Thursday, February 23, 2012

Chapter 5

I think you all know by now how I feel about this chapter. We just touched the beginning of it on Tuesday morning - talking about the 5 Principles. As we talked about Culture and management at the DC meeting - I just reread this sentence which I wanted to share, it is an overview of Chapter 5: "Chapter's 5,6,and 7 focus on building classroom culture - making your room, a place where students work hard, behave, model strong character, and do their best." I can't imagine anyone at NMS or any other school not wanting those exact things to take place in their classrooms. The 5 principles are not techniques, but I think it will be great when we all have the same vocabulary to talk about what we are trying to accomplish in the classrooms. I am so excited for next year, to see how we can stop the death spiral from occurring! I am so very optimistic about where NMS is going! I have great faith in all of you, that you DC's will be able to lead your departments to joining in the enthusiasm for learning as we work to make NMS a most wonderful place in each and every classroom. You are going to be the leaders that make this happen! As we move forward in our quest for strong culture - let's work on simultaneously creating a culture of feedback. I want to work in a place where everyone is comfortable giving feedback, and even more importantly receiving feedback, myself included. It is the receiving that is harder! Lol!!! On Friday, March 2, we will work together to create a plan to make that happen!

10 comments:

  1. Chapter 5 was such a great explanation of the parts of classroom culture. I have thought about these pieces in various contexts but didn't necessarily think to put them all together. I love the part about teaching students how to behave. I have found that at NMS and any school, it is so important to help students see how to behave and be successful. The engagement piece struck a chord as well, because I do believe if they work from bell to bell and always have something to do that it helps the classroom culture. I have seen students who didn't seem to care turn around simply because there wasn't an option for sitting there. They had to be involved because it was what was asked of them in a nice and kind way that would not accept no for an answer. I always thought of it as - I am more stubborn than you, and I will do it in the nicest, kindest way possible, but I will get the work in the end. You will get SO tired of me holding you accountable for your work in a nice way so you can't get angry that you will finally say, "Whatever Miss!! Fine, I'll do it!" There was so much that spoke to me in this chapter!! The two pieces that I read and felt like I did well as a teacher were my entry routine and seat signals. I taught kids certain things to do so they could signal me and we would not have to stop instruction - it works well!! The two things I read and felt like I could have done SO much better after reading this were tight transitions and props.... I always knew I wanted tight transitions and sometimes I counted but the strategies here could have made that SO much better!!! I also feel like props is something I didn't do in a concrete, audible way where students took notice. I think that is SO important in a classroom - teaching kids how to give credit to other students for wonderful ideas and work! I love it! If any of you are willing to let me, I would love to try some of these with you in your classrooms. I'm interested to see how well they could do!!!!

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    1. Hey Lesli - I agree about the props! When I was in New Orleans at the KIPP Believe School, I got to see students giving each other props in every single classroom that I visited! It was amazing! That piece of the culture really helps making it cool to be smart and helps all students show that they value learning! thank you for your thoughtful response!

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  2. Creating a classroom culture is essential to how the students relate to you the teacher and the other students in the classroom. Creating a "least" restrictive environment where students can make mistakes and feel comfortable doing so, as well as pressured to always seek the correct answers, is the responsibility of everyone in the classroom. However, creating this environment is like growing a garden on a rock. Every piece of dirt and seed should become "everyones" responsibility. We can never assume there is enough water and sunlight to make it grow slowly with time.

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    1. As you sow, so shall you reap! We need to remember this as we go about our daily routine with the students.

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  3. I also liked the part about explicitly teaching students what to do and how to do it as some noncompliance "is caused not by defiance but by incompetence". Teaching students the right way to do things and having very clear instructions makes it much easier to tell who is genuinely trying and who is being deliberately defiant. This also gets rid of the excuse of "I didn't understand".

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    1. Never accept IDK!! Teaching what is expected and reteaching what is expected will help students move away from this standard answer.

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    2. In Orchestra students are often in a situation of not understanding. Giving students the tools to fix the things they do not know challenges them to always want to do well. What was hard yesterday is not hard today....why??

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  4. Creating a Strong Classroom Culture (Ch 5) is such a powerful chapter. Val, I really like that you are sharing your vision of NMS becoming great through changing the culture. Lemov says that 'often we encourage students (athletes) to do their best, assuming all the while that they know how to do what's best. The results of emphasizing and investing time in teaching students how to be students can be stunning because it turns out that there are a lot of kids on the margins of classroom culture who want to do what's expected of them. They are just waiting to be taught.' That's motivation within itself. I believe that we have many kids that want to be taught how to be great. Ed, I liked your 'growing a garden on a rock analogy' - dirt, seed, water, sunlight... it is everyone's responsibility. 'Influence and getting students to believe-to want to behave positively-is the biggest driver of achievement and success because it happens when kids want it for themselves and when it is real...it happens without us there... Discipline, management, control, influence, and engagement-interesting that Lomov says that the techniques that we can use to reach and teach students rely on all five principles. I am excited to see some clear direction in Teach Like A Champion.

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  5. Keeping the classroom motivated for bell to bell instruction is best accomplished when the students and teacher show excitement for their work. Feedback needs to be critical and honest, but as a teacher you need to show them growth. Show them from one day to the next that they can see and measure how much they improved. Once they feel sense of accomplishment they will do anything asked of them.

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  6. Ed, Karen, Steve, Diana, and Lesli! THank you for your insightful comments and thoughts! I agree with you all - that sometimes we expect the kids to know what we want! Some do and some don't! But, if we teach them what we want - then we will know if it is non-compliance or not! You all wrote such inspiring things - I can't comment on all of them, but you took the time and wrote thoughtful posts and I am most appreciate of you doing so! THe culture will only change when we have 100% of the staff working on this! We may not get 100% consensus, but we have to 100% using the techniques in their classrooms! Go Team NMS!!

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