Tag Archives: CharacterEd

ALC Revisited

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It is now nearing the end of November, and I believe I have made a small impact on the lives of a few students here in the Alternative Learning Center.

I’ve only had a few referrals sent to me for behavioral reconstruction: drug use, fighting, insubordination.  And with each of these cases, no matter why they come to me, the main focus is to keep them up-to-speed with their academic work so that when they get back into the classroom, it’s like they never left.

We also spend about a period or 2 a day talking about real-life discussions, usually based around why they might be in my room in the first place.  This is our Character Education time.  For example, with the students that made bad decisions regarding drugs, I found some (corny) videos about teen drug use on Discovery Streaming.  Corny as they may have been, it gave us great discussion points.  There was a part in the video that talked about parents who use drugs, and how it effects their children.  I told them as we started that section that I was not playing it because I thought badly of their parents.  I was playing it because with the teen pregnancy rate on the rise, odds are they’ll be parents before long, and need to consider it from the parent’s point of view, bringing in a whole new discussion topic.

There are also people that get referred to me for academic reasons.  I see several students for help in preparing for the January New York State Regents.  They’ve struck deals with the principal and the teacher for credit recovery (I failed a class, instead of taking it again, I’ll get a crash-course in what I need to pass the Regents, and move on to other things come Spring).  Those are students that I am scheduled to see on a regular basis.  Then there are the students who I get a head’s up about from their teachers, saying that they’re on the verge of failing, and maybe they just need some extra support.  I usually have to hunt those students down in their study halls, because 80% of the time, the students that need help don’t want to ask for it.  Our school also puts out a weekly list of who is failing what classes, and how many.  I have made it my goal to focus on students that are failing 3 or more subjects to help to shorten this list.  Of course, sometimes my schedule is a little full to put my full attention on this dire task.

In all of these situations in which I’m seeing students, first and foremost I try to show them that I care.  Many of the students that come to me have lost hope long ago.  They cannot see the light at the end of the high school tunnel.  Sometimes they need help realizing that the “real-world” will be here before you know it, and there’s at least one person in this world (this school?)  that cares how you enter it.  Sometimes, that can make all the difference.

A new look at Classroom Management

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Yesterday, my school had the opportunity to listen to Brian Mendler speak.  It was refreshing, to have a professional development speaker that moved around, and didn’t rely on his powerpoint, and didn’t read to us; that engaged us and made us feel valued, and motivated us.  Well, me at least.

Something that students appreciate from teachers is their honesty.  Brian Mendler showed us that yesterday.  He honestly told us about real situations, his real story.  He honestly told us about how teachers are perceived from students, and we all laughed – because it was true!  And you could tell the nerves he was hitting by the people how were uncomfortably laughing versus people who were out-rightly laughing.  He talked about teachers that were rigid and policies set in stone, and people who got caught in power struggles.  And then he talked about strategies to do instead of the rigid ones that we all learned from our own teachers.

He talked about empowering the students.  Students rarely get a chance to have power, but they will try to get it whether you give it to them or not.  They can either fight for it, or you can give it to them.  And it doesn’t have to be an “I give up” form of teaching (which I’ve also seen in classrooms).  It’s giving students power in a constructive way.  Let them omit a question on the test and replace it with one that they really know the answer to.  Let them ham it up in front of the class for 3 minutes to start the ball rolling (instead of them hamming it up during your lesson).  Talk with them individually – it doesn’t have to be a conversation, you could be giving them positive (or negative) feedback in their ear for only them to hear.  But, make sure you equally give positive feedback to cancel out the negative.

He talked about keeping the kids in the classroom as long as possible.  Now there are some veteran teachers that cringe at this.  But let me explain why it’s important.  Students know that if they bug you enough, you’ll kick them out of their class.  It’s not a punishment for them if you kick them out of math.  And when they inevitably come back, you’ve got an even bigger problem than you started with.  They have all the power and they got it the wrong way.  And you let them have it that way.  So how do you diffuse the situation?  Humor.  So they call you names.  You can take it, you’re the adult, remember?  What do you tell your kids to do in a fight situation?  Walk away.  Try it.  Let them have the last word.  They need it to save face to their friends, and they will have the last word if it’s the last thing they do in your class.

He talked about Multiple Intelligences learning, indirectly – using the gym for teaching graphing, singing songs to learn content in any area, working in groups to work on inter- and intrapersonal personalities.

We shared strategies with each other, and practiced some of the ones he discussed:  4-2-1, group work with roles (leader, writer, presenter, etc.), music stands, green-yellow-red cups, carpet squares – the list goes on forever.

It was refreshing to get back to an idea of teaching because we’re passionate about it, not just because we have to.  I don’t want to be the kind of teacher that counts down the days, months, and even years to retirement.  And I don’t want my kids to have those kinds of teachers either.

One week until the children get here…

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This year I’ll be working in the High School in a new position: Alternative Learning Center.  Lots of thoughts floating around my head, one of which being this new video talking about Praise and it’s negativity on children.  This is a bit difficult for us to hear, because (I don’t know about you) I was taught that stickers and tickets and other extrinsic things will work every time.  I was encouraged to try some intrinsic motivations, but never got too many examples of that.

While this is true, extrinsic motivators will work, we as teachers need to think about what they will work toward.  Are the motivators working to make our students better people, better thinkers, brighten their future?  Or are the motivators simply conditioning them into little zombies that know how we like things done in the classroom?  And, naturally, there will be some kids that don’t want to be little zombies and could care less about the stickers and prize-box items, etc.

This video gives a few examples from the HighScope curriculum.  It’s based on early childhood education, but I think it is very much applicable to the high school level as well.

Apples Video Magazine: “Stuck on Stickers? Stop!”

Some positive things about this video points out that asking kids questions and encouraging them gets them thinking, which is huge!