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6 comments:
I find many ideas in these articles very true to my personal life, yet on the other hand struggle with some of the ideas.
I, too, had a special teacher who made such an impact on my impressionable life as an 8th grader that I truly believe is why I am where I am today. He did "make connections with me, made me feel competent and contributed" to my successful years in math.
I have found that "students will do more for people they love and trust", as the article refers. In my classroom I have found that in some cases students feel pressure from their past. You know, the kids' names that are passed along as "at risk" or "naughty." If I let them know that I care and am here for them, yet back off and let them have some breathing room we build that respect for each other. A student that may be a behavior problem for one teacher wouldn't be a problem for me.
We should help students "focus on their strengths", build rapport with them to help them feel important, loved and respected. I agree that "students will succeed when they look towards people who point out what's right with him/her rather than what's wrong with him/her." However we need time, resources, and support from our school communities in order for the teachers to succeed at this opportunity.
Our school is trying to accomplish this by forcing teachers to be a part of an advisory program. However, our groups are HUGE and the lack of resources in helping us accomplish what this kind of program is made for just isn't happening. It has become a "party" time for games, food, and competition amongst other advisory groups. This keeps kids entertained, but is not focusing on it's true meaning. It's impossible for me to make connections with 30+ kids. We need to focus on the kids that NEED the support because I make connections with my kids in and out of class everyday. It's my favorite part of the job! It is one of my strengths.
This program would be best used if we were focusing on each child's "innate capacity for bouncing back" and to "identify patterns to make it possible for them to cope with their struggles in life."
Like Michelle, I find the articles relevant to my personal life. While I was in school I also had a special teacher in high school who connected with me. She is the reason I am currently teaching.
I always try to focus on students' strengths in order to build rapport with them. As Michelle and the author says, students should focus on what is right, not what is wrong with them.
Our school is also trying to build smaller communities in an effort to build rapport between students and staff. For forty minutes a week we met of "backyard." During this forty minutes, staff and students are supposed to build meaningful relationships. Unfortunately, the students aren't buying into the program. They don't want to talk to us and they don't want to talk to each other. In spite of our best efforts at getting students involved in playing games or socializing, we've had to resort to watching movies together for forty minutes each week. If we don't watch movies, students complain about backyard and how horrible it is. Students, because they aren't graded for backyard, feel free to lip off to teachers and many roam the hallways or leave school altogether during backyard.The whole experience has been eye opening and very disappointing. Sadly, the administration seems to love backyard. There are groups from out of state, who visit our school to see the our backyards. For some reason, minority achievement has coincidentally risen since backyards have been apart of our school. We staff members see no correlation between minority achievement and backyard because most of our at-risk students never show up to backyard.
Response to IFG: EXACTLY! The kids hate it, unless you're talking about the 5th graders (our building is 5-8)who love everything. Try to get an 8th grader to open up to a teacher infront of 28 of his/her peers. You can't make those kinds of connections in large group settings. And, the students that could really use the program don't want another adult asking about their lives to offer more suggestions on how they/we can make it better. It would be interesting to see why your minority achievement is going up, though. If you are making connections with them I'm sure it is impossible to tell with the "front" they put up. I know what "research says" but we've got to be missing something--what that "something" is seems impossible to duplicate in our situations.
After reading the articles, I reflected on my own parenting approach and my thoughts toward myself. Rarely do I acknowledge what I or my children have accomplished.
My 8 yr.old is on swim team for the first time. She is frustrated that she can't swim faster than her friend. With that in mind, she feels she isn't a "good swimmer". As her mom, I am amazed by her dedication to the team, and I must take time to vocalize my thoughts to the my daughter. All to often I get caught up with my daily chores rather than my children!!!
My 6 yr. old is a beginner reader. Since she attends a school where children often exceed expectations, she is considered to be in the low end of her class. She is beginning to label herself as "stupid"!!! I have to admit I refer to my child as being a "slow learner"! I realize I need to praise her for her accomplishments and never underestimate her abilities.
I support those of you who are trying to implement a program focusing students' strengths. It sounds to be quite a challenge. Good Luck!
Hopefully everyone can recall that “favorite” teacher, coach or for that matter adult in their life which has made a difference for them. My track coach was that person for me. She hit all three of the “C”s. She made me feel as thought she and I had a connection right from the start even though I didn’t have a lot of ability. She made it a priority that the team felt connected and that we would strive as a team. I always felt that she had confidence in me and that I could attain my goals. Finally she strived to give everyone the feeling that they contributed to the team and that every role was important no matter how small. The thing I remember most about her is that she was so natural and her actions were never forced.
A concern I have at our school is that we used to have an advisory program where you were assigned 25 students and were supposed to have this meaningful relationship once a month. It feels very forced for the students and teacher. Needless to say it didn’t work for several reasons. Now we are piloting a new program called “TEAM” which to me appears to be very similar to advisory the one change is that your team is your homeroom. At least that is a step in the right direction.
People in general feel comfortable and what to perform to their personal best when they are in a trusting and caring environment. Somedays I need to accept the fact that Math may not be the number one priority for a particular student based on their “story”. During that natural connecting time with my students hopefully I have some idea of each students “story”, where they are coming from, and how I can help them to progress.
I would love to take the time and effort we put into “TEAM” and focus on individual student’s strengths and their needs not some canned program where one size fits all.
Response to Michelle Ervin: I totally agree with you! Time in our day is such a precious thing I would love to spend it with the students in NEED. Our district feels that every student needs “TEAM”. How can you argue with making connections with kids? I feel that there are different levels of need and with our time factor should we be focusing on the students with the most need? Some may say that isn’t fair. A colleague of mine has this talk with the students at the start of the year; she tells them that her classroom is not fair! She uses the example that if a student in her room is having a heart attack and needs a heart fibulator that student will get the heart fibulator because they need it. Then she asks them is that fair? Shouldn’t everyone get the heart fibulator or just the person who needs it? Of course she does a better job explaining it to students, but you get the idea. I feel you could apply the same argument to treating each student as an individual and accommodate their needs individually.
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