Educating the Dragon

“It’s good enough” is the motto of most underachieving students. The work place and home are based on competence. You do it well, you do it competently and that is the minimum requirement. My classroom needs to reflect that. I should expect competence from my students and then move up from there. Students should be expected to be competent and then strive for more. But how do I do that? One year I looked at the children’s books, daily ripping pages out and getting the children to repeat work. Quality of work increased, quantity took a dive. That was over a term before I left for New Zealand. Had I continued in that vain maybe the amount of work needing repeating would drop off and the class coverage would increase… maybe something to try in February. Perhaps.

Children need to be given the opportunity to understand. Everything they do should have some value in their real world.

“What I am asking you to do is useful. If you do not see it as usefulness I am more than willing to explain it to you. I accept you may not like to do what I’m asking, because it may be boring, difficult [or] strenuous… But you’ll always know there is a good reason for me asking you to do it.”

I need to keep that in mind. I’m going to make a real effort to explain why we do stuff. I’m thinking currently of those routine things; early morning prep, silent reading, printing (handwriting) and the like.

Identified ‘useful’ skills in the work place. (Not sure why I used inverted commas just because they ARE useful) reading, writing, calculation, computer literacy and science. Industry leaders added to that list problem solving, applying knowledge, leading, cooperating and speaking and listening.

What would the curriculum look like if we focused on these?

Literacy, Maths, ICT, Science, ….. what those other skills come under, are they all covered in the key competencies?

My first day with my new class should look like this, according to Dr. Glasser:

If a student wants to talk have time to listen. Easier said than done with 30 children. However any problem that child has tends to be a issue they have with someone else. The earlier we can connect with the students and allow them to connect with each other the fewer problems I’ll face later on.

“By giving them some early attention, the message you are trying to send is , I’m your teacher and your friend. Whatever your problem is, if you can make an effort to keep up with your schoolwork, you’ll be much better off than if you don’t. Remember, even if I can’t help you solve your problem, I’m an expert on schoolwork. That much I can always help you with.”

I’m going to try to keep my relationships with my students as strong as I can. If I can do that then whatever issues arrive I will be most likely be able to handle.

I have just finished the book Gifted Hands by Ben Carson: he’s the neurosurgeon who in the late eighties successfully separated Siamese twins joined at the head. Both twins survived.

What an inspirational story of a guy who, from the ‘ghettoes’ of Detroit, became the first black faculty member at Johns Hopkins. He used to do a lot of talks to young people about the will and attitude required to succeed in life. His acronym for it was THINK BIG. I’m not going to reproduce all that he said about each heading but I thought it might be helpful to give you headlines:

Talent and Time

Hope and Honesty

Insight

Nice

Knowledge

Books

In-depth learning

God

He went on to say in his conclusion, and I happen to agree with him, that there is a lack of role models in our society today.

“When media don’t emphasise sports, it’s music. I often hear of groups - many of them good - who pour out their hearts in a highly competitive career, not realizing that only one group in 10,000 is going to make it big. Rather than putting all their time and energy into sports or music these kids - these bright, talented young people- should be spending their time with books and self-improvement, ensuring that they’ll have a career when they’re adults.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. If you want to know the details of THINK BIG either buy the book or ask me.

Well, this is my first reading. It’s entitled Every Student Can Suceed and is written by William Glasser, M.D.

Its talking about incorporating Choice theory into your classroom practise. He goes on to explain what that is at the end of the book which is a little irriating as I have only read the first two chapters.

But here is what I has gleened so far:

 The 7 deadly habits that destroy relationships:

criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding people to control them.

Better the 7 good good habits;

Caring, supporting, contributing, encouraging, trusting and befriending.

Relationships in the classroom are central and must be kept positive: “few [children] work in school because they think an education is valuable to them. They work for you because they like you and because they see the sense in what you are trying to teach.”

Third and final point was made:

Keep in mind that the success of any human endeavour [learning in school included] is directly proportional to how the people involved in the endeavour get along together.

He was also talking about external control and how that ‘reward/punishment’ scenario is most popualar in school. He was making the point, I think, that children need to internalize motivation and that the ‘reward/punishment’ does not lead directly to that ultimate goal. What ever “Change Theorpy” I sense that it is a completely different mindset for a teacher, which will probably make it very hard to adopt, it being against our training and instinct in classroom management….. More later.