One of the factors of #whyiteach

The other day I taught a lesson about simple division and factors to a class of year 5/6s. It wasn't particularly noteworthy, no fireworks or fancy parades.  Most of the students made solid progress toward a deeper understanding though and ultimately that's the goal right?

I noticed a couple of girls who looked puzzled and offered them some extra time, a little later in the day, to work with me further.  You would have been forgiven for thinking I'd offered chocolate: they jumped on the opportunity. This is #whyiteach

While the rest of the class were working on the ten tweets they would send if they were constructing an online image of themselves (more about this another time), the girls and I pulled out counters, paper and a whiteboard marker. Yep, we drew on the desk with the whiteboard marker. (They seemed a bit shocked by this seeming bit of civil disobedience until I showed them how easily it cleaned off and then they loved the idea.)

We started with ten counters and physically manipulated them to see how many even groups we could create.  We worked through a couple of other numbers in this way with me continually asking:

"How do you know that's all?"

By the third number the girls could explain their thinking and demonstrate how they knew "that was all".

At this point I introduced the idea of working strategically to find pairs and recording our thinking in a way that would help us. We kept working with the counters to check our thinking.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love having manipulative materials to use in maths lessons?)

Eventually one of the students explained to me that "if you start on the outside of the rainbow and work your way in, then you know when you've got them all because you can use your times tables to see that the middle ones just won't work".  Yes! Indeed you can. Again: #whyiteach

During this time I discovered that one of the students was struggling with odd/even so we used the counters to review that. English is not this young lady's first language and whilst her grasp of the language is brilliant I think this is one of the finer nuances that she hadn't learnt yet. It was fantastic to see the lightbulb moment when she made the link between the words odd and even and the concept she had already.   And another instance of #whyiteach.

Early in the session I reminded the girls about prime and composite numbers (I had reviewed these with the whole class earlier) so when they worked with 17 they were able to identify this. I love hearing kiddos use mathematical language to describe their thinking.

We also paid a super quick visit to rules of divisibility land. It was a flying visit, but you may be able to see the proof for the rule of divisibility for 5 on one of the sticky notes on the last photo.

This whole session took no more than 25 minutes but it stood out as one of the bright spots in my day. It's a prime example of #whyiteach

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...

Standard 1 Know students and how they learn

Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it

Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Bandaid Solution? Worked For Me!

One of my young people has been struggling at school lately. Not with the academic content so much as the 'other stuff'.  We've seen a constant stream of low level back chat, a never ending commentary on everyone's actions and a fairly persistent resistance to participation. Over the last couple of days we've had several chats about what I can/need to do to help and the consistent answer has been along the lines of:

"You don't want to help me! Whenever I ask for help you don't give me the help I want. You only ever help other people. You aren't helpful."

 Wow. Ever been punched in the guts?  That's pretty much how I've been feeling.  I love this kid, in spite of their accompanying challenges. In fact it's possibly because of the their accompanying challenges that they have such a soft spot in my heart.  These words stopped me in my tracks. After much soul-searching and reflection I realised that perhaps the individual relationships I have with my students is part of the problem.  Or rather, not the relationships themselves, but the fact that my relationship with each child is so different and results in highly individualised treatment which isn't necessarily understood by everyone else in the class.

I had to do something and quickly.

I called everyone together in a circle and we had a brief discussion about the different relationships we all have with each other. Aside from a few small pockets of resistance to this idea, nearly everyone was accepting of this concept. I asked everyone to imagine that they'd injured themselves somehow.  They shared their injury with the class while I dug around in the cupboard (making a big show of not listening). Each student was handed a bandaid (sticking plaster?) and asked to apply it to the back of their left hand to help fix their imaginary injury.

"But my injury is on my rib! How will this help?"

"And mine is a smashed leg! This won't do anything!"

"That's the point guys. If she gives us all the same treatment none of us get what we need."

Indeed. The class went on to articulate that because I didn't know what kind of help or where they needed help I wasn't actually able to help them AND that treating them all the same wasn't remotely helpful.  The connection to each of them having different learning needs was seamless, and from there the individualised relationships were not a particularly big leap.

Shortly after, my troubled student sidled up to me and whispered:

"I think I know why I've been acting so silly in class, calling out and all that. Can I talk to you about it after school?"

You betcha!  The outcome: some general stress about stuff going on at home and a desire to feel 'equal'.  I queried this word.

"Equal is the wrong word. I want to be important, but you said we're all important so I have to trust you that I am. I guess I need to remember that if you treat me different to someone else it's 'cos I am."

Yes it is. Yes. It. Is. If that wasn't the best way to end the week, we went on to talk about the idea that sometimes the help that we want isn't the help we need AND that I've worked really hard to be in a position to  know what and how to offer the needed help so trusting me is a good thing. Holy moly.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know students and how they learn
Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Joining the Dots

Today I had the privilege of accompanying 18 of our senior students to a GRIP Leadership Conference.  These 18 students represent our three year 6/7 classes and were chosen following collaborative processes that involved identifying the characteristics and qualities we would like to see in our leaders.  I can't speak for the other two classes but in my class all (self-nominated) candidates gave short presentation to the other students about how they demonstrate the identified characteristics and qualities. Our choices were based on these along with our prior knowledge of the candidates.

Back to today...

Amongst the other things covered today was the notion that leaders stand up.  They stand up when there's an opportunity, for the right thing, others and themselves. Of course we unpacked what that all meant and then the presenters mentioned a few people who exemplify these things.   Imagine my absolute delight when one of the students from my class leant over and whispered to me:

"All I can think of is Charlie Perkins. He was a real leader who really stood up."

I still grin like an idiot when I think about it.


The first time she'd heard of Charlie Perkins was yesterday during our Way Back Wednesday discussion about the Freedom Ride of 1965.  It was the first time that nearly any of my class had heard of him or the Freedom Ride which surprised me considering the media coverage the 50th anniversary has received this week. His life story and the '65 Freedom Ride really captured everyone's imagination.  I think our discussion left most students with more questions than answers, and eager to keep talking to learn more.

And that is why we never miss WBW.

I'm always very careful in my choice of WBW topic, and some weeks I struggle to come up with something that ties in with our other learning areas. (This is one of my non-negotiables: it must integrate across our programme so that it isn't a stand alone lesson.) The 50th anniversary of this incredibly important event in Australian history was one reason I chose it this week. I also needed to start talking explicitly about the concepts of primary and secondary sources, perspective and contestability - and what better way than with an event that has primary sources from various perspectives and secondary sources that raise questions about the primary sources. The icing on the cake for me was Charles Perkins' brilliant example of leadership.

As teachers we all get a thrill from those moments when students join the dots and create a masterpiece. Today. Today that happened for one of my students. Even the memory of it thrills me.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know students and how they learn.
Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it.
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning.

Quick Writes

Today I heard something that made my heart sing. I had asked the kiddos to get out their writing books because we were going to do a quick write. One of my very reluctant writers responded with

"Oh yeah, I love quick writes!"

Without a drop of sarcasm.  Oh yeah indeed!  He went on to write nearly half a page in ten minutes. That might not seem like a lot, but for him it's a massive improvement. And the pride on his face was spine tingling.

Our quick writes play an important part in our writing block. I provide a prompt (such as 'the door slammed...'), and occasionally some sort of parameter (such narrative), set the timer and say GO. Ten minutes later I say STOP and depending on whatever else we've got going on during our writing block we may swap with a critical friend or just move on.

There are multiple purposes and benefits of quick writes. For the kiddos:  improving stamina and creative fluency; regular chances to practise being a critical friend; playing with different styles without committing to a lengthy piece; and as it turns out a great sense of success because ten minutes is long enough for confident writers to get stuck into it and short enough for less confident writers to get something on the page without being overwhelmed.

For me: during the ten minutes I roam the room and observe physical writing practices (I'm amazed at the range of pen grips of my kiddos!); reading the responses allows me to see 'raw' writing giving me a wealth of information on which to based specific feedback and give NSLs; and lots of giggles.

The topics are sometimes serious and sometimes silly. The results are always interesting.  Check out  these gems:

"I sit in a lonely room with only a vase on a table." 

"Some creepy sicko had created a vase of death."  

"The vase's pattern was quite intricate, made up of runes and symbols and drawings depicting a beautiful planet." 

"What took so long?" [the character had claimed he needed to go to the toilet but was gone for 30 minutes] "Because I drank lots of water I needed a really long wee." 

"My heart was beating out of my chest." 

"Roses - red as blood." 

"He was very picky - he wanted the taste of human flesh in his teeth."

I'm always happy to take suggestions for future topics.  (It's a bit like #28daysofwriting really... In MANY ways.)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 5 Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

Not Unpleasant, Just Hard

Sometimes teaching is hard work. Not unpleasant, just hard. I'm finding this week hard. I'm tired, the kids are tired. Routines and expectations are still unfamiliar. Things are't quite where I thought they were. We're still learning how to be a cohesive unit. It's hard. Not unpleasant, just hard.

That isn't to say that we're not having those exquisite little moments of delight or progress or peace. We are. Oh. We. Are.

I have one young man in my class who, for a variety of reasons, struggles with self-regulation. Today,  during a break, he had a small social struggle. Like all kids do.  For most kids, this would have rated about 1.5 on the richter scale. For my young man it was more like 6.5 and threatened massive aftershocks.  BUT! BUT... But... My young man allowed me into his space and accepted my (very minimal) help to reframe the issue. He then took a timer into our 'oasis' (an Ikea mosquito net hanging in the corner of our learning space, filled with cushions) and 5 minutes later re-emerged ready to reengage with learning. I openly acknowledged his choices and resilience. No fewer than eight students joined in with their own observations of how impressed they were.  For a young man who doesn't show much social emotion... His smile was so big it hurt!

I have another young man who likes to be heard. He makes some brilliant contributions to class discussions, but often is unaware of the other 24 students eager to participate. A longstanding challenge for this young man it's causes a range of extended social issues for him.  Other kids simply don't want to hear anything he has to say because, well, to be blunt, he never shuts up. This afternoon he asked for my help to become more aware of when and how he does this. He asked! You can't say no to that kind of request.

One young lady in my class brought her mum into our learning space after school. Arriving a couple of days after the year started this young lady is clearly not feeling a lack of belonging or group identity. The pride on her face as she gave the 'royal tour' was delightful.

It's hard sometimes, but that's OK. Sometimes it's the hard parts that make it worthwhile.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know students and how they learn
Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Pride, Popcorn and Pizza

We're well and truly into the second week of our term 3 holidays now, and I'm finally starting to feel rested.  I've spent time with my family and we've all put in mammoth efforts to rip out our entire front yard ready to re-landscape it over the next couple of weeks. It's been inspiring to see our six boys pull together as a team and work incredibly - and I do mean that in the literal sense of the word - hard.

All the hard physical labour has given me plenty of time to reflect on my and our class' learning last term and to think about plans for this coming term. I'm so proud of our class and the progress we've made this year. It's been such a privilege to play a part in the lives of these amazing young people!  I have such high hopes for their futures, and am excited for my year 7s as they ready themselves for their transition to high school.  

OK, enough of the gushy stuff. I'm already dreading the end of the year.

So, toward the end of last term a couple of students asked if we could watch The Book Thief on the last day. My immediate response was to remind them that, at our school, we don't watch movies just because "it's the last day of term" but before I could even get the words out, they followed up with all of the links to our learning programme AND the actual curriculum. You know what? They made links that I wouldn't have dreamt of but were brilliant. They took the process of getting parental permission (for a PG movie) into hand and within 24 hours I had verbal and written permission for child. The whole process was student driven and managed.  Student voice in action!

The day arrived: I bought the movie on iTunes, and brought in my popcorn maker. We shut the door, turned off the lights, curled up on the couch, beanbag and cushions and watched The Book Thief. We paused it a few times to make links to our prior learning, or clarify a few misunderstandings. There was often an undercurrent of quiet conversation that - when I sneakily moved to eavesdrop - invariably included words like 'inferring' or 'text-to-text' or 'point of view'.  We may have watched a movie on the last day of term but it wasn't a mindless entertainment activity, it was the culmination of a lot of learning.   Even though I'd already seen the movie several times already, I was surprised at the links my students were making.  If you haven't already seen the movie, I highly recommend it. (Just make sure you have tissues  ready!)

After the movie we held our usual end of term celebration. I push my kids pretty hard during term, so I buy them pizza for lunch on the last day of term. It's just one little way I say thank you for making my job easier by not pushing back! Nearly everyone contributes something to our shared lunch and we have a mountain of fun food. This term many of my students had gone above and beyond and cooked delicious treats for us.  It's lovely that so many other teacher have messages they need to hand deliver to me around this time, so that we can share our fun with them!

There was a cupcake with EVERY person's initials!
And as you can guess, I have a nut allergy! 

At the end of term 2, we had a dance party at lunchtime as well, but this time we were all a bit tired and emotionally drained after the movie so we skipped that.  The last 40 minutes of each term,  we reflect on the best parts of the term and make suggestions for what we'd like to carry forward. I sit back and scribe the kids' discussion. It's their reflection, so it's particularly humbling to hear my name as both a reason behind the great learning, and the amount of fun we have. I think they may have it a little confused though: I think THEY are the reason they are learning so well, and having so much fun. I know they are one of the reasons I have so much fun at school.

For the Mamas and the Papas!

The students in my class are on the precipice of - or have already plunged right into - adolescence. It's a challenging time. For everyone. I say this without judgement of anyone because three of our children are the same age or slightly older, so I'm feeling the pain challenge as a parent too. If you ignore all the physiological changes for a moment it becomes pretty clear that most of the other challenges stem from RELATIONSHIPS. Relationships with themselves, with peers, with teachers, and perhaps most importantly with parents!  

As the teacher I have the privilege of being able to speak into most of those relationships. Not so much with parents though. Don't get me wrong I speak with parents ALL the time, but I'm not always there to support my young people in making choices that build stronger relationships with their parents. So, what can I do about that? Well,  I take every opportunity I can to help them articulate the positive value they place in these relationships.  Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day are two very obvious examples of when this can happen. So here's my take on the process this year:

For the Mamas:

My class  has an almost unanimous
 aversion to the colour  pink.
Don't ask! (I don't know.)

We made very simple origami inspired cards.  On the front of pre-bought cards (yep, I went the cheat's route and bought cards) we attached hand made mini envelopes into which tiny slips of paper with notes of appreciation were placed.  The envelopes were made of tiny squares of scrapbooking paper, and would probably have been a whole heap easier to fold if it hadn't been embossed paper but hey… You live and learn right? I used a guillotine to pre-cut a whole pile of squares so that our focus could be on the writing aspect. To fold them we turned them so that they sat like a diamond and then folded the bottom corner up and the two sides in. We used a tiny dab of glue to hold those closed and then folded over the top.  As you can see in the photo the top sat up a little which we though looked like an invitation to open them up and see the note inside.   On the inside of most cards was written  'Congratulations Mum, I'm awesome'.  I SWEAR I had nothing to do with that. Much. Anyway, the cards looked lovely and, based on the feedback I received from parents, were very much appreciated.

For the Papas:
This one was really fun, and again quite simple to make.  Out came some store bought cards again and we made iDads. Our school is a 1:1 iPad school so this seemed funnier to us than it might to others.  We drew a simple iPad shape, and using foam tape attached mini apps that represented relevant activities for each of our fathers.  We trimmed the corners from the cards and used a white sticker as the button.  Easy! On the inside the fun really began.  Each card has a Google logo and search buttons.  As you may have read in my last post about paint chips and descriptive writing we've been developing our descriptive writing skills so we put these to good use. The search term of the day was, of course, each child's father's name, and the search results were the descriptive sentences they'd written. Neat huh?

Love you Papa!

As I designed these iDad cards I kept thinking that my own dad would get such a chuckle out of them - after years of rolling my eyes at his dad jokes here I was creating my very own. The day my students made their cards marked seven weeks since Dad's passing.  I didn't finish my model card, and none of my students asked why. I anticipated that it was going to be a God awful difficult activity, but… But… It wasn't. Throughout the day, even before we'd started the cards, most of my kids had been checking in with me: asking about my dad; giving me hugs and expressing their sadness for me; and saying,  in the words of one usually very prickly young man, 'life sucks Mrs RP, and I know we're not your darling daddy, but we love you'.  These kids leave me speechless sometimes. 



This post doesn't relate to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers but it does relate directly to my dad so…

Papa… Happy belated Fathers' Day. xxx 

"What can I do to make you feel better?"

Wasn't she beautiful?
'Penny'

So. About five minutes after I posted my last entry my children discovered that one of our precious furry family members was very injured. Without going into gruesome details we raced her to the vet but weren't able to bring her home. She had been hit by a car. Our family was, and continues to be, heartbroken.

The following Monday, at school, I chose to spend my recess inside with a student who needed a bit of a break from 'community'. He'd had a pretty rough time over the weekend and until that point had been almost non-verbal. As soon as everyone else had left he turned and eye balled me pretty fiercely.  "You look really sad Mrs R-P. Why?" Pretty insightful. (And a little disappointing because I'd been trying hard to not show my sadness because I didn't want to have to share the story.) I considered the options for my response: should I lie and say everything was fine, brushing off his concern and not reinforcing the positives in his noticing? Should I come up with a pat answer that would explain away my sadness but without the truth? Or should I tell the truth even though doing so would inevitably end in my tears?

In the end, I teared up whilst trying to decide and so didn't really have much of a choice. I told him what had happened,  leaving out the gruesome bits he asked for later.  And here's the part that broke my heart just as fast as it offered solace... This little guy who had, not five minutes earlier, been non-responsive and unable to engage with anyone put his hand on top of mine and gently whispered "What can I do to make you feel better?" Despite everything that's happened in this little guy's life, his little heart sat there on his face and he showed concern for someone else because their cat died. Oh. Yes. He broke my heart with that comment. And made me so very hopeful for his, and the world's, future.

How was this related to teaching? Well, you won't find me linking it to the AITSL standards because it's more than the standards. It's the heart part of teaching rather than the head; in fact it's what makes the head part possible. It's why I teach.