The #1 Lesson

After a challenging several months with little M, we have finally begun to overcome the self-efficacy hurdle. The other day I said to her, "Did you know that I love you very much?" With a beaming smile she replied, "Yep! Cuz I'm a Smarty Pants." I went on to inform her that her intelligence isn't the reason I love her, but it is something I love about her. What a change from 6 months ago--"NO, I am NOT smart!!" were her insistent (and sometimes defiant, and sometimes tearful) words back then.

Now, she works hard on all her work, every day. Today she was so excited and proud to be finished, I taught her to air five!

Yo sí puedo: the most important lesson my students learn all year.

Word Pictures

At recess today, it was too hot to go outside. So as a few of my children frequently do, little M hung around me instead of the other kids, looking for something to do. I didn't have a job for her, so I asked her to draw me the prettiest picture she could. She said ”Okay!” and bounced away.

A few minutes later, she came back with this:

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful picture.

The Little Blue Engine is Back!

luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are days when teaching feels so great. You are pumped, your kids are engaged, they get it, and everything moves like clockwork. Then there are days where you feel like you're in a boxing match. With little M, I'd been boxing just about every day for months. 

The problem was, she wouldn't do anything. It wasn't because she wasn't capable, it was just a choice. She would sit there for hours and do nothing. Maybe she'd write her name on her paper, and maybe even the date. But the rest of it? Blank. She'd play with her pencils, she'd play with her eraser, she'd use her pencil to draw on her eraser, she'd knock her cubes around and talk with her friends, use the bathroom for 10 minutes, stare at the ceiling...anything but work. 

So I tried everything I could think of, but nothing I said or did seemed to motivate her to do her assignments. I asked her if she needed help. I read and re-read and re-read her the directions. I gave her a personal copy of the book so she could look at the pictures to help her remember. I encouraged her. I cajoled her. And when none of that worked, I tried time-outs and recess periods spent doing the work she'd refused to do in class. And when that didn't work, I started giving her extra love and attention all day. Then I called her dad. Then I called the social worker. And yet, we boxed. Every. Day. 

One day, I'd asked the kids if they were a Smarty Pants (the Smarty Pants Dance is a big deal in our class...check it out on Youtube). While nearly every other student had their hand in the air, M not only refused to raise her hand, but she actually turned her back and crawled away from me when I asked the question. It finally dawned on me: low self-efficacy. My little girl didn't refuse to work because she didn't want to; it was because she actually thought she wasn't capable. Boy, did that change the game. 

Things had been getting better a little at a time, until yesterday. During our guided reading lesson, she got stuck on a word. It was a hard word, and she wasn't sure how to pronounce the second syllable. I reminded her of the sound the second letter made and told her it was similar to the one in her name. We tried saying the syllables and blending them. But by that time she was so frustrated that she gave up on the word and started to cry. 

I knew this was a crucial moment for us. I knew that if I let her give up now, she'd give up every time. So I sent the other kids to their reading stations and I told her to come around to my side of the table. I grabbed a copy of The Little Engine That Could. With my arm around her, we looked at the pictures and retold the story together, stressing the fact that the dolls, the toys and the little blue engine never gave up the fight. I told her, "You are that little blue engine. I won't let you give up on this book and this word because you are too smart to give up. I know that you can do it, but sometimes you don't know that you can do it. And I need you to know that because if you give up on everything, you won't learn anything. And learning is why we're here. Just like the little blue engine, you need to say 'Yes I can'. " So she did. We practiced saying "Yes, I can" over and over until the tears were gone. And then we went back to the hard book with the hard words, and she read the whole thing herself (except for a few that I helped her with). Then she grabbed a book called I Don't Like to Read by Nancy Carlson (one of my favorite September books) and decided to sit and read it to herself for a while, which I said was perfectly fine. 

When she was finished, she got up, handed me the book back, and said, "I'm going to go find a hard book and try to read it." 

I saved my happy dance for after she went to music class. 

Warm Fuzzies

One of the things that we often do as teachers is relate our lessons to things that are happening in the lives of our students. If someone loses a tooth, we read a book about teeth or the Tooth Fairy. If someone is being bullied, we read about about standing up for yourself. And if someone has a new sibling, we might find some books about new babies.

Well, a friend in my class was recently gone for a few days because his mother finally give birth to his new little brother. I told him that his story reminded me of a poem called "Tengo un hermanito" (I have a little brother). He said, "Why?" and in the few minutes before we headed off to the buses, I took a moment to read it to him. It's about a boy (or girl?) whose mother just had a baby, and the boy thinks his new baby brother is downright annoying. He doesn't know how to read, or eat, or use a spoon, he definitely can't play soccer, and on top of that, he's BALD! 

When we finished reading the poem, my little friend looked at me, then put his head in my lap and gave me a hug. He had the sweetest little smile on his face. 

Literature, love and warm fuzzies. What a great way to end the week. 

Cute Misconceptions

Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Kids are so funny. No wonder Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby had a whole show devoted to the hilarious things they say.

Since Earth Day is this Sunday, and I wrote this Earth Day unit last year for my Masters' class that I really liked, we've been learning about the environment these last two weeks. We've been learning big, important words like medio ambiente (environment) and contaminacion (pollution) and vertedero (landfill) and reciclar (you can guess that one). All very exciting stuff. Naturally, after learning several new vocabulary words, my kids sometimes get them confused. Or just the whole concept itself.

Today I asked R, "What does recycle mean?" I'd taught it to her earlier in Spanish but asked this question in English, so I was curious what she would do about the words she didn't know. She said, "It means you throw trash away. And then it goes to a fair and they make paper." A fair, huh? (She meant fabrica, the Spanish word for factory.)

Later, A came in and told me they'd recycled their trash after lunch. I asked, "What will happen to it now?" She said, "They're gonna take it and make more food." I told her that they can't make food out of plastic, at which point the other kids laughed. A, however, disagreed with me. "They're gonna make new food," she told me, insistently. I hope that plastic food is part of a toy kitchen set...

Well, they got the concept, at least. Landfills are gross, recycling means making new stuff.

Happy early Earth Day! I'm so excited to watch The Lorax tomorrow. (Quite possibly moreso than the kids themselves.)

Cheers!

Facing fear head on!

Today we took the kids on a fantastic field trip to an ice arena. It's always interesting taking them out of Academic Land and putting them in a situation that is totally different. You see them in a new light and get a chance to interact with them in a new way, and I love it.

The kids got their skates laced up and put on their elbow pads, knee pads, helmets, and these huge gloves that were about 4 times the size of their little hands. Honestly, they couldn't hurt themselves if they tried. Once they were all dressed and ready to skate, we took them out onto the ice. Many of them latched themselves to the wall and held on for dear life. 

One of my little darlings was so afraid, she came to the door crying and tried to get off the ice. The other teachers were going to let her stop skating, but these types of situations bring the fighter out in me. I asked her what happened to make sure she was not hurt, and she said through her tears, "I can't skate anymore. I'm too scared." "What are you scared of?" I asked. "That I'm going to fall," she sobbed. "I want to stop now." 

"NOPE!" I thought to myself. "Not a chance." I told her no, she was not going to quit because she was afraid of falling. I took her in my arms and we slid away from the wall. Then, without letting go of her, I simply let her fall. She hit the ice on all fours, completely unhurt. I then asked, "And what happened when you fell? Did you hurt yourself?" "No," she replied. I then proceeded to pick her up off the ice, and immediately let her fall a second time. "What happened that time? Did you get hurt?" "No." We repeated this exact same exchange three more times, and by the fifth time she fell, she was smiling and chuckling. When I was sure that she'd been convinced that falling wouldn't kill her, I picked her up and sent her off to skate, reminding her that if she fell again, she should just get back up and keep skating. 

When it was time to get off the ice, she couldn't wait to tell me how brave she'd been. "I skated! I skated all the way over there, all by myself! And when I fell down, I got back up again! All by myself!" 

It's moments like these that remind me why I do what I do. There are few things in the world more beautiful than a child learning to believe in herself.

Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen is not nearly as bad as we fear it is. 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Some days,.I'm pretty sure that the entire Youtube video "Stuff Teachers Say" could have been filmed in my classroom, quite possibly in the course of one hour of regular class time. If I had a penny for every time I've repeated myself today, I'd be the richest teacher who ever lived.

"Stand up. Sit down. Stand up again, QUIETLY. Sit down, QUIETLY. Walk. Go back and walk. Go back and walk. Go sit down. Get started working. Tell him to stop. Open your book. It's time to read. At work time, I expect you to be working. Open your book. Go sit down. That's not how we do that. Do it again. Do it again and do it correctly." And on, and on, and on...

I was chatting with a teammate after school, telling her how bad I felt that my college student volunteer had to watch me do this today. I want to always be that teacher that inspires her volunteers to say wonderful things like "I want to be like you when I grow up."  I had one say that to me a couple of years ago. I want to be back in that moment. But alas...not today.

As I was sharing my frustration, my lovely teammate responded most insightfully and encouragingly, "That's first grade. This is what we do." And she's right--we do. We deal with management issues. We tell our kids to go back and practice correct procedures. And if we have to, we say the same thing over and over until they get it. My awesome mother concurred: "She's seeing real first grade. So now she'll know what it's like and how to deal with it when she gets there." True. All very true.

So...

Sit down QUIETLY. Go back and walk. Open your book. Pick up your pencil. Do it again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.