Sticks and stones will break may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.
What kind of lunatic wrote that? I have had broken bones, lost lots of blood, received lots of stitches, and have received many black eyes. I can’t remember the story behind half of them. The cuts have healed, the bones have healed, and the scars have faded. I have been hurt by words. The scars from those words are just as painful today as they were the day they were said to me.
Sticks and stones may break bones, but bones heal, words can leave permanent damage.
My 11 year old daughter came home with a spelling test Monday to be signed—all tests have to be signed, even if it is a 100. On this test she received an “A” and under the grade was a note from the teacher that read “Your handwriting is terrible. It must improve or I will give you extra homework.” Terrible?!! If you want a kid to improve do you call them terrible? If my daughter’s friend was to give a presentation in class would a kid be able to stand up and say “that was terrible!” There are so many ways to motivate children to change their habits. Why do so many teachers use mean words? My daughter is the type of kid that would do anything if a teacher asks. Why not lean over her shoulder and whisper “ You are doing awesome on your spelling tests, but if you can just write a little neater it would really help me be able to read your answers.” Instead she feels terrible because she has been labeled terrible.
The words that are chosen by a teacher carry so much meaning and power. I think we all forget just how much power we have. When a kid falls down in class and forgets homework, does poorly on a test, or even is the biggest thorn in our side, we have a choice to use words that beat them down or lift them up. Great teachers do not focus on beating kids down and putting them in their “place.” Great teachers lift kids up with their words and reveal to students that they can do what they previously thought was impossible. They find a way to give their kids wings.
Until the eagle’s children discovered their wings there was no purpose for their lives.
David McNally
Last night we had a conference with my other daughter’s teacher. My wife mentioned that my daughter was a bit tired of being stuck in the same class again with some…ummm…rambunctious kids. The teacher talked about how she is taking a positive approach with dealing with these kids. She is not using a marble jar or a system of punishing rules. She is trying some positive management schemes that impacts the individuals and not the entire class, and that slowly their behavior is shaping up and changing. What I noticed, and I might totally be wrong here, is that her voice and body posture changed while telling us this–almost like she was bashful about going against the educational gods by not simply laying down the law, being strict, and using all those mean words to show them who was boss. She is in a school in which class wide punishments for single kids actions are common, and as I stated previously, mean words are used to change behavior.
She and every teacher should realize that what you do to one kid you do to the entire class. Saying mean words to one kid, is just like infecting the entire class. It shows the class that being mean, sarcastic, putting them in their place, or yelling is an acceptable form of behavior, and it should not surprise us that the students in those rooms often get in trouble for doing and saying the same things that the teachers have said to them. Using words to lift students, lifts the entire class. Being kind even while “disciplining” a kid reminds the entire class to be kind even when they are dealing with the knuckleheads in this world. In my daughter’s class it might take 10 months to get the kids “under control” but my daughter will have learned that love is more powerful than being mean. You can actually change negative behaviors by being kind, loving, and yes…even by being fun.
I wonder if mean words come from giving work that is not authentic… With authentic work, the lesson learned comes from the results. Miss a meeting and your client doesn’t hire you. Hand in paper work for a grant late and you don’t get the money. Repair cars incorrectly and the shop asks you to leave. Don’t make correct change as a cashier and the difference is taken from your pay. If you do something wrong in school for an assignment that in reality does not mean anything, do teachers feel the need to tech you a lesson with their words? Or do the words come from a place that is angry not because of the students actions but because of the teachers inability to control the actions?
I have noticed that by the time kids get to me they have already been “taught” who they are, how they should act, what they will be. Not blantantly, but in a subliminal way. The “smart” kids are encouraged to go onward and upward, the “troubled” kids, whether behavior or academic, are told do “this” or else–they are stuck in a constant struggle with someone who is trying to control them. The troubled kids have stopped believing in themselves, have stopped believing that they can use their wings to fly, and that they do have a purpose in this world. We spend a lot of time putting them down. We should be spending our time lifting them up and teaching them to spread their wings and fly.
The next time you have the have the opportunity to speak to a kid about that annoying behavior they have, whether it’s talking in class, not putting their name on their paper, chewing gum, or even being a bully…try using words that lift them up, instead of words that put them down. In the end you want them to fly with the eagles, instead of scratching down with the chickens
A man once found an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched and grew up with the rest of a brood of chicks and though he didn’t look at all the same. He scratched the earth for worms and bugs and played the chicken’s games. The eagle clucked and cackled, he made a chicken’s sound; He thrashed his wings, but only flew some two feet off the ground. That’s high as chickens fly, the eagle had been told. The years passed and one day when the eagle was quite old. He saw something magnificent flying very high and making great majestic circles up there in the sky. He’d never seen the likes of it. “What’s that?” he asked in awe, while he watched in wonder at the grace and power he saw. “Why that’s an eagle,” someone said, “He belongs up there, it’s clear. Just as we, since we are chickens, belong earthbound down here.” The old eagle just accepted that, most everybody does. And he lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.
I write many of my blog posts while watching my daughters’ Karate class. When it’s my turn to take them to Karate I bring my laptop, write it, and post when I get home…although some days I come home with nothing. There are other posts that I start writing at home, do some pre-planning, add to at school, re-read, change, edit, delete, write again, etc. Those might be written over a two week period and I actually try to make them “my best.”
This summer it became very clear that the posts I took my time on and “tried” to do my best were the “least popular” as determined by the number of comments, hits, and re-tweets. The posts that I jammed out in 30 minutes in a fit, didn’t think about planning or revising…or barely proof reading get the glory(keep in mind glory for a bitty blogger like me would be 100 hits in a day and ten comments!!). The posts that I thought I was putting my heart and soul into and invest large amounts of time went no where (see one post below-do you know how much time that one took!!!). The posts that I thought were horrible become the most popular…hmmmm…
So I am sitting here at Karate and have been staring at a blank screen for 30 minutes—I resisted the urge of using one of the planned out topics on the paper in my pocket that I carry around. I feel no urge to write. I could take one of those topics and write. Nothing would be flowing out, it would be a highly planned, edited and revised post, and it would go nowhere.
I wonder how this plays out in my classroom. Many times the units I spend the most amount of time planning just flop, and the units that are spontaneous or the planned units that suddenly change mid course are the most successful. The work that the kids do that is the best is always based on spontaneous ideas, not the ones that are slowly shaped over time, edited and revised. It seems as though sudden light bulb moments create an energy within them that carries through to the end. Slowly developing an idea keeps the energy at an even pace that never seems to quite peak to excitement or greatness. I should add that I consider the light bulb moments are the ideas and products that result in changing kids. I am past the point in my career in which high grades and having the kids learn new skills and knowledge denotes a successful unit. I am looking for units and ideas that reveal to a student that they can do what they previously thought was impossible.
So I wonder…we essentially require the kids to be turned on everyday. To do their best, work to their potential, and be creative. Some days my light bulb is not on, how should I change things when their’s is not. Does the “bulb” come on in cycles? Because of me? Them? Time of day? Should I pay more attention to riding their creative wave? Allow more downtime?
Every year I run a series of experiments as I try new things. Somewhere in this light bulb analogy is an experiment taking shape.
“And only by being a welcome person in your student’s life can you — with all that you have to offer — find a place in their life and gain access to them so you can communicate with them, do your job as a teacher, and enjoy your students as a people.”
“For a small child there is no division between playing and learning; between the things he or she does ‘just for fun’ and things that are ‘educational.’ The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play.”
Penelope Leach
I believe school should be fun. When did learning become such serious business? It seems as though we have forgotten how to play and laugh, smile and maybe even get dirty. How many times a day do you smile to your kids? How many laughs do you share? I noticed when I came to my school that it is rare that a child looks up at me when I pass by them in the hallway…even rarer that they smile and say hello.
“Children engage in such (free) play because they enjoy it–it’s self-directed. They do not play for rewards; they enjoy the doing, not the end result. Once they get bored, they go on to do something else–and continue to learn and grow.”
Sheila G. Flaxman
It takes months before classes loosen up and laugh. Using humor in a class is a valuable skill. It is scientifically proven to increase student achievement. Have you heard about that one person who did his thesis on “Using humor in the classroom?” Yep, that was me. Humor goes hand-in-hand with play. Do you play in your classroom?
“In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time’s continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world’s ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.”
Diane Ackerman in Deep Play
Laughing and playing allows a class to bond. It allows for shared experiences. And yes, it releases some killer chemicals into your body that make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Somewhere along the line we have come to believe that learning is serious business. That school prepares kids for work. Work is serious. You are supposed to be “serious” and not supposed to laugh while working. Therefore, we should not be laughing and playing in school. Even when we create “fun” projects, it is done with an adult perspective. Adults’ sense of what should be fun for kids has been warped by decades of people telling us to grow up, act more mature, get serious and stop being foolish.
“PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for ‘educational’ toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a ‘message.’ Often these ‘tools’ are less interesting and stimulating than the child’s natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.”
Joanne E. Oppenheim Kids and Play, ch. 1 (1984)
We spend so much time trying to get them to act and behave like us. Wonder what would happen if just for a day, we acted like them. What a grand and wonderful perspective of the world we would get. Imagine if for a day we dropped all of our adult baggage at the school’s front door and entered with the heart of a child that we all once possessed. We need to forgot many of the random rules that govern what is and is not acceptable. Walk down the hall “flapping our wings,” hop on one foot to get across the hall, and try to juggle the oranges at lunch.
“Innately, children seem to have little true realistic anxiety. They will run along the brink of water, climb on the window sill, play with sharp objects and with fire, in short, do everything that is bound to damage them and to worry those in charge of them, that is wholly the result of education; for they cannot be allowed to make the instructive experiences themselves.”
Sigmund Freud
Somehow we have been taught to scrutinize our every action. We have put limits on our fun, our laughter, our spirit. We have created rules about having fun that include where and when, how and how long, why and with whom. They are self imposed? school imposed? culturally imposed? limitations on our play.
“When we play, we sense no limitations. In fact, when we are playing, we are usually unaware of ourselves. Self-observation goes out the window. We forget all those past lessons of life, forget our potential foolishness, forget ourselves. We immerse ourselves in the act of play. And we become free.”
Lenore Terr in Beyond Love and Work
So I would like to invite all of you to play with the same spirit of your children. Sometimes it is very hard to walk into school with a smile. We teach in buildings in which fun, smiles, and laughter are extinct—and eventually our school days tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. Remember to bring your own sunshine, smile daily, laugh a little more and teach like you are having a ball.
“For since most of our living is unconscious, play is like matchstrokes in the void, bringing into light the structures we behave by, illuminating for us, however briefly, our deep meanings.”
Why do we have to treat teachers like kids? There is a discussion going on in Twitter about getting teachers to use technology. We have to provide mentors, we have to model, we have to encourage, we have to provide an environment that supports mistakes, we have to encourage them to use the kids, we have to encourage it’s use…Seriously folks!
Around where I live a couple hundred years ago there were farmers everywhere. I am sitting where sheep once grazed. As the 19th Century progressed farming methods changed. Some farmers experimented and used the new methods their neighbors were using. Some read the new journals and books that were being published and used the new methods in a trial and error method. Still others simply experimented on their own and developed new implements and methods on their own. You know what happened to all the rest that refused to change? They disappeared. They had to give up farming because their old methods and outdated crops simply could not turn a profit. It is still happening around me with farms. There are many successful farms, they have embraced new technology but more importantly they have anticipated the needs of their local market and are producing what that market wants and needs. Many small farms are opening in my state. They are being run by a different type of farmer who looks to the future, who learns constantly, who embraces the advantage that technology can give, who uses new marketing tools, who provide their customers with new and unique items, who change with the needs of their customers, farmers who don’t have to be told to change in order to survive–they just get it. They go out and find mentors, work on other folks farms with roles models, read and study new research, and enter the business knowing that they are going to make mistakes and in order to survive they will have to learn and change from them.
Maybe instead of spending so much time cajoling teachers into using technology we should just stop and let nature take its course. Maybe we should just let them disappear. My big ol’ guess is that the same people we are complaining about have problems much bigger than they just don’t integrate tech. Maybe we should just let evolution take its course and they will go extinct and be replaced by a leaner meaner breed of teachers who just “get it” and focus our attention on them. Focus our attention on changing hiring practices. Focus our attention on preservice teachers. What if everyone who wants change became a cooperating teacher and worked with student teachers? What if everyone leading PD volunteered to go into a college class?
Seriously folks, why should we spend so much time changing stubborn teachers. Let them go extinct.
PS-I believe this post represents the first time I have used the word cajole
PSS-This post represents the views of Paul’s alter-ego, the one he would like to be somedays when he is frustrated, not the one that represents him every day at school. While Paul’s alter-ego would like those ol’ stubborn coots to go extinct, Paul’s other ego will continue to help out and offer PD as much as he can. As a matter of fact he has submitted submissions for four workshops just in the last week alone. He believes that even flocks of Dodos should be given a second chance for survival.
