Oct

28

You Can Only Control Your Reactions To Things

Filed Under Dealing With Stress | 3 Comments

I often tell my students that they cannot control what other people do or think. They can only control how they react to what other people do or think. Personally, I find it very useful to think this way because it helps me deal with things in a skillful way. I can choose to retain my equilibrium, or I can choose to loose it. It’s really up to me. I realize that when I got angry with my students yesterday because they didn’t complete the work I left them while I was at the conference I wasn’t make a skillful choice. I chose to get angry. When I really think about it, I was also choosing to be a victim. A victim? Yes, a victim. I was complaining angrily to my colleagues about the kids and what they didn’t do after all the work I did blah blah blah. This morning it dawned on me (no pun intended) that I chose to feel bent out of shape and sorry for myself. I had created these fantastic lessons and look what it got me! It really wasn’t the kids who made me angry and upset. It was me. I chose to be angry. Now, I am going to make some skillful choices: I am choosing not to be angry with my students, and I’m choosing not to be angry with myself. I am controlling what I can control- my reaction to things.

Oct

27

When You Throw Coals At Someone You’ll Burn Your Hands.

Filed Under Dealing With Stress | Leave a Comment

I came back to my classes today after being away on conference for two days. I had attended a two day conference on Instructional Intelligence. It was excellent. I think every teacher should have the opportunity to hear what Barry Bennett has to say. Check out the link. It’s well worth your time. I’d left lessons for my classes that I thought they could manage.- not too challenging but not boring. I had spent quite a bit of time on these lessons actually and was quite pleased with them. I was convinced that my students would find them engaging.

I was convinced, but I was wrong. Many of my students didn’t complete their work. Some of my students even skipped class when they found out I wasn’t there. Needless to say, I was very angry disappointed. I try not to get angry because being angry is not good for your health. Someone once told me that being angry at someone is like holding hot coals in your hand and throwing them at the person you’re mad at. You end up hurting yourself because you’ve burned your hands while holding the coals. Well, my hands were burning all day long even though I threw the coals (yelled at the kids) in the morning. How many years have I been teaching at risk kids. You’d think I would have learn by now. Obviously not!

Oct

25

It Takes An Entire School To Educate A Character.

Filed Under "At-risk" students | 2 Comments

Society expects a lot from teachers. Not only, are we expected to teach the three R’s-reading, writing and arithmetic, but now we are also expected to teach character. When did it become our job to teach so many kids to be respectful of one another, to be kind, to be compassionate, to be tolerant of differences etc.? For some time now, we’ve been hearing people say that it takes an entire village to raise a child. Will we be hearing people say that it takes an entire school to educate a character? What happened to the rest of the village?

Oct

22

I’d Come To School If I Got Paid.

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Goals | Leave a Comment

I heard it again last week:”I’d come to school if I got paid.” Oh, how many times have I heard that over the years. Every year some kids tell me their attendance would be better if they got paid to go to school. I’ve had numerous, long discussions with students about the fact that they do get paid: they get paid in credits that give them a diploma. But, they don’t care if they earn credits towards a diploma. They don’t care about deferred payments for a better future. They want money now – don’t we all in today’s consumer society.A

few years ago, I had a particularly unmotivated group of students who were always whining about not getting paid for going to school. I thought about all this and decided that I would pay them. I would pay them for going coming to my class. I would pay them for being good students. I created my own “money” which my students could earn when I caught them being good. I designed a “dollar bill” , a Hartjes dollar, and photocopied it on green paper We had a lot of fun with it. The kids threatened to counterfeit it by photocopying it, but no one ever did.( Each dollar had my signature on it) There was intense competition to see who could earn the most Hartjes dollars. I told them I would not replace any Hartjes dollars that were lost so they better take care of them. Some kids even put my dollars in their wallets for safe keeping. It was great fun.
What could the kids buy for their Hartjes dollars? They could spend the money they earned in my class to buy certain things: to get 10 minutes of free time on the computer, to get out of writing a quiz, to get out of class 10 minutes early; to get to come to class ten minutes late, to get to sit and do nothing for ten minutes etc. I asked the students what they would like to buy and that’s what I “sold”. I also had monthly auctions where they could bid for things like movie passes, gift certificates for CD.s, and gift certificates for food at local fast food restaurants. The auctions were wild.

The Hartjes dollar not only motivated my students in my classroom but also provided an opportunity to talk about money in general: what people chose to spend it on, why some people saved their money while other spent it right away, why we had money in the first place, using credit wisely etc. The Hartjes dollars were a hit.

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