Post #4: Big News/Film Rant

A few days ago, I got some pretty awesome news. I was selected to be a member of the 2018 Milwaukee Film Fest Educator Fellowship! It means I get a free Milwaukee film fest pass, a few new books, and a few other Film Fest knickknacks.

I was thinking about the topic of education in film the other day and how it relates to English. Media Literacy is one of the most important parts of modern society because we are bombarded with so many images across our daily lives. It is definitely crucial to talk about with our students and determine how to make sure we are making smart choices and being able to recognize problematic ideas, as well as thinking of ways that we can improve images themselves.

When students typically look at films, they simply see "cognitive slumber party" and they do little to no mental work at deciding how things should be dissected. That's why it is important to model what analyzing a film looks like, analyzing what makes something "good" or "bad". Without this they'll always just sleep on it. As educators we have to change their minds to be more critical when it comes to images.

Post #3 Communication is Key

Hi everyone,

Every teacher worth their salt has an idea why communication is important. After all, if you can't communicate with the students, how do you expect them to learn new information? That being said, I know that there are quite a few teachers who don't see a reason to call home. Communicating with the parent is actually one of the most important things you can do as an educator! The only three reasons to call home are to praise,  to punish, or to confer.

Sending praise home can be one of the most positive things you can do for your students. When parents hear about the way they have been behaving well in the classroom, it will build a more positive and healthy relationship between the school and paternal relationship. Students can finally see what kind of impact doing a good job can be! One thing to point out about positive calls is they don't have to be made just to kids who often behave. Sometimes students who struggle to work in class can greatly benefit from a phone call home as it helps reinforce positive behavior.

While no one wants to do it, sometimes it is necessary to call home about a child's behavior. I believe that sometimes it can only be the parents who can give meaningful punishment because students who don't behave in class may not understand the relationship between cause and effect, and how their school life can impact their personal life. That being said, do not try to denigrate or imply the parent isn't doing a good job raising their child. You want to bring up the problems and brainstorm a way to fix it together.

The last reason is conferring. Sometimes when you notice behaviors you need to call home, not to punish, not to praise, but to figure out why they are acting a certain way. For example, if a student is seemingly upset in class, the teacher should call home and see why. This is because both the parent and the teacher have the right to know how a child feels. I understand this may seem invasive, but if a student is on the verge of tears, or struggling to stay awake in class, the teacher needs to know why. Sometimes this is due to the student's fault, sometimes it's not. regardless, it is important to figure out the reason so either the teacher can identify and erase the behavior, or so the parent can set up a stronger support system.

All in all, there are many reasons to contact home. Regardless of how you feel about calls home, calling home is essential to any classroom that is worried about the welfare of the student inside and outside of the class.

Post 2: Consistency

As I've realized (thanks to a handy thermometer) my classroom can get up to over 100 degrees. Considering I have my kids for 2.5 hours at a time, that can get stressful for both myself and my students. This is when I realized that the heat claims everyone, and it causes an immense stress that even my 3 fans cannot defend against.

It's during this time that I strive to do the most important part of the rules. Consistency. To me, consistency means something happening no matter the circumstance. This can bleed into a lot of things, but it especially can bleed into classroom rules and procedures. The moment that you are not consistent is the moment that your students begin to disrespect you. The best way to be consistent is to come at an even head for everything. For example, it may be tempting to let the student who has been screaming "I need to go to the bathroom" go to the bathroom, but then you're allowing screaming to become an acceptable way to communicate needs in the classroom. The best way to stay consistent is to be relaxed and remember the rules and explain them. Here are a few ways to do that:

1. Take a deep breath
Taking a deep breath at a high tension moment will give you time to relax and reflect on the situation. Sometimes the first response isn't the best response as an educator and it's important that you come off as a fair judge.

2. Remove self from the equation
It's very easy to allow your emotions to take control and get upset. I know I have before. This is one of the most difficult things to do, but take any anger you have out of your body and realize that the student is very likely trying to get a rise out of you as a need for attention. It's important to not let that happen.

3. Start the day well.
An old trick I was taught during football was what I like to call "decompressing". Basically you sit at your seat and take a 1-2 break where you simply relax. Before you get up, you say to yourself "I am going to be calm today. I am going to be fair today." This helps get you "in the zone" and ready to teach the students.

Those are just a few tips on how to improve your emotional responses so you can act more consistent. Good luck!

Post #1 Rules and Procedures

Hi everyone!

This week was my first week of teaching this year. I know that quite a few of us are trying to get back into the hustle and/or bustle of getting our classrooms looking nice and inviting, while some of us have started their year already! Either way it's definitely time for people to get up and get ready for the brand new school year.


I would like to remind everyone of the one think that they need to have 100% ready to go before the students come into the classroom.

Classwide procedures

 No matter how you slice it, students need procedures for how things in your class should run. If you have gray areas in your procedures, a few of students out there who will quickly become lawyers and try to negotiate every single procedure. While I understand that some people may be a bit lax on rules, it's important to state that rules are not the same as procedures. Are these related? Absolutely!

Accurate depiction of rules and procedures gazing upon the beautiful classroom they have created.

 Procedures are how students should act during a specific time. Most classes will have different procedures for each activity. He's a short list of all the procedures that exist in my classroom: voice levels when speaking, getting out of seat, sitting correctly, sharpening pencils, retrieving missing work, walking into class, walking out of class, walking to lunch, going to the computer lab, passing out papers, collecting papers, quiz behavior, post-quiz behavior. I have plenty more procedures. but it just gives you a hint of how many different procedures you need. The more procedures you have, the more efficient you class will be. The more detailed your procedures are, the easier they are to follow. 

The way to enforce procedure is by reteaching it over and over again. For example, I do journals with my students every Wednesday and Friday. I clearly go over the expectation step by step each time I do it. Here is the play by play.

1.  I call everyone to attention.
2.  I explain that today is a journal day and that I will dismiss students based on their section. During this time, no one is talking to each other, and the section I called will come up quietly and quickly to pick up their notebooks, then they will sit down.
3. I then say "section 1, please come up quietly and quickly to pick up your notebooks then go to your seat."
4. I then say "section 2, please come up quietly and quickly to pick up your notebooks then go to your seat."
5. I then say "section 3, please come up quietly and quickly to pick up your notebooks then go to your seat."
6. I then say "section 4, please come up quietly and quickly to pick up your notebooks then go to your seat."
7. I then say "Thank you everyone for quietly and quickly getting out your journals, I greatly appreciate it."
8. I then explain the journal prompt of the day.

Wow! What a play by play!

Notice how repetitive it is? That's on purpose. The more time you spend explaining procedure, the easier it is. While there may be come confusion the first few times, it's important to keep the exact same procedure each time. This drastically increases the smoothness of the classrooms, and makes your life a whole lot easier. That being said, if someone is not good at following procedures, do NOT punish them. Simply retrain and remind them of how they should act.

Rules are a whole different beast. Rules are how the students should act at all times. Make sure you have rules for all the problems that could cause difficulty for students to learn and you to teach. If you cannot do these things, then there is a problem in your classroom and their must be a recourse.  Of course, what some people consider to be important may not be the same all around, and that's why I recommend incorporating your students into helping you create your rules. While you should totally have rules (for example, no one talks when another person is talking) you should also make sure you are giving students the ability to make the rules too. When students are given a voice to input their feelings, they feel validated and a member of the community you are creating.

What happens if someone breaks a rule, however? I really think that should be up to the teacher, as various rules have different consequences. For example, in my class, if someone is talking to their neighbors too much, I will move them. If they are insulting their neighbor, they will have to write a page long apology to the student. No matter what the consequences should be, it's important that students understand what the consequence is. That way, they will not fell treated unfairly because they know that if you break that rule, that is the consequence. 

As a side note, some people may have their students help them create consequences too. To you teachers I say: go ahead! It definitely helps create a more solid classroom culture, but make sure the big rules (fighting with other students) have consequences created by you.

I think that's all for now. If you have any tips on how you create rules or procedures, feel free to comment them below. Have a great week!

A Blog Reborn

Hello Everyone!! I am back! It's been quite a while, and you can see that I have changed my blog title. I'm no longer "Pedagogical Ponderings", I am "Thiede's thoughts". I was definitely thinking about creating a brand new blog for this, however, I think it's important for me to have everything as an open archive. That way I can look back and say "wow, maybe I was such a dummy way back when!"

Me looking at my old blog posts. I feel like I was a little too condescending, but we all change and hopefully for the better :)

That being said, this blog will change a teeny bit. I'll be adding more things than just pedagogical theory, because wowza, is there a lot more to teaching than just teaching. While I don't expect this blog to be a perfect example of how to teach (as there are no perfect teachers) I hope that you can learn a few tips and tricks about being a good teacher, maintaining stress levels, and having a good lesson plan.

I'll be posting my first (technically second but shhhh) new blog post in roughly an hour about starting the school year off right! I hope everyone here enjoys the reborn blog!


PS. I would like to thank a few people for everything they have done. Steffanie Rowinski for recommending that I restart my blog. Truth be told, I probably wouldn't have started it without your help. I appreciate your support and encouragment. I would also like to thank Emily Brondstad for being my only subscriber. I'm pretty sure that you only did it to the class but shout out to you! I hope you both have a very good year full of happiness and growth!