Apple to Apple

Kids need to fall. This is how they learn to tumble and roll without tightening up and then to get back up again. Falling is a skill. Gymnasts and stunt professionals know they will fall, so they take lessons in falling. And physical therapists teach senior citizens how to fall.

Kids who are taught to fear falling can become stiff and awkward in their movements. They don’t learn how to shift their bodies or protect themselves when they fall. This makes them even more unsafe. But kids who learn to fall with skill get hurt less.

Falling into an easy roll, though, goes against instinct. We fight the fall, trying to catch ourselves with an arm or knee or foot. But bones are hard and unforgiving, and when they take the impact they break.

According to physical therapists you should aim for the meat when you fall, not the bone. Round your body, they say, pulling your arms in across your chest and bend your knees. Spread the force of impact across your body. And, counterintuitively, relax as you fall.

Teachers, it seems, could learn from physical therapists. We spend our time teaching students not to fail. But we give them little help on how to fail, when we know they will. At some point in their lives they will fail a test or a class, not make the cut for a job interview, or find devastation in a relationship.

Some students feel failure so much that it warps their relationships, clouds their thinking, and hinders their emotional growth.

“I wish she would just get a B,” one desperate father said to me about his daughter. “She can’t sleep at night, won’t do anything fun on the week end, and worries, worries, worries.”

Granted, I had students who could have used a dose of this obsession. But, for some students, the fear of failure is debilitating.

What if we told these students to expect to fall, that failing is part of life? What if we helped them know how to spread the impact of a failure—to gather support systems around them? What if we were vulnerable enough to talk about our own failures and how we survived them and how we got back up again? What if we intentionally taught them to tuck and roll?

I had lots of good teachers on my way to becoming one. My sixth-grade teacher Miss Bordeaux, for example, introduced me to academic rigor. Miss Bordeaux wore starched white blouses and dark skirts and ordered her world and ours. She played soft classical music, she told us, when she first woke up each morning. Then just before she left for school, she switched to marching music. She continued this beat at school, stepping us through our days.

Most kids didn’t like the way Miss Bordeaux went ballistic if you said ain’t, or if you came to school with dirty nails or if you didn’t sit up straight. They especially didn’t like how she made us write papers, long ones, and then filled them with red edits. But I loved to read her markings. She sculpted the junk from what I wrote, leaving it spare and beautiful. Sometimes I noticed her watching me as I read those red marks, nodding her head. In Miss Bordeaux’s room, the air felt fresh, like someone had opened a window. She brought out my mettle. And when I become a teacher, I remember thinking, I want to be like Miss Bordeaux.

But I also learned about teaching from Mr. Mitchell. He reminded me of a chipmunk—short and squat with puffed out cheeks and a thick neck. Even the suit he wore every day looked like a chipmunk—tawny brown, streaked with chalk dust, and flecked from chemical stains. Mr. Mitchell brought no excitement to his class, so students created it by setting off stink bombs during labs and dropping calcium metal into a pen to make it explode like a firecracker.

Mr. Mitchell lectured in a monotone and in circles. Questions threw Mr. Mitchell into confusion. He contradicted himself and repeated himself and tried to find answers in the book. Most of us gave up, especially after we understood his four-day pattern.

On day one, Mr. Mitchell would announce a test and conduct a review no one understood. The second day we’d all take the test. On the third day, Mr. Mitchell would turn back our graded tests, which we’d all failed, and then harangue us for our stupidity and indolence. He’d give us all the right answers for the test and announce a retest for the next day.

We’d drill each other.

“Number 13?” one student would ask.

“Single replacement reaction,” another would answer. But neither knew the question for the answer.

Not that it mattered. When we took the exact test on the fourth day of the cycle, we all earned A’s, and without even reading the questions.

Mr. Mitchell showed me exactly how not to be a teacher.

 

 

I like optical illusions. How, I wonder, can the blink of my eye change what was a rabbit into a duck? After all, the lines haven’t change. But, in some way I don’t understand, my perception changes.

About halfway through my career, I started thinking about students as optical illusions. If how I saw them wasn’t working, I’d try looking from another angle, changing the tilt of my head to get a new view.

Take, for example, the seventh-period class I had one year. Maybe it was because I had already taught all day. Maybe it was because the students had used up their goodness in their other classes. Whatever the reason, this class sapped more of my energy than all the other periods combined.

Even starting class was an ordeal. They’d pile into my room riled from a tussle in the hallway or a pen someone stole or a cell phone a teacher confiscated in the last class or a likely fight after school. Every lesson took twice the explaining for half the result. And the noise level, even when they tried to be quiet, exhausted me.

Blink, I’d tell myself, then open your eyes and see a different way. When I did this, when I looked more closely, I noticed what I hadn’t seen before. Aaron, who goaded the others, was also afraid to go home at night and, besides, he often chose Jeff, who didn’t smell so good, for a partner. Alan, who said he hated school, had also given up competing with his twin brother in the gifted program and around the edges of his papers he drew striking pictures. Kira, who couldn’t write one good sentence, also came to school hungry, and she often made insightful comments in class.

There is always more than one way to look at things. And how I viewed students, I found, was a choice. If I looked at them with a softened gaze, in a way that worked best for them, they turned toward me and toward learning.

I kicked students out of class. And I issued demerits, assigned after-school detentions, and made office referrals. But the longer I taught, the less I used these forms of punishment—partly because I became more skilled in preventing problems, but mostly because they didn’t work well.

After all, while I sometimes felt great relief at seeing the backsides of students headed to the office, it didn’t last. Students pushed out of class eventually came back—and usually with even greater resentment and more alienation from me, from other students, and from learning.

So I found my mindset shifting. Instead of pushing the bad kids out, I tried to pull them in, to restore them. The bad things they did—calling someone stupid, kicking over a chair, throwing a punch, destroying property—these wrongs damaged relationships.

For good to come again to victims and to offenders and to the classroom culture, there needs to be more than punishment. There needs to be restoration. And demerits and suspensions alone don’t restore.

This doesn’t mean there should never be a walk down the hall to the office. Sometimes space is needed for cooling tempers and keeping the classroom safe. And school rules should carry through all classrooms. But, you can give, even consequences, with one of two purposes: to push out or to pull in.

Here are some pulling-in strategies I used:

• Consider the Context:

What frustration triggered the offense—feelings of inadequacy or fear, harassment or exclusion by other students, an outside-class event?

• Talk:

With offenders: “What happened in there?” I’d ask. “How do you feel about it? How do you think others feel about it?” When I asked these questions with sincere interest, I almost always discovered important details. Sometimes, for example, the distinction between offender and victim became not quite so clear. After I listened to their sides, students were often more willing to talk about how they could repair the harm they had caused.

With victims:  I’d ask them how they were hurt, what needs they had as a result, and what they saw as a way to resolve the situation.

With both victims and offenders: I tried to help them take the perspective of the other, to put the offense in context, to think about how to re-connect.

After this, I tried to talk with them together. This was an opportunity to acknowledge harm and to express remorse and understanding. Not all these conversations worked, but often they did, and occasionally, new friendships formed.

• Plan Re-entry:

Earning the way back into the good graces of a class is daunting. But successful re-entry often results in lasting good behavior. Students usually need help, and I often appealed to two sets of people to give it.

Parents: “This is what happened,” I’d tell parents. “And this is what I hope happens next.” And then we’d put into place an accountability structure—often regular reporting from me and reinforcement at home.

Peers: I’d ask a couple of students from the class to work with the offender. Most students rose to the challenge—giving daily affirmations, including the offender in groups, and calming them before they escalated.

Does pulling in instead of pushing out solve all discipline problems? Of course, not. But pulling in builds community by teaching conflict resolution

Student lore is clear—school is boring. Ask almost any student to verify this. How was your day? Boring. What do you think of school? Boring.

So, if you want to live up to expectations, here’s what you can do:

1. Keep students answering questions, not asking questions. It’s when students ask questions that they realize how little they know. And this could set them on a path of inquiry with the potential to hijack your lesson plans.
2. Overuse the same tools. If something works, use it over and over—assign questions from the back of each textbook chapter, provide slide notes for students to copy, depend on a few key students to keep class discussion on track. If you use only proven tools, you won’t have to deal with the risk of trying something new.
3. Don’t give breaks. Standing, stretching, and water fountain visits wake students up and get their brain neurons firing. You might have trouble settling them down afterward.
4. Stay behind the podium. If you perch on the corner of a desk or if you sit in a discussion circle, you may be tempted to reveal your heart, to show emotion in front of students. This could cause trouble for you by making you vulnerable to them.
5. Limit student interaction. One of the best ways for students to learn is for them to think and then speak and listen to each other. But this shifts attention and control away from you.

Students won’t have so much fun, doing things this way, and they won’t be as engaged. But you should have your classroom well under control. And, after all, this is what students expect.

Given that students remember only about five percent of what they hear, I talked way too much in class. I wish I had asked more questions to facilitate the talking of students. But asking good questions is hard.

How can you avoid always calling on the same eager hands and, at the same time, provide safety for students who don’t like to be put on the spot? Here are a couple tips:

When questions are convergent, questions with one right answer:

Divide students into small groups. Tell students: I’m going to ask a question. Write the answer you think is correct on your paper. After everyone has finished, compare your answers. If you all have the same answer, find evidence for your answer. If you have different answers, look for evidence to show which answer is correct.

When questions are divergent, with multiple appropriate answers and meant for wondering and musing:

Tell students: I’m going to ask a question—a question with more than one right answer. I’ll give you some time to think, so jot some notes about the reasons for your answer. Then I’ll call on three or four of you to respond. It will be interesting to hear these different perspectives.

In these scenarios, students do more than answer questions. They discuss, which increases the retention rate to around 50%, and teach others, which increases the retention rate to around 90%. They thinking at deeper levels—comparing and analyzing and evaluating. This kind of purposeful student talk is the foundation for literacy, and this altering of the ratio for student/teacher talk increases learning.

Dr. Seuss books are fun, as little kids know. Between their covers, you find zany characters, enchanted worlds, and rhyming phrases that roll off the tongue—Stop telling such outlandish tales. Stop turning minnows into whales. And in the middle of the fun, phonics clicks away in the brain, and even reluctant readers turn another page.

But in a middle school classroom? For years only one Seuss book appeared in my room. I didn’t bring it. Parents did. Every spring they’d come sneaking in with it and without their kids.

“Could you please write in this?” they’d ask. “Every teacher since kindergarten has written a note to my kid. It’s for a graduation present.”

Oh, the places you’ll go, the book says. It promises great sights and high flying. But it also warns about bang-ups and hang-ups and lurches with bumps. Maybe it was the macabre in me, but I’d turn past those pages and find the sad blue page with the words: But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. And on that page, I’d write my encouraging note.

This book got me to thinking about Dr. Seuss, and I came to see that he offered wisdom beyond kindergarten. Some of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s books address serious issues with a light touch. These books are a good way to introduce a unit, or a discussion about a conflict in class or a distressing topic in the news. Here’s a list of a few books I’ve used:

• The Butter Battle Book—for conflict of any dimension: interpersonal, among groups, or national; Every Zook must be watched! He has kinks in his soul.
• Horton Hears a Who!—for honoring the significance of every human life; A person’s a person, no matter how small.
• Yertle the Turtle—for using, not abusing power; I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we, too, should have rights.

And to console myself in the great testing rage at the end of my career, I read a Dr. Seuss book to myself:  Hooray for Diffendooffer Day!