What Students Really Need to Hear - teacher blog spot

You need to read this blog post by a Michigan teacher.

It is amazing and as a teacher, very easy to relate to. I care about my students, I worry about my students, and I want them to know that they are loved and should never quit.... Here is one excerpt that really summarizes the post:

As long as you are in my life, I am not going to let quitting be easy for you.  I am going to challenge you, confront you, push you, and coach you.  You can whine.  You can throw a tantrum.  You can shout and swear and stomp and cry.  And the next day, guess what?  I will be here waiting — smiling and patient — to give you a fresh start.  Because you are worth it.

Please read the entire post at Source

New approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85%

I love this story.

A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly:
“Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?” He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?”
The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness. The armor-plated defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.”
Whoa.
And then he goes back to the teacher and apologizes. Without prompting from Sporleder.
“The kid still got a consequence,” explains Sporleder – but he wasn’t sent home, a place where there wasn’t anyone who cares much about what he does or doesn’t do. He went to ISS — in-school suspension, a quiet, comforting room where he can talk about anything with the attending teacher, catch up on his homework, or just sit and think about how maybe he could do things differently next time.
Before the words “namby-pamby”, “weenie”, or “not the way they did things in my day” start flowing across your lips, take a look at these numbers:
2009-2010 (Before new approach)

• 798 suspensions (days students were out of school)
• 50 expulsions
• 600 written referrals

2010-2011 (After new approach)

• 135 suspensions (days students were out of school)
• 30 expulsions
• 320 written referrals

“It sounds simple,” says Sporleder about the new approach. “Just by asking kids what’s going on with them, they just started talking. It made a believer out of me right away.”
 

http://acestoohigh.com/2012/04/23/lincoln-high-school-in-walla-walla-wa-tries-new-approach-to-school-discipline-expulsions-drop-85/

MindUp Program

I have been in numerous classrooms that practice the MindUp program and have to say, it is AMAZING! I am a huge fan of social emotional learning and it's benefits and find that this program works well in classrooms. I hope to take the training myself this year and implement some of the practices into my classroom.

I know my daughter's teacher (in grade 2) used MindUp and my daughter enjoyed it very much and still practices some of the relaxation and focus techniques on her own at home and school.

MindUP™ aspires to:

• Develop students’ skills in focusing their attention;
• Sharpen students’ awareness of their environment and themselves by paying attention to what they sense and feel;
• Strengthen the positive human qualities students possess, including their capacity to understand the perspectives of others and to be empathic, helpful, and kind;
• Increase students’ optimism and well-being;
• Foster a cohesive, caring learning environment and thereby an optimistic classroom. 

MindUp is a classroom-based social and emotional learning program (SEL) designed to enhance self-awarness, social awareness, attention, self regulation, problem solving, pro-social behaviour (helping, sharing, and cooperating), and positive human qualities, such as happiness, optimism, and kindness. Research has shown that students who participate in SEL programs, like MindUp, enhance their overall learning potential, improve their classroom behaviour, and increase their academic success.
 
MindUp was created to help children understand the ways their minds work and how their thoughts and feelings affect their behaviour. The MindUp curriculum is informed by the latest scientific research in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, social emotional learning, and positive psychology.
Through a series of simple lessons, students learn strategies to calm their minds, focus their attention, and become more aware of themselves, others, and their environment. Each lesson also teaches students about their brain (anatomy and function), and how they can positively influence their own brain development. Along with the classroom lessons, there is a short, twice daily practice of focusing and calming their mind using listening and breathing techniques.