Celebrating Another Failure Friday

In a first grade classroom this week I overheard the following exchange between two boys:

           J: It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. Sometimes people HAVE to make

mistakes.

T: What the heck? I didn’t know that!

We continue to celebrate our failures in an elementary methods class on Friday. Some important shared understandings have resulted:

• ·      We ALL make mistakes – according to one wise 6-year-old, we HAVE to make them
• ·      Teaching is hard
• ·      It takes time to learn to teach – a lifetime, in fact
• ·      Mistakes are part of teaching
• ·      We are not where we want to be…YET

The beauty and the challenge of teaching are that the target, the “where we want to be” keeps moving.  So the game really is rigged because while we are not there yet (application of a growth mindset) we won’t ever really get there. I tell my students to send me an email when they think they have mastered teaching…so I can send them a reply admonishing them to find a new career.

Our Friday discussions really don’t focus on the failure. The students ultimately end up focusing on finding a fix. Typically a student shares a situation and describes what they tried to do. Then a discussion of what else they could do or try ensues. The students are all seated around one large table and they truly engage in a discussion. Nobody raises her/his hand as there is no need for permission to speak. I try not lead these discussions. I do find myself asking if anyone else wants to share, more of a role of transition maker or extender. This community of preservice teacher learners is engaging in authentic, organic, inquiry-based learning.

We cannot overlook the support they are providing for each other. Sometimes there is a sense of relief after making a story public. One of the students said, “I am so glad we are doing this because it let’s me know we are all pretty much in the same place. It isn’t just me.” Nope – it isn’t just you.

For others there seems to be a “can you believe this happened” aspect. One of these prefaced her share with “I have been waiting all week to share this.” Then she launched into a description of a first grade bathroom mishap. These reinforce the notion of just when you think you’ve seen it all, this happens. Teaching is certainly rife with those moments! You cannot really be prepared for everything that is going to happen. 

While there seems to be much value for the participants in the specific conversations, there is also value in the general idea of having the conversations. Couldn’t all teachers benefit from talking to others about what isn’t working, problem solving together? Imagine a safe space to celebrate your failures with a focus on figuring out what to do next. That could bring a whole new meaning to a “Team Meeting!”

Maybe we should rename it “Figuring It Out Together Friday”

Still learning…to teach, Dr. G.

Celebrate Failure Friday

In our first Friday literacy class that met prior to the start of the elementary school year we made t charts and engaged in rich discussions about things the preservice teachers were excited about and things they were concerned about their internship. One of the things that many of them were worried about was “lessons that bomb.”

When pressed, those same students admitted that there were posters all around their schools sharing the sentiment “mistakes are where the learning happens” or some variation on that theme.  So don’t lessons that bomb fit in the “mistakes are where learning happens” category? Shouldn’t we be excited about opportunities to learn? Let’s move that into the other column…

Things We Are Excited About                      Things We Are Nervous About

      

They were skeptical, to say the least…

One of the students asked the group who had seen the video about the Spanx lady.

Quiet pause.

Hmmmm…not sure I want to see a Spanx failure.

Someone asked if that was the one where Sara Blakely talks about how her father asked the children in her family what they failed at every day.

You can watch the (minute and a half) video here…

http://www.businessinsdier.com/sara-blakely-spanx-ceo-offers-advice-redefine-failure-retail-2016-7

Carlos Barrabes, an entrepreneur, is credited with the following:

“If you don’t fail its because you did not risk enough, and if you didn’t risk enough its because you didn’t put your whole self out there.”

Sara and Carlos are focusing on taking risks. And teaching is certainly all about taking risks.

So let’s reframe failure. Failure is not lack of success; it is lack of attempt. When you do everything you thought to do, everything you could do in the moment it is a successful attempt regardless of the outcome.

From this perspective we might have to change the name of our Friday session…too bad we don’t meet on Tuesdays – Celebrate I Tried Tuesday has a nice ring to it.

Still learning… to teach,   Dr.G

There is no I in teacher

Back to school for children means back to school for teacher educators as well. One of the highlights of my job is the time I get to spend in elementary school classrooms as I observe student teachers. What a delightful way to “go to work.”

This past week as I wandered the school hallways in search of the classrooms of my newest group of student teachers I overheard lots of teacher talk. Teacher voices floated into the hallway from inside classrooms and there were plenty of traffic jams as teachers moved children through hallways (gives a completely different meaning to the term “human trafficking”). Here are some snippets of the language overheard on these walkabouts:

             I like the way the yellow table is sitting.

I want you to close the gap at the end of this line.

I love how this line is moving.

I need you guys to focus.

I notice this table is ready.

I am looking for students who have their hands behind their backs.

I,I,I,I,I!

So many of the statements started that way. But there is no I in “teacher.” If asked to explain their teaching/learning philosophies or to outline their vision of the classroom communities they are working to create it is hard to imagine a single teacher stating that s/he strives for a teacher-centered classroom. And yet-

I,I,I,I,I!

Our children are getting a steady diet of language that seems to be centered on the teacher’s wants, the teacher’s needs, what the teacher likes, what the teacher loves, what the teacher notices. It is all about the teacher. Is that the message we mean to convey?

There is no I in teacher but there are two other words: “reach” and “each.”  In the margin of my page, this appeared:

TEACHER

                E

                A

                C

        EACH

It looks a bit like an incomplete upper case letter I – just as a classroom is incomplete with only the teacher.

One way to read

TEACHER

                E

                A

                C

        EACH

is to read across- teacher, down - reach, across – each. “Teacher reach each.” Well that works since it is the teacher’s job to reach each child.

Maybe this is a better representation:

TEACHERS

                E

                A

                C

        EACH

or this:

TEACHERs

                  E 

                     A

                         C

                            H

Making “teacher” plural enables us to focus on two different meanings of the phrase. “Teachers, reach each” vs. “Teachers reach each.” (Behold the power of the comma!) The first is a directive, a reminder of our charge as educators. The second is a declarative statement of what we accomplish as educators.

Let’s each reach to think about our language use and challenge ourselves to replace some “I” with more “you.” How can we change the I statements above so that the focus is on the children? How will a person overhearing us know that our classroom is child centered?

Still Learning… to teach,   Dr. G

How Will They Know You Care?

Seventeen-year-old Audrey volunteered at Horizons in San Francisco this summer. Horizons, a program for high-need elementary school children, includes an academic program, swimming lessons and enrichment activities. Audrey aspires to be a teacher but has no training in pedagogy. Nor does she have an understanding of child development. She hasn’t read about learning theory.  But Audrey has a beautiful smile. She smiled at all of the children. And she helps. Audrey cheered when one of the children jumped into the pool for the first time…and the second time… And she listens. Audrey developed relationships with every one of the children. That is what teaching is all about – forming relationships.

Audrey had to travel to a family function out of town so she wasn’t able to be with the Horizon students for their last day. One little boy found out and informed Audrey that she couldn’t go. He explained that he was going to get on the airplane and take her by the hand and walk her back into the airport. Then she would miss her flight and be with the students for the last day of the program. In six weeks, Audrey mastered the most important aspect of teaching – she let the children know SHE CARED as she developed her relationships with each one!

As a teacher educator and a supervisor of student teachers I have worked with hundreds of preservice teachers. I am fortunate to work with them throughout their yearlong internship. As each group begins their induction year of teaching I begin again with a new batch of neophytes. If I could gather those first-year teachers together right before they began their first day with their own classes I would give them a single piece of advice.

On your first day of school you only have to do one thing – let the children know that you care. Let them know you care about them as students. Let them know you care about them as people. 

All people want to be treated with kindness and respect. Children need to know their teacher cares about them. Caring manifests itself in many ways:

Smiling at the children

Listening to the children

Respecting the children

Trusting the children

Believing the children

Keeping the children safe

Forgiving the children

How will you let your children know you care?