It's the Little Things

Sometimes, it's the smallest things that stand out. I had to be out of my classroom today to fill in for the principal. This was a sudden occurence, for a sad reason, and it is the day after March Break. My plan was to spend the day reconnecting with my students, checking in, getting excited for the final stretch of this school year.  

When I am going to be out of my classroom, especially if it is unexpected, I always email my students with a plan of what the day will entail. I teach my homeroom for upwards of 3 hours per day, in a variety of different subject areas, so prepping for a substitute can be a daunting process. Emailing the students puts some of the onus on them to get things accomplished even when I'm not in the room. It cuts way down on, "But the substitute didn't tell us what we were supposed to do!" 

Although my students are growing up as "digital natives", they are not very diligent at checking their emails. I often will include a little challenge at the end, so that those who do read all the way through have a fun response to send to me (and a reward in Classcraft for such a response never goes amiss!) Last night, as I will not likely have time to check in with each of them today, my challenge was for them to send me a picture expressing how they feel about coming back to school after March Break. The two that I chose to include reflect the excitement I feel about our upcoming Passion Projects, our end of year Interdisciplinary Unit, and my normal excitement at reconnecting with my students after a break.

Here are the pictures I received from five students in response:

 

It's the little things that make a difference. Emailing to let my students know I will be out of the classroom is a tiny, easy thing - I copy and paste notes from the plans I make for my substitute. Letting them know I am excited to see them again costs me nothing, and the responses I get tell me so much (I'll be checking in with the student who sent "ok" and no picture to make sure things are really OK with them). Even though I'm not in my classroom today, I feel like I reconnected in a small way.

Nerd Alert

NERD ALERT : I love professional reading! I love learning new things, adding to my store of knowledge. I love reading things that bolster what I am already doing in my classroom. I love having conversations with colleagues about what I am reading and learning.

Our province is entering a phase of exploring Project Based Learning in a more directed, more intentional way than we have before. As a result, our principal purchased several books on the topic and I have been relishing the opportunity to read and learn and share.

All three of these books are excellent for anyone looking to go deeper in their understanding and practice of project based learning, and innovating in the classroom. The one this post is focusing on more specifically is by George Couros. In May, Mr Couros is coming to speak with all of the administrators in our region, and I am excited for our school to start looking at ways we can encourage and foster the growth of innovation and collaboration. A few key messages stood out when I read The Innovator's Mindset, and I am hopeful that those messages will be reinforced when my administrators see Mr Couros in person.

Four quotes in particular resonated with me, so I went ahead and "posterized" them :

All of these quotes deal with the reality that innovation takes TIME and SUPPORT. It's not something that can be achieved by teachers who are overwhelmed with new initiatives, who are asked to do something that is not modelled by their leaders, or who feel like they don't have time to connect with others.

I have been fortunate for the past 15 years in that I have always felt empowered by my administration to try out new things in my classroom. If you've read many of my other blog posts, you'll know that I often start things in my classroom with, "I haven't done this before, so let's try it together." I'm hoping that the intentional focus on project based learning that is reportedly coming our way will make space and time for an increase in collaborative innovation, creative research, and courageous risk-taking at my school.

Creative, Autonomous, Accountable

We have been using Flipgrid quite a lot this year - it's one of my favourite new finds. I dabbled a bit last year, but this year I've made a concerted effort to use it more consistently. I've made some progress in that area, and I'm looking forward to using it more effectively as time goes by.

This is the tool fo you if you have ever wanted a way for students to provide a verbal/video response to a prompt without needing to host the video somewhere (eg film on an iPad, then upload to Google Drive, then share... so many steps!) Students can log in with their school email credentials and record a video right away. The teacher has control over whether the videos are private or viewable by other students in the class (or, in fact, by other students with the link to the "grid")

There are lots of great resources created by teachers for integrating the use of Flipgrid in the classroom and beyond. For example :

Flipgrid eBook - The Educators' Guide to Flipgrid. This has everything you need to get started. How to sign up, how to give your students access, how to go beyond simple videos.

Flipgrid Integration - So many ideas for integrating Flipgrid in specific subject areas, for specific ages!


Following Global School Play Day (see last week's post), I asked my students to reflect on their experiences. I recorded a video prompt in Flipgrid, and provided them with some reflection questions to consider.

I was out sick, so this was an activity that I was able to leave for my students to complete with a substitute (another perk to using Flipgrid!). Many responses were thoughtful and detailed some (as is often the case in middle school when there is a substitute) lacked depth. When I do this again next year, I will take more time to prepare my students to respond thoroughly.

Most of the feedback I received was very positive. Students were happy to have had a "break from the normal school day." For the most part, students felt that the expectations had been followed by their peers, and that it was a fun experience. Many of them commented on the fact that it was enjoyable to be able to do what they wanted, when they wanted, speaking to the fact that a "normal" school day is generally structured by the teacher. I am interested in exploring how more of that freedom can be incorporated into my classroom.

One of the comments that was surprising to me came from a grade 8 student. She stated first that she enjoyed Global School Play Day, but that, "I wished there were more activities I could do, because I was kind of bored. Like, if I was allowed to, like, build a fort, I would be pretty happy."

I was surprised by this response because I tried very hard to be clear that I was not putting any limits on what students were "allowed" to do. In fact, I explicitly stated that, as long as they were following the expectations we established together, anything was possible. All of the students in my classroom chose to spend most of the day playing either cards or board games, so I wonder if she felt that building a fort would break some sort of unspoken rule. I will absolutely follow-up with this particular student, to determine how I could have made it clear that any activity was possible.

Students' Flipgrid responses

Another comment that came from multiple students, and one that didn't surprise me at all, was that they wished there had been more organization to the day. They are so used to having their time scheduled for them, they struggled when they were given freedom to choose their own paths. I see this in project work as well, and I hope that having experienced this day of unstructured play will allow them to draw some comparisons when it comes time to choose their passion projects, or other free-choice ways of showing their learning.

Thinking creatively, making decisions autonomously, and holding themselves accountable are skills I strongly encourage in my students. These are the skills they will need moving forward. These are skills we could all stand to improve upon.

It Takes Time, and it is Incredibly Worth It

Today was Global School Play Day (globalschoolplayday.com) and my students and I participated wholeheartedly. There was a wonderful hum in the room all day, with all of my students engaging in unstructured play time. They organized themselves, chose their activities, rose to the expectations we had set out, and generally had an awesome day. The activities they chose were varied and completely self-directed.

Some students preferred to spend their time reading...

... or drawing ...

... or learning to play chess!

Some of the highlights from the day include:

- My newest student (arrived just three weeks ago) noticing someone not being included and inviting them to take part in a game without making a big deal out of it.

- The sincere and sudden vocal excitement from all players when another player took a risky move in Black Jack and it paid off. The rest of the activity in the classroom stopped and we all revelled in the glory of a well-timed risk.


- This exchange, fully embracing the expectation to be good communicators :
     "Do you feel like playing Spot It with me?"
     "Not right now, but when I'm done this game of Solitaire I will."
     "OK, sounds good."




- This statement when I approached a group playing Cranium, showing their willingness to improvise. "We don't really know what the actual rules are, so we made up our own. Is that OK?" YES.




One of the most important contributors to the success of GSPD was the lead-up over the two days preceding the actual event. As a class, we spend a significant amount of time focused on building strong community, so I already have some structures in place to set expectations collaboratively with my students. For this activity, I began by outlining my expectations of them for the day.

Students then took some time to come with expectations they had of me and of each other. Each class came up with their own, and the differences in their expectations is reflective of the culture of the individual classes. The grade 8s spend a lot of time with me (at least 3 hours daily), while the grade 7 class only comes to me for an hour each day. As a result, we haven't had as much time to focus on community building.

Grade 8 Expectations

Grade 7 Expectations

We also talked about what they were excited about for a day devoted to unstructured play, and what they were worried or concerned about. This part of the conversation was very helpful to me, as it let me put some of their worries to rest (some worried about what would happen if a toy was accidentally broken, some that they would not be able to handle a full day without an adult organizing them into activities and groups, others that there might be judgement about what games or activities people chose) I was so impressed with their openness in sharing their worries, and the care they took in responded to the concerns of others (some of the expectations above came out of the conversation about worries) Without those conversations ahead of time, I think our day could have played out very differently. Having a list of expectations that we co-created allowed me to quickly make reference to #4 for example, and students would use them to remind each other of what they should be doing.

This student taught multiple classmates how to play chess over the course of the day

Students creating a marble maze together

I had a moment of concern when I sent out my memo to parents last week, explaining the event. We have had some school closures lately because of weather, and this would be another day without "real school", but I did not receive any negative responses from parents at all. I've been really focused on building community with my parents this year as well, through very regular communication about what goes on in our classroom. I hope and believe this has contributed to a certain level of trust when it comes to some of the paths I take with my students.

Grade 7s at play!

Building a strong community is the reason I can engage in the types of activities I write about on this blog. It takes time, and it is incredibly worth it.

Where's the Line?

Been thinking about video games during free-time at my school. My students and I had a lengthy chat about this on Friday. It's hard to know where to "draw the line" when it comes to games in school, and I don't pretend to have all the answers. However, I will always err on the side of giving students the opportunity to show that they can make responsible decisions. 

Here is the body of an email I sent to my grade 8 teaching partners and my principal in regards to this question.

I had a long chat with my grade 8s on Friday about choosing appropriate games to play on school computers. I asked for the titles of some of the games they are playing currently, so that I could check them out. They all agreed that there are definitely some games that are more inappropriate for school than others. That being said, most video games have some element of confrontation inherent in the genre. If you think of games in the past like Pacman or Mario, video games are often about "killing" in some way. 

The three titles that we talked about specifically on Friday were Krunker (what is called a "first person shooter"), Rooftop Sniper, and Tank Trouble (both of which are 2D games). The first is a definite NO, in my opinion (and in the opinion of my students) It is 3D, graphic, semi-realistic, and involves stalking other players in order to shoot them. The others, while they do involve shooting, are not at all realistic. Rooftop Sniper involves repeatedly pressing one or two buttons in order to force your opponent off a roof, while Tank Trouble is about aiming where your shot ricochets in order to hit your opponent within a 2D maze.

I worry that if we try to police any game where there is some element of confrontation, we would be better to simply ban the use of school computers for games of any sort (which is not something I recommend). My students were very quick to admit that Krunker was not the right choice for an in-school game, but were honestly not clear as to why the others caused a problem (and I tend to agree with them). I don't think we can legitimately claim that a game like Tank Trouble is in the same category as Fortnite or Krunker. Thinking about cultural responsiveness, and as a player of video games myself, I think it is important that we validate and affirm students' interests in gaming, and then build and bridge to help them make appropriate choices in school. Obviously, if the games they are playing are causing serious real-world conflicts between students, those games would be better not played in school, regardless of their themes.

I've asked my students to hold off on playing games that they have already been asked to avoid, or that they know others have been asked to avoid, until such time as the grade 8 teachers can chat about this. I also let them know that if they think a game might be inappropriate, the better choice would be not to play it at school. Additionally, we talked about the fact that it becomes more of a discipline issue if they have already been asked to stop playing a game but choose to continue playing anyway.

I'd love to have a chance to chat about this with you all; I think we have an opportunity to do some teaching around digital citizenship, and appropriate decision-making, rather than clamping down on video games altogether.

Not All of Them, Not All of the Time, but Enough

In 2011, Xara Choral Theatre was approached by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to create a piece of choral theatre for the Halifax event. I was fortunate to be part of Xara Choral Theatre's commissioned adaptation of the book Fatty Legs. The book tells the story of one Inuit girl's experiences at Residential School in Aklavik. For that first performance in front of 500 survivors, we were honoured to have Olemaun, the Inuit girl of the book, and her daughter-in-law Christy join us as our narrators.

I felt great shame and anger in 2011. It was the first I had ever heard of the Indian Residential Schools in Canada, and I felt that my education system had failed me epically. At the time, I had already been a middle school teacher for 7 years, and the feeling that I had been failing to educate my students about the realities of Indigenous experiences in Canada was upsetting. Every year since then, I have made it a priority to read Fatty Legs with my students, and to spend time discussing the legacy of residential schools beyond that one story.

We have remounted our choral theatre production of Fatty Legs three times since 2011, once for a tour of schools in the Maritimes, and twice for school shows in Ontario. My students have been overwhelmingly supportive of the time I need to take away from my classroom in order to bring this story to other children.

This year, following my two weeks away on tour, we were fortunate enough to be able to organize a Google Hangout with Olemaun and Christy. My grade 8 students took time in advance to prepare questions, and to organize the classroom in a way that would look and feel welcoming over a video chat (we went through several iterations of this, using the projector to gauge how we would look to a viewer - they wanted to avoid looking "intimidating, like we're ganging up on them.")

My students blew me away with their insightful questions, the intentness with which they listened, and their respect for Olemaun's lived experiences. They were kind, they prefaced their questions with some of the reasons why they were asking, they asked follow-up questions that showed they were really listening and reflecting during the conversation. Not all of them, not all of the time, but enough that the flow of the dialogue was natural and did not feel like an interrogation.




Forty-five minutes is barely enough time to scratch the surface of the legacy of residential schools, nor is it adequate for students who are speaking with an elder from a First Nations community (most of them for the first time). Afterwards, I asked students to reflect in writing on what had resonated the most with them in the conversation, and if they had any further questions that had come out of hearing the perspectives offered by Olemaun and Christy.

Below are some of the highlights. Some students chose not to respond to the writing prompt (this is always their right during our writing periods), but many did, and what they had to say revealed significant understanding and reflection.

Morning Circle & Affirmations

I am trying something new this year. That phrase, as my students would attest, is a common refrain from me! Most of them are happy to come along for the ride with me, although some remain resistant to anything that feels a little bit out of the ordinary. Hoping to encourage them to take those positive risks by the end of the year.

We start every morning in my class with a sharing circle. Students are encouraged, but not required, to share a "grimace" and a "sourire" (something that is bothering them, and something that is making them happy). Most students share at least a little bit each day, but there are those who have yet to take the risk. I am excited for the day that those few students feel safe enough to share something in the morning circle. This "frowns and smiles" approach was inspired by Monte Syrie's excellent blog, Project 180. If you are looking for another education blog to follow, that would be my top recommendation.

At the end of morning circle, we speak our affirmations :
Nous sommes des membres importants de cette communauté.
Nous sommes écrivains.
Nous sommes lecteurs.
Nous sommes mathématiciens.
Nous sommes formidables.

Many students join in on speaking these aloud together, while others choose to listen (and, I hope, speak them in their minds!) We have acknowledged that this might feel slightly "fromageux" (cheesy, in other words), and that positive self-talk takes practice.

I hope that some of those affirmations take hold in their brains. Just as they practice dribbling the basketball, adding fractions, and speaking French, I want positive self-talk to become habit for my students.