Hack 3: Repair the Harm
1. “Either we spend time meeting children’s emotional needs by filling their cup with love or we spend time
dealing with the behaviors caused from their unmet needs. Either way, we spend the time.” - Pam Leo, Author. What does this mean to you? 2. What is the importance of identifying the stakeholders? 3. Why should students repair the harm? 4. What is the importance of reintegration of the student?
5. Why should every consequence be restorative and logical?
Hack 4: Throw Out the Rules
1. What are some downfalls of having “rules”? 2. Why are broad expectations more useful? Bonus: List some examples of your expectations and how
you might improve them. 3. What do you/should you do when students break expectations? 4. How are you going to implement this in the classroom or through school-wide practices?
Hack 5: Create a Growth Mindset
1. Interpret this quote for a school setting: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right”
- Henry Ford 2. Students are expected to put themselves out there daily and learn new things. What is the last new
thing you learned? Talk about what it was like to do something you previously didn’t know how to do. 3. How can a fixed mindset affect restorative circles or a student’s behavior in general? 4. What are ways to intentionally teach and model a growth mindset?
Hack 3: Repair the Harm
ReplyDelete1. “Either we spend time meeting children’s emotional needs by filling their cup with love or we spend time dealing with the behaviors caused from their unmet needs. Either way, we spend the time.” - Pam Leo, Author. What does this mean to you? I think in this case I have two ways of looking at it. The first way I look at it is do I invest the time in helping my student deal with whatever emotions are causing them problems and making their learning more difficult or do I let them struggle through? If I let them struggle through what is it teaching them a lesson in perseverance or is it causing them more internal problems. The other way I look at this is does this situation occur with multiple students and could taking the time from an entire class lesson benefit me in the long run. How often do I see my students come in frazzled because they misplaced last night’s homework, forgot their book, and the list goes on. I might invest the time in teaching organizational skills and good practices to help deal with those emotions. It’s like all the time we invest in anti-bullying campaigns and practice to prevent bullying. We’re trying to show the students what to do and how to act but the meaning isn’t always right there. When we take the time in the moment to do just that students connect to it better.
2. What is the importance of identifying the stakeholders? I think for me this goes back making sure everyone who is affected by the problem gets the chance to heal. I look at this like the parents who don’t realize how their divorce is affecting their child. If we don’t take the time to figure out who is being hurt, why they are being hurt, and what needs to be done to fix it chances are we are creating more damage that needs to be undone or the spiral will continue.
3. Why should students repair the harm? If students don’t repair the harm they don’t get a chance to heal themselves. I’ll go back to what I said in the discussion we often hear of people saying I don’t like so and so because of something that happened years ago. They don’t heal and they spread that hatred around to other people for something as simple as a mistaken comment.
4. What is the importance of reintegration of the student? This situation while it makes sense is harder for me to get behind. When a student has done serious damage to a classroom by causing a difficult scene we want all the students to be ok and move past it. If we wait for students to make the repairs necessary to reintegrate into the classroom what do we do? This book talks about how removing the students from the classroom prevents their learning but if they aren’t ready to be reintegrated how do they handle their education?
5. Why should every consequence be restorative and logical? Honestly the first thing that I thought of when I read this question is one of the many things I hated about a school I worked in in 2018. If students were failing or behind in classes this school would pull them from classes and put them in ISS to help them catchup. So they catchup on past work but miss everything for that day. How does that even make sense or help the student be successful? Students need to have consequences that make sense for their actions and help them do better next time. So going back to my absurd example from the top instead of ISS an organizational class and time management may have been more successful and logical for students.
Hack 4: Throw Out the Rules
ReplyDelete1. What are some downfalls of having “rules”? Rules always have exceptions and circumstances where they aren’t followed. It makes it very difficult to progress when things constantly change. It’s also hard to create new rules after the older ones have established because there are always new things that come up.
2. Why are broad expectations more useful? Bonus: List some examples of your expectations and how you might improve them. Expectations are easier to enforce because they can be manipulated to each situation. They also prevent that what if question from the most abstract student. Expectations that I like and think work are 1) Be Safe using all materials, thoughts, and behavior 2) Be productive make sure that you are doing something to fulfill your duties in the classroom 3) Be respectful to everyone around you. I think these help students to learn to be the best version of themselves.
3. What do you/should you do when students break expectations? Ask why! That’s the first thing what don’t I know that I need to know about the situation. Once you know why figure out what the best course of action is.
4. How are you going to implement this in the classroom or through school-wide practices? I think you start with things you can control easily. Be respectful is the easiest expectation to enforce because we can help the students redirect their comments to express what they are feeling without being rude.
Hack 5: Create a Growth Mindset
ReplyDelete1. Interpret this quote for a school setting: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right” - Henry Ford This is how students see things. They either can do it or they can’t do it there’s no practice or in the middle. We can encourage students and help them to succeed but if they think they can’t do something well they can’t do it and if they think they can do something they’re going to do it.
2. Students are expected to put themselves out there daily and learn new things. What is the last new thing you learned? Talk about what it was like to do something you previously didn’t know how to do. The last new thing I learned I can’t even think of something solid. I know it probably has to do with parenting and some tip of trick but I can’t come up with something specific and that makes me sad. I can tell you that when I became a mom I was scared being in charge of someone else life and making decisions about their life that was scary. Learning how to care for a child and about their needs isn’t something you know how to do in every instance. I always share my mom struggles because that’s how people learn.
3. How can a fixed mindset affect restorative circles or a student’s behavior in general? Fixed mindset means no growth. If you’re not willing to accept feedback and criticism you can’t get better and you can’t grow. If you’re not willing to grow then you can’t heal and can’t move forward. Students that don’t want to move forward aren’t going to be able to take restorative circles seriously. They will be the people who make half hearted attempts but not really progressing.
4. What are ways to intentionally teach and model a growth mindset? To intentionally teach growth mindset by encouraging positive talk and helping students see their achievements. So often students struggle with things and then when we finally get them we don’t let them bask in their achievement we just move on. Help students celebrate those small things and encourage them.
Teaching has become so much more than it used to be. We are called on to do way more nurturing and counseling than I ever expected or needed from my own teachers. At times I feel overwhelmed by this but I know how important it is. As for learning new things, I feel like I fail daily at counseling and nurturing with one student or another but I keep on trying and pride myself in trying to make every day a clean slate with kids. They are trying to navigate their worlds as best they can and should be allowed room to make mistakes. I think you said Nicole that kids don't know how to be awkward. I think they also don't know how to fail and this is so important and teaching them a growth mindset could g o far in helping them to "fail up". It is not as easy as it may sound. When I read Amarra's story I wondered how those mentors felt when Amarra lasted 30 seconds before losing it. It's hard to maintain hope when growth seems to take so long. I think we have to recognize that what we are doing when we model, explicitly teach and use restorative practices we are making an impact but it may not be seen for a while. We shouldn't stop trying. These strategies are ones I think I have been working toward for a long time and I think I am getting better at them but it remains a struggle even after 2 years in the classroom. Kids need to know we care enough to have clear and consistent expectations, they need to know how their actions impact their communities in large and small ways and that we expect them to take responsibility for their actions and to take steps to make the community whole again. Students need to be given permission to fail and that includes grades. I did not always agree with no late fees, redos or grade replacements but I have become a firm believer. If mastery is what we are looking for, they deserve the full grade once they master the material. We need to cultivate a climate that embraces failure and risk taking and we can't do that without putting ourselves out there too.
ReplyDeleteI agree and I struggle with the counseling part. Sometimes I'm good at it and sometimes I fail miserably but I think it comes with time. I made notes about the late fees, redos, or grade replacement because it bothered me. I'll always offer test corrects because there's something missing somewhere however I don't think no later fees works. Students especially older ones need to learn deadlines and consequences of those deadlines. I think reteaching organizational skills and ways to keep on top of their work is going to better serve the students than just letting them turn it in late. I also think redos on assignments doesn't work because that's not how college and the workforce really work.
ReplyDelete