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There are economic woes that impact how well kids learn, many of which are tied to the training and development of effective teaching practices and safe environments where students can receive significant supports that match their level of need. But you can't just look at a poor school and say, "well, it's the economy." and wash your hands of it. These kinds of discussions sometimes devolve into "well if the school/families had more money, we could make things better. Oh well." which I don't think of as a productive line of inquiry because it shifts focus away from the fact that we can make things better by implementing better practices, using data to make decisions, etc. It's not productive to teachers or parents to shrug and say that kids would learn better if the economy improved, or schools got more money, or etc. Teachers have to operate with the available resources to do their best, and that remains true even if poo poo sucks all around. We don't get to handwave a 6th-grader who came to school every day but left without being able to multiply 340x26. But that is what I've heard from educators, admin, other folks, etc. If a child shows up every day to learn from you and they don't, that's not poverty making that happen. It's you somehow failing to use good teaching practices. Poverty makes everything harder, but I'm a little sick of teachers telling me that their students were "very poor" as though that was an explanation for why they failed to teach basic fraction addition to 5th graders. edit: sorry if this seems aggro but it's especially frustrating for me to hear that "things would work" if only the economy distributed wealth more equitably. It's like, yeah, duh, but we're here to help kids and not making changes to instruction because everyone is too poor to succeed does infinitely more harm to students than just teaching them at an average level. Expectations still have to be set high, classrooms still need to be safe environments, kids need to feel respected, etc. If someone doesn't want to have to do the extra work to learn and teach better, I guess they need a couple years off to try somewhere else and see how they feel. Setting low expectations for teachers/kids in impoverished areas is extremely bad because they take those expectations to middle and high school. They take them out into the world! If people feel sad about poverty and have a lot of empathy for students living in it, the only morally right decision is to do the best you can to make it so they can succeed when they leave your room. If anything, a leftist perspective on education would emphasize that teachers in poor areas have more of an obligation to their kids than anywhere else. NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 02:47 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 02:35
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NeatHeteroDude posted:If a program doesn't work for kids in poverty, it's not an equitable program because poverty is not equitable. Where I live curriculum is equitable by state law. this makes them do very silly things. When we started to go back masked and hybrid, there was the option to stay remote. The equity laws meant that the same curriculum had to be for all students across each district (but between districts they can vary as long as it meets common core). So they continued the remote lesson plans for the in person students! it puts brackets on how much differentiation can occur here and basically the teachers can’t really deviate. it hasn’t made it equitable. Rich folks that have kids with differences, just opt out to privates especially Waldorf and Montessori. Bar Ran Dun has issued a correction as of 03:06 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 03:02
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Where I live curriculum is equitable by state law. this makes them do very silly things. When we started to go back masked and hybrid, there was the option to stay remote. The equity laws meant that the same curriculum had to be for all students across each district (but between districts they can care as long as it meets common core). So they continued the remote lesson plans for the in person students! That's an example of someone defining equity as "Every student receives the same instruction" which, by definition, isn't equitable. Equity in research refers to whether students can access the curriculum and content even if racially, ethnically, socio-economically, etc., diverse. What you're describing isn't equity, you're right to think that it's bad. It's the opposite of equity because students who could better access the curriculum in-person are being underprioritized compared to students using remote learning. Equity is less about "every student gets the same stuff every time" and way more about "every student receives enough individualized instruction via all the supports and services at a school that they are not punished for their background differences." To me, equity references some of the stuff we're talking about now. An equitable education provides supports for English-Language-Learners that allow them to access the material. An equitable program must be able to prove it is effective for both minority and white students using data collected over the course of its implementation.
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Apr 23, 2023 03:10
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Xaris posted:what do you think about widespread emotional dysfunction in kids, is it just a local problem? I dunno how to embed a video so e.g.: I problems are more intense and as HawkPerson said, children are anecdotally developmentally younger than their chronological age in social emotional learning and lots of cognitive and academic skills. That being said, like, I know it's really hard to manage classroom behavior when you're too stressed and tired to think. People are now finding out that their skills atrophied during the lockdown, and to make it worse, the classroom management strategies they've always used no longer work effectively. The push for their supervisors and them should be to look for ways to improve or adapt those practices instead of continuing to beat their head against the wall when kids are non-compliant. It sucks rear end but covid exposed a lot of the issues in an ad hoc, gut feeling method of classroom management. Sure, it'll work for some kids, but it's not nearly as effective now because the preacademic skills kids used to have more of (sitting quietly during instruction, hand raising, compliance, sel skills etc) have atrophied significantly since the lockdown. There are other social factors, too. But the big takeaway is that these teachers need to try something new. There are classroom management strategies I've used in pre pandemic behavior intervention rooms forever that work even better outside in gen ed. I never really had the chance to use other strategies because in that setting, ALL the kids were non-compliant, ALL the kids were AGGRESSIVE, and ALL the kids needed rigorous behavior supports to be successful. Pissed off teachers need to take initiative and start learning new strategies, taking and analyzing data, working with their special ed colleagues, etc., if they want to work. Bad habits or practices that worked before have to be phased out. No educator wants to hear that though. It's always the parents or the community or the pandemic or the meds or whatever and never "maybe I'm doing something wrong." It really frustrates me because their KIDS are suffering orders of magnitude more in the long run than a tired teacher is at 3:30.
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Apr 23, 2023 03:45
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You've been forced to 1st string this year and you won't get by using strategies that worked in 2nd. At the end of the day, it is always your job as an educator to make things better for the children you're trusted to help. And it's admins job to notice this happening and get people the support they need. If you send a kid to the office every day, you're loving up!!!
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Apr 23, 2023 03:48
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I think I agree with all that. yes actual equity and “equity” as understood under the law in a particular state would be different things. but again that will almost surely pop up for other words in this thread. I kind of shudder at the thought of how some of these things are being defined by laws in Florida where my sister teaches.
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Apr 23, 2023 03:54
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Bar Ran Dun posted:I think I agree with all that. yes actual equity and “equity” as understood under the law in a particular state would be different things. It would be interesting to know what the specific statute says and how the district is interpreting it. I know about equity in education laws in my state and federally (IDEA etc for disabled kids or IEPs), but I'm pretty limited on what caselaw exists state by state Also yeah good God. gently caress teaching there. Certified educators get treated badly where I live too bur I'm sure it's nothing like florida
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Apr 23, 2023 06:06
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it’s tricky to navigate getting teachers to self reflect and improve because it can get a little victim blamey. we’re often given bare minimum support and expected to create miracles out of it. I agree that our experiences are nothing next to our kids’, especially the ones that we are there for the most. still, we shouldn’t be expected to deal with abusive bullshit. we are also humans and have limits. in addition, us taking too much on is directly harmful to our students both in the short term (we’re in terrible moods and bad teachers bc we’re tired) and the long run (what kind of person chooses to become a teacher and stay in teaching when the only reward for above and beyond effort is an expectation for even more?) I also don’t have any respect for the teachers that complain about having “those kids” or sending kids out for the smallest thing. just like our kids, though, we are humans and respond just as well to a bit of support, love, and encouragement. I mentioned earlier our schools should reflect our cultural values throughout the system; the students pick up the object lessons we provide. treating teachers like poo poo and then shaming them for not responding ideally to the environment they are teaching in - this teaches our students something, too.
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Apr 23, 2023 06:18
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the queer teachers in Florida are predictably having a bad time  I follow a few on Instagram and it’s as depressing as you probably imagine. most are not posting anymore because who knows what will get them targeted. harassment is up across the board with the peeps I follow even from other states. terrifying.
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Apr 23, 2023 06:20
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Hawkperson posted:it’s tricky to navigate getting teachers to self reflect and improve because it can get a little victim blamey. we’re often given bare minimum support and expected to create miracles out of it. I agree that our experiences are nothing next to our kids’, especially the ones that we are there for the most. still, we shouldn’t be expected to deal with abusive bullshit. we are also humans and have limits. in addition, us taking too much on is directly harmful to our students both in the short term (we’re in terrible moods and bad teachers bc we’re tired) and the long run (what kind of person chooses to become a teacher and stay in teaching when the only reward for above and beyond effort is an expectation for even more?) That's a good point. When I imagine having the "it's your job, learn to make it work" conversations with other teachers, I'm thinking of all the ones who blame children instead of themselves or the institution. It's nails on a chalkboard for me when someone says a kid can't be helped because they're too lazy or lovely or inappropriate. Those are the same teachers who spend all day screaming and get basically nothing out of it because their kids don't care. Or the ones who refuse to read research on principle. I posted like 4 times in the A/T teacher thread because the moment I brought up direct instruction or evidence based assessments or whatever, 6 people jumped in to complain about how all of this BULLSHIT and the Slavin book is basically just a paperweight because they know EXACTLY how to teach thank you
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Apr 23, 2023 06:34
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NeatHeteroDude posted:These kinds of discussions sometimes devolve into "well if the school/families had more money, we could make things better. Oh well." which I don't think of as a productive line of inquiry because it shifts focus away from the fact that we can make things better by implementing better practices, using data to make decisions, etc. NeatHeteroDude posted:It really frustrates me because their KIDS are suffering orders of magnitude more in the long run than a tired teacher is at 3:30. NeatHeteroDude posted:At the end of the day, it is always your job as an educator to make things better for the children you're trusted to help. This noble attitude is entirely understandable given that KIDS ARE SUFFERING, but I feel like this misdirects a lot of anger about problems in the system towards teachers in a really unfair way. Ultimately I think it's all about the labor market for teachers. Many of the skills that make for an effective teacher are also effective skills in most white collar work. You want the teachers to read the relevant scientific research, evaluate it, and then incorporate it autonomously into their day-to-day work without dropping any of their existing responsibilities? The people with the skills and inclination to doing that could probably make a lot of money much easier if they pursued a career in not teaching. If becoming a teacher isn't an obvious path to prosperity, the only people who end up becoming teachers end up in more or less these categories:
Under the current wage regime we can't get enough generically bright, motivated workers who just want to secure a nice life for themselves and their families to become teachers. Being a teacher shouldn't have to be an act of sacrifice. Because most of the education funding is at the local level, this issue can't be disentangled from all of the other socioeconomic challenges associated with education in an impoverished area. Doing applied science harder and better can't fix this problem.
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Apr 23, 2023 06:46
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NeatHeteroDude posted:That's a good point. When I imagine having the "it's your job, learn to make it work" conversations with other teachers, I'm thinking of all the ones who blame children instead of themselves or the institution. It's nails on a chalkboard for me when someone says a kid can't be helped because they're too lazy or lovely or inappropriate. Those are the same teachers who spend all day screaming and get basically nothing out of it because their kids don't care. Or the ones who refuse to read research on principle. oh  I thought it just got unfun bc pt6a got that bug up their butt. I like that thread but I feel out of place sometimes because I want to write big effortposts about things I care deeply about but we're all very tired and I don't need to be the one giving my fellow teachers more poo poo to read that they don't wanna readso thanks for making this thread I love it  I think this is my first time posting in cspam even!
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Apr 23, 2023 06:56
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have you seen my baby posted:
100%, well said. we can't be a career solely for people deeply motivated to save the world. among other problems, we're almost entirely white savior types and that means we make a whole lot of systemic problems a million times worse while still convinced we are doing the lord's work. actually that reminds me, that another reason we have to make sure teaching is livable, survivable, and desirable is because of the very kids we need to support most. a good chunk of them would probably make awesome teachers! but if the system chews up and spits out most teachers, it's the privileged ones that are going to survive. for example. I didn't have to work during my student teaching while several of my classmates were picking up shifts after their full day at school. some of those classmates aren't teachers anymore, and I am. that sucks. I do wanna say though that most of the "i'm in teaching to indoctrinate students" types around here are in fact the "start a union and fight the power" types and it rocks
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Apr 23, 2023 07:05
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have you seen my baby posted:There's a nasty flipside to this which I would characterize as "well if the teachers would just teach harder and better they could counteract the systemic economic challenges". I'm sure it's the case for some teachers out there, but of the ones I know "not working hard enough" isn't one of the problems they face. There must be teachers receiving generous wages and with small enough class sizes and teaching loads in order to actually go about learning and implementing Science's 5 Weird Tricks to Teach Kids Better. Do you really think teachers have the time and mental energy to keep up with the latest advances in pedagogical research? Most of them are already grading through the weekends. I get what you're saying. I tend to get fired up over incorrect teaching, but my post handwaved a lot of what you have to say in a way that makes the problem teacher-focused and excuses other stuff. My college education came with an enormous emphasis on research literacy and taught me all the correct practices to implement, letting me start my career on the right foot and giving me the time and space to continue developing fluency. It's a bias reflected in the way I talk about teaching. When I hear people complaining about how awful kids keep them from being good teachers, my first thought is, "That's not their problem, that's your problem" and not "there are systemic issues that both disincentivize you from learning the correct practices and encourage you to scapegoat students." Even though both statements are true, the second one is more nuanced but outside the scope of my position of helping teachers adopt better strategies. Like, my education was unique in that I accidentally got into a state school known for an incredible teaching program but otherwise basically ignored otherwise. We read research, performed research, wrote literature reviews, etc., every semester for 4 years, even during our full-time student teaching. My advantage is that I can look at data and implementation and know relatively quickly what I want to do. I also know about things like What Works Clearinghouse, a research database from the DoE that evaluates and presents valid data about various practices. But most teachers I've met have never heard of doing either. I want to push back a little bit on the burden of having to read and adopt recent research. All the principles that we know work were studies and guides were produced decades ago that are all you need, but that doesn't change the fact that you'll be reading on your off time. I guess my last comments are that teachers often spend way more time and stress agonizing about their kids and classrooms when things are going bad than they would reading about direct instruction, but that's not really quantifiable. I also think looking at evidence like 5 weird science tricks makes it seem like they're a fad or shallow. The basic principles work in every classroom to some degree, and even knowing a little bit about how you should praise kids more often than you punish them would make so many educators' lives easier and less stressful. have you seen my baby posted:This noble attitude is entirely understandable given that KIDS ARE SUFFERING, but I feel like this misdirects a lot of anger about problems in the system towards teachers in a really unfair way. Ultimately I think it's all about the labor market for teachers. Many of the skills that make for an effective teacher are also effective skills in most white collar work. You want the teachers to read the relevant scientific research, evaluate it, and then incorporate it autonomously into their day-to-day work without dropping any of their existing responsibilities? The people with the skills and inclination to doing that could probably make a lot of money much easier if they pursued a career in not teaching. If becoming a teacher isn't an obvious path to prosperity, the only people who end up becoming teachers end up in more or less these categories: Definitely. Like, I worked a little in finance, and a sibling left high school teaching for a job in finance where he makes more (but also he wasn't super happy with teaching) and has fewer obligations and better benefits. have you seen my baby posted:
I agree 100% with the bolded part. I guess my hangup and the reason I have such a negative perspective on teachers who don't adapt is that it doesn't take very much time to start praising kids for good behavior instead of punishing them for bad. Or building rapport with students by praising them in public and disciplining them in private. A lot of these ideas aren't esoteric or rigousl or difficult to understand. When I see colleagues struggling I notice these kinds of things: - Never ever provides any reinforcement for good behavior. - Seems obviously disinterested in students and does not have any rapport with them. - Excessively punishes without clear guidelines or any plan beforehand so the kids never know when they might gently caress up. Even small things like: - Forces students to read out loud and humiliates/punishes them for struggling. - Doesn't collaborate with any sped teacher anywhere in the building and refuses to implement any part of an IEP they already signed. - Only says a student's name when they're punishing them for bad behavior or redirecting them. Like these aren't magical tricks that you need a doctorate to understand, you can genuinely improve your classroom overnight if you just give the kids any kind of meaningful incentive to demonstrate skills and behaviors you like to see. I can't get past how many frustrated teachers don't even bother praising their students at all, or if they do, not making it authentic or specific or tailored to the student. It doesn't feel like rocket science, and many of these teachers I think about also refuse to implement any of the above. These are changes that will dramatically reduce their stress and make their kids feel smarter and safer, and more regulated. NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 07:37 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 07:13
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nothing in my post addresses the big truth in yours though. Teachers don't get paid enough, and they need more support from everyone, and the incentives for trying new things aren't obvious or sometimes even known. I am particularly pissy about teachers punishing and humiliating kids all the time because you don't invest anything to apply the evidence-based practice of "just don't do that." It's a quick fix that immediately makes your room better and safer. The next step is taking 20 minutes to set up a system where kids get "caught being good" instead of just being punished for being bad. Maybe they get little tickets with their names on them that you draw from in the end of the week for a candy prize or something. Maybe you take some poster paper and make a "shop" kids can access at that the end of every day that has little prizes like "lunch with Mr. X" or "5 minute more recess" or "bring a stuffie to school" or "choose a song for class to dance to during music transition" or whatever the kids tell you they find valuable. When i think about direct instruction, I can admit it requires a time investment at the outset to figure out what you're supposed to be doing. But with classroom management stuff, it's very simple and easy as long as you take like 10 minutes to let someone explain what works. Edit: and teachers spend so much more time every day using punishment with classroom management and kill so much rapport that just doing a couple of basic things would save them a massive amount of time in the short and long term. That's what frustrating most- doing something bad is both harming kids and making your job much harder, but getting basic poo poo like "praise more than you redirect/punish" implemented is like pulling teeth with some teachers. grading over the weekend: short note on this is that knowing more about what assessments and homework should look like would also save you tons of time outside of the school too. If you're constantly grading difficult things that require a lot of mental bandwidth, you're probably assigning to much homework containing skills your kids haven't mastered or writing tests that are too long and don't serve the function tests should (i.e. seeing if you taught the idea correctly) Why do kids need 30 math problems every evening? Why are so many getting so many wrong that it's a laborious task to grade? Kids should be fluent in a skill before being asked to do homework of any kind, and the homework should be intentional practice of the skills your students already mastered. If kids are coming to school red faced because they spent 3 hours trying to figure out a math problem or social studies review question, that's a good sign that the homework is too difficult for the level of mastery you taught the day before. There are lots of valid exceptions based on what you teach, but if you pass out a test and more than 20% of the students score c- or less, you can't blame them for not being smart or focused enough to understand the material. A.bad summative assessment result is the kids saying "you need to re teach this because I don't get it" but it's way easier to blame the children and punish them for performing poorly Final thought before sleep: making appropriate assessments and homework are evidence based practices that come down to the following: - why did you assign this homework? - how do you think the kids will do? - are the skills you taught the most important skills on the homework? - what are you going to DO with the data you get from.grading the hw? - why did you assign this test? - will the results of the test surprise you? - does the test emphasize the skills you taught I'm that unit? - can the kids see a rubric or something to know how the test will be scorer? - what will you do if students don't finish? - is the test properly formatted so that it doesn't look distractingly like rear end? - what will you do with test data? - what if the kids perform poorly? Will you go back and reteach the skills they struggled to demonstrate? - what's the GOAL of the test? Etc NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 07:49 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 07:18
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What do you do with kids that are too cynical and edgy for positivity?quote:choose a song for class to dance to during music transition
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Apr 23, 2023 10:47
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War and Pieces posted:What do you do with kids that are too cynical and edgy for positivity? I'm up drinking cough syrup due to awful cough, but can explain what to with this: So praise only works if it's provided in a form that's specific, differentiated, and preferred. Specific: it is directly connected to the behavior or skill you want to see them do more. Example: "Thanks for writing that conclusion sentence. It looks good, and it's cool to see you improve." [Praise mentions behavior to be reinforced] Example: "Woohoo! You fed dog so independently! That's awesome dude! High five!" [Praise mentions task performed to be reinforced] Non-example: Thanks. [No mention of specific behavior or skill, could apply to any number of things, student may be confused] Non-example: Whoa! Good job!" [No mention of behavior/skill] Differentiated: the intensity and value of the praise are tailored for the complexity or difficulty of the skill or behavior demonstrated. Example (student finished toilet process, washes hands, throws paper towel in trash without support): "WOOOHOOOO YOU WASHED HANDS PERFECTLY! (pretend to be a spinning robot with and dance)" Student completed full toileting task chain independently, you erupt in praise to signal how incredible that is] Example (student sits raises hand before blurting question or statement): "Thanks for showing me respect. What's your question?" [Student is performing at or slightly above expectation with mastered skill] Non-example (student independently asks for a break without escalating, for the first time): Huh? "Oh, great. Whatever, do you want a break?" [Student demonstrated important behavior for first time, teacher hardly cares] Non-example (neurotypical 6th grader performs a mastered skill like writing their name at the top of an assignment): "OH MY GOD! TOUCHDOWN!! YEAAAAAH! INDEPENDENT NAME WRITING!!!! CAN I GET A WOOP WOOP?" [Student demonstrates mastered skill of writing name on paper, is confused or potentially embarrassed by burst of praise] Preferred: The praise is tailored to the student's preferences. Praise is only reinforcing if the student finds it reinforcing. Example (kindergartener writes name on paper accurately and legibly): (clap your hands and do silly voice) Yaaaaaay! You wrote your name so good! Awesome! I'm sooooo proud! [Short words, developmentally appropriate. Engages young child at a developmentally appropriate level. Example (high school junior completes and submits math homework on time every day in one week): (pull them aside) When you got your stuff turned in, it made me super stoked to be your teacher. The work is awesome, too; you obviously know what you're doing. Thanks." [Praise is provided in private using developmentally appropriate language. It emphasizes things Justin cares about and finds appropriate. Student feels like they're earning respect, which is invaluable for age group.] Non-example (kindergartner writes name on paper accurately and legibly): (pull them aside) Just wanted to let you know how impressed I was by the respect you demonstrated toward the educators in this classroom by completing and submitting this worksheet with your name at the top. It's rigorous work that you're close to achieving mastery in. In a matter of a few years, you'll probably be phonentically spelling words and writing narrative fiction paragraphs with minimal support, which is good for a student of that chronological and developmental age." [Praise is long, complex, contains no silly noises, and does not draw and engage attention from child. Too many large words spoken too quickly. Makes child confused about what you're saying, causing them to become anxious and escalate.] Non-example (high school junior completes and submits math homework on time every day in one week): (immediately pause lecture and adopt silly high voice) OH. MY. JEEBUS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? JUSTIN! (point to student) JUSTIN IS THE BEST! (walk over to student desk group) JUSTIN, HERE COMES TO THE SPECIAL CHOOCCHOO! ALL OF JUSTIN'S FRIENDS, LET'S STAND AND DO A DANCE TO CELEBRATE TURNING HIMWORK EVERY DAY THIS WEEK! (begin dancing to disney song) [so nonpreferred that it actually works as a punishment. justin will probably avoid turning in 5 days of homework, choosing to receive a late grade but not be humiliated by baby talk and dance. As the educator, it's your job to figure out and tailor your praise to every student. I try to say students' names when providing praise and focus on specific, discrete behaviors or skills that I want them to keep doing. Some kids respond very well to public attention when praised, others are embarrassed and it decreases their desire to do the behavior in the future. You should always state explicitly what they did to receive the praise, and make sure you give differentiated amounts of praise based on how close they are to mastery or how complex the skill was. So as long as you hit these notes and provide praise in a way that the student prefers, any kid can benefit from the interaction. The goal of praise is always to increase the frequency and intensity of a positive behavior or skill. If a kid 100% doesn't want me to praise him verbally or responds poorly to verbal praise because it's "lame," I might nod to him and gesture to the thing he did that earned the praise. I could also use a ticket system or something for him and the rest of the class. If they get enough tickets, they have things they actually value they can buy. Maybe we talk and decide that I keep a discrete note on a clipboard with his initials. Every time I see him working in a group effectively, I tap the clipboard three times to signal that he's earned an extra ticket for his behavior while signaling in some way which behavior it is. This isn't really praise, but it's reinforcing if he responds to it. Ultimately, there aren't really kids you can't reach with praise as long as you fine-tune it to their preferences instead of yours. You manage your own verbal and nonverbal behavior to present praise that is effective. Even more so, good praise is often effective even if the student acts like it is not. This depends on the rapport you've built with them so far. If you have rapport with a kid, they want your praise! You just have to provide it on their terms instead of yours. The flip side is that if a kid doesn't like or respect you, praise is more likely to be ineffective. In this case, you need to supplement verbal praise with an alternate system of reinforcement and provide praise at the same time you provide that reinforcement so they associate your praise with something they like. Maybe Arlong is a 10th grade student who just transferred in halfway through the year and has no rapport at all with me. I need to do three things: 1. build rapport by contriving and providing positive experiences to let Arlong know he's welcome, valued, and appreciated in the class. 2. Provide him with tasks emphasizing skills he has already mastered or is close to mastering to create more opportunities for him to receive genuine praise in class. 3. Sit down and talk with him about what expectations he has for us before we explain expectations we have for him. Talk about boundaries and high fives and support needs and make classroom procedure crystal clear to avoid instances where he may do something outside of expectations by accident. I might even invite him to lunch in the classroom and buy something small he can add to his as an incentive. Because he's so developmentally advanced, it would be very important to authentically present yourself, the classroom, and his peers so he can make informed decisions about what he is/is not comfortable with. But most important is explaining expectations and contriving opportunities for him to receive praise and positive attention!!! War and Pieces posted:Even in third grade I would've taken issue with this, "excuse me we're here to learn 😏 " lol I've met kids that way. you just gotta let them pick the dance song and video. also kids love seeing serious adults doing silly things, and dancing in the classroom is maybe one othe silliest things a teacher can do. I am ALWAYS being silly when appropriate and dancing is something I'd have our kids doing at least once a day to transition between something they like (maybe free time) to something they dislike (math instruction).
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Apr 23, 2023 11:38
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kids get like 0 praise, respect, or control anywhere outside the classroom, regardless of context. A "song and dance" period is 3 minutes every day where one student (usually in order my last names) gets to show off their personal preferences to you but especially to their peers. You being there to be silly and pretend the song is great means the other kids will think it's fun and dance along or at least enjoy the activity. It seems like a stupid little waste of time, but the dance transitions do so many awesome things for classroom culture, respect, peer support, etc. You also let kids be creative with their song choices, and the kids who want to dance get to dance in their own way. It's a lot of social-emotional practice for skills like turn-taking, respecting peoples' bubbles, communicating needs, being vulnerable in a safe environment, etc., etc. edit: it's also good for practicing classroom procedures and transitions. One child that rotates every day picks 1 song to show to their peers. There's a rigid system of who gets to go next. That child could also be your "helper of the day" (pass out worksheets, empty classroom garbage, hold doors, etc.) so the song choice comes with some added responsibility (which you explicitly state) that gives them a sense of satisfaction in earning it. de: Or one time a student recorded their own song using a karaoke track of, like, living on a prayer or something. They recorded themselves singing new words. I told them they'd need to sit with me and let me listen before I'd play it to make sure it was school appropriate. As it turns out, they just replaced living on a prayer with "Mr. X has no hair" (I'm bald). I told them that they could play it as their song if and only if they turned in every homework assignment for one week without forgetting or leaving it at home. boom, instantly homework starts appearing in the basket and within 5 days the student gets to sing loudly on our fake microphone Mr. X Has No Hair, which won him so many laughs and claps that I started encouraging other students who could to record themselves over classic rock tracks (no rap, just didn't want to open the can of worms that might cause}. The deal was initially 5 days of 100% homework completion, but I eventually upped it to 6, 7, 8, 9, etc., as the data improved enough to justify increasing the effort of the task. NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 11:54 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 11:42
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what do you do when a kid hates all that stuff and wont do it?
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Apr 23, 2023 11:51
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Cuttlefush posted:what do you do when a kid hates all that stuff and wont do it? okay last post: If that's the case, I just sit down and talk with them about what they want to earn in exchange for whatever behaviors I want to see in the class. Most kids are very honest and have some specific thing in mind, so I take that specific thing and I add it to the ticket store at a low price (I've done, like, specific candies, privileges they want like Mr. X writes their parent a note with specific praise every day for a week (that would be expensive), etc.). At the beginning of the year, you should do this with every kid by having them fill out little questionnaires that ask them to rate and name general and specific things they would want to work for in return for doing what they're supposed to.
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Apr 23, 2023 11:58
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respond later but I am curious what you do with the kids that doesn't work on. and i know there are some
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Apr 23, 2023 12:04
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Cuttlefush posted:respond later but I am curious what you do with the kids that doesn't work on. and i know there are some especially the antisocial kids who are otherwise getting good grades and doing their homework
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Apr 23, 2023 12:40
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Cuttlefush posted:respond later but I am curious what you do with the kids that doesn't work on. and i know there are some Be supportive. That's really all you can do. I'm not there to force anyone to do anything.
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Apr 23, 2023 12:52
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im not sure about antisocial, but there's definitely a type of otherwise friendly goonchild that can get driven insane by positive reinforcement
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Apr 23, 2023 12:53
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The 💯 is all the reinforcement you need
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Apr 23, 2023 12:55
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E: nothing to see here.
Okuteru has issued a correction as of 14:41 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 14:35
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Hawkperson posted:oh I still have that bug up my butt, but I've learned to see it from a different point of view. I think a lot of the things I see in the results of the K-12 system, such as it is, come from the fact that the system tends to be under-resourced enough that everyone's essentially in triage all the time: what's the most important crisis to handle right now to keep poo poo from going completely off the rails, and I think realistically that ends up with a lot of children drawing the short end of the stick, and a lot of problems being allowed to fester either in sort of a constant state, or to be left alone until it's a full-blown crisis. I don't think it's really teachers', or even administrators' fault, even if the results continue to frustrate me. What other options are there? You obviously must deal with the most significant issues -- particularly those involving safety -- before addressing the smaller problems, and if you never have the resources to fully address the larger problems, you never have the opportunity to move on to fixing the smaller problems. Now, the reason I feel so strongly about it, and continue to feel strongly about it, is because it's creating genuine safety issues for me, my colleagues, and our students. The exact things that can promote safety and order in an under-resourced classroom environment end up being the things that will cause safety issues later on. My anger was definitely misplaced by blaming teachers, and for that I do apologize, but I'm never going to say "I don't think this is a problem, I think it's the system running the way it should be run." I think we all have a tendency to focus on the problems that affect us without due consideration for the system as a whole.
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Apr 23, 2023 15:58
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Hawkperson posted:the other wider question that I’ve been wrangling with in the past few years is what is the purpose of schooling and is the way we do it actually what we should be doing? There's not a coherent answer to "what is education for?". Produce a patriotic and engaged citizenry! Prepare the students to become good soldiers! Job training for tomorrow's capable, obedient workers! Empower the disadvantaged with knowledge and skills! Sustain a vast sorting and credentialing mechanism to reify the status of an economic and cognitive elite! Free childcare! Find some place to put those kids until they can be put in prison! Build a refuge for kids with difficult homes and parents! Make a number go up! It does all of this and more. Incoherence of purpose plus high social visibility plus THINK OF THE CHILDREN also make it a convenient scapegoat for basically any social, cultural, or political issue. I think the real answer should be that education isn't for anything. It should be an end unto itself. "Hey kid, check out all of this cool stuff we've figured out and all the amazing things humans can do! If you work at it all of this can be yours!". The other side effects can be nice or should be mitigated according to your flavor of ideology, but they are at the end of the day just side effects.
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Apr 23, 2023 17:18
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have you seen my baby posted:I think the real answer should be that education isn't for anything. It should be an end unto itself. "Hey kid, check out all of this cool stuff we've figured out and all the amazing things humans can do! If you work at it all of this can be yours!". The other side effects can be nice or should be mitigated according to your flavor of ideology, but they are at the end of the day just side effects. that contradicts itself though. it’s not for anything, but if kids work at it they can do amazing things? so it’s for getting kids to do amazing things then, right? I think I understand what you’re getting at though, which is a huge issue in education/educational philosophy: the system can say its purpose is one thing but reveal an entirely different purpose in what it produces. for example, we could say education is how we reinforce the structure of our meritocracy, except as we all know the US being a meritocracy is a convenient lie for capital. so really the purpose of the education system is to reinforce the structure of our capitalist system. it’s a giant system that does many things so that’s just one facet of its purpose. this particular perspective that I’m touting is a specific kind of philosophical outlook btw. pragmatic if I’m remembering correctly. we may just not agree on how properly to define the situation in a philosophical manner. I am realizing that as much as I profess to hate philosophy I sure am interested in talking about it and making tiny little points about it 
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Apr 23, 2023 18:13
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PT6A posted:I still have that bug up my butt, but I've learned to see it from a different point of view. I think a lot of the things I see in the results of the K-12 system, such as it is, come from the fact that the system tends to be under-resourced enough that everyone's essentially in triage all the time: what's the most important crisis to handle right now to keep poo poo from going completely off the rails, and I think realistically that ends up with a lot of children drawing the short end of the stick, and a lot of problems being allowed to fester either in sort of a constant state, or to be left alone until it's a full-blown crisis. I’m glad to hear it. this is what i at least was trying to say to you the whole time. it’s one thing to look from outside on the system and identify its issues; it’s a whole nother thing to actually get inside the system to try and fix it. outside perspective is vital though. as we strive to change the system from within, we get changed by it. I think this thread is much better suited to a dialogue between teachers and those we teach/have taught/have to deal with the results of our teaching than our little stress relief thread in the academia forum. I’m also unfamiliar with Canadian education aside from vaguely knowing y’all have very similar struggles with funding and support. correct me if I’m wrong but my impression is, like most of Canada, you avoid our worst worsts but your systems still largely suffer from huge problems that belie the true purpose of them (oppressing people, upholding capital, etc)
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Apr 23, 2023 18:21
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Hawkperson posted:that contradicts itself though. it’s not for anything, but if kids work at it they can do amazing things? so it’s for getting kids to do amazing things then, right? I guess another way of phrasing my point would be that learning is valuable in and of itself. The world is really cool and learning about it is good to do for its own sake. Practicing skills and getting better at being a person doesn't need an external justification.
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Apr 23, 2023 18:29
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on praise and students resistant to praise: this is much, much rarer than you might think. out of 150ish kids per year I typically have a student who seems unreceptive to targeted praise once every other year. it’s definitely higher this year, meaning I have…two. praise receptivity is a close to universal trait. it’s part of how we interact and socialize; it’s a community building thing. much more common than a child being unpraiseable is a child who is not being praised in a way that works for them. neurodiverse kids might possibly find compliments and praise totally useless, but even then it’s pretty uncommon in my experience. more that the things they find important (and therefore value praise on) tend differ from neurotypical values. there are several reasons a kid might seem unpraisable. lack of rapport is a good one. if you see your teacher compliment everyone for doing the bare minimum you might lose a bit of respect for their compliments when they’re directed at you. lack of specificity also makes it easy to dismiss a compliment directed at you. trauma also makes compliments/praise real tricky. think about people with eating disorders for example (not that teachers should be complimenting kids on looks unless it’s like, hey cool shirt). if you give a person with an ED a compliment about their body it might not only be ineffective but produce the opposite effect. likewise, a kid developing a complex about something is probably highly resistant to praise about it. if their brain is like “I suck at math” and you go “hey, you’re pretty good at math!” their brain might go “pfft. liar.” finally, if a kid is getting their poo poo done and just doesn’t like a big deal being made out of it, that’s all I gotta say. praise doesn’t have to be a 24/7 daily kinda thing. the kid has to know you appreciate and value them. for some kiddos, that just means once a semester I pull them aside and go “I really respect the way you handle your business in class so professionally. thanks for being a great student.” and otherwise leave them alone. leaving someone to their devices is a subtle version of praise anyway; it says, I trust you. that’s a big compliment for kiddos.
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Apr 23, 2023 18:35
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have you seen my baby posted:I guess another way of phrasing my point would be that learning is valuable in and of itself. The world is really cool and learning about it is good to do for its own sake. Practicing skills and getting better at being a person doesn't need an external justification. yes!! I forget what this is called, but it’s definitely a common perspective in ed philosophy. my discipline is starting to fully embrace it after years of going “please don’t cut music, look at these math scores!” and I love it
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Apr 23, 2023 18:37
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Hawkperson posted:awwww that’s so cute I can only speak anecdotally but I remember my science teacher getting completely flustered when he had the class break up into groups, realize there were an odd number of kids and I was the odd one out, then hit a wall when he couldn't even force the other kids to take me on in their group lol. I honestly felt worse about it for him than myself. i haven't taught k-12 but even in uni I'd always divvy people up myself, although there the challenge is everyone's just really shy most of the time.
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Apr 23, 2023 18:43
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edit: the learning the rules skit/game I mean. I may borrow that and make it appealing to 12 year olds
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Dreylad posted:I can only speak anecdotally but I remember my science teacher getting completely flustered when he had the class break up into groups, realize there were an odd number of kids and I was the odd one out, then hit a wall when he couldn't even force the other kids to take me on in their group lol. I honestly felt worse about it for him than myself. haha yeah. I HATED group activities as a kid and loved when my teacher would just give up and let me do the project myself. when I do collaborative work I let kids choose their own groups and just set a cap for the number of participants depending on the project (3-6 usually). that nips most issues in the bud and then all the nerds like me happily do an entire thing all by themselves. also - and this is exciting - after the kids do a few projects with soft group guidelines like this, the ones like me who are just too poorly socialized to get along easily start finding each other and making friends/being in groups together. that’s the dream, designing a classroom environment where kids get the agency to decide when they are ready to work on an aspect of themselves in a healthy and safe way  I have these two nerds who both loudly declared they were loners at the beginning of the year and sat on opposite sides of the room; now they’re inseparable and obnoxious in a totally new way lol
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Apr 23, 2023 18:50
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Hawkperson posted:haha yeah. I HATED group activities as a kid and loved when my teacher would just give up and let me do the project myself. when I do collaborative work I let kids choose their own groups and just set a cap for the number of participants depending on the project (3-6 usually). that nips most issues in the bud and then all the nerds like me happily do an entire thing all by themselves. that's awesome, and heartwarming. I definitely wish I had more group work like that, instead of getting either forced together where no one else in the group wants you there, or having one hardcore student just tell everyone else to draw a poster or something while they did all the hard work so they could guarantee themselves a good grade. I think those experiences probably influenced me being weary about bringing group work into the classroom at times. also to continue to drag this thread slightly off-topic towards pre-K, a lot of the praise advice here is echoed in a couple of parenting books ive read. it has been, however, much easier to give praise to a 1 year old who enjoys doing just about everything.
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Apr 23, 2023 19:00
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There's a huge problem with scaling in education. Namely, that it doesn't scale. A lot of the great advice getting posted in this thread seems to boil down to, "Pay attention to the students. Genuinely care about their feelings and respect them as human beings". Even a single rude child can trivially exhaust this capacity in the average adult. A teacher should, of course, have a much greater capacity for this than the average adult (that's why they get paid the big bucks!). Still, I think there are natural psychological limits on how much of that a single human being can do. Doing it simultaneously for 40-50 kids requires a saintly demeanor and if all of our teachers need to be saints, we're screwed. There is a palpable desperation from administrators for some technique, some technology, some innovation that will increase the efficiency of either teacher labor hours or the learning process of the students themselves. Every kid needs a laptop! We need a new curriculum! Replace all of the white boards with smart boards! We need better standardized tests! Raise the standards! Lower the standards! Technocratically individualize the standards! Anything, everything for the sake of the KIDS except for hiring more teachers, lowering class sizes, and increasing teacher wages. But none of this seems to work very well. Technical interventions in the field of education do not yield anywhere near the kinds of productivity gains that they do in other sectors of the economy such as manufacturing or software development. You might be able to compress what used to be two hours worth of instruction into one hour, but you can't do that trick again the next year and the next year. There are hard neurological limits on how much a student can learn in any given school day. There are also limits on the number of students a teacher can effectively instruct at once. Because there are those other sectors that do observe large, continuous gains to productivity through technical intervention, in real terms the cost of educating students is actually going up: The Baumol Effect posted:If productivity per man hour rises cumulatively in one sector relative to its rate of growth elsewhere in the economy, while wages rise commensurately in all areas, then relative costs in the nonprogressive sectors must inevitably rise, and these costs will rise cumulatively and without limit...Thus, the very progress of the technologically progressive sectors inevitably adds to the costs of the technologically unchanging sectors of the economy, unless somehow the labor markets in these areas can be sealed off and wages held absolutely constant, a most unlikely possibility. The high cross-sector applicability of the skills that make for an effective teacher, plus relatively stable productivity per teacher hour despite technical interventions actually implies that teacher wages should be increasing faster than they are in other sectors of the economy. The fact that this isn't happening implies increasing dysfunction in the educational system purely due to technological advancement in other sectors. Now layer in the actual problems that teachers and students are facing from things like COVID, inequality, and the ambient threat of school shootings and the whole thing just starts coming apart.
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Apr 23, 2023 19:12
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It seems to me that there's a drive to lower the educational requirements for "unskilled" labor i.em pretty soon a fast food worker won't even need to know how to make change or even to read if so then it's unlikely that the bottom teir of education will ever exceed that. I guess most the learning is there for they lucky few who float to the top and become McDonald's managers War and Pieces has issued a correction as of 20:14 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 19:45
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Hawkperson posted:that contradicts itself though. it’s not for anything, but if kids work at it they can do amazing things? so it’s for getting kids to do amazing things then, right? Please feel free to rant about the philosophical stuff as much as you want, I'll read it. My teaching program was weird and didn't have any, it was all about data tracking and doing interventions. I don't have my own class anymore and this thread makes me really miss it. edit: NeatHeteroDude posted:This seems a little harsh. I want to preface my answer by saying that most good teachers will have elements of different instructional styles that they feel effective using from many different forms of teaching. Things like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) are effective guidelines for giving your kids more than one way to access what you're teaching and demonstrate knowledge. Not every kid needs to read a book and take notes. Maybe they would benefit from a different way to learn the material? Not every kid needs to show me they know about narrative fiction by writing a story on paper. What if they wrote a script on a computer and acted it out? There are a lot of ways we can make learning more interesting and accessible for kids who need it. This is a good thread! Greg Legg has issued a correction as of 19:56 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 19:45
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War and Pieces posted:It seems to me that there's a drive to lower the educational requirements for "unskilled" labor i.em pretty soon a fast food worker won't even need to know how to make change or even to read this is why local funding of education is such a bad idea
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Apr 23, 2023 19:56
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