Constant Success

I wrote this post for my students today. Shawn, Taneicea, Kelly and Miguel taught the class Newton's Three Laws of Motion (Miguel is off running around on the playground. Believe it or not, the class wanted to do this on their recess time....well, except for Miguel :-)

I wanted to share a fly-on-the-wall perspective of how our success is taking constant effort, constant communication, and constant cooperation between the teacher and students.

(These photos are of the past two days)

Today I realized how true this is in parenting as well. My own son "playfully subdued" two patrol students trying to stop him yesterday. My sisters told me years ago not to teach him martial arts because he wouldn't be able to resist hurting his peers. Up until yesterday, I've been proud of him for resisting that urge. So many people tell me how wonderful he is, opening doors, cleaning up even if it's not his mess, etc.


So I told him I was still proud of him, just not his choice of action this time, and reminded him the consequence was no more teaching of a skill he couldn't control...and made him listen to how he made one of the patrols feel (who happens to be in my class).

As his father and teacher of life, to me weapons, wealth, intelligence, etc are all meant to protect and make the world a better place, not to make others feel bad who have less, to show off, to diminsh or to destroy.

We are just as kind to those who have less as we are to those who have more.

In the movie Man on Fire, the main character's art was death. Being just as emotionally intense as Gracie was (a real-life bodyguard), I realize my art is life, and my greatest weapon is love. And I will protect every child in my life by creating an environment where they can count on being loved and believed in.

I love this kid, just as much as I do his sister, and I will never, never, never, never, never give up on him, her, Sofia, or any of my kids, whether I placed them here or they were placed in my life via the classroom.

I'm sure this weekend I'll continue the lesson by telling him in a really bad Japanese voice over, that he must, "Use-his-powah-only-fwah-good". I love you Brosden, and I'm excited to see the man you grow to be.

Here's the student post:

We’ve done an incredible job of learning so far this year. We deserve to be very proud of that. Now we just need to do it more consistently. This morning we added some new things to our routine:


Every week you need to create a new WEEKLY FOCUS. This needs to include: (I'm teaching those who want to learn how to create their own blogs)

CONTENT AREA: A focus for Reading, Math and Science

OBJECTIVE: what skill(s) you need to improve the most in these areas

METHOD: your plan to accomplish this improvement

ASSESSMENT: your measurement of whether or not learning and growth has taken place



METHOD & ASSESSMENT

1. I will provide you with a weekly test (assessment) in each area

i. READING – this will be our weekly story, which includes the spelling and vocab tests (which give you your Language Arts grade)

ii. SCIENCE – this will be your specific chapter

iii. MATH – this will be your specific Unit


2. The goal is for you to come up with your own daily assessments. I will provide you with these until you learn how to do this on your own. (James taking shade in my shadow while Chad's giving me the equation for Newton's 2nd Law)

i. For example, today I had everyone read “Katie’s Trunk” and practice your weakest skill (i.e. finding the main idea, context clues, etc) – This should be included in your Daily Assessment.

ii. Homework will be answering the review questions at the end of the story. I’m hoping this helps you take the story more seriously than some of you did on the last test (Paul Revere)


3. Finally, I want you to send your Weekly Focus to your parents in the form of an email. This way they know specifically what tests you are responsible for, your individual weekly goals, and how you plan on achieving them.

If doing your weekly focus doesn’t come easy at first, keep trying. This is a high-level skill that once learned, will benefit you for the rest of your life. And remember what Winston Churchill said,

“Never, never, never, never, never, never, never……..quit!”

If you never quit, you can never fail! I will never quit on you. Don't you dare quit on me by giving up! We have succeeded at an incredible rate. Let’s keep it up.

Taylor and Flo experiencing Newton's Three Laws of Motion

Check out Drew with the book.

I'm liking this: Read about something in class.

Do it outside.

Read about it outside.

Discuss it..

Struggle with it..

Have fun with it..

Discover it...

Feel it...

Do it again.

Even have class outside...

And rinse and repeat as necessary...

Until you get it...

Being part of your experience..

Listening to your reactions..

Tapping into your unbounded energy


And able to succeed back in the classroom...

Letting Shawn and Luis experience the third law

- for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...



...And being just one American classroom out of many; alive with learning and laughing, blowing the doors off of school and out into a world where you will thrive.