1. Is failure a real and regularly option and experience for kids at your school? Yes. I have had the opportunity to see many different schools this semester, there are many students who talk about failing a class. It seems normal, failing a class is just something that happens, like part of the culture of the school. It isn't just one school, it is almost every school I go to including charters. Failing seems to be part of the education experience for a lot of students here in San Diego. Which has been a real wake up for me as a future leader of a school. I want to make sure that failure is not part of the culture of my school.
2. If so, what impact do you believe that is creating? If not, what structures have been put into place to accomplish alternatives? I think it is starting to create different classes within the school. I have worked in schools where the students in the classes had roughly the same GPA as each other, students who had high failure rates and low grades seem to be in the same class and vice versa. There is a rule that a teacher told me when I first got hired: "When it comes to the class you teach you have to wait in line to teach the honors and AP classes". Tracking of students was creating a hierarchy for what classes teachers wanted to teach! When students fail and are then moved on to the next grade or are grouped with students who have also failed they get placed in class with a teacher who may or may not have assigned them a label already. 3. What conditions exist that make it too late to learn and reach competency in your school? Can you give an example? Plenty of teachers I know do not accept late work. "If it is late then you do not get credit", it seems to be the purpose of the assignment was to make sure you can hit deadlines not learn the content. By not allowing students to turn in late work we condemn them for not hitting due dates, not for non comprehension of the content. I think that we as an education system and me personally are committed to students learning the content. 4. What would you do, if anything, to introduce/enhance “never too late to learn” structures in your school if you were the school leader? This is really hard, I don't want to design a plan that has students waiting until the last minute to do work and then swamping teachers with work that needs to assessed and graded. I want to implement a plan that holds students accountable and has them proactively working towards competency. Offer paid tutoring hours to teachers to work withs students who want to make up work in their classes to achieve a passing grade. Students would be able to work on past work for an improved grade or for support on current topics. The idea that would passed on to students is that; help is always available and teachers want students to pass. 5. What can you do in your present position to create “never too late to learn” structures into your current practice and those of your peers? Are those things in your sphere of influence? I could help stay after school for a few hours a week and try to model this program. I think that if I can prove that it works and it can help the students then maybe the department could implement and then maybe go school wide. I think it will be in my sphere of influence shortly, I think it is a realistic way to give students another option to pass. 6. Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school and increase learning opportunities: 1. Offer make-up work for students. If they turned something in when it was due they can remake it for full credit. If they did not turn anything in they can remake it for 85%. This way students are incentivized to turn something in when it is due, even if its just a little bit. 2. Talk to the admin about getting additional funding for tutoring hours for students who are at risk of failing. 3. Talk to the department about implementing a program for the whole team to help reduce failing grades. 4. Have a conference with every student who drops below a 75% and work out a plan for them to succeed. 5. Have a comprehensive final based on all of the information from the semester. A rigorous test, that if passed proves competency of the material. If a student can pass the final, they pass the class regardless. "The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" -Peggy O'Mara. I think that this was the quote that I kept repeating in my head as I read this week and watched the video. How we speak to children becomes their inner voice, very insightful into how powerful and life changing our jobs can be.
1. What role does school play in building students’ agency and identity? School is a culturing process. We as children learn how to speak, play, learn, interact, disagree with one another. We are also taught how to think and we learn a lot from how the adults of a school interact with us as children. Schools start to teach us how we should see ourselves, how we should value ourselves and what is important and worth our attention. School makes up most of our day as children, we spend 8 hours with adults other then our parents 180 days a year. This amount of time is ample to ensure that school has a significant affect on our identity and agency. Schools teach us how we should treat ourselves and others with a code of conduct (identity) and how we should approach our actions and goals (agency). If schools are not careful we could end up with a negative identity towards ourselves and others and not see the value of effort, but the value of only the right answer. 2. How aware are you and your colleagues of the impact our choice of words have on developing students’ agency and identity? Can you give examples? On a whole I would say that educators are not aware of the power of their words and what they can do to a student. I for a long time had no idea the power my words held, mainly because I didn't think that they held any power personally. When I entered education seven years ago, I was authoritative borderline rude with my words with the best intention, but not the best practices. I was told from a coach how much you can change the feel and mood or a person by telling them what you wanted instead of what you didn't want them to do. For example: "Class can you please pause your voices, so we can talk about something" vs. "Class stop talking, I need to tell you something". While they are very close in diction, the result is drastic. The first shows a sense of community and respect asking them to "pause" their voice so "we can talk", the second shows a sense of authority with "stop" the talking so "I can tell you". Once I switched from using the second example to the first my behavior problems shifted so fast, students were kinder to me, they respected me more and were in general more fun to be around, the reason was because I was kinder to them, respected them more and was more fun to be around. We as educators need to be the change that we want to see. I believe that if we can start to use more powerful communication techniques that illustrates that we care about our students we can start to show them how they can also behave. This is a example of identity. Studying Carol Dweck I learned from her that students who were praised on effort were willing to work harder and persevere through failure then students who were praised on the right answer. In math I am still trying to make this shift to being someone who praises effort over the right answer. I think the biggest challenge is that the pedagogy of grading is not supportive of effort, but the right answer. I am still trying to encourage and support students on effort rather then their answer. 3. What would you do, if anything, to make using choice words a more conscious and accountable school wide practice if you were the school leader? I would have at least 15 minutes at every PD dedicated to POPC which is Principles Of Powerful Communication. POPC is focused on making sure that words are used efficiently and are used to promote a sense of "big me, big you" which is a culture that builds yourself up as your build the other person up as well, much like a win-win only with words. POPC takes time, accountability, effort, and reminders to become a habit and part of the culture. There would be murals painted throughout the school using POPC words and there would be posters in the school displaying words as well. 4. What could you do, if anything, to make the use of choice words a more conscious and accountable personal practice as well as one embraced by others on your site? Are those things within your sphere of influence? The first step for me is to have a vision of what I want to see and make sure that it is visible. A poster in my room that is a physical reminder of the words we use have power and a choice. "The way we talk to our kids becomes their inner voice" would be a great poster that I would hang to not only be a reminder for me, but a vision for others to see. The second step would be to model all of the interactions I have on site, keeping in mind that words are a choice. Making sure that I have a attitude and try to promote a sense of "big me-big you" empowering others to try and see my vision through my actions. I think that this would have a very positive affect on students and staff. I think that this is also within my sphere of influence not as a leader on the site but just as a regular person who can become a leader of words through actions. 5. Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school choose words wisely? 1. Make sure that my words are dedicated to purpose of "Do No Harm". 2. Encourage and praise students' effort as the priority over the correct answer. 3. Make sure that I model my actions using POPC and leading others to do the same. 4. Talking to students in way to promote their identity in a positive direction; "Now your thinking like a scientist!" 5. Ensuring that all language used by me or by students in my class is supportive of a positive identity for everyone in the class. 1. When it comes to the concept of Do No Harm, I believe that this is what can transform a school past just an organization, but into a place of powerful safe learning. Do No Harm can transcend past just our school culture and has the power to change lives of our students even after the leave our doors at the end of the day. Do No Harm can result in a culture that holds everyone accountable for their best actions and attitudes.
2. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in discipline policies and practices? Knowing that all humans, students, parents, staff and myself deserve respect and kindness from all they encounter. Knowing this, that we are all the same and we all deserve to be treated with only the best. I can ensure this culture by holding myself, parents, students and staff to a standard of Do No Harm. 3. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in program practices and initiatives? I believe that we can take Do No Harm past just our walls as a school if we can get parents involved in the process of their child's education. If we could provide meetings or online chats for them to ask questions and check into the school and give them a chance to provide support for their son or daughters school that we could build a culture that also grows into the homes of our families. 4. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in our professional development as a community of learners? While I like the idea of Hallway TLC, I don't know if it fits my style. I could see myself as a leader, having professional developments into learning how to build rapport with students. Learning how to really connect, that while every student is required to come to class everyone staff and student alike, want to come to class. I had a teacher who taught me this invaluable skill, he listened to me when he gave us an assignment that really resonated with me. He spent time after class talking with me about the class, it resulted in me making sure that I was on time and early to class. He pushed me to be the best and held me to it. My goal is to inspire my staff to have the same experience; a group of educators who have a positive and deep rapport with each other that grows into their classroom. The classroom could be run by a model of someone who enjoys the atmosphere and is an architect, and inspires the students to actively engage in help to build the culture as well. 5. Is the concept of teaching students to “first do no harm” integrated into the culture of your school (or workplace)? Currently it is not. I think that the though is if you do harm react after it is done. I know that today during instruction that I harmed a student (I made a joke and she took it personally). I am going to apologize tomorrow. I know that I cannot undo what has happened. I bring this up because I do not believe that she has a had a teacher who felt accountable to make sure that the harm that was done was reconciled for. We have to teach students what it looks like to be accountable for your actions and what it feels like when someone cares about you as a person. 6. How does your answer to the previous prompt sit with you? I know that it is going to be a challenge to implement a policy like this into a school that has a preexisting culture. The reason why is because outside of school there are not a lot of people who have the mentality of "Do No Harm". I believe that my response is one that I believe in, that we need to teach students what it looks like to have someone respect you and care for you. They may not have a "DNH" home, but we can teach them what it looks and feels like and then teach them skills to make sure that can build that environment. 7. Current sphere of influence: Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school a more positive restorative place: 1. I am a sub. That does not stop me though from making sure that every student I encounter feels safe with me and knows I care about them. 2. I can hold myself accountable for the actions that I take. Modeling DNH. 3. If I have to discipline a student I can do so using the model of DNH when I talk with them. 4. Start the class welcoming them to class and sharing with them the plan for DNH. 5. If I cause harm by accident, to model what it looks like to reconcile with the victim. 1. (Currently I do not have a school that I am full time at, which is a blessing and a curse during this program). I have had the chance to see 20+ schools in the past 3 months as a Sub. I think that there is a challenge at some sites to welcome everyone who walks through the door and there are sites where the welcome is not part of the culture. Every site can find value in implementing a welcoming culture to their school.
2. As a Sub I have experienced welcomes from "Good Morning how are you" to "Yes...What do you need". This welcomes is addressed to some young guy who they have never seen before; I could be a community partner, a new staff member, a parent. I could be anyone and I get addressed like that, good or bad. Based on the ambiguity of my role, I believe that the welcomes seem to be unanimous to who walks through the door, considering I am a complete stranger when I walk in. 3. The first step would be to model the behavior I am seeking to have at my site. I would come in every day and great staff by name and have an authentic conversation with them. Then I start to set up a policy of welcoming and community of staff to staff, then progress from staff to students, then from staff to community. I think it starts with the staff and they have to want it and be part of it for it to be real. The staff at the Ritz-Carlton are probably respectful and kind to each other not just the guests. The culture is authentic and real which is why they can do it with ease with customers, its not a facade. 4. I am going to great the staff of the different sites like I have known them for years. I am going to model for them what I would like to experience if I was the principal of that school. 1. Greet people by name. 2. Say hello and good morning to students and teachers in the hallway (whether I know them or not) 3. Have authentic conversations with people on campus, try to make a connection not just go through the process of a conversation. 4. Learn their name, so that the next time I meet them I can say their name. 5. Introduce myself and shake their hand when I am meeting someone for the first time (staff or student) |
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