Sunday, May 3, 2015

#IWishMyTeacherKnew 5th Grade Twitter Takeover

I've always felt that classroom culture was one of my stronger attributes as a teacher. But what I discovered after asking my students to take over my Twitter account and share their #IWishMyTeacherKnew thoughts is causing me to drastically rethink how we nurture a supportive environment. As teachers across the world embrace the style of learning enabled through technology, we're finding that our role in the classroom is shifting towards the background with every passing day. Anyone from a city whose professional sports teams continuously take home titles can tell you, the players off the bench factor into a championship as much, if not more, than the starters.

There is nothing more important than fostering an open and honest classroom environment. And, of course, teachers will always play a significant role in shaping the climate of the school day. But as our role becomes more and more decentralized and we open up more channels of communication between our students, the interpersonal dynamics can tuck themselves away in hiding places we never thought to check. When the #IWishMyTeacherKnew movement, created by Colorado teacher Kyle Schwartz, came to my attention, I had a feeling it might kick over some rocks I hadn't thought to check.

At first, I debated whether to ask students to jot down their thoughts on post-its or whether to create a Google form when it hit me: what if I had my students all sign into my Twitter account to publicly post their feelings? I loved that we'd be able to see each other's ideas in real-time while still remaining anonymous. I was concerned with whether the exercise would be more authentic if we just kept it in-house but, ultimately, I hoped that the public nature would encourage everyone to be extra thoughtful about what they shared. And just as I had almost made up my mind that the activity would be a go, a notification popped up on my phone that the Kyle Schwartz had found and followed my Twitter account; obviously a sign.

The experience was profoundly moving. Students posted thoughts that ranged from deeply personal to stress free. So to honor the respect every student showed for our community through their honesty, I wanted to give this activity the attention it deserves by responding to each and every tweet. This is more or less the summary but if you're interested in the expanded edition, here is the link.

Classroom Confessions

"Ugh. I know it. When we hit one of those tipping points, it's unfair to subject you to my frustrated reactions. While I always offer a sincere apologize, let me say it again: I'm sorry. Please know that after those unfortunate incidents, I go home and try to dissect everything that leads up to those reactions so we can eliminate the antecedents. Teacher's are trained to stop the activity for the day if expectations aren't being met but you know I'm a softy when it comes to the work you do. I have a hard time putting a stop to the work because it's not fair to those meeting expectations. Going forward, when we start reading that border line, I will press the pause button for a few minutes and ask everyone to take a few minutes to reflect on how we can meet the expectations for the rest of the period."
"Thank you. Don't underestimate the effects of your attitude. All it takes is one person because attitudes have a chain reaction that you might not be able to see. Whether you call tell right away or not, it lifts everybodys' spirits and improves the overall quality of the classroom's work."

"Yep. Again, I've never done an independent project and this class has exceeded my wildest expectations. You've all truly taken an incomplete idea of mine and taught that high-quality work and utter chaos can coexist."

"No, they do not. Problems have to be solved and it's not okay to let unresolved problems float around. Helping you solve problems is very important to me. That's why I've created a special form and linked to it right from our lewis5.org homepage. I even figured out how to get your response immediately sent to my personal email inbox so I don't have to remember to check the form."

"I've built our classroom around the idea that rather than completing assignments for a grade, you're discovering what motivates you. More than anything, my hope is that your effort and growth gives you more satisfaction that any grade ever could. Rarely, if ever, will you hear me say, "I'm proud of you." Instead, I ask, "Are you proud of yourself." But, just as problems can sometimes have a domino effect, so can solutions! I'm not always able to get everybody the feedback that I'd like to and sometimes that means you might feel that I've overlooked something you'd really like me to know about. So, right after I figured out our problem-solving form, I created a check this out form. Now, if there's something you're particularly proud of, you can tell me a bit about it and it will be immediately sent to my personal inbox! 

"More than anything, I want you to be successful and feel proud of yourself. I'll be writing a follow up post that will include a conversation a few of us had at recess that I think might shed a little more light on this concern."

Personal Confessions


"You are ten years old. Anybody who doesn't believe that you will grow up to change this world for the better has no business being a teacher. I'll admit, this one broke my heart to read and, quite frankly, I'm embarrassed that I haven't done enough to show you just how much I do believe in every last one of you. And that's exactly why I didn't want to do this activity with post-it notes. I'd rather not know who you are so that I can do a better job at showing each and every last student that, of course, I believe in you. Thank you for having the courage to say this.

"Anybody who is brave enough to admit something so deep to their entire class can not be stupid. Each of you contributes so much to our class in so many different ways. I'm sure this isn't something that's happened once or twice. I'm assuming you feel like this happens a lot. I wouldn't want to live in a world where everybody was good at everything because then we would need each other. And we need to be needed. This could go one of two ways: 1. You could just stop sharing because it probably feels better to not say anything than to feel like you're not good enough. Or, 2. Every one of us, every time, could respond to wrong answers with, "How did you get your answer... Here, let me show you how I got my answer." I mentioned earlier that a conversation took place at recess about something very similar that I hope you'll find helpful."

"I have never thought for a single second that any of you have ever purposefully tried to annoy me. Let's get something out of the way, though. You're a kid. I'm a teacher. Sometimes our priorities are very different. Sometimes you want to ask me something at bad time. Sometimes you want to finish a conversation with a friend. And sometimes you're thinking about what you want more than what I want. That is totally OKAY! Let me be very direct and honest with you for a second. Does it annoy me sometimes? Yes. But, could I do a better job showing you that I don't mind it when you annoy me? Yes. Let me ask you something, are there times when I annoy you? I hope that's another, yes. Because the reality is that we spend 6 hours a day with each other for over 180 days and when ever you spend a lot of time with people, more often than not, you will do things that annoy each other. The key is to do exactly what you've done: you tell them. If there's something they could do differently, tell them that, too. It might not be the most comfortable conversation but as long as you're kind and honest, they should have no problem having a respectful conversation with you about it. And if you would address this next question in your response, I'd really appreciate it: when I act in a way that you see as unkind, later on, does it seem like I haven't let it go? The reason I'd like to know your answer is because I hope my reaction is to the event and not the person. I realize that it's hard to separate the two but I genuinely like every last one of my students and I hope that comes across way more often.

"While it's certainly okay to not feel smart about everything all the time, if you feel like you can't do anything, if you feel like you're never smart, if you feel bad about yourself, that's something we need to help with. We need to do celebrate each other's strengths more often. I know that sometimes a success can only feel like the ripple of pebble thrown into the ocean but enough pebbles can create enough ripples to change the tide. Thank you for having the courage to speak your words. I'm looking forward to figuring out ways we can start throwing more pebbles. 

"I know exactly how you feel. My 5th grade was our first middle school year and suddenly we were in class with kids from a bunch of other schools in town. There was this one group of friends that were always nice to me when we were in school but never invited me to hang out afterwards. Since they all lived in the same neighborhood, they spent every afternoon with each other and even though I understood why they would talk about it in school, it still felt really bad to not be included. So I laughed at their stories and asked them questions to try and show them that I was interested in what they were doing. I'd also pay close attention for vibes that said I was annoying them with too many questions. When that happened, I'd find something else to do to back off. In the meantime, I made other friends that I didn't really want as badly as I wanted to be friends with their crew but eventually, and I'm talking years later, it ended up working out. And to this day, 20 years later, we're still friends. Plus, in that "meantime" I learned a lot about myself and even made some other pretty good buddies. 

"I'm so grateful you chose to share something so incredibly personal with us. I want our classroom to be a place where everyone can forget about their outside-of-school-problems for a little while. Divorce is incredibly hard and if you're reminded of it every time math gets stressful, that must get pretty stressful. I would love it if you came in early, for lunch, or after school so that I could try to make it as easy as possible for you. I can think of several people in this school (including myself) that don't want anybody to go through something so hard all by themselves. I'd really like to help you find the right adult to help with this so that every day can be better than the last."

"I hear this loud and clear. You are obviously a very strong individual to put on such a brave face. I promise you, I will find a better balance between working with groups of our choice and discovering knew groups."

"I can't imagine how much it hurts to feel like you're being treated differently than other people. It's not easy to say this out loud. It probably feels even harder to say something when it's happening. The good news is that there are things you can and ways to say them that can make people aware of how they are affecting you. And more often than not, all it takes to fix the problem is learning how to speak up. When this happens to me, I don't always know how to say what I want and sometimes I choose not to say anything when I know that I should. So I'm thinking we could all use some strategies to help with this."


"Do you remember when these thoughts were posted? Did you hear how many of your classmates literally gasped? Did you see how many other students turned to me in shock? Did you hear somebody say, "That came from a student in this class?" We care about you. It takes incredible bravery to admit something like this and I want you to know that we will do more activities to give everybody more opportunities to show how much they care about each other. Feeling alone is big and scary and I hope you'll let me help find more people to help you through feeling this way."

"You know, there's a lot of very lucky kids in this town and in this class. I wish I could afford to go on the vacations that they get to go on and it would be very easy to be jealous of that fact. I'd rather to be happy for them. Sometimes it's a choice you have to make and it's one I make because when people tell me about their cool trips, I get to share in their happiness and the more I choose to be happy, the happier I am. I've had students in the past say, "You didn't go anywhere over vacation, that must have been really boring." And I can honestly say it doesn't make me feel bad because I'm happy with the choices that I make with what I have. But I think that way because I had conversations like this one right here. Anytime you feel inferior because you don't have what somebody else has, the best thing you can do is talk about it. Thank you for making the hard choice by starting this conversation. 

I certainly don't blame you for being afraid of death. It's the scariest thing there is. When it comes to fear, we all have to ask ourselves how scared are we and how often are we scared. Life is magical and nobody should have to waste it being scared. Acknowledging this fear is the a giant step in the right direction and I hope you'll respond to tell me if you think it might help to talk a little more about this. 

Confessions to Aspire Towards


I'm very proud to hear that I've helped you find the books that speak to you. The biggest regret I have in life is that I spent almost my entire childhood thinking that reading wasn't for me. 

Umm. Wait a second. I totally mind coming home to discover 800 burst-mode selfies of you knuckleheads. I'm also worried about how sneaky you are. You don't conspiratorially giggle or glance at each other or anything.  

Hey! We need a signal. I only want to gross you out when I'm trying to!  

I want everybody to feel as good as this made me feel. Honestly, I was so excited at the end of vacation because I missed our class so much. I genuinely think of all of you as a part of my family.  
Whether the confession was more classroom related or personal, whether it felt good to hear or stung a bit, the level of investment in each and every student contributed to this activity confirmed everything that I expected. Our class has the type of climate where we can be brutally honest with one another. I want to thank my students for everything interaction that has got us to this place. While it's clear that we have plenty of work to do as a community, we also have plenty of time to grow stronger before you leave for middle school. I eagerly look forward the creative solutions you will design to address the concerns so bravely put forth today.

I'd also like to take a moment and invite any educator to contribute ideas for community building in the 21st century or share your own thoughts or concerns about trying this type of activity with your own class.
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