“I’m sorry.”

Actually, I try to remember to say more than that, and the best description of the formula I try to use comes from an article about how nurses should make apologies to patients (The power of apology: how saying sorry can leave both patients and nurses feeling better). The writer uses the description:

“regret, reason and remedy”

For example, today I was a bit sharp with two students who were paired-up to do some work in my mainstream ninth-grade English class, but, instead, were just sitting there while everyone else in class was focusing on the task at hand — taking turns reading a passage to one another. A few minutes later I came back to them and simply said, “I’m sorry I barked at you earlier. You’re both excellent students, and I was frustrated that you weren’t doing what I had asked you to do. I could have said so in a better way, and I’ll try to show more patience in the future.”

It was, in effect, a use of the “regret, reason, and remedy” formula — though I hadn’t actually read that article until I started doing a little research later today on the Web about saying “I’m sorry.”

I find that saying sincere “I’m sorry’s” in this way can go a long way in strengthening my relationships with students, and using that kind of three part formula can help communicate that sincerity. I don’t feel a need to extract any kind of admission of fault from the student because I’m just taking responsibility for my own behavior.

These “I’m sorry’s,” I think (hope), can also act as models for students on how they might consider acting in multiple situations. I’m not sure how many adults in the world they see apologizing — especially apologizing to young people.

What has been your experience saying “I’m sorry” to students?

I gave each student a small whiteboard — these are so versatile and so inexpensive, and if you don’t want to buy them you can make them easily, too — along with a marker and cloth eraser. I explained that I would start off a conversation, that I wanted them to write on their board what they might say in response and hold it up so everyone and I could see it. I’d then choose one of the responses they wrote, and, in turn, respond to it, and so on. Students didn’t quite get the explanation, but they quickly did when we started.

I began by saying that I was holding onto a cliff with my fingers and ready to fall. I then yelled “Help!” and told students to write a response. Students immediately got the idea and the fun began. Responses included “No” “Why Should I?” “What Do You Need?” and “Good-bye.” I chose “Why Should I?” to respond to and said “I’m going to die if you don’t help, please!” The next responses, with much laughter, included “I will step on your fingers to help you fall!” “What will you pay me?” and “Have a good trip.” In print, it may sound like I have a class of crazed students, but it was all done in fun, and everybody participated. I would also point at various people for them to say what they wrote, too.

I next asked them to imagine that I was a pretty girl or a handsome boy, and said, “Will you go on a date with me?” A similar process then began, including at one point my asking, “What restaurant will you take me to?” followed by “I don’t want to go there.” Many students came back with responses like, “Too bad” but one wrote “Where do you want to go?” I pointed out that the student who came up with that response was likely to get far more dates than the rest of them.

Lastly, I said “You are getting an F in this class and will have to repeat it again next year.” Needless to say, an energetic conversation followed.

The lesson was a lot of fun, required next-to-zero teacher prep time, had close to 100 percent student engagement the entire half-hour, and required listening, speaking, writing and even a little bit of reading. You can’t really beat that kind of result. Well, there is one way you can, and that’s what will happen next week. Then, students will take my place and start taking turns being up in front, developing a scenario, choosing which responses they want to pick, and responding to them.

In the comments section, feel free to share your experiences with improv in the classroom, and also write any suggestions you have for future scenarios that have comedic possibilities!

These techniques are obviously important.

I wonder, though, if we teachers and our students, schools, and districts might be better off if we spent a little more time focusing on — for lack of being able to come up with better terms — our “cultural orientations” or basic “ways of thinking”?

What am I talking about?

Please bear with me as share my thinking on all this. Usually, I don’t post a piece like this which is more of a “process post” — I don’t necessarily have as much clarity as I would like, and, instead, am sharing my thoughts and hoping that feedback from readers will helping move my thinking along.

Last week marked the 100th anniversary of Peter Drucker’s birth. Drucker was the renowned business and management philosopher, writer, theorist, analyst. His thinking also says a lot to community organizing (my previous career) and teaching (my present one) Someone (and I’m sorry that I can’t remember who) wrote about National Public Radio’s coverage of this anniversary, which pointed out that his most important idea was:

the importance of a company having a sense of mission or a purpose, and that that’s not identical with its strategy, it’s not identical with its business model, it’s why it exists and what social good or greater good that it’s serving. That’s a very important Drucker idea.

When I’m talking about a “cultural orientation” or “way of thinking,” I think mean something like what Drucker meant. But something more than “whatever is good for kids.”

I’d like to give three examples of what I mean — in the classroom, in a school and, in the context of schools connecting with parents.

IN A CLASSROOM

In the first part of each school year, in most of my classes I lead a discussion with students asking what they want our class to be — “A Community of Learners” or a “Classroom of Students.” I write about this more extensively in my book “Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies That Work” (which will be out next summer), but I’ll give a short description here.

I write the two columns on the overhead and give some examples of the difference between the two. In a classroom of students, a teacher does most of the talking. In a Community Of Learners, students work in small groups and are co-teachers. In a “classroom” people laugh when others make mistakes, while in a “community” people are supported when they take risks. In a “classroom” the teacher has to be always be the one to keep people focused, while in a “community” students take responsibility to keep themselves focused.

Most students say their previous classes had been more like a “Classroom of Students.” I ask students to share what other differences they might see between the two types. Here are a couple of examples students said this year:

In a “classroom” “students start a fight and end up hurting each other.” In a “community” “they don’t start a fight, they talk it out.”

In a “classroom” “the only way to succeed is doing exactly what the teacher says.” In a “community” “you have more than one choice in succeeding.”

After adding to the list, students then decide which one they’d rather have. No one has every chosen a “classroom of students.”

By starting with this basic “cultural orientation” or “way of thinking,” students developed their own ways of approaching (I guess you could almost call it their own “techniques”) how the class would operate. It provided a framework for looking at numerous issues throughout the whole school year, and respected their judgment and wants.

IN A SCHOOL:

Ted Appel has done a tremendous job working with teachers over the past few years at our school to develop a “cultural orientation” or “way of thinking.”  Basically, it’s not acceptable for students to not do well — everybody succeeds.  That way of thinking operates almost universally among the faculty, and is amazingly prevalent among students as well.

Our tutoring project, where students hire (and fire) teachers of their choice, is an example of this way of thinking. We didn’t set-up an after-school tutoring center and then blame the students for not showing-up. Ted and our staff began with the thinking that some students needed help, and looked at what were the barriers to them getting the most effective assistance they could get so they could do well and thought outside the box.

IN A PARENT ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY

In my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, I highlight the differences between parent involvement and parent engagement.  Some of those differences include the primary “involvement” tool schools use is their mouths to talk, while the primary “engagement” tool is their ears to listen.  Involvement is often about one-way communication, while engagement can be about two-way conversation.   The invitation to involvement is often “irritating” — challenging parents to do something the schools want them to do, while with engagement it’s often “agitation” — challenging parents to do something that they say they want to do.

Obviously a few examples are useful to illustrate each of those parent engagement elements, but if schools are committed to that kind of criteria, they can judge their own possible actions against them.  They don’t necessarily need a long laundry list of what they should or shouldn’t do.

I guess all I’m wondering is how many schools and districts are skipping looking  these big kinds of cultural orientations or ways of thinking?

I wonder if there should be more of an investment in developing our compasses instead of giving us road maps?

What do you think?

Until last year.

I had an exceptionally challenging mainstream ninth-grade English class last year (see Have You Ever Taught A Class That Got “Out Of Control”?) and nothing I tried was successful in helping one student develop self-control. He repeatedly told me he knew he needed to make changes and that he wanted to — and I’m convinced he was sincere — but he just couldn’t do it.

As a last resort, I suggested that he go outside to read his book during our silent reading time (which began each class) and, before he began to read, close his eyes for a couple of minutes and see himself acting as the student he wanted to be — cooperative, focused, not always reacting to provocations. He was willing to give it a try, and it had an immediate positive effect and produced much better results than anything else we had tried. We continued with this daily practice for the rest of the school year and, even though he wasn’t the “perfect” student, he handled himself much, much better.

After having that experience last year, I was certainly open to a recent idea from Jim Peterson, a talented Vice-Principal at our school.

He wanted to know if I would be interested in trying out some visualization techniques with my ninth-grade class this year — not around behavior issues (I don’t have those problems with this year’s class), but with helping them use it to become better readers and writers.

So, between my positive experience with my challenging student last year and my super-duper positive experience following Jim’s advice in the past (Have You Ever Taught A Class That Got “Out Of Control”?), of course I agreed to give it a try.

I became even more enthusiastic after Jim had me do a quick and simple visualization technique to demonstrate what he was talking about. He had me stand straight with one of my arms sticking outward in front of me. Then he had keep my arm outstretched and straight, and move it to the back as far as I could without straining. Next, he asked me to note the location my hand was pointing to at its limit.

After that, he had me close my eyes and mentally visualize (without doing the physical movement) doing the same thing several times — stretching as far as I could — starting off doing it slowly and then repeating it several times faster. Each time I would move my arm back to the front and then back again. After doing that for perhaps a couple of minutes, he told me to open my eyes and physically repeat the movement. Much to my surprise, I was able to easily move my arm much farther back than I had the first time.

This was a great example of his idea for making it work in the classroom — if students could visualize becoming better readers and writers, perhaps it would help them actually become ones.

Jim came to my classroom (he’s also working with another teacher who’s trying it out) and did a short interactive presentation on the conscious and subconscious mind, and combined it with visualization exercises like the one he did with me. Students seemed pretty enthusiastic — they are priding themselves on being “guinea pigs” for lessons that get replicated by other teachers (see “I Know My Brain Is Growing…” and “I Like This Lesson Because It Make Me Have a Longer Temper” (Part One)).

Twice a day prior to beginning a writing or reading activity I’ve begun to ask students to take twenty seconds to either close their eyes or keep their eyes open and visualize themselves being excellent readers or writers in the upcoming activity. After a few days, it appears that most are taking it seriously.

I’ll be asking students to incorporate some specific reading goals in the weekly goal-setting students do (see The Best Part Of The President’s Speech & How I’ll Use It). We’ll be doing some simple assessments twice a month to see what kind of progress students are making.

There’s more to the preparation that we did for that class, but I can share those details in a later post.

I did want to say that I was so impressed with my ninth-grade students’ reaction that I tried something similar with my Intermediate English class. I was surprised to find that they were not as enthusiastic as my ninth-graders, but were willing to give it a try. Thanks to Diarmuid Fogarty, I was also able to find some intriguing literature on the use of visualization with English Language Learners (see Zoltán Dörnyei, scroll down to “Chapters in edited volumes” and look at Chapters 2-5).

With my Intermediate English class, I’ll be giving monthly assessments to both my class and another class using the same curriculum that will function as a control group.

We’ll see what happens. My belief is that it might very well help the students who think it will help them. And that taking a few seconds to focus more certainly can’t hurt.

Have you tried anything like this with your students?

I’ve posted about my own choice earlier, but since I’ve been thinking more about it over the past few weeks because of some classroom issues that have come-up, I thought people might find it helpful to share again.

It comes from Marvin Marshall, one of my favorite writers on positive methods of classroom management.

He wrote:

Will what I am about to do or say bring me closer or will it push me away farther from the person with whom I am communicating?

Sometimes — not often, but sometimes — I can lose my temper a bit with a student. Each time that has happened since I read that line, I have been able to remember that wise piece of advice and shift gears. Obviously, it would have been better for me not to get upset in the first place but, of course, I am only human…

It’s similar to the old community organizing adage I often used during my nineteen year community organizing career — after you polarize, always depolarize.

When I first posted about this piece of advice, I included a useful link to a New York Times article titled When The Heart Pays The Price of Anger. The last line of that article is “Life is very lonely when you are always right.”

Feel free to share the best piece of classroom management advice you’ve ever read or heard — either in the comments here or in the Edutopia Classroom Management Discussion Group.

Our school is a recipient of a multi-year federal grant to support Small Learning Communities (we have seven SLC’s which are made up of roughly 300 students and twenty teachers each — those students pretty much stay in those groupings for their high school career). Part of that grant provides substantial funding for “tutoring.”

Ted thought, “Why not use the money to have students hire teachers of their choice as tutors and they can arrange the time (before –school, lunchtime, after-school, weekends) and location?”

As Ted explained it to me, many schools might use these kinds of funds for “tutoring centers” that don’t easily offer the flexibility that might be needed to make tutoring an attractive idea to students.

Of course, the National No Child Left Behind Act also requires all schools in Program Improvement to offer the students the option of receiving tutoring paid by NCLB funds (known as supplemental educational services, SES). There has been a fair amount of criticism of the unevenness of those providers (see Research shows key NCLB provision not helping students and Evidence Thin on Student Gains From NCLB Tutoring ), and often it’s difficult for those tutors to really communicate well with students’ teachers to coordinate on curriculum and student strengths and challenges.

The way that our school has set it up has teachers identifying students who appear that they might need tutoring and initiating a discussion about how the program works. It’s quite simple — we have a list of teachers at the school who have said they’d be open to being a tutor; the student can review the list (with help from a teacher who knows him/her and who can provide suggestions on who might be a good fit); the student arranges to “interview” potential tutors; and then they develop a contract that is agreed to by all parties (including parents). There can be one or twenty sessions, and the teacher is paid the regular hourly rate paid by the District for extra activities.

I love the way it has transformed some conversations I’ve had with students. Several of my students are having major challenges in their math classes. I’ve been able to approach them to share my concern about what I hear from their math teacher, and explain to them that they could get their own individual tutor; they could hire a teacher of their choice; they can interview several if they want; and then they help determine when and where the tutoring takes place.  If they try it out, and don’t like it, then they can fire their tutor and find someone else.  We review the names of available teachers, and I can help them narrow down who might be a good fit — temperamentally and language and content-wise.  It sends a message, I believe, that we really are going the extra mile, and that they have power in their hands.   It maximizes the benefit for students as well, since it’s very easy for teachers to communicate with each other about the individual student, and since we have common curriculum in many of our classes,  students won’t using content that is “parachuted” in by an outside provider.

As Ted puts it,  “It reflects our school’s thinking.  We don’t just want to put on a tutoring center after school,  say we provided it,  and then blame the kids for not coming. ”

Even if some students don’t follow-through, it removes an excuse that they can give themselves (and others) for why they aren’t doing well.

Are any of your schools doing anything like this?

I’ve written about this before in “What Kind Of Feedback Should We Give Our Students?” In that post, I share resources about Carol Dweck’s research on the importance of praising effort instead of intelligence.

Marvin Marshall, who writes a lot about positive classroom management strategies, just wrote about the topic in his email newsletter. Since it’s only available via email, and I can’t link to it, I’ll reprint a portion here. He frames it as the difference between praise and acknowledgment (I’d also call it recognition):

QUESTION:

Can you explain the difference between praise and acknowledgment?

RESPONSE:

It’s important to be aware of the difference between praise
and acknowledgment because so often we praise when we would
really rather create the outcome that acknowledgment
accomplishes. Acknowledgments encourage and motivate. They
serve to give recognition without the disadvantages of
praise.

The following two characteristics usually determine whether
a comment is one of praise or one of acknowledgment:

1. Praise often starts with a reference to oneself, as in
-”I am so proud of you for…. ”
-”I like the way….”

2. Praise is patronizing.

Praise has a price. It implies a lack of acceptance and
worth when the youth does not behave as the adult wishes.
Using a phrase which starts with, “I like,” encourages a
young person to behave in order to please the adult. By
contrast, acknowledgment simply affirms and fosters
self-satisfaction in the young person.

Notice the difference in the following examples:

Praise:
“I am so pleased with the way you treated your brother.”

Acknowledgment:
“You treated your brother very well.”
———

Praise:
“I like the way you are working.”

Acknowledgement:
“Your working shows good focus and control.”
———

Praise:
“I’m so proud of you for your good grades.”

Acknowledgment:
“Your grades show success in school. How do you feel about
that?”

Here is something to consider:
If you would not make the comment to an adult, then think
twice before making it to a young person.

I find this concept incredibly difficult to remember “in the moment.”  I know it’s the correct way to go, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.  Does anybody have any “tricks” to help prompt you to keep this difference in mind when you’re in the classroom?

One quote she includes is something said by Susan Sarandon in the movie “How We Dance”:

“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”

I thought it might be a good opportunity to share my Attitude and Behavior With A Substitute Teacher grading rubric.

I only use it with classes that I’m concerned about. In those classes, a few minutes before the ending bell rings, the sub passes out the rubric. Students grade themselves, and then the sub grades them. It works quite well — subs can grade by “faces” instead of having to try to remember names (you’ll notice on the rubric there’s a caution and way to spot if students don’t put their real name on it), and pushes students to reflect on how they’ve handled themselves.

Yes, yes, I know — I’m a big believer in developing intrinsic motivation, too. I just figure that I miss class so seldom, subs have such a challenging situation anyway, and remembering how I behaved with a sub when I was a student, that using something like this is best for everybody involved.

Join in the discussion at Edutopia and share how you handle sub and classroom management issues….

I used this concept in a short lesson earlier this month that seemed to work well.

First, I asked students to think of an important event in their life, and why it was important. They then jotted down a few notes.

Then, I had students divide into pairs and move their desks so they were facing each other. I asked one student to lean back — a lot. We had a lot of fun modeling and competing how far back a student could lean back in their seat without slipping through to the floor.

Next, the other student told their story to the student leaning-back. Then we reversed roles.

Then, students repeated their stories to each other, but this time, instead of leaning back, each student “leaned-in” on their desks.

I then asked students if they were listening more attentively when they were leaning-back or when they were learning forward. I didn’t get the answer I wanted (which was when they were leaning forward), and everybody said they were listening the same in both positions. However, I then asked in which position the listener was in did they feel most “listened to” when they spoke, and several students said when the other person was leaning-in. I asked students in which position they felt most alert, and practically everybody said when they were leaning-in.

We talked a bit about what advantages there might be to people feeling more listened-to — both in class and outside of school. We also talked about our natural tendencies to lean back when we’re feeling tired or sleepy, and how learning-in might help wake us up.

It wasn’t a “home-run” lesson, but since that time I’ve included “Lean-In’ in instructions for all small group activities, and it seems to me that it’s made a difference — more students seem to be “leaning-in.”

Any ideas on how I could improve it?