Welcome to Teachers At Risk
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Dec
29
Now my students will believe me when I tell them they can use their strengths to help them be successful
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Goals, Special Education, motivating students | Leave a Comment
uploaded by schhmish
I’m always telling my students they can use their strengths to help them be successful. By successful, I mean help them achieve their goals. Trouble is that many of my students can’t see their strengths because school often focuses on their weaknesses, and many of them don’t have goals because they don’t think to have goals. They just kind of drift along and let life happen to them instead of making things happen to create the life that they want.Students tell me all the time they suck at math, English, organization etc. I tell them that everyone sucks at something. I suck at lot’s of things. The thing to do is to use your strengths to help you succeed in the different areas of your life. That’s the smart thing to do. Everyone has strengths they can use to help them succeed. I tell them that I’m good at teaching people things and good at working with teenagers, but I really suck at dancing. I just can’t get my feet to do what I want them to do. So, I became a high school teacher and not a dancer. Then we discuss their strengths and explore ways that they can use their strengths to help them succeed in school, in the world of work and in their lives generally.
Often, my students don’t know what they want in life, or even think that they can have a successful life at all.They just see themselves as losers who are doomed to failure, so we spend time determining their strengths, setting goals for the future based on their strengths and planning how to use their strengths to help them achieve their goals. Basically that’s what a ot of my Advanced Learning Strategies Class is all about. But to be honest, I do much of the same thing in my grade nine math class.
I’m not sure that my students always believe me when I tell them they can use their strengths to help them be successful. I get the impression that they want to believe me but have difficulty doing so. That’s why I was absolutely delighted to find the following video where Marcus Buckingham supports what I’ve been telling them all along. I intend on showing this video the first day back after the holidays. It should generate lots of good discussions.
Dec
25
Relaxing during the holidays
Filed Under Dealing With Stress | 4 Comments
Holiday time is always such a busy time, and it’s nice to take a moment to relax. I invite you to relax by joining me and doing a jigsaw puzzle. I love doing jigsaw puzzles. Thanks Ms Lynch for the link to JigZone. I’ve been relaxing after the rush at our house by doing a couple of the classic 48 piece puzzles offered on the site- don’t want to tax my brain cells too much this Christmas morning. I’ll try one of the 100 piece puzzles later, after I’ve had another cup of coffee. Have fun!
Dec
23
Congratulations are in order to all the 2008 Edublog Award winners. I’d like to thank Mathew again for nominating me and even though my blog wasn’t the winner of the individual blog category, it’s been fun being a part of all this and “meeting” the other bloggers who were nominated for awards in the different categories. I think this whole exercise has made us all winners because we got introduced to people we may not have meet otherwise. Thanks, James for that.
Dec
16
OK, now what- setting goals for the future.
Filed Under Goals, Special Education, The Way I See It | 9 Comments
I’m at one of those points again in my teaching career where I’m asking myself “OK, now what?” Last time I asked that question, the answer to “OK, now what” was to start writing this blog. That was over two years ago, and I have no plans to stop doing it. I guess my question really is ” OK, now what else” because I don’t really want to stop anything. I just want to add to what I’m doing.
I’ve been teaching for a long time and really enjoy it. I think teaching kids who are at-risk academically is a good fit for me. I also find it rewarding supporting teachers who teach “at-risk” kids . That’s been a big part of my job for a long time now, too. I’m grateful that my teaching assignment as a Special Education Specialist includes teaching in the classroom, supporting “at-risk” students in other classes, and acting as a resource for teachers who teach these kids. I’m not too crazy about all the paper work though, but then that’s part of the job too. I just tell myself to suck it up and get on with it.
What else do I want to do? I’ve done lots of PD over the years, partly for my job and partly because I like learning new things. Early in my career, I thought that I might like to go into administration so I started my masters at OISE to prepare me for that path. But, half way through the program life intervened, and I had to put getting my MEd. on hold for a few years. During that time, I realized that I loved being in the classroom with the kids and didn’t really want to leave it and them to go administration, so I decided not to complete my MEd. Now, I’m thinking about getting a MEd. again, not in administration though. So, I’m going to explore the different MEd. programs out there and find one that fits me. I’m really excited about that.
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