The Mirrors in My Classroom

I remember the day in the beginning of the year when I sat down with one of my first graders to review writing. She was talking about something I didn't completely understand. When I asked her about it she pointed to the part of her writing she was referring to.

But the pointing was not pointing; it was a rude kind of tapping that left me wondering where in the world she could have gotten that from.

A few days later I caught myself doing the same tapping.

Doh!

Fast forward to last week. The mother of one of my students commented on my new haircut and how it looked different since the front of my hair was kind of up. I told her my hair was up because I have a habit of brushing my hair back. Now that it is shorter, it stays up.

"So that's where he got that!" she said.
"Got what?" I asked.
She explained, "He always does that with his hair. I hate that."

Doh!

I have been amazed at the ability of these younglings to absorb the information from around them. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad ...

Time to Vote For Your Stars!

On the first Monday of every month the whole elementary school gathers together to group, recently showing off student work (which I think is great and I would like to see this continue), and to recognize students who have been outstanding at exhibiting our STARs [ESLRs].

Students who have been "living the STARs" receive an award and are recognized for their excellence. I have watched the older grades now for two years choose their own class nominees while I have sat back and chosen the STARs for my own class.

Today I decided it was time to put the ball into their court and let them choose their own STAR recipients.

It was a revealing experience. For one, the students were much more serious about it than I had expected. We discussed it for about 45 minutes - a long time for my class to talk about something. The conversation also showed me how superficial their knowledge of the STARS, ESLRs, attitudes the school [and I] want the students to exhibit.

How many times did someone ask me today what each one of them meant. Was it that they only understood the meanings of the words in one way and were unable to apply them?

Whatever the reason, it helped me see that I should be doing this every month. I think it is a great way for the students to learn more about what they mean outside of the "cookie cutter" definition they usually learn.

I set it up so that we first reviewed what the STARs were, in our case they are Responsible, Open minded, Communicator, Knowledgeable, and Risk Taker [ROCKR]. I then asked the students to nominate another student who had shown that trait in the last month.

This was hard for them, and it was even hard for me, as I think that we tend to think more about people's actions as an accumulative rather than in segments of time as I was asking them.

I thought it was good for students who were voted for to hear their name called. I think that it is important for students to that others are watching their actions - even if they don't think so. An act that one might think of as inconsequential, can be enormous for another. And vice versa.

I am wondering, as I am going to start doing this regularly, if it will motivate students to start thinking more about their actions. One student told me after the [secret ballot] votes were in, that she was disappointed she didn't get the knowledgeable award. I told her I was sorry, but maybe she could try to think more about what image she was projecting when she was interacting with others, and that she could even try to make her good deeds more visible to others.

I really don't want to start a competition here, and if it starts to become one I will have to tweak something, but for today, and for the next and last assembly of the year, the decision will be in the students hands.

As it should be.

How Does Light Move?

This picture is from way back in March.

I was being observed, had a cold, and the lesson was about how light moves.

It was one of the more interesting class periods of this year. I set up a flashlight and asked the students where they thought the light would go. To my surprise, I had kids going all around the room putting markers on the wall where they thought the light would end up when I hit the switch.

I thought that they misunderstood what I asked of them, so I repeated the question. I had them retell me the question in their own words - everything seemed fine.

We spent an hour and a half inquiring into how light moves.

I expected that part of the lesson to last 5 minutes. But, I went with where they were and had a great time.

Thank you Craig For the picture.

Edit: To get started, I had the students draw a picture of how they thought light moved, and what they drew was pretty wild. Just today, two days after I published this post, I came a cross a blog post on Inquire Within and Tasha Cowdy writes,

Unusually, the children were slow to respond and when they did, their answers were not obviously related to the question. It occurred to me that the question I had asked required the children to think abstractly about something that they had never experienced. I hadn't asked the right question, offered a meaningful invitation.

... I am reminded of the importance of framing a good research question and thinking carefully about a meaningful provocation.