My Strong-willed Kid and a New Perspective

The past six years have been eye-opening for me as I juggle teaching with motherhood.  So many thoughts that I used to have as a teacher about parents and their roles in the house have changed since I have had my own children.  I get it.  I totally understand. I wish that I knew what I know now...

My oldest son is five.  He is a pleaser.  He cries if I look at him wrong.  He wants to be a leader.  He wants to make us happy.  He has such a gentle heart.  He understands right from wrong, and he understands consequences.  My youngest son is two.  I love him with all of my heart, but some days I look at him and wonder how he can be so different when he came from the same parents, in the same household, who use similar discipline techniques, and who love him just as much as we love his older brother.  He is intelligent.  He is stubborn.  He knows what he wants, and he is willing to dig his heels in to get it.  He has been testing the limits at daycare lately.  Our daycare provider is the most patient woman I have ever met, but right now her patience with him is running thin.  I thank God daily that no matter what he is safe with her.  I also thank God daily that she keeps giving him more chances.

His behavior at daycare is not usually what we see at home.  At home he has a brother who puts him in his place, models good behavior, and encourages him to make good choices.  At daycare, he is one of the oldest kids, so he rules the roost.  In the past few weeks, he has woken up all of the kids from nap time, dumped his food on the floor, torn up her song cards, spent over an hour trying to earn his way out of time out (on multiple occasions), lost the right to wear his cowboy boots - the list goes on.  Negative attention is still attention, right?  As a mom, I began dreading the conversation that was to follow when I picked him up each day.  So what did I do?  I avoided it.  I sent my husband (and wouldn't you know that was the one day in 2 weeks that he had a good day!?!).  

Imagine how some of our parents feel - parents who work two jobs to support a family.  Parents who are doing the best they can to get food on the table and bills paid on time.  And then, the school calls.  I remember as a young teacher calling home to talk to a parent and ending that conversation in disbelief because while I was searching for answers, the mom's response was: "What am I supposed to do about it? You're not telling me anything that every other teacher hasn't said."

This made me really think about the changes we are making in our district.  We changed our spring PT conferences at the middle and high school level.  Instead of a reactive/grade-based conference that  only drew about 10-15% of our parents, we switched to a new, proactive format we call Individual Plan of Success (IPS).  This format allowed us to have a conversation about future goals - not the current state of grades.  We talked about ACT, career goals, college or training plans, military enlistment requirements.  We talked about how to search for "Junior Days" at local colleges, and what it would look like to transfer to a university after a year or two at a local community college.  We talked about character traits, community service, and extracurricular activities.  We talked about the big picture, not what parents can already see when they login to the online grade book.  I listened to one young man tell me that he wanted to be a physicist, so we talked about how he would need to make sure he had good relationships with our science department, and that he would want to take upper-level math as much as possible.  I mentioned to another student the idea of being a teacher - she has one of the kindest hearts I know (not to mention the fact that she is smart and goal-driven).  These were the kind of conversations we were able to have.  These conversations matter.   

When it is all said and done, I will have met with every student on my list and about 80% of their parents.  Surprisingly, I even had a student show up on her own because her mom couldn't make it.  While I was sad for her because she had to come alone, it was pointed out to me that even her story was a success story - she feels a tie to our school, a responsibility to her future, and a need to have this meeting about her Individual Plan of Success.  She is committed to our school, but most importantly she is invested in herself.  

This change wasn't easy.  Our counselors and administration busted their tails to get it organized.  Teachers put in hours of work preparing answers, sending emails, and making phone calls.  We had some computer glitches, some misunderstanding of directions, and even some heated/ panic driven conversations; however, and the end of it all, I can honestly say that these were some of the best conferences I have ever had as a teacher.     

As a parent to a strong willed, yet intelligent child, I found myself thankful for this change.  Every day over the past few weeks, I was not looking forward to picking my own child up from daycare - not because I didn't miss the heck out of him, but because I felt like his behavior was almost out of my control.  At home, we really weren't having the issues he was having at daycare.  My husband and I spent hours discussing ideas and strategies to try to improve his behavior - sticker charts, matchbox cars, cheering and clapping - you name it.  We discipline as a team.  We parent as a team.  We tried everything we knew to do, but alas, nothing has worked.  The sound of defeat is deafening.  It is embarrassing.  I should have this figured out.  It makes me think of those parents who never hear of the good their kids do.  I am not taking away the fact that parents have the most important role in their child's life, nor am I making excuses for parents who choose to look the other way.  I don't think that any school or teacher intentionally makes a parent feel that way.  What I am saying is that we, both teachers and parents, are stronger together, and our students are better for it.  

I love my son, and I truly believe that the toddler I raise today will be the teenager I have tomorrow.  This struggle with daycare, with my kid -  a teacher's kid - has given me a new perspective.  I am thankful that I have a daycare provider who works with us to find new ways to encourage our son to make good choices.  I am grateful that she spends time researching and brainstorming ways to improve their time together.  She is, after all, his first teacher.  Now, I am hoping that some of our parents walked away from these IPS conferences with a new perspective, too.  It is no secret, we both have the same goal - a successful future for our students.







  

Painful Silence

Today, my ears hurt, but it wasn't from loud music -- it was from the deafening silence that filled the room in one of my classes. *Cue Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence": "Hello darkness my old friend...*  We were supposed to be discussing "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. This is a great story that causes readers to think about the traditions in which we participate.  Are they healthy traditions?  Are they traditions that lift others up or tear others down?  Do we just keep doing things because it is the way we've always done them, or because these actions are what is best for ourselves and those around us?  I LOVE the ideas this story brings forth, so naturally I was very excited to hear what my students had to say about this story.  I remember reading this story as a freshman.  I remember being stunned at the end -- such a juxtaposition of ideas.  I know the aspects that I love about this story, but I wanted this discussion to be student led.  This class discussion was going to be awesome, right!?

WRONG! Oh, you could hear a pin drop. I have carpeted floors in my classroom, so you can only imagine how quiet it was during our discussion.  We spent a day preparing for this. I provided open-ended prompts for our Socratic Seminar, so my students would simply have to pull discussion topics from ideas they had already thought about. Again, this should be awesome, right!?  And then, crickets.  It was painful watching these students who I love so dearly struggle through a discussion that should be so fun, so passionate. I had about three students participating, and even they were hesitating because they felt like they were doing ALL the talking. First, I was mad. Then, I felt my stubbornness set in: "By golly they were going to discuss and they were going to like it! My other hours were doing a great job, we just need to suck it up and start talking!" Finally, my brain said, "Hey teacher, THIS ISN'T WORKING." So, we stopped. Part of me thinks that I had to quickly work through the stages of grief to let go of this idea - I was so looking forward to hearing their thoughts.

I went to the board, and I wrote four questions down:
1.  Do you feel safe enough to participate in class discussion?
2.  Why is class discussion an important activity for you, as a student?
3.  Why do you hesitate to share in discussion?
4.  What can Mrs. Neill do to help this class discuss literature we are reading?

I asked students to email me. I frequently stress the importance of communication in class, so this worked right into my message. What I didn't realize is that by doing this, it allowed them to share what they think/struggle with/ like about class discussion and even about themselves personally. All said they felt safe. (Yay & phew all at the same time).  Many shared how much they like discussion, but they wished others would share their ideas.  Many shared about fear of failure. Many shared that they struggle to get the words out the way they want them to sound. A few said they feel like they don't have many good ideas.  Some even talked about the anxiety/pain that class discussion causes them. (Those responses made my heart hurt.)  So tomorrow, we will do something different. It is 10:00 at night, and I have no idea what this will look like, but it WILL look different than today. It will be an awesome discussion; I just have to find the right medium.

Oh, and on a positive note, I was able to respond to each email, personally. I was able to give students individual feedback and show them empathy. The idea to have them email worked better than I could have imagined. Tomorrow, I hope that painful silence has left my classroom and collaborative thinking begins.  

***Update:  I used Google Docs as our medium for discussion.  I created a table with three columns: Name/ Observation/Questions from Text/ Discussion.  Students chose a color for their font, and after each comment they would change the text to that color and put their names at the end of the comment.  TEN PAGES LATER, we ended discussion for today!  It was fun to watch it come together! S/O to @JasonKohls for sharing an idea a few months ago that I could modify to work for my class!