The Parent's View of Responsive Classroom

I've written about Responsive Classroom often over the years. As a classroom teacher I lived and breathed Responsive Classroom. I read all the books, went to as many trainings as I could, and worked hard on making my classroom as RC as possible. I did this not because I was trying to be a groupy, but because through my teacher eyes I saw that it worked. If I followed RC then my life was easier. I was putting out less fires and I was teaching more.

But that was through my teaching lens.

My daughter just started a new preschool and she's ridiculously happy with life. The change in her at the end of the day is noticeable. She's calmer and yet has more energy than she did two weeks ago at her old preschool. We loved her old preschool, and so did she, so it seems strange that we would see this shift in her at the end of the day. As she described what she did in school one day I made comments to my husband that this new school was "Very RC". He of course has no idea what this means, so just nodded in agreement. Then I read her teacher notes from the day and felt this was all very familiar. I've taught this before... not in preschool, but this structure, this plan. I could almost tell you what was coming next. Yesterday morning I walked in to see the blue First Six Weeks of School book sitting on a table, tabbed and well-loved. When I asked her teacher about it she beamed. Yes, it's what she's been using, every year. She loves it. (Of course she does. Anyone who has used it loves it.)

For the first time I'm seeing Responsive Classroom through a parent's lens. I'm seeing how my daughter appreciates the slow, deliberate nature in how everything is introduced in her classroom. She knows what the rules are and what to expect on a daily basis. She has more energy at the end of the day because she hasn't spent her energy anxiously trying to interpret what is going on in the classroom and what will be expected of her. But it is a calm energy. She has the energy to re-count her day, tell me what she learned, model how to line up, and how to be a "good schoolmate". Before she had good days at school but she came home and crashed. She was exhausted from trying to teach herself the social curriculum.

While we loved her other school and her teachers, we did not know what the world could be with a little Responsive Classroom in place. I feel like I am re-discovering RC in a whole new light. I want to preach from the rooftops, yes, yes, yes! People, this doesn't just work because it is a trend or a program or something to do because the school system suggested it. It is a way to talk to kids to get them ready to learn. To help them feel secure and safe in their learning environment.

The Messiness and Beauty of Inclusion

As I was walking down the hallway toward my office the other day I walked past a group of fifth grade girls gathered around the published writing I had displayed from my fourth and fifth grade students with intellectual disabilities. The authors of the writing had been so proud of their animal reports that I had to display them in the hallway. They beamed when they saw their colorful illustrations and typed words hanging up for everyone to see. Part of writing is about having an audience, and they were proud to have an opportunity to share their work.

My heart stopped as I heard the fifth grade girls giggling and pointing to the words. They were reading the reports line by line to each other, pausing after each period to giggle some more. I immediately wanted to take the work down to protect the authors. I fought the urge to gather up all of those beautifully illustrated reports, hug them to my chest so no one could ever laugh at them again, and yell at these girls. Instead I took a deep breath to remind myself that I was the adult and no longer a fifth grade girls (why is a large group of almost-middle-school girls so intimidating?) and said in a low, hushed whisper that I hope expressed the horror I was feeling, "Are you laughing at someone else's hard work?" The girls turned, looking sheepish. "Um, no," they feebly said, "We were learning from them."

Yeah, right.

The girls stared at the ground, not meeting my eyes. I think I said a few more sentences about how would you feel if someone laughed at your work, and I walked on, seeing red. I struggled with whether or not to take down the writing. If  I did, the authors would want to know why. And what would I say? I'm protecting you from the mean kids you didn't see? I'm hiding your work so that other kids won't know that you don't write like they do?

Later in the week I started bringing three fourth graders in the intellectual disabilities program into a general education fourth grade classroom for the writing block. We wanted to see how they would do in the general education classroom since writing is more open ended. I spent time pre-teaching the lesson to the students, prepping them for what was to come, going over the teacher's smartboard lesson ahead of time, and starting them on the writing assignment so that they would know exactly what to do in the classroom. When we got to the classroom the three students sat on the carpet with the rest of the class, listened to the lesson and raised their hands to participate. Their understanding of the lesson remained very literal and their comments reflected that. I held my breath while Sarah shared, worried about how the other students would respond to her very simplistic and seemingly illogical thought. The mean fifth grade girls weighed heavily on my mind. Please don't laugh at Sarah, I prayed. Please. The room was quiet and I thought everyone was going to move on with the lesson when Jane, a quiet girl in the front row raised her hand.

"I agree with Sarah," she stated firmly, "and respectfully disagree with Johnny" referring to a general education student who had previously shared his thoughts (which were correct). Jane went on to justify her statement of agreeing, searching for some sort of logic chain that would connect my student's comment with the truth.
Sarah and her two friends sat up a little straighter, beaming with pride that they were a part of the discussion. Other hands went up around the room, each respectfully debating whether or not Sarah's comments were correct.

And just like that, the three visiting students were a part of the class.

Inclusion is messy. We can't make all students fit in, answer questions correctly, and produce the same quality work. We can't protect them from all the mean comments out there. But we can foster students like Jane and positive classroom communities that respect everyone despite different opinions and abilities.

"That's me. Sad." My personal reminder to respond to students' emotions

When I arrived at the door of a classroom to pick up my reading group of upper elementary students with intellectual disabilities I was met by some unhappy faces. It was a Friday afternoon after a very long week (the first full week we'd been in school since January because of all the snow days) and it was clear that the week was just as long on the students as it was on me. One of the students in particular was having a bad day.

He mopped into my room, begrudgingly sat down at the table with his book box, and reluctantly went through the lesson. He got up occasionally to get a tissue to wipe the tears from his eyes. After he completed the assignment he spontaneously drew a picture of himself, crying. "That's me," he labeled. "Sad."  Once he had my attention he stood up and walked over to the feelings target we have hanging on our wall from the Unstuck and On Target program. "I'm number four" he stated. "Four."

I've worked with the student since September but I've known him for three years now. I don't think we've ever had a conversation about emotions. What he likes, his weekend, what happened in his reading book, but never how he's actually feeling. Then again, he is usually a fairly happy fifth grade boy.

I looked at the picture, the feelings target and then at his writing. It wasn't his best work. In fact, he'd left out a lot of words out of his sentences. My entire goal for the activity was for him to write complete sentences, so I was going to have to ask him to redo the work. Then again, he clearly was not in a space to begin to re-write. "Why don't you write about how you feel?" I suggested. He nodded vigorously and then got to work, head down, pencil flying across the page. He filled five pages of pictures and writing, drawing how he felt, how he wanted to feel, and writing phrases and sentences with his thoughts. He included numbers from the target- 4, 4, 4, around the pictures to reinforce how he felt. Some words he wrote even included, "Go home to cry. I'm done. The end."

When he finally put his pencil down he was smiling. I went over each page with him very seriously, taking time to make eye contact with him and ask questions about why he drew what he drew and what had happened that day. At the end I asked him how he was feeling now. "Happy." he said. "Happy?" I asked, almost confused because he was not anywhere close to happy when he entered the room. I pointed to the target just to make sure that's what he meant. "Yes, number 1."
Taking a risk I asked him to go back to his work and re-write it. He did, almost perfectly.

The break to write about his feelings didn't detract from his academic work. It let him decompress, get his emotions out, connect with me, feel as though someone cared and then, get back to work. When he left my room he was smiling, which was a stark contrast to the crying boy who had entered. It was such a strong reminder to me of how important it is to respond to what our students need and remember that they are human beings.

Eric Jensen, Poverty, and Relationships

About two months ago the education blogging community was furiously debating whether or not grit is racist. It brought about some interesting points of view from both sides of the debate, and hopefully added to our larger understanding of what we expect from all students, what it means to be successful, and what students need to achieve that success. Not long after stumbling into the debate I read Eric Jensen's book, Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind. None if it is new information, but what I appreciate is that Jensen does an excellent job of bringing up the many different factors that impact students from poverty, along with the research that shows how these factors interfere with students. I found that much of what he says resonates with Responsive Classroom, and it is reaffirming to read the list of research studies that support the ideology Responsive Classroom is based on.

Instead of just saying "students need grit," and leaving it at that, Jensen lists seven factors that teachers need to consider when teaching students from poverty, which he determined by examining the effect size of these factors in various research studies. The seven factors with the greatest effect size? Health and nutrition, vocabulary, effort and energy, mind-set, cognitive capacity, relationships, and stress level. 

As a special education teacher who has primarily taught in schools with high poverty, relationships is the factor I have always found to be the key to everything. All humans have a biological need to connect, and Jensen sites a 2012 study that links relationships to the size of the hippocampus, which controls learning, memory, and emotional regulation (24). I've found that when I've connected with students everything else falls into place. They believe in themselves, become less stressed, feel more secure and are willing to learn, take risks, put effort into their work. 

Students, regardless of their socio-economic background often walk in our doors in the morning carrying a tremendous amount of life we only see through slumped shoulders, tired eyes, or angry expressions. We never know what they had for breakfast that morning, what fight they overheard between their parents, or what they believe about themselves. Yet it's these unseen stressors under the surface that drive our students' actions and their approach to school. What we see in our classrooms often looks like apathy, anger, frustration, or restlessness. Jensen describes these states as attractor states, which he defines as "the preferred or default state toward which conditions or systems tend to move. In other words, people become attracted to states according to their frequency of occurrence. As the brain strengthens repeated neural networks over time, these attractor states become habitual. Soon these states become comfort zones" (39).

It sounds odd that apathy, anger, or frustration would become a comfort zone. Think of someone you would describe as an angry person. They get angry quickly, argue with everything, and see every event that happens to them as the world working against them. This is where they are most comfortable operating. It's their attractor state, and where their thought patterns go time and time again. It is true for our students as well. Many of them have been reacting to their environment for years and have developed thought patterns to help them survive and process the world around them. They bring those thought patterns into school and use them to process what is happening in our classrooms.

So what do we do? There is so little in our students' lives we can control. We can't change their home lives, and we can't force them to forget their stressors when they walk through the school doors. What we can do, however, is to create an environment that allows our students to relax, take risks, and experience positive emotions. We need to shape their mind-body states within our classroom, the one environment we can control.

What our students need is a place to belong. When our students walk into our schools in the mornings, and then into our individual classrooms they need to feel like they are part of a family. They need to trust us and their classmates, feel safe to take risks, and feel like they are important to their community. They need to feel so strongly connected with us that when they walk in our doors they feel like they don’t have to carry their burdens alone. They need a place to experience and practice a positive mind-body state. A place to feel what it is like to have hope.

Our relationships matter. We aren't just teaching a series of facts or academic strategies, but instead teaching students that it is possible to thrive when the world seems stacked against them.

Daughter of a Responsive Classroom Teacher

As we were headed upstairs for my daughter's nap time yesterday I tossed one of her books onto the couch.

"Mama," she looked at me suddenly with large serious two-year-old eyes, "We don't throw things." 

"You're right," I said, in my hurry up and go upstairs to nap voice, "We don't throw things. Next time Mommy will not throw."

"Mama," she said again slowly, "Put the book down gently." She pointed at the book in all seriousness. "Put the book down gently." She stared at me and waited, her little foot hoovering above the stair, making it clear she wasn't going upstairs yet.
"Put the book down gently."

Now, I'm the parent so part of me wanted to say, "look sweet heart, it's time to go upstairs. Mama can throw things if she wants to. And I don't have to "practice" putting it down gently."
But instead, because I usually try to have her "fix" her mistakes or "show me" how to do something the right way, I sucked up my pride and modeled putting the book down gently.

"Thank you Mama," she said sweetly. "You put the book down gently." 

Ah, yes, she's got the Responsive Classroom 3 R's down. Remind, Reinforce, Redirect.

And we... survived?

No really, we did.

The first week is always this amalgonum of high hopes and expectations, reality, and survival. I can't help but get to the end of the week and thing, "Good grief, the kids have the same behaviors they had on the first day, they still don't know X, Y, and Z, and what's worse, I only got to half of my plans. This week was a disaster!"

It's hard to remind myself that four days of school doesn't magically make children into super star students. It's going to take a little more time, love, patience and direct teaching to change behaviors and get new knowledge in place. The first week has to be about building community, getting comfortable with routines, and letting each child find that they fit into the classroom.

I say this every year. I go into every year telling other teachers to relax, it's going to be OK, follow Responsive Classroom's First Six Weeks of School. And yet...  the end of the first week always feels a bit like a failure. Really, it's more like the first water stop at the beginning of a 10 mile hike. You're already tired and you feel a blister coming. You've made meaningful progress but it's so tiny that you can't even appreciate it because the mountain ahead is so steep.

But we'll get there.

I have four friends returning to my room this year and three new friends. (Sadly, Rock Star has moved on to an older class. I still get to see her every day and she continues to amaze me with her growth and progress). However, losing three students and gaining the new three has really changed classroom dynamics. Not in a bad way, just in a different way. The class has a different feel and a different focus. The kids that were used to being the followers now have no choice but to be the leaders. Everyone is taking some time to get comfortable in their new roles. We'll gett there, but it's all about baby steps.

Being Kind

At the end of last week this article on the importance of being kind to our students was floating around facebook but I never had time to sit down and write about it. Despite the busy weekend I found myself thinking about it frequently. I thought about it when I watched my daughter excitedly squeal over a book and wonder how her kindergarten teacher will treat her. I thought about it when I thought about my students who are moving on from my room next year to another school or out of our program. I thought about my own end of year frustrations and how this time of year it's easier to be grumpy than to be kind.

I thought of the students I was kind to in the past despite groans from coworkers. I thought about how sometimes we're not as kind as we want to be because we're proving to those around us that we're in charge. 

It's a good reminder for this time of year. 

Coping Our Lowest Common Behavior

"NO PINO NO" my year and a half old daughter screamed at my cat. "NO!"

I was horrified. The voice she was using was not her usual pleasant voice. It was not her usual disgruntled voice. You know the, "I'm almost two but I think I should be 16 and get to drive the car myself" voice.

It was mean, impatient, and it was MINE. The intonation, the exasperated sigh, the way she delivered the NO. All mine.

My husband and I have been very, very careful about our language around our daughter. Our daycare provider pushes positive language. She's very clear about the language we should use at home. We aren't suppose to say no, instead we say "no thank you". We say a lot of "Not for playing", "Food is for eating"
"Crayons are for coloring"

All language I use in the classroom. State the correct purpose of something to redirect the behavior. And if you say no, add "thank you" so that when your child decides to use that word over and over again at least they'll be polite. (So far I believe this has worked for every child in the daycare except mine).

So in all our hard work, where did she get this mean tone? I wondered as I listened to her repeat "NO! DADDY's FOOD! NO PINO!"

We are firm but polite in front of her. We work hard on this. We even make a point of monitoring each other. We've taught our daughter to love the cat. "Pet her gently," we say, "pat, pat, pat".

Then I realized that although we are very intentional about how we talk to each other and how we talk to her we aren't so kind with our cat. We don't say "No thank you" to the cat. We kind of yell at the poor thing and throw stuff to get her to move. In the mornings the cat plays this game where she lays down in front of the door and refuses to move. We can't leave the house. We're late. When we try to leave she fake bites our feet. It's not pretty. Did I mention we are late? So occasionally we lose it. It's not very polite to our poor kitty.

All of our good language and good teaching goes out the window. She copies our lowest behavior. We've shown her it is OK to talk to the cat like this, which occasionally transfers over to how she talks to us or her friends. Despite all of our good intentions and efforts, the moments of our worst behavior are what she copies.

The same is true for our kids in school. We model, teach and re-teach how to be nice to each other. We model eye contact, using polite words, listening with respect, and using friendly voices. But that one moment we snap we can undo it all. Our actions speak louder than our words and our kids are watching. Our impatience teaches them it is OK to lose your cool when you're impatient, despite who it hurts. It is OK to use mean words or be bossy when you're tired or not feeling well. But they don't hold it in for those few moments like we do- they let it out on the playground- testing out the behavior like they are trying on a dress- it worked for my teacher, can it work for me?

We can't be perfect all the time, but we can be conscious of our behavior patterns. We're working really, really hard at being nice to our cat now. We say "no thank you" to the cat a lot. We give the cat choices and warnings (and although we feel crazy it's working- the cat likes it better too). It won't be perfect, but being aware of the problem is better than continuing it.

Genuine Friendship

At the very end of last week we found out one of my students was moving. We were all shocked and heartbroken. This student is absolutely incredible and she is the poster child of what having high expectations and a good balance of general education inclusion and a special ed placement can do for a student. She surpassed all of our  of expectations academically, socially, and with her general language. She is incredible.

At the end of the day today one of the students from her gen ed kindergarten class was brought into my room crying. We were in the midst of end-of-day chaos and were trying to get book bags and jackets on without complete losing our minds (this is a daily adventure). When this little kindergarten girl and her tear-streaked face entered the room we all stopped and stared.

The teacher with her explained that the girl had a card at home for our friend who was leaving but she had forgotten it. I looked at this little five year old crying and felt my own eyes fill with tears. This little one was truly sad to see my friend go. Their teacher had done such an incredible job including her in the classroom that her kids didn't see her as "that special girl". She was a part of their community and she had true friends in there.

My friend hadn't shown any emotions yet during the day and we weren't sure how much she was processing her move. Yet when her friend walked in crying her expression immediately changed. "Oh no! What's wrong?" she asked. Although she hadn't been concerned for herself, she felt empathy and concern for her friend. They had a real friendship.

Friendship is something we can teach about, model, and encourage, but it isn't something we can force. Kids are "friends" in our classes, but whether or not they are genuine friends is up to them.

These girls were genuine friends.

I hope that wherever my friend ends up she will find other genuine friends, as well as teachers who are able to foster these relationships.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So I'm a few days late....  what can you do?

With St. Patrick's Day on a Sunday this year we were forced to come back to our classroom on Monday morning only to discover all the trouble the leprechaun had pulled over the weekend. 

That tricky little green man had mixed up ALL of our word wall words- the word wall was a disaster! We had to go through each word and make sure it went to the right place- were all the A words in order? And the B words?

Then that sneaky little guy took all of our months of the year off the wall and mixed them up. We had to sing the Months of the Year song over and over again so we could make sure we got them back up on the wall in order. 

After all that we discovered that he'd even mixed up all the dates on the calendar. We had to rearrange the numbers so that they were in the right order.

Good thing we're a class of problem solvers- that naughty leprechaun couldn't fool us! He may have left a problem, but we fixed it! 

*I will shamelessly admit that I can't resist an opportunity for authentic learning and for a reason to teach and reinforce problem solving. My poor class. 

Re-visiting Mindset

Of all the education books, articles, blogs, and studies I've read, Carol Dweck's Mindset has had the greatest impact on my day to day teaching. When my new school announced we were going to be reading it this winter I was ridiculously excited for the chance to re-read it and get to discuss it with my new co-workers. 

I've written about Mindset frequently on here, both in terms of how it framed up how I thought about  my own thinking, how it influences how I praise and interact with my students, and how I interpret other education philosophies like Responsive Classroom, Patterns of Thinking, and general good teaching strategies. Needless to say, I love this book. Almost every time I give a child praise I find myself thinking of the research in my head. Either reminding me that saying "SO SMART!" to a child isn't really the best idea even though the words just came out of my mouth, or in trying to frame my feedback in terms of working hard and labeling specific strategies that children use.

Reading it again I have two totally new perspectives. One is as a parent and how I need to frame my language with my daughter from the very beginning. (And how hard is it to not tell your child that they are so smart, because, I mean, they are. 18 months ago she was in my womb, and 14 months ago she couldn't do much but smile, poop, and sleep. Now she can TALK. And WALK. And say "NO! NO! No!" ) The other perspective is as a teacher of students with intellectual disabilities. 

I'm really looking forward to re-reading and re-thinking about different mindsets. You'll have to excuse me because I foresee many blog posts on the subject. I apologize in advance. In just re-reading the first chapter I had to stop myself from writing three different posts. They are coming, I'm sure, over Little L's naptimes...

"They love me"

As my class sat down to write invitations to our writing celebration I assigned one child to address her invitation to the principals. A huge grin spread across her face as she wrote our principals' names and she announced with complete confidence, "They love me."

In all the chaos and stress of opening a new school as an administrator - chaos and stress I don't think I can even begin to understand- I have to admit that it is pretty impressive that my kids already feel so much love from our administration. The principal and assistant principal are in our rooms one to two times a day. I know they have a million fires to put out across the building but they drop everything in order to chat with our kids when they run into them in the hallway.

Our kids feel loved- which only makes them even more willing and ready to learn when they come to school. If children feel like they belong in a school- feel secure, safe, and valued- they are far more likely to take academic risks and be open to challenges.

Differentiating Responsive Classroom- Logical Consequences

After years teaching a general education classroom I have forgotten how to teach without using logical consequences. Because they are exactly what they say they are- logical- they are so easily naturally embedded into the classroom that I find it's easier to use them than not use them.

Last week I tackled teaching the beginnings of logical consequences- 'You break it, you fix it', or as I like to call it, "Be a problem solver".

In the general education classroom I'd have children brainstorm the possible scenarios that might fall into a 'you break it, you fix it' category. Knocking over crayons, ripping a friend's paper, spilling water on the floor. Then I'd have the children each draw a pictures on index cards- one picture for the problem and one for the solution.

This year, because drawing isn't one of the things we enjoy as much as some children- I found it was more meaningful for me to act out the problems. I physically dropped the crayons on the floor and then asked the class how I should fix it. I'd choose someone to come model for us what we should do. I took pictures of the problem and the solution so we'd have a visual reminder of how we fixed the problem.

We tackled the same issues that we'd tackle in the gen ed room- trash on the floor, bumping into a friend, spilling juice- we just used interactive modeling and the digital camera instead of asking the class to draw it.

Then I gave our whole class a hands-on task. All of our linking cubes were "broken". When we'd gotten them they were in sticks of ten but now they are all separated. We'd better fix it! I gave each child a set of cubes and asked them to fix them with us. We'd broken them together the week before, so now we need to fix it.

It was a meaningless task- I have no intention of actually keeping my linking cubes in ten sticks, but it gave us all a chance to practice "you break it, you fix it". It also helped solidify the lesson into our memory. We all repeated the phrase while we worked on fixing our problem and we celebrated when we'd finished fixing our problem.

The next day when I brought out the poster to make review what we'd done the day before the whole class immediately cheered, "You break it, you fix it! Be a problem solver!"

Just like I would in the general education class I am continuing to watch them closely and label when I catch them fixing a problem. When I see someone picking up crayons I refer back to our poster and talk about how this is all a part of our rock star plan.

A present to our class

Every year my favorite opening of the year activity is wrapping up our books and presenting them to our class as a present that we'll use every single day. Is there anything better than the gasps and excitement of listening to children rip open packages only to find boxes full of books?

Differentiating Responsive Classroom- Our class rules

Typically in opening a classroom following the Responsive Classroom philosophy we develop our hopes and dreams and then use our hopes and dreams to talk about what we need to do to get to achieve them. From there we come up with a long list of all the rules we need to do (safe hands, raise your hand, sit quietly, listen to the teacher... all the mundane rules) and then we'd sort that long list into 3-4 categories like "Take Care of Yourself", "Take Care of Others" "Take Care of Your Environment". Those categories would become our class plan (or rules).  I usually made a cute poster that we could hang in the classroom to refer to.

This year I didn't think we were ready for such abstract concepts. So we worked backwards. First I took pictures of them doing all the things we want them to do. In the first few days of school it isn't hard to catch kids sitting quietly, sharing, listening to the teacher, or walking slowly. And if all else fails, you can always ask a kid to model raising their hand for you so you can get a good snap shot- which is totally what we had to do...

Then from the pictures we talked about what we noticed that was great in each one. The kids came up with the labels on their own- Sarah is sitting quietly. Her mouth is closed. Her eyes are forward. Kerry is sharing with Johnny. Johnny is raising his hand. For each picture we'd settle on one main rock-star behavior- raising hand, working hard, sitting quietly, etc. We wrote that on the poster and then displayed that with the picture in our meeting area where we are sure to see it.

We did one at a time until we covered our main behaviors. In the general education classroom I would go for more general rules or "plans" as I called them then. I feel I need to be more specific and concrete with this population of children. However, that doesn't mean the plan/rules still can't be positive, meaningful, and feel child-generated. I hope my students still feel that they own our class plan.

Once we made all our posters then we talked about all the things we want to do in school. We made our hopes and dreams clouds and displayed them for the world to see. We talked about how our hopes and dreams can happen when we follow our Rock Star Behaviors on our wall.

Same theory, just a bit more concrete and specific.

Now that the posters are up we refer to them frequently. The kids love using themselves as models of good behavior- seeing themselves raise their hand in a picture is an excellent reminder that they can do it- and will do it!

Differentiating Responsive Classroom

When I was a first grade classroom teacher I didn't know how to teach without following Responsive Classroom's structure and philosophy. I followed it closely and truly believed in it's tenets. The books and workshops have made me a much better teacher.

Now that I'm back in my own classroom I find myself falling back to the RC methods frequently. Although my children are considered part of the "Intellectual Disabilities Program" and all have IEPs I find that Responsive Classroom still makes the most sense in how to open a classroom, set up routines and expectations. In fact, in some ways it makes even more sense than it does in the general education curriculum.

I follow the First Six Weeks of School pretty closely, and it's perfect for my children. We need to slowly open up our classroom together- learning how we'll use glue, pencils, markers, crayons and paper. We need to practice our routines, develop our class rules together and build a strong community. 

Most importantly, we need to learn to work independently. Many of my students are use to people doing things for them. They may take more time to complete an activity that other kids their age can do quickly so typically teachers and friends just go ahead and do it for them to speed things along or help them out. Because of that most of them will happily let you do anything for them- and aren't really excited to work by themselves. My entire goal in these first few weeks is to teach everyone that we work independently.

(Of course, when I was a general education first grade teacher that was my goal as well. Typical six year olds need that practice just as much as my current kiddos.)

Morning Meeting is essential for my kiddos with Intellectual Disabilities. It sets the tone for the day and naturally embeds teaching those social skills like eye contact, shaking hands, using a loud voice, and smiling when you talk to someone. Morning meetings pretty much run the same in my ID classroom as they did in my gen ed classroom. Same social skills expectations, same structure, same amount of fun.

I plan to keep tracking how I use and differentiate the typical RC experiences in an ID classroom.  

Teaching Impulse Control

For those of us in the primary grades teaching impulse control in the beginning of the year is essential. It can be a fun way to build community and get to know your kids, but it is also a way to survive the year. 

A few years ago I wrote about the games my partner-in-crime and I played with our kinders to teach impulse control and many people commented about other great impulse control games. Here's a list of some great impulse control games- what else do you recommend?

Teaching and Practicing Impulse Control:

• Red Light, Green Light
• Laughing Machine-  The teacher drops a tissue from in the air and the class laughs until the tissue hits the floor. This teaches them to control their laughing- something that comes in handy when you're ready to move on from a funny part of a book and they just aren't...
• Freeze Dance- Play music and when you stop it the class stops dancing.
• Freeze Game- Freeze when the teacher rings a bell or does what will be the classroom's quiet sign
• Follow the Leader- The class simply walks behind the teacher while copying whatever motion she does. Which means their eyes have to stay on her. And not their friends, or their shoes, or the frog, or the window, or the bathroom. Every time a little one looks up and realizes the whole classroom is taping their heads while he is still taping his knees it's a reminder to the kiddo that he needs to look at the teacher (and a good sign to us teachers of who may need more help with impulse control!)
• Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Bone? One child sits in the center of the circle and is the "doggy" with an eraser or another object under the chair to act as the bone. The teacher silently points to another child to "steal the bone". Once the thief is sitting on top of the "bone" and it is completely out of sight the whole class sings, "Doggy, Doggy, where's your bone? Somebody stole it from your home?" The child in the center opens his eyes and has to guess who took it. The impulse control pieces comes when the whole class has to sit silently and not tell the 'dog' who took the 'bone'. Harder than you think for some of our little ones. (This also gives you an idea of who has a strong concept of mind and who can't keep a secret).
• Four Corners-  one child is in the middle of the room with their eyes closed. Kids walk quietly to one corner of the room and the kid in the middle has to guess where the most kids are. Then those kids are out until there is only one person left. It's not exactly impulse control in theory but it can be if they are so excited they want to sprint to the corner! (Thanks Kelly with a Red Sox Cap!)
• Into the river- This is where you have the class in a straight line and they are next to for example, a straight line on a basketball court. The line represents the river. The children can step either side of the line which represents the bank. You all start on one side and begin."Into the river, onto the bank , into the river, into the river." Those jumping off the line and onto the bank are out. Game continues. (Thanks Magpie!)

Alright- I know there are a million other ones out there- what are your go-to impulse control games??

Parent's Hopes and Dreams

In the beginning of the year many of us ask our students to write their hopes and dreams for the coming school year. A part of the Responsive Classroom philosophy, Hopes and Dreams is a powerful tool for connecting with students and beginning a discussion on what rules a classroom needs in place if they want to accomplish their hopes and dreams.

We can't forget that our students' parents have hopes and dreams for them as well. This is the perfect time of year to ask parents what they want their children to learn by the end of the year, where they want their child to go with what they learn this year, and what they dream about long-term for their child.

A few years ago I worked with our awesome parent-liaison to put on a meeting for kindergarten parents. We gave the parents sticky notes and asked them to tell us what their hopes and dreams were for their child. The results were amazing and provided an excellent reminder that we are all hoping and dreaming for the same results with our children. It was a perfect way to open a conversation about how we need to form a team between the parents and the teachers in order to help our children achieve these dreams.

Mind in the Making- Perspective Taking

Most of us are about to get very busy trying to develop classroom communities that can solve conflicts peacefully. We're all about to spend time coaching children through problem solving skills in hopes that doing this can minimize any physical and verbal aggression in the classroom that is oh-so-fun to deal with when you have a million other things to do.

Mind in the Making shares research by Larry Aber of NYU that shows a focus on problem solving isn't actually the solution to the childhood frustrations that get aggressive (Galinsky, 87). Before a child is ready to use problem solving skills he or she must first be able to take the other person's perspective and identify the person's intent. 

When some children get into conflicts with peers they immediately assume a hostile attribution bias, where no matter what they are convinced the other child is out to get them. As educators we can help these children stop and go through what Aber calls an appraisal process. We can help train our students to to step back and interpret the actions of others before making basic assumptions.

As teachers we can help children go through attributional retraining (Aber's term), where we help children look for clues in order to interpret another person's intentions and take that person's perspective. We need to help them realize that they do not immediately have enough information to appropriate assess the situation and must consider more information before they can determine "whether it was an an accident or a hostile act" (87). 

As an early educator this is huge- before we can begin to help children identify problem solving steps we first must help them take perspectives and appropriately assess the situations around them. It fits in with what Responsive Classroom teaches, as well as the Patterns of Thinking theory. Taking perspective is essential for children to be able to understand and interact with the world around them (and here in DC it would be nice if some adults tried it as well...)

One of my awesome former (*sniff*) colleagues read this chapter and immediately got to work on figuring out how to include perspective taking in her beginning of the year curriculum. She found this list of books that are recommended to use with teaching these skills. I'm excited to dive into this list and see how I can interweave them into my existing curriculum. 

Any other books out there that are perfect for teaching perspective taking?

Tangible rewards- keeping us honest?

Today I participated in a discussion on how to develop a school-wide positive behavior system. When we got into the discussion of tangible rewards (giving children something- a sticker, a prize, a ticket- for doing something right) I started to cringe. My Responsive Classroom background makes me shudder thinking of tangible rewards for school-wide programs although I know they can be useful. I use them on an individual level, but feel wary of whole-school programs.

Then the discussion facilitator said something I hadn't thought of before.

The tickets aren't for the kids, she explained. The tickets are for the adults. They serve as a tangible reminder to us that we need to praise good behavior. They keep us honest and hold us to the 4:1 ratio where we should be commenting on 4 or 5 positive behaviors for every negative behavior we comment on.

I'd never looked at it that way before, but it's true. When I am working with a behavior plan that involves giving a child something- stickers or "caught-you-being-good" slips, I have a tangible reminder that I need to give something out. When working with some kids I like to cover my hand in small reward stickers. My personal goal for the morning is to give out all the reward stickers so that I can go to lunch un-stickered. If I don't distribute all the stickers then I know I was doing something wrong.

When she put it that way using tangible objects to reward behavior suddenly made sense and gave me a whole new perspective.

Of course, when using such reward systems one has to understand the how and why behind it and to be sure to implement it so that it does not become bribery. Whatever the object is must still be about facilitating a positive interaction between the student and teacher where the student understands the reason behind the reward. While such programs still make me a bit nervous, I have a much better understanding of their purpose now.

I love when my thinking gets shifted.