Tag Archives: teaching

Competence builds confidence…

I love this statement by Dr. Alize Pressman,

“Competence builds confidence, not praise.”

So much pushback from kids comes from the frustration, or fear, of failure. Celebrate the path to little wins, focus on what they can do on their journey to doing more difficult things… and students start to shine.

Praise builds expectations of repeat performances. When students can’t hit those targets they lose confidence, or they stop trying… because it was so hard to get that praise and they aren’t convinced they can work that hard again. Or worse, they did work harder but didn’t hit the mark worthy of praise anyway. How disheartening is that? It’s definitely not a confidence builder.

“How did that make you feel?” is a question that fosters a student’s confidence. “That looks amazing, good job!” is a statement that puts pressure on repeated performance, and fosters performance anxiety.

“Competence builds confidence, not praise.”

Wipeouts and learning

I haven’t done a lot of board sports. The last time I stood on a surfboard I was 9, and I was not very good. I didn’t skateboard and I don’t snowboard. I do ski, and I’ve been on water skis a few times, but it has been 3 years since I skied on snow and over 2 decades since I skied on water. So I didn’t expect wake surfing to come naturally to me… and it didn’t.

The one time I actually got up, I was behind the wake, and instead of taking my time to gain some confidence, I raced forward to the front of the wake, and kept going for a nice wipeout.

After about 7 or 8 attempts, I’d had enough and then a few others took turns. Then my friend Mark suggested I try again with a start off of the back of the boat… and I found success.

I had a full 3 and a half minute run, trying my best to put myself in a position where I could actually surf the wave with slack on the rope, with the wave pushing me forward. Although I couldn’t get the knack of it, I had a few near falls trying, and was able to recover and keep trying. A few things helped:

1. Good coaching. Mark was amazing. He was calm, with clear instructions, and good space between coaching to just let me try.

2. Positive cheerleading. Everyone on the boat was rooting for me, and every wipeout was met with encouragement.

3. Watching others. Seeing others both struggle and find success made the task seem like it was something I could accomplish.

4. A willingness to fail. I knew that I wasn’t coming into this with a lot of similar skills, and so a wipeout wasn’t really a failure but a learning opportunity.

But of all these, good coaching was the most critical. A good teacher is a gift.

The Reality of the Job

I just did a meditation that led to a short nap, and now I’m reflecting on my day ‘off’.

There are some jobs that you never have to take home with you. A Starbucks barista doesn’t have to think about their job when they aren’t working. Even when I was a Starbucks manager, there were many days when my shift was over and I didn’t think much about work until I returned for my next shift… although there were times I ended up working much more than an 8 hour day. However, I didn’t enjoy being a Starbucks manager nearly as much as being a teacher or principal of a school… but those are two very different jobs than the ones at Starbucks. The reality of being in education is that you take the job home with you.

I’ve been sick and away from work most of this week. And for a lot of it, I was truly off. A low-grade but persistent headache, flu symptoms and unpleasant coughing kept me from work, both physically and mentally. But it’s hiring time for next year and a couple positions I posted closed last night. And so today I spent most of the day coughing my way through interviews, catching up  on emails, and making some phone calls. I worked a 6+ hour day, despite it being a sick day. That’s the nature of work sometimes. I’m not complaining. I really rested yesterday and feel a lot better (though I sound a lot worse) today. It would have been nice to take today fully off too, but the reality is that some jobs just aren’t like that… and I chose a job that’s just not like that.

It’s pretty awesome being in a job with so many caring and thoughtful people that are dedicated to their jobs. It inspires me and makes days like this, days where I’m off, but not really off, to appreciate the dedication of others who do the same, don’t complain, and do a fantastic job. Whenever I hear someone complain about teachers having it easy, and having summers off, or any talk like that, it usually comes from one of two places: Either it’s from someone who doesn’t take their work home with them, or it’s from someone who does, but also benefits financially from doing so (working towards commission, a bonus, or getting paid overtime). Meanwhile teachers and principals work many extra unpaid hours and even when not well, despite having hundreds of sick days accumulated… And they put time in on weekends marking, and stay after school to prepare lessons, coach, and run events well into the evenings.

It’s the reality of the job, and it’s done for the love of serving others… Even when we aren’t at 100%.

The good news is that my headache has subsided, and I’m on the mend. I’m going to spend my weekend catching up on some shows I’ve neglected and getting a bit more sleep. I need to give myself the time I need to fully recover, to ensure that I stay healthy for the crazy month ahead.

 

Being tough vs having high expectations

In your schooling you’ve probably had some really tough teachers that gave you no slack or leeway, and some of them you might have liked and others you didn’t. What made them tough and likeable versus tough and unlikable?

I think it comes down to high expectations, consistency, and connection.

• When a teacher has high, but realistic expectations the message is that they believe in you and your capabilities. But this is individualized, not every student can achieve the same thing, but every student knows the difference between a teacher wanting them to do better rather than just expecting results they know they can’t achieve.

• When a teacher is fair and shows consistency, students feel respected. Favouritism undermines morale, and invalidates the integrity of the classroom. High expectations can’t be mixed with greater strictness for some students without them feeling picked on.

• When a teacher connects with students and shows genuine interest in them high expectations becomes an honour not a challenge. Students recognize that the teacher wants them, expects them, to be successful… and believes in them.

Having high expectations, being fair and consistent, and genuinely caring and connecting with students can build a classroom environment where a teacher being strict comes across to students as wanting to get the best out of them, and believing in them. But take any one of these three things away and being strict can seem mean, unfair, or even vindictive.

It’s a pretty special classroom where students are all held to a high standard and they feel like their teacher sincerely wants the best out of all of them… and believes in them.

On Being Invisible

At our school, when we run a special event the students are in charge of the sound system. My line to them is that their job is to: ‘Be invisible’. The best job they can do is not to be noticed. We notice the sound crew when we hear microphone feedback, or static, or music starts too early, too late, or too loudly. Or someone speaks but the mic is off or too quiet. If none of these hiccups happen, the sound team are not ever in the limelight… and they have done an excellent job.

At a dinner meeting last night a colleague reminded me of a different kind of invisible, and that’s being invisible until it’s important to be seen. The metaphor he used was a referee. A referee should be invisible or not a factor in the game, doing his or her job, making the right calls, and not disrupting the flow of the game. However, there are also times when refs need to be the center of attention. They need to stop the game and make the big call. At this point they are crucial, and the wrong call can be devastating for a team.

They can spend most of the game being somewhat invisible, and going relatively unnoticed, and then suddenly they are front and center, making a key call that could pivot the outcome of the game significantly. A lot of jobs are more like the referee than the sound tech, as long as the person in the job is focussed on wanting to be invisible.

A good teacher or school counsellor can invisibly be doing a fantastic job, handling behavioural or social issues that never reach the office to be dealt with by a principal. These staff members may not get a lot of attention but they are quietly doing an excellent job… and when they ask for help or escalate a situation, the leader knows to step in and support them. Rather than explain the opposite, just know that sometimes situations demand more attention regardless of how good a teacher or school counsellor is, and other times the attention is required because the ‘referee’ is making less than ideal calls.

The point being, it’s ideal in many positions to be invisible, to take care of issues in the background, unseen. But there are also times to make the tough calls and to be in front of the issues and addressing them head on. The magic is in staying invisible most of the time and knowing when to reveal yourself.

It Works The Other Way Too

Yesterday I had a great conversation with the teachers from a nearby Grade K-8 home learner’s school in a neighbouring school district. Out high school usually gets 1-3 students from this school a year and these have been some exceptional students.

At one point we reminisced fondly about some of the really special kids they sent our way, and one of the teachers said, “You know, you always hear about how much a teacher matters to a student and how thankful students are for the influence of a teacher, but you don’t hear enough about how a teacher can learn from and be grateful to a student.”

We all agreed.

There are some kids that make teaching special. They are gems. They stand out and they leave a lasting, positive memory. They enrich our lives as educators and remind us why we love to teach. This isn’t just about a teacher’s pet. It’s not necessarily the kid with the best grades, it might even be a kid that’s a bit challenging to teach… but these one-of-a-kind kids inspire us, delight us, humour us, teach us, and/or influence the way we think about teaching, learning, and building community.

So this is a ‘Thank You’ to those kids. It’s a message to say that while we can inspire you and leave you with fond memories of a great teacher, it works the other way too, and you can be a positive influence, admired by your teachers. Thanks to those special students that don’t just go through our classes but also send positive ripples through our lives and the lives of students around them.

One-of-a-kind kids whom we will always remember and be grateful to have taught.

Old Stories

I was talking to a couple teachers yesterday after school and I was reminded of a funny story. I shared it with them. I was explaining a new assignment and sharing exemplars with my class. “This is what an ‘A’ would look like, and this is what a ‘B’ would look like.”

A student blurred out a silly example, “What if I did _____, would it be a ‘C’?”

I responded, “No, that would be a C-R-A-P.” 

Just as the class broke out laughing, I looked over to movement in my doorway to see a parent I’d never met before waiting to talk to me. The joke was funny, the timing was awful.

I started to write about this 15 minutes ago, and stopped to look back at my blog. Sure enough, I already shared this in a post, A-B-C-R-A-P, almost 4 years ago. The post is actually better than what I was going to share today because it examined criteria, exemplars, and creativity. Today I was just going to share a funny memory.

But seeing that I’d already written about this incident made me think about the stories we tell. How many of us have the same stories that we tell and retell? We have friends that generously listen as we share a story for a 3rd, 4th, 7th, even 15th time. We listen without interjecting, without sharing that we’ve heard it before. We generously listen as someone else hears it for the first time, and we laugh at the appropriate time, and with sincerity.

My wife and her friends sometimes do this cute little thing. If one of them starts a story and it has been told before, the people listening will touch their nose. If someone doesn’t touch their nose then they know it’s new to them and the story continues. If they all touch their noses the person telling the story stops…. No hard feelings, they even have a little laugh about it.

A few of my friends will tell it anyway, even if they know everyone’s heard it, but some stories are just so fun that the rerun can be more enjoyable than the first viewing.

I do wonder though, what are the stories that define us? What are those memories that stick with us and revisit us, and invite themselves in like old friends? Would I even have remembered that silly joke if a parent hadn’t been in the classroom doorway? Or was that necessary to make it a story I’ve shared and reshared?

How has the story changed over time? Does my retelling create a new memory? How much has the memory changed as a result of my resharing? Or, how has it remained the same and been emboldened and reinforced from retrieving it many times?

We are an accumulation of the stories we tell. Old stories shape our view of ourselves, and of our friends. As we get older, we don’t add significantly to the stories we share, we get more selective. Maybe it’s because we have more stories to choose from. Maybe it’s because we get to hold on to moments in our past that would otherwise be lost. And maybe it’s just fun to reminisce and to share fond memories with the people we love.

Tell me a story, and I learn something about you. I get to share in your experience, and we are both richer from the experience.

Empowering students

There is an element of control that needs to be given up by teachers if they are truly empowering students. There has to be a willingness to accept a potential outcome that is less than ideal… An understanding that students won’t always hit the high standard you expect.

This isn’t about lowering standards or expectations, in fact, if you are empowering students you need to make your high expectations clear. Rather, this is the realization that students bite off more than they can chew (or rather can do), and then they end up scrambling to do less and still produce a good product or presentation. It’s an acceptance that a student’s vision doesn’t match yours but their outcome is still good, or (and this is the tough part for teachers) good enough. It’s about mistakes being honoured as learning opportunities rather than as something to penalize.

Empowering students doesn’t happen with outcomes that are exactlywhat the teacher envisioned and expected. Outcomes will vary. Results will be less predictable. But the learning will be rich, authentic, and far more meaningful and memorable for the students… As long as they feel empowered, and are given the space to have autonomy, lead, and learn in ways that they choose.

And while that won’t always end with results that the teacher envisioned or expected, it will always end with learners feeling like they owned their own learning. Shouldn’t that be the essence of a great learning experience?

——

Related: Teacher as Compass

Google proof vs AI proof

I remember the fear mongering when Google revolutionized search. “Students are just going to Google their answers, they aren’t going to think for themselves.” Then came the EDU-gurus proclaiming, “If students can Google the answers to your assignments, then the assignments are the problem! You need to Google proof what you are asking students to do!”

In reality this was a good thing. It provoked a lot of reworking of assignments, and promoted more critical thinking first from teachers, then from students. It is possible to be creative and ask a question that involves thoughtful and insightful responses that are not easily found on Google, or would have so few useful search responses that it would be easy to know if a student created the work themselves, or if they copied from the internet.

That isn’t the case for Artificial Intelligence. AI is different. I can think of a question that would get no useful search responses on Google that will then be completely answerable using AI. Unless you are watching students do the work with pen and paper in front of you, then you really don’t know if the work is AI assisted. So what next?

Ultimately the answer is two-fold:

How do we bolster creativity and productivity with AND without the use of Artificial Intelligence?

This isn’t a ‘make it Google proof’ kind of question. It’s more challenging than that.

I got to hear John Cohn, recently retired from MIT, speak yesterday. There are two things he said that kind of stuck with me. The first was a loose quote of a Business Review article. ’AI won’t take over people, but people with AI are going to take over people.’

This is insightful. The reality is that the people who are going to be successful and influential in the future are those that understand how to use AI well. So, we would be doing students a disservice to not bring AI into the classroom.

The other thing he said that really struck me was, “If you approach AI with fear, good things won’t happen, and the bad things still will.”

We can’t police its use, but we can guide students to use it appropriately… and effectively. I really like this AI Acceptable Use Scale shared by Cari Wilson:

This is one way to embrace AI rather than fear and avoid it in classrooms. Again I ask:

How do we bolster creativity and productivity with AND without the use of Artificial Intelligence?

One way is to question the value of homework. Maybe it’s time to revisit our expectations of what is done at home. Give students work that bolsters creativity at home, and keep the real work of school at school. But whether or not homework is something that changes, what we do need to change is how we think about embracing AI in schools, and how we help students navigate it’s appropriate, effective, and even ethical use. If we don’t, then we really aren’t preparing our kids for today’s world, much less the future.

We aren’t going to AI proof schoolwork.

Do not go quietly

16 years ago, January 28, 2008, I shared a presentation I did in with some SFU student teachers. Here is a clunky version on Slideshare. Here is the post I wrote about it. And here is the video I made out of it for a presentation at BLC 08 in Boston.

Do not go quietly into your classroom! 

The video had close to 100,000 views on BlipTV, which died in 2011… like many of the place I shared that you could find me online at the start of the video. A lot of those links are dead now. But this slideshow and video were pivotal in sharing my transformation as an educator who empowered students with technology. I remember the hours I put into timing the slides with the music, and the the relief of finally thinking it was good enough to share.

A day or two before the original presentation to student teachers, I found out I was going to become a Vice Principal. I was inspired to share the things I’d learned and started another blog, “Practic-All – Pragmatic tools and ideas for the classroom.” Where I shared a weekly series called Dave’s Digital Magic. It only lasted for 19 posts, but it was my way to stay plugged into what was going on in classrooms and to have good learning conversations with some of my staff.

So hard to believe this was 16 years ago… And I’m still exploring the Brave New World Wide Web and sharing what I learn along the way.