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Teaching C.A.R.E.S. in an Elementary School Classroom

In addition to identifying a set of academic competencies, the core belief of Responsive Classroom lays out a set of social and emotional competencies that students need in order to be successful in and out of school. Those competencies—cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control—are captured in the acronym C.A.R.E.S. Incorporating…

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Words Matter How to Reflect, Correct, and Project, by Jenni Lee Groegler Pierson

Words Matter: How to Reflect, Correct, and Project We’ve all been there: that dreaded moment when words come out of your mouth before you have a chance to think them through; you are hit with an immediate wave of regret, and you feel your face turn red or a…

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Recover from Failure with a Dose of Self-Empathy, by Ramona McCullough

Recover from Failure with a Dose of Self-Empathy In my classroom, I encourage risk-taking and often reassure my students that making mistakes is an opportunity to learn. However, I do not always practice what I preach: like many adults, I work hard to avoid failure. So how do we…

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What Kind of Teacher Are You? A Question Revisited

Nine years ago, I wrote a short article to explain to myself what it meant to be a Responsive Classroom teacher (which you can read in its entirety below). Here are some thoughts I have now as I revisit these ideas through the lens of my experience teaching since then,…

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I’m Not Acting as Role Model, I’m Serving as a Role Model: A Conversation with Authors Julie Kelly and Kirsten Howard

Julie Kelly and Kirsten Howard are Responsive Classroom consulting teachers and contributing authors for the forthcoming Empowering Educators series (Julie worked on Empowering Educators for Grades 3, 4, 5; Kirsten worked on Empowering Educators for Grades K, 1, 2). For these new resources, both authors wrote about the importance of…

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Reflective Teaching for Effective Learning

Reflective teaching is an important tool in helping you examine your role as an educator in order to both celebrate and sharpen the value you bring to teaching. Fundamentally, reflective teaching is about looking at what you do in your classroom, thinking about why you do it, and considering whether…

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Reflection in a Virtual Classroom

Reflection in a Virtual Classroom

This time last year, I published an article titled “Building a Positive Community Through Reflection.” The article began with excitement for the start of a new year and a new decade. Little did I know that the way we deliver education was about to change drastically just a few months…

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A New Perspective on Student Self-Reflection

A New Perspective on Student Self-Reflection

Helping students create a habit of reflection is an essential step in teaching them how to establish and maintain self-control. But sometimes teachers with positive intentions inadvertently ask questions around reflection that add a layer of shame. For example: “Think about your work today. What could you have done to…

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academic choice activity

Developing Intrinsic Motivation with Choice

According to Vocabulary.com, the word “intrinsic” is an adjective that means “belonging to a thing by its very nature.” Some synonyms for intrinsic are: essential, built-in, constitutional, inherent, integral, inner, internal. This naturally puts us at a disadvantage when trying to develop intrinsic motivation in our students, because we are…

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lesson planning

Find Time for Social-Emotional Learning

One of the best parts of being a teacher is having the opportunity to provide students with social and emotional skills (in addition to academic skills) that help them build and maintain positive relationships with their peers and significant adults in their lives. When we give students the academic skills…

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Challenge is a part of learning

Challenge Is a Part of Learning

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” –Frederick Douglass This famous quote, printed on bright pink cardstock and posted above the whiteboard of a third grade classroom, stood out during a recent school observation. I tend to see a lot of these on walls during observations—words of wisdom…

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Responding to Misbehavior with Empathy

Responding to Misbehavior with Empathy

Taking proactive steps to build a strong learning community, with practices like positive teacher language, interactive modeling, and investing students in rules through Hopes and Dreams, does a lot to prevent misbehavior before it starts. However, there will still be occasions when you need to respond to misbehavior. These moments…

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Responsive Classroom program

Setting a Vision for the Future

As the bustle of the after-school and after-work hours wound down for the night, I found my eight-year-old daughter in tears in her bedroom. She was hunched over her sketch pad. Colored pencils and multiple versions of self-portraits were spread all over the desk. When I asked her what was…

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It’s Time to Reconnect

Helping students build relationships with each other is a key to creating an optimal learning environment. Stronger bonds mean students will be less likely to be unkind, to exclude others, to call each other names, or to stand by in the face of mean behavior toward a classmate. The safer…

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What is Quiet Time?

Consider the energy and intensity that often accompany the middle of the day. Lunch and recess provide students with opportunities to run, play, eat, and socialize, and teachers often see this energy spilling over into the classroom as students reenter for the afternoon. They often run into the room, bumping…

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Helping Students Give Effective Compliments

Jane, a fourth grade teacher, was reviewing compliments her students had given one another on a recently completed set of projects. On sticky notes, the students had written things like “It looks like you put a lot of time and effort into your project,” “I noticed you put very detailed…

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Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Teaching Perseverance? Try Interactive Modeling

We all know students who seem to give up quickly and appeal for our help, even when the task is appropriately challenging, or students who are reluctant to even start a task that seems challenging and instead opt to sit and wait until we check in with them. These behaviors…

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Photographs by Jeff Woodward.

Teaching Children to Check Their Own Behavior

“One of my jobs here at school is to help make sure that every single one of you can do your best learning every day.” As a school counselor, that’s how I start my first classroom guidance lesson every year. I go on to say, “For you to do your…

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Teaching Skillful Communication

A Standards-Based Approach to Morning Meeting Sharing Ryan holds up the book so all his classmates can see the cover and begins: "Reptile Facts is my favorite first grade book. Every first grader should read this book because it shares facts about reptiles." He displays a few pages showing similarities…

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Cyberbullying Prevention in the Classroom

These days even young children have active digital lives through texting, instant messaging, and multi-player online games such as Club Penguin. However, children who are adept at using digital devices such as smartphones and tablets often lack the digital social skills needed to be safe online. Unless adults directly teach…

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Enjoying Each Student

With some classes, the characteristics of the group tend to overshadow the personalities and interests of individual students. Earlier this year, I had that experience with my current third grade class, and I took some deliberate steps to get to know each student better. When I read Margaret Wilson's blog…

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Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Teaching Students How to Wait

If you've ever dined out with children under four years old, you probably brought along a toolkit with games, coloring books, "I Spy" activities, or apps on a mobile device to keep them busy until the food was finally served. As children get older, we assume they no longer need…

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Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Teaching Self-Calming Skills

"You need to calm down." This is something I hear a lot in my work as a behavior specialist when a student starts to get agitated—answering rudely, refusing to work, making insulting comments, or whining. A teacher might tell a child to "go sit in the beanbag chair and calm…

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Wonder, by R.J. Palacio

Have you had a chance to read Wonder, the new young adult novel by R.J. Palacio? It would be the perfect book to read aloud to a fifth grade class as a way to reflect on topics such as kindness and inclusion, meanness and exclusion. Auggie is ten years old…

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Each Kindness

A new girl joins Chloe's class. Maya's clothes are old and ragged. Despite the fact that there's snow on the ground, Maya's shoes look like they're meant for spring. The teacher seats Maya next to Chloe. Maya smiles, offers to play, and tries to make friends. Chloe and the other…

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Bullyproof your classroom book

Bullying and the New Kid

"There's a new girl in my class," my grandson told me. "She's from Russia, and she doesn't speak English yet. Her name is Petra, but kids call her 'Comrade Communist.' " It was clear from his tone that "Comrade Communist" was not a friendly name. "Does your teacher know about…

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Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Speaking Up

It's a lot easier to stop a small mean comment than it is to stop full blown bullying. Nonetheless, in the moment, when you hear children (or adults!) say mean things to one another, it can be challenging to figure out how to step in. Recently Teaching Tolerance has been…

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