Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
To Trip Or Not To Trip
How are your classes coming along? Is there excitement in the air when you're teaching a lesson? Are the kids involved and eager to learn, or are they fading into a stupor with each new word you utter? Do you feel like you've failed by the end of September? Maybe teaching isn't meant for you? Do you go home at night wondering why in the hell you chose this profession?
In all honesty there aren't too many teachers who haven't felt that way from time to time, and usually that time is during the first year of teaching. I don't care how many education classes you take in college; until you stand in front of your first class....your first class....you have no idea what it takes to be a successful teacher. Teaching involves learning as you go. If something isn't working in one of your plans, change it. If your approach isn't working, find a new approach. There is no safety net in teaching. You are walking a tightrope daily and only experience will give you the confidence and flexibility it takes to survive in one of the most challenging careers.
I heard a marvelous speaker about ten years ago, a Father O'Malley from New York. He mentioned that we, as teachers, are in a battle with technology for the attention of our students. We're talking about kids who have access to games online....who have the latest Nintendo games and Ipods and cell phones that allow internet access, and then there is cable tv with hundreds of channels and on and on. What chance do we have as teachers to make school interesting when we are battling the enticements I just mentioned?
That is our greatest challenge as teachers, to make school interesting, to grab the attention of the students and hold that interest long enough for learning to occur. That is why I'm a big fan of field trips. I'm not talking about unlimited field trips because I fully understand the effort that goes into organizing one and I also understand that the hours spent away from the classroom are hours that can't be spent readying for the standardized tests that we are all married to. But what a marvel of learning a field trip can be.
Look around your area and see what is at your disposal. Do you live in Oregon or anywhere along the Oregon Trail? What better way to teach about it than to have the kids actually stand in the wagon tracks and see the conditions the actual settlers experienced. How about geology? Any interesting rock formations in your area? How about a walk through a forest for biology or a trip to the shoreline for science class. The possibilities are endless no matter where you teach and it so much more interesting for the kids than reading about it out of a textbook.
Remember, you are in a battle for the minds of your students. If you don't win that battle then we are all losers.
Bill Holland
In all honesty there aren't too many teachers who haven't felt that way from time to time, and usually that time is during the first year of teaching. I don't care how many education classes you take in college; until you stand in front of your first class....your first class....you have no idea what it takes to be a successful teacher. Teaching involves learning as you go. If something isn't working in one of your plans, change it. If your approach isn't working, find a new approach. There is no safety net in teaching. You are walking a tightrope daily and only experience will give you the confidence and flexibility it takes to survive in one of the most challenging careers.
I heard a marvelous speaker about ten years ago, a Father O'Malley from New York. He mentioned that we, as teachers, are in a battle with technology for the attention of our students. We're talking about kids who have access to games online....who have the latest Nintendo games and Ipods and cell phones that allow internet access, and then there is cable tv with hundreds of channels and on and on. What chance do we have as teachers to make school interesting when we are battling the enticements I just mentioned?
That is our greatest challenge as teachers, to make school interesting, to grab the attention of the students and hold that interest long enough for learning to occur. That is why I'm a big fan of field trips. I'm not talking about unlimited field trips because I fully understand the effort that goes into organizing one and I also understand that the hours spent away from the classroom are hours that can't be spent readying for the standardized tests that we are all married to. But what a marvel of learning a field trip can be.
Look around your area and see what is at your disposal. Do you live in Oregon or anywhere along the Oregon Trail? What better way to teach about it than to have the kids actually stand in the wagon tracks and see the conditions the actual settlers experienced. How about geology? Any interesting rock formations in your area? How about a walk through a forest for biology or a trip to the shoreline for science class. The possibilities are endless no matter where you teach and it so much more interesting for the kids than reading about it out of a textbook.
Remember, you are in a battle for the minds of your students. If you don't win that battle then we are all losers.
Bill Holland
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE!
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You've worked hard during the weekend putting together your plans for the week. On paper everything looks perfect, one day flowing into the next, perfect coordination, a finely-tuned teaching machine. You come to school Monday and discover that there is an unscheduled school assembly which starts fifteen minutes into third period and will end with fifteen minutes remaining in fourth period. Now what do you do? Those wonderfully-crafted plans for third and fourth period just went up in smoke. You can't possibly cover the material you needed to cover in either period and you have no clue what you're going to do. Sound like anything you've had to face in the past?
If you are like me, if your school is anything like the schools I've worked at, that scenario plays out quite a few times during a normal school year. But don't despair! There is a way to make it all work for you; all it takes is a little damage control at the beginning of the year.
Each year I have made it a point to assign a semester assignment for each class I teach. I lay out the requirements, work on setting up the assignment that first week and give the kids my expectations and due date and tell them that they can plan on receiving scheduled and unscheduled class time to work on the project so they had better have their work with them each and every day in case it is needed. This is a perfect solution for those periods that are interrupted, leaving you with fifteen minutes to kill and no chance of starting your plans for the day. Just close your plan book, drop back ten yards and punt, going with the semester project.
And to think, you get this advice for free!
Bill Holland
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You've worked hard during the weekend putting together your plans for the week. On paper everything looks perfect, one day flowing into the next, perfect coordination, a finely-tuned teaching machine. You come to school Monday and discover that there is an unscheduled school assembly which starts fifteen minutes into third period and will end with fifteen minutes remaining in fourth period. Now what do you do? Those wonderfully-crafted plans for third and fourth period just went up in smoke. You can't possibly cover the material you needed to cover in either period and you have no clue what you're going to do. Sound like anything you've had to face in the past?
If you are like me, if your school is anything like the schools I've worked at, that scenario plays out quite a few times during a normal school year. But don't despair! There is a way to make it all work for you; all it takes is a little damage control at the beginning of the year.
Each year I have made it a point to assign a semester assignment for each class I teach. I lay out the requirements, work on setting up the assignment that first week and give the kids my expectations and due date and tell them that they can plan on receiving scheduled and unscheduled class time to work on the project so they had better have their work with them each and every day in case it is needed. This is a perfect solution for those periods that are interrupted, leaving you with fifteen minutes to kill and no chance of starting your plans for the day. Just close your plan book, drop back ten yards and punt, going with the semester project.
And to think, you get this advice for free!
Bill Holland
Monday, September 24, 2007
WHAT TO DO WITH THE BULLIES?
Here is a subject near and dear to my heart. Growing up I was a scrawny, painfully shy kid, just the perfect combination to serve as fodder for the bullies in Tacoma, Washington in the late 1950's. Unfortunately for me my father was a WWII veteran of five campaigns in Italy and he believed you stood and fought your way out of just about any situation in life, so there were many, many days when I would come home from school bruised and leaking blood. And that was at a Catholic school. Thank God I didn't attend a public school in those days; I might not have survived.
The good news is that I did survive; the bad news is that bullying is alive and well in our nation today and I'll be honest with you, I don't think you're going to see the end of it anytime soon. I can't even begin to suggest that I know the reasons for bullying, but of course I'll take a shot at it regardless of my lack of training in the behavioral sciences. I've always believed that bullies act out against others because of a deep-rooted inferiority complex. As long as a bully can make someone else feel inferior then they can climb out of their own pit of inferiority for a little while. The other cause of bullying that I have seen during my years in a classroom is abuse at home, whether that abuse takes the form of physical, mental, emotional or sexual. The abused will inevitably strike out against someone else and that someone else will often be a classmate of smaller stature.
What to do? Since this has been going on probably as long as kids have interracted with other kids, I think it's safe to assume it will continue. The administration at your child's school really is fairly powerless in a bullying situation, at least in the early going. It becomes a matter of he said, she said. If the teacher does not actually see the bullying taking place there is not much that can be done. Sure, the teacher can sit down with the offending student and have a heart to heart, but it's been my experience that those talks only serve to raise the blood pressure of the teacher. Only catching the bully in the act can assure that he/she will be punished and then we are talking about an ineffectual way of dealing with the student. Give a bully time after school for five days and on the sixth that bully will find another helpless victim and release a little frustration. It is inevitable.
I could tell you that most of the families in America need family counseling but why bother. Like that's really going to happen! Nope, here's a case where my dear old dad was pretty right on. Pain is the greatest motivator I know, and a bully feels pain just as much as his victim. Oh, I can hear the screams from the cheap seats right now. In today's society it is politically incorrect to suggest that kids work it out themselves and that it is entirely possible that there might have to be some blood shed in a situation like this, but you know what? There might have to be some blood shed in a situation like this. We just might have to teach our kids that it's alright for them to stand up for themselves.
My son was being bullied in elementary school, which was amazing because he was one of the biggest kids in his class. But he was a mild, gentle child and he simply didn't know what to do when confronted with bullying. One day I pulled him aside and told him that there is nothing more painful than getting hit on the nose. He looked at me like I had told him to commit murder and he also said he would get punished at school for fighting. I calmly pointed out that the punishment at school for fighting was two hours after school and wouldn't that punishment be worth it if he stopped Chad from bullying him? Next day there was Chad pushing my son against his locker; unfortunately for Chad this episode didn't quite work out the way he had planned and within thirty seconds of the push Chad was headed for the office with a bloody nose and my son happily accepted his punishment. I might point out that my son was never bothered by Chad again.
I know for a fact that if the helpless rose up against the bullies then there would no longer be bullies. I'd like to see every school have a Victims Club. They could have a president and a vice-president and at each members only meeting they could discuss recent bullying and what the group is going to do about it. Let me repeat that....what the GROUP is going to do about it. Imagine the beautiful symmetry of it all.....out on the playground during recess, twenty victims of bullying confront the bully responsible for their collective sleepless nights. The Chads still out there on the playgrounds of America would disappear overnight.
Don't try to thank me. Victims of the world, UNITE!
Bill Holland
Here is a subject near and dear to my heart. Growing up I was a scrawny, painfully shy kid, just the perfect combination to serve as fodder for the bullies in Tacoma, Washington in the late 1950's. Unfortunately for me my father was a WWII veteran of five campaigns in Italy and he believed you stood and fought your way out of just about any situation in life, so there were many, many days when I would come home from school bruised and leaking blood. And that was at a Catholic school. Thank God I didn't attend a public school in those days; I might not have survived.
The good news is that I did survive; the bad news is that bullying is alive and well in our nation today and I'll be honest with you, I don't think you're going to see the end of it anytime soon. I can't even begin to suggest that I know the reasons for bullying, but of course I'll take a shot at it regardless of my lack of training in the behavioral sciences. I've always believed that bullies act out against others because of a deep-rooted inferiority complex. As long as a bully can make someone else feel inferior then they can climb out of their own pit of inferiority for a little while. The other cause of bullying that I have seen during my years in a classroom is abuse at home, whether that abuse takes the form of physical, mental, emotional or sexual. The abused will inevitably strike out against someone else and that someone else will often be a classmate of smaller stature.
What to do? Since this has been going on probably as long as kids have interracted with other kids, I think it's safe to assume it will continue. The administration at your child's school really is fairly powerless in a bullying situation, at least in the early going. It becomes a matter of he said, she said. If the teacher does not actually see the bullying taking place there is not much that can be done. Sure, the teacher can sit down with the offending student and have a heart to heart, but it's been my experience that those talks only serve to raise the blood pressure of the teacher. Only catching the bully in the act can assure that he/she will be punished and then we are talking about an ineffectual way of dealing with the student. Give a bully time after school for five days and on the sixth that bully will find another helpless victim and release a little frustration. It is inevitable.
I could tell you that most of the families in America need family counseling but why bother. Like that's really going to happen! Nope, here's a case where my dear old dad was pretty right on. Pain is the greatest motivator I know, and a bully feels pain just as much as his victim. Oh, I can hear the screams from the cheap seats right now. In today's society it is politically incorrect to suggest that kids work it out themselves and that it is entirely possible that there might have to be some blood shed in a situation like this, but you know what? There might have to be some blood shed in a situation like this. We just might have to teach our kids that it's alright for them to stand up for themselves.
My son was being bullied in elementary school, which was amazing because he was one of the biggest kids in his class. But he was a mild, gentle child and he simply didn't know what to do when confronted with bullying. One day I pulled him aside and told him that there is nothing more painful than getting hit on the nose. He looked at me like I had told him to commit murder and he also said he would get punished at school for fighting. I calmly pointed out that the punishment at school for fighting was two hours after school and wouldn't that punishment be worth it if he stopped Chad from bullying him? Next day there was Chad pushing my son against his locker; unfortunately for Chad this episode didn't quite work out the way he had planned and within thirty seconds of the push Chad was headed for the office with a bloody nose and my son happily accepted his punishment. I might point out that my son was never bothered by Chad again.
I know for a fact that if the helpless rose up against the bullies then there would no longer be bullies. I'd like to see every school have a Victims Club. They could have a president and a vice-president and at each members only meeting they could discuss recent bullying and what the group is going to do about it. Let me repeat that....what the GROUP is going to do about it. Imagine the beautiful symmetry of it all.....out on the playground during recess, twenty victims of bullying confront the bully responsible for their collective sleepless nights. The Chads still out there on the playgrounds of America would disappear overnight.
Don't try to thank me. Victims of the world, UNITE!
Bill Holland
Thursday, September 20, 2007
THE ART OF DISCIPLINE
What the hell do we do with little Tommy? He just won't sit still, he constantly talks, he ignores efforts to get him to pay attention and he is a complete distraction for the rest of the class. You have talked to his parents (who are convinced he has ADHD), you've talked to Tommy, you've made him come after school to make up work, you've taken away his privileges and you have sent him to the office for talks with the vice-principal. None of it has worked and quite frankly you are wearing thin and at the end of your proverbial rope.
Sound familiar? Have you ever had little Tommy in your classroom? Or, worse yet, is little Tommy your son? Is there any hope? Is there any way you can get through to this kid before you completely lose what is left of your sanity? The answer is an unqualified and enthusiastic YES! There is hope! Unfortunately for teachers, and especially for new teachers, there has been no training for this situation. All of the theory classes ever taught have not and will not prepare you for the occasional student who simply will not conform to classroom procedure, and it seems like every class has at least one of these students.
So what do you do? I'll tell you what you shouldn't do, and write this down and staple it to your forehead immediately. Do not continue to send Tommy down to the office to be disciplined. Administrators get very tired and very aggravated when they are called upon to do your job, and faster than you can say "Go to the office" there will be a note in your permanent file saying you can't handle classroom discipline.
You most certainly should keep the lines of communication open with the parents but please do not buy in immediately to the ADHD excuse. In many cases it's a convenient way to label and treat a simple case of a kid who just doesn't like school. That brings us to punishment and quite frankly punishment is exhausting, for you, the student being punished and for the class....and it's time consuming. The time spent punishing Tommy is time spent away from teaching the other 24 students, and that's inexcusable.
Discipline requires a ton of pre-game preparation, but if you do it right you'll be amazed how few true discipline problems you have during your next 180 day school year. Read the next sentence very carefully because it may prevent you from buying Tylenol every week for the entire year. DISCIPLINE IS ALL ABOUT RESPECT! I thought about this the other night and I could count on one hand the number of students in seventeen years that I considered true discipline problems who I couldn't handle. One was being sexually abused by her father, two were twins who had been through three divorces in ten years and one was raised by a mother who was an active drug addict. Those four kids, God bless them, simply did not fit any mold and were in desparate need of professional help which I could not provide them. By the way, the girl eventually committed suicide, the twins are both in Walla Walla Penetentiary and the boy is now a drug addict himself. There are some we simply can't save in the classroom; they will haunt us until the day we die but we can't save them. Too much damage was done before they ever entered our classroom and that is just the sad reality.
Mutual respect is the key. The students under your care must know that you respect them as human beings and you care about their lives outside the classroom. In return you will find that if the student respects you they will have a tendency to behave in your classroom. Sounds terribly simplistic....but it's true. I have always made it a part of my job to walk the playground during recesses so I could talk to the kids outside of the classroom. I have always tried to attend their extra-curricular activities and a related note is that I've always tried to coach sports at every school I've taught at. There is something about being a part of the athletic department; it's a special clique that allows you to relate to kids outside of the classroom and be a part of their lives during recreation times, and students show amazing respect to someone who controls whether they are going to play in a game or not. Finally, I have always tried to attend student functions outside of the school arena....piano recitals at their church, ballet performances at the local civic center....whatever. The point is that students NEED to see that the teacher is more than just the delivery person of facts and figures. Teaching in a classroom needs to be more than just a lecture and a homework assignment. Teaching in a classroom should be a demonstration that there is a genuine concern for the student, that you care about them not only as students but as human beings as well. Teaching should not be just about a paycheck but also about the difference you can make in a child's life.
Believe me, if you do the pre-game preparations, if you show students that you care about them outside of the classroom, if you go the extra mile and show kids that you love them, then most of your classroom discipline problems will vanish.
Try it! What have you go to lose?
Bill Holland
What the hell do we do with little Tommy? He just won't sit still, he constantly talks, he ignores efforts to get him to pay attention and he is a complete distraction for the rest of the class. You have talked to his parents (who are convinced he has ADHD), you've talked to Tommy, you've made him come after school to make up work, you've taken away his privileges and you have sent him to the office for talks with the vice-principal. None of it has worked and quite frankly you are wearing thin and at the end of your proverbial rope.
Sound familiar? Have you ever had little Tommy in your classroom? Or, worse yet, is little Tommy your son? Is there any hope? Is there any way you can get through to this kid before you completely lose what is left of your sanity? The answer is an unqualified and enthusiastic YES! There is hope! Unfortunately for teachers, and especially for new teachers, there has been no training for this situation. All of the theory classes ever taught have not and will not prepare you for the occasional student who simply will not conform to classroom procedure, and it seems like every class has at least one of these students.
So what do you do? I'll tell you what you shouldn't do, and write this down and staple it to your forehead immediately. Do not continue to send Tommy down to the office to be disciplined. Administrators get very tired and very aggravated when they are called upon to do your job, and faster than you can say "Go to the office" there will be a note in your permanent file saying you can't handle classroom discipline.
You most certainly should keep the lines of communication open with the parents but please do not buy in immediately to the ADHD excuse. In many cases it's a convenient way to label and treat a simple case of a kid who just doesn't like school. That brings us to punishment and quite frankly punishment is exhausting, for you, the student being punished and for the class....and it's time consuming. The time spent punishing Tommy is time spent away from teaching the other 24 students, and that's inexcusable.
Discipline requires a ton of pre-game preparation, but if you do it right you'll be amazed how few true discipline problems you have during your next 180 day school year. Read the next sentence very carefully because it may prevent you from buying Tylenol every week for the entire year. DISCIPLINE IS ALL ABOUT RESPECT! I thought about this the other night and I could count on one hand the number of students in seventeen years that I considered true discipline problems who I couldn't handle. One was being sexually abused by her father, two were twins who had been through three divorces in ten years and one was raised by a mother who was an active drug addict. Those four kids, God bless them, simply did not fit any mold and were in desparate need of professional help which I could not provide them. By the way, the girl eventually committed suicide, the twins are both in Walla Walla Penetentiary and the boy is now a drug addict himself. There are some we simply can't save in the classroom; they will haunt us until the day we die but we can't save them. Too much damage was done before they ever entered our classroom and that is just the sad reality.
Mutual respect is the key. The students under your care must know that you respect them as human beings and you care about their lives outside the classroom. In return you will find that if the student respects you they will have a tendency to behave in your classroom. Sounds terribly simplistic....but it's true. I have always made it a part of my job to walk the playground during recesses so I could talk to the kids outside of the classroom. I have always tried to attend their extra-curricular activities and a related note is that I've always tried to coach sports at every school I've taught at. There is something about being a part of the athletic department; it's a special clique that allows you to relate to kids outside of the classroom and be a part of their lives during recreation times, and students show amazing respect to someone who controls whether they are going to play in a game or not. Finally, I have always tried to attend student functions outside of the school arena....piano recitals at their church, ballet performances at the local civic center....whatever. The point is that students NEED to see that the teacher is more than just the delivery person of facts and figures. Teaching in a classroom needs to be more than just a lecture and a homework assignment. Teaching in a classroom should be a demonstration that there is a genuine concern for the student, that you care about them not only as students but as human beings as well. Teaching should not be just about a paycheck but also about the difference you can make in a child's life.
Believe me, if you do the pre-game preparations, if you show students that you care about them outside of the classroom, if you go the extra mile and show kids that you love them, then most of your classroom discipline problems will vanish.
Try it! What have you go to lose?
Bill Holland
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
THE STATE OF THE UNION
American education is in trouble. Everyone knows it; it's been a topic of conversation for decades now and yet here we are in the year 2007 and still the system remains broken. Why is that? Why can't we solve this crucial problem? The reasons are numerous and unfortunately there is no easy fix, no one step solution for righting the wrongs.
Having said that, I'm going to toss out some ideas for you to consider. I've been in the trenches of education for seventeen years and I believe that, at the very least, qualifies me to have an opinion, and hopefully an educated opinion. Forgive the pun, I can't help myself sometimes.
Over the years I've taught grades 6-12 in subjects ranging from social studies to math to earth science to physical education. I've seen the brightest of the bright and I've seen the....well, not so bright. I've seen school systems with money to burn and I've seen school systems using textbooks that were twenty years old. I've seen dedicated teachers quit in frustration and I've seen lazy teacher-imposters going through the motions to get to retirement. I've taught at a school in rural Alaska where education wasn't even valued and I've taught for private schools where test scores went off the scale. I've laughed and cried and fought the battles and enjoyed the successes and I tell you this: The system is broken and we need to find a way to fix it soon because let's face it, our children are our most valuable resource and they are being tossed about in a turbulent storm of indecision and poor judgement.
Tomorrow I'm going to begin a series of blogs discussing the training of American teachers and what I think is drastically wrong with the process. I invite you to comment....hell, I beg you to comment. I'm not afraid of criticism. What scares the hell out of me is complacency.
See you tomorrow!
Bill Holland
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