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• Elona Hartjes, MEd (Candidate), Ontario Certified Teacher

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Yes, it’s that time again- the time to make resolutions. Usually I make resolutions that involve outcomes that I can measure. I resolve to save more money, to lose some weight or to exercise more. However, this year I have decided to do something different. This year I resolve to change the way I look at difficult, prickly people.You know the ones  I mean. The ones that just make your life sooooo difficult.  I’m going to seem them

as a fellow wayfarer, struggling with …(their) burdens, wanting happiness and dignity. Beneath the fears and needs, the aggression and pain, whoever we encounter is a being who, like …(me) who has tremendous potential for understanding and compassion, whose goodness is there to be touched (Kornfield, 2008. p14)

Reference

The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield – Hardcover – Random House

“Look, look Miss”,  Lisa, not her real name, shouted excitedly as she thrust her cell phone into my face. ” It looks like I’m flying.” I pulled my head back and looked at the small screen of the Blackberry she held about a foot from my face and said ” Yes, it does look like you’re flying”.

“I just jumped from one table to the other table and Michelle, not her real name, took this picture,” she said. Then, she asked excitedly “Can I jump on the tables again to get another picture of me flying?”. Jumped on the tables again? Another picture of me flying? Oh, my goodness! What was Lisa thinking? Obviously she wasn’t thinking clearly. (That immature frontal lobe of the teenage brain at work again) She could have really hurt herself. Hurt herself? She could have killed herself while I had stepped out “a minute” to get the candy canes I’d promised the kids but had forgotten on my desk in the office. I know it was the last period of the last day before the Christmas holidays, but really. These girls are 15 years old. I didn’t expect them to try to fly while I was out of the room for 3 minutes.

The irony of all this and why I’m sharing it with you is, just this week at our staff meeting we were reminded not to leave our students unattended because if anything happens we were responsible. I remember thinking “What can happen? This semester none of my students in any of my classes are really serious troublemakers and “known to the office” so I don’t have to worry if I leave any of my classes for a couple of minutes. No one is going to punch anyone out.

Maybe my “mature” frontal lobe wasn’t making good choices either during the last period on the last day before the Christmas holidays. All I can say now that I’ve recovered from the shock of it all is that I’m really grateful for that guardian angel that protected Lisa from harm as she was “flying” from one table to the next while I was out of the class getting those candy canes.

I wish you all a safe, Merry Christmas and a safe, Happy New Year.

PS. A special thank you to Shawn for featuring Teachers at Risk in their post – 50 resources for students attending online ed schools.

Imagine!  An impertinent question by a student reminded me of a valuable lesson that I’d forgotten in the heat of the moment. I can choose not to let students drive me crazy and send my stress level into the stratosphere.

John, not the student’s real name, has been coming to class about 25 minutes late almost every day.  He just walks into class  nonchalantly holding a can of pop in his hand and reeking of smoke. In my repeated discussions with him about being late to class and arriving after I’ve taught the lesson, he just looks at me and asks “What’s your problem?”.  I’m thinking John’s my problem. He’s driving me crazy by waltzing into class 25 minutes late almost everyday and disturbing the flow of the class and disrupting  the learning of other students and then asking me what’s my problem.

But just a few minutes ago as I was still  obsessing thinking about John’s behaviour and attitude in my class, I realized  that  by asking me that impertinent (?)  question “What’s my problem”  John’s really did me a favour. He’s reminded me of something that I believe but forgot about in the heat of the moment. Reading this quote by Goethe, put it all back into perspective

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous”.

I know this of course! I know I can choose to let something upset me or let it roll off my back.  How many times have I said ” You can’t control what someone else does or says.  The only thing you can control is how you react to what someone says or does”.  I can choose how I will feel about John’s behaviour and attitude.  I can choose to let it drive me crazy or not. I can choose more stress or not.  Not is the prudent choice. Why did I forget that important fact as well as

“I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” (Goethe)

Now, I’m choosing not to obsess about John’s behaviour and attitude in my class and raise my stress level sky high.  Tomorrow when I meet with the VP again about John, I’ll calmly pose the question of how can we treat John to help him become what he is capable of becoming.   Having decided this, I’m going off now to enjoy a cup of tea.

Photo- thanks Nathan

OK., I don’t get it. Why did Kim choose to do the three paragraph essay to demonstrate her HOTS?

Kim, not her real name, has a learning disability that makes it difficult for her to get her thoughts down on paper.  Her oral contributions in class are always very insightful and demonstrate superior critical thinking skills, yet  her written output demonstrates non of this.  When I talked to her about the discrepancy between her oral and written work she simply said “That’s how I am.  I don’t do details”.

I’ve been encouraging Kim to use graphic organizers that will let her tease out her thoughts on paper, well actually onto the computer monitor,  and build them from single words into phrases, then into sentences and paragraphs and finally into an essay.  Let’ s just say that were still working on that.

Keeping Kim’s strengths in mind and the strengths of the other students in the class, I decided to differentiate the next summative evaluation by inviting my students  to choose  to demonstrate their HOTS on the topic  by

• writing a three paragraph essay

or

• creating a comic strip

or

• writing a poem

or

• writing a song

or

• giving a 3 minute oral report

or

• creating a 5 minute radio script about the topic  with a partner

I had the rubrics for each of the activities available for the students to see to help them decide which one of the activities they wanted to do.

When I asked Kim what she had chosen to do for the summative , she  told me she was going to do  the three paragraph essay. I was surprised, to say the least.  When I asked her why she chose to write the essay  instead of  using her oral skills, she just shrugged her shoulders and told me she thought it was easier to do the essay than anything else.  I don’t get it.  She knows I won’t accept an essay that doesn’t meet the standards set out in the rubric  for the essay.  It will be interesting.

Oh bye the way, other students are busy writing poems and songs, creating  comic strips and  a radio scripts and enjoying themselves immensely.  The classroom was filled with that wonderful laughter that tells you learning is fun.

photo from here

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