Below are two clips from a film made by Australia’s behaviour management guru, Bill Rogers. I think all teacher’s will find this useful regardless of experience.
Clip 1
Clip 2
Please share these clips with your colleagues. I’ve attended a Bill Rogers seminar and found it very useful.
Below is an excerpt of a book dealing with tips for making the transition between schools more manageable:
Michele Borba, author of “The Big Book of Parenting Solutions,” says moving to an upper-level school is a severe change for kids. Here are Borba’s tips for helping guide your kids through each school transition.
Middle school
Going from elementary to middle school is a big change for kids because they generally go from having one teacher to several. Borba says it’s important that kids find at least one buddy in each of their classes so they have someone to turn to in case they have questions on an assignment or are absent.
She urges parents to walk through the school with their children before the first day so they know how to get from class to class. They should also know how to get to the bathrooms, the cafeteria and the school office.
Organization is important at this stage, since kids will have different classes and teachers. Make sure your kids have a binder with different-colored folders for each class and know where to write their homework assignments.
High school
Once kids reach high school, they won’t want you to walk the school with them before the year starts. What Borba suggests, though, is that you print out a map of the school, and show your children where their classes are and how to get to them. Then have them walk the halls with a buddy before the first day.
Now that they’ll have six or seven classes a day, students will have to be even more organized than in middle school.
In terms of social issues, bullying is a big concern. Borba says the No. 1 place where bullying occurs is in the cafeteria, so make sure your high schooler has at least one friend who has lunch at the same time so he can sit with that person and not feel alone.
It mystified me how in the modern era that we live in, we still haven’t properly addressed some fundamental issues effecting the comfort of our students. The following are three examples:
1. The Mat – The mat serves a clear purpose. There are times when the mat is ideal for teaching a new concept or skill or for giving opportunities for students to present their work to the class. But it must be used in short spurts because it is so uncomfortable. Sitting in a confined space, without a back rest is not fun at all. Once, whilst teaching a mat session, I tried it. I sat on the floor with the kids/ In no time, I’d had enough. Teachers who use the mat for long, drawn out periods of time should not be frustrated at the child that can’t sit still. It is to be expected that a naturally restless person will find the challenge just too difficult.
2. The Chair – Even sitting in a chair for long periods of time is too much to expect. Why is education often so dormant? Surely the best forms of teaching allow students to move around.
3. Lack of Engagement – Currently, there is a strong push to bring back traditional teaching. This involves lines of handwriting practise, together with pages of maths algorithms followed by reading with comprehension questions. There are always going to be certain students who will enjoy the safe, predictable, routine side to rote learning. But on the whole, this methods is nothing short of tedious. It lacks creativity, energy and critical thinking. It is unimaginative, noninteractive and downright boring.
I hear teachers complain all the time about how poor attention spans are nowadays. It makes me wonder whether teachers realise that we are partly to blame. I can’t concentrate unless I’m engaged and comfortable in my chair. I need time to move and stretch and I need to feel as if I am able to express myself.
Why should my students feel any differently?
I read a disturbing article about a young boy who struggles with dyslexia, and the trauma his mother has gone through as his school makes little to no effort to assist him. It is a difficult article for a teacher to read, but a very important one. There are too many students that fall between the cracks. Too many that don’t get the attention and support that they so desperately need. As teachers, we must fight for the social, emotional and academic wellbeing of all our students, whilst ensuring that they are all, without exception, getting the care and attention they need.
Below is an excerpt of the article. I truly recommend that you read the whole story,
David is an artistically gifted boy with a photographic memory. The 10-year-old’s dining-room table is full of intricately designed Lego battleships, his art displays such originality that his teacher calls him “the next Picasso”, and he has an extraordinary ability to recall facts from the History Channel documentaries he watches on TV.
“The other day,” his 41-year-old mother Margaret recalled, “we were driving along and he said, ‘mummy, you were born in the year the first man landed on the moon’.”
But there is one big problem with David that overshadows his life. He cannot read. He has been assessed as “severely dyslexic” and “having the reading age of a child aged four years and four months”. His schooling has been a disaster and according to educational psychologist reports seen by the Standard, he has progressed “just one month in five years”.
You might assume that David attends a failing, inner-city school, but you would be wrong. His south London state primary is rated “good” by Ofsted, attended almost exclusively by white British-born pupils, and is located in a street of £3million houses. He is also well behaved.
Yet David, his mother said, has been “catastrophically let down by everyone: by his teachers, by the school and by the council”, all of whom failed to give him the specialised help he needs.
Margaret said: “At school the other kids call him ‘odd’ and ‘weirdo’ and he often comes home crying. He is still reading flashcards and has not progressed beyond words like ‘cat’ and ‘dog’. He has no real friends – how can he? He doesn’t get their jokes or their games. To the other kids, he is a misfit who doesn’t understand anything that’s going on because he can’t read.”
“My son was nine and he still couldn’t read a word,” said Margaret. “What were they waiting for? Why didn’t they do something?”
Finally the school arranged for David to have some specialist teaching – three hours a week at a nearby literacy centre at a cost to the school of £1,000 a term – as well as 15 hours a week one-on-one with the teacher assistant. For the first time he made a glimmer of progress, improving by “one month in a year”. Margaret says the teacher assistant and the literacy centre are not experts in teaching severely dyslexic children.
There is a growing tendency to allow students to pass the year, regardless of their level of skill or maturity. The reason for this is quite sensible. Holding a child back can have strong emotional repercussions. But because such a system exists, not enough questions are asked of students who are languishing.
I am not suggesting for a second that young David should have been kept down. I am simply suggesting that since teachers no longer have to explain why a child is ready to be promoted, there is less incentive to put the time and energy into children like David.
It is time that we looked into the issue of students being promoted without the basic skills, and ensure that teachers are made accountable for the progress of their students. David was allowed to fall into the gaps and starved of the support he needed because there isn’t enough pressure on teachers to reach benchmarks.
The story of David breaks my heart because he is a victim to poor teaching, an inept education system and a misnomer that dyslexia renders one academically incapable.
Some schools just don’t get it! Their job goes beyond education. They are looking after people’s kids! Schools are duty bound to actually look after the safety of their students (as opposed to just saying they do in a catchy but meaningless slogan). They must understand that parents don’t give the responsibility of having others look after their kids lightly. It’s not like giving over the keys to your car to the valet. It’s a huge deal.
That’s why schools must do their utmost to earn the confidence and respect of their parents. They must be actively protecting the students whilst also communicating regularly with parents. To have a school issue a dictate that all students wear baggy clothes to ward off probable paedophiles is a disgrace! How is a parent supposed to take that advice?
Furious parents yesterday criticised a school after they were asked to buy their children baggy clothes to deter paedophiles.
King’s Park Secondary School, in Glasgow, asked parents to ensure modesty in their children’s uniform in a bizarre letter which claims sex offenders may be taking pictures of schoolboys in tight trousers.
The letter, dubbed ‘paranoid in the extreme’ by one parent, was sent home even though police say there have been no incidents of schoolchildren in the area being targeted.
And children whose parents fail to conform to the approved dress code could be forced to miss out on fun school trips.
The letter says: ‘We believe an appropriate school uniform protects children from being targeted by sexual predators.
‘There is recent evidence in south Glasgow of adults photographing schoolgirls in short skirts and schoolgirls/boys in tight trousers, then grooming them through the internet.
‘We must do all we can to keep our children safe. A modest school uniform is more appropriate than fashion skirts, trousers or tops.’
The crackdown on pupil attire has been slammed by shocked parents whose children don’t want to obey the strict rules.
One blasted: ‘There is no way an ugly uniform is going to deter a predator and determined sex offender.
‘This is just paranoid in the extreme. There are better ways to safeguard children than spreading needless panic.’
Another added: ‘It is laughable to think the uniform can act as some sort of paedophile-repellent.’
The tough new policy forces cash-strapped parents to shop from an approved list of items available only at high street store Marks and Spencer.
Girls can wear only knee-length pleated skirts or trousers and boys loose-fitting trousers.
A school teacher expects her students to clean after themselves if they urinate on the toilet seat and is forced to take administrative leave! It turns out that the child was allergic to bleach. This story should have stayed in-house. It is certainly not front page news, and even if you were of the belief that the teacher acted negligently, you would have to wonder how this story caused a media sensation and triggered emergency PTO meetings.
An elementary school teacher has been suspended and is being investigated by authorities after allegedly forcing children to scrub the school toilets with bleach.
For two years, Catherine Saur, from Hartford, Connecticut, would make any student who used the bathroom thoroughly clean the room after they were done, parents claim.
Some mothers and fathers said their children would wet themselves during the day to avoid the chore, while one eighth-grader had his hands seriously burned after suffering an allergic reaction to the bleach.
Last night’s emergency school meeting was called after principal Peter Dart sent a letter to parents to inform them the art teacher had been reported to authorities.
Principal Dart said he did not endorse or know about the practice until it came to his attention last week.
He said: ‘It is imperative that we pause, that we take stock in what we are doing. That we learn from this and that we move forward.’
Newsflash: Teacher’s make mistakes. Some may consider this one to be a bigger one than I do, but for goodness sake, how unfair is it to this poor teacher to have her reputation muddied over what is fairly honest intentions. Teacher’s should get their students to take an active and responsible approach to cleaning up after themselves from a young age. Perhaps this teacher took the message a little too far, but she did not deserve the media frenzy she got. Emergency PTO meetings? Are you serious? Seriously burnt? That’s not what the mother says in the video? Kids wetting themselves to avoid cleaning after themselves? C’mon media! Get your act together!
And Principal Dart, why don’t you come to the defence of your teacher? By trying to minimise the negative PR of your school, you seem to be leaving your art teacher out in the cold. I should be reading about how dedicated this teacher is and how she has a great rapport with her students and a genuine passion for teaching. I should be reading about how she regrets her actions, has learnt from them and looks forward to resuming the job she loves so much.
Surely a statement like that will have raised the confidence of the public and helped to kill the story in the process.
I stumbled across an interesting blog piece that provided an excerpt of a paper written by Horace B. Lucido, a retired physics instructor, author and educational consultant, and a founding member of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse.
In his paper, Lucido singles out 10 things teachers need to perfect:
So what are some key elements in teachers regaining the professional respect and trust they deserve? State, district and site practices and policies should:
1. Allow our teachers to use best practices in lesson design and pedagogy rather than canned programs that require rigorous adherence to step-by-step procedures without flexibility.
2. Permit teachers to adjust and modify their lessons to fit their students’ knowledge and skills rather than prepare them for high-stakes testing. Forgo all site and district high-stakes testing that is not required by state or national law. Do away with site and district tests used to prepare for more tests.
3. Test score ‘data’ can only become relevant when interpretation for individual students is corroborated by their teachers — individually or groups — who have evaluated said students using multiple sources of information. No judgments, placements or qualifications for individual students should be made solely on the basis of annual high-stakes testing.
4. Abolish all goal-setting based on annual high-stakes testing scores. This includes targeting students, teachers and schools for score improvement. Each should be evaluated using multiple sources of information before making plans for any corrective actions. Teams of educators, parents, psychologists and community members should be employed in developing helpful strategies.
5. Eliminate both scripted and paced lesson mandates. It is not in standardizing our classrooms that students learn to be creative and innovative-attributes that are highly prized in the world of work. Just as the diversity of plants and animals is the strength of the Earth’s ecosystem, our ‘edusystem’ should model that diversity in the manner in which teachers provide unique lessons using a variety of methods. Standardized sameness is not conducive to how students learn nor is it an attribute valued in our culture — otherwise we would all be driving only Fords and wearing only Levi jeans.
6. Eliminate all punitive policies that pronounce harsh judgments on students, teachers, schools and districts based on unchallenged interpretations of student test scores. Teacher evaluations of their students’ knowledge and skills should be the hallmark and cornerstone of valid conclusions about what students know and are able to do. They are the professionals in the classroom.
7. Codify regulations against administrative use of direct and/or implied threats of repercussions to those teachers who follow their State Standards for the Teaching Profession rather than curricular and/or pedagogy directives which utilize a script-like pacing without allowing for teacher modification and adjustments to fit the classroom clientele.
8. State Standards for the Teaching Profession should be the guiding principles for all teacher evaluation protocols used by administrators. Terminate ‘walkthroughs’. Thoughtful classroom visitations that respect the context of the lesson with pre and post discussion is vital to proper evaluation. Otherwise, walkthroughs become nothing more than “big brother” in a formal setting, keeping a critical eye rather than a supportive stance.
9. Teachers should have the freedom without fear of recrimination to express their professional opinions inside and outside of school sites regarding school practices and policies. Fellow teachers, parents and the larger community need to hear from the classroom professionals regarding the educational programs at their schools. This will provide open forums for discussion and the enhancement of the school environment.
10. Develop an enhanced parent-teacher communication protocol complete with translators for second language learner parents who are not fluent in English. Ongoing and frequent parent-teacher communication will both improve understanding and appreciation of the role each plays in the education of their students and also foster a greater mutual respect.
Which of the ten do you agree or disagree with? Would you add an eleventh element?
There is no easy way to respond to questions about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Young kids are clearly confused as to why people are gaining satisfaction from a person’s death. It is not for a teacher of young children to go in to great detail about Bin Laden and his evil monstrous ways.
The problem then becomes – what do we say?
While many of us are still processing last night’s late-breaking news that Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of Navy SEALs, many teachers had to stand up bright and early this morning in front of a classroom of curious youngsters to field their questions on everything from assassination to terrorism, with little preparation.
“One of my students walked in this morning and said: ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead … is that a good thing?’ Leave it to a six year old to put things in perspective,” a California teacher wrote on Facebook today.
BeAtrice Mazyck, who teaches 11th-grade U.S. history at Lee Central High School in Bishopville, South Carolina, tells The Lookout she had already finished her curriculum for the semester, so she was glad to have a big current event to talk about. Her students had studied the 9/11 attacks earlier in the year, and today were debating the effect bin Laden’s death would have on the U.S. war efforts.
“Some of them were wondering, ‘Is the war over? Can the soldiers come home now?’ Because we live like 20 minutes from the Shaw Air Force Base,” Mazyck said, adding that some of her students have parents who are in the military.
In Cincinnati, one 9th grade teacher found she had to rehash for her students the events of September 11, 2001–when they were very young–for them to understand the context and significance of bin Laden’s killing.
“Most of these students were in kindergarten or first grade and have very little memory of September 11th,” Oak Hills High teacher Amanda Ruehlmann told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Many have even less of an idea of how much their lives have been impacted by the results and effects of 9/11. So I’ve shown students information on how bin Laden came to be Public Enemy No. 1.”
Some older students wrote they were glad for a distraction from regular coursework. A senior at Glades Central High School in Florida joked on Facebook that Monday should be a school holiday, and that he planned to “bring up the Osama killing to distract all of my teachers from teaching today.”
Teachers aren’t the only ones getting questions. Parents around the country are going online to talk about how difficult it can be to explain to a child why so many people seem happy that a person has been killed.
“I got to explain to my 7 year old son this morning about the news that osama is dead…. he was instantly happy and in his words ….. so the war is over and daddy doesnt have to go away again? really, how do you answer that?” wrote Kate Harbison in Bangor, Maine. “I explained that we all love daddy, and would love for daddy to be home all the time, but considering all that is going on in this world, daddy and all the rest of the armed forces have alot still to do, and probably always will,” Harbison told The Lookout in a note.
“In explaining who Osama is this morning to my 6 year old, my 8 year old said ‘it’s like he is Voldemort.’ I’m so glad it is clear to them now,” a woman from Coppell, Texas wrote.
Have you been asked any questions about Osama by your students? What did you say? Do you have any advice for this slightly tongue-tied teacher who is looking for the right words which stubbornly refuse to come out?
Imagine finally taking the important and highly necessary measure of banning corporal punishment only to take on another absurdly simple-minded strategy in its place. That is what India’s Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School is guilty of:
Candy or cane? City schools seem to have dumped the primitive notion of spare the rod and spoil the child. Instead of wielding the stick, they are now offering chocolates to kids to encourage them in academic excellence and enforce discipline.
“We are strictly against corporal punishment. We hand out chocolates to students if they score good marks and behave well in school. We have realised that it greatly motivates our students,” said Gouri Ramarathinam, Principal, Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School.
Why go from one extreme to another? Is it so difficult to replace a terrible educational policy for a sensible one?
Meanwhile, in Johannesburg banning corporal punishment didn’t change a thing:
Corporal punishment is still common in South African schools even though it was banned more than a decade ago. Recent research showed that up to 70% of primary school and 50% of high school pupils were still subjected to corporal punishment.
In Louisiana corporal punishment is here to stay. But don’t be concerned. They have come up with a foolproof measure for its responsible use – a checklist!:
Corporal punishment is here to stay in Rapides Parish public schools, and members of the Disciplinary Policy Review Committee on Wednesday discussed ways parents can inform a principal if they don’t want their children paddled for infractions.
“Corporal punishment is an acceptable discipline procedure by law … We try and use it as little as possible,” said Ruby Smith, the Rapides Parish School District’s director of child welfare and attendance. “When I was a child in school, corporal punishment worked like butter on toast. I receive few calls from parents saying that they don’t want their child to receive corporal punishment.”
Louisiana House Resolution No. 167 was passed last year that requires principals to fill out a “Corporal Punishment Incident Checklist.”
“Principals will send the checklist to the (School Board office), and once a month, it will be sent to the state Department of Education,” Smith said. “Our first reporting was due in Baton Rouge on the 11th of April, and principals will have to turn one in every month, regardless if they have an incident or not. The officials in Baton Rouge will probably do some study on the checklist.”
Corporal punishment never worked like “butter on toast” for students as it may have for teachers, Ms. Smith! I am sorry to tell you but your checklist isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
To conclude my thought for the day on this awful means of disciplining kids, I will quote from an article entitled “Schools Under Pressure to Spare the Rod Forever,” Dan Frosch tells the story of one case, and then puts it into larger context:
When Tyler Anastopoulos got in trouble for skipping detention at his high school recently, he received the same punishment that students in parts of rural Texas have been getting for generations.
Tyler, an 11th grader from Wichita Falls, was sent to the assistant principal and given three swift swats to the backside with a paddle, recalled Angie Herring, his mother. The blows were so severe that they caused deep bruises and the boy wound up in the hospital, Ms. Herring said.
While the image of the high school principal patrolling the halls with paddle in hand is largely of the past, corporal punishment is still alive in 20 states, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, a group that tracks its use in schools around the country and advocates for its end. Most of those states are in the South, where paddling remains ingrained in the social and family fabric of some communities.
Each year, prodded by child safety advocates, state legislatures debate whether corporal punishment amounts to an archaic form of child abuse or an effective means of discipline.
This month, Tyler, who attends City View Junior/Senior High School, told his story to lawmakers in Texas, which is considering a ban on corporal punishment. The same week, legislators in New Mexico voted to end the practice there.
Texas schools, Ms. Herring fumed, appear to have free rein in disciplining a student, “as long as you don’t kill him.”
“If I did that to my son,” she said, “I’d go to jail.”
I came across this brilliant article by Priscilla Wilson, a retired school teacher and educator. In her wonderful piece, she calls on new teachers to put children first, and to look past bureaucratic stumbling blocks and instead, fight for the child. It is so refreshing to come across a teacher that puts this critical message in such eloquent terms.
Teachers from all around the globe would be well advised to read this:
This week is somewhat of a milestone for me.
Forty years ago this week I started my first teaching job. In reflecting on what a great time that was for me, I am saddened as to how much things have changed. It was an exciting time when people who felt that they wanted to teach could easily do so.
It was actually a very care-free and nurturing time which I must say we simply took for granted. It only made sense that if you had studied to be a teacher, you would have the opportunity to do so. The big discussion was not if you could get a job but simply where you thought you wanted to live and work! People were excited to do both and there was a great buzz about the profession and about getting to it!
April may seem like a strange time to begin teaching but I simply finished my university year one week and went to work the following week. I was in Fredericton and there was a separate Special Education school. I had the pleasure of volunteering there during my time at Teachers College and St. Thomas University and knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. Following this opportunity, I was fortunate to be able to work in a segregated Special Education school for 10 years prior to Integration in the early 1980s. It was indeed an exceptional time that was especially meaningful, productive and memorable, a time of my life filled with fond memories that I will have forever.
With the introduction of Integration, many of us who had taught in the separate Special Education system became resource teachers. In addition to working as a resource teacher I was fortunate to teach most grades from 1 to 9.
I know now that I was always drawn to the child who was struggling, for whatever reason. I was very drawn to this particular student and was always intrigued as to what I could do that would be different; teach it again or another way. What was it going to take in order for the student/students to be successful?
I consider myself so fortunate because teaching has been such a positive career choice for me. What about those who are ready now to dedicate their time and energies to teaching? Why does employment have to be such a struggle for them? Why, too, are so many who are teaching so dissatisfied with their career? What changes could be made to the system to make things better for everyone?
What is more important than our young people; both our students and our young teachers? At a time when so many so-called topics of importance are being discussed, why aren’t we hearing more about the importance of an education? Why aren’t we talking more about how to make it better?
Many children are unhappy with their school experience which is extremely sad and quite unbelievable! Parents are dissatisfied and teachers can only dream of better teaching experiences, and thousands of enthusiastic young teachers feel they may never teach. How can things be so desperate in what should be such a progressive time?
In addition, the needs of so many children are not being met because the system is not set up to handle them. Amazing young people are losing out every day and we get to help them and, in fact, turn their lives around because at Wilson Reading Centre we’ve created a learning environment that is working for them.
Getting back to my 40-year anniversary, I think that it’s interesting that I have the energy and stamina that I’ve always have. Well, it seems that way to me. No doubt, I have slowed down somewhat but I’m having too much fun to notice. There’s nothing extra special about me, except that I truly love what I am doing. That in itself is a gift and one that I wish for the many young people trying to fulfill their dream of being a teacher. Just think of what they could accomplish!
I feel strongly that as a society we should be fighting back. Our students need so much more and our young people need work.
I personally know very capable young people who have left the area in order to teach. Can you imagine the time, effort and expenses that they have endured in order to achieve the necessary qualifications, only to be unemployed? If this isn’t enough, they are then forced to move away in order to find work.
I know that this isn’t just happening within education but my soap-box is education. A good education can have the most meaningful effect on the lives of our young people and we are letting them down.
We always say how important our children are to us as parents and as a society. Parents do their best to provide for their children but they aren’t the ones assigned the task of teaching their children to read.
Being a successful reader carries over into every aspect of life. Without it, the child feels helpless, defenceless, frustrated, discouraged but most importantly defeated and unsuccessful.
So my challenge to the education system is to look at each individual and ask what we as a society could be doing differently.
Perhaps the key to my happiness as a teacher was the fact that I was drawn to the child who was struggling and set about to make a difference. It seems like a reasonable solution to a successful career because it would mean the difference between doing the best job possible and one that produced mediocrity.
Teachers feel overwhelmed because too many children are coming to them with too many struggles. One solution would be to address some of these struggles before they become insurmountable.
I am not talking about a hypothetical situation. I am, in fact, talking about one that I decided to tackle as an individual. I did so by creating a learn-to-read program that I felt would make a difference. Then I set about to prove that it would work.
Having accomplished this has allowed me the opportunity to prove my philosophy on many levels. One is that by simply taking a different approach to learning to read, people who have struggled, sometimes for years, can be successful. Another is the proof of the overwhelming power that learning to read plays in each individual’s life.
Finally, the clincher, which I think is the fact that being able to give back is the key to a successful career whatever you do. So, as this week represents forty years of tons of fun and loads of opportunities to give back, my plea is that we try harder as a society and look for ways to help more children be more successful, for certain more successful and more confident as readers and therefore, as individuals!
Topical Teaching 