Tuesday, May 27, 2014

BartmasBlurb#34

 

“Should I eat that?”

 

 

Choice = Consequence:


We all make choices every single minute of our day.  My food choices are a simple choice challenge that I face every day. As like many people, carbs are a drawing card to my appetite, Even as I work out and make the choice to stay fit, my appetite is drawn to those stinking carbohydrates! Mt. Dew is a weakness as a beverage, but at least it has orange juice in it. From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed we are faced with choices. Some choices become positive habits and others…like my Mt. Dew can become negative ones. Working out is another facet of our lives many struggle with. It is easy not to take time to exercise, but in the long run that choice is counter productive to a healthy and happy life. Students are faced with these choices also; how can we as educators help them make healthier choices?


No matter what age of student we work with, teaching them to make good choices is paramount on helping them grow into productive members of our society.  From helping a pre-kindergartner make the choice to actually use the toilet, to a high school senior being a responsible digital citizen we have to coach our students in decision-making. I remember the days when teachers would say to me, “Use common sense!” The problem with that statement is exactly what Ben Franklin said, “Common sense is not so common.” I had no clue what I was supposed to do as far as common sense. I did not even have a starting reference point.  

We need to continually use mini-lessons to reinforce good choice making processes.  Everyday we have students making choices.  They weigh the risk and reward, or they are impulsive and do not even think about how their actions will affect themselves or others. Starting the year focused on good choices being an expectation for the school year is a great place to start. Students can create multi-media presentations on choice making. Basketball Jones, a great presenter on choices, uses a quote throughout his assemblies, “Good choice, bad Choice; my choice.”  Teaching and coaching students that they are responsible for their choices will help everyone have a better year!

Thursday, May 8, 2014

You Can't Handle the Truth

BartmasBlurb#33

“You want the truth; you can’t handle the Truth!”



Freedom equals Responsibility


We are surrounded daily with whether or not we are going to take personal responsibility for ourselves. Throughout our early childhood and into adolescence we struggle with individuality and independence. One of the reasons I loved teaching sixth grade was the opportunity to mold young minds into self-guided missiles of learning and responsibility. Seeing young people make the decision to become positive leaders is one of the most rewarding experiences any adult can experience!

How do you teach a young person that with freedom comes great responsibility? You must give them incremental levels of responsibility! With the advent of technology we are asking students to take on immense responsibility with the care of and use of digital devices to become good digital citizens. How can we expect them to be responsible if we are not teaching them? One of the observations I have made in being involved with education is how our teaching of discipline changes from the lower elementary levels up through the intermediate grades. In fourth grade many teachers slowly get away from teaching students expectations and responsibilities. For some it is, “just,” expected that their classes behave. We must continue to teach the risk and reward associated with students taking on greater responsibility.  Just as we differentiate our subject areas, we must also teach discipline in differentiated instruction. Many of the students that we see today have little or no self-discipline being taught to them in the home. Many students truly do not even understand what freedom means. Freedom without self-discipline is anarchy. As we teach even older children the concepts of freedom we must interweave the concept of responsibility into the mix-there is a equal ratio of responsibility that must be present. When Russia slowly became more democratic in its form of government the adults in that vast country struggled with the whole concept of freedom.

In the lower elementary we give students responsibility by giving them tasks to perform in the class or for the class; anything from being the student that plugs in the chargers to the child who runs notes to the office. These are tasks that use freedom to teach responsibility. We use these to teach them the importance they have to the society of the class and school by doing jobs well. We teach positive regard for others. The majority of discipline issues I deal with in the day correspond with people saying negative things to others, or treating people in negative ways. It takes A LOT of self-discipline to tame your tongue. Look at the ancient wisdom about how dangerous the mouth is; “Loose lips sink ships,” “Sharper than a two sided sword.”

We must show students that the freedom of speech does not give us the right to just be mean to each other. It is not wrong to disagree, but we must teach opposition of viewpoints with respect. In the area of physical respect many students just simply cannot handle being close to another child…they can’t keep their hands to themselves. Most physical contact starts with either retaliating to words spoken or wanting attention. Some students just express themselves physically by bumping into each other or punching someone ion the arm. Boys do not hug a lot…they hit! We need to continually coach students on how to use their freedom with responsibility. In the secondary level we can use literature and government to teach the importance of using freedom responsibly. The book, Watership Down, Does an excellent job in using analogy to teach the responsibility of being free. Ayn Rand’s books can be used to coach responsibility in government classes along with the writings of our founding fathers.


If we can get our classes disciplined at the beginning of the year and revisit our discipline throughout the year, we will cut down on major disruptions and poor choices by our students. Freedom takes a lot of responsibility, if we continue to teach about it and model it, our school community will become a better place to be, and to be from.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

"It's not a haircut; it's an attitude!"

BartmasBlurb#32

“It is not a Hair Cut; it’s an Attitude!”


Very much of what we expect in discipline is an attitude. To change discipline, self-discipline, we must effectively affect attitude. How? Many of our students are being raised in very negative situations. They are belittled and demeaned to the extent that they lack self-worth. For many of these students punitive discipline will not work. Just watch their demeanor, body language and their style choices. I have worn my hair in a flat top for over twenty years, but back in school my hair sometimes was to my shoulders. My hair cut was and is a direct reflection of my attitude. We cannot effectively teach these students discipline without giving them anchors to hold onto. What are these anchors?

Pursue Excellence:

This motto cannot mean you want perfection or a child to be a perfectionist. We want our student to constantly strive to become better in all arenas of life. This is all in having a positive attitude about hard work, and the returns on our investment of effort. To pursue means to chase after, to stalk, to attack, and to follow. We must teach our young minds HOW to pursue.

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." Herb Brooks USA Hockey

Our society is diminishing the importance of giving your best. We are slowly allowing mediocrity to be the norm. Many in the business world are at a loss because so many of our students come to them without a strong work ethic. They are late to work, and many miss workdays just because they don’t want to work. We as educators need to take the lead in developing students that want to perform at their best in all areas of their life. For years we have been told that our students need repetition in routine to teach expectations. After the first nine weeks many of us allow complacency to seep into our classrooms and hallway. If a student does not do something well, do we just take off points, allow it to pass, or do we explain how it does not meet expectations and have them redo it correctly? Do we give positive feedback? Discipline includes giving the positive as well as the redirection. What activities do we use to teach excellence? Science, math, inventions, sports, music, and the arts are filled with great examples of the concept of being disciplined, dealing with frustration, and pursuing on towards a goal. We have our own life examples of adversity and how we overcame it. Our days are filled with the opportunity to encourage students to strive for something better. Several generations ago our predecessors wished for a better life for their progeny. They did not expect it to be easy! They taught their children and grandchildren that they have to work harder to accomplish that dream. Our country's founding premise is an example of pursuing excellence. Did our founding fathers do everything perfectly? No! They continued to work at creating a better country. 
In teaching driver's education for many years it is amazing how hard the driving students work to be a safe driver. When they think about the enormous responsibility that is being entrusted to them, they listen and want to perform tasks perfectly. We need this same type of attitude towards our regular educational curriculum. Find the carrot, place it out in front of them, coach them on how to get that carrot, let them get a nibble...then move it out a little further!


 Some detractors of discipline would argue that you squelch creativity, and freedom in teaching discipline. This is far from the truth! With self-discipline comes true individual freedom. Students have to be taught when they are given a task and the latitude to use their creativity that is when they should be giving their best effort. It is a true reflection of an individual how well they complete a task. Your name on a paper or a project is you. How we allow students to speak in class and the school is part of pursuing excellence. Do we expect correct grammar, or do we allow slang and jargon to permeate our halls? When students are in classes and the hallways, do we allow frowning, slouching, negative attitudes or do we ask and find the root, and help them find that there is a solution or just someone that cares? Do we accept sloppily done homework, or ask that it be formatted correctly?  Think of ALL the, “little things,” we do in a school day; are they really that little?  We as adults must model this for our students. When students are watching us do they see us constantly re-evaluating, re-assessing and adjusting our own work to be better?

Pursue Excellence should be how we start our day, work during our day, and finish our day. Taking short cuts is not pursuing excellence. Being complacent is not pursuing excellence. Accepting mediocrity is not pursuing excellence. How can we as educators help our students pursue excellence?