Judge each day not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant…
[anonymous]
As I’m trying to collect stories about The Teachable Moment*, I have noticed a trend. First, the teachers I know say, “What a great idea!” and then, “Um, I don’t have any teachable moments.” “Sure you do!” I exclaim, and then they say, “I’ll think about it,” morph into the teacher-version of Eeyeore, trudge away, possibly racking their brains for a time when they made a huge difference in a kid’s life. So maybe “The Teachable Moment” sounds a bit too Hollywood, like all, “Carpe Diem! Stand on your chair and salute me in the name of literacy!” I am just looking for stories in which teachers connect with students, and teachers know they made a difference.
Turns out, that’s hard to come by, especially for new teachers. Most of my stories have been from veteran teachers who had a kid come back 20 years later and thank them. TWENTY YEARS?!? We have to wait twenty years for positive feedback? No wonder there’s a teacher shortage! That is some delayed gratification. One teacher put it to me this way: “Some days I feel like I’m pouring all my energy into sand.” I said, hopefully, “Maybe you’re pouring it into soil, and you have to wait for it to grow?” I was sort of trying to convince myself, I think.
With these new ideas rattling around in my head, I spent some of this Thanksgiving thinking of when I had given thanks to my teachers. Sheepishly, I admit, I have only explicitly thanked one of them. Shame on me! So, after my pumpkin pie-fest, I scoured Facebook, People Finders, Google, etc, for my favorite teacher from 2nd grade, Ms. Laurie Baumunk, so I could thank her.**
Ms. Baumunk was probably all of age 21 when she taught 8 year old me, fresh from Australia with a funny little accent and all. I think back to the most memorable times, and have few moments when I can think of things she taught me explicitly, but my memories are mostly an an amorphous feeling of love--Love for learning, love for my school, love for my classmates. As my blog title states, I. Loved. School. I love everything down to the the little zippers on my Kangaroo shoes that could hold my lunch ticket. I loved sorting my work into little folders. I loved writing. I loved it all.
But most of all, I loved being around Ms. Baumunk. She was warm and kind, and in my memory, angelic and softspoken. She made me want to be a teacher. I’m sure she had her bad days, and state standards and curriculum to follow, but I don’t remember any of that. I only have the visceral appreciation of her kindness. The one thing that does stand out was probably not in a state standard you could measure, but I remember her taking us all to the National Western Stock Show, which for non-Midwesterners, is like a rodeo and a place to view (or buy?) livestock. We had our own little mock-Stock Show in the class in which my drawing of a pig roped in 3rd place. Oh how I wish that were a state standard for that lesson:
Standard 27.2. Students will understand that the world’s premier livestock will be at the Denver Coliseum this weekend! Yeeeeee Haw!
I digress. What I remember about the show was that I bought a little Rabbit’s Foot and then cried on the bus home when I found out they had to kill the rabbit to get it’s foot. Ms. Baumunk comforted me and I survived my first “circle of life” discussion. I’m certain that they didn’t teach that in preservice teaching classes, and I’m certain Ms. Baumunk has no idea that I still remember her kindness decades later.
So for those teachers who don’t think they have any teachable moments, think back on your own teachers who made a difference for you in some small way, and think again.
*It’s not too late! Email me at studentsgrow@gmail.com for details on how to submit a story. It’s paid!
**I didn’t find her. I can only hope she googles her name someday and finds this. I’ll try to help it along in case I spelled her name wrong: Laurie Baumunk, Lori Baumunk, Laurie Baumonk, Lori Baumonk! Google, don’t fail me now.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Study Skill O’ the Week: Swatters!
“If it’s not fun, they won’t learn!” – 5th grade teacher, Inner City Elementary
I overheard this teacher say this the other day, and I must say, her classroom does seem to be pretty fun. Whenever I go in there, the kids are smiling and on-task. Almost every day in her class is a total Learning Party. Wheeeeee!* I don’t know how she does it, working in the inner city, and every day she is so excited about teaching. I wonder if this teacher wakes up on Monday, jolts out of bed, claps her hands together, and exclaims, “TGIM!”
Anyway, with full credit to this teacher, I want to share a technique she uses to help her students memorize facts. I incorporate this in my study skill coaching repertoire, because it really is more fun than traditional “Drill and Kill” techniques with flashcards. It’s called “Swatters” and I thought I’d pass it on as a way to make memorization fun. Do let me know how it goes.
1) Obtain two fly swatters.
2) Explain to the class that they are not to be used for swatting flies. Very important, as I forgot to do this once and had to go buy a new swatter because I was too grossed out to use it again. Bleeh. Fly Guts.
3) Have the students put the answers to certain memorization questions on flash cards. I have used vocabulary words, possible test questions, and math facts. Place the answers on the blackboard in a random array.
4) Have the class line up in two parallel lines, facing the board, with about 6-10 feet in between the board and the first two kids. I’d put a masking tape line there as a start line so you avoid the “He’s cheating!” conversation.
5) Explain the rules. If anyone swats a fly or a classmate, they are disqualified. If anyone pushes anyone, they are disqualified. Whoever hits the flashcard first wins—in the event that both kids hit the correct card, this is determined by whose swatter is on the bottom.
6) Teacher calls out the question, such as “When was the constitution signed?” or “What’s 2 X 5?” and the first two in the rows run up to the board and swat the correct answer. The team with the swatter on the correct card gets a point, and the two return to the back of the line.
7) Proceed until you, or the kids, are bored, or you run out of questions. I have found that even the most ADHD kids ever want to do this game for like 45 minutes, only because they finally get to use that energy.
*Baffling, I know. I want what she has for breakfast.
I overheard this teacher say this the other day, and I must say, her classroom does seem to be pretty fun. Whenever I go in there, the kids are smiling and on-task. Almost every day in her class is a total Learning Party. Wheeeeee!* I don’t know how she does it, working in the inner city, and every day she is so excited about teaching. I wonder if this teacher wakes up on Monday, jolts out of bed, claps her hands together, and exclaims, “TGIM!”
Anyway, with full credit to this teacher, I want to share a technique she uses to help her students memorize facts. I incorporate this in my study skill coaching repertoire, because it really is more fun than traditional “Drill and Kill” techniques with flashcards. It’s called “Swatters” and I thought I’d pass it on as a way to make memorization fun. Do let me know how it goes.
1) Obtain two fly swatters.
2) Explain to the class that they are not to be used for swatting flies. Very important, as I forgot to do this once and had to go buy a new swatter because I was too grossed out to use it again. Bleeh. Fly Guts.
3) Have the students put the answers to certain memorization questions on flash cards. I have used vocabulary words, possible test questions, and math facts. Place the answers on the blackboard in a random array.
4) Have the class line up in two parallel lines, facing the board, with about 6-10 feet in between the board and the first two kids. I’d put a masking tape line there as a start line so you avoid the “He’s cheating!” conversation.
5) Explain the rules. If anyone swats a fly or a classmate, they are disqualified. If anyone pushes anyone, they are disqualified. Whoever hits the flashcard first wins—in the event that both kids hit the correct card, this is determined by whose swatter is on the bottom.
6) Teacher calls out the question, such as “When was the constitution signed?” or “What’s 2 X 5?” and the first two in the rows run up to the board and swat the correct answer. The team with the swatter on the correct card gets a point, and the two return to the back of the line.
7) Proceed until you, or the kids, are bored, or you run out of questions. I have found that even the most ADHD kids ever want to do this game for like 45 minutes, only because they finally get to use that energy.
*Baffling, I know. I want what she has for breakfast.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Hug Your School Psychologist Today
If you can locate your school psychologist today, as s/he probably has several school from which s/he flits back and forth, do take a moment to recognize that it's...
NATIONAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AWARENESS WEEK!!!
*party blowers go off, a few balloons fall from ceiling*
Just like last year, I totally spaced it out until today, Friday. I even had a reminder this year from Tracy, a reader who sent me virtual flowers.
On the heels of week in which I had Tuesday off and missed a whole day of seeing kids, I had an "advocate" at a meeting try to argue with me about whether or not I should be using the term "Dyslexia" or "Learning Disability," misquoting the Educational Code in a rage,* tried to test a kid three times and he was absent, and all around derailment of plans, I really appreciated my V-flowers.
Now I realize this is BAD PR for School Psychology Awareness week to describe all the derailment, so go on and read a warm fuzzy post. There are days in which it's all worth it. I promise.
The Little Engine that Could
*They're the same thing, different lexicon. Simmer down, lady.
NATIONAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AWARENESS WEEK!!!
*party blowers go off, a few balloons fall from ceiling*
Just like last year, I totally spaced it out until today, Friday. I even had a reminder this year from Tracy, a reader who sent me virtual flowers.
On the heels of week in which I had Tuesday off and missed a whole day of seeing kids, I had an "advocate" at a meeting try to argue with me about whether or not I should be using the term "Dyslexia" or "Learning Disability," misquoting the Educational Code in a rage,* tried to test a kid three times and he was absent, and all around derailment of plans, I really appreciated my V-flowers.
Now I realize this is BAD PR for School Psychology Awareness week to describe all the derailment, so go on and read a warm fuzzy post. There are days in which it's all worth it. I promise.
The Little Engine that Could
*They're the same thing, different lexicon. Simmer down, lady.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Sign of the Times: Obama in Education
As I walked to my school in the heart of the inner city the day after the election, I saw a sign that the day before, had GUNZ tagged on it, and it had been painted over to read OBAMA! Today, I saw a billboard that had previously been completely defaced with graffiti, covered over with posters of Obama, with “Change” written in three different languages. I don’t even have to explain the symbolism.
Recently, I did a post about how the gang graffiti at my school has been replaced by support for Obama. A spirited discussion ensued. My take was that I was excited that my students were getting involved in the political process, and I saw the hope they had for their future expand in a way I'd never seen before. In a town where there has already been over 100 murders this year, seeing any movement toward a positive change was, to me, encouraging.
Others fixated on the fact that there was graffiti, and assumed that because my students were excited for Obama, there was a pro-Obama lesson plan distributed to all teachers. Of all the messages in my post, I found it so shocking that the theme pulled out of my posting was “Graffiti is bad and gone unchecked, turns kids into juvenile delinquents!” If anyone has actually read my blog, they would know that I try to turn graffiti into positive art, and disdain the graffiti in my school so much that I made my boys group paint over it as their group project. The point I was making is that despite the manner in which they expressed their excitement, they were expressing excitement about a positive change.
The day after the election, one of my young counselees, a 10-year old African American boy who has told me he doesn’t think he’ll live past age 18 because of the violence in his community, came bounding in my office with a huge grin on his face. He said, “Dr. Bell! Dr. Bell! Do you know who won the election?” I played dumb and said, “No, tell me!” At that point he stuck his ears out with his hands and said, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message!” He burst into giggles, something I had never seen before. Then, he earnestly asked, “Do you think I could be Barack Obama someday?” For a kid who has been so depressed he doesn’t think he needs to do homework because he’s just going to get shot and killed, it was so moving to see him have hope.
Whether or not you endorsed McCain or Obama, and whether or not Obama comes through on all his promises or not, it is a hard argument to make that our children of color do not benefit from having a high status role model like Obama. He has already changed the collective unconscious of our students, and inspired engagement in learning and participating in civics. I encourage everyone to watch this little boy talk about Obama and tell me that’s not powerful.
Recently, I did a post about how the gang graffiti at my school has been replaced by support for Obama. A spirited discussion ensued. My take was that I was excited that my students were getting involved in the political process, and I saw the hope they had for their future expand in a way I'd never seen before. In a town where there has already been over 100 murders this year, seeing any movement toward a positive change was, to me, encouraging.
Others fixated on the fact that there was graffiti, and assumed that because my students were excited for Obama, there was a pro-Obama lesson plan distributed to all teachers. Of all the messages in my post, I found it so shocking that the theme pulled out of my posting was “Graffiti is bad and gone unchecked, turns kids into juvenile delinquents!” If anyone has actually read my blog, they would know that I try to turn graffiti into positive art, and disdain the graffiti in my school so much that I made my boys group paint over it as their group project. The point I was making is that despite the manner in which they expressed their excitement, they were expressing excitement about a positive change.
The day after the election, one of my young counselees, a 10-year old African American boy who has told me he doesn’t think he’ll live past age 18 because of the violence in his community, came bounding in my office with a huge grin on his face. He said, “Dr. Bell! Dr. Bell! Do you know who won the election?” I played dumb and said, “No, tell me!” At that point he stuck his ears out with his hands and said, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message!” He burst into giggles, something I had never seen before. Then, he earnestly asked, “Do you think I could be Barack Obama someday?” For a kid who has been so depressed he doesn’t think he needs to do homework because he’s just going to get shot and killed, it was so moving to see him have hope.
Whether or not you endorsed McCain or Obama, and whether or not Obama comes through on all his promises or not, it is a hard argument to make that our children of color do not benefit from having a high status role model like Obama. He has already changed the collective unconscious of our students, and inspired engagement in learning and participating in civics. I encourage everyone to watch this little boy talk about Obama and tell me that’s not powerful.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
I Believe You Have My Stapler.
You know that scene in Office Space in which Milton, the mumbling guy who has to move his desk all the time, has to move again, and all he has to hold on to is a red stapler? That stapler is HIS and it’s all he has. He has no dignity, but he’s got his stapler. And he’s gonna cling to it.
Unlike Milton, I am so blessed to have an actual 3X6 foot office WITH A DOOR at my public middle school. I am not being sarcastic, for once. Space is a commodity at schools, and private space is unheard of. As many of you know, it took me over 8 months to get an actual key to this office, due to bureaucratic nonsense.* Prior to that, I had to lug my bags into the main office, get a key, lug my bags into the office, run the key back to the office, pray all day that no one came in to take my stuff from an unlocked office, then get the key at the end of the day to lock up again. So you can imagine my territorial reaction to the following note, placed upon my desk last week:
Hi. This is Judy and I am the new speech pathologist. I need you to clean out one of your file drawers for my files and I will need to get your key to share.
Oh no she di’nt! Who does she think she is? I earned that key! I earned that drawer! That’s MY stapler! She will have to pry that key out of my tiny, angry, shaking fist of fury on the day I leave this job! *deep breath* I’m okay now. I am not opposed to sharing. I will behave. I just resent the tone of the note. Maybe she comes from a school where it is normal to have an office and a key, no problems. So I cleaned out a drawer for her, like a good coworker.
But she’s not getting my key. She will have to earn it, just like I did. I am officially Miltina.
*I do not yet have a key to the building to get into said office, so every morning I get to hunt down a janitor whilst holding five million bags of stuff, wielding large coffee about. Someday I will have paid my dues long enough to earn that key…*wistfully stares into future*
Unlike Milton, I am so blessed to have an actual 3X6 foot office WITH A DOOR at my public middle school. I am not being sarcastic, for once. Space is a commodity at schools, and private space is unheard of. As many of you know, it took me over 8 months to get an actual key to this office, due to bureaucratic nonsense.* Prior to that, I had to lug my bags into the main office, get a key, lug my bags into the office, run the key back to the office, pray all day that no one came in to take my stuff from an unlocked office, then get the key at the end of the day to lock up again. So you can imagine my territorial reaction to the following note, placed upon my desk last week:
Hi. This is Judy and I am the new speech pathologist. I need you to clean out one of your file drawers for my files and I will need to get your key to share.
Oh no she di’nt! Who does she think she is? I earned that key! I earned that drawer! That’s MY stapler! She will have to pry that key out of my tiny, angry, shaking fist of fury on the day I leave this job! *deep breath* I’m okay now. I am not opposed to sharing. I will behave. I just resent the tone of the note. Maybe she comes from a school where it is normal to have an office and a key, no problems. So I cleaned out a drawer for her, like a good coworker.
But she’s not getting my key. She will have to earn it, just like I did. I am officially Miltina.
*I do not yet have a key to the building to get into said office, so every morning I get to hunt down a janitor whilst holding five million bags of stuff, wielding large coffee about. Someday I will have paid my dues long enough to earn that key…*wistfully stares into future*
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Obama Wuz Here
Every morning, I am greeted at my office by graffiti. I am blessed that the dead rat and ant party has moved elsewhere, but it’s always a little discouraging to be greeted with “F*** Haters!” every morning. I do not like haters, but it looks like I exclaim this every day on my wall for all to see. I do not claim “Da Mob” either, just fo’ the record. Graffiti happens in any middle school, sure, but this particular colorful display has been an unsolved mystery and on the “emergency maintenance list” since last year. Apparently, pre-teens claiming gangs does not constitute an emergency.
Today I saw some new graffiti:
Vote for Obama!
I have seen election politics trickle down* into the classrooms like I’ve never seen before. In a science experiment on growing seeds under different conditions, the 6th graders named one soil “Obama Soil” (sun and water) and one “McCain Soil” (dark and water). I’m not making this up. The teacher did not appoint these names, the kids did. I will withhold my political commentary, but will note that the Obama soil was flourishing, and the McCain soil was withered and dying. *Ahem*
In a 3rd grade elementary classroom, the teacher was talking about making good choices and making bad choices, and how some people use their power for being leaders and some use power for making bad choices. Discussion ensued about when the kids had made good choices to be leaders. A little boy then raised his hand and said, “George Bush makes bad choices!” Another piped in: “He uses his power for making bad choices!” Finally, a little girl raises her hand and earnestly asks, “Can you tell me how people voted for him TWICE? I just don’t get it.” Here, here, sister.
In my 6th grade Girls’ Talent Group today, we played the “String Game” in which one person says something they like, and then tosses the string to another person, until we see a nice web of how we’re all connected, even if we don’t all like exactly the same things. After we all giggled following “Who likes Antonio?!?” one girl said, “Who likes Obama?” and they all squealed, “Me!” and jumped up and down.
No matter your political leanings, you have to admit, it is fascinating to see even our little ones get involved. I wonder where they got these messages from. Teachers? Parents? TV? Bootleg Obama shirts that I see on every street corner, peddling Hope? I just think it is wonderful for my young African American kids to feel that they too could be President someday. I just hope they’d use their power for making good choices.
*Not to be confused with trickle down economics. Our schools are still holding out for that trickle down effect to pay for graffiti abatement and better salaries…
Today I saw some new graffiti:
Vote for Obama!
I have seen election politics trickle down* into the classrooms like I’ve never seen before. In a science experiment on growing seeds under different conditions, the 6th graders named one soil “Obama Soil” (sun and water) and one “McCain Soil” (dark and water). I’m not making this up. The teacher did not appoint these names, the kids did. I will withhold my political commentary, but will note that the Obama soil was flourishing, and the McCain soil was withered and dying. *Ahem*
In a 3rd grade elementary classroom, the teacher was talking about making good choices and making bad choices, and how some people use their power for being leaders and some use power for making bad choices. Discussion ensued about when the kids had made good choices to be leaders. A little boy then raised his hand and said, “George Bush makes bad choices!” Another piped in: “He uses his power for making bad choices!” Finally, a little girl raises her hand and earnestly asks, “Can you tell me how people voted for him TWICE? I just don’t get it.” Here, here, sister.
In my 6th grade Girls’ Talent Group today, we played the “String Game” in which one person says something they like, and then tosses the string to another person, until we see a nice web of how we’re all connected, even if we don’t all like exactly the same things. After we all giggled following “Who likes Antonio?!?” one girl said, “Who likes Obama?” and they all squealed, “Me!” and jumped up and down.
No matter your political leanings, you have to admit, it is fascinating to see even our little ones get involved. I wonder where they got these messages from. Teachers? Parents? TV? Bootleg Obama shirts that I see on every street corner, peddling Hope? I just think it is wonderful for my young African American kids to feel that they too could be President someday. I just hope they’d use their power for making good choices.
*Not to be confused with trickle down economics. Our schools are still holding out for that trickle down effect to pay for graffiti abatement and better salaries…
Monday, 27 October 2008
The Worst Party Ever
I have written before about how when I do group counseling, I always make it about building positive traits rather than having students join the Anger Management Gang or the Oppositional Club. So instead of working on our ANGER or RULE FOLLOWING (fun!) we work on planning a group project together, and then when someone gets angry or breaks a rule, we solve the problem right then and there. As I’m recruiting for my “Girls’ Talent Group” this year, I thought back to my group of 6th grade girls from last year, who accidentally planned the worst party ever as their project. I have never seen such sad little faces when after 10 weeks of procrastinating planning, avoiding delegating tasks to each other, and arguing about what they should do, they ended up planning nothing.
I tried everything to get them to plan. I even made them trace their feet and think of what “steps” they needed to take to plan a party. They like the tracing of feet, but then their tasks were “Whatever” and “Whatever needs to be done.” Despite my efforts to help them bring it all together, they really thought the party would plan itself. The day of the party, there we were, sitting alone in a classroom. Worse yet, the Boys’ Talent Group had just had a kickin’ party complete with movie and pizza and hot sauce.* The real lesson began when we processed why the party didn’t come together.
“We played around too much.”
“We didn’t listen.”
“We got lazy.”
“This is the worse party ever and it’s all our fault!”**
Why did these girls fail to follow through? Was the task beyond their skills? The boys were the same age and they pulled together a party (albeit last minute). The answer may lie in these particular students’ personalities, or even their level of Executive Functioning skills (the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize). Developing these skills is the hallmark of adolescence, and it is not an easy process. It is hard, if not impossible, to speed up frontal lobe development, and often, adults function as kids’ frontal lobes for a while, as we teach them how to do adult tasks like thinking through consequences and planning accordingly. What seems so obvious to us has to be taught.
So how can teachers help their students with these important Executive Functioning skills?
1) First, understand that “Executive Functioning” is actually a number of skills, not just one skill a student has or does not have. Some of the skills that middle and high school students are working on are: paying attention for longer periods of time, starting tasks on their own, controlling impulses and emotions, planning, strengthening their short-term memory, and inhibiting responses(do THIS, not THAT).
2) Remember that it takes over TWO DECADES for executive functioning skills to develop. We should not expect students to have these skills or be able to apply them on a consistent basis. Sometimes, Executive Functioning skills are thought of as the Mini Executive of a company in the brain who makes all the decisions, like a CEO. Now think about whether or not you would put a 12 year old in charge of a company?*** Even under optimal conditions (like my group where I scaffolded every single step) these skills take YEARS to develop.
3) Think of executive skills as being on a continuum. A student can be poor at sustaining attention, good at initiating tasks, or just okay at planning a long-term project.
4) Be explicit when you teach an “Executive Functioning Skill,” and don’t teach too many skills at once. Pick one to focus on, such as task initiation, and say why you are teaching it: “We are working on how to start a task you don’t know how to do, because there will be times when you have to solve problems on your own.”
5) Think of middle school and young high school students as “Zen.” They are in the moment. That is normal. When you were 13, were you thinking of your 10 year plan? No. You were thinking about how cute Jason was in English class that day. Or at least I was.
6) Include the students in planning and give them an active role in decision making. So if your class is working on a class-wide project, have the students come up with roles, tasks, and deadlines. Make everything visual. It’s better if the kids make it visual. Even though it flopped, I still liked the “Steps” activity.
7) Utilize visual checklists. So if your students are having problems remembering what homework to do and what materials they need, make a checklist together that you go over at the end of the class and have them check off when they have written down the assignment, checked their backpack for any books they need, placed the homework in the appropriate folder, put the folder in the backpack, etc etc. It sounds so basic, doesn’t it? For some kids, it really isn’t, and they need to be reminded how to do it. This is where all teachers go to heaven for their patience.
8) Make a Classwork Planning Sheet, in which the students write down the assignment, the materials they need, make a prediction about how long it will take to complete the assignment, identify what they need in order to stay focused on the task, note when they plan to start and when they actually started and finished, then evaluate how they did and note what they could have done differently the next time. All these steps will eventually go “underground” in their frontal lobes, but for many adolescents, they must be explicit.
9) Remember that our role in teaching executive functioning skills is to be the instructor and safety net. We must resist the urge to be the helicopter, hovering over and rescuing the kids before their plans fall through. Processing why the girls’ party was so lame was a far more valuable learning experience than if I had planned the whole thing when they failed to do so. What would they have learned? That when they don’t follow through, it doesn’t matter because someone will do it for you.
10) Make sure that you think of teaching executive functioning skills as a circle of Planning, Executing, and Evaluating. If I had stopped without the evaluation part, the girls wouldn’t have learned what didn’t work.
*I know. Gross. They planned it, and I obliged. I then witnessed the fun middle school boy game of “Who can make their pizza unbearably hot and eat it anyway!”
**It really was. I couldn’t bear it after 30 minutes of our Pity Party, and bust out some leftover snacks from the boys’ party, and we went outside to play a little bit. It softened the tough lesson, I know, but I do think that some celebration is important when a group ends.
***Besides if you are a 12 year old who gets turned into Tom Hanks and you are put in charge of a toy company. Then, it’s okay.
I tried everything to get them to plan. I even made them trace their feet and think of what “steps” they needed to take to plan a party. They like the tracing of feet, but then their tasks were “Whatever” and “Whatever needs to be done.” Despite my efforts to help them bring it all together, they really thought the party would plan itself. The day of the party, there we were, sitting alone in a classroom. Worse yet, the Boys’ Talent Group had just had a kickin’ party complete with movie and pizza and hot sauce.* The real lesson began when we processed why the party didn’t come together.
“We played around too much.”
“We didn’t listen.”
“We got lazy.”
“This is the worse party ever and it’s all our fault!”**
Why did these girls fail to follow through? Was the task beyond their skills? The boys were the same age and they pulled together a party (albeit last minute). The answer may lie in these particular students’ personalities, or even their level of Executive Functioning skills (the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize). Developing these skills is the hallmark of adolescence, and it is not an easy process. It is hard, if not impossible, to speed up frontal lobe development, and often, adults function as kids’ frontal lobes for a while, as we teach them how to do adult tasks like thinking through consequences and planning accordingly. What seems so obvious to us has to be taught.
So how can teachers help their students with these important Executive Functioning skills?
1) First, understand that “Executive Functioning” is actually a number of skills, not just one skill a student has or does not have. Some of the skills that middle and high school students are working on are: paying attention for longer periods of time, starting tasks on their own, controlling impulses and emotions, planning, strengthening their short-term memory, and inhibiting responses(do THIS, not THAT).
2) Remember that it takes over TWO DECADES for executive functioning skills to develop. We should not expect students to have these skills or be able to apply them on a consistent basis. Sometimes, Executive Functioning skills are thought of as the Mini Executive of a company in the brain who makes all the decisions, like a CEO. Now think about whether or not you would put a 12 year old in charge of a company?*** Even under optimal conditions (like my group where I scaffolded every single step) these skills take YEARS to develop.
3) Think of executive skills as being on a continuum. A student can be poor at sustaining attention, good at initiating tasks, or just okay at planning a long-term project.
4) Be explicit when you teach an “Executive Functioning Skill,” and don’t teach too many skills at once. Pick one to focus on, such as task initiation, and say why you are teaching it: “We are working on how to start a task you don’t know how to do, because there will be times when you have to solve problems on your own.”
5) Think of middle school and young high school students as “Zen.” They are in the moment. That is normal. When you were 13, were you thinking of your 10 year plan? No. You were thinking about how cute Jason was in English class that day. Or at least I was.
6) Include the students in planning and give them an active role in decision making. So if your class is working on a class-wide project, have the students come up with roles, tasks, and deadlines. Make everything visual. It’s better if the kids make it visual. Even though it flopped, I still liked the “Steps” activity.
7) Utilize visual checklists. So if your students are having problems remembering what homework to do and what materials they need, make a checklist together that you go over at the end of the class and have them check off when they have written down the assignment, checked their backpack for any books they need, placed the homework in the appropriate folder, put the folder in the backpack, etc etc. It sounds so basic, doesn’t it? For some kids, it really isn’t, and they need to be reminded how to do it. This is where all teachers go to heaven for their patience.
8) Make a Classwork Planning Sheet, in which the students write down the assignment, the materials they need, make a prediction about how long it will take to complete the assignment, identify what they need in order to stay focused on the task, note when they plan to start and when they actually started and finished, then evaluate how they did and note what they could have done differently the next time. All these steps will eventually go “underground” in their frontal lobes, but for many adolescents, they must be explicit.
9) Remember that our role in teaching executive functioning skills is to be the instructor and safety net. We must resist the urge to be the helicopter, hovering over and rescuing the kids before their plans fall through. Processing why the girls’ party was so lame was a far more valuable learning experience than if I had planned the whole thing when they failed to do so. What would they have learned? That when they don’t follow through, it doesn’t matter because someone will do it for you.
10) Make sure that you think of teaching executive functioning skills as a circle of Planning, Executing, and Evaluating. If I had stopped without the evaluation part, the girls wouldn’t have learned what didn’t work.
*I know. Gross. They planned it, and I obliged. I then witnessed the fun middle school boy game of “Who can make their pizza unbearably hot and eat it anyway!”
**It really was. I couldn’t bear it after 30 minutes of our Pity Party, and bust out some leftover snacks from the boys’ party, and we went outside to play a little bit. It softened the tough lesson, I know, but I do think that some celebration is important when a group ends.
***Besides if you are a 12 year old who gets turned into Tom Hanks and you are put in charge of a toy company. Then, it’s okay.
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