Making them feel comfortable with their surroundings built upon trust and validation.
*Having pleasurable interactions with peers, adults, and materials.
*Having a school communitywhich is predictive and focused on each other's strengths.
*Participating daily in free exploration of learning opportunities.
*Starting and ending the day positively.

As a teacher who often works with students who struggle with learning, it is especially rewarding to witness these students having joyful learning experiences.   When I first read this standard this summer, two memories immediately popped into my head.

1.  One of the many concepts that I teach fifth grade students who are working on dividing long words into syllables is the schwa sound.  The schwa sound is an unaccented syllable in a longer word that is often pronounced "uh".  One day, Amy, a fifth grade student with long blond hair, bounced excitedly into the Learning Center to tell me what had occurred in her classroom.  She told me that another student had looked up a word in the dictionary, came across an upside down "e", and her teacher asked the class if anyone knew what it meant.  Amy's hand shot up-- she explained that the upside down "e" represented the "schwa" sound and told the class what that meant.  Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm as she described how impressed her teacher had been.  Seeing the joy and pride in Amy-- in her eyes, the way she related her story, the way she carried herself-- was truly a great experience.

2.  Another memory involves a group of fourth grade boys preparing for the statewide MCAS test.  It was our last session before they were to take the Long Composition portion which requires them to write a narrative essay (about five paragraphs)-- rough draft and final copy in the same day.  It was unbelievable to see a dry and boring topic (reviewing what to look for when proofreading a piece of writing) turn into a joyful learning experience!  I taught the kids how to write acronyms to help them remember what they need to look for when proofreading.  This sport-loving group of boys decided to write acronyms based on the four major Boston sports teams:  Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.  Other acronyms were created as well and the students reveled in creating acronyms of real words and sports teams, incorporating the information they needed to remember.  As a teacher, what was really cool was seeing some of these students actually write down and use the acronyms on the day of the MCAS! ( http://thoreau.colonial.net/Teachers/Kalikstein/Writing-- Fourth Grade Revision/ Editing Checklists)

I think that a school system that places such a high value on joyfulness, such as Turner Falls, must be a really exciting place to work.  Not only do students learn and retain more information when they are engaged, but learning is also more fun when it is joyful!

Questions to Ponder:

*What does joyful learning look like in your classroom?
*Think of a time when a student or group of students were joyful-- Why were they joyful and how did they exhibit their joyfulness?
*As a teacher, when do you feel joyful in the classroom?
*As a learner, when have you felt joyful in a learning experience?


ADDENDUM
One of my favorite features of blogs is their interactive nature.  After receiving several responses, both on the blog itself and in separate emails, the wheels in my head started turning once again...And so I add this addendum to the original entry.

Joyful learning environments can be created in a classroom when the adults have a joyful time in  planning instruction and in presenting the material.  That's one of the things that I love about co-teaching with my colleague, Brenda--  the fun, joy, and excitement that goes into planning lessons.  That energy then gets conveyed to the students, resulting in a joyful learning experience:)

One such joyful learning experience involves a crazy professor....

In Massachusetts, fourth grade students are required to take a standardized test in English Language Arts.  On this test, they are required to read fiction and nonfiction passages, and answer multiple-choice and open response questions.  Some of the topics of these passages are not always captivating in the minds of nine and ten year olds.

In order to help combat this situation, Brenda and I modeled a strategy called the Crazy Professor which brings a lot of energy and excitement to what could otherwise be a dry topic.  In short, one person takes on the role of the Crazy Professor and the other, the role of the student.  The Crazy Professor reads a passage with a lot of emotion and excitment to the student.  There are various stages to the process where the passage is read multiple times with different things occuring during each step including telling the story excitedly using gestures, telling the story from memory, the student asking the professor questions, etc.  The culminating step of the activity involves the Crazy Professor enthusiastically retelling the passage from memory while the student frequently repeats some of the information, exclaiming how interesting it is.

As Brenda and I modeled this strategy for the students, our joy, laughter, and enthusiasm spread throughout the classroom like wildfire, igniting the students' energy.   When it became their turn to try out the strategy, all of the students were fully engaged, animatedly being both professors and students themselves.  That day was definitely one of the most fun and joyful teaching and learning experiences that I have ever had.  And the topping on the cake...a few days later, many of the students could still retell and remember the information from the passage!

Fueling the Flame of Teaching: Reflecting on Great Teachers Who Inspire Us

Teaching is an art.  As we all know, teachers can affect our love or hatred of a subject.  A great teacher can instill within us a love of learning, a thirst for knowledge, and can encourage us to pursue areas of interest, take risks, and ask questions.  For most teachers, at some point, a teacher touched our lives in some way and inspired us to become life-long learners, and possibly even teachers ourselves.  Reflecting on what made these teachers of ours so great fuels the flame of our own teaching, reconnecting us with why we were inspired to teach in the first place.

For me, two of my high school teachers vividly stick out in my mind.  Although they have very different teaching styles, in their own ways, they both instilled within me a love of learning and created models for me of what it means to be a great teacher.

One of the toughest teachers I've ever had, Mrs. G held high expectations for all students in her 10th grade honors English class.  If you achieved a "B" or below on one of your papers, you were expected to revise it.  Revisions were optional for additional credit with a "B+".   Although frustrating when revisions needed to be made, I always wanted to achieve an "A" and for Mrs. G to be proud of my work.  She kept me motivated by first commenting on what I had done well in my papers.  By remarking on my strengths from paper to paper, she reinforced them for me-- making me continue to do them well.

When required to revise, Mrs. G gave constructive criticism that was specific, so I knew exactly what I needed to do.  My papers were always scored with a rubric, so I knew what I had done well, and for revisions, I could clearly see what changes needed to be made.  Mrs. G never expected us to perform a skill that we didn't know how to do and provided us with an appropriate amount of scaffolding.  For example, when she realized that the majority of the class was having difficulty writing transitional sentences between paragraphs in our essays, she displayed models on the overhead projector.  Mrs. G showed us various techniques on how to connect ideas from one paragraph to the next.  Then she expected us to try out these techniques when we went back to revise our own papers.

Mrs. G taught us how to be life-long learners, teaching us skills, strategies, and ways of thinking that we would be able to apply to our work in 11th grade, 12 grade, college, and beyond.  She taught us how to think, how to dig deeper  into character motivations, symbolism, and quotations.  Mrs. G gave us tools for organization-- she taught us how to use outlines and notecards to organize a ten page research project, tools that I continued to use throughout college and graduate school.  She taught us the power of reflecting on our work by having us create a portfolio at the end of the year, having us choose a written piece from each of the following categories and then writing about why we chose it.  (Important Piece,  Satisfying Piece,  Unsatisfying Piece, and Free Pick)

Mrs. G's influence did not stop at her classroom door.  As the faculty advisor of The ROAR, the art-literary magazine of which I was Co-Editor in-Chief during my senior year, Mrs. G supported our interests outside of the classroom as well.  Giving us pointers on how to select literary and art work, and giving us advice on effective layouts, she guided us through the process of putting together an art-lterary magazine.  Mrs. G showed us that she cared by supporting our endeavors and sharing her expertise and her time.

Mr. O was a different kind of teacher all together.  He had the superb ability of turning history on its head, in his American History AP class, in the best way possible!  Mr. O could bring even the most seemingly boring topics to life by developing creative assignments that were engaging and required us to really think, analyze, synthesize, and apply the material. Studying the process of how a bill becomes a law could have been dull and boring in the hands of a less capable teacher.  In Mr. O's class, we were each required to research a topic that we would want passed into a law and write a paper.  Then our classroom was transformed into the different branches of government, as our bills went through the process of becoming or not becoming laws.  While the process was pretty well replicated, the outcomes were not!  Within just one class session, we had banned animal testing for cosmetic purposes and legalized both prostitution and marijuana!

Mr. O also inspired us to analyze and think outside of the box by presenting assignments in unexpected ways.  For instance, for one assignment we were required to write about why the American Revolution was unjustified.  Another assignment became a murder mystery.  "Pretend Grover Cleveland was assassinated.  Make a chart that lists the prime suspects and their motivations.  Who do you think most likely did it?  Write a paper explaining why you chose the suspect and explain their motivations."

What was truly incredible was the effectiveness of Mr. O's teaching practices.  He told us at the beginning of the year that he did not believe in teaching to the AP test.  As a result, since I felt like I hadn't been preparing for the test all year, I decided not to study much for it.  I was pleasantly surprised on the day of the test on how well prepared I felt, being able to write quite knowledgeably about content we hadn't covered since October.   But the way that we had covered it, made the material stick in my brain.

What I have found to be most admirable about Mr. O was that after that year he decided not to teach the AP class anymore.  He decided that all students deserved high quality teachers, not just the honors students.  Instead, Mr. O decided to teach classes of students for whom school was more of a struggle, where learning was more challenging.  

Reflecting back on both Mrs. G and Mr. O, there are so many of their teaching practices that I try to use with my own students:

1.  Pointing out and reinforcing my students' strengths
2.  Having high expectations for all students
3.  Scaffolding assignments appropriately
4.  Using models
5.  Giving specific constructive criticism
6.  Teaching my students skills and strategies to help them become life-long learners
7.  Having my students reflect upon their work
8.  Supporting my students' interests and teaching to them when I can such as with calligraphy classes
9.  Making learning fun, while challenging at the same time

Working with students with a variety of different learning profiles and learning styles, I am constantly trying to find new ways and approaches of teaching information, skills, and strategies to students.  By presenting information in multiple ways, my goal is for all students to be able to access the information and engage with it meaningfully in their own way.  My hope is that when students engage with material in a variety of ways it will help make the learning stick for them, just like it did for me in Mr. O's class!  I also hope that they will continue to use the skills and strategies that they learn throughout their educational careers, as they become lifelong learners.


Questions to Ponder:  Who have been the great teachers in your life?   Why were they important to you?  What made them good teachers?  How have they influenced who you are as a teacher today?