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Engaging Environments, Please!
45 Plays3 years ago
During this discussion, Abbie and Robert review Tyrone Thompson Elementary School's "Rock Your School" Day and discuss fun, engaging environments. The banter includes talk about why some admin / teachers are boring and why some are fun. They also throw in some easy ideas to engage students. Join administrator Robert Hinchliffe and teacher Abigail Peterson as they examine different educational topics from various points of view. Take the challenge of looking at a topic from another side and see if your opinion may change. In the end, no matter what side you are on, it’s all about perspective. What’s yours?
In this episode, the hosts discuss:
- Thompson ES and the fun from the past week.
- Why are some teachers so boring and not willing to try to find ways to engage students?
- Why do school districts or principals want to control the environment so much?
- If you are growing students, why does admin care how you do it?
- What are some easy engagement strategies you can use today?
Connect with Abbie and Robert
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ItsAllAboutPerspective2021
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Its-All-About-Perspective-102961565105781
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsAllAboutPer2
Abbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindergarten_chaos/’
Robert on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pryncypalwithay/
Robert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertHCCS
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Transcript
Introduction & November Challenges
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome back to It's All About Perspective. I'm Abigail Peterson, my co-host. I am Robert Henscliffe. I'm the principal at Tyrone Thompson Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we are glad to be back. Yes, here we are. We're heading into
00:00:34
Speaker
No school November, as we like to call it. We know that there's a lot of things that happened during November. I was actually talking to my sister a little bit about that and the different things that come up in November, so there's a lot of days off.
00:00:50
Speaker
lot of obstacles and challenges. You have Halloween at the end, the beginning of November, the end of October, beginning of November, but that kind of sets the tone. And then you've got Thanksgiving in there and other random holidays. So what's on your mind this week, Robert?
Making School Fun: Rock Your School Day
00:01:06
Speaker
Well, I was thinking about we hosted Rock Your School Day. We were national hosts for Get Your Teach On for Rock Your School Day. And it was awesome. I mean, it was it was phenomenal. And the staff was amazing. Everybody bought into it. But the news was there as well. And they were asking me kind of what's the bottom line for why we do this?
00:01:30
Speaker
And I say, you know, ultimately I think in elementary school, it's our job to make students love coming to school. It's our job to make school fun. If you can make kids love school, then they will come and they'll be more likely to learn and basically have a positive experience about it. And I also think that as a principal, it's my job
00:01:56
Speaker
to basically create an environment where teachers love their job and love coming as well.
Engaging Environments: Freedom & Creativity
00:02:03
Speaker
So it's kind of the whole idea, like Richard Branson, the guy that owns Virgin Airlines said, if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients. So kind of encompassing all of that last week with Rock Your School, where we create this amazing environment at school and the teachers have the freedom to make these amazing environments. I just can't help but wonder,
00:02:26
Speaker
why some principals struggle making an environment or create an environment where teachers love to come. I think ultimately it comes down to control. I can't control people if I give them freedom to be creative, but I don't understand why. And so I was thinking, well, let's talk about it because as a teacher, you control your room.
00:02:54
Speaker
you can choose to have a room like Ben Stein where you're basically like Bueller, Bueller, or Abby, you can have one like yours where it's ultra engaging and there's lots of things going on. So why do people choose the unfun, for lack of a better word, environments? Like you've seen student teachers, you watch student teachers, you're in classrooms, there's some rooms that are not fun or you can think of people.
00:03:22
Speaker
Why is that? I just don't understand why you want to have as much fun as possible. First and foremost, we have to say that fun is subjective. Fun is subjective because some people feel like fun is a gloomy, cloudy day and curled up reading a book by themselves. And some people feel like fun is out dancing in the rain with all their friends and drinking hot cocoa.
00:03:47
Speaker
So fun is subjective. So that first and foremost, you know, what's fun to an extrovert is not fun to an introvert. We can agree on that. That's a fair point. And so I think, you know, what, what I consider fun and what you consider fun and what my friend considers fun, we're going to get three different opinions, but I'd like to kind of backtrack a little bit and say, for instance,
Cost-Effective Engagement Strategies
00:04:12
Speaker
Rock your school day. Let's break it down for just a minute. I'm going to extrapolate, get your teach on, and the term rock your school day. Let's just talk about this ultra engaging day that's focused. Everybody is committed. How much did that cost?
00:04:33
Speaker
It did not cost that much honestly. I, the school, not I, I support it fully. So therefore, I will help buy instructional supplies and things of that nature. It costs time. Okay. It's a lot of time. Okay, but let's stop right there. We're gonna take this a little bit at a time. All right. We're gonna break it down. Go ahead. Okay.
00:04:56
Speaker
You are the principal who is willing to take your budget and purchase things to create this ultra.
00:05:04
Speaker
fun day. Not all principals want to use their funds to purchase items, whether they're going to be reused or not for this specific day. Okay. And that's part of it is I don't understand. Now, if you take out, okay, let's just say, let's just take rocket school day out of it. Why would an admin or teachers not want to find ways that are ultra engaging to the students and the teachers?
00:05:35
Speaker
I think a lot of it comes down to, we have standards to teach, we have skills to teach, we have things to do, and everything cannot be a production.
00:05:49
Speaker
Everything cannot be a big day. And as somebody who has participated in Rock Your School Day and has done room transformations, it's a lot of work. And you've even said so yourself. Let's take out the money now.
00:06:07
Speaker
And let's say you do everything with butcher paper and donated supplies, which could be done. It's a lot of time. And for somebody like me who has older kids and who has a more flexible schedule, so to speak, I might be willing to spend hours at school. But if you have a new mom who has a new baby at home,
00:06:31
Speaker
I think that's a lot to ask for, maybe for one time she would be willing to do it, but I think that on an ongoing basis, I think that's a little unfair to expect, well, you're supposed to do it for the engagement of your kids or to make school fun. So I think going back, you have the money issue and then you have the time issue. And making things ultra engaging all the time
00:06:57
Speaker
takes time, sometimes it takes money, and it takes a lot of extra effort. Now, once you have been in a grade level, for instance, myself, who is in kindergarten and I am masked,
00:07:11
Speaker
a collection of things with my own funds or with the help of the school. And I was able to have things on hand. It was easier, but not everybody has that luxury. Not everybody has that luxury of being in the same grade level or being that invested within themselves to want to build that. So I think you made some good points.
00:07:38
Speaker
The one point that just stuck out to me is you said not everybody is as invested in that. I think that's a lot of our problem. And today, I'm gonna make some teachers mad, but of course this is my perspective.
00:07:50
Speaker
is that we are happy with mediocrity in a lot of way. You say, well, they're not invested in it. There's a lot of ways to make your room engaging. You don't have to spend time. There's some teachers that did not spend any more than the day there. They use their prep wisely. They use their morning wisely.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yes, some teachers did stay there till late. That was their choice. The ones that didn't, they stayed the time they could. They put their time in. That was it. They can still find ways to make engaging also.
00:08:26
Speaker
So again, it kind of depends. You're saying basically some people can put the time in, some people can't, but I'm saying some people don't want to put the effort in to find ways to be engaging. There's simple ways. I mean, there's people that won't even play music when their kids walk in the door.
00:08:47
Speaker
Okay. I mean, there's, there's ways and I don't understand why people would do that. Okay. Devil's advocate. Not everybody enjoys music. Not everybody enjoys music. And you can say, you can say, no, that's not true, but that is true. I mean, some people, like I said, I am an introvert's worst nightmare because I am loud and I am chaotic.
00:09:11
Speaker
I love to sing and I love to dance. I've had people actually message me on Instagram, not message me, I should say comments, publicly comment and say, it was recently within the last three or four months, I did some singing song chants that you could do in the classroom. I had somebody leave me a public comment that said, this is my worst nightmare.
00:09:39
Speaker
So again, it's very subjective to what we think is fun and what we think is engaging. I like the way this is segueing. Let's talk about some ways to be engaging, Robert.
00:09:53
Speaker
that are very low prep and, but still, but still make an impact.
Teacher Autonomy & Trust
00:10:00
Speaker
Okay. How about writing on tables and writing on desks, which are my race markers? Absolutely. Almost zero cost. And, and the best thing, here's the thing. If you're a teacher,
00:10:14
Speaker
let them write on the desks, let them write on the tables, then give them a baby wipe and have them wipe it off. It's not a big deal. And for any principal, those are the kind of things I don't understand about principals. I agree with you. Because that is something that the kids love.
00:10:30
Speaker
And it can be effective. And they are like, wow, I get to use a dry erase marker on my table, on the desk. Now they're making furniture. I saw a school recently in Las Vegas that did a room makeover where they provided a first grade teacher with all desks and tables that had dry erase tops. Now, if that isn't, I mean, make you want to do it, you should. And it costs, like I said, zero dollars and it's engaging.
00:10:59
Speaker
That's what I'm saying is why would admin or a teacher not want to do something like that? Why would a dry erase marker on a table be bad in the eyes of a teacher, especially someone who's trying to get kids to learn to write?
00:11:16
Speaker
I, well, okay, devil's advocate, a teacher might say, well, it's going to lead to vandalism. It's going to lead. Well, that's classroom management. Exactly. Exactly. And that's how I would respond to that is as long as you as you tell your students what your expectations and your rules and your procedures are for using a dry erase marker on the top. I
00:11:36
Speaker
I allowed it, but there were things that happened in the classroom. They're kids. Everything is not always gonna go exactly. Every kid is not gonna follow the rules to a T, even if you give every single rule and procedure and a consequence to go with it. So there's gonna be discrepancies no matter what, but I don't think that's a reason for us not to do it. I am different as you know. Anybody that listens though, I am different.
00:12:03
Speaker
I am more of the Ron Clark mentality. Anybody that's seen the Ron Clark movie, he goes in and he goes to work in Harlem and he finds these kids hate school and he tries things and tries things and tries things to get them engaged in school and what ends up working. Him drinking chocolate milk until he pukes in the garbage can.
00:12:28
Speaker
Abby, I don't, I'm not saying take it to that extreme, but why do educators not, why do they expect kids?
00:12:36
Speaker
to do it their way and they won't find a way. Does that make sense what I'm trying to say? If you are not engaging and your kids are misbehaving, let's go back. If your kids are misbehaving, 98% of the time it's because you are not engaging or meeting them at their level. So why wouldn't you want to find a way to engage them if you're a teacher or an admin
00:13:03
Speaker
rather than expecting them to basically follow your way. So if you were more of the Ron Clark model, kind of like I am, where you were going to find a way to engage kids no matter what. For example, he went into Harlem and was teaching kids, and he could not find a way to engage them. And it literally took him figuring out that if I drink chocolate milk every time you give me your right answer until I puke in the garbage can,
00:13:32
Speaker
If that's what it takes to get those kids engaged, that's what he was willing to do. Why aren't teachers willing to do something that will help kids engage in lessons rather than providing this environment where kids don't want to be there or are not engaged in what you're doing?
00:13:51
Speaker
I think we have probably at least 10 episodes over the last two years where we have talked about this and we've explained why they don't. There's teacher burnout, there's tons of paperwork, there's lots of stipulations. So as I said, let's talk about the things that, let's give teacher suggestions and ideas. This is the one thing that I am starting to actually share on my Instagram and I'm actually starting to share on TikTok and be more
00:14:19
Speaker
let's say proactive about is all right let's stop saying like okay well why aren't they well let's give them ideas right because if you give them ideas whatever they do with the whatever they do with it is up to them but they can't say well we didn't know which goes back to my favorite saying you can ever consequence a student that didn't know their expectation right yeah so same with teachers so we have
00:14:40
Speaker
You can write on on your dry erase. I'm sorry. You can write on your tables or your desks. That's one way Okay, how about let's talk about going outside Robert? What are some ideas that you can do going outside of the classroom? So you can go outside There's so many things on the playground you have tons of squares you have tons of circles I'm intermediate based so I'm thinking okay. Well we can talk about degrees we can go and do our multiplication chart out there in chalk and
00:15:06
Speaker
There's just ways to get outside and do that. Absolutely. We know teachers, if you are a teacher, take them outside, especially when it's nice outside. We live in Las Vegas, so we generally have about eight months of amazing weather and four months of either super hot or one month of really cold, windy weather.
Simple Engagement Activities
00:15:25
Speaker
But the rest of the time is pretty bearable and we're able to be outside. But taking your kids outside to
00:15:32
Speaker
do their writing block or to do reading, it's a change of environment. One thing you know about kids and one thing I know even about the brain in general is changing up the environment or changing up the modality is the cheapest and easiest way to provide engagement.
00:15:56
Speaker
So I share in one of my professional development courses that I talk about when it comes to writing, the best way to engage little learners in writing is by giving them a variety of writing tools. Give them pencils that are, there's Ticonderoga sparkle pencils, holographic pencils. Just by giving them those special magic pencils, all of a sudden they want to do it.
00:16:20
Speaker
I have an idea, so this is probably more intermediate, but I know you can do it. If you have a student who's extremely ADHD, give them a drum, and every time you say a certain word or something they agree with, have them beat the drum.
00:16:36
Speaker
it engages them in listening and they can only hit that drum when they hear something they agree with or a word that they should know or something of that nature. It gives them an outlet rather than sitting there like where they can't hardly move, boom, I can listen out of Ms. Peterson and every time she says the word product, I'm gonna play the drum. Every time a student says something I agree with, I get to play the drum.
00:17:00
Speaker
something simple that will get your students who cannot sit still engaged. There's also things like squishy balls or things that go around the chair, the legs of your chair that you can bang your legs against. So let's, what about, I saw a lesson the other day in a fourth grade classroom where all the teacher did was pass around a microphone.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so as the students got a chance to respond, she gave them a microphone. It was very simple. It was the school microphone. Now there are fancy microphones out there. I had one of those for my classroom too that has voice changers and you can hook it up to your Bluetooth, yada, yada, yada. That's great. But say you don't want to spend the money or you don't have the money to spend or your school doesn't allow that. Use your
00:17:47
Speaker
current microphone that you have in your classroom. All Clark County School District classrooms have microphones and systems. So pass around that microphone and you will be amazed because everybody wants to use a microphone, most everybody. So that's something that's very simple that you can use. Another thing that I love, this can be done K through five, is any type of activity that's like a write the room or read the room
00:18:13
Speaker
Use duct tape. Use duct tape. Actually, I take that back. Use painter's tape because painter's tape comes off a little bit easier. Thank you. Use painter's tape. You could put it on the carpet. It comes up easy. You don't have to leave it there for all school year. You could leave it there for the day or you could leave it there for the week, but you could do multiplication on there. You could do vocabulary words on there.
00:18:36
Speaker
Give students a clipboard, have them walk around. You are going to provide engagement. Very simple, low prep, but engaging activities that students are going to be invested into the lesson because you have done something different than just set and get. Something that I love, this is my personal thing. There's some teachers at Thompson do this really well.
00:18:58
Speaker
There are all kinds of chants and I know some people don't like it. There's all kinds of songs on YouTube that you can use that will teach you dividing decimals or how to multiply. If you can connect things to music for kids, when they're taking their assessment, they will think dividing decimals and they'll sing the song and it gets them right through it. I don't understand why more people don't use music personally.
00:19:25
Speaker
I'm a huge advocate for music. I think that music is the great equalizer. It really does bring English language learners and native speakers. It brings everybody together because we all have
00:19:40
Speaker
Most of us have that love for music. Not all of us love. I want to dance with somebody, although I do. But when it comes to music and rhythm, I think that it actually teaches... I had a compliment from our old music teacher.
00:19:57
Speaker
She told me, she said, I can tell you sing with your kids a lot. She said, because they, when they come in here, she said they're able to like come together and be on, you know, be on beat. And she's like, I can just tell that you, you sing in the classroom. And that was a great compliment to me, not because I was teaching them to sing because I wasn't, but I had just incorporated that so that they were able to have rhythm and they were able to have, you know, so singing is definitely chanting.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think two movements. So like if you had something in primary now, if you're talking about sentences, and you're doing capitals of periods, and you get to the end, and you you make this like a sound every time you see a period to stop, just add some sound or some hand movements in there. Another thing too, that I see a lot of people do is when someone has the floor, they will they will clap. For example, I call on Abby, and then I say,
00:20:56
Speaker
Everyone look at Abby eyes on Abby right something like that just gets ever and then you can see who is not paying attention Not engaged and then you got to find a way. There's a there's a million I mean when I started teaching we didn't have all this stuff and now you've got Instagram and we talked about that right so it goes back to my thing though, I don't understand why everyone can't find something because I think because I think
00:21:24
Speaker
I think honestly what it comes down to is you have one extreme or the other and people have a hard time finding a balance between the boat in between the two of them. So we have Thompson Elementary over here who's on the news who does this.
00:21:40
Speaker
amazing Rock Your School Day. Their school is, I saw your videos Robert, they're amazing. There's balloon arches. Everybody's in costume. Everybody is invested. Everybody is singing. Every room has these amazing games and these activities and engagement galore. You have this and then you have on the other spectrum, you have Edison type schools who are there say, we are here to meet the data.
00:22:07
Speaker
We are here for one goal and one purpose. And until everybody achieves those goals, we are not to do anything else. So you have teachers from both spectrums. Now I will say, let me give an observation that I've made.
00:22:24
Speaker
I have been in this district since 2006. And one thing that I've noticed is teachers that came from an Edison type school or a very data driven school, you and I have worked with them.
00:22:39
Speaker
You have worked in a lot of different schools, so you have seen all different types of teachers and their backgrounds. But teachers who come from a background of content and teaching and standards and very data-driven, sometimes it's harder for them to adapt to more creativity and thinking outside the box, outside of the box curriculum. But they definitely have that
00:23:10
Speaker
foundation for teaching. On the other hand, I have seen brand new teachers come into environments
00:23:18
Speaker
um, such as Thompson,
Balancing Creativity with Academic Standards
00:23:20
Speaker
where a lot of engagement is encouraged and fun. And they invest themselves in that, but they don't have the quality instruction. And so somehow we've got to merge the two and find a happy medium. Yeah. Somehow we have to merge the two. Sadly, I don't think some teachers would want to merge.
00:23:44
Speaker
or admin, I don't think they would want to merge the two. And I just come from the standpoint of why wouldn't you wanna do something that makes your students more engaged in learning? I mean, if you're gonna just be Edison and you're just gonna go page by page and every room has to be page by page, you're not gonna catch them as much as you could. You know, like Thompson's very data driven as well, Smith was as well, to a degree.
00:24:10
Speaker
like eye-ready and stuff that you do every week, that's too much. So I could see why people would worry about that. But I believe if you look at engaging environments where kids like to be there, you have to make them love school first, otherwise they're not going to love doing the hard things that you make them do. It's amazing. We get kids into Thompson from all walks of life, from schools down by our old school or whatever. And once they figure out that,
00:24:39
Speaker
A, the teachers care about them and the staff cares about them. And B, we're going to try and make learning fun and the environment fun. They tend to just fall in love with it and they work, I think, more and they do better. And that's just, again, I think that's, that's my perspective that many people are afraid or unwilling to make environments fun for kids because they don't understand that that's going to make them want to do better.
00:25:09
Speaker
But again, going back to my very first talking point, fun is subjective. Okay. Let's change fun for engaging. Okay. But engaging is subjective because again, what I think is engaging and what somebody who's been teaching for 30 years and is kind of burnt out, what they think is engaging is
00:25:34
Speaker
Is two different who's making the rule on engaging, you know, who's who's defining what engaging is define it? What do you think engaging is? well my personal opinion is My goal when I taught kindergarten was to first create a love for learning that was all my ultimate goal because I am the foundation I am the very first building block of
00:26:01
Speaker
thirteen years of an educational career yes and if i if they leave kindergarten hating school. And go and they are not excited to go to first grade they have a long road ahead of them unless i make sure they have an engaging fun first grade.
00:26:20
Speaker
My tagline that I use for my branding, Kindergarten Chaos, is intentionally teaching with purpose and fun. Because I think fun is definitely part of that, but sometimes that fun misses the mark where it's not intentional and purposeful. So when I create activities,
00:26:40
Speaker
I first am starting with the standard. What am I teaching? What is the learning goal? What is the outcome that I'm expecting? Now, I don't expect my students to regurgitate that back to me like we talked about him in our previous. I don't expect them to say, well, blah, blah, blah. I don't expect that. But I have to know
Purposeful Play in Education
00:27:00
Speaker
what my purpose is. So when I am doing Play-Doh with
00:27:09
Speaker
high-frequency words. I know what my purpose is. My purpose is to give them, one, fine motor muscle practice because they need that to be proficient writers and to have stamina. Because one thing we're missing in writing, and writing is a big problem in Nevada,
00:27:31
Speaker
but also not in Nevada, but across nationwide. And part of the problem, I don't wanna get off on this, but part of the problem is a stamina problem. And the reason why is because we have so many devices now that kids do not have, they have not built those fine motor muscles. So it's a difficult task to do. It's an actual, physical, difficult task to do. So that's why they hate writing. So if we build fine motor muscles by using Play-Doh,
00:27:59
Speaker
And then of course we're building these high frequency words. They're building the word, they're reading the word, they're circling the word on the mat, they're reading the decodable sentence, they're writing their own sentence. It's multifaceted, it's multipurpose, and it's fun. But I have killed multiple birds with one stone in doing this. But I've been very purposeful and thoughtful about this.
00:28:22
Speaker
Great strategies, by the way. Thank you. In my opinion, some admin out there, you'd be like, no, Plato, we can't have time. Well, look, if you don't have time for Plato, why do we care if the kids one day make their words out of Plato rather than trying to write them on the paper? I don't know. I don't understand. What? Why do we care?
00:28:43
Speaker
what teachers do, assuming it's legal, to get kids to learn. So I don't- Because some admin think it's playtime. And you know what is so amazing? And we can do a podcast. You learn the most when you're playing. Yes, when you're doing. Actually, that is the research. The research proves that you learn by doing, okay? All I learn when you do it for me is that you do it better than me. That's it.
00:29:11
Speaker
And so we have got to move away from this. And I see a trend where a lot of teachers are calling out like, stop demonizing play because play is a part of learning. And we want to strip it all down and create these little robots that just sit and get and just go through the motions. And that's not humans. That's how I can define engagement when I walk in. OK, you really have two kinds of engagement, if you ask me.
00:29:40
Speaker
you have authentic when they're playing with the Play-Doh and they're having fun or really paying attention and really doing things or you have compliant. I'm just doing this because my teacher's making me.
00:29:54
Speaker
That's two very different things. You're either doing it because you have to or because you want to. And again, we've had this conversation in staff meetings before. Honestly, there is a need for both because everything cannot just be fun and just off the cuff and just, oh, let's have a, let's have a great time. Sometimes there are tasks that you have to do that you don't necessarily like and you are just being compliant.
00:30:20
Speaker
But isn't that life though? Yeah, from an admin perspective. I don't want to drive 25 miles down the street. I prefer to drive 75 everywhere I go, but I have to be compliant with the laws. Again, there's got to be this balance and I just feel like
00:30:41
Speaker
We're one or the other. Some people have a difficult time just finding a happy balance of both. Well, you need to be either, I mean, again, from my perspective, if you're a compliantly or authentically engaged, you're engaged in learning. So I think that that is completely okay. If you're completely withdrawn or just off task, then that's a whole different thing. But sadly, I think most, not most, I think many teachers,
00:31:10
Speaker
or admin think that if everybody is compliantly engaged all the time, that that's a good thing. And I disagree. And I want to also say too, teachers, I don't care what anybody says. There's no such thing as all.
00:31:24
Speaker
There's not, the NEPF says all students. That's not, all students all the time is completely ridiculous. I wish they would change that, which we talked about even a while ago. I mean, I know which little turkey does not get engaged all the time. That's my job as an admin. Admin, if you walk in and someone's off task
Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness
00:31:50
Speaker
and you don't know,
00:31:51
Speaker
why, or if they're off test all the time. I think that's it. I think that's your fault, because you're not engaged in what the teacher is trying to do enough. But again, going back to it, you know, why, why can't educators of all levels, find a way somehow to engage the kids in learning or engage them in
00:32:15
Speaker
an environment that makes them want to be a part of it. Nobody wants to be a part of something that stinks. That's why I have made a career off of hiring teachers who left admin that have no fun or do not want to be there.
00:32:30
Speaker
If you take away all of their autonomy and do not let them create engaging fun times or use Play-Doh or go outside, they're going to come work for me who's going to let them and they're going to thrive and the kids are going to learn. So it'd be a lot easier if admin would just kind of let go of the reins. But again, it comes down to my favorite word this year, which is control. It's hard. It's hard to let teachers have control because you have to trust them.
00:33:00
Speaker
and if they mess up, you'll have to deal with it, but I think it's a lot easier trusting them than it is micromanaging them and worrying all the time. Okay, so let me ask you a question, okay? Where, you just said a word, trust. You trust your teachers. Where do you draw the line on that though? Well, let me ask. I'm being serious because you could have,
00:33:28
Speaker
I mean, I know of a teacher that spent hours out on the basketball court. And there were purported reasons for that. And then other teachers would say things and, well, this is how we learn. And so you have this debate on, is this engagement?
00:33:57
Speaker
There's a lot going on with that. So I would love to know, as an admin, where do you draw the line on trust? How do you know that authentic and purposeful learning is taking place
00:34:13
Speaker
on a consistent basis. There's a lot of teachers, Robert, we have to agree. There's a lot of teachers that take advantage and say, you know, it's fluff. And they're like, oh, well, they're not developmentally ready. Or they're this, or they're this, or they're that.
00:34:33
Speaker
Trust for me starts with, okay, first of all, are your kids learning? And that can be many different ways. If you're self-contained, it's different. If you're fifth grade or kindergarten, I trust you, Abby, to teach those kids how to read and write and do math. If you go outside and play basketball to teach them to do math, okay, fine. But when it comes time to check out your map scores, those kids better grow. When it comes time for them to show that they can
00:35:03
Speaker
write their name or complete ESGI. I always mess that up. ESGI, I always wanna say E-G-S-I. ESGI, if your data is not proving that what you're doing is working, then I need to step in and say, okay, let's look at this and figure it out. So I trust you till I can. If you go play basketball every day, nobody does this, but if you go play basketball every day and you can somehow grow your kids on map doing
Sharing Simple Engagement Ideas
00:35:30
Speaker
that,
00:35:31
Speaker
Why do I care again? I don't understand that. Now it doesn't happen. But now let's play devil's advocate on my side.
00:35:40
Speaker
I have to stick with growth, not proficiency, because at some schools in the Valley, they're gonna be proficient. They're not gonna grow, they're gonna be proficient. So am I okay with proficiency? No, I'm not. Some admin are. All they care about is proficiency. That gives us our five stars. I don't care about growth. If that's your thing, fine. For me, I wanna be number one in the district in growth.
00:36:07
Speaker
Grow all kids. That's my thing. If you come to Thompson and you're growing your kids, great. If you're not, the data will bear it out. And then when I show you your data and say, okay, how are we gonna fix this? You're gonna start to think, huh, I gotta grow kids. And guess what I found? Most people don't like scrutiny. They don't. No, they don't. They don't. So it's very simple for me. Grow kids or you gotta make a decision. You gotta change.
00:36:36
Speaker
I had a principal, my mentor, Ms. Primus. She would be the three R's. You got to relocate, resign, or retire. I have added another one. It's four R's. You got to resign, relocate, retire, or you got to reinvent yourself. Because I can't sit around waiting for you to grow kids. You have to choose to do it. And if that means I got to come in there and help you, fine. I'll come teach a lesson.
00:37:00
Speaker
or the AP or the read by grade three, but that for me, it all comes down to growth and that could be on IEP goals. That could be on basic things such as life skills, but we need to see kids growing. So for me, that's where I go with. I agree with that and I appreciate that because all kids can grow and if they are proficient, then let's grow them higher. Let's grow them to the next
00:37:26
Speaker
to the next level or students that are not proficient. Let's get them as close to proficient as we can through growth. I would like to end our podcast today by just saying and putting this out there, not only for you, Robert, but for other admin and other teachers that are in any position of influence within their school.
00:37:54
Speaker
Let's start providing very simple, engaging ideas that teachers can feel are reasonable and doable. Do you know the one thing that pushed me over 100,000 followers on Instagram? Do you know what it was?
00:38:12
Speaker
It was me taking a sentence strip and writing numbers one through 20 on it and cutting the numbers apart, putting them in a pocket chart and saying, this is a game I used to play called mystery number. I pulled out several of the numbers and then the kids would have to guess what numbers were missing. That has over almost a million views. Okay. Simple. Very simple. Cost zero dollars.
00:38:40
Speaker
And it was a very, and teachers are looking, especially in 2022, Robert, teachers are looking for, they want, I think they want to be engaging and they want to have fun, but it's overwhelming and not to rain on Thompson's parade. Cause I think you guys did an amazing job, but sometimes if you look at a school or you look at another teacher and they are the, the, um,
00:39:05
Speaker
you know, the bougie teacher, which I even include myself in that because I have been there and I have done that. And I have been the epitome of somebody saying like, Oh, she's over the top. Yes, that's my personality. That's what I choose to be. But
00:39:19
Speaker
Not everybody desires to be that or wants to be that, but they do want to engage their students. They did not get into this as a financial goal. And so they get into teaching because they want to make a difference and they want to teach kids. And so let's give them ideas. So I'm challenging you, Robert, as an admin.
00:39:41
Speaker
When you have your next staff meeting or your next, I know you don't do them traditionally like everybody else, but let's brainstorm ideas that are simple and teachers can go in the classroom that morning and do it. It doesn't take them five hours to create.
00:40:00
Speaker
doesn't require all this prep. Let's come up with a bank of ideas so that teachers can say, yeah, I can do that. A fourth grade teacher can say, yeah, I can do that. A second grade teacher can say, oh, that's a good idea. I could use it for this. So instead of overwhelming teachers and making teachers feel like they're not meeting the mark, let's give them ideas that are simple, doable, but engaging.
00:40:25
Speaker
I agree with you, however. Except the challenge. I do accept it. I actually just had a meeting last week about not slowing the high kids down. But admin, I think, too,
00:40:38
Speaker
Um, we can do that. So any admin that listen, how are you going to do a school wide engagement activity spinners, Abby? Like we use spinners and every teacher should have a spinner. If you don't have a spinner and I have done on my Instagram, I have showed a bunch of different ways to use a spinner in kindergarten. If you do not have a spinner, guess what? We all have smart boards and you can get a free spinner online.
00:41:07
Speaker
I think it's freespinner.com. Yeah, so you can you can do it. So I want to just go back to what one thing that you just said because I'm gonna I'm gonna follow up on this. Okay, I'm not talking about a meeting on slowing the hike gets down. Okay. No, I'm talking about I'm just talking about I the best the best
00:41:27
Speaker
that teachers can do, like collaborate with each other. Like we have the best ideas. And when we get our ideas together, it's again, it's like, okay, I could do that. I could use that in this way and I could use that in that way. Come up with a bank of ideas that teachers can use and they could say, I just, I hate teaching digraphs or I hate teaching, you know, two digit multiplication. Well, here's an idea. You could do it. You could, you know, put it on a beach ball and you could throw the beach ball around.
00:41:57
Speaker
There are tons of ideas. Yeah, your challenge is accepted. So all the talks to teachers are listening. We're going to do this now. But from my perspective, now I'm going to challenge all teachers. You have to be willing to listen and try it. If you just got the idea from Abby, well, I can take one through 20 and do missing number. Oh, that's so awesome. But I'm not going to do that. So I challenge the teachers. Find a way to engage your students somehow.
00:42:23
Speaker
Again, you don't have to be like Thompson. We are over the top. You know, there are some teachers who have left Thompson because it's not their speed. I accept that. That's fine. They made a good career choice because I'm not slowing down. We're not slowing down. Find your niche, but also don't bore your kids. Try something. Just try something.
00:42:43
Speaker
And I, and again, I am an advocate for find those ideas, find what works for you because we all don't have the same personality and it would be a really boring school if everybody did the same thing all the time, even if it was amazing. And so you do what works for you, but, um,
00:43:03
Speaker
Find some things, collaborate with people in your grade level. I love meeting with student teachers because when I start talking with them about their ideas, it's like, oh, I could do that. Oh, I could do this. Oh, I could take that. That's a great idea. So there's power when you get together and you collaborate. And again,
00:43:21
Speaker
even I just wanna promote simple engagement. Like you can be engaging and do it simply and do it on your prep or in the morning. It doesn't have to take hours and days and it doesn't have to take lots of money. And I just wanna summarize by promoting simple engagement, but admin and teachers, please be willing to do it. Yes, have a growth mindset. Have a growth mindset because I go back to, you've heard me say this before,
00:43:51
Speaker
We expect our kids to do it. We expect our kids to take on challenges even when they don't like it and even when they're afraid. So why as adults are we any different? We have to show by example and lead by example. And that means stepping out sometimes of our little comfort bubble that we have created for ourselves and say, okay, I know I don't always like to try new things, but I'm gonna try something new. I'm gonna put some painter's tape on the carpet or on the,
00:44:20
Speaker
bookcases around the room and I'm gonna have my kids you know move around the room with a clipboard and and and you know get their content for what they need whatever it is yeah admin here's a simple thing just say November I'm making a day up November 17th is teach how you want day and just let them do their thing and walk around and see what's happening and then let them build off of that
00:44:48
Speaker
And share. Just let them have control for a day. And one thing, you know, it's like, I want to encourage you Robert and anybody else out there. Sometimes it's defeating when only the bougie teachers are, are promoted like, Oh, look at how amazing Ms. Smith is. Look at all this. I mean, and her room is just fantastic, but showcase the teachers.
00:45:12
Speaker
that that did right on the desk showcase teachers and say look at how simple this idea was i mean it could be as simple as folding the paper in half and cutting the two slits and making a flip book that's very simple and and the kids love it and
00:45:27
Speaker
When you do that that makes that teacher feel valid like you validated like her it's her or his or her Engagement technique and then it's gonna it's gonna let other teachers know. Oh, I could do that like that That's a great idea because if you only show the amazing extravagant that is going to cause some teachers to feel defeated so I can get you well engagement
Conclusion: The Importance of Perspective
00:45:50
Speaker
can be little it can be big but
00:45:55
Speaker
It needs to be a part of every teacher's repertoire of teaching, big or small, find your groove, reach out, find ideas, think outside the box, but doesn't have to be rock your school day, but it's okay if it is.
00:46:14
Speaker
That's right. Just find something. Just try to find a way. Don't be, don't be Ben Stein and Ferris Bueller, whatever you do. Just find a way. But no matter where you stand, remember, it's all about perspective. Thanks for joining us.