"I've always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way."
In our text Whale Done--The Power of Positive Relationships read the introduction and chapter one. Reflect on the chapter and make a connection to our education system--how are our philosohies different or the same. These connections may be within your classroom or school.
- Do we accentuate the postive?
- Build trust?
- What do we do when mistakes occur
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16 comments:
From what I see in the classrooms and from what I DO when I am in the classroom teaching Guidance or with students one-one-one/in small groups, etc., I find that many of the teachers praise the positive as a means for classroom management. Ex: "I like how Tim is working so hard" or "THANK YOU for raising your hand!" I do this also and find it very useful because it truly re-directs and gets you the behavior that you are seeking.
When it comes to random praise, I think some teachers might do it, but maybe not as much as they could. Ex: "Jake, your smile always makes my day" or "Tori, your reading skills have improved so much and you are doing so well in my class."
Granted, I am not a classroom teacher who gives grades/homework, or is with the students for a class period or throughout the day, etc. and I am not saying that I do this ALL the time with my students (to me, the more you do it the less sincere it becomes and I pride myself on being sincere:); however, I make it a point to praise students and do it often, especially when I notice someone or the class doing/saying something positive and I also make it a point to do it to those who rarely hear it at home or at school.
I think many people don't quite realize how ALL human beings crave and appreacite praise/acknowledgement/compliments and how it is so very important to SAY IT WHEN YOU MEAN IT!
How is this for an “aha” moment?!?
Right before reading the intro and first chapter, I was correcting my students’ spelling tests. I have a boy who struggles in reading and spelling but who has made some positive strides in the recent months. He has had incredible stress in his home life due to his mom’s cancer and I feel this has obviously influenced his confidence in himself. This spelling test was a review with 36 words – a fact that I know has overwhelmed him in the past.
Although he got 13 words wrong, I noticed that most of the words he missed were off by just one letter. He either left out a letter or switched two letters. For him, this was tremendous improvement. In previous months, I often had difficulty reading the word he was trying to spell. Now, he came so close he was just one letter away from correctly spelling the word! On his test, I wrote just that. I told him that his “spelling muscle” was getting stronger every week and that he should be proud. Although his grade was still very low, I made him aware of how proud I was of his improvement and his “closeness”.
My comment – although I may not have realized its full impact when I wrote it – will, according to this chapter, do more toward making him want to continue to strengthen that muscle than just handing back his test and writing “Nice try!”
Another interesting point was found on page 13. The trainer tells Wes that “Animals can sense expectations with astonishing accuracy. They can ‘live down’ to human expectations just like people can.” Haven’t we all known of a child who goes through the system with a “label” of a trouble-maker or poor student who then does all in his or her power to deserve that label? Although all students need high expectations and positive recognition, these students have to overcome the most to revise those labels in their heads. It seems like redirection and praising the process instead of the final product are more crucial with these students than any other. I do agree with Courtney, however, that the praise must be sincere. Students can also sense when praise is forced or unwarranted.
My school is trained in Responsive Classroom and most of the ideas I wrote down from this chapter are ideas I learned in the training of Responsive Classroom.
The number one thing I wrote down is to build trust. I stongly believe this is key to building a good relationship with your students. Whales and humans are similar in this department! When is the last time you compared yourself to a whale? I never had!
The number two thing I wrote down was to accentuate the positive. I am also a firm believer in this. Responsive Classroom is not firm believer in, "I like how Tommy is sitting." We were trained to NOT say things like that because it gives some students unwanted attention and makes some feel that those who are always mentioned are the "teacher's pet" or the "goody-goody." We do give positive comments, but we make comments such as, "What went well?" or "What did you like about...?" "Who can show me or tell me something about...?
The third thing I wrote down was to ingore what went wrong and immediately redirect behavior elsewhere. I have been trying this one since I had my first child seven years ago! I find this to be very difficult as a parent and I am not good at it.
As a teacher, I don't think ignoring behaviors and redirecting is the answer. Inappropriate behaviors and breaking classroom rules are not acceptable in a place where you are trying to teach all children to be good citizens. Part of being a good citizen in our society is following rules. Ignoring twenty 8-year olds bad behaviors and redirecting them all day long would be crazy!
In Responsive Classroom there is the "think chair." The teacher must send kids to it that are not following the classroom rules. They must be sent there for the smallest reasons so it is not used as a "time out" chair. If someone is not paying attention, or is off task, you send them there to think and when they are done thinking they go back to their desk or rejoin the group. The students can also put themselves in the chair. If they have something on their minds, they can go to it to think- but not all of the time and not for a long period of time. All of the teachers and support staff are supposed to be using this. The specials teachers also use the "think chairs" and follow Responsive Classroom.
The fourth thing I wrote down is so important! The more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated! How true is that? I truly believe this. Kids listen so closely to positive- or negative- comments. They want you to like them and say postivie things to them. I try to give positive compliments to the entire group all at once so they all feel good at the same time. It works! They all smile and you can tell they feel so good. It gives off great energy!
Love and Logic is big in our district. In fact, Sam, Darcy, Sharon, Kristin, and I all recently finished a L&L course. As I read chapter one of "Whale Done," I realized several of its concepts are similar to those of Love & Logic.
Love & Logic stresses simple relationship builders such as greeting the kids every day with eye contact and a handshake. (I prefer a high five!) In the course, we were asked to pick a student we needed to build an especially trusting relationship with. We did so by using simple "I noticed..." statements with that child every day for two weeks, for example "I noticed you like football." I feel doing so helped me get to know that child better/faster and he was, from the get-go, more eager to please.
In the book, when taking Wes on the "backstage tour," Dave "identified each whale by name and supplied interesting anecdotes about them." I think it's key to really KNOW your students, what they like and their behavior patterns (like Dave knows the whales). Like Dave said, it doesn't happen overnight, and it takes patience. But every year, I feel I get to know my kids a little faster/better and have a better school year because of it.
I have to say... Dave has THREE whales (maybe more?) to build trust with, accentuate the positive for, and redirect their energy as needed. But we have 20 or more!! (Usually quite a few more...) I totally buy giving more attention to positive behavior than negative (but admit I need work in this area, especially on trying days). I also get the benefits of rechanneling kids' energies (vs. punishing them) as needed. But, like Cindi, I have a hard time "redirecting" a child who is, for example, tackling another on the playground. The last page says even Shamu can have a time-out, so I look forward to reading more about this.
My “aha” moment, after reading the first chapter, was to tell myself that I could redirect my feeling about the snow we were having. My attitude was not in a good place this week because my father died. We had the week off for spring break and I was in PA for his funeral. I was feeling pretty cheated out of a break. After reading chapter 1 I started to realize that I was pretty lucky to have a wonderful brother and sister that I trust and respect. I was pretty lucky to have had the best father in the world. My brother wrote his eulogy and opened it with “Dad was the guy that you’d ask to hold your wallet.” He was the person who taught me the importance of trust but I didn’t realize how important it was in my teaching. I guess that was a second “aha” moment after reading Whale Done.
This week at school I am going to keep two thoughts in mind. Do my students trust me? How can I redirect what needs to be redirected?
It was interesting to read Deb D’s comments about “Love & Logic”. When my sons were young I had taken a class in L&L for parents. I don’t remember learning the, “I noticed,” statement. It is a great way to focus on the positive. I have a little girl in my first grade class who has been retained, misses a lot of school, is often late and come dirty and unprepared. She needs a lot of positive. I can see how by using the “I noticed” in front of anything would be great for her to hear. She needs someone she can trust, that will accentuate the positive and redirect her interest in learning.
Cindi wrote about the Responsive Class Room. I like the “think chair” but I am afraid I would have a hard time sending the child to the think chair without saying it with a negative attitude in my voice. I am very interested in learning more because I too have a hard time ignoring the bad behavior. Sometimes children don’t know that their behavior is unacceptable.
Darcy wrote about a students spelling muscle getting stronger. That is a great positive. We don’t have to be 100%, or the best. We just need to be getting stronger at what we do.
I wanted to respond to Darcy in that I LOVE how you called it his "spelling muscle." Can I use that with some of my students?:) I always like to find a positive statement like that to help motivate and to help my students want to persevere.
I agree with what some of the others are saying in that with some challenging students/circumstances, redirection isn't always the best route and won't always be successful.
The first few weeks of school are so important in establishing the trust of students and their trust of me - at the 8th grade level, anyway. Patience helps develop those relationships in that a lot of this age student wants/needs to be heard. Once that is allowed, then it's time for all to be heard, and praise for both these types is instrumental in getting that to happen.
I really can't wait to use this quote from chapter 1: "When your life isn't working, who's always around?" After building trust and treating students fairly and doing that with a sense of humor,they listen. The quote may start some of them thinking, perhaps about doing for others or reaching outward and being less egomaniacal. Or...even being the ones who accentuate the positive with their peers???
I think there are always 3 or 4 per class at this level who are always testing the teacher. Usually, the redirection of unwanted behaviors works if done early in the year. However, this year with one absolutely out-of-control-in-the-mouth dept. student who I have for 2 classes, the ignoring worked when I realized she had to have the last word. When I didn't respond to her last word and smiled at the class and continued what we were doing, that behavior has lessened considerably. What I would normally and automatically have seen as disrespect for me really wasn't. I don't have a label for it but it does somewhat fall under the word 'needy.' Anyway, with 53 school days left and her out on another suspension due to her impulsivity, etc. I think I can say that this technique worked in her case.
In conclusion, Wes sounded so tired and beaten down! I love happy endings and know that this education in whales/people is going to work for him!
As I read chapter one, I too, like Deb, was struck with the similarties of the whale teachings to the philosophies of Love and Logic. Love and Logic is all about energy-either building it up or draining it. It sounded like Dave was talking about energy quite a bit. He said that they rechannel the whales' energy so as to encourage the behavior they wanted. In our classrooms if children drain our enery (for example, draw on their desks, fool around in the bathroom, etc.) we have them build our energy back up. One way would be to stay in from recess and clean the bathrooms or to clean the desks. To have a student simply stay in from recess wouldn't do anything except create more of an energ drain on the teacher because the teacher is stuck "babysitting" through a recess.
Dave also talked about accentuating the positive with appropriate rewards. I try to do that a lot in my classroom- my students get a ton of positive verbal reinforcement. I try to avoid the use of candy, stickers, pencils, etc. I used to hear a lot of, "If I do that, what do I get?" I rarely hear that now that I have switched to Love and Logic. This would be similar to Dave switching over to head rubs rather than fish treats.
The most important thing I can think of when it comes to Love and Logic as well as Dave's whale theory is that you need to build trust with the person/whale you are working with. At school I make a point of greeting my students by the door every morning. I use "I notice" statements on them all day long. Children will work wonders for you when they know and trust you- and it sounds the same with the whales!
As I read the chapter I found myself thinking about interactions that I have had with students in my classroom. I was thinking about how I react to different situations and how they align with the book. I think I do accentuate the positive most of the time, but can get caught in punishing negative behaviors. I immediately thought about the students I have that thrive off of negative attention. There are some kids that want attention any way they can get it. I think I have a difficult time of not feeding into this at times. I get frustrated with the behavior and acknowledge it, which is what they wanted in the first place. Many times I think that I could have redirected and built trust.
I know this can work because some of the times where I have felt successful with students have been with some difficult ones. I have and have had students that I know will react very negatively if I respond in an impatient way. Some of these kids were ED and often times I knew how they would react from their previous years in school. When I am more cognitive of how I reacted with them and focused on the positive I have seen results. I think the trick for me is to be cognitive of it with all of my students, not just the volatile ones.
Interesting book. I guess I find myself somewhat in the shoes of Wes, saying to myself how do we keep from punishing or acknowledging the negative. However, as the trainer had mentioned, it's not that you're "ignoring" the negative, you're redirecting.
As for our education system, I see that the teacher is the biggest motivator in the classroom, (more so than parents & administrators), and therefore it is vitally important that we focus on the positive's and abilities that our students have, rather than what they do not have. Therefore, I guess we have much the similar philosophies in education.
Do we accentuate the positive? I feel for the most part we do, however, I know I can do a better job more often of focusing or "redirecting" my students attention to the more positive and wanted outcomes. As for building trust, I feel EVERY teacher needs to have this. Often times, students tend to trust us (as teachers) more than their peers, administration, and even their parents. Therefore, I feel in order to get the expected or wanted outcome, I agree, we need to build trust between student & teacher. I find it probably most evident in the elementary school, and then as students continue through to middle school and then eventually high school, trust seems to slip from the teacher / student aspect. I am fortunate enough to see students transfer from fifth grade through seniors in high school, and I find it very rewarding when I have even high school students coming back to me for advice in high school math, and even preparations for college at that point. Thus, I feel, I have a good feel for providing for a trusting environment.
I really think our philosophies are similar in our school and in my classroom. I see many of our teachers trying to make meaningful connections to their students. They have “student of the week” which helps the teacher and the class know more about that student as an individual. When I hear teachers in our building talk about their students they sound as though they understand why the student is the way he or she is by knowing about their background, including family information and health issues. By doing all of this with each student, it begins to build trust with the student.
Because I have over 400 students in our building, it is difficult to know each student and try to build trust with each one. However there are a number of students that I feel I connect with and get to know. It makes me feel like I am doing something right when I hear that students would like to have Art “every day”. I wish at times I could have just one class and work closely with each student on a daily basis.
I think that all of us were taught during the years to look at the “positive”, whether it was a class we took or listening to the guest speakers at an in-service. We realize that using the positive rather than the negative is more successful in getting results from our students.
In my art classes, not all students do well. I really try to point out something that the student is doing well. It might be just that they attempted something a little challenging.
The advantage of teaching art is that most kids feel successful in my room. I stress to them to do “their” best. If they know they gave it their all, they should be proud of their accomplishments.
In the art room, some projects have more specific directions than others. If a student makes a mistake, (usually involving a process), I show them, and sometimes even the whole class how a mistake can actually become something better for the project. We talk about problem solving and making that “boo-boo” into a change in direction.
The whale trainers talked about making the mistake of “mentally limiting animals”. I know at times I expect more of my students than most art teachers would. But amazingly, I usually get what I expect.
As a parent and educator it has been easy to see how clearly more effective praise is than any kind of negative reinforcement. It is more difficult, however, to learn how to ignore or redirect behavior when it is incorrect. In the classroom (and at home) it comes natural to point out what is done wrong with hope that it won't happen again. I think we spend so much time reminding kids to walk in the hall, use inside voices, and keep hands to themselves that sometimes we forget how the "sting" of a correction can feel, especially if in front of peers. I think personally, I need to work harder at remembering how poinful a public reprimand can be and try to speak with more kids in private with redirection for mistakes rather than just a a negative reminder or consequence.
I agree that to be effective educators, we do need to accentuate the positive and continually work on building trust with our students. We have seen more of a push for this with recent research on the brain and motivation. We are wired to respond to positive affirmations, and negative attention typically just stops inappropriate behavior for the moment, and may enhance it in the long run. Kids (and adults) are not generally motivated with negative reinforcement. For students who already come to school trusting adults and motivated to work hard it may not be as critical to build these "connections". Building trust while accentuating small steps toward progress may be our only hope for progress, however, with many students.
Build trust - Accentuate the positive - When mistakes occur, redirect the energy.
Three great points to practice. I love the idea of redirecting the energy.
My biggest challenge these past few weeks has to keep my family and myself positive. My mother, after breaking her hip, has been very discouraged. She spent 2 months in the hospital which was hard on her. Now that she has gotten out, she isn’t able to walk, so isn’t able to go back home. She has been staying with my sister (she lives closer). I go every weekend and have applied the things I have been reading. I tell her the great things, like being out of the hospital, not eating hospital food, not being poked or woke up to get a pill. Of course when I walk in the door smiling she always says, “What are you up to now?” Sometimes I read to her, help her wash her hair, or we go walking.
At school I know I could be down, but the students make me laugh. I always keep saying to myself, “It could be worse, so enjoy.” I had a few students pushing all my buttons. They couldn’t settle and weren’t doing their work and I was losing patience. They are fair students. Finally, I gave them the job of decorating the bulletin board for parent conferences. I told them they could decorate it any way they wanted as long as it contained the information needed. Before they could work on it though, they had to finish their work. Everyday, I praise them for finishing their assignments and then they’d work on the board. It looks great. I had them remind their parents to come to conferences so they could see the board. All the parents came to conferences. I was able to provide them with positive feedback on their children and they all loved the bulletin board.
I also have students who always want to help. I’ve given them the responsibility of making sure certain students have the materials they need when they come to class – pencils, paper, books, assignments. When they get to class I praise the students for remembering their things and I praise the “Reminders” for reminding them to bring their things. It is a win-win. No time is wasted waiting for someone to retrieve what they forgot and students love to help.
While reading the intro and chapter one, a lot of things struck me as common sense. However, when I sat and thought about my job and how I apply these concepts and philosophies in my classroom, I realized that I often need little reminders (such as what I just read) to refocus my energy on the positives of my students and my classroom.
I found so much truth in the comments and statements about building trust. I believe that being able to build trust within the classroom and with your students is the most important virtues in having a successful year and in building positive relationships with your students. And those relationships are what can make or break your year with those students.
I really like the quote about living down or up to expectations. It helped to remind me that no matter what a student does in class one day, or if that student has a bad day another day, I should always let that student know that I expect more from him or her. For if I relay the message to that student that I wouldn't expect any more from him or her, he or she will give me just that. Another brief statement that I often need to remind myself about was about giving someone another chance when they should fail. There is nothing to be gained from something you fail and never do again. This is something that I need to be reminded of now and again in my classroom. I need to remember to give students a second chance if they should happen to fail.
So far, I have really enjoyed reading this book. It reinforces so much of what I believe and send gentle reminders about things I should be doing, yet I get so wrapped up in the little things that don't make much of a difference.
Just the other day, we were correcting a math assignment together in class. I wanted to collect the work to check on their progress after the kids checked their own papers, but often they put so many marks all over their paper, that it makes it difficult for me to see what’s what. When I told them, “If you get a problem right, don’t do *a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g* to your paper. If you get a problem wrong, put a checkmark by it.” There was a collective “AWWWW!” from the class. Ouch. It occurred to me after all this WHALE DONE! reading I had been doing, that I was still having them accentuate the negative instead of the positive. They wanted to put those stars by the problems they had done correctly! I quickly did an about face and told them to instead, highlight the problems they got right. Immediately following that request, there was a resounding “YEA!” from the group. Seems to me that I made a mistake, the students helped me to redirect my energy and then positively reinforced my change of heart. When you listen to the “whales”, they become the teachers.
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