Good Intentions

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Good Intentions —

As I sat in the Principal’s Literacy class today, the presenter said something that really struck a chord with me. She said that everything we do in our schools needs to be intentional. We are given children for 6.5 hours and we need to use every moment to help them succeed. If we are not intentional with our instruction, our lessons, and our attitude, it is not helping students. Every lesson should be planned out ahead of time with objectives, structure, and sequence to maximize the learning with each student. Students deserve to more than best intentions from teachers, the deserve to have teachers that are intentional in their teaching. I found that interesting and true. We have very little time in our day. Everything we do with students should be intentional to help them succeed in learning.

Quote I’m pondering —

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.” 

–Ender Wiggin in Enders Game

What I’m Watching —

Kindergarten Assessments at the Beginning of the Year- thank you Politicians....

The fun we have with computers and kindergarten students. I understand that some of the older grades have issues like this also. Enjoy.

Favorite Article This Week —

 Stop telling kids you’re bad at math. You are spreading math anxiety ‘like a virus.’

One of the things adults need to understand is that sometimes we help children with their anxiety and fears. This also goes for more than math.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Heather for all you do. You have come to our wonderful school with high expectations and an amazing attitude and have picked up the job and ran with it. Everything we have asked of you, you have done. You have cared for the students. You have taken it upon yourself to be out at lunch recess with stickers so you can learn student names. You have done amazing and we just want to thank you for all you do for our school and for the students. Thank you for being with us. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

Checking In, Checking Out

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Checking In, Checking Out  —

One of the ideas Kim and I wanted to work on this year were student discipline issues we have seen at our school. We don’t have serious issue, but we have some that get under teachers skin and sometimes ends up that the teacher needs a time out, or that the student needs someone to talk with.One of the new ideas we have heard about and are putting into effect this year is the Check-in, Check-out program. We have started small and are adding a few more students here and there. Some of the students really have made serious improvements, and some we are still working with. Let me explain what it is and how it works.

A student comes to my office in the morning before school, or right after school starts. Kim or I sit with them and see how they are doing, getting a feeling of how their day might be, and give them a minute to tell me something they want to get out. It is a time for us to build a relationship with them and they have a chance to be listened to, one on one. Then we talk about the “Check In” sheet. There are four things we talk about, “Listening to the teacher”, “Being on task”, “Appropriate talk with others”, and “Completing their work”. They have a chance to get a 2 (amazing, but not perfect), a 1 (part to most of the time), or a 0 (less than part of the time or nothing) during the morning, afternoon, specials, and during clubs. They set a goal of how many 2’s they will get that day. It might be 1, it might be 10. Theory set the goal. They take the Check In Sheet to their first teacher and they go on with their day. At the end of the class the teacher circles the numbers, gives a short explanation why they got the numbers they did, signs the paper, and they take it to the next class. At the end of the day, they “Check Out” with Kim or I by coming to the office before school is over and sharing with us how their day went. We discuss the 0’sand 1’s and celebrate the 2’s. We make a plan about what they will do to get 2’s in class and we send them home. After we have talked with their parents about the Check In sheet, the note goes home for the parents to sign and the student brings it back the next day when they get in their new Check In sheet. This paper is not a punishment. Even when they get 0’s it is not a punishment, it is a way to find out why they are getting 0’s and 1’s in class. It also helps us with patterns in their behaviors. 

If they are sent to the office because of a serious behavior problem, there will be a punishment of some kind. I personally like picking up trash and cleaning up our school during lunch. Then I can talk with them while we are cleaning the school up.

What we need from teachers is consistency in asking for the papers, taking a minute to talk with the students and don’t just circle numbers and push them out the door. We also need you to make sure they get to the office either before school or right after the bell. Some students in the upper grades can be sent after iReady time also. And the hard part is making sure you get the papers each day in the afternoon and send them to the office before school ends. It gets crazy with snack and other distractions as school ends, so if they are sent before the bell rings we can get them all and send them home. You can even send them before Clubs if you like. Please help us with this. Right now we have about 7 students, but we are hoping to have a few more and give Check in sheets to other people in our school. This gives students someone to talk with for a minutes twice a day along with the attention you give them as a teacher.  Thank you for all you do. We hope this program will help change a few of the behaviors that can distract a class and make your classroom a wonderful learning environment with few intentional distractions. From students.

Quote I’m pondering —

“Stick your neck out…it’s a lot more fun than sitting at home and watching other people do it.” 

– Sir Richard Branson

Favorite Video This Week —

Step your Steps

The Fitbit challenge has come to this! Red Mountain sent this out to all the principals. Enjoy the humor about our Fitbit Challenge.

Favorite Article This Week —

Training teachers in phonics should be prioritised, says thinktank

Ya. We know. We see the gaps and are starting to fill them with PD and a great Phonics program. 

A Big Thank You —

Thank you First Grade. Thank you for taking the learning you have gotten and putting it into your classrooms the next day. Thank you fro working with your groups of students and never giving up on any of them. Working with the students that need a little extra and building them up and giving them a reason to learn. No stone unturned, no student left behind. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your ideas. Thank you for telling us what you need to get to the next step. Thank you for all you do. You are appreciated. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

Time to Recharge

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Time to Recharge  —

We do have many breaks as we go through the school year, but as a teacher it was always great to use it as a time to recharge. I hope that you are doing something fun and taking time to be with your loved ones, or at least talk with them. Get your mind off school for a little bit so when you come back you are fully charged and ready to go. Balance is always a difficult thing to maintain and manage as a teacher. There is so much to do and yet we need time to get our balance of home and school into focus. Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you Monday morning!

Quote I’m pondering —

“The only true voyage would be not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes.” 

–Marcel Proust

What I’m Reading —

Stop Stealing Dreams

This is a book in PDF form. It is a manifesto from Seth Godin about school. If you are looking to be a pirate and want a different look at different thoughts about teaching. This is a good start. Pick a few headings and read a little. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't. It has some interesting thoughts here. Seth wrote the book “Purple Cow” which is an interesting book about how to stand out from everyone and be remarkable.

Favorite Article This Week —

The Power of the Positive Office Referral

As we start using our new Check-In-Check-Out System in the office, I thought this might be a great article to keep in mind when and why you send students to the office.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you for all you do. There is so much going on in our school and I see everyone working hard to help their students improve and be successful. I talk with students as they walk around the track and I always ask how school is going for them and what they are learning. I don’t any students tell me they hate school and are not learning anything. They love school and they love their teachers. They love you. Thank you for making them feel loved. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful 4 day weekend.

Find the Purpose

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Find the Purpose —

When we are planning for our lessons each day, how purposeful are we in the outcome we want from that lesson? There is a lot to get through in one year so we need to make sure everything we teach has a purpose and an outcome. This is why we have GVCs and Learning Targets. If the outcome is not ending in a GVC’s then why are we teaching it? And if we need to teach it, why is it not a GVC? Every school needs to purposeful in their lessons, but in the drive-by teaching we do in our school, we need to be more focused on the outcomes and purposeful in our delivery. More is not better, more is more. Less and deeper is more of what we need. How will this apply to our students’ lives? How will it create opportunities for them and a drive for them to want to keep learning. We will never be able to teach them everything, but if we engage them in learning and create a love of learning, they will keep learning themselves and they will learn everything they need to know. And if they need to know something we did not teach them, they will know how to find it and be able to learn it for themselves. Be purposeful in every lesson. Know your outcome and scaffold the learning so it builds to the next learning opportunity. 

Quote I’m pondering —

“Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will, through work, bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea’.”

-Chuck Close, American artist who achieved fame as a photorealist through massive-scale portraits

What I’m watching —

How our friendship survives our opposing politics

We live in a world with differing opinions. How do we teach our students to listen and learn from different opinions. This TED talk is a good example with good stories about how we can respect other ideas without ruining relationships. Not to show to students, but something to think about. 

Favorite Article This Week —

The 1 Word to Delete from Your Vocabulary if You Want to Succeed

I need to work on deleting this word from my vocabulary. It really does hold me back from what I could really do.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Jana, Cindy, Kathy, Cristin, and Lisa. You have taken and tested students on a variety of different tests that give us the data that we need to help our students. Now after you have started your LLI groups we mention how we might change things up a little and what we got from you was, “whatever you need.” We sure appreciate you great attitudes about doing what is needed to help each of the students at Dixie Sun grow. We sure appreciate all you do behind the scenes and all the little things you do that make such a big difference. Clubs, library, GT, lunch duty, kindergarten lunch duty, and everything else you do at the drop of a hat. Thank you. We appreciate all of you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you. 

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.