Our Students Need to Know We Believe in Them

Sitting up late tonight listening to songs and I came across one by Mumford & Sons called, "Believe".

I watched the official video and then the one with the lyrics.........Then I watched them both again.

The new school year starts in a week, and I need to believe in a group of students I've never met, at a school where I've never taught. 

How do I get these students to believe in themselves? How do I get them to believe in me?

After closing my eyes and listening to the lyrics over and over, I now know how.

I have to first believe in them. 

But how do I get myself to believe in them; and believe I can have the strength to hold onto them each day all the time?

I need to go back to what I DO KNOW about each one of them, even though I've never met any one of them. 

I KNOW they all learned how to walk, and if they all learned how to walk then I KNOW they all can learn how to think.

How did they ALL learn how to walk? They were all COMPLETELY BELIEVED IN that they could learn how to walk. 

And just how were they ALL completely believed in?

They were all COMPLETELY LOVED by those around them; because powerful, pure, unquestioned BELIEF in another TAKES powerful, pure, unquestioned LOVE for another.

So then all I need to do is COMPLETELY BELIEVE in their ability to think, to learn, and to grow by COMPLETELY LOVING their potential to do so. 

But I'm just a teacher, and I've heard that those who can, do; and those that cannot, teach. Who am I to believe I can do this? 

Well, because I know the opposite is true; that those who CAN LOVE and CAN BELIEVE IN OTHERS........are called TEACHERS!

This is what we do, and these lyrics are our students' challenge to us. And successfully meeting this challenge goes far beyond determining how well they do on the state tests.

How well we meet this challenge affects how much they will love and believe in themselves, and be able to love and believe in others, as adults.

What we do this year affects them forever. I'd say they're all worth fighting for, and not fighting with.

Hearts Bigger Than our Classrooms ~ David Bowie - Heroes (Live AID)

Prompt: What are you most proud of to date in your teaching career?

It has to be that my heart is bigger than my classroom.

As I was pushing myself at the gym this morning, and pushing myself not to develop bigger muscles but to develop a BIGGER SPIRIT...

I saw a shirt that said:

DREAMS WORK

WHEN

YOU WORK

I immediately thought of how that perfectly matches my classroom motto:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

Which was inspired by Robin Williams who inspired me to leave the world of business to become a teacher because of his role in Dead Poets Society. 

When I asked him to send something that would inspire my students to achieve their own dreams, he sent this...

To Mr. Stuart's Class

Dream Big

And I thought, "Yes!" That's the answer!

He dreamed big and became big only because he DID big! 

And the birth of my classroom motto was born:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

So as I left the locker room ready to live life to the fullest and bring out the best in my students I heard in my head:

You are a developer of heroes today!

Believe you can do it

Because every one of them are worth it!

No sooner had I left the locker room than I ran into the mother of a former student who I used to read to @ 7 years ago. She wasn't even my student, but she was a wonderful young spirit who had just moved to America and was nervous about her lack of English. 

So to help her after school each day she would come up from her Kindergarten class to my 5th grade class where she, I and my own three children would lie down on bean bags and read stories to her. 

Looking down at her smiling face filled me with joy and I thought: 

When we are young

and covered in love,

We completely believe

we are gifts from above.

This girl is now in middle school, and has been covered in so much love from her mother and teachers that she is earning straight A's, excelling at track and chosen to be the vice-president of her class. 

When our hearts are bigger than our classrooms, we help change the world in a big way. 

Thank you te@chthought for your 30 Day Reflection on Gratitude. I probably wouldn't have written this without your prompt. 

And thank you Robin Williams and that young girl, Sofia, without whom I wouldn't have been able to write this post. I'm very proud of the hero you've become :-)

Going to Bed with Smiles on our Faces

Today was a good day. We all got a lot of things done. Coupons were cut. Shopping was done. Help with homework was given. And after a month off after surgery, workouts were begun.

Pleasantly worn out from a very productive day, everyone was ready to call it a goodnight and head out of sight when low and behold little Lily arose with an Apples to Apples game to play for Family Game Night.

One-by-one we were slowly recruited, until all six of us around the table were seated. And as the game began and later a winner was sung, everyone ignored the end-of-game rules and play continued.

When we finally broke camp and hugs and kisses were exchanged, a warm glow overtook my heart and I saw that we were all going to bed with smiles on our faces.

Be Afraid of Being Afraid

Teach Thought 30 Day Blogging Challenge ~ Day 30 ~ What would I do as a teacher if I weren’t afraid?

 I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything! Who, me? No way.

OK, seriously, What would I do?

Well, first, what am I afraid of?

It’s not receiving a bad evaluation. I care more about being an
effective teacher than I do about being seen as one.

So I’m not afraid of that.

 I’m not afraid of what others think. I am excited that they do think. Not about me, but about what they can do to be the ultra-effective teacher they dream of in their hearts.

 Hmmmm. Parents? No

I guess I’d keep doing what I keep trying to do, no matter the problems it causes; identify what each child needs to know, and provide exciting and as individualistic lesson plans as possible.

This is very different from what most parents know, and often we fear what we don’t understand.

 So, I guess I’ll continue being unafraid of parents being fearful of my teaching style at the beginning of every year.

Teaching ~ Fire Fighter Style

Teach Thought 30 Day Blogging Challenge ~ Day 29 ~ How have I changed as an educator since I first started teaching?

 

How have I changed?

Clear learning goals and targets to get those goals, and teaching in digestible chunks.

By deconstructing learning goals I now am able to create leveled learning targets to help more students achieve the learning goal.

By teaching these learning targets I force myself to teach in digestible chunks. Because of my love and excitement for learning and discovering new knowledge I tend to “teach everything all at once”.

Although my students have always loved the excitement and fun of my classroom, they sometimes came away feeling overwhelmed and incapable of achieving the learning goals.

Some parents even pulled their kids from my class saying they, “weren’t smart enough to learn the way I taught”, which told me something was missing from my teaching, something important.

Like a firefighter whose job it is to put out every fire, my job as a teacher is to reach and teach every student.

Firefighters don’t hope to put out a fire. They use all of their intelligence and courage to do their best to put out every one.

I’ve had to find the courage to increase my teaching intelligence in order to make improvements in my teaching.

Deconstructing learning goals into achievable steps, and monitoring myself to teach in those steps, has made big improvements towards my fire-fighting teaching style of putting out the fires of doubt in my students and helping them all achieve the learning goals, step-by-step.

Thank you, Dr. Marzano for your research into the areas of effective teaching practices, and to my principal, Mary Hool, for implementing those practices in our school.

The Data Tells me What to Teach Them ~ Their Passions Tell Me How

Teach Thought 30 Day Blogging Challenge ~ Day 28 ~ Should Technology drive curriculum or vice-versa?

I think neither should drive the other, but used together, with data driving both.

I know there are certain standards, big ideas and anchor standards that students must master in their various grades.

But for me it's their DATA that tells me WHAT specific curriculum they need on an individual basis, and not based solely their grade level. 

And it's their PASSIONS that tell me HOW to teach them. 

Some are script writers and PowerPoint creators while others are Lego Master iMovie makers. 

The challenge is to combine WHAT they need to know with HOW they are most likely to learn it. 

Working Hard ~ Playing Harder in our School Of Rock

Teach Thought 30 Day Blogging Challenge ~ Day 26 ~ What Role do Weekends and Holidays Play in my Teaching


The role they play for me is to play. Work hard ~ Play harder.

Either I take the entire weekend off to play; to rest, recuperate and recharge,

or I work hard the entire weekend to create lessons that allow us to play at school.

And not just academic games, but to play with science and math and reading and writing through an historical adventure.

The goal, or desired effect, is for my students to play with knowledge through experiential discovery in order to understand it well enough to perform it. 

As I'm planning, I envision them as musicians of all different kinds

 applying their new knowledge to play the instruments of their choice in new and exciting ways,*

resulting in a passionate performance!

*Taylor, Florencia and Katie doing well enough on their in-class reading assignment to take time off and play a little Spanish air guitar to the music of The Gipsy Kings (I got to play just because I'm the teacher - and, well, I need to have fun too).