CHAPTER 3: Working Successfully with Unappreciative or Irritating Adults
As teachers, our focus is children and learning. All that we do and say each day should make school a better place for our students. An environment with irritating, difficult colleagues can negatively impact our ability to give our best to teaching. When we approach teaching as a team, supporting and encouraging each other on a daily basis, the impact on the overall climate of the school is positive. Most importantly, the impact on student learning is positive.
As a staff, we will never agree on everything and I hope we don't! I expect you to share your viewpoints and ideas with me. With open communication and trust, disagreement and conflict can be healthy. It is the negative, disrespectful, argumentative approach that creates a toxic climate.
Chapter 3 tackles some of the tough issues surrounding the tone and climate of a school. We will spend a great deal of time reviewing this chapter as part of our staff development focus this year. In the meantime, I hope you will approach the year with a positive outlook. Think about how you can support a colleague with positive words instead of complaints. Consider a challenging parent's perspective and offer solutions. Use the author's reframing strategy and adjust your perspective about a colleague or issue. Mendler reminds us that "receiving and giving positive feedback is the most powerful tool in creating a school climate conducive to high achievement and happiness."
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Thought for the Day
Found this quote on Pinterest and wanted to pass it along.
- How we talk to our children will become their inner voice in adulthood.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
I cited this chapter 2 in my summer class(Theory and Practice with students with high incidence disabiltites)papers quite a bit! In my opinion learning can be fun, but fun takes work on a teachers part.
It is also a very good point that Mendler makes about praising a student if they have used the right strategy, even if the answer is wrong..although usually when the strategy is used, the answer is correct. However, if the focus is on praising only correct answers, students tend to fall out of the habit of using the strategy. Fern's reading and comprehension strategy was such a great one!
It is also a very good point that Mendler makes about praising a student if they have used the right strategy, even if the answer is wrong..although usually when the strategy is used, the answer is correct. However, if the focus is on praising only correct answers, students tend to fall out of the habit of using the strategy. Fern's reading and comprehension strategy was such a great one!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Yahoo, I can blog! This makes me smile cause as we all know, technology is not an area that I excel. Reading the first chapter and reading all of your posts reminds me why I wanted to teach. My goal was to guide and help my students learn in a very positive and fun way plus develop strategies with our lessons to make my students want to come to school and learn. Over the years, I have lost site of this goal and am eager to start a new year with many changes to help me rekindle my love of watching students grow and the love I have for this profession. My students expect and deserve a wonderful day when they walk into our school. A positive attitude is my choice so there will be a lot of smiling this year. I have heard that smiling is contagious!
Also, last year, we would start our day with a joke or if our lessons became to intense, we would stop and tell a joke. Laughter always brought us back in focus with our lesson and accomplish our tasks with ease.
Also, last year, we would start our day with a joke or if our lessons became to intense, we would stop and tell a joke. Laughter always brought us back in focus with our lesson and accomplish our tasks with ease.
Chapter 1 - just a couple thoughts
Well, I think I finally got this blog thing working … maybe ... I hope. We shall see. So even though we are already on to chapter 2, here are a few thoughts I had about chapter 1:
Well, I think I finally got this blog thing working … maybe ... I hope. We shall see. So even though we are already on to chapter 2, here are a few thoughts I had about chapter 1:
“Laugh with your kids. Enjoy their quirky ups
and downs.” (page 10)
The quote itself actually made me laugh
as I was thinking, “And boy do we have some quirrrrrrrky kids!” But ya gotta
love ‘em for who they are. It’s a little more challenging with some than with
others but it is said that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine”, so I agree…
laugh with them whenever you can. It just might be the best medicine for everyone!
I think this
is a big part of why being an elementary school librarian is a good fit for me.
I love books. I love kids. And lucky me, I get paid to (among other things) instill
the love of the first into the second!
“Most days you are the best person to
congratulate yourself on a job well done.” (page 12)
So true! Although sincere praise
from others is always encouraging ... and I'm thankful for those who do encourage me at FDES ... who other than me really knows what I
do or what I’ve set out to accomplish on a given day, or with a given child? So I guess a well-deserved "Yay me!" now and then is a good thing.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Strategies for Working With Difficult Students
This chapter was packed with suggestions and strategies. I liked the way Mendler divided the chapter into Prevention strategies and Intervention strategies. Certainly the more time we initally spend on prevention strategies and on addressing the author's 6 Pillars for Success in our classrooms, the less time we will spend dealing with difficult behaviors later. When you think of a challenging student that was difficult to deal with, could you have done more to prevent the behavior? The author suggests projecting confidence, setting up clear, specific expectations and letting students know that you will not spend precious class time handling poor behavior. He also suggests working twice as hard to connect with irritating students. I loved the reframing strategy and the 2 minute intervention. I challenge you to implement one of those two strategies in your classroom this year!
We've all worked with difficult students and we know that they need consistency and support. Too often, school is the only consistent, positive environment they encounter. We need to plan intentional ways to set these students up for success each day. What will you do in your classroom?
Stephanie
This chapter was packed with suggestions and strategies. I liked the way Mendler divided the chapter into Prevention strategies and Intervention strategies. Certainly the more time we initally spend on prevention strategies and on addressing the author's 6 Pillars for Success in our classrooms, the less time we will spend dealing with difficult behaviors later. When you think of a challenging student that was difficult to deal with, could you have done more to prevent the behavior? The author suggests projecting confidence, setting up clear, specific expectations and letting students know that you will not spend precious class time handling poor behavior. He also suggests working twice as hard to connect with irritating students. I loved the reframing strategy and the 2 minute intervention. I challenge you to implement one of those two strategies in your classroom this year!
We've all worked with difficult students and we know that they need consistency and support. Too often, school is the only consistent, positive environment they encounter. We need to plan intentional ways to set these students up for success each day. What will you do in your classroom?
Stephanie
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Chapter 1 Attitude
I 100% agree that attitude can make or break the moment, the day, the year, or the success in general of ourselves and our students. Trying to maintain a positive attitude can be a struggle at times but my dad taught me from a very young age that even when you are unhappy, force yourself to smile because sooner or later you won't have to force yourself to do it anymore, your attitude and mental state will catch up.
Taking over mid year for Beth this year, with my first time being in my very own classroom, was an extremely stressful thing for me. There were many moments when I definitely wasn't feeling extremely positive. I remember one day at the very beginning of me taking over I was super frazzled and stressed out and I was sitting in my rocking chair looking at all of these expectant faces sitting on the carpet staring at me. And for some reason, this little tidbit of advice crept into my head and even though I didn't feel it, I decided to run with it. I told them all I wanted to see their smiles. A handful of kids readily gave it to me, and those who didn't, their classmates and I all insisted until them smiled as well. Eventually we had a whole room of kids smiling. One of my more challenging students asked me why we were smiling and because I had no other answer, I finally just said "Because we are happy!" Without even realizing it, that became the motto of our class. It got to the point where if we were having a particularly stressful day, one of the kids would raise their hand and ask if we could "do the smiles". Inevitably this one student would ask again "why are we smiling?" and the whole class would resound with "BECAUSE WE ARE HAPPY!" It was shocking to me how much they got into the idea.
It really made me realize how important it was to them to have that positive environment and I thought it great that they would initiate it themselves.
It is funny how they always seemed to know when to do it. Almost always after the whole class had to be spoken to for behavior in the cafeteria or specials, and morale was particularly low, someone would chime in requesting the smiles. It was nice for them to be lifted up again, knowing that even though they may have been reprimanded, life goes on and they wanted the positivity to remain.
I know keeping a positive mental attitude is something I need to continue to work on, but I have to say, it was great this year having the kids there to remind me.
Taking over mid year for Beth this year, with my first time being in my very own classroom, was an extremely stressful thing for me. There were many moments when I definitely wasn't feeling extremely positive. I remember one day at the very beginning of me taking over I was super frazzled and stressed out and I was sitting in my rocking chair looking at all of these expectant faces sitting on the carpet staring at me. And for some reason, this little tidbit of advice crept into my head and even though I didn't feel it, I decided to run with it. I told them all I wanted to see their smiles. A handful of kids readily gave it to me, and those who didn't, their classmates and I all insisted until them smiled as well. Eventually we had a whole room of kids smiling. One of my more challenging students asked me why we were smiling and because I had no other answer, I finally just said "Because we are happy!" Without even realizing it, that became the motto of our class. It got to the point where if we were having a particularly stressful day, one of the kids would raise their hand and ask if we could "do the smiles". Inevitably this one student would ask again "why are we smiling?" and the whole class would resound with "BECAUSE WE ARE HAPPY!" It was shocking to me how much they got into the idea.
It really made me realize how important it was to them to have that positive environment and I thought it great that they would initiate it themselves.
It is funny how they always seemed to know when to do it. Almost always after the whole class had to be spoken to for behavior in the cafeteria or specials, and morale was particularly low, someone would chime in requesting the smiles. It was nice for them to be lifted up again, knowing that even though they may have been reprimanded, life goes on and they wanted the positivity to remain.
I know keeping a positive mental attitude is something I need to continue to work on, but I have to say, it was great this year having the kids there to remind me.
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