What does this mean? That Chris and I don’t swoop in to help them. For example, Luke had a biography report a few weeks ago. He had to read a biography book (on Brett Farve), create a poster about Farve, and present to his class. Luke did 100% of his project. He read his book, he created his poster, he prepared for his presentation. Would it have been more beautiful if I had worked on his poster with him? Would his presentation have been more polished if I created his note cards? Probably. But he worked hard. He was proud of himself. Did he complain? Only a little. He came home with the assignment, asked if I would help, I said I’d proofread the poster once he was done. He looked at me, I said our phrase, and he said ok.
We’ve
done this with Liam too on his 100-day project. I remember seeing these amazing
projects when I was in the lower elementary building and thinking, “There is no
way six year olds created these.” I promised myself then that I would let my
kids struggle – not to the point that they give up but so that they do their
own work. His 100-day project was creating a giant (two poster boards wide)
drawing of Angry Birds. My contribution, cutting out some of the 100 Angry Bird
he printed. He created his world, he copied and pasted the birds, printed off
100 of them, and glued them on.
I’ve been
trying to remember this lesson in the classroom as well. Several of my
students, especially some of my lower students, seem to be ok with sitting back
and waiting for someone to swoop in and help them. They don’t want to work, to
struggle through to find an answer. I don’t teach math but I see this when kids
are working on math and hit a “guess and check” problem. Holy moly, you would
think the world was over. They have to try and try again? Crazy talk!
Or when I
talked to my reading classes about improving our reading. I talked about
achievement gap. I talked about my son, Liam. He was below level in reading
this year at the start of the year. I knew that to improve he would need to
read more. To close a gap we have to do more than what everyone else is doing.
If we all read the same amount, we’re treading water. Liam (in first grade)
read about an hour and ½ a night for the first half of the
year. It wasn’t torture. We’d read what his teachers would send home and our
own books. He and I would read Elephant and Piggie and use different voices.
We’d predict what would happen at the end of the story. You know what? At
Christmas time Liam was caught up to grade level. But too often that isn’t
happening. We, and I mean my students here, don’t want to work harder. Quite
frankly, I often find that my lowest readers are the ones reading the least at
home. See a correlation here?
So I keep
talking. I keep telling them that in this classroom we do hard things. I don’t
think people have found cures to polio, created the iPad, or created the Theory
of Relativity by giving up when things got tough. I talk to them about stepping
outside of their comfort zone. Trying new things. Being creative. Being
adventurous. Think of something in a new way. Going the extra mile. In that
vein I think I will post our motto above our classroom door next year: In
this classroom we do hard things. Might as well be upfront about it. J
And I will also show them this video. Because this is the type of spirit I want
to instill in my students. Go. Try. Be. You’ve got one shot at this glorious
and beautiful life. Make it count.
