Helping My Students Adjust Their Sails

Hello friends, family, fellow teachers and others reading my blog, 

This week I've been frustrated at the behaviour and lack of respect of some of the students at my school. I'm usually trying to be positive and see that each students has a back story of which we may be unaware.

Every student, or person for that matter, comes with baggage and need to develop ways to deal with that baggage. One very wise person dear to me said this... "You cannot change the direction of the wind but you can adjust your sails." Everyone will have experiences that just down right suck - someone teasing you, getting rained on, losing a sentimental gift, a bad break up, an illness in the family, moving to a new country, losing a dear one, and so much more- and it's up to you to decide how you're going to deal with the circumstances you find yourself in. Are you going to hide? Are you going to get angry? Are you going to learn and grow? Are you going to pray to God? These are just a few of the ways in which I've dealt with some of the pains I've experienced in my life, but there are so many others in which people deal with circumstances life throws at them. Back to my students... yes, some have awful home lives and family situations and I do feel sympathetic towards them, but I don't believe it should give them the right to be rude to others. (I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh in this post.)

On Monday we had a Remembrance day assembly. The students were asked to walk to the assembly with their teachers and to be calmly shepherded into the Sports hall. As soon as the students got near the entrance, they just ran for the entrance fighting to be the first in the hall, it was like herding hundreds of cattle. There was no respect for remembering those who have died in wars- in the past or current, as soldiers or civilians. The Head teacher gave a right rollicking to the students... and they were scared, well for a moment. During the Last Post, you could hear children snickering and whispering. I was appalled. But it doesn't stop here. After the assembly, the students were to return to their classes for the last 30 minutes. I thought this would be a great chance for me to talk about my belief in pacifism and to talk about my belief that "remembering is to work for peace". However, I returned to my class to find students laughing at the assembly and just not showing any respect.

I want all of my students to show respect to themselves, to their peers and to me as their teacher. In the beginning of the year I told them this expectation and thought they understood, now I'm not so certain. I simply want them to come to their lesson presentable, on time, ready for learning and full of respect. I hope that they see that I give each of them respect, but that if they don't respect me, I can take that respect away... as I wrote that I see that that's not really gracious is it? I need to continue respecting them, even if they have been rude to me... just as Jesus shows us...

The Question... How can I teach my students respect while still teaching them Maths?

Some possible solutions...

• Living by example. I wish to respectfully welcome my students into my class, using please and thank yous and showing sympathy towards my students with whatever they may be experiencing. 
• I think these students need PRAISE! Our school has so many ways of dealing with poor behaviour and giving out consequences, but where are the praises for students who are respectful in the school? Sure I have some praise points in my class and give out stickers and chocolate for students who do the right thing at the right time, but I think there needs to be some whole-school praise system. They are constantly being told to go to another class if they misbehave, or to come for Detentions if they don't submit their Home learning, but what about those who are continually behaving appropriately and always submit their HL? 
• A citizenship/ etiquette class. So apparently there used to be citizenship class which was offered and some teachers to teach it. Unfortunately, it appears as though that's the tutors responsibilities now, along with ensuring the students are safe, that their attendance is on par, that they have completed all HL, and what about developing relationships with the students?? The students have no places to sit and eat their lunches, so they are encouraged to stand and scarf down their food... is that being polite?? Some of them rarely say, "Please" or "Thank you" and show very little respect when a member of the senior leadership team comes to the class, let alone the class teacher. 

I'm not saying that all of the students are rude and have no respect. I do have a handful of students (of the about 200 students I teach) that are absolutely lovely. They will say, "Thanks miss for a great lesson," or open doors without being asked, or say behind and tidy the books. It's those moments that I hold dear to my heart and so I don't forget the positives, I keep a journal of all of these "gem" moments.

My goal at this school is to get more students to be respectful and to love learning for the sake of learning and bettering our world... it may be a hard ask, but it's like the same wise man once said, "To change the world, you need to turn it upside down and shake it." Big change takes courage and stepping out of one's comfort zone. It starts with one person taking a stand and paying it forward one smile at a time.

I'm going to pray for this change to happen within myself and my students. How often do we try to find a solution, when God is there supporting us along the path of life??

Hopefully this makes sense.. and if it doesn't thanks for reading, allowing me to think as I type and using so many cliche lines. :)  If anyone has any ideas, please pass them along.

All the very best as you adjust your sails.

Respectfully yours,

Kristen

PS. That wise man is my dad. I love you so much! xoxo

Some pictures of September 2014

Third year... God, England, school, church... life.

Hi all!

I haven't forgotten you, I promise. It's just that I didn't know how to add new posts for forever since google has changed some things. But thanks to my friends back in Canada, I've got it under control... I suppose that's debatable, but hopefully I'll be able to post to my blog more regularly again. I haven't written here in over a year so I could approach this blog as a massive catch up, but I'm afraid you may find that becomes a novel. For the interest of my readers, I'll stick with just writing about this school year thus far.

I love teaching! There's something so exhilarating about returning to teach at the same school and teaching students that are curious learners. Now don't get me wrong, I do have some classes of students that I struggle to help motivate, but the majority of students I teach this year are eager. I think it helps that I'm now a familiar face at the school and they all know me as the 'Canadian teacher,' even students that I don't teach.

I have one particular class of students that just love a good open-ended question. In the first week, I gave them a lesson all around the news that Nutella may experience a shortage because of a recent drought in Turkey, where most of the world's supply of hazelnuts come from....Maths, food, global, social links.... they loved it! Then just last week, we made marble runs and tested speed. The goal was to make a run where the marbles moved the slowest. The students thought it was the greatest lesson since sliced bread. We even incorporated peer assessment and self assessment into the lesson! :)

In another class, we were talking about Mathematical proves and I started the lesson by asking them "What is a proof?" and "What makes a good one?". After two minutes of silent thinking time (a good teaching practice :D), one boy spoke up and said, "Is it like believing in God and trying to prove that he exists?" I simply responded with a ... "Why, yes, I suppose it's similar... it's about showing that something is true." He then asked me if I was religious. For a split second I thought about the question and how I would respond... "Yes I am." If I were not in front of a class of 35 students, I would have explained that while I go to church, I'm not religious, but rather spiritual, striving to work on my relationship with God and leading others to Him. Unfortunately, it was just the start of the lesson and others were anxious to continue learning how to prove that the angles in a triangle always equal 180 degrees, and in a quadrilateral 360 degrees... not nearly as deep, yet it was an easy opportunity for me to share a bit about my faith and to allow these students to ask further questions if they were interested. God does work in mysterious ways!

At my school, I'm also working at partnering my school with Free The Children UK. When I was doing my teacher training in Canada, I was part of the ME to WE club at my school, learning lots about social issues in Canada and around the world. In July as I was thinking about what I wanted to help with for the next year of teaching in Devon, I thought about Free the Children Canada, and wondered if there was a UK link. I then forgot about it when I was home. Then on the plane back to England, I was chatting with my seat buddy and learned that she works for a charity helping to educate children around the world... Free the Children? Yes, in fact. She was a Brit who was working in the Toronto office for 2 years and decided to move back to London to help set up the Free The Children/ We Day in London. How cool was that?!?! So well I have more responsibility this year at my school as a classroom tutor to 28 students, teaching 7 classes of Years 7-10 students, a sixth form class, and working on a project promoting an environmentally friendly economical building at my school with some high performing students, I'm going to encourage students to think beyond themselves and their village and to motivate others to take a stand for an action in which they are passionate about. I'm so excited for all of these opportunities, yet will appreciate prayer as I settle into these responsibilities and learn when I need rest to pray, re-energize and take time for Kristen.

As far as at church, I have recently felt that I need to stop living as though this is a temporary home  and start feeling more settled. Over the last two years, while I have made some significant friendships, I have been careful to not get too involved in people's lives as I always thought I was going to go back to Canada... now don't get me wrong, I may very well do that someday... but I just needed to feel more settled and part of a community and church family here and now. Living for the future takes up so much energy sometimes. In Matthew 6:34 it says “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Saying all of that, I've finally decided to serve at church as a youth leader for 14 to 18 year-olds. Every Friday evening 5 other leaders and myself meet to pray as we welcome around 30 Christian and non-Christian city kids to the church hall to hang out. Some weeks we have things planned, other weeks we just allow the kids to chat, play games, kick a football around, and drink hot cocoa. I was hesitant to get involved, knowing that this is the age of young people I see at school everyday. Yet this is a different setting. This is an opportunity for me to show my funny, game-loving, quirky side without having to discipline this age group for not bringing in Home Learning or for being rowdy in lessons. It's been a great opportunity to be a witness to these young people and it's such a blessing to see God at work. Some Friday's it's the very last thing I want to do after a crazy week at school and so I go feeling exhausted and almost dreading having 3 hours left before I can relax, but then the youth start coming in and I feel completely energized and ready to hang out. Thanks to God for those new found energy moments! 

I think that's about it for now. If any of you teacher friends want any of the resources I mentioned above, just let me know and I can pass them to your direction. Otherwise, please do comment, send me a facebook message, or email sometime! I would love to hear what's new with you! 

Peace and Grace,

Kristen