We had another great speaker come to talk to us in our single subject credential program last night. Not only is Ben Nakamura an engaging and inspiring speaker, but he gave me multiple new ways to think about teaching and classroom management. Perhaps one of the tips that resonated with me the most came during a conversation with him after the session. He explained to me that if a student did not understand a math concept after teaching it in one or two ways, we would not be frustrated and want to punish them because of making mistakes. Similarly in classroom management, many of these students do not have the skills to know how to behave and many may have not had the role models to teach them. Additionally, they all have their own stories and many may be going through things that cause them to have a bad day, which leads to a behavior that we are not happy with. Instead of wanting to punish these kids, we should want to find new ways to teach them, just like a math concept that they do not immediately "get". This is so true, yet somehow now how I had thought about classroom management before.
Ben mentioned the two by ten rule which I loved. Raymond Wlodkowski discovered that if you spend 2 minute a day for 10 consecutive days discussing a non-academic subject with your most difficult student, there will be an 85% improvement in that student's behavior. This just makes sense! We want to get to know our students and understand why they behave as they do. What better way then just trying to get to know that student on a personal level!? He said that behavior problems often mean there's a damage to the student/teacher relationship, so this is a great way to try and improve that relationship.
He told us to think about 5 characteristics of our perfect day as a teacher. The ones I identified were
1. Students engaged
2. Productive discussions among students
3. Deep thoughts - comments from students like "my head hurts from thinking so hard"
4. A-ha moments
5. Personal connection among students and with teacher
He told us to use these characteristics to identify the rules of our classroom. Most teachers make the rules based on bad behaviors, but to make a more positive environment, make the rules based on the behaviors you want. What a great way to change that perception around! Also speaking of positive, Ben mentioned that there needs to be at least a 4 to 1 ratio of positive comments affirming behaviors to negative comments. This fits with the positive discipline approach that I love in theory but have struggled with in practice both in teaching and with my 3 year old daughter. But Ben gave strategies to make this happen.
One idea he gave was completely new to me and I think I'm going to try it. Just as in the content we teach, we post our rules and behavior expectations, we teach them and we assess them. He said that he actually gives assessments, like quizzes on the classroom rules. What a great way to make sure the students understand these rules!
Ben's talk also reminded me that it's okay to be vulnerable with our students. In fact, just like in the Project AWARE talk, being vulnerable ourselves will help our students to be more comfortable opening up. I'm still struggling with how to do this appropriately, but I like the idea of letting the students know who I am and things that I struggle with so that they know I'm a human just like them. They can learn by watching my modeling of how I deal with difficulties and persevere.
I could go on and on with all of the great ideas I want to remember. I will definitely be visiting his website again and again to get ideas and plan to visit his North County Juvenile Court and Community school to see how the teachers work with the students and the type