Be an Upstander, Not a Bystander!

Bullying is one of the biggest things students face- in person or online. When asked the question, how will you teach your students about bullying, I had to think long and hard about it. There are many different programs out there that you can use such as StopBully.gov and Stompoutbullying.org.  When exploring, I found this great article that made me think. We teach students that bullying is not okay but we really don’t teach them how to help in that situation.

The word “bystander” comes up a lot when we talk about bullying. A bystander is someone who witnesses the bullying and/or cyberbullying in action, stand by and watch and do and say nothing. Often, the reason is that these students don’t know what to do, are afraid of retaliation from the bully or others. When teaching about bullying, we need to let the students know that by being a bystander, a message is being sent that this behavior is acceptable and can happen again.

I know that when I was taught about bullying and what to do, it was scary to think that I should just walk up to the person and tell them that this is not okay. STOMP Out Bullying gave a great list of things that a bystander can do to safely support the person being bullied:

• Don’t laugh
• Don’t encourage the bully in any way
• Don’t participate
• Stay at a safe distance and help the target get away
• Don’t become an “audience” for the bully
• Reach out in friendship
• Help the victim in any way you can
• Support the victim in private
• If you notice someone being isolated from others, invite them to join you
• Include the victim in some of your activities
• Tell an adult

The difference between a bystander and an upstander is that the upstander takes action in the bullying situation to help the person being bullied and/or try to defuse the situation. Being an upstander takes a lot. It takes courage, action, assertiveness, compassion, and leadership. A student can take action by:

• Telling the bully to stop
• Getting others to stand up to the bully with them
• Helping the victim.
• Shifting the focus and redirecting the bully away from the victim
• Telling an adult who can help

Click on the link below for a video that helps teach kids how to be an Upstander!

Be an Upstander – Prevent Bullying (by The NED Shows)

 

Growth Mindset

In the education world “mindset” has been a hot topic recently. What is a mindset? What is the difference between a fixed and growth mindset? And how do you teach with a growth mindset?

First of all, a mindset shapes the way you see the word. It is a simple idea that can make all the difference in the way you see yourself. This was discovered by Carol Dweck.

A fixed mindset is when a person believes that their basic qualities like their intelligence or talent are fixed traits that cannot be changed. They also believe that talent alone creates success without any effort. It looks a lot like frustration in students. These students tend to give up when frustrated, take faliure personally, and feel as though their abilities determine everything.

A growth mindset is when a person believes that their basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. They see their brains and talent as the starting point of the learning process. These students tend to persevere when frustrated like to challenge themselves, see failure as a chance to learn and believe that their effort and attitude determine everything. Teachers with a growth mindset will embrace the mistakes made and use it as an opportunity to get feedback so everyone can do better next time.

Now how do you teach with a growth mindset? The thing to remember is to focus on the student’s improvement and the effort they put into the work instead of the intelligence level. The students will tend to sort out more challenging work and persevere and try harder when given this type of feedback. You also want to try to make your feedback more specific as well. Here are some examples of how easy it can be to switch from “ability praise” to “process praise:”

• “See you are good at English. You got an A on your last test” ›››››TURNS INTO››››› “You really studied for your English test and your improvement shows it”
• “You are such a good student” ››››› TURNS INTO››››› “I love the way you stayed at your desk, you kept your concentration, and you kept on working. That’s great!”

 

Building Relationships in Your Classroom

Building relationships with your students are immensely important when it comes to classroom management. There are so many ways to do so that it is even popping up on social media like this teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina with the different handshakes for each kid. While scouring the web for some helpful tips, I came across NEA’s 5 Tips for Better Relationships with Your Students. I thought I would go ahead and share them with you guys.

The first thing is to become a popular teacher. When I first saw this, I really did not think this should be on the list. But NEA justified itself with “Teachers become popular by building good relationships with their students by treating them the way they would like to be treated.” The favorite teachers at school always listened to you, are super positive and tried to lift you up and help you grow.

Next is get to know your students. This can be as simple as handing out an interest survey on the first day of class. It will help you choose books to read, topics to cover and who the students are outside of class. When I was in high school, it meant a lot to me when some of my teachers would come to see the play I was in and talk to me afterward. It shows that you care about them and are interested in what they do. These are the teachers you hear about in the big Thank You speeches at award ceremonies. 🙂

The most important one, in my opinion, is to protect the student’s self-esteem. This is big in high school, where being a teenager has a lot of insecurities that come along with it. When a student misbehaves, it is better to correct it quietly or use it as an opportunity to reteach. You can also point out correct behavior instead of calling out the bad. For example “I like how Sally is sitting quietly waiting to be dismissed. Thank you”. If you must talk to a student, pull them aside after class or when you have a break in class activity. This allows you to genuine conversation and for other students to not overhear. Kids can be mean and if you call attention to a student in the middle of class, they can often be a subject to ridicule.

Going off of that, you want to build goodwill on good days. Often, teachers only comment on the bad in class. If students are behaving or anything positive is going on, tell them! “I appreciate that you are all working quietly”. I don’t know about you, but I always felt accomplished or proud when the teacher commented something positive to me or the class.

Lastly, you need to listen to your students. Give your students a chance to provide YOU feedback. Ask the students how they feel about the lesson or assignment. Sometimes they can find the little flaws in the plan and if they voice their concerns, it helps everyone reach the end goal and helps you improve. In my room, I would like to have a comment box (either physical or online) where students can post anonymously their questions and concerns and I will try to fix them.

If you have any other ideas of how to build relationships with students, comment below!

 

Positive Self-Talk is Important!

According to Ruby Payne in her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, there are 7 general categories of support systems, which are:

1. Coping strategies
2. Options during problem-solving
3. Information and know-how
4. Temporary relief from emotional, mental, financial, and/or time constraints
5. Connections to other people and resources
6. Positive self-talk
7. Procedural self-talk

Number 6, Positive self-talk, I think is something that many high schoolers lack. This is the little voice that everyone has inside of their head that gives encouraging messages. The messages help you finish a task, complete projects, and get through difficult times and situations. If a person does not listen to the little voice or it tends to be more negative than positive, then the students’ success rate is much lower. By the time students get to high school, there is more stress on them to get good grades or to be a certain person due to peers or their own (or family’s) personal goals. I feel as though spending some time in your classroom going over positive self-talk would be very beneficial in the long run.

According to Pathway 2 Success, “Over time, engaging in more positive self-talk can help reduce stress, improve self-esteem, increase motivation, inspire productivity, and improve overall mental and physical health. Educators, counselors, and parents can have a huge role in helping kids and young adults develop a greater voice for positive self-talk”. In their post How to Teach Positive Self-Talk, they list 6 different strategies that both parents and teachers can use. I am really sorry for having ANOTHER list in this post, but I thought it would be easier to read for everyone.

• Model positive self-talk
  • practice saying out loud positive thinking. While there may be some difficult situations, try to think about the positive. “I may have done bad on this test, but I will do better next time.
• Create a list of positive self-talk statements
  • Post a list in your classroom with positive thoughts and affirmations such as “I am enough” or “I can do anything”. If you click on the link above (the words in blue) Pathway 2 Success has posted some on their page.
• Discuss the benefits to positive self-talk
  • Talk with your students about the impact positive self-talk can have on themselves and others
• Incorporate crafts as a way to remember positive self-talk
  • Pathway 2 Success shows a Postive Self-Talk Flower that the students can make where each petal has a thought on it. Another thing to do is to have the students write on a piece of paper and tape it to their desk or binder. I have also seen some teachers paint positive self-talk statements on their ceiling tiles (if the school lets them)
• Practice changing negative thoughts to more positive ones
  • You can give the kids examples of positive and negative self-talk and challenge the students to change the negative statements into positive ones.
• Talk about real-life challenges and situations
  • Talk to your students about different challenges and situations they or others are facing and how they feel about them. Ask questions that make the students think about what went right and what they can learn from it.

Self-Monitoring Strategy

I was recently talking to someone about different intervention strategies we use in the classroom. Since my students are in high school, my favorite strategy to use is Student Self-Monitoring. The student measures and records their own behavior and then compares the recorded behavior to a pre-determined standard. Self-monitoring requires the student to participate in the intervention and be responsible for measuring and evaluating their behavior. In order for a student to self-monitor, they have to learn the teacher’s behavioral expectations. From what I have observed, this strategy seems to work very well in high school classes. I think that this strategy should be used with every student since they can all benefit from this. To do so, you could have the students figure out a weakness of theirs in class to work on, such as completing assignments or to participating more in class discussions. Listed below are the  7 steps to have the self-monitoring strategy be the most effective in your classroom.

1. Define behavior target(s) to self-monitor
   1. behaviors to increase (ie. completing work) or behaviors to decrease ( ie. calling out)
2. Choose a method for recording the data
   1. rating scale, checklist or frequency count
3. Choose a self-monitoring schedule
   1. start or end of the day, scheduled transition point, start or end of assignments, fixed intervals through the period or day
4. Decide on a monitoring cue
   1. triggers student to self-monitor (timer, teacher or student delivered)
5. Choose rewards for successful behvior change
   1. optional step
6. Conduct periodic accuracy checks
   1. random spot-checks tend to result in higher-quality data
7. Fade the self-monitoring plan
   1. streamline self-monitoring so that it becomes sustainable over long-term
   2. maintain student behavioral gains

Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

When taking college education classes, we always emphasize the fact that everyone has different ways they learn. Yet we never really talk about how to teach to the learning styles or multiple intelligences. With my high school theatre classes, I am going to try to my hardest to incorporate all the multiple intelligences and learning styles. First, I will have my students take the Multiple Intelligence and Learning Style Test. It will take 14 minutes and there are about 119 questions. I know this may seem long, but it is worth it in the long run. Once the students obtain their results and email them to me(or in Google Classroom), we will talk about them in class. Now, this is where the real work comes in. I have scoured the internet and found Teach Hub and Scholastic. Both have some very helpful articles that talk about how to teach to the different multiple intelligences and learning styles in your classroom. For me, I think one of the more difficult multiple intelligences to teach will be Intrapersonal Intelligence. This is because of these students take in conversation prefer working alone, and “usually need space and time away from hustle and bustle of the classroom agenda so they can pursue ideas in their own way” (Scholastic). In order to teach these students, I can allow them to work at their own pace, journal and to have multiple options for end of unit projects that allow them to work by themselves or with a partner. It is going to be a tough road ahead, but by taking in every student’s learning styles and multiple intelligences, my students will be able to learn.

My Mission and Vision

Sometimes we get the terms “mission” and “vision” mixed up. A mission focuses on today and what the school does. A vision focuses on tomorrow and what the school wants to become. One doesn’t work without the other, because having purpose and meaning are critical for any school. When deciding what to include in my mission and vision statement, I figured I should try to include the 4 categories of a school climate: safety, teaching and learning, interpersonal relationships, and institutional environment. If you have any suggestions on what to include in my mission and vision statements, please comment below!

Mission

Our school strives to ensure students grow, succeed, and learn not only academically but as a person as well. We will create a sense of belonging and a safe environment where everyone can express themselves.

Vision

Our school will foster academic and personal growth in our students by providing a school climate that meets the needs of all students and allows for trust, respect, positivity, and safety among students, teachers, and the community.

I am also including a list of values that would be in place at the school:

• student exploration
• teacher modeling
• respect diversity in the school population and treat everyone fairly
• respect our peers
• Making sure the students are motivated, held responsible, and can obtain knowledge of not only of academic material but also of personal development

Trauma-Informed

Recently I attended a discussion called “Trauma-Informed in Every Profession” hosted by Rachel Turney at William Woods University. During the discussion, we talked about the definition of trauma, how it impacts a person (especially children) and how it impacts their brain. I have never heard of being trauma-informed before. As an educator, I figured I should do some more research and report back to you guys.

Education Law Center published a report called “Unlocking the Door to Learning:
Trauma-Informed Classrooms & Transformational Schools“. Within the report, some of the main topics were what trauma is, how it affects the brain, who experiences it, and how it changes children. Below is a list of things that stood out to me.

• The question we should ask is not “what’s wrong with you,” but rather “what happened to you?”
• Childhood trauma can have a direct, immediate, and potentially
• Trauma is ” A response to a negative external event or series of events which surpasses the child’s ordinary coping skills.”
• If something happens to you that is traumatizing to you, it is considered trauma
• Between 1/2 and 2/3 of all school-age children experience trauma
• Trauma that happens during early childhood has the potential to be particularly harmful to brain development
• Children who experienced trauma can sometimes find it hard to pay attention and process new information. They can also develop sensory processing difficulties which can affect writing and reading
• If exposed to violence and trauma, students can have difficulty responding to social cues and withdraw from social situations or bully others; be more aggressive and/or negative when interacting with peers

After reading the report, I am going to use this knowledge in my teaching/classroom. I will need to remind myself to ask “What happened to you?” because the trauma that happened to someone is causing the problems, not the person. It is also something that was out of the person’s control so it is not their fault. Another piece to use is that I need to have a lot of patience and time when working with children who experienced trauma. As stated in the above list, trauma can affect a student’s writing, reading, attention span and how they process new information. I will try my best to provide a safe learning environment for all of my students. I will make sure they know I am someone they can trust to tell information to or just to vent.

I have talked to a few teachers about being trauma-informed and they have a code word they use with the students. If a student needs to go talk to the counselor about the trauma they experienced or something else important, the student tells the teacher “Blue Dot Situation.” Every teacher in the school knows that if a student calls “Blue Dot Situation”, the student is to be immediately sent to the counselor’s office. At the beginning of the year, the teachers go over the code word with the students and what is considered a “Blue Dot Situation”. The teachers have said that this works really well in the school since it puts trust in teacher and student and also provides confidentiality.

What is Poverty and How Does a Role Model Fit Into It?

When you are a teacher, there will be many times that you will come across students who have many different backgrounds and financial situations that may be different than yours. Recently, I have begun reading A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. She states that the definition of poverty is “the extent to which an individual does without resources”. I am including the list of resources she further goes on and uses in different scenarios:

Whenever someone says the word “poverty” most of the time you think about someone’s financial situation. Ruby Payne points out that this is not always the case; in fact, poverty goes a lot deeper than that. As a teacher, there are many different things I can do for my students to help them gain the resources they are lacking. One of the easiest things to do, in my opinion, is to become a positive role model in the students’ lives. This covers both their Support Systems and Relationships/Role Model resources. There are many different ways to do so. I like to show my students that I too make mistakes and I have bad days just like them. This makes me more like a human being, someone they can trust, in their eyes. You can also try to connect with your students on a more personal level. Education Degree posted an article titled “25 Ways Teachers Can Be Role Models” and I encourage you all to check it out. A few things they suggested are sending positive notes home, be humble, celebrate the arts (yay!), and more. What are some things you do as a role model in your classroom?

Social Learning Theory in the Classroom

In 1977, the psychologist Albert Bandura created Social Learning Theory and it is still being used in classrooms today. Social Learning Theory states that “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action.” Bandura believed that we learn from modeling and observing others’ behaviors. In the classroom, this is especially true. Have you ever seen one kid act out- such as standing on a chair- and one by one, other students start to copy/follow the behavior? This is a prime example of Social Learning Theory.

While this theory and its components can sometimes lead to bad outcomes, you can use it effectively in the classroom. With the example, the teacher was not able to reprimand the first student for standing on his chair due to not catching him on time. The other students, in turn, see that there is no action being taken, so they quickly follow suit. In my classroom, I would use the Social Learning Theory to my advantage. As the teacher, I would model the desired behavior in class. The student pays attention and later imitates the behavior. If a student is doing the desired behavior, such as sitting quietly while raising their hand, I would reinforce the behavior with praise “Thank you, Sarah, for sitting quietly, waiting to be called on.” Usually, this causes the other students to take into account what Sarah is doing and imitate it later.

Social Learning Theory in the classroom isn’t always about good behavior. We, as teachers, implement this theory almost every day. Most of the time, we are modeling what we need the students to do. This can be showing students how to create a PowerPoint, how to write an essay, how to use the scientific method and more. It has become second nature to us to model behavior and the students imitate it. Below is a diagram showing how Social Learning Theory works. If you want to learn more, click on the links below!

How to incorporate SLT in your classroom

Use SLT in classroom activities

Social Learning Theory