Remember that children develop new skills over time and at different rates. As they develop greater coping skills, they’ll make mistakes. The calmer you are when they fail to shake off a little setback as practiced, the easier it will be for them to bounce back.
School rules. The mere mention of these words can elicit heavy sighs and moans from children and adults alike. Rules order us around. Rules constrict us. "No running, no hitting, no pushing, no cutting in line, don't interrupt . . ." As one young child put it, "You want to do something and the teacher just comes along and says you can't!"
A reality of teaching that all teachers know well is that no matter how effectively we teach, no matter how hard students try, and no matter how many good days the class has together, students will sometimes need more—more direction, more support, more teaching, more time. But in one of those “Aha” moments that sometimes come along just when we need them, I realized recently that just because some students need extra help doesn’t mean the proactive teaching we do every single day is ineffective. Far from it.
That's how long it took for school to start feeling normal to me this year. Up to then I was in full-on back-to-school mode, and so were my students. Kids' shoes were shiny, voices were either loud or silent, faces were sleepy, eyes were peeking into other rooms in hopes of spotting an old friend, and questions were CONSTANT. I felt like I moved from teaching one procedure to the next, all day long . . .
"What kind of teacher are you?" A parent whose child will be in my class this year asked me that a few days ago. It was an honest question, and one I've answered before, but this time I was thrown for a bit of a loop. Blame it on lack of coffee or too many things on the schedule for the day, but afterwards I felt my answer sounded like gibberish. So, with a few hours distance and another caffeinated soda, here's the answer I wish I had given:
Powerful advocates and strong believers, elevens are passionate about their ideas and opinions, allegiances and sense of justice. They’re devoted to classmates and peer groups, and the social negotiations surrounding cliques (which often peak at eleven and twelve) can be positive practice for teenage and young adult affiliation and attachment. Elevens’ social practice includes all the usual heartache and cruelty associated with forming and losing friendships—adults must respond to bullying with clear guidance and redirection.
Music teachers, art teachers, physical education teachers, librarians, and other specialists are an integral part of school and play a role, as all staff members do, in teaching children to be responsible, caring learners. But unlike self-contained classroom teachers, specialists see hundreds of students a week, often travel to more than one school, and typically have barely an hour a week to teach each group of children.
Often, when I talk with teachers who have started trying out Responsive Classroom practices such as interactive modeling, they reflect, “Interactive modeling worked great for a while. My students did really well with whatever I modeled and they practiced. Then, things slowly started to slide.” Of course, I’m not in these teachers’ classrooms to know exactly what is going on, but I have a pretty good hunch—and an idea for how to change this trend.
