Exactly two months ago, I started writing this blog post. Here's what I wrote.
At what point are good intentions not enough? I've had this conversation with several students as of late. You can be apologetic and have all the good intentions in the world, but at some point, the behavior needs to change.
What about me? Classroom management is a huge struggle for me, but I always look for the positives. I'm doing better this year than my first, second, and third years of teaching. I had a really serious last-chance conversation with a student this year that I would never have had the guts or the words to have before this year. I've been way better about enforcing assigned seats. I don't make a lot of threats regarding consequences or punishments for poor behavior, but when I do, I always follow through.
I fully intend to be stricter when it comes to encouraging and demanding good behavior, but at what point are my good intentions not enough? My classes are still super chatty. I still have kids who are rude and disrespectful - towards me and their classmates. I still give kids too many chances. The "good kids" are still frustrated by the interruptions from their classmates and my apparent inability to stop them, and I'd venture a guess that the disruptive classmates are also frustrated.
I do everything I can to keep kids in class even when they're misbehaving. But why? I could say that it's because it only makes it harder for the kid when they miss instruction. Or that it's because I want to be understanding when a kid's having a bad day...or week...or... And while there's probably some truth to all that, I think the real reason I keep kids in class even when they're misbehaving is that I'm afraid of how it will look if I keep sending kids to the office. As if keeping kids in class is a sign that the problems must not be that bad.
And that's not fair to anyone. It's not fair to the misbehaving students who need those boundaries. It's not fair to the rest of the class whose learning is interrupted. It's not fair to me and my sanity. I need to hold my students to higher standards behaviorally. I need to have higher expectations for them because I know they will meet them. The average middle schooler is probably not looking to go above and beyond, but most kids will do at least enough to get by. So I better make the qualifications for "getting by" a lot more rigorous.
It felt negative and pessimistic and I didn't want to publish it. To me, it felt more like complaining than a reflection where I was seeking a better solution. Around the same time I wrote the original post here, I gave my students a Teacher Report Card and blogged about the early results. I gave students until the end of the quarter to respond, so it was only a couple of weeks ago that I got some of their final responses. I've been using our vacation week this week to really dig into their feedback and make a plan for when we return to school. Although Christmas break was only two months ago, and we've had snow days and holidays in between, I could not be more grateful for the time this week to refresh and reset!
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Strimko Puzzle Review
Right around Christmastime I was contacted on Twitter with the opportunity to review Strimko Book 1. After hearing about many other people using these puzzles, I was very excited to try them out myself! Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Strimko Book 1 in exchange for my unbiased review.
"I like these better than our regular Do Now's."
It's halfway through the year and I still find myself reminding students to get started on the warm-up when they come into class. Not with Strimko! Students were much more likely to actually work on the warm-up when I gave them these puzzles to solve instead of the regular Do Now (I blogged about the format I usually use here).
"I finished the whole page. Do you have more?"
When used as the warm-up, I gave my students a week's worth of puzzles copied onto one page. I told my students we would be solving two each day in the first 5-10 minutes of class. Some students really struggled to finish two puzzles, while other students would work ahead and finish the entire page. Then instead of just sitting and waiting or talking to their neighbor, they would ask for more puzzles! And these weren't only the typical overachieving students. Students who were typically less engaged were finding success with these puzzles and were asking for more!
"Can you check this? Oh, wait. It's wrong."
This was probably my most favorite comment to hear. As a teacher, I get asked so many times if an answer is correct, and I usually respond with, "How could you check your answer?" or "That seems reasonable, what did you do to get that answer?" or "You're right, that seems off. Tell me how you got that answer." It was a welcome change to see students checking their own work (or a classmate's) without prompting. Again, I think the simplicity of the Strimko rules led to this kind of independence.
One day instead of solving the puzzles, I asked my students to write about the rules and strategies for solving Strimko puzzles. Here are some of the things they said:
Overall, these puzzles were definitely a win in my classroom! And not just my classroom. I have to stop myself from writing in the book at home before I've made a copy of the page to use with my students! I am very grateful to the Grabarchuk family for the free copy of this puzzle book. Definitely recommended!
At first glance, Strimko appears to be similar to other number puzzles like Sudoku. As you fill in the missing numbers, you must not repeat numbers in any row or column. While Sudoku then has 3x3 grids where numbers cannot repeat, Strimko has streams. Numbers connected by lines to form a stream cannot repeat within the stream. For a 4x4 Strimko puzzle, you use the numbers 1-4. For a 5x5 puzzles, you use the numbers 1-5, etc. The simplicity of this puzzle made it quite easy for me to explain to my students. Let me repeat that. This puzzle's rules are simple enough to explain just once to my students! That means the challenge was really in solving the puzzle, not in understanding the rules of how to solve the puzzle.
Since receiving the book two months ago, I have used these puzzles several times with my students as a warm-up or time-filler for students who finish classwork early. Here are some of the most common comments from my students:
"I like these better than our regular Do Now's."
"I finished the whole page. Do you have more?"
"Can you check this? Oh, wait. It's wrong."
"I like these better than our regular Do Now's."
It's halfway through the year and I still find myself reminding students to get started on the warm-up when they come into class. Not with Strimko! Students were much more likely to actually work on the warm-up when I gave them these puzzles to solve instead of the regular Do Now (I blogged about the format I usually use here).
"I finished the whole page. Do you have more?"
When used as the warm-up, I gave my students a week's worth of puzzles copied onto one page. I told my students we would be solving two each day in the first 5-10 minutes of class. Some students really struggled to finish two puzzles, while other students would work ahead and finish the entire page. Then instead of just sitting and waiting or talking to their neighbor, they would ask for more puzzles! And these weren't only the typical overachieving students. Students who were typically less engaged were finding success with these puzzles and were asking for more!
"Can you check this? Oh, wait. It's wrong."
This was probably my most favorite comment to hear. As a teacher, I get asked so many times if an answer is correct, and I usually respond with, "How could you check your answer?" or "That seems reasonable, what did you do to get that answer?" or "You're right, that seems off. Tell me how you got that answer." It was a welcome change to see students checking their own work (or a classmate's) without prompting. Again, I think the simplicity of the Strimko rules led to this kind of independence.
One day instead of solving the puzzles, I asked my students to write about the rules and strategies for solving Strimko puzzles. Here are some of the things they said:
Overall, these puzzles were definitely a win in my classroom! And not just my classroom. I have to stop myself from writing in the book at home before I've made a copy of the page to use with my students! I am very grateful to the Grabarchuk family for the free copy of this puzzle book. Definitely recommended!
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