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When Teachers Make a Difference

April 17, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Recently on our Thriving Young Teachers Facebook page we asked a question.

When did you know that you wanted to be a teacher?

Some of us have always known we wanted to teach, others came to it later in life.

And then there was Ashley. Ashley shared the story of how she wanted to be a teacher because her teachers saved her. We were touched by Ashley’s response, and by the power of her story.

It has become a cliché to say that teachers make a difference. But isn’t just a cliché, it is true.

Every day, teachers affect the lives of their students. They nurture students when parents fail to do so and accept students that others do not accept. Teachers often find themselves in the role of nurse, social worker, counselor and life coach. They are regularly blamed for and expected to fix society’s problems and respond by creating a safe haven in a world of poverty, drugs and relentless bullying.

Teachers care for the well-being of their students. They share their lunch with students who have none. They buy supplies for students with their own money. Teachers are encouragers, motivators and role models. They help students to understand and reach their potential, a mission that is far more important than helping students to pass a standardized exam.

In the day to day work of teaching, it is easy to forget the positive and potentially life changing influence you have. It is one of the realities of teaching that you may never know the ways you have helped a student but if you have been teaching for any length of time, chances are you have made a significant impact on someone.

We asked Ashley for permission to share her story because it is a reminder of why we do what we do. Here is Ashley’s story:

When I was in 1st grade we had a career day where we were supposed to dress up for the job we wanted. I dressed up as a teacher but everyone thought I dressed up like a librarian. I cried the whole day because no one got that I wanted to be a teacher.

So, I forgot that dream but remembered it in Middle school when I was tired of all the homework. I vowed that if I ever became a teacher I would never give my students homework. But then, eventually, I kind of forgot it again in lieu of catching boys and maybe traveling the world when I got older.

I remembered it again in high school, and this time it stuck with me. When my world was being shredded apart by my parent’s divorce, a friend’s suicide, sexual abuse, drug use and a whole bunch of a huge mess, it was my TEACHERS, not my friends, or family or parents, that helped pick me back up and helped me walk forward.

My English teachers got me out of my horrible circumstance and gave me something to look forward to in life. They were everything I needed, a pillar, a friend, a mentor, a counselor. I decided that I wanted to be exactly THAT for as many troubled students as I can.

And so, I’ve begun my journey to becoming a teacher. My first year of college is almost over, and I am shaking in anticipation knowing that one day I will enter a classroom and there will be a child who needs me and I will be able to help them the way my teachers helped me.

We want to encourage Ashley, and all of you, that teaching is a profession worth pursuing. There will be a child who needs you, and like Ashley’s teachers, you may be the one to pick them up and help them walk forward in life.

Our best,

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Shake Up Your Classroom for Optimal Learning

March 27, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 3 Comments

In most classrooms, there will be times when things are moving along nicely. Students are engaged. There is a calm, yet invigorating atmosphere. Students are getting along well and the classroom community is healthy. This is a recipe for optimal learning.

And then there are times when things aren’t going so smoothly. Students are struggling to learn. There is a pervasive sense of restlessness or tension. Students are bickering or causing many disruptions. A general feeling of the blahs has settled over the classroom like a foggy mist.

When your class is not responding in healthy and productive ways, it means you need to shift something so that you can restore a positive learning environment. These shifts might be small tweaks that help students to reengage, or they might involve a bigger shake up that moves students out of one pattern and into another.

Here are some ideas for ways to shake up your classroom for optimal learning:

Review Rules and Expectations

When was the last time you had a class discussion about goals and behavior? If behaviors are an issue, sometimes a good review of the rules and expectations is in order. Rather than focus on behaviors in a negative way (for example yelling at students) have a class meeting. Ask students about their learning goals and what they hope that they can gain by getting a good education. Help them to see both short- term and long-term benefits of a classroom where everyone can learn.

Try a New Method

If students are struggling to learn a concept, try a new method. Put students in groups of two or three and have them teach each other. Have students write story problems for each other. Bring out new manipulatives. Get a variety of different books on a subject and let them explore and share what they find by filling out a graphic organizer.

Use a New Review Game

Use a new game to review material before a test. The novelty of something different will often result in students showing increased attention. Don’t forget to discuss behavior expectations when introducing a new game.

Change Your Physical Space

Change the classroom seating arrangement or rearrange the room completely. This often brings a new energy to the space.

Create Learning Stations

Create new learning centers or for older students, put content into learning stations. The ability to move around the room while completing tasks breaks up the “sit and get” mentality and allows students to feel more autonomy, which often results in increased motivation.

Introduce More Movement

Get physical. Movement increases oxygen and alertness. Introduce some new learning strategies where students can move. We discussed four easy and engaging active learning strategies here.

Have Some Fun

If you have been working really hard and focusing intently on standards and assessments, you might need a little fun in your classroom. Let students work in groups create a rap about science concepts. Play charades with vocabulary words. Try popcorn and an educational movie. Take students outside for an activity.

Start a New Project

Introduce an exciting new project. For example, students could research a historical period and create a documentary film demonstrating their knowledge. Put on a health fair, a science fair, or an art exhibit. In a music class, have students write original compositions and perform them for the class. Let students work in small groups to write skits about parts of speech.

When things aren’t working as smoothly as you’d like, it is a sign that something needs to change. Undoing what no longer works and trying new things can lead to progress and prevent a stagnant classroom.

If you are not happy with your classroom environment or student learning, try shaking things up. A good shake up often results in more engaged students and makes teaching and learning more fun.

What do YOU do to shake up your classroom?

Do you need to shake up your lesson planning? Get our favorite template by filling out this form:

How to Help Students Who Struggle with Reading

March 13, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Chances are good that you work with students who struggle with reading. It can be challenging, but there are some easy, tried and true strategies that effectively help students to comprehend what they read. Better yet, these strategies help all readers, even students who don’t struggle with reading, to read with better comprehension and fluency.

Imagine that a teacher gives students a very common task, to “read chapter seven,” and follow up by answering a series of comprehension questions. This is a typical assignment, given thousands of times a day by teachers everywhere.

Teachers make many assumptions in giving this type of assignment. First, they assume students can read the words and know all the vocabulary in the chapter. Second, they presume that students will be able to connect the material that they read to other topics and content they have already learned. Third, they believe that students will be able to pick out the main ideas and details, understand a sequence of events and synthesize the material.

Being able to read and understand a large piece of content is a sophisticated reading task. Many students won’t read the material. They will skim and scan, looking for the answers to the questions. Some students try, but struggle to put the pieces together in order to fully comprehend the material. Others quickly become overwhelmed and stop trying. These students, who are off task, often create distractions and disruptions that hinder everyone.

Fortunately, the solution is not difficult, and doesn’t have to take a long time. When assigning a reading task, these simple strategies will help insure success for students:

Preteach vocabulary.

A quick discussion or review of the key words in the selection will greatly increase the chances that students will comprehend the material and will help them read the material more fluently. Write a list of important words on the board and have a quick discussion. What is the word and what does it mean? How might this word be important in the reading?

Connect the new reading to previous learning.

Take a minute or two to ask a couple of simple questions. Have students look at the headings or titles. Ask them what they think the reading will be about and how they think it will connect to their previous learning.

It also helps to give students a bridge to help them connect previous and new learning. Ask students to give a few key points from recent learning, then give them a connection.

We learned about the characteristics of rainforests. Today we are going to read about the characteristics of deserts.

Another idea is to have students make predictions.

Given what you have learned about plant cells, how do you think animal cells might be different?

Give students a purpose for reading.

This is your chance to help students identify main ideas and important details. It is even better if you can entice them or give them a hint of something fun or interesting to look for as they read. If you know what you are looking for, it is much easier to find it. Give students a purpose with statements such as:

As you read this story, look for ways that bats and birds are alike and different.

In this chapter you are going to find out some smart things that Brian does to stay alive in the wilderness. Think about yourself in this situation. How you would have handled being stranded with no one to help you?

While reading this selection, look for the reasons the colonists were upset with the British and what they did because of their anger.

Help students summarize.

Many students struggle with summarizing. Graphic organizers will help give students a framework to help them summarize. There are different graphic organizers available to help students summarize different types of reading material such as fiction, selections that focus on comparing and contrasting or selections that emphasize sequence of events. There are graphic organizers for different content areas and for all grade levels. Do a quick search for the type of graphic organizer you need and you will find many to choose from. Here are some sites with good graphic organizers:

Graphic Organizers K-12 organized by TeacherVision

Teachnology’s graphic organizers

Graphic organizers selected by Education Oasis

In his Zone of Proximal Development theory, Vygotsky taught us that there is a difference between what a learner can do without help and with help. Students can do more and learn more when they are given a scaffold. These strategies provide students who struggle with reading a helping hand, a scaffold, to increase their comprehension.

These strategies are not new, but they are effective. Spending even just five extra minutes helping students to prepare for a reading task will result in better comprehension. We think that is time well spent.

Happy reading,

Want more about reading? Check out these articles:

Are you Killing the Love of Reading?

Growing Brains: Reading as the Anti-Zombie

How to Remain Positive in the Face of Challenges You Can’t Control

February 6, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 2 Comments

It is easy to become overwhelmed by educational challenges and issues that are out of your control. As a teacher, you will be faced with policies, procedures and circumstances that may frustrate you and make you feel ineffective. Most teachers will tell you that it is not the students or the curriculum, but the bureaucratic demands that they must conform to that cause them the most grief.

At a district, state or national level, educational change is fraught with differing viewpoints about what is best for students. Politicians tie educational reforms to any number of issues that are not even related to education. School funding may be a pawn in a chess game for highway funding or tax incentives to entice corporate development. In this arena, change is not only difficult but out of the realm of control for many teachers, especially beginning teachers.

Other struggles come from environmental circumstances that seem out of our control. You may teach in a failing school or in a community with a lack of parental support. Your students may live in poverty and families struggle to provide the basics such as food, shelter and medical care. Teachers are tasked with, and often assessed by, improving students test scores for children who often don’t even show up for school.

How do you maintain positivity in the face of very real struggles and under circumstances you cannot control?

They key to finding success despite the challenges we face is to understand what you can control, and do your best to be proactive in your responses to challenges. Here are 6 ways you can respond positively to issues that are out of your control.

Build your own positive classroom ecosystem.

You may not like the top-down systematic policies that your school must adhere to, and you may wish for better environments for your students. But at the end of the day, your classroom is under your control. You can make it a positive and safe place for students. You can encourage and celebrate student growth and achievement. You can teach students life and social skills. You can teach students the skills they need to learn and to succeed, and help them develop habits that lead to success.

Good teachers know that they teach far more than the curriculum they are given. They help their students to be better people. Building a supportive classroom community doesn’t take a lot of money and it can be accomplished within the boundaries of any required school initiatives.

Take opportunities to educate the public.

You don’t have to be a lobbyist to help to inform people about the issues that educators face. Your family and friends will ask about school. A local school issue will be a topic of discussion at the grocery store or at the community pool. You may even be invited to a school board meeting to share a program you have participated in. Each of these is an opportunity to be frank and honest, sharing your struggles and your ideas about what schools and teachers really need.

Most educational reforms are well -meant. Lack of experience and knowledge by those in power leads to policies that don’t work. You can inform others by telling of your experiences in a non-judgmental, factual way. Share what has worked for you and what you believe students need. All educational reforms need to be made with the input of teachers. You may only play a small part in providing that input, but if every teacher did this, it would make an impact.

Be careful about the negative messages you put into the world.

In many societies, teachers are both revered and well paid. They are treated as professionals and high respected. This is often not the case in the U.S. today, where teacher bashing has become common place.

If teachers want to be respected, they need to be respectable. Most teachers are consummate professionals. However, sometimes the messages teachers put into the world are less professional.

For example, Facebook is full of memes with countdowns to the number of days left before a school break. The subtle message to students, parents and the entire community is “my job is so bad that I can’t wait for the next 21 days until summer break.” Another Facebook meme rejoices, “Off for three months, too bad for the rest of you suckahs…” We all enjoy a funny post, but consider the underlying message before you post.

Don’t let assessments be your only focus.

There is a lot of pressure today to achieve progress on standardized tests. Many teachers are also required to do weekly probes and regular unit assessments. Sometimes these assessments are not even directly tied to the curriculum you are required to teach. Yet when students don’t achieve the required scores, both teachers and students are demoralized.

Keep in mind that an assessment is one piece of data, one picture of one moment in time. Be sure to keep other forms of data that show student progress. Multiple data points will make a stronger case for student learning.

Help students stay motivated and positive by explaining what the test scores mean. For example, standardized tests do a much better job of showing district growth than they do showing individual growth. Show students and parents how they are making progress by sharing their work.

Keep parents informed and engaged.

The key to good parental interactions is to keep parents informed and engaged. Even if parents seem disconnected, keep trying. Use any means necessary including your schools’ parent portal and on-line grading system, newsletters, a classroom web page and good old-fashioned notes home. Share your units, your objectives, your goals for the students and especially, your students’ wins. One positive phone call home can sometimes turn around an unmotivated or under performing student.

Know that you have more power than you think in affecting the lives of your students.

This is the realization that keeps many teachers going. You may not be able to change the system, but you can help this child. You may not be able to provide a safe environment in a troubled neighborhood, but you can provide a safe environment in your classroom. You may not be able to help a student learn everything, but you can help them learn important things that have the power to change their lives.

It is helpful to know that teaching struggles are real and can be overwhelming. We also think it is helpful to know that if you remain focused on the things under your control, you can ultimately affect positive results.

Our best,

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Huddled Masses: How A Teacher Can be a Beacon of Hope For Students

January 16, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 4 Comments

This week we have a guest post written by 4th grade teacher Colin Rust. Colin is also one of the Thriving Young Teachers mentors. One of Colin’s gifts is building a strong classroom community. He finds the strengths of each student and helps students work together to support each other. You will understand why when you read his inspiring post.

Huddled Masses: How A Teacher Can be a Beacon of Hope For Students

by Colin Rust.

Each year as a part of our ELA Unit my fourth graders explore the ever invigorating topic of immigration. No sarcasm here, I promise. I find the learning of a horde of people moving very exciting. The idea that at one time millions of people decided to pack up everything they owned, or what would fit in a small backpack, and move halfway across the globe on a whim of a dream, is an adventure of epic proportions. Along with immigration we discuss a famous landmark that has a close link to these journeys: The Statue of Liberty.

This tall, beautiful symbol of hope holds a great deal of meaning to many immigrants both past and present. She stands for hope, for freedom, and for dreams that wouldn’t have come true if some have never made it to America. She holds a blazing torch which ushers souls into the harbor. The students learn a great deal about this gargantuan guide through research and readings; however, this year it wasn’t the seven spikes on her crown that peaked my interest. It wasn’t the fact that she is resting one of her feet, but it was the little poem that is screwed into the base of this beacon of hope.

The poem, entitled ‘The New Colossus’ was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as part of a fundraising campaign by the assemblers of the statue, basically the epitome of the “write the best short story” competitions. Lazarus compares the new shining statue to The Colossus of Rhodes, an Ancient Greek statue that welcomes sailors into the city of Rhodes. That’s all fine and dandy but this isn’t a bloomin’ history post, so move on Rust, move on. Anyway she wrote this poem and this poem has a lot to say, and its meaning goes far beyond immigration.

The poem itself is multiple stanzas long, but I will focus on the most famous part:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This little bit of this poem, this sonnet, really spoke to me as a teacher. Think about this. Each year a new ship of fourth grade immigrants leave their homelands and venture to the great unknown. We, as teachers, should be their Lady Liberty (or Liberty Lad, if you will), welcoming them with open arms. Our torches blazing the way to their hopes and dreams.

As educators we need to welcome this group. We need to accept them all as they are. Sure are they all shining, first class voyagers? No. Some come to you a little battered and yes, broken. However as an educator, as a teacher, you have a duty to accept those poor, those tired, and those huddled masses.

Some of these kiddos are coming to you, looking to you as a beacon of hope, a fresh start, a living breathing dream. It is a huge disservice to them to look down upon them based on hearsay from others in the building. I know we all dread “those kids”, the kids that seem to walk the halls with a Google Maps pin on their head. A pin that literally shouts,”Hey! This is that kid that people were talking about!” My challenge every year is to try not to listen to what others say about students. Yes, I welcome any helpful advice, but as far as I’m concerned I’ll form my own opinions after getting to know them.

These “huddled masses” have been assigned me as their teacher. Just as the statue didn’t get a choice to say who floated passed her, we don’t get a choice in which students we get each year. However, instead of throwing a fit about it, or lamenting in the fact that you “got the hard class again”, I believe you need to take the opportunity and look at your students and ask yourself: “What do these students need from me?” How can you take your wretched refuse and turn them into shining examples of upstanding citizens of your classroom community? You might be the best thing for “that kid.” Be the teacher to wash clean that student’s reputation. Be the teacher that will change that student’s life.

And, hey, I’m not perfect. In fact this year I found myself in the same predicament. I had a student who I couldn’t grasp. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on what to do to help this child. Was this the best fit? Would this student thrive somewhere else? And the biggest question, why me? These questions may not have definite answers, but if I put them in the golden light of the New Colossus’ torch, some answers seem to appear. I can do something for this student. I can make a difference. I may not know why I was chosen, maybe it was simply that my roster was short, or maybe I was meant to change this student’s fate.

This year I had to come face to face with that sonnet, pull myself up by my gigantic sea foam toga, and do my best for this student, I needed to give them a chance. And isn’t that what we all want as immigrants coming to a land? Give them a chance. It’s free. It’s easy. It could change a life. Or maybe more.

Colin Rust is a 4th grade teacher at Brookdale Elementary School in Naperville, Illinois.