Listening to the podcast brought me back in time to a course I took about 10 years ago as part of my Masters in Ed program called, "Succeeding with the Resistant Student," taught by Professor Joseph Schechtman. I've always credited the courses in Cooperative Learning, which provided me many powerful structures, as the courses that had the greatest impact on my instruction. This podcast episode caused me to reflect on Prof. Schechtman's class and the many ways in which his course shaped and gave me permission to act on my beliefs about what students need from me as a teacher, but also as an adult whose job it is to keep them safe and help them feel welcomed.
Because I am the type of learner who saves notebooks from all of my favorite classes, I was able to go back to my notes from 2009 and reread where my thinking was during Prof. Schechtman's course.
Toward the end of the course, Prof Schechtman asked us to record 10-15 of the most important things we had learned.
Some highlights from my list:
*Beliefs are at an emotional level, can't be changed by logic.
*All behaviors have a purpose.
*Many health/physical issues have an emotional root.
*Kids are innately motivated to master the environment.
*90% of problems occur because the teacher intervenes too late--look for the signals.
*Every intervention should be aimed at increasing self-esteem.
*School is an artificial environment.
*Every student wants to learn.
*Physical movement positively impact focus, comfort, and learning.
*You can only control how you respond.
*Benefits of music on focus and breathing.
*Teachers have the power.
Reading these highlights a decade later through the lens of Universal Design for Learning it is easy for me to see why I was so immediately drawn to the framework. My fundamental beliefs shaped from this course that all students want to and can learn, that their behavior offers a reflection of the environment I've provided and that I must offer students a variety of ways to express themselves, show up in many places on the UDL framework. After taking this course I introduced daily Brain Gym movements into our routine, as well as a number check-in system for students to communicate with me how they were feeling so I could identify how ready they were to access the learning. Certain routines faded away for a variety of reasons, but I wish I had learned about UDL in this course to help me make these connections about why these practices are effective with students.
One aspect of my learning, "Teachers have the power," is a belief more than a routine and this is what transported me from my car, listening to the podcast about teachers bullying students, right back to Prof. Schechtman's class. If I hadn't known it before his class, I certainly thought a lot more about how much power teachers truly do have over students. We have the obvious power of telling students when and how to do their work, who they can or can't be in a group with, how they can behave or to what extent they are allowed to share their thoughts and opinions in class. All these tangible rules and guidelines we lay out for students also send implicit messages about what we believe they are capable of and how much we care about them as people first and learners second.
In the podcast, Jennifer Fraser says that she works to "empower kids to know their rights." I connect with both her sentiment and the conviction with which she states it and it reminded me of a classroom example from several years ago. While sharing the rule, just one, for our classroom--show respect to all people, ideas and things in our classroom--I explained to the students that I will never be okay with them telling each other to "shut up." I assured them they can trust I would never disrespect them or their ideas in that way and they really shouldn't accept or allow anyone to speak to them that way. Months later a building substitute was covering my morning classes and told my Pre-AP class to "shut up." The students were outraged and told the substitute that no one was allowed to speak to them that way. They even proceeded to seek the substitute out later in the day to demand an apology. You may imagine the awkward conversation that ensued when the substitute shared the story of the "disrespectful and entitled kids" with me later that day. I can't remember all the details of how the issue ended, but I do remember feeling proud that my students felt empowered enough to know that just because a teacher holds the power of being an adult, it doesn't mean that they should use that power to make students feel inferior.
Post-Podcast Questions Still Rattling Around in My Brain
- How can some teachers effectively empower students if other teachers in the same building see this as "disrespectful" or students who "don't know their role"?
- If we truly want to empower all students, do we need to redefine "disrespect"?
- Can we really empower students if only some staff members are comfortable with this shift in power?
Final thoughts...
My job as a teacher exists because of students so I recognize that I need to work with students in order to work for them. For me to sustain the energy, desire, and effort it takes to work for students, I need them to respect and appreciate me--I can't get there without acknowledging that they have power, they have voices. It is my job to help them use those as positive forces.
I would love to hear others' thoughts and perspectives on this idea of teachers having and using their powers to empower students.
